A service network is a collection of people and information brought together on the internet to provide a specific service or achieve a common business objective. It is an evolving extension of service systems and applies Enterprise 2.0 technologies, also known as enterprise social software, to enable corporations to leverage the advances of the consumer internet for the benefit of business.
A service network is designed to benefit from the wisdom of crowds and a human's natural tendency and desire to share information, collaborate, and self organize into communities of common interests and objectives. In business, the value of collaboration is clearly recognized, but the ability is often hampered by rigid organizational boundaries and fragmented information systems. A service network enables businesses to realize the benefits of mass collaboration despite the constraints of modern organizational structures and systems.
The term service network is increasingly being used within the context of service innovation initiatives that span academia, business, and government. Some examples include:
- The University of Cambridge and IBM Corporation use the term service network in their discussion paper, "Succeeding through Service Innovation" and describe it within the context of service systems networks.
- Ingres Corporation uses the term service network as a new paradigm in software service to enable Enterprise 2.0 IT service management.
- Openwater Corporation uses the term service network to help describe and brand their product offerings and solutions.
Read more about Service Network: History, Investments in Service Innovation, Delivery and Usage, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words service and/or network:
“In any service where a couple hold down jobs as a team, the male generally takes his ease while the wife labors at his job as well as her own.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)