Hooked on (and into) Services

James C. Spohrer
Director of Service Research
IBM

We hear a lot about the service economy, but what is it really? To understand the nature of the service economy, get a piece of paper and start making a list of all the times you’re in the role of a customer during the course of a day. Start from the moment you turn on the lights in the morning (electric utility services), commute to work (transportation services), boot up your computer (information services), grab a sandwich at your desk (retail food services), check your bank balance (financial services), or put your feet up and watch TV (entertainment services). We are all in the role of customers of service systems about 40 times a day. Maintaining the infrastructure and supply chains that deliver these and many new types of services creates local jobs near you. As customers’ expectations of quality service rise, so do the number of knowledge-intensive service engineering and management jobs, as well as service sales and delivery jobs.