Service Innovation in the Eyes of Customers: The Swedish Innovation Index

The growing importance of service has brought greater opportunities for service innovations to influence the market and improve both customers’ and firms’ situations. Despite efforts by firms to develop service innovations, they often fail to introduce new services on the market. Ultimately, customers are the ones to assess, buy, and use a new service. That is why the Swedish Innovation Index was introduced as a customer-centric perspective on service innovation, which measures firms based on customers’ perceptions of their innovations. This allows firms to predict the future adoption of new services and the relative attractiveness of the firms. The Swedish Innovation Index provides a new perspective that is independent of the firm-centric view of innovation. It opens avenues for both managers and academics to observe, predict, and better utilize the potential of service innovations.