Service Innovation : Scope of Activities and Strategies

Innovation is broadly defined by Ofwat as the application of new technology, business processes or management expertise that delivers any improvements to customer service, the environment or cost efficiency. However, “Service Innovation” within the context of the UK water industry is widely discussed but often not defined further. More generally this has been broken down into innovation around service products, service processes and service organisational change. Therefore, defining what this means in practice will be one of the roles of the Technical Committee. 

Strategy 2015/16
In 2015/16 we plan to further outline the benefits of service innovation approaches, apply our definition to a range of case studies, and investigate implications for the 2019 water company water resources and business plans in the UK as well as wider sectors (click here to view our strategy document)

Scope for 2014/15
Initial areas of scope for this committee, based on the themes "service innovation and water efficiency", included:

• Retail competition service innovation for water efficiency;
• Innovative approaches to delivering services with customers and considering aspects such as the hydro-social contract and who is thought to be responsible for water efficiency delivery and messaging;
• Delivering partnership working for water efficiency (energy and social housing retrofit programmes - lessons learned, extent of implementation, further roll-out);
• Ensuring water efficiency is part of a wider integrated service innovation such as Water Sensitive Cities