Positioning service industrialization strategies in the accommodation industry

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to move forward into the understanding of the future service landscape. It addresses the apparent dichotomy in current service industrialization trends, and in particular the trade-off between standardization and customization of service offerings, and on the impact of service industrialization on these dynamics. Methodology/approach – A new scheme is proposed to classify services following an Operations Management perspective, integrating considerations on service inputs and on the internal production and delivery processes chosen by service providers. The result of this classification scheme is a matrix, whose goal is mainly to identify the evolutionary patterns of the service industrialization strategies. Findings – Applying our new scheme, sub-clusters of service business models emerge. In particular, an analysis of the hospitality industry shows considerable variety within the sector. Service industrialization does not take place in a unique way and different sub-clusters show different strategies: some of them solve the trade-off between standardization and customization polarizing their offering towards one of the two extremes, other clusters are able to escape the trade-off and combine both strategies for higher productivity. Research implications – The paper represents a first step within a broader research project. The new scheme for service classification will then be used to study other industries and sectors and to compare results across industries for increased generalizability of results. Moreover, it paves the way towards a redefinition of the concept of “industrialization” as applied to services. Originality/value – This study provides an original perspective on service classification through the lenses of Operations Management, reaching a completely new model applicable to a variety of industries and across time.