What is "Service Science"?

The Background and Emergence of SSME

Service science, as defined by the Innovate America report, is a new discipline arising from the rapid development of services across the industrial world, rooted in the interdisciplinary study of computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, mathematics, business strategy, management sciences, decision theory, social and cognitive sciences and legal sciences. The goal of service science includes tackling issues such as to what extent organizations can be restructured, how to manage service innovation, and others. The actual components of service science include business strategy, business processes, HR optimization and fundamental technologies in IT. The current concept of service science has come to be called SSME (Services Science, Management and Engineering).

SSME emerged as a response to the lack of effort in service innovation on both the national and major IT-vendor levels despite the increasing importance of the service sector itself. Though major IT vendors are currently enjoying booming sales in services, the level of R&D funding for the service sector is surprisingly small. Furthermore, from the point of view of IT vendors, business managers are becoming increasingly interested in the effects of IT investments and it has become necessary for them to be able to quantifiably explain the effects of IT investments to client companies.

Promoting the Understanding of SSME

It is easy to understand why the importance of SSME is vague for many people. Service itself is multifaceted, and because the usual explanations of the two words “service” and “science” seem to have little connection to each other, proper understanding of SSME has been inhibited. For IT vendors, however, SSME is a vital theme that cannot be avoided, and it is indispensable for IT vendors to not only forge a deep understanding themselves, but also for their users to gain a grasp of the concept of SSME.

In order to promote the understanding of SSME it is first necessary to clarify the essential nature of services. At the most fundamental level, service is “the joint creation of value by providers and clients”. Service business, therefore, is the exchange of cost for the value jointly created by providers and clients, and thus it is natural that both providers and clients demand improved accuracy in measuring the degree of this value, in accurately forecasting the risk of actualizing this value, and other related issues.

This demand ties into the second reason as to why the word “science” is included in the definition of SSME. The essence of science lies in non-reliance on individual know-how, the creation of models through observing and measuring information, and the testing of these models. In other words, the essence of science is its reproducibility regardless of participants and its capacity for producing results with a high degree of future predictability. Thus, the role of “science” in SSME is to quantifiably forecast future value and risk.

IBM's Efforts in SSME

IBM is the current leader in actively promoting SSME, with the Almaden Research Center in California serving as the principle locus for SSME activity. IBM's efforts have two orientations: The first lies in the incorporation of academic circles, such as graduate institutions. The second is the support of IBM's current consulting and service divisions.

In regards to the former, IBM is hoping to attract MOT instructors from institutions in the U.S., the U.K., and (more recently) Japan in order to hold joint workshops on SSME. The company is also sponsoring 11 awards for U.S. instructors who have demonstrated exceptional efforts in SSME, and is currently preparing materials for graduate courses on SSME. As a result, there are some instructors with plans for establishing SSME courses in the near future. The future of high-level services will depend on adaptable personnel, and thus academic efforts in SSME can be seen as the first step of a far-reaching plan to prevent a personnel shortage as the service industry continues to develop.

In regards to the second orientation, IBM is aiming for valid and accurate decision-making in the modularization of business processes and module standardization. Other goals include standardizing the criteria for decisions on whether or not to outsource modules based on the importance of each module, as well as creating more accurate decision-making models for use in modules.

Responses by Japanese IT Vendors

SSME is still a very new concept, and as such it has not yet elicited any results in the actual business sector. However, graduate institution-level efforts are more active than ever, and as IBM's style of SSME is becoming the standard for instruction at graduate institutions, there is a strong possibility that the human resources produced will be most familiar with this style.

The phrase SSME includes the word “science”, and it encapsulates an intrinsically universal concept that can transcend local differences in industrial conditions. Currently, however, as the changing of the original appellation to SSME shows, there is a strong possibility that the actual practice of SSME on the individual level will be conducted based on American-style engineering. This does not necessarily mean, though, that this style of SSME is ideal for Japan's industrial conditions.

In response to this, it is crucial for Japanese IT vendors and institutes to develop their own version of SSME that coincides with Japanese industrial conditions. As research and experimentation progresses along these lines, it will also be crucial to use governmental policy to steer the future of SSME.