This is an important book for educators, students and professional managers. As the services sector becomes a larger and increasingly pervasive part of our economy and as service operations management becomes the biggest part of most organizations, the opportunity to increase productivity, quality, flexibility and innovation of service provision must be grasped firmly by those who want their organizations to remain competitive and successful. This book very effectively blends conceptual frameworks with new, practical case studies. It is full of valuable and useful insights. --Danny Samson, University of Melbourne, Australia

The author recognizes the critical fact that service operations is worlds apart from manufacturing operations management that produces tangible products - a failing of so many other texts that have drawn on yesteryear manufacturing paradigms to try and explain services. This book succeeds in combining operational analysis with the empirical research to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the forces that shape and change the service sectors. Drawing on a wealth of information by virtue of his track record of many years researching the service sectors, this book will be invaluable to both students, practitioners and anyone interested in successful service operations - tourism, hospitality, transport, retailing, utilities, not for profit, public service. --George Downie, Senior Lecturer, Southampton Business School, UK

David has captured the essentials of service operations within a complete enterprise framework. Based upon case studies from a broad variety of organizations from around the globe, this easy to understand text is a must for students and practitioners alike. Students of service operations and indeed services marketing have been long awaiting a reference such as this. --Derek Lundberg, Metcash Food & Grocery

David W. Parker, University of Queensland Business School, Australia