Showing papers on "Services computing published in 2014"
TL;DR: The life cycle of Web services composition is overviews and the main standards, research prototypes, and platforms are surveyed using a set of assessment criteria identified in the article.
385 citations
Book•
20 Oct 2014
TL;DR: Value Proposition Design as mentioned in this paper is an essential companion to the Business Model Canvas, a tool embraced globally by startups and large corporations such as MasterCard, 3M, Coca Cola, GE, Fujitsu, LEGO, Colgate-Palmolive, and many more.
Abstract: Value Proposition Design helps you tackle the core challenge of every business — creating compelling products and services customers want to buy. This highly practical book, paired with its online companion, will teach you the processes and tools you need to create products that sell.
Using the same stunning visual format as the authors’ global bestseller, Business Model Generation, this sequel explains how to use the “Value Proposition Canvas” to design, test, create, and manage products and services customers actually want.
Value Proposition Design is for anyone who has been frustrated by new product meetings based on hunches and intuitions; it’s for anyone who has watched an expensive new product launch fail in the market. The book will help you understand the patterns of great value propositions, get closer to customers, and avoid wasting time with ideas that won’t work. You’ll learn the simple process of designing and testing value propositions, that perfectly match customers’ needs and desires.
In addition the book gives you exclusive access to an online companion on Strategyzer.com. You will be able to assess your work, learn from peers, and download pdfs, checklists, and more.
Value Proposition Design is an essential companion to the ”Business Model Canvas” from Business Model Generation, a tool embraced globally by startups and large corporations such as MasterCard, 3M, Coca Cola, GE, Fujitsu, LEGO, Colgate-Palmolive, and many more.
Value Proposition Design gives you a proven methodology for success, with value propositions that sell, embedded in profitable business models.
323 citations
TL;DR: A planning approach for the daily planning of health care services carried out at patients’ homes by staff members of a home care company is proposed, which can be used for optimizing economical and service oriented measures of performance.
Abstract: This paper presents a model for the daily planning of health care services carried out at patients’ homes by staff members of a home care company. The planning takes into account individual service requirements of the patients, individual qualifications of the staff and possible interdependencies between different service operations. Interdependencies of services can include, for example, a temporal separation of two services as is required if drugs have to be administered a certain time before providing a meal. Other services like handling a disabled patient may require two staff members working together at a patient’s home. The time preferences of patients are included in terms of given time windows. In this paper, we propose a planning approach for the described problem, which can be used for optimizing economical and service oriented measures of performance. A mathematical model formulation is proposed together with a powerful heuristic based on a sophisticated solution representation.
242 citations
TL;DR: A social network-based service recommendation method with trust enhancement known as RelevantTrustWalker, utilizing a matrix factorization method to assess the degree of trust between users in social network and an extended random walk algorithm to obtain recommendation results.
Abstract: Given the increasing applications of service computing and cloud computing, a large number of Web services are deployed on the Internet, triggering the research of Web service recommendation. Despite of service QoS, the use of user feedback is becoming the current trend in service recommendation. Likewise in traditional recommender systems, sparsity, cold-start and trustworthiness are major issues challenging service recommendation in adopting similarity-based approaches. Meanwhile, with the prevalence of social networks, nowadays people become active in interacting with various computers and users, resulting in a huge volume of data available, such as service information, user-service ratings, interaction logs, and user relationships. Therefore, how to incorporate the trust relationship in social networks with user feedback for service recommendation motivates this work. In this paper, we propose a social network-based service recommendation method with trust enhancement known as RelevantTrustWalker. First, a matrix factorization method is utilized to assess the degree of trust between users in social network. Next, an extended random walk algorithm is proposed to obtain recommendation results. To evaluate the accuracy of the algorithm, experiments on a real-world dataset are conducted and experimental results indicate that the quality of the recommendation and the speed of the method are improved compared with existing algorithms.
