Operational excellence using gap analysis: UAE IT centers case study

Purpose: There is a high demand on distance learning due to COVID 19 pandemic As a result, the information technology centers of any educational institution are playing important role in maintaining the quality of education It is very vital to assess and enhance the IT service performance The motivation behind this research paper is to measure the operational excellence by applying gap analysis technique The SERVQUAL tool is used in this research study in the information technology centers in three universities in United Arab Emirates Design/methodology/approach: The research study is conducted by calculating the perception and expectation scores (performance-based model) The gap scores (expected scores minus perceived-based model) are examined using SERVQUAL tool The methodology is using survey questionnaire to collect data from 200-250 users of IT service centers from each university The questionnaire has 22 questions, which represent the 22 items of five SERVQUAL dimensions The survey participants concluded that the SERVQUAL is a useful tool for IT center service quality in the three educational institutions presented in this paper Findings: The SERVQAUL identified the gaps in service quality of IT centers for these institutions The perception and expected scores of SERVQUAL in three IT centers of these institutions are also illustrated The perception results are tabulated versus the expected results as well as the gaps are calculated Moreover, we demonstrated the comparison between the average perception and the expected dimension scores results for each university As a result, the averages of each dimension's items is calculated and the benchmarking between universities is done in terms of average expected and perception scores Research limitations/implications: We can conclude that the three universities should focus on the responsiveness dimension as it gets the lowest average gap scores This study is cross sectional that is done on the users only In addition, the decision makers' and service providers' feedback can be studied and more elaborated Originality/value: These scores can be used in business excellence models' criteria Some of these models can be Malcolm Baldrige or European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) SERVQUAL can be integrated within the Malcolm or EFQM to enhance performance and continuous improvement © 2020 Universidade do Minho All rights reserved