ABSTRACT
Current developments in information technology allow information intensive industry sectors to deliver their services and products electronically (online) to individuals’ personal computers or other information appliances at home or work. Electronic delivery channels promise to offer improved convenience and value to customers while reducing service-delivery costs. The continued growth of electronic services is likely to have a profound impact on competition in many of these industry sectors. Moreover, it also provides an alternative channel of service delivery where no service infrastructure has yet been built, for example, in many remote areas of developing countries. In this chapter, we analyze alternative delivery technologies and service processes in information-intensive services, using the example of retail (consumer) banking. Similar methods have been used to analyze industrial services by Karmarkar (2000) and Bashyam and Karmarkar (2004, 2005).