159 citations
TL;DR: Although cloud computing is based on a 50-year-old business model, evidence indicates that cloud computing still needs to expand and overcome present limitations that prevent the full use of its potential.
Abstract: Cloud computing is an ascending technology that has introduced a new paradigm by rendering a rational computational model possible. It has changed the dynamics of IT consumption by means of a model that provides on-demand services over the Internet. Unlike the traditional hosting service, cloud computing services are paid for per usage and may expand or shrink based on demand. Such services are, in general, fully managed by cloud providers that require users nothing but a personal computer and an Internet access. In recent years, this model has attracted the attention of researchers, investors and practitioners, many of whom have proposed a number of applications, structures and fundamentals of cloud computing, resulting in various definitions, requirements and models. Despite the interest and advances in the field, issues such as security and privacy, service layer agreement, resource sharing, and billing have opened up new questions about the real gains of the model. Although cloud computing is based on a 50-year-old business model, evidence from this study indicates that cloud computing still needs to expand and overcome present limitations that prevent the full use of its potential. In this study, we critically review the state of the art in cloud computing with the aim of identifying advances, gaps and new challenges.
128 citations
Book Chapter•
12 May 2014TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify the capabilities required to successful develop advanced services as part of servitization by considering the perspective of manufacturers, intermediaries and customers, and conduct interviews with 33 managers in 28 large UK-based companies from these three groups.
Abstract: Servitization is the process by which manufacturers add services to their product offerings and even replace products with services. The capabilities necessary to develop and deliver advanced services as part of servitization are often discussed in the literature from the manufacturer’s perspective, e.g., having a service-focused culture or the ability to sell solutions. Recent research has acknowledged the important role of customers and, to a lesser extent, other actors (e.g., intermediaries) in bringing about successful servitization, particularly for use-oriented and results-oriented advanced services. The objective of this study is to identify the capabilities required to successful develop advanced services as part of servitization by considering the perspective of manufacturers, intermediaries and customers. This study involved interviews with 33 managers in 28 large UK-based companies from these three groups, about servitization capabilities. The findings suggest that there are eight broad capabilities that are important for advanced services; 1) personnel with expertise and deep technical product knowledge, 2) methodologies for improving operational processes, helping to manage risk and reduce costs, 3) the evolution from being a product- focused manufacturer to embracing a services culture, 4) developing trusting relationships with other actors in the network to support the delivery of advanced services, 5) new innovation activities focused on financing contracts (e.g., ‘gain share’) and technology implementation (e.g., Web-based applications), 6) customer intimacy through understanding their business challenges in order to develop suitable solutions, 7) extensive infrastructure (e.g., personnel, service centres) to deliver a local service, and 8) the ability to tailor service offerings to each customer’s requirements and deliver these responsively to changing needs. The capabilities required to develop and deliver advanced services align to a need to enhance the operational performance of supplied products throughout their lifecycles and as such require greater investment than the capabilities for base and intermediate services.
120 citations
TL;DR: A method of software component reuse as a model (or methodology), which facilitates the semi-automatic reuse of web services on a cloud computing environment, leading to business process composition.
Abstract: This paper proposes a novel model for automatic construction of business processes called IPCASCI (Intelligent business Processes Composition based on multi-Agent systems, Semantics and Cloud Integration). The software development industry requires agile construction of new products able to adapt to the emerging needs of a changing market. In this context, we present a method of software component reuse as a model (or methodology), which facilitates the semi-automatic reuse of web services on a cloud computing environment, leading to business process composition. The proposal is based on web service technology, including: (i) Automatic discovery of web services; (ii) Semantics description of web services; (iii) Automatic composition of existing web services to generate new ones; (iv) Automatic invocation of web services. As a result of this proposal, we have presented its implementation (as a tool) on a real case study. The evaluation of the case study and its results are proof of the reliability of IPCASCI.
