Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, except
those in the goods-producing sectors -- agriculture, mining,
construction, and manufacturing, the service sector encompasses all
other industries including transportation, logistics, communication,
wholesale and retail, trade, education, finance, insurance, real estate,
healthcare, criminal justice, postal operations, government, and a
variety of public utilities. The service industry has grown to dominate
developed economies. In the US 80% of GDP in 2005 was derived from the
service sector. However, according to [1], "[t]he service sector
accounts for most of the world's economic activity, but it's the
least-studied part of the economy." In 2003, US National Academy of
Engineering (NAE) reported this important finding when "The Impact
of Academic Research on Industrial Performance
" project was completed.
According to the NAE project report [2], the service industry employs
a large and growing share of national workforce (about 80% in 2005),
and is the primary users of information technology. Even in most
manufacturing industries, the service functions (e.g., sales, logistics,
distribution, and customer service) focusing on increasing customer
values have become leading sources for improved business competitiveness.
Although it is well understood that the rate of innovations and
level of productivity in the services infrastructure (e.g., finance,
transportation, communication, and healthcare) have an enormous
impact on the productivity and performance of all other segments
of the economy, the research and education in both academics and
industries are not focused on or organized to meet the needs of
service businesses. It was suggested that universities and industries
should immediately and appropriately address the challenges by "(1)
adapting and applying systems and industrial-engineering concepts,
methodologies, and quality-control processes to service functions
and businesses; (2) integrating technological research with research
in social sciences, management, and public policy; and (3) educating
and training engineering and science graduates to deal with management,
policy, and social issues."
Service is typically considered as an application of specialized
knowledge, skills, and experiences, performed for the benefit of
another [1, 3]. Service is perishable, heterogeneous, and intangible,
commonly provided for either individuals or businesses to create
desirable value to satisfy their needs [4, 5]. Although a significant
portion of the services provided by the services industry is consumed
by individuals, such as medical, education, insurance, legal, financial,
and retailing services, recently business services that serve different
business units or organizations are growing quite rapidly [4]. For
example, technical support, enterprise resource planning, call center
operations, sales management, IT implementation, logistics, and
business investment and transformation consulting are well recognized
as a business service [6].
Driven by today's new business environment that
includes advanced telecommunications, accelerated business
globalization, increased automation, and rapid technology innovations,
emphasis in the service sector has evolved from a traditional
labor-based business to sources of innovations, collaboration, and value
co-creation, driving the emergence of service-value
networks
at a pace never before seen
in history [7]. It is obviously a trend that leading and competitive
services are all remarkably delineated with information-driven,
customer-centric, e-oriented, and satisfaction-focused characteristics.
A variety of services enabled through service-value networks in
the high value areas have been emerging recently, such as online
information and knowledge service, IT outsourcing to post-sales
training, on demand innovations consulting (e.g., work helping customers
reengineer products, automate business processes, improve goods
and services delivery efficiency, and design and deploy supportive
IT systems). In evidence, IBM Global Consulting, Accentric, Google,
eBay, Amazon, YouTube, Yahoo, and online distance education well
represent these emerging services. Note that traditional services
providers (e.g., UPS, Wal-Mart, etc.) are also transforming themselves
into service-value networks. It is well understood that the quality
of their provided services largely depends on very large-scale
public information infrastructures and complex services systems
in order to satisfy the diverse needs of worldwide customers.
However, there lack of full-fledged
sciences that could systematically guide the plan, design, marketing,
engineering, and delivery of services to meet the needs of today's
changing, complicated, and dynamic global
service-led economy [1, 4]. To address the
needs, Figure 1 proposes perspectives of uncharted services science by
illustrating that: (a) the development of
service-oriented science and engineering is
the key to the success of the conduct of competitive service practices
(i.e., production/consumption), and (b) service systems must be
people-centric,
IT-powered, and
market-driven
, consisting of people, technology, infrastructures,
and processes of performance [1, 8, 9].
Figure 1: Services Science: Service and Service Systems
This research workshop is dedicated to this emerging area of services
science, management, and engineering. It essentially aims at creating
and supporting an effective venue for a group of leading scholars
from academics and industries to exchange points of view Services
Science so as to gain better insights of services science, management,
and engineering in general. Three sessions (Industry Perspective,
Academia Perspective, and Roundtable Discussion) will be organized
at the workshop. By exploring the current US services industrial
needs, research areas will be explored and corresponding priorities
identified, which could be potentially used as a reference for NSF
and US service enterprises to create their next research agenda.
In addition, this sponsored group will communicate with other worldwide
leading scholars by delivering keynotes and panel sessions at SOLI'2007.
(more ...)
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