What Can We Learn About the Future From the Present & Past? This, together with ‘The Future of Retail’ and ‘The Future of Hospitality’ were the key discussion topics of the plenary sessions at the 4th ISES Global Conference on Service Excellence organised by the Institute of Service Excellence (ISES) at SMU on 23-24 July 2014. The Conference served to foster a deeper understanding of the trends and influences shaping the growth and development of service.

Mr Lim Swee Say, Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, graced the Conference as Guest-of-Honour, and delivered the Opening Keynote Address. SMU Provost & Deputy President, Professor Rajendra Srivastava and the Chief Executives of the GEMS Up movement agencies were among the dignitaries present at the Conference, which attracted about 300 business leaders, industry practitioners, policymakers, researchers and academics from across Asia.

Themed The Future of Service, the Conference aimed to identify new service trends, share concerns and experiences in customer satisfaction, anticipate the expectations of customers amidst the evolving technology landscape, assess the impact on businesses, and evaluate the skill sets of today's service practitioners.

In his speech, Minister Lim Swee Say said that the four driving forces that would help organisations gear up for the future of service are Competitive Benchmarking, Customer-centric Culture, Corporate Leadership, and Better Customers.

He said that anticipating the future of service and embracing new technologies is even more relevant with the tight manpower situation in Singapore. With the innovative use of technology and business process re-engineering, it is possible to improve service productivity and customer satisfaction with a lean workforce.

He urged service-industry businesses to practise competitive benchmarking so that they would know where they stand in relation to their competitors. To this end, the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) was introduced by ISES in 2007. It is an objective and independent qualitative indicator that reports customer satisfaction scores for nine key economic sectors in Singapore.

Minister Lim also called for stronger market positioning among service-industry businesses, so as to prevent a mismatch of expectations. “What is required is consistency in terms of quality and speed, cost-competitiveness with minimal resource wastage, and cultivating long-term customer loyalty,” he said.

[(from right) Professor PK Kannan from University of Maryland, Dr Keiji Yamada from NEC Laboratories Singapore, Dr Jeremy Lim from Oliver Wyman, and Mr Yuen Kuan Moon from SingTel participated in a panel discussion moderated by Ms Diana Ser (extreme left).]

The Conference drew a stellar line-up of academic and industry experts for the three plenary sessions on Day 1 and the four concurrent Master Classes on Day 2.

The plenary sessions consisted of keynote speeches and panel discussions focusing on specific topics. Each session featured viewpoints from both the academia and industry, citing relevant examples from around the world, thus providing participants with broad perspectives on theoretical concepts and practical management issues.

The full-day Master Classes, designed for C-suite executives, offered in-depth learning into specific areas of service innovation. These include: Essential Analytics for Service; Managing Service Productivity; Customer Management in the 21st Century; and Boosting Productivity in the Service Industry.

ISES Director, Ms Caroline Lim, in summing up the conference programme, said, “The two-day Conference was designed specifically to dovetail two crucial aspects in levelling up service standards: to instil in industry leadership a sense of urgency in the fast evolving service landscape, and to build the resources and capabilities that will support businesses in the service economy of the future.”

[Featured photo: Mr Lim Swee Say, Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, graced the 4th ISES Global Conference on Service Excellence as Guest-of-Honour, and delivered the Opening Keynote Address.]