Services Marketing in Asia: A Case Book

Citation

Tam, J.L.M. (2006), "Services Marketing in Asia: A Case Book", Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 223-224. https://doi.org/10.1108/09604520610650664

The service sector contributes significantly to Asian economies. While the service industries are growing fast, the manufacturers are using services to differentiate their competitive offerings and create value for customers. This increases the need for more and well‐equipped marketing managers to address the issues related to marketing and management of services. As a result, the demand for services marketing and management education is increasing.

Services Marketing in Asia: A Case Book by Wirtz and Lovelock is a timely and well‐organized book, which is designed to cater for the needs of advanced undergraduate or MSc, MBA and EMBA students. The book offers a diverse and stimulating collection of cases across Asian region. These cases contributed by services marketing experts and professions, will help students better understand the challenges in marketing and delivering services, and they provide valuable insights into best practices in Asia.

The book is organized in five parts, placing the cases in appropriate sequence such that students and instructors can pair the case discussion with the suggested service marketing topics. This not only facilitates students' learning, but also provides some flexibility for instructors adopting the cases to suit their courses of different lengths and formats. The book provides a case guide enabling the readers to have an overview of each case.

Part I includes two chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to service economies in Asia, documenting the growth of the service sector, and discussing the factors that contribute to this growth. Chapter 2 discusses the case studies approach in learning and provides some suggestions on making case studies a valuable learning experience.

Part II includes ten cases covering topics such as consumer behavior, positioning, marketing strategy and marketing of professional services. These cases researched the service companies ranging from fast food to logistics. The issues discussed will stimulate students' thinking, and the suggested study questions will set the basis for a lively class discussion. Part III includes six cases on the key elements of services marketing such as segmentation, branding, revenue management and distribute strategy. Part IV includes nine cases thta deal with managing the service delivery process issues.

The last part of the book includes seven cases on implementing services marketing. The topics include customer asset management, service guarantees, six sigma quality, and loyalty programs. Customer relationship management is becoming paramount importance in today's highly competitive markets. Having worked through the cases, readers will appreciate the complex and diverse Asian markets, and how critical customer relationship is to a company's long‐term growth.

In conclusion, the book is a useful resource for learning of services marketing in Asia. Many case discussions embrace several managerial issues and emphasize the importance of the links between marketing, operations and human resource functions. I believe the readers will find the case studies in Wirtz and Lovelook's book beneficial and rewarding. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in understanding service marketing practices in Asia.