Open Access

Digital transformation is changing the service landscape and confronting companies with challenges such as staff shortages and changing customer behavior. This paper examines the impact of self-service options on customer perceptions and their potential to improve a company’s resilience. The empirical study conducted for this purpose with 400 participants from different age groups, but with a focus on Generation Z, shows that almost all respondents have encountered self-service at some point, with the retail, tourism and financial sectors leading in usage. About 90% of respondents use self-service several times a month. While all generations value time savings and convenience, older participants express more concerns about errors, lack of support and privacy. The study highlights the increasing prevalence of self-service, particularly among young people, and their positive perceptions. Self-service solutions offer businesses the ability to address challenges, engage with customers and streamline processes. The positive impact extends not only to B2C processes, but also allows conclusions to be drawn about the positive influence of self-service options in internal and external B2B activities such as order management and customer support.

This chapter takes a detailed look at the developmental state model and its manifestations in regional development policies. Developmentalist ideas have been waxing and waning across periods of economic boom and bust. Recent years, however, have seen a renaissance of East Asian developmentalism – reminiscent of its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s and most notably driven by the region’s continued economic strength. The endorsement of state-led modernization, preferential policies, and close state-business relations – which underpinned Japan/Korea/China’s transformations – has also left its mark on current ODA practices in the region and beyond. East Asia’s state agencies are pushing ahead with colossal infrastructure programs – in close cooperation with commercial actors – that advance broad development goals and, at the same time, promotes national interests. Compared to Western OECD peers, Asian development cooperation tends to focus less on neoliberal and democratic principles and, instead, places greater emphasis on state-corporatist and meritocratic ideas. To what extent East Asia’s infrastructural megaprojects and connectivity corridors across Eurasia and Africa (BRI, EAI, and Partnership for Quality Infrastructure) will generate political momentum for an emergent developmental consensus remains uncertain. The jury is still out when it comes to whether and how Asian developmentalism will take center stage in global development debates. What is clear, however, is that the changing zeitgeist of a less Anglo/Euro-centric world bodes well for more heterodox and diverse ideas on development cooperation.

A key objective of this research is to take a more detailed look at a central aspect of resilience in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). A literature review and expert interviews were used to investigate which factors have an impact on the innovative capacity of start-ups and whether these can also be adapted by SMEs. First of all, it must be stated that there are considerable structural and process-related differences between start-ups and SMEs. These can considerably inhibit cooperation between the two forms of enterprise. However, in the same context, success factors and issues in the start-up sector could also be identified that can improve cooperation with SMEs. These and other findings are then discussed in both an economic and an academic context. This article was written as part of the research activities of the Smart Services Competence Centre (proper name: Kompetenzzentrum Smart Services), a central contact point for all questions in the area of smart service digitalization in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Here, companies can obtain information about various digital technologies and take advantage of various measures for the development of new ideas and innovative services (Kompetenzzentrum Smart Services BW: Über das Kompetenzzentrum, 2021).

Die digitale Selbstbedienung im Einzelhandel und anderen Dienstleistungsbereichen verändert die Konsumwelt. Self-Services werden zunehmend von Konsumenten aller Altersklassen genutzt. Der Handel muss seine Servicekanäle hinterfragen und vermehrt auf Self-Service als Kundenkontaktpunkt setzen. Andere Branchen haben diesbezüglich bereits Lösungen umgesetzt. Vor diesem Hintergrund analysiert der Beitrag die Nutzung von Self-Service-Lösungen in Abhängigkeit von der Generationen-Zugehörigkeit und gibt Handlungsempfehlungen für KMU aus dem Einzelhandel.

Die durch KMU geprägte Investitionsgüterindustrie steht aufgrund der zunehmenden Internationalisierung im Servicegeschäft, Mitarbeiterengpässen, hohen Prozesskosten sowie fehlendem Wissensmanagment vor großen Herausforderungen. Durch die Digitalisierung entstehen große Nutzenpotenziale im Servicegeschäft. Vor diesem Hintergrund wurde ein auf den Methoden Intelligent Swarming und Knowledge Centered Service basierender, integrierter Ansatz entwickelt, der KMU aus der Investitionsgüterindustrie befähigt, Servicewissen effizient zu generieren, zu strukturieren und international zu vermarkten.