4. RESEARCH FINDINGS
4.1 Preliminary Findings
As Table 2 shows, 53.3% (57/103) of service
innovation projects focused on new customers within
the existing targeted market, and 47.6% (49/103) of
projects focused on penetrating new markets. In
addition, 19.4% (20/103) of projects were initiated by
ICT vendors. These patterns were generally similar
between projects conducted between 2005 and 2008,
and those conducted between 2009 and 2011. These
results indicated that these service innovation projects
aggressively aimed to penetrate new targets through
service innovation, possibly because the SMEs were
self-motivated to acquire new customers and
participate in new markets through service
innovation. In addition, external ICT vendors may be
considered to play supportive roles.
and products (79.6%) and designing new business
models (78.6%) were the most critical. By contrast,
approximately two thirds (67.0%) of the observed
SMEs included new marketing models as part of
service innovation projects, and only half of the firms
(53.0%) used ICT applications as a focus of service
innovation projects. These findings may reflect the
nature of the tourism and food service industries. For
tourism and beverage service providers, delivering
new packages, physical evidence, and service
offerings are crucial for attracting customers. By
contrast, marketing and ICT application are of
relatively little concern. However, a comparison of
the patterns of the 2005–2008 period and the 2009–
2011 period suggested that firms gradually began to
implement new business model designs, new
marketing model development, and ICT applications
(Table 2).