Service work runs on people, not production lines.
Around 70% of output in advanced economies, and two-thirds worldwide, now comes from organisations whose product is the work of their people: banks, insurers, hospitals, government departments, IT teams and many more. How productive they are will decide how modern economies grow, yet most improvement methods were designed for the factory floor.
The Service Excellence Network is a new, free network where the people improving these organisations share what actually works, and what doesn’t, in customer experience, people and leadership, operations, technology, strategy and change. Members come from financial services, healthcare, life sciences, the public sector, shared services and IT, and events start in Ireland and New England.
Free
for individual members
6
practice areas
5
sector groups
Why service organisations need their own playbook
Most management and improvement methods were built for factories. They assume the work is visible, repeatable and stays in the building. In service and knowledge work, none of that holds, which is why borrowed methods so often stall.
The work is social
Service and knowledge-work organisations run on educated, independent-minded people who have to align their expertise with the organisation’s goals while pursuing their own. Performance depends on how well that alignment is managed.
The system is complex
Complicated systems follow cause and effect and can be engineered. Complex ones are networks of people and organisations that keep adapting to the world around them. They can’t be re-engineered, but they can be nudged, with structures that encourage more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
The scaffolding is thin
When people leave the building, the production process leaves with them. Each morning they reassemble into a slightly different network. That weak scaffolding is the biggest obstacle to turning mission and strategy into consistent results.
What members do together
Many people have solved part of a problem inside their own organisation. Comparing notes with peers in other sectors is often how the rest of the solution turns up.
- Find an expert. Members list what they know. Search by skill, practice area or sector and ask for help, and earn network credits when you help others.
- Share best practice. Across six practice areas: customer and service experience; people, leadership and culture; operations and process; technology, AI and automation; strategy, performance and execution; and change and transformation.
- Join a sector group. Financial services, healthcare, life sciences, shared services and BPO, and IT services, each with its own forum and roundtables.
- Bring a live problem. Post a challenge in the forum and get responses from people who have faced it.
- Learn on site. Join webinars, site visits and meetings, starting in Ireland and New England.
- Contribute. Host a session, lead a sector group or local chapter, or write for Insights.
Open anywhere, starting on two shores
Ireland and New England share the same mix of financial services, healthcare, life sciences, shared services and technology, and the same problems. That’s where the first events and chapters will run.
Membership is open to practitioners anywhere. When enough members gather in a new area, they can start a local chapter of their own.
Insights
Building for AI right first time
My view on what Ireland’s AI plans mean for anyone running a business, and how I’d approach it.
What Ireland’s AI plans mean for your business
What Ireland’s national digital and AI strategy and Enterprise Ireland’s Make AI Work guide say for businesses.
Why most organisations are never designed, and what to do about it
Imagine being handed a thousand-piece jigsaw with no picture on the box. You’d still make progress, but sooner or later you’d find sections that…
Membership is free.
Join now as a founding member and help shape what the network focuses on in its first year. It takes a few seconds, or talk to us about bringing your organisation in.