CHAPTER 4. INTERACTION PATTERN BASED INNOVATION
4.6 Alliance Adjustment Guidance Module
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4.6 Alliance Adjustment Guidance Module
The final part (i.e., the Alliance Adjustment Guidance Module) of the service innovation supporting artifact we propose is to guide the SME users throughout the implementation process of the service innovation, which can be related to the Arrow(5) of the conceptual model. The purpose of this module is to link the service innovation direction created from previous modules to a business case database that stores cases of related situation and select proper cases for SME users as a guidance of implementation.
The following will explain the theory foundation supporting the use of case based approach, implementation details of the business case database, and the explanations of the case selecting mechanism during SME users using this module.
Case-based reasoning system have the following two advantages: using case base information is a good approach for people to learn how to do things at the early stage (Anderson, 1996), and it is more easy to acquire examples of a problem solution than to come up with rules to solve the problem (Tenback, 1994). Embedding the concept of case-based reasoning can bring these advantages into this system, which makes the guidance is easy to understand by the user, and the implementation will be easier for the system designer.
A case-based system requires a case database as its foundation, which in this research it shall be the cases of SME achieve service innovation by improving the interaction patterns. Some requirements must be met in order to fulfill the design purpose of this artifact, which is a service innovation supporting tool based on interaction pattern with implementation guidance. Requirements are listed as followings: the case must be a SME case, the result must be a service innovation, the
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solution to achieve the result must contain the adjusting of interaction patterns, and the case must described the details of the solution.
Business cases done by research organizations can be found on the Internet, but most of them are big companies, which would violate the requirements of this research that the cases within the case base need to be the cases of SMEs. And cases mentioning the interaction condition are also less in numbers, not to mention the cases have detailed description of the adjustment of interaction patterns. However, researches of SMEs and interactions are not difficult to access, like the IMP group is one of the biggest organizations focusing on business interaction and their research is accessible. Through enough available researches, we might be able to abstract the cases from their research, and classified them into our business case database.
After a case is selected, it will be categorized for the selection mechanism in the guidance module. The classification will be based on the interaction pattern it is changing to, the role of the entity it is changing interaction pattern with and the interaction pattern value it would change, and the following Figure 4.6 provides an example.
Figure 4.13 is an imagine case example of an anonymous company’s interaction pattern adjustment and corresponding interaction pattern value changing; it is a case of an anonymous company changing its interaction condition with its customer and supplier. At the beginning, we will examine cases from other available researches, and determine whether the case are fitting the following two requirements: the case company achieved some kind of service innovation value improvement from changing interaction with other companies, and provide enough detail of how the company did the interaction changing. If the case meets the ends, then we will analyzed the case to determine what interaction pattern is it changing and with whom it is changing interaction pattern. After the analysis, the case will be recorded in the
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case data base and tagged with classifying information like Figure 4.13; the case example in Figure 4.12 is an example of classifying information of a case about an anonymous company changing its service innovation value from Level 1 to Level 3 through changing its interaction pattern with its customer and supplier entity.
Figure 4.13 Example of an anonymous company’s innovation case’s case classification
When the result of the adjusting module comes to the guidance module, the result will be examined by the guidance module, in order to select the proper cases. For example, if there is a SME user wish to change its service innovation level from Level 2 to Level 5 by improving its interaction pattern with supplier entity from interaction pattern level 2 to level 3, and customer entity’s interaction pattern from level 1 to level 3, the system will browse every case’s tags to select the case that is matching to the requirements.
The following Figure 4.14 provides the case selection process of our example. The system records the steps the user selected during the process in the Interaction Pattern Adjustment Module, and select appropriate cases in this module. After the matched cases are obtained from the data base, the Guidance Module will then sort the cases by the steps and the corresponding interaction pattern the SME choose to improve.
In this example, there are two cases match the description of changing interaction pattern level with customer entity from level 1 to level 2, one case for changing
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interaction pattern level with supplier entity from level 2 to level 3, and two cases for changing interaction pattern level with customer entity from level 2 to level 3.
Figure 4.14 Example of the case classifying based on the selected patterns to improve, and automatic proper case selection
(Lv2 Lv5; customer supplier customer)
Figure 4.14 Case classification and automatic proper case selection algorithm
Concluding the guidance module, it is designed to provide cases of SME business do service innovation through changing interaction patterns. The reason to use case base guidance is because case can provide a lot more details that other means cannot provide, and cases are easily for human to learn from. Cases will be classified based on the interaction pattern it is changing, the role it is changing interaction pattern with and the value it have changed. The result from previous module will be examined and divided into smaller sections if needed, and cases will be selected based on the
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examination, Figure 4.14 provides an algorithm of the adjustment direction dividing and proper case selection.
After SME users choose its most favorite case example regarding to its service innovation direction, SME users are supposed to be able to reference the company in the case example to do their service innovation by changing its interaction pattern with other entities within the SME user’s current service system.