James L. Heskett Books

Draws from research at such firms as Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, ICI, and Nissan to show how the culture--shared beliefs, attitudes, and practices--of a company can influence its performance for better or worse.

In this pathbreaking work, renowned Harvard Business School experts reveal how leading companies excel by managing the service profit chain. The book addresses why select service firms consistently outperform competitors, a question often overlooked in anecdotal "service excellence" literature. Drawing on five years of research, the authors analyze how firms like American Express, Southwest Airlines, and Ritz-Carlton link profit and growth to customer and employee loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity. Key relationships identified include profit and customer loyalty, employee loyalty and customer loyalty, and employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, all of which are mutually reinforcing. The authors provide a strategic service vision model that managers can use to enhance operations and marketing. For instance, Banc One's approach to measuring customer loyalty through service depth directly influenced profitability, while Taco Bell's top-rated stores outperformed others across all metrics. They illustrate how to manage the customer-employee satisfaction mirror and the customer value equation to achieve a "customer's eye view" of services. Companies can measure service profit chain relationships, communicate self-appraisals, develop performance scorecards, and improve overall service profit chain performance. The impact is significant; from 1986 to 1995, the stock prices of the studied firms rose 147%, nearly double

Win from Within offers a playbook for developing and deploying organizational culture that enables outsized results. It is a groundbreaking demonstration of culture's role as a foundation for strategic success-and its measurable impact on the bottom line.

Entire service businesses have been built around the ideas of Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger, pioneers in the service industry. They now test their concepts against the experiences of both successful and unsuccessful practitioners, providing a guide for service leaders worldwide. The authors address optimal service leadership, covering best practices in hiring, training, and workplace organization. They explore the creation of operating strategies in areas like facility design, capacity planning, and queue management, as well as the effective and ineffective use of technology in delivering exceptional service. They also discuss practices that can transform loyal customers into "owners." Looking ahead, the authors envision a landscape where "both/and" thinking replaces trade-offs, emphasizing the "service trifecta" of wins for employees, customers, and investors. They highlight the importance of leaders who acknowledge their limitations, fostering organizations that learn, innovate, and adapt. Through examples from diverse companies such as Apollo Hospitals, Starbucks, Amazon, and Disney, the authors illustrate a narrative of remarkable successes, avoidable failures, and future potential in service leadership. This comprehensive approach serves as an invaluable resource for those aiming to excel in the service sector.

Uspořádání knihy je paralelní s doplňujícím svazkem "Učebnice managementu služeb", jenž obsahuje hlubší studie případů mnoha firem, o kterých se zde zmiňujeme. Tato kniha vyjadřuje hluboké přesvědčení. Je to naše přesvědčení, ale bylo ovlivněno a živeno manažery, kteří je pro rozvoj průkopnických služeb považují za podstatné.