Dr Vinnie Jauhari 
Editor

In line with the global trend, the services sector in India is growing rapidly. In 2000-01, the share of services in the country’s GDP was 54.2% up from the 51.5% recorded in 1998-99. The sectors like entertainment industry, health services, education, tourism, finance, real estate are all booming. It is therefore essential to look at the critical factors for success in the area of services, evaluate the emerging strategies, assess the competition, and understand the dynamics of emerging businesses where the online selling is also emerging out to be an important component. The ‘Journal of Services Research’ was conceived and developed with such an intent and documents the management issues related with the Services Industry.
 

The journal demonstrates the commitment of IIMT- Oxford Brookes University to academics and research. The journal features in the international databases – EBSCO(www.epnet.com) and Proquest (www.proquest.com) .These databases are providing online access to over 2500 journals (full text) and therefore JSR is internationally read and circulated.

An international editorial board with representation from big business and hospitality schools makes it a truly international product. Some of the Universities being represented on the Editorial Board of JSR are: Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, United Nations University, Oxford Brookes University, Tokyo; Tokyo Institute of Technology Tokyo, University at Solano, New Mexico, Ohio State University, University of Colorado, IMHI, Paris, Southern Connecticut State University, Georgia

The journal wants to accomplish lots of milestones in terms of defining and redefining paradigms to achieve excellence in the area of services research. There are a range of issues that one comes across such as Public Private partnerships. Many of the services such as health and education are considered fundamental human rights. Though while serving a population of over 1.2 billion people, there are issues in terms of nature and form of delivery. Research documenting the models of delivery would be very interesting. The challenge would be how to facilitate the public private partnerships in this particular sector.

Also there are issues related with the investments in services sector in terms of the targeted segment. Most of the services are targeted at the richer segment and there are lesser opportunities for the masses. Quality education, safe drinking water, healthcare facilities, transport, utilities are all services which are distributed unequally. There are differences in the nature of workforce as the cultural factors play their role. How the work ethics in different cultures have an impact on the behaviour of the workforce has to be seen. There is a need to benchmark various forms and models of delivery of different services . Be it retailing or e-tailing, utilities, hospitality, education – the challenges are immense.

There is also a need to document the new experiments in entrepreneurship in the services sector. The existence of different business formats and causes of their success would be insightful. The emergence of brands like Barista, The Great Kebab Factory, Choice Hospitality, Apollo Hospitals, Hutch are all examples which are unconventional in their approach. They have set new milestones and have identified gaps in the market and have tried to set new benchmarks in the area of services.

 All these experiences in strategy formulation, marketing, HR , financing in various segments of service industry would be something that JSR values immensely. We would like to showcase the state of art research with lot of rigour and freshness in its approach. We value your support immensely and invite you to be a part of this research movement.

Dr Vinnie Jauhari
Founding Editor,Journal of Services Research
Director, Institute for International Management and Technology.