India's Prof. Mahadevan elucidates strategies to service organizations

Senior Indian Operations Management Professor B. Mahadevan has advised developing nations such as Sri Lanka to positively exploit growth opportunities available in the service sector by utilizing information technology as the backbone to bridge the geographical gap with other nations which will ensure long-term economic growth for the country.

At a seminar titled 'Strategies for Service Organizations', sponsored by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (ICASL) Prof. Mahadevan of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore stressed that today, even in Sri Lanka, the service sector was the most dominant, by contributing 60 percent to the country's Gross Domestic Product.

Prof Mahadevan conducting the seminar

"As the economy booms, issues related to the service sector should be taken into consideration such as the pricing factor," he said.

Citing reasons for his claim, the Professor noted that in the past, pricing was often done on a static basis and not on a dynamic basis.

"Firms have to understand that they should price services differently. It is only then will they derive the benefits," he said.

Prof Mahadevan introduced several pricing methods during the seminar which included different pricing styles, bundle pricing and yield management pricing, which are currently adopted by hotels and airlines.

"Ten years back, hotels adopted a static pricing policy, where tariffs were usually a static rate during peak period, today this style has changed and the rates keep changing from hour to hour, minute to minute and even the service sector should adopt a similar pricing policy," he said.

Prof Mahadevan, rated as one of the top five professors at IIM Bangalore, during the initial sessions of the seminar also focused on how manufacturing companies increasingly sees service as an important element in their strategy while also addressing how to deal with customer delays and adopt a well accepted service quality model.

During the sessions, he also touched in detail on growth trajectories, while emphasizing on the growth opportunities available for the service sector.

"Although services cannot be stored, there is a class of services which are tradable, which can be exchanged and sent across such as the BPO and IT sectors," he said.

"Success lies in such areas where we can exploit such sectors for our long term advantage. Today in India, the designing for the car is done in India, but it can be manufactured in any part of the world after we transmit the design via the internet," he said.

Prof Mahadevan said that Sri Lanka too had a huge potential to take advantage of tradable services where distance and geographical positioning doesn't matter anymore due to the availability of IT services.

"Plus, countries such as ours also enjoy the cost advantage, and so we should be exploiting such opportunities to the hilt," he said.

The seminar held at the Waters Edge, Battaramulla on May 05, was well attended by top corporate personnel in the likes of Chairman, Directors, CEOs, CFOs and senior management in financial services, manufacturing, hospitality and tourism, travel, healthcare and ICT sectors.

The ICASL decided to conduct a seminar on such a unique subject having understood the importance of service economy which has been undergoing significant growth the world over, during the last decade. Boosted with more than 18 years of wide ranging experience, Professor Mahadevan has been recognized for his excellence in teaching both at IIM Bangalore and outside and has been consistently rated among the top five professors in IIM Bangalore's teaching and executive education programmes.