On March 6, Professor Paul P. Maglio from University of California Merced was invited to hold a seminar, titled “A Service Science Perspective on Big Data and Business Model Evolution,” hosted by the KAIST Department of Knowledge Service Engineering. Professor Maglio focused on the implications of big data from a service science perspective. He is considered to be one of the founders of the service science field.

Despite the fact that developed nations have relied on digital data of cosmic proportions to continue economic momentum, the amount of research that is done to understand this phenomenon is insufficient to fully appropriate the rewards of the big data revolution. Professor Maglio presented empirical findings that benefitted from analyzing big data in order to improve business models from a service science perspective.

Professor Maglio stated, “Service science is an interdisciplinary approach to study, improve, create, and innovate in service.” He also emphasized that service science must operate at the systems-level in order to fully adhere to the needs of clients. While service science is still a fledgling field of study, he noted that academia and industries are in general agreement on the awareness and potential implications of service science.

Big data refers to inordinately large data sets that pose technical, cultural, practical, and financial challenges to fully process and maximize its utility. Big data, when fully interpreted at a technical level, has the potential to provide massive profits for a business. “Big data is not big because there is a lot of it; big data is big because it comes in lots of shapes and sizes,” noted Professor Maglio. He emphasized the need for reconfiguration of service systems to enable big data to maximize value propositions.

Professor Maglio received his bachelor’s degree in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his doctor’s degree in Cognitive Science at University of California, San Diego in 1986 and 1995, respectively. With more than 100 publications in this field, he also served as the editorial staff of various service science journals, such as Service Science, Journal of Service Research, and Handbook of Service Science.