ABSTRACT
Along with growth in Production and Operations Management (POM), the other management disciplines, accounting, finance, marketing, and human resources, etc. grew side by side. This chapter shows how POM steps out of the manufacturing boundary and permeates in the service arena. It re-engages strategic thinking in service operations by examining several of the underlying forces that are reshaping service business environments and are influencing major discontinuities from business as usual. The rapidity of technological change, the accelerated growth and timeliness of information exchange and digital media, and the widening reach to customers anywhere and anytime, challenges traditional service operations strategy and at the same time affords unprecedented opportunities for creating new knowledge and changing mindsets about service research and practice. Respondents indicated that POM courses dealing with process management are disappearing from the core, often being replaced by Supply Chain Management courses.
