Location: CSIRO ICT Centre in Marsfield, Pembroke Rd & Vimiera Rd, Marsfield NSW

Directions: CSIRO ICT Centre in Marsfield, Pembroke Rd & Vimiera Rd, Marsfield NSW

Program
List of Delegates

World economies have effectively moved to a service economy where at least 75% of the GDP of most western countries is in the service sector. In the case of Australia, the GDP is even more pronounced where services generate nearly 80% of Australia’s GDP and nearly 85% of employment. They contribute over $40 billion (or 21%) of total exports at an annual growth rate of 3.5%. The service sector is wide and varied. It includes health services, financial services, tourism, government services, etc. Several definitions to services have been proposed. In a nutshell, services are those activities in which there is an interaction between provider and client that creates and captures value. The majority of this value is intangible rather than residing in any physical product. Services have a number of common features: (1) They are intangible, (2) They create benefits, (3) They are the interactions surrounding the delivery of an outcome or product, (4) They are the result of a collaboration between two or more entities, (5) They are associated with a product but are not the end product itself.

Every major shift in the economy has traditionally been accompanied and/or stimulated by new technologies. Although the service economy has been very pronounced for at last a decade, there have been very little focused research efforts to support and enhance the service economy. This realization has inspired a flurry of research activities both in industry and academia to fill the void. As a result, there has been a strong push to build a foundation for a new science, called service science to cater for this new economic paradigm. This science would draw and build upon from disciplines such as computing, business management, systems engineering, and economics, to name a few. While the goals and methods are still amorphous, the needs are clear. The service economy needs to be supported with tools to model, design, implement processes to sustain growth and create serendipitous opportunities for the provisioning of newer and novel services.

This workshop aims at bringing together leading researchers in the broad area of services in Australia to foster discussions on how to set a coherent and effective service research agenda and create a sustainable momentum for a research service community in Australia that would deliver tangible competitive results to the service sector. This year’s workshop will be by invitation-only to keep it of a relatively small size to elicit high level interactions. The workshop will feature two keynote presentations from renowned researchers in the area. There will be two panels on topical service research issues.

Workshop Chairs:
Boualem Benatallah (UNSW)
Athman Bouguettaya (CSIRO)
Jian Yang (Macquarie Univ)