Issues in Service Marketing in Emerging Economies

Globalisation and the resulting increase in competition have forced organisations to seek unique ways to gain a competitive advantage over their competition. One of the strategies successfully adopted is transforming/extending operations into service industry by the manufacturing organisation. This servitisation as packages or ‘bundle’ of customer focused combination of goods, services, support, self-service and knowledge adds value to core product offering. The focus of service sector marketing is supported by the fact that regarding world gross domestic product (GDP), the share of services increased from 59% in 1985 to 71% in 2011, underlying the major shift in paradigm. In manufacturing industry, this shift, termed as servitisation, has enabled organisations to achieve better profits and financial stability and has also offered them the opportunity to understand their customers better.