IBM Research: Services Sciences, Management and Engineering

Services Sciences, Management and Engineering

About us

Services sciences, Management and Engineering hopes to bring together ongoing work in computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences to develop the skills required in a services-led economy.

The world economy is experiencing the largest labor force migration in history. Driven by an environment that includes global communications, business growth and technology innovation, services now accounts for more than 50 percent of the labor force in Brazil, Russia, Japan and Germany, as well as 75 percent of the labor force in the United States and the United Kingdom.

This unparalleled segment growth is changing the way companies organize themselves, creating a ripple effect in industries and universities that are closely tied to these organizations. For instance, historically, most scientific research has been geared to supporting and assisting manufacturing, which was once a dominant force in the world economy. Now that economies are shifting, industrial and academic research facilities need to apply more scientific rigor to the practices of services, such as finding better ways to use mathematical optimization to increase productivity and efficiency on demand.

Unfortunately, this shift to focusing on services has created a skills gap, especially in the area of high value services, which requires people who are knowledgeable about business and information technology, as well as the human factors that go into a successful services operation. Many leading universities have begun exploring and investing in this area, working in tandem with thought leaders in the business world. In May 2004, this group suggested that an entirely new academic discipline may be called for - first roughly described as services science at a summit held at IBM. Subsequent meetings have caused the discipline to evolve into the more appropriate Services Sciences, Management and Engineering title now used.

The SSME community is busily laying the groundwork to build this challenging new research area.