Though its been more than 6 months I wrote here but in the mean while I have been writing a lot, be it the reports at my work place or preparing notes for the (then) upcoming CFA exam.
Writing is indulgence. If done consummately, may give the requisite gratification. And while I was writing for the intent of making my notes I happened to dwell over the idea of "inventorying" services.
Services, as the definition goes, cannot be stored or "inventoried". But again, the beauty of this concept lies in challenging the existing definitions and creating something disruptive. Something which could challenge the actuality, change the way life is lived or become an integral part of our belief system, precisely the way we never question the existence of gravity around us but is ubiquitous and instilled in our nervous system.
Taking the concept a little further, I believe if we could store the services, like storing the hair-cut done by Javed for the purpose of using it when demand is high or like stacking-in the treatment of a dentist as and when required by the patient.
I'll be wrong to assert that services have never been inventoried before but what I want to convey here is the opinion that the scope of inventorying the services is mammoth and still unexplored.
The picture here is unclear and the fog is prevailing strong. Let me tersely present what I mean when I say "Store my Services".
Traditional View – Services cannot be inventoried.
Modern View – The traditional view is narrow in approach as it assumes inventory to be something related with only finished products and not WIP (work-in-progress).
My observation is that services, with the help of various physical apparatuses, can be inventoried. This may guide us to lower lead times as well as improvement in quality.
Since services involve customer as an integral part of its production process, it becomes difficult (if not impossible) to store services. Recent innovations and development in technology has helped various services to be stored in WIP stage and at some places even to the extent of fully completed products.
An instance could be that of virtual classrooms that are fast gaining popularity among the students fraternity. The recorded lectures are being delivered to the students on-line and a software, containing a large pool of pre-solved questions, is synchronized to the lecture window so that most of the queries are answered on the spot. Any query, if not found in the question data bank, is stored for later response.
Another classical example is of cassettes (or CDs etc these days), where the services of the singer are stored for the purpose of using them later at the user's will. And how about the call-centers of telecom companies that we call and get pre-recorded replies.
Its all about how you innovate and remove the anomalies, arising from varied level of services given by various people giving them.
The scope of holding services is unsung and at the same time undiscovered.
The forum is open and so is our mind.......
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