THE DUAL ROLE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN ENHANCING SERVICE INNOVATIONS

The paper presents roles of information and communication technologies in innovation processes in services. Research method has been a case study due to the lack of empirical studies of innovation processes in Serbia. The paper analyses four original service innovation projects which have been conducted in Serbia based on ICT enhanced innovations. The main findings affirm that ICT progress per se enables new ways of gathering, processing, keeping and transferring information in services and also in that way enables base and impulse for innovations. Beside this, new findings also show that ICT have considerable role in the very process of innovation, from an idea, development and testing to commercialization. The paper points out key ICT methods and tools which can be used in different stages of innovation process.