How to Build an Effective Service Company (Coursera)

Offered by IESE Business School,
How to Build an Effective Service Company (Coursera)

Why do so many brilliant plans fail to deliver? What do you have to do to make things happen and make things right in services companies or service areas? Our teams require a new structured operational mindset that unifies improvement, promised service delivery and financial results. Just in time, Lean, Agile, Design Thinking... Are these movements familiar to you? Professor Muñoz-Seca has developed a framework that goes beyond these approaches: SPDM (Service Problem Driven Management) makes knowledge the corner stone of service efficiency and excellence.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

This new operational service structure is created to make your team overcome constant challenges and feel deeply involved in your service delivery. SPDM introduces a "magic formula" complementing these movements. Task equals problem equals knowledge, becomes the driving force to free up time to adopt new value-added tasks that improve both service efficiency, your team fulfillment and the company financial results.
In this course, you will follow four companies, each in a different service sector (finance, gas service delivery, back office of a bank and tourism), as they implement SPDM to address the problems that do not allow them to deliver an excellent service and improve their results. Through these cases, and the application of this practical framework, you will gain a deep understanding of how to increase your efficiency and adopt a cutting-edge operations model that provides a 5 star service linked with financial improvement.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Course Overview
In this course, you will follow four companies, each in a different industry (finance, gas, health and tourism), as they implement an efficient and cutting-edge operations model (SPDM) to address the problems that do not allow them to deliver an excellent service, and improve their results. Through these cases, and the application of this practical framework, you will gain a deep understanding of how to increase your efficiency while providing a 5 star service, as well as getting results and things done in your own company.

WEEK 2
The Operations Puzzle
During this module, the following topics will be covered: promise and its five dimensions (cost, time, range, innovation, and consistency), essence or DNA’s company, flame red or the structure holding up the essence, client archetype, service specifications and moments of truth (MMT).

WEEK 3
Unlocking Capacity to Tackle Higher Value-Added Tasks
During this module, the following topics will be covered: service and product mix, task=problem=knowledge, capacity analysis and matrix, load matrix and task benchmark.

WEEK 4
No Hire, No Fire
During this module, the following topics will be covered: operational variables, E2E process & green benches, 7 times, operational rules and types of decisions.

WEEK 5
The Problem Solving Machine
During this module, the following topics will be covered: nine questions, knowledge gaps, touch points in the costumer journey, distance to implementation and knowledge stock blockages and the knowledge extended enterprise.

WEEK 6
Conclusions
During this module, the following topics will be covered; reflections and summary and learnings of the four companies.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Beyond Silicon Valley: Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies (Coursera) Coursera
Case Western Reserve University

Beyond Silicon Valley: Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies (Coursera)

The path for entrepreneurs to grow their companies outside of well-developed entrepreneurial ecosystems like Silicon Valley is challenging. Most markets around the world do not look like Silicon Valley, and they never will. But there are other models to support new businesses. In transitioning markets (where entrepreneurs do not have much access to private sector financing), government officials, donors, and business leaders are experimenting with creative approaches to support the growth of entrepreneurs. Northeast Ohio, whose largest city is Cleveland, is one such community. During our time together in this course, we will be exploring some of these innovative approaches.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials (Coursera) Coursera
Johns Hopkins University

Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials (Coursera)

Clinical trials are experiments designed to evaluate new interventions to prevent or treat disease in humans. The interventions evaluated can be drugs, devices (e.g., hearing aid), surgeries, behavioral interventions (e.g., smoking cessation program), community health programs (e.g. cancer screening programs) or health delivery systems (e.g., special care units for hospital admissions). We consider clinical trials experiments because the investigators rather the patients or their doctors select the treatment the patients receive.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Structure: Building the Frame for Business Growth (Coursera) Coursera
Michigan State University

Structure: Building the Frame for Business Growth (Coursera)

Just like when building a house the foundation for your business provides the framework for success. A business built on weak structure will struggle to succeed. We'll address some of the most pressing issues that you as a business owner must face while constructing the proper framework for your business.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Turning Point: Estratégia, Liderança e Gestão de Mudanças (Coursera) Coursera
FIA Business School

Turning Point: Estratégia, Liderança e Gestão de Mudanças (Coursera)

