Normann's Crane 2.0 Operationalising Service Systems co-design

Service development and delivery is by its very nature an activity that requires cooperation between suppliers and customers. This cooperation does not imply or require parity between the parties. In any such relationship parties divide responsibilities based on a perception of self-competency and subsequent economic value. This is not always rational. One result of many such co-production agreements is to leech competency to one partner to the detriment of all other parties. Black box relationships are an unintended consequence of such interactions, relying on an ability of all of the partners to express their requirements in terms of rigid service level agreements whose origins are opaque to all but the originating organisation (and even then may not be well understood). This unhappy position is made worse by a tendency to involve many service providers at different points in the provision chain, none of whom have an adequate or rational understanding of the requirements of their customers or suppliers. This paper argues that true co-production can never be successfully met without effective co-design – achieved through the deliberate exposure of internal structure and imperatives by all parties. Apparent productivity gains will be short lived without this exposure as organisations limit their choices of partners in markets as well as restricting their own ability to address new opportunities.