Research in service ecosystems

A "Services Sciences, Management, and Engineering (SSME)" [1] initiative has been started to study the movement to service economies involving computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences, and to develop the skills required in a services-led economy. Manufacturing industries show high interest in SSME, compared to services industries, since beyond follow-up sales of product-based services, the business strategies of manufacturing companies are changing to focus on services as key differentiators in their new business models. Those shifts to focus on the services businesses of manufacturing industries affect their internal business processes, which include research organizations. In this paper, first, we look into value chains for services comparing with product-based value chains, which are quite different. Some level of services, such as maintenance services for products, can be delivered using the as-is product-based value chains, where research organizations could contribute to businesses in the same way as when companies delivered products. However, a shifting to services focused business models requires changes of value flows. We discuss the difference between product-based value chains and the value chains for services. Since research organizations roles in value chains for services could be transforming, we look at some examples where these transformation have started.