Service Innovation in Malaysian Banking Industry towards Sustainable Competitive Advantage through Environmentally and Socially Practices

Globalisation and increasing market competitiveness have driven banking institutions toward innovativeness in their operation to gain sustainable competitive advantage. Banking institutions are now competing on the basis of services rather than on the basis of physical products as it is hard to distinguish between products of competing brands in a given product category. It is the service offered by the banks that manifests true value. Service innovation involves intangible resources for a more radical service logic perspective that challenges the conventional attribute-based view of services delivery designs. It goes beyond the conventional boundaries of product innovativeness and involves assimilation of improved service processes by means of designing and improvising service delivery systems. In fact, the Malaysian banking industry has witnessed radical transformations based on many innovations in products, processes, services, business models, technology, and delivery systems. The pervasive influence of information and communication technology has revolutionized in banking. There has been relatively little research investigated the appropriate service innovations that influence firm performance in Malaysian banking industry. Thus, this research paper attempts a look at identifying the initiatives of Maybank Malaysia toward sustainability through a planned and systematic service innovation. The study is conceptual, based on survey of literature and document analysis. Two models of innovation 4P's of Innovation models by Bessant and Tidd (2011) and Six Dimensional Model of Service Innovation by den Hertog, van der Aa and de Jong (2010) were used in the study. It is observed that Maybank is moving towards sustainable competitive advantage through environmentally and socially responsible business practices. The findings of this paper aim to contribute to the strategic planning of banking institutions by optimizing their resource allocation to ensure sustainable growth.