109 citations
TL;DR: A semantically-enhanced platform that will assist in the process of discovering the cloud services that best match user needs and outperform state-of-the-art solutions in similarly broad domains is presented.
Abstract: Cloud computing is a technological paradigm that permits computing services to be offered over the Internet. This new service model is closely related to previous well-known distributed computing initiatives such as Web services and grid computing. In the current socio-economic climate, the affordability of cloud computing has made it one of the most popular recent innovations. This has led to the availability of more and more cloud services, as a consequence of which it is becoming increasingly difficult for service consumers to find and access those cloud services that fulfil their requirements. In this paper, we present a semantically-enhanced platform that will assist in the process of discovering the cloud services that best match user needs. This fully-fledged system encompasses two basic functions: the creation of a repository with the semantic description of cloud services and the search for services that accomplish the required expectations. The cloud service's semantic repository is generated by means of an automatic tool that first annotates the cloud service descriptions with semantic content and then creates a semantic vector for each service. The comprehensive evaluation of the tool in the ICT domain has led to very promising results that outperform state-of-the-art solutions in similarly broad domains.
108 citations
TL;DR: An innovative three-phase network prediction approach (NPA) for evolution-aware recommendation is proposed and achieves a superior performance in service recommendation, compared with those that are agnostic to the evolution of a service ecosystem.
Abstract: Service computing plays a critical role in business automation and we can observe a rapid increase of web services and their compositions nowadays. Web services, their compositions, providers, consumers, and other entities such as context information, collectively form an evolving service ecosystem. Many service recommendation methods have been proposed to facilitate the use of services. However, existing approaches are mostly based on all-time statistics of usage patterns, and overlook the temporal aspect, i.e., the evolution of the ecosystem. As a result, recommendation may consist of obsolete services and also does not reflect the latest trend in the ecosystem. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose an innovative three-phase network prediction approach (NPA) for evolution-aware recommendation. First, we introduce a network series model to formalize the evolution of the service ecosystem and then develop a network analysis method to study the usage pattern with a special focus on its temporal evolution. Afterward a novel service network prediction method based on rank aggregation is proposed to predict the evolution of the network. Finally, using the network prediction model, we present how to recommend potential compositions, top services and service chains, respectively. Experiments on the real-world ProgrammableWeb data set show that our method achieves a superior performance in service recommendation, compared with those that are agnostic to the evolution of a service ecosystem.
91 citations
TL;DR: The results of several Cloud QoE studies performed for different Cloud-based services, ranging from services with low requirements in terms of latency and interactivity to highly interactive services, provide a ground truth basis for developing future Cloud services withQoE requirements, as well as for dimensioning the underlying network provisioning infrastructures, particularly with regard to mobile access technologies.
90 citations
05 Nov 2014
TL;DR: A novel metric named TUE is defined to quantify the Traffic Usage Efficiency} of data synchronization of cloud storage services and demonstrates that a considerable portion of the data sync traffic is in a sense wasteful, and can be effectively avoided or significantly reduced via carefully designed data sync mechanisms.
Abstract: Cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive provide users with a convenient and reliable way to store and share data from anywhere, on any device, and at any time. The cornerstone of these services is the data synchronization (sync) operation which automatically maps the changes in users' local filesystems to the cloud via a series of network communications in a timely manner. If not designed properly, however, the tremendous amount of data sync traffic can potentially cause (financial) pains to both service providers and users. This paper addresses a simple yet critical question: Is the current data sync traffic of cloud storage services efficiently used? We first define a novel metric named TUE to quantify the Traffic Usage Efficiency} of data synchronization. Based on both real-world traces and comprehensive experiments, we study and characterize the TUE of six widely used cloud storage services. Our results demonstrate that a considerable portion of the data sync traffic is in a sense wasteful, and can be effectively avoided or significantly reduced via carefully designed data sync mechanisms. All in all, our study of TUE of cloud storage services not only provides guidance for service providers to develop more efficient, traffic-economic services, but also helps users pick appropriate services that best fit their needs and budgets.
