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typically service-oriented industries like banking and retail. She points to companies like IBM, Xerox, and HP that offer sales, support, and operation maintenance. Automotive companies, often viewed as tradi- tional manufacturers, have moved into financing, roadside and after- sales services, and in-vehicle tech- nologies like OnStar. Two years ago, NCSU's MBA program added a services con- centration that allows students to choose one of two tracks: services management, which focuses on consulting, sales, and marketing; and services innovation, which focuses on the analysis and design of business processes. Of the four new courses developed for the concentration, three cover topics related to services management, business processes, and organiza- tional culture. The fourth is a ser- vice innovation lab, where students in business, design, and engineering explore new concepts in service development and design. Companies provide projects for students to tackle in each course, says Montoya. Insurance com- pany Blue Cross Blue Shield asked students in the business process analysis and design course to look at its customer service operations and determine how it might best increase the range of products it offers. Target wanted to find new ways to interact with its custom- ers, so it asked NCSU students to explore services it might offer in the virtual-world environment, Sec- ond Life. Montoya agrees that the "T" concept is an apt metaphor for students who study SSME. "About 75 percent of our students come from science, tehnology, or engi- neering—that's their 'I,'" says Montoya. The training they receive in an MBA with a service manage- ment concentration helps them understand how technology, strat- egy, business processes, and people interact in service delivery, she adds. "We give them the bar that goes across the 'T.'" UNDERSTANDING THE SERVICE SUPPLY CHAIN SSME also has become an impor- tant part of the curriculum at Manchester Business School in the United Kingdom. Its undergraduate program in information technology management for business incorpo- rates a strong services orientation, and its MBA program offers an SSME elective. Administrators are considering adding a master's program devoted to service design and innovation, says Linda Macauley, professor of information system design. The move would be in recognition of how far and fast business is chang- ing, she says. "Service has long been thought of as more of an art than a science—something that does not require a systematic or sci- entific approach. But major organi- zations are now realizing that more of their revenues are coming from services than manufacturing." In Manchester's MBA elective course, students must choose services at their own companies to analyze and troubleshoot. The project can be an eye-opening look at how services are delivered—and how that delivery can be improved, says Macauley. For instance, when one student studied his company's call cen- ter, he found that operators were recording data inaccurately. That resulted in longer calls and greater customer frustration. Some companies might blame these inaccuracies on the operators and demand that they process calls faster, says Macauley. But when the student looked at the bigger picture, he found that the problem stemmed from the job environ- ment, not the workers. Operators reported low levels of job satisfac- tion, largely due to the restrictions they worked under—having to read from set scripts, for example. These restrictions took away the "human" element of the job and gave them very little motivation to improve. "This student took a much wider view, examining IT systems, company operations, and employee morale. As a result, he found that the whole interaction with the customer could be improved by redesigning it to include more human-to-human con- tact," says Macauley. MARKETING 'SERVICE SCIENCE' Although businesses are seeking out graduates with service-based skill sets, there still is no clear job description that suits SSME gradu- ates, says Macauley. "There are no job openings for 'service scientists,'" she says. "If students call themselves 'service engineers,' people think they fix televisions!" The goal for business schools, Macauley argues, is not only to give students skills that prepare them for a service-based economy, but also to market service science and innovation as a clear discipline and job track in its own right. To that BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009 63