i had an opportunity to speak at a conference in the beautiful city of chengdu, china. the conference was very much academic centric. it was also an honor to share the same podium with some of the great educators and minds in fields of mathematics and computer science all over the world. being the only delegation from the business sector, the first challenge was to pick the right topic. with help from jon, service science came to mind and it turned out to be a great choice. it made the right "connection" with the academic audiences.
so what is service science? since the term is evolving and the field is still emerging, there is no one universally accepted definition. or we are still at the blind men and an elephant phase which is perfectly fine. in a nutshell service science is an emerging multi-discipline approach that accelerates development of innovative service offerings and delivery mechanisms with collaboration from industries, governments, academia and communities.
the service industry has grown significantly globally and it represents 57% of global GDP according to latest available data. the number is a lot higher for some of the industrialized countries. while we know how innovation works for products, there are little tools and methods that guide innovation in services. in order to sustain such growth, industries, governments and academia need to put service innovation as a priority.
during Q&A a great question was asked by a student - sun is known as a "product" company with server, storage and software such as solaris and java, why service and why now? beside the fact that service revenue at sun for Q1FY08 represents 38% of total revenue, customers are no longer just buying products from sun. they are buying end-to-end solutions from us. solutions that include support service, professional service, managed service, educational service and many others.
there are a lot more to talk about service science and it sure is an
exciting frontier. will service science make the same impact to the human kind similar to what computer science has been doing since the 60's?
act now and stay ahead ...
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Posted by Jon Greaves on January 01, 2008 at 03:15 PM EST #
Great topic! Given Sun's Open Source vector, we should be investing a lot in developing (and applying) the best IP in the area of Services! - eduard/o
Posted by Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart on January 01, 2008 at 03:55 PM EST #
If you're looking for a definition of service science, there's progress being made on the report from the Cambridge University Institute for Manufacturing. I've been trying to work through clarification on the language on a "science of service systems" at http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/science-of-service-systems-service-sector-service-economy/.
Posted by David Ing on May 10, 2008 at 11:58 AM EDT #