1 Service development tools in action

Service innovation is a key source of productivity gains and competitive advantage across the industries. This paper presents two management tools that assist businesses in developing more systematic and effective service development process. Both of these tools focus on making optimal use of customer and user inputs during the service innovation process. Latest research based knowledge provided the starting point for the de-velopment of these management tools. Their practical applications were developed together with the businesses in connection with their on-going service development projects. This provided an effective way to test and validate research-based concepts and reference processes. 1