GTM-based service map to identify new service opportunities

Abstract

This study proposes a unique approach for developing and utilising generative topographic mapping (GTM)-based service maps to discover new opportunities of smartphone application service (SAS) with a case of App Store. Since GTM is a probabilistic approach of mapping multidimensional data space onto a low-dimensional latent space and vice versa, it contributes to the automatic detection and interpretation of derived service vacuums that must be intensively investigated to discover new opportunities of SAS. The main contributions and potential utilities of this study are threefold. First, this study theoretically contributes to new service development (NSD) research in mobile service area by proposing an intelligent approach. Secondly, this study is exploratory in that the inverse mapping of a GTM model is first proposed. Lastly, since all activities in the process could be computerised, researchers, engineers, managers, etc., who are interested in NSD can save considerable time and effort when uncovering new service opportunities in terms of managerial implications. Copyright ⓒ 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd