Fostering the Virtualization of Service Processes and Touch Points - Identification and Documentation of E-Service Potential in Retail Networks

Offering business services is widely considered a means for superior value creation. Increasing research activities in the emerging disciplines of Service Sciences and Service Science Management and Engineering (SSME) can be ascertained. Even so, the integration of service processes and their virtualization with suitable IT artifacts is seldom focused in SSME. Building on the Process Virtualization Theory (PVT), we propose ways to assess and document the eligibility of service processes and—on a more detailed level—of the activities that need to be virtualized among the stakeholders. On a process level, central questions are derived from the PVT. On an activity level, an extended service blueprinting notation is derived and conceptualized in a language-oriented meta model. We demonstrate the usability of our approach with an exemplary service process from the retail sector. Since the retail sector is quite mature, the concepts to be used there might also be reused in other service settings.