Services Science to Be Taught at NC State

Abstract

A new field called Science is beginning to emerge in academia. This fall, NC State University was the first American research university to offer new master's-level curricula in services in its Colleges of Engineering and Management. NC State is undertaking this initiative because we live in a service economy. Today, services account for almost three-fourths of the jobs in economically advanced countries such as the United States and Japan. also account for a sizable and growing share of jobs in rapidly growing countries such as Brazil (53 percent) and China (35 percent). These numbers actually underestimate the role of services. For instance, IBM is still considered a manufacturing company, but half of its revenues come from its services business. Most manufacturing companies are in a similar situation. As more physical production gets outsourced, the remaining jobs in manufacturing companies will be focused on activities such as analysis, communication, design, and research. When agriculture was the dominant industry, higher education responded with the land grant movement and the creation of colleges of agriculture. As manufacturing became dominant, higher education again responded, this time with colleges of engineering. Certain unique aspects of the services sector of our economy call out for new approaches. Are Unique In the goods-producing sector of the economy, money changes hands in return for the delivery of a product. The services sector has the following unique properties: * The customer pays the provider to perform a task or provide a capability; this service is co-produced by the customer and the provider. * The provider must understand the customer's business and the customer must understand the provider's capabilities for the exchange to be successful; mutual expectations and responsibilities must be clearly defined. * Service transactions tend to be highly customized, thereby creating a challenge for determining how activities can be replicated or scaled. * You cannot talk about services without talking about people, both in terms of (1) building and maintaining relationships and (2) understanding the interface between people, business strategy, business processes, and technology. Little Scientific Knowledge In terms of both academic degree programs and research activity, services have been a low priority in academe. Some industrial engineering and operations research programs are starting to pay attention to services issues; some business schools have programs in services marketing. But these are fringe, not core, activities. Given the size and uniqueness of the service sector and our lack of rigorous knowledge about its operations, there is a mismatch between our research capabilities and our research opportunities. The New Discipline science applies insights from scientific, management, and engineering perspectives to analyze how to align people and technology effectively to generate value for both services providers and clients. The focus is primarily on business performance transformation services. IBM organized a conference on Architecture of On Demand in May 2004 that resulted in the white paper Services Science: A New Academic Discipline? Recent articles in Financial Times, Business Week, Harvard Business Review, Technology Review and The New York Times have highlighted this new discipline. Science at NC State Planning began at NC State in April 2005 when faculty from the Colleges of Engineering and Management discovered mutual interests. Meeting regularly throughout that summer, they agreed upon a framework that would allow new services programs to be launched in fall 2006. This is faster than the speed of light in academic circles. It happened for two reasons. First, NC State had two degree programs already in place that served as excellent platforms for services education: an M. …

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