TL;DR: A new integrated methodology for the life cycle of IT services delivered on the cloud is described and it is demonstrated how it can be used to represent and reason about services and service requirements and so automate service acquisition and consumption from the cloud.
Abstract: Managing virtualized services efficiently over the cloud is an open challenge. Traditional models of software development are not appropriate for the cloud computing domain, where software (and other) services are acquired on demand. In this paper, we describe a new integrated methodology for the life cycle of IT services delivered on the cloud and demonstrate how it can be used to represent and reason about services and service requirements and so automate service acquisition and consumption from the cloud. We have divided the IT service life cycle into five phases of requirements, discovery, negotiation, composition, and consumption. We detail each phase and describe the ontologies that we have developed to represent the concepts and relationships for each phase. To show how this life cycle can automate the usage of cloud services, we describe a cloud storage prototype that we have developed. This methodology complements previous work on ontologies for service descriptions in that it is focused on supporting negotiation for the particulars of a service and going beyond simple matchmaking.
TL;DR: In this article, a survey of 145 B2B manufacturers in the United Kingdom was conducted to identify three categories of service offerings: product-attached services, operations services on own products, and vendor independent operations services.
Abstract: Purpose: As part of service infusion, manufacturers use services to differentiate their products and provide growth. Although several attempts have been made to classify manufacturers' service strategies and offerings, most have been based on small purposive samples. The purpose of this article is to create a generic typology of manufacturers' service strategies. Methodology/approach: The unit of analysis was the manufacturer or strategic business unit. The data collection was based on a survey of 145 B2B manufacturers in the United Kingdom. Findings: Three categories of service offerings were identified: product-attached services, operations services on own products, and vendor independent operations services. These categories are used to specify three generic service strategies: Services Doubters, for whom services are not a strong differentiator with no focus on any category of service offerings; Services Pragmatists, for whom product-attached services are a key differentiator; Services Enthusiasts, fo...
TL;DR: This paper addresses automatic service composition as a means to create new value-added services dynamically and automatically from existing services in service-oriented architecture and cloud computing environments and introduces a complete and detailed composition framework using the most widely used architecture.
Abstract: This paper addresses automatic service composition (ASC) as a means to create new value-added services dynamically and automatically from existing services in service-oriented architecture and cloud computing environments. Manually composing services for relatively static applications has been successful, but automatically composing services requires advances in the semantics of processes and an architectural framework that can capture all stages of an application's lifecycle. A framework for ASC involves four stages: planning an execution workflow, discovering services from a registry, selecting the best candidate services, and executing the selected services. This four-stage architecture is the most widely used to describe ASC, but it is still abstract and incomplete in terms of scalable goal composition, property transformation for seamless automatic composition, and integration architecture. We present a workflow orchestration to enable nested multilevel composition for achieving scalability. We add to the four-stage composition framework a transformation method for abstract composition properties. A general model for the composition architecture is described herein and a complete and detailed composition framework is introduced using our model. Our ASC architecture achieves improved seamlessness and scalability in the integrated framework. The ASC architecture is analyzed and evaluated to show its efficacy.
TL;DR: The reasons for the slow rate of adoption of cloud computing at university level are identified, the challenges faced are discussed and a cloud computing adoption model is proposed that contains strategic guidelines to overcome the major challenges identified and a roadmap for the successful adopted cloud computing by universities is proposed.
Abstract: Universities around the world especially those in developing countries are faced with the problem of delivering the level of information and communications technology (ICT) needed to facilitate tea...
TL;DR: An asymmetric partitioning-based bare-metal approach that achieves near-native performance while supporting a new out-of-operating system mechanism for value-added services and considerably reduces virtualization overhead is presented.
