Post-Graduate Diploma in Management

(PGDM)

Area: Marketing

Course Title: Services Marketing

Course Faculty: Tripti ghosh sharma

Faculty Contact Hours: Friday (2-6pm) (for students)

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Course Description:
Service industries dominate the economic landscape of most countries and contribute over 60%
of GDP in India. Service products and marketing has certain key differences from organizations
producing and marketing tangible dominant products. This course helps understand how service
marketing systems operate and addresses other service-related issues such as service design,
process management, capacity management, customer relationship management. The theme of
this course is that services marketing differs in many important respects from tangible product
centric businesses, requiring a distinctive approach to planning and implementing marketing
strategies. We stress the importance of understanding service organizations in their own terms,
then devising marketing goals and strategies accordingly.
The course explores the dimensions of successful service firms. Outstanding service
organizations are managed differently. Managerial actions are based on totally different
assumptions and conceptual frameworks. The results show not only in terms of performance but
also in the enthusiasm of the employees and quality of customer satisfaction. Beginning with the
service encounter, service managers must blend marketing, technology, people, and information
to achieve a distinctive competitive advantage. This course will study service marketing from an
integrated viewpoint with a focus on customer satisfaction. The material will integrate operations,
marketing, strategy, information technology and organizational issues. Because the service sector
is the fastest-growing sector of the economy, this course is also intended to help students discover
entrepreneurial opportunities.

Learning Objectives (Minimum three learning objectives)

This course endeavors to develop an understanding of service management thinking in students

with the following specific learning objectives -
(a) To study "breakthrough" services in order to understand the operations of successful
service firms that can be benchmarks for future management practice. *
(b) To develop an understanding of marketing strategies in different service sectors.
(c) To develop an awareness of the opportunities for leveraging information technology
and human resources for enhancing service firm’s competitiveness.
(d) To appreciate the organizational significance of managing the service encounter to
achieve internal and external Customer satisfaction.
(e) To understand the dimensions of service growth and expansion both domestically
and internationally. *

*AACSB AOL-Sub Goal (4.2) to be assessed in the course: “Demonstrate informed strategic
capabilities through application of conceptual knowledge with applied orientation in both local
and global context”.

Pedagogy:
The pedagogy will be primarily case based class discussion supplemented with lectures,
experience sharing, real life case discussion, assignments on sectors and industry/research based
projects. The course is focused on strategic issues with cases as the primary vehicle for learning.

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In addition to the reading materials, cases will be distributed in the class before the start of the
course and if required from time to time. Students are expected to prepare, analyze and
participate in class discussion. Total 16 sessions of 1 hr 15 minutes each would be conducted.

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 Evaluation

Students will be evaluated on the basis of case analysis, group projects, class participation, and
end-term exam. The weightage given to each of these units is listed below:
Sectoral Project : 20%
Company Project : 20%
Case study assignment : 10%
Current Topic assignment : 10%
End Term : 40%

Learning outcome to be assessed

Specific Assessment Method Weightage
a* b c d e*

Tentative Week/Date of Assessment Last week of the Term V

Group Assessment Methods √ √ √
Sectoral Project 20% √ √ √
Company Project 20% √ √ √
Case Study Assignments 10% √ √ √
Individual Assessment Methods √ √ √
Assignment on “Current Topic” * 10% √ √ √ √ √
EndTerm 40% √ √ √ √ √
Examination
*AACSB AOL-Sub Goal (4.2) to be assessed in the course: “Demonstrate informed strategic
capabilities through application of conceptual knowledge with applied orientation in both local
and global context”.

Recommended Text Book

 Christopher H. Lovelock and Jochen Wirtz (2011), Services Marketing: People,
Technology, Strategy, seventh edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. (CL)

Other Reference Books

 Valerie A. Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner, and Dwayne D. Gremler (2009), Services
Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, Fifth Edition, New York:
McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Journals

Harvard Business Review

Sloan Management review

Journal of marketing

Journal of services Research
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Journal of services Marketing

IJSIM: International Journal of Services industry Management

JSM: Journal of Services Marketing

Course Outline: Session/Topic/Reading Material/Reference

Session Topic Reading Material/Case Reference

1&2 Introduction Reading Material: Levitt; Marketing CL-Ch 1 &2
to distinct Product intangibles and intangible
aspects of Products, HBR May June 1981
Services &
Consumer Gronroos; A Service orientated
Behavior in approach to marketing of services,
Services EJM,1978

Parasuraman, Zeithaml, Berry;

Understanding Customer Expectations
of service, SMR Spring 1991

Case: TBD
3&4 Developing Reading Material: Scheuing, Johnson: CL-Ch 3 & 4
Service A proposed model for new service
Products & development, JCM
Positioning
Services Berry: Cultivating Service Brand
Equity, CL-Pages-207-216

Fisher: Durable differentiation

strategies for Services, JSM 1991

Case: TBD
5&6 Distributing Reading Material: Compers: A Note CL-Ch 5 & 6
Services & on Franchising, HBSP Note
Pricing and
Revenue Kimes and Chase, The Strategic levers
Management of Yield Management, CL-pp-205-212

Case: TBD
7&8 Promoting Reading Material: Chase: Where does CL-Ch 7 & 8
Services & the Customer fit in a service operation,
Managing HBR 1978
Service
Processes Case: TBD
9&10 Managing Reading Material: Shemwell, Cronin: CL-Ch 9 & 10
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 Demand and Service Marketing strategies for coping
Capacity & with demand supply imbalances, JSM
Service 1994
Environment
Case: TBD
11&12 Managing the Reading Material: Chan et al; In CL-Ch 11
People search of sustainable competitive
Advantage advantage: Impact of organizational
culture, competitive strategy and
Human Resource Management
practices on firm performance, IJHRM

Case: TBD
13&14 Service CL-Ch 14
quality and Reading Material: A. Parasuraman,
productivity Valarie A. Zeithaml, and Leonard
Berry, “SERVQUAL: A Multiple Item
Scale for measuring Consumer
Perceptions of Service Quality”,Journal
of Retailing, 1988

15&16 Project
presentations
and review of
Course.