Nossas boas-vindas ao Curso Turning Point: Estratégia, Liderança e Gestão de Mudanças. Neste curso, você aprenderá sobre: estratégias organizacionais no contexto atual; abordagens adotadas pelas organizações para obter vantagem competitiva no mercado; práticas de Gestão de Mudanças organizacionais; liderança no contexto geral e em processos de mudanças organizacionais.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Gestión Empresarial Exitosa para Pymes (Coursera) Coursera
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Gestión Empresarial Exitosa para Pymes (Coursera)

Este curso tiene como objetivo fortalecer las capacidades de gestión de pequeños y medianos empresarios, y personas interesadas en emprender. El Programa Pyme de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile te invita a profundizar sobre lo que se requiere para ser un empresario exitoso y a aprender buenas prácticas en dirección de empresas que permitan crear valor al cliente, a través del marketing y herramientas comerciales.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Surviving Disruptive Technologies (On Demand) (Coursera) Coursera
University of Maryland, College Park

Surviving Disruptive Technologies (On Demand) (Coursera)

The purpose of this course is to help individuals and organizations survive when confronted with disruptive technologies that threaten their current way of life. We will look at a general model of survival and use it to analyze companies and industries that have failed or are close to failing. Examples of companies that have not survived include Kodak, a firm over 100 years old, Blockbuster and Borders.

Sep 21st 2026
4 Weeks
On Strategy : What Managers Can Learn from Philosophy - PART 1 (Coursera) Coursera
CentraleSupélec

On Strategy : What Managers Can Learn from Philosophy - PART 1 (Coursera)

In the expression “creative thinking”, the keyword is not creativity; the keyword is thinking. With the help of great philosophers, you will rediscover the art of thinking. To help leaders to be rigorous even without figures, great philosophers have lots of ideas. Managers are invited to rediscover the art of thinking. They should understand the role of mental models, realize the importance of cognitive bias, agree on clear definitions and efficient criteria etc. Creativity demands the ability to unshackle ourselves from conventional ways of thinking, to "think outside the box".

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies (Coursera) Coursera
Università Bocconi

Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies (Coursera)

Learn how fashion and luxury companies work and understand their brands, products, retail, and communication strategies. Travel through business models, international development, and product categories with industry influent experts. Adopting a case-study approach, the course presents strategic brand management in luxury and fashion companies as a balancing act: tradition vs. innovation, expertise vs. experimentation, casual vs. stylish; in order to increase the brand value by nurturing the brand heritage and at the same time staying fresh, relevant, and contemporary in the global marketplace.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Impact Measurement & Management for the SDGs (Coursera) Coursera
Duke University

Impact Measurement & Management for the SDGs (Coursera)

How can businesses and investors help fill the $2 trillion gap needed for sustainable development? Simply put, by getting better at measuring and managing impacts on people and planet. Through this course, anyone can learn to improve their organization's practice of impact management, and how to align their ESG or impact activities and reporting with emerging global standards. Impact Measurement and Management for the SDGs is sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the global development network of the United Nations which created the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that over 190 countries have signed on to achieve by 2030. But the public sector can't do this alone.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Two Speed IT: How Companies Can Surf the Digital Wave, a BCG Perspective (Coursera) Coursera
CentraleSupélec

Two Speed IT: How Companies Can Surf the Digital Wave, a BCG Perspective (Coursera)

Transform or disappear, the Darwinism of IT: In order to adapt to a digital world, a two-speed IT is needed. Despite the importance of IT in today’s digital world, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) often struggle to get their voices heard by executive committees. Faced with this challenge, IT departments are being forced to reinvent themselves to adapt their companies to the fast paced evolution of technology. The Boston Consulting Group has developed a business approach that allows IT to shed off its appearance of a heavy cost center and to adopt a new, more realistic persona as a quality service provider, partnering with users and the management.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Leading Positive Change through Appreciative Inquiry (Coursera) Coursera
Case Western Reserve University

Leading Positive Change through Appreciative Inquiry (Coursera)

Appreciative Inquiry is a collaborative and constructive inquiry process that searches for everything that gives life to organizations, communities, and larger human systems when they are most alive, effective, creative and healthy in their interconnected ecology of relationships. To appreciate, quite simply, means to value and to recognize that which has value—it is a way of knowing and valuing the best in life. In the language of Positive Organizational Scholarship it means a research focus—a positive bias—seeking fresh understanding of dynamics described by words like excellence, thriving, abundance, resilience, or exceptional and life-giving.

Sep 21st 2026
5-12 Weeks