Abstract: Advancements in cloud computing enable the easy deployment of numerous services. However, the analysis of cloud service access platforms from a client perspective shows that maintaining and managing clients remain a challenge for end users. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of an asymmetric virtual machine monitor (AVMM), which is an asymmetric partitioning-based bare-metal approach that achieves near-native performance while supporting a new out-of-operating system mechanism for value-added services. To achieve these goals, AVMM divides underlying platforms into two asymmetric partitions: a user partition and a service partition. The user partition runs a commodity user OS, which is assigned to most of the underlying resources, maintaining end-user experience. The service partition runs a specialized OS, which consumes only the needed resources for its tasks and provides enhanced features to the user OS. AVMM considerably reduces virtualization overhead through two approaches: 1) Peripheral devices, such as graphics equipment, are assigned to be monopolized by a single user OS. 2) Efficient resource management mechanisms are leveraged to alleviate complicated resource sharing in existing virtualization technologies. We implement a prototype that supports Windows and Linux systems. Experimental results show that AVMM is a feasible and efficient approach to client virtualization.
TL;DR: The experimental results show that the block-based sharing scheme consumes less energy, reduces the resources utilization, improves response time, and provides better security services to the mobile users in the presence of fully untrusted cloud server(s) as compared to the existing security schemes.
Abstract: For the last few years, academia and research organizations are continuously investigating and resolving the security and privacy issues of mobile cloud computing environment. The additional consideration in designing security services for mobile cloud computing environment should be the resource-constrained mobile devices. The execution of computationally intensive security services on mobile device consumes battery's charging quickly. In this regard, the study presents a novel energy-efficient block-based sharing scheme that provides confidentiality and integrity services for mobile users in the cloud environment. The block-based sharing scheme is compared with the existing schemes on the basis of energy consumption, CPU utilization, memory utilization, encryption time, decryption time, and turnaround time. The experimental results show that the block-based sharing scheme consumes less energy, reduces the resources utilization, improves response time, and provides better security services to the mobile users in the presence of fully untrusted cloud server(s) as compared to the existing security schemes.
TL;DR: A survey of semantic Web services is realized to show that they ensure interoperability, and four aspects of Web services are presented: Standards of XML Web services (eXtended Markup Language Web services) and their limits, Languages and Tools of Semantic Annotation, Web Services Composition, and Performance Evaluation.
TL;DR: A clustering-based collaborative filtering approach is proposed in this paper, which aims at recruiting similar services in the same clusters to recommend services collaboratively, to reduce the online execution time of collaborative filtering.
Abstract: Spurred by service computing and cloud computing, an increasing number of services are emerging on the Internet. As a result, service-relevant data become too big to be effectively processed by traditional approaches. In view of this challenge, a clustering-based collaborative filtering approach is proposed in this paper, which aims at recruiting similar services in the same clusters to recommend services collaboratively. Technically, this approach is enacted around two stages. In the first stage, the available services are divided into small-scale clusters, in logic, for further processing. At the second stage, a collaborative filtering algorithm is imposed on one of the clusters. Since the number of the services in a cluster is much less than the total number of the services available on the web, it is expected to reduce the online execution time of collaborative filtering. At last, several experiments are conducted to verify the availability of the approach, on a real data set of 6225 mashup services collected from ProgrammableWeb.
TL;DR: This study proposes a fast QoS-aware web service selection approach that adopts a particle swarm optimization algorithm to select the most service with users’ QoS requirements and results show that this approach can find best suitable services with lower time cost than other approaches.
Abstract: QoS-aware binding of composite services provides the capability of binding each service invocation in a composition to a service chosen among a set of functionally equivalent ones to achieve a QoS goal. Hence, service selection approach plays a very important role in service computing. However existing approaches little considered the computation time. In this study, we propose a fast QoS-aware web service selection approach. This approach adopts a particle swarm optimization algorithm select the most service with users’ QoS requirements Experimental results show that our approach can find best suitable services with lower time cost than other approaches in web service selection.
