Purpose – The paper reports case studies conducted in services organizations that apply Six Sigma in an emerging economy. Aspects of human resources and full-time specialist, infra-structure, top management leadership, customer requirements, focus on financial and non-financial results,...

Purpose – The purposes of this study are twofold: first, the authors attempt to confirm the effect of the income elasticity of demand in the retail industry by investigating the performance of department stores; second, the authors measure and benchmark the performance of individual department...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach to measure business sustainability in food service operations. The main objectives are to understand the concepts of business sustainability and, after constructing a framework based on a literature review, to assess the relation...

Purpose Website benchmarking theory and the website analysis method (WAM) are benchmark tested across non-commercial tropical tourism websites. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach The abridged WAM benchmarks 280 tropical tourism websites from four continental areas...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate opportunities to move benchmarking studies toward a strategic level. The authors benchmarked how service prices are defined based on the value added for the customer. Design/methodology/approach – A multi-case research investigated how...

Purpose – Competitive dynamics are placing greater emphasis on customer experience, making the management of the last 100 meters of the supply chain critical to differential performance. Traditionally, supply chain design has emphasized two processes: new product development and order...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a holistic decision support system based on condition-based maintenance which utilizes meteorological forecasting information to support decision-making process in services of wind power enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – A pilot...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to evaluate how the service process of the market leader differs from the other actors’ processes and whether the service process explains the success of the market leader; second, to identify the success factors of the service...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability to the service business of general models used in the manufacturing environment. This is done by applying Ferdows’s model, “the strategic role of the plant”, in two cases. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses...

This paper describes the steps taken by a major commercial bank in the USA to redesign a critical function within its check‐processing operation. Animated simulation models of the current and new process were developed to understand the relationship between process parameters, waiting times,...