Dr. Spohrer established the first services research group in IBM Research in 2003. Prior to that, he co-founded a group within IBM to create win-win relationships among venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and IBM Global Services.

We understand "computer science." But in what way can "services" be a science?

Service research has gradually emerged over the last 70 years. First, economists noticed that national economies were evolving from agriculture to manufacturing to service activities as the basis of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), job and, recently, export growth. Second, marketing and operations groups in business schools noticed that all businesses—whether they were thought of as traditional manufacturing (such as auto maker or technology maker) or traditional service (finance, healthcare)—were on a journey of growing differentiation through superior service, becoming heavily dependent on IT systems to maintain knowledge-intensive relationships with customers and apply new discoveries to create more value in the relationship. Third, industrial engineering, operations research, computer science and other departments noticed that an increasing number of their graduates were working in the service sector, so they began shifting engineering schools toward a deeper knowledge of service systems. Finally, in the 1990s and 2000s, the rapid growth of both global outsourcing and IT-enabled self-service via Web portals and the Internet accelerated the growth of service economies in developing countries of the world that sought to establish knowledge-intensive service centers in their countries. Recently, the nations of the world and businesses have realized that the growth of the knowledge economy (where we create knowledge) and the growth of the service economy (where we apply knowledge to create value) are just two sides of the same coin that some are calling the innovation economy.

So you're saying "services" can be seen from both a business perspective and a technical perspective—and service science is where those two come together?

Service research addresses the challenges of improving the quality, productivity, regulatory compliance and sustainable innovation of service systems. Service systems are complex systems that dynamically configure access to resources (people, organizations, technology and information) to interact with other service systems and mutually create and capture value. From a globally integrated enterprise perspective, service systems can be thought of as service centers. From a Component Business Model and service-oriented architecture perspective, service systems can be thought of as business components or the building-block service components that make up an enterprise. Service systems interact via types of value propositions (internal and external business models) that connect them into vast global service networks.

As a field of study, however, this is very new, right? How did that develop?

SSME—or Service Science, Management, and Engineering—has been gradually emerging over the last four years. Through many meetings and presentations and a growing number of papers, more and more people, both internally at IBM and externally, have become aware of SSME and service science. While the numbers grow every day, over 130 universities in 44 countries have started or aligned efforts around SSME. Internally, IBM Research, Global Services and other divisions, University Relations, Government Programs, Communications, HR and others have been evolving SSME-related efforts. These efforts have led governments to announce programs and make investments totaling nearly $500 million in the last four years.

How does SSME compare to IBM's role in creating the field of computer science 60 years ago?

The major parallel is the debate over whether this is really a science. For computer science, the debate raged strong all the way into the 1960s. In the early days, some were saying if there could be a science of computers, there could be a science of washing machines.

The main difference is that we already live in a world full of service systems, with access to more and more every day. Computer science was studying something that was very rare in the world—digital computers—and creating them, the discipline, and a theory of computation all at the same time in a sort of co-evolution.

What excites you most about this new discipline and its possibilities?

Personally, I believe a Moore's Law of service systems is on the horizon, if service science is successful, and one implication of such a law (which is really just an investment roadmap) would be to smooth out certain business cycles and increase the chances for sustainable innovation and economic growth. That would be a pretty big deal for IBM and the world.