We were profiled today by The Phoenix , a local newspaper and I think it was very well written on our approach to service design. Here’s the article…

New Start-up Focuses on ‘Service Design’

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8:39 AM EDT

By G.E. Lawrence

MALVERN — For Charlestown resident Bob Cooper and Frontier Service Design LLC, the most interesting part of finding ways to add to a company’s bottom line is its intellectual challenge.

"We want to work with clients who know what they know, and more importantly, know what they don’t know," Cooper says. Clients who are "eager to find a knowledgeable and experienced partner who will help them know what they don’t know."

That’s no Zen koan: it’s a principle of a business model emerging out of Cooper’s over two decades working with corporate clients, and discovering along the way undiscovered value in what they do — leading to the development of new and consistent revenue streams.

"The most fun and profitable relationships for everyone," Cooper says, are those "where we really get inside the business, understand the culture and the people, and really make a difference through service design."

"Service design?" Yes, the focus is on "service," in a national economy in which 70 percent of gross domestic product is in services, not products — but on the services surrounding manufacture, as well.

His new company, Cooper says, takes "an approach to help companies design, prototype and launch" service innovations, by getting to know a company’s processes thoroughly, and applying good ideas and best practices across industries, developing in the end "new and recurring revenue streams.

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