Opportunities for Working with Almaden Services Research in Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME)

A major goal of Almaden Services Research (ASR) is to improve the capacity for innovation in services at IBM and elsewhere. This goal is the foundation for a new discipline that industry and academia are calling Services Sciences, Management and Engineering (SSME). This new field will bring together ongoing work in computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences to develop the skills required in a services-led economy.

IBM is interested in increasing knowledge available to apply to the design of its IT-supported service business and offerings. Specifically, IBM seeks to develop a systematic approach to services innovation to create a service business that can develop and implement technological applications to help businesses, governments and other organizations improve what they do and tap into new areas of value. IBM is interested in many aspects of services, including business transformation services (B2B services), business-to-employee (B2E services, related to B2C services), service technologies (self-service, web services, service computing, service-oriented architecture), industry and organization modeling tools, service operations, service management, labor productivity, client satisfaction, as well as service offering innovation, strategy, design, pricing, sales, and delivery.

IBM has thousands of technical researchers and business consultants around the world dedicated to services. This group of technical and business talent is the perfect place to test and develop SSME theories and practices.

At ASR, we want to leverage this capability in collaborative ventures with academic or industry representatives who can help drive the creation of new programs and courses, and can help establish a new community around SSME. We seek to develop relationships with faculty to grow our shared understanding of important issues, stay current with new relevant findings, and cultivate channels for producing top students with the multidisciplinary training needed in our services research organization and in our global services business.

There are several ways we can connect with faculty, including:

• participation in key events at IBM or at your university
• collaboration in grant proposals
• IBM hiring students as interns
• IBM representatives co-teaching courses
• co-development of grant proposals or workshop events
• joint research projects
• industry-academic rotations
• faculty sabbaticals and summer visits

Working with ASR

1. Visit

The purpose of visiting ASR might be for general discussions about SSME or service innovations, and should be oriented toward exploring the opportunities for joint work. A visit might last from one day to two weeks.

2. Joint work

We seek joint research projects between academia and IBM that have relevance to SSME. Joint work might be funded by an academic or government institution. ASR supports joint work through sharing resources. ASR might also be able to sponsor an IBM Faculty Award.

3. Faculty rotations

A faculty rotation is like a long-term visit aimed at carrying out joint research on a relevant SSME topic. A rotation lasts between one month and one year, and is meant for faculty who can reside most of the time at Almaden to work with researchers in ASR. As with joint work, many funding models are possible, including external grants and partial support from IBM.

How to find out more

All suggestions for visits, joint work, and rotations will be considered. ASR will select visitors and projects based on the intellectual merit and quality of the proposed activity. Some considerations are:

• How important is this activity to advancing knowledge and understanding across different fields?
• How qualified is the applicant to lead the project?
• To what extent is this proposal original and creative?
• To what extent will the project advance the creation of SSME?
• What are the potential impacts to business innovation?

Inquiries may be addressed to ASR’s SSME leader, Paul Maglio via email. pmaglio@us.ibm.com

We would like to hear from you!

Download this file, and use it to create a proposal. We would be delighted to see it.