VietNamNet Bridge – A pilot project to promote service science will begin this year in HCM City in an aim to increase quality and added value to the service sector.

Service science applies new management science and technology to bring benefits to an organisation and its partners and customers.

"Service science is the key for the current ‘knowledge-based economy'," Phan Minh Tan, director of the municipal Science and Technology Department, said.

Speaking at the recent Service Science & Innovation conference sponsored by IBM in HCM City, Tan said the sector contributed around 75 per cent of GDP for developed nations and 45 per cent for developing countries.

"The city has sufficient conditions and opportunities to develop and exploit the new but potential science," said Nguyen Van Lang, deputy minister of the Science and Technology.

HCM City, the service sector had contributed around 55 per cent to GDP with an annual growth rate of around 10 per cent each year.

The city targets to raise the rate up to 59 per cent and increase its annual growth rate by 12 per cent by 2015.

Five sectors in Viet Nam have a competitive advantage, including tourism, telecommunications, logistics, science-technology, and finance-banking-insurance.

"However, the proportion of luxury services is very small, along with a low, efficient investment," Tan said.

He said that development of the services sector was faster than that of the industrial sector, and, as a result, the current social and technical infrastructure was not sufficient.

High expenditures and unqualified human resources have also limited the development of the sector.

For the first stage of the project, which will end in 2013, the Viet Nam Service Research and Innovation Institute (SRII), with support from IBM's SRII, will be created to link the government, research institutes and enterprises with international organisations.

"Sending staff to study abroad and opening training courses for service science will be our first activities," Tan said.

Tourism, education and trade will be first industries receiving support from service science activities.

"Service science will be successful if information technology is strongly applied," said Kris Singh, president of IBM's Service Research and Innovation Institute.

He also stressed the role of the internet, mobile devices and cloud computing in developing service science.

"With traditional agricultural production, Viet Nam should make plans to apply service science to agriculture," Singh proposed.

New service model businesses along with high levels of IT application are both crucial for a sustainable service science, he added.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News