Services marketing gurus gather at University of Queensland Business School

Industry experts and academics will address emerging services management and marketing issues at the Frontiers in Service Conference at the UQ Business School from Friday 30 June.

UQ Business School Professor Janet McColl-Kennedy is co-chair – along with world-renowned Professor Roland Rust of the University of Maryland, USA.

Professor McColl-Kennedy said the school was looking forward to hosting some of the world’s foremost experts on the rapidly growing services sector.

Industry experts Jim Spohrer and Paul Maglio from IBM’s Almaden Research Centre in the US will present on Friday morning (June 30).

“Even traditional manufacturing companies – such as IBM – need to add high value services to grow their businesses,” Mr Spohrer said.

Professor McColl-Kennedy said the conference would also feature some home-grown talent.

“Brisbane’s own Rod Wakefield, CEO of the Coffee Club, will talk about the impact of a differentiated culture in the competitive franchising sector,” Professor McColl-Kennedy said.

She said topics to be covered included new research on customer switching behaviour in the telecoms and banking industries, a paper looking at the differences between loyalty card holders and other consumers, and electronic service delivery.

“It’s an outstanding program and anyone working in the services sector, especially services marketers, will want to take the opportunity to learn from people they’d usually have to travel overseas to hear,” she said.

To find out more about the Frontiers in Service conference, visit the website www.business.uq.edu.au/frontiers/index.phtml

For more information, contact Cathy Stacey on (07) 3365 6179 or 0434 074 372