The Impact of Information Technology and the Alignment between Business and Service Innovation Strategy on Service Innovation Performance

New Service Development is a fundamental issue concerning researchers and managers, as successful new services can have a positive impact on competitive advantage. Innovation is an important factor which can positively affect firm performance. Unfortunately, the percentage of unsuccessful services is high that can be due to lack of strategy in New Service Development. When services are supported by Information Technology they can support and increase their innovation rate. Such an implementation requires both advanced technological capabilities and alignment. By the way there is a lack of structured literature reviews in the field of New Service Development upon the examination of these issues. Consequently, this literature review aims to promote not only the strategic alignment but also the Information Technology capabilities considering these two main factors as the most important ones for the successful implementation of new services. Webster's and Watson's methodology has been selected as it is tried and tested by many researchers in the field of Management. Research shows that managers should focus on these two factors in order to develop successful new services in accordance with their customers' needs and to increase their performance, as well.