Specifying Enabling Services in Telecommunications Service Systems

In telecommunications, increasingly complex service systems evolve which have the objective to produce ICT services. The increased complexity is due to the convergence of the industry sectors information technology, telecommunications and media. Telecommunication network operators are challenged to modify their business strategies: they can not any more produce ICT services in a vertically integrated fashion but need to market preliminary services as suppliers for other ICT service providers. For this task, modular service concepts known from Service Science and IS research can be employed. ICT service modules, so called Enabling Services, are provided on Service Delivery Platforms to support service development. In this work, an Enabling Service conceptualization is developed. Based on a case study, a process for the specification of Enabling Services is presented

Unpacking the relationship between digital capabilities, services capabilities, and firm financial performance: A moderated mediation model

Extant research exploring the relationship between servitization, digitalization, and firm financial and market performance provides valuable insights, but yields inconsistent and inconclusive results. This study argues that these inconsistencies arise from the ambiguous nature of servitization. Prior research have operationalized servitization as a business model (service type) or a set of service capabilities, treating these distinct constructs interchangeably. This study, therefore, advanced the proposition that both service capabilities and service type need to be incorporated into an integrated framework. To test this, the research develops and empirically validates a moderated-mediation model for the relationship between digitalization, service type (moderator), service capabilities (mediator) and firm financial and market performance using data from 204 manufacturing firms. The results indicate that service capabilities positively mediate the relationship between digitalization and firm financial and market performance. The moderating effect of the service type on service capabilities and firm financial and market performance are more pronounced for services supporting customers than services supporting products. The findings underline the imperative for manufacturers to develop their digital capabilities to enhance their service capabilities, irrespective of the type of services they offered. The findings contribute by enriching our understanding of the relationship between servitization, digitalization and firm performance.Engineering and Physical Science Research Council through the Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services NetworkPlus funded by grant ref. EP/R044937/

The effect of competition among brokers on the quality and price of differentiated internet services

Price war, as an important factor in undercutting competitors and attracting customers, has spurred considerable work that analyzes such conflict situation. However, in most of these studies, quality of service (QoS), as an important decision-making criterion, has been neglected. Furthermore, with the rise of service-oriented architectures, where players may offer different levels of QoS for different prices, more studies are needed to examine the interaction among players within the service hierarchy. In this paper, we present a new approach to modeling price competition in (virtualized) service-oriented architectures, where there are multiple service levels. In our model, brokers, as the intermediaries between end-users and service providers, offer different QoS by adapting the service that they obtain from lower-level providers so as to match the demands of their clients to the services of providers. To maximize profit, players, i.e. providers and brokers, at each level compete in a Bertrand game while they offer different QoS. To maintain an oligopoly market, we then describe underlying dynamics which lead to a Bertrand game with price constraints at the providers' level. Numerical simulations demonstrate the behavior of brokers and providers and the effect of price competition on their market shares.This work has been partly supported by National Science Foundation awards: CNS-0963974, CNS-1346688, CNS-1536090 and CNS-1647084

Cloudbus Toolkit for Market-Oriented Cloud Computing

This keynote paper: (1) presents the 21st century vision of computing and identifies various IT paradigms promising to deliver computing as a utility; (2) defines the architecture for creating market-oriented Clouds and computing atmosphere by leveraging technologies such as virtual machines; (3) provides thoughts on market-based resource management strategies that encompass both customer-driven service management and computational risk management to sustain SLA-oriented resource allocation; (4) presents the work carried out as part of our new Cloud Computing initiative, called Cloudbus: (i) Aneka, a Platform as a Service software system containing SDK (Software Development Kit) for construction of Cloud applications and deployment on private or public Clouds, in addition to supporting market-oriented resource management; (ii) internetworking of Clouds for dynamic creation of federated computing environments for scaling of elastic applications; (iii) creation of 3rd party Cloud brokering services for building content delivery networks and e-Science applications and their deployment on capabilities of IaaS providers such as Amazon along with Grid mashups; (iv) CloudSim supporting modelling and simulation of Clouds for performance studies; (v) Energy Efficient Resource Allocation Mechanisms and Techniques for creation and management of Green Clouds; and (vi) pathways for future research.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, Conference pape

Foundations Of Service Science Management And Business

This paper continues with the conspectus of Service Science for academicians and practitioners. It follows the previous paper, entitled Foundations of Service Science: Concepts and Facilities, with the express purpose of defining the scope of the discipline. A thriving flexible service economy has emerged through globalization and digitization, and as a direct result, the modern enterprise has a dynamically changing boundary based on a portfolio of services obtained through make, buy, or rent decisions. Through the application of information and communications technology (ICT), many organizations have adjusted everyday operations enabling them to go through a transformational process to achieve revenue growth by being able to respond more quickly to changing market conditions and by being more effective and efficient in the application of services. The viewpoint taken here is that service management and modern business usually employ a complex computer infrastructure, but their domain is by no means restricted to computer-based services

The anatomy of choice: an analysis of the determinants of local service delivery in Poland

Published online: 05 Jun 2020The aim of the paper is to identify the factors determining the choice between service delivery modes to provide local services. The original choice model proposed by Ferris and Graddy predicts that local officials seek to minimise service delivery costs (production and transaction costs), subject to political and fiscal constraints. The article tests production efficiency and transaction costs hypotheses in relation to the modes of service delivery adopted by local governments in Poland: in-house, corporatisation, cooperation, contracting out. It explores delivery choices of three different services: water supply, local transportation, and home care for elderly people. Based on the results of a nationwide survey addressed to all municipalities we test the aforementioned hypotheses using multinomial logit regression models. The empirical evidence confirms the basic expectations that the externalisation of service delivery is a function of local officials’ attempt to minimise the sum of production and transaction costs subject to fiscal and political constraints.The article is part of a research project supported by the Polish National Science Centre, entitled ‘Determinants of local public service provision model in the context of transaction costs economy, market characteristics and political costs’ under grant agreement number UMO-2016/23/B/HS4/03148. Antonio Tavares acknowledges the support of the Centre for Research in Political Science (UIDB/CPO/00758/2020), University of Minho/University of Évora, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science