TL;DR: This work proposes a trustworthy two-phase web service discovery mechanism based on QoS and collaborative filtering, which discovers and recommends the needed web services effectively for users in the distributed environment, and also solves the problem of services with incorrect QoS information.
TL;DR: A QR code waypoint system for park navigation, as well as incentivizing park use through gamification of site attractions, is developed, providing increased safety for park goers, disseminates information more effectively and accurately, and improves feedback.
TL;DR: Although researchers are actively seeking answers, definitive solutions to interoperability and portability issues among multiple cloud environments, especially at PaaS and SaaS level, remain elusive due to the technical complexity and a lack of standards.
Abstract: Although researchers are actively seeking answers, definitive solutions to interoperability and portability issues among multiple cloud environments, especially at PaaS and SaaS level, remain elusive due to the technical complexity and the lack of standards.
01 Sep 2014
TL;DR: This work shows how a programmer can extract services, add fault tolerance functionality, and adapt client code to invoke cloud services via refactorings integrated with a modern IDE, and applies this approach to automatically transform two third-party Java applications to use cloud-based services.
Abstract: Using cloud-based services can improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of a software application. However, transitioning an application to use cloud-based services is difficult, costly, and error-prone. The required re-engineering effort includes migrating to the cloud the functionality to be accessed as remote cloud-based services and re-targeting the client code accordingly. In addition, the client must be able to detect and handle the faults raised in the process of invoking the services. As a means of streamlining this transitioning, we developed a set of refactoring techniques--automated, IDE-assisted program transformations that eliminate the need to change programs by hand. In particular, we show how a programmer can extract services, add fault tolerance functionality, and adapt client code to invoke cloud services via refactorings integrated with a modern IDE. As a validation, we have applied our approach to automatically transform two third-party Java applications to use cloud-based services. We have also applied our approach to re-engineer a suite of services operated by General Electric to use cloud-based resources to better satisfy the GE business requirements.
TL;DR: This study reveals various challenges in the QoS parameter for Web service composition by analyzing QoS parameters based on existing algorithms with composition patterns and compared the results.
Abstract: Web services are the internet enabled applications for performing business needs, considered as the platform-independent and loosely coupled. Web service compositions build new services by organizing a set of existing services by providing reusability and interoperability. The research problem in web service composition is to obtain best effective services with the composition of services based on maximum quality of services (QoS) and satisfy the user's requirements. This study reveals various challenges in the QoS parameter for Web service composition because it is difficult to recognize. We have illustrated the related technology by analyzing QoS parameters based on existing algorithms with composition patterns and compared the results.
TL;DR: The MetaMORPhOSY methodology and framework are introduced and applied to the verification of SLAs in the mOSAIC platform and can be exploited in definition of models for cloud components that have been used and configured in order to fulfil requested service levers.
Abstract: Cloud architecture is established as a standard for services provisioning. Discovering of services is a hard task since several services have to be analysed. The mOSAIC project aims at providing a framework for searching and interfacing services from multiple vendors. Its main component, the cloud agency, provides searching and wrapping features and the management of Services Level Agreements SLAs. In this scenario, validating services requirements is appealing. Usually users are forced to use SLAs pre-offered by providers that need to reconfigure cloud components in order to meet requests. Model-Driven Engineering MDE methodologies allow for requirements verification during all life cycle of systems. They can be exploited in definition of models for cloud components that have to be used and configured in order to fulfil requested service levers. Here, the MetaMORPhOSY methodology and framework are introduced and applied to the verification of SLAs in the mOSAIC platform.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose an ostensive definition of the collaborative delivery of public services: collaborative public services are created and run by government, civil society or by private sector building on the re-use of government data or citizens data.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, a research agenda for shared services in Information Systems (IS) is proposed, which addresses fundamental issues related to objectives, stakeholders, and the notion of sharing to lay the foundation for taking IS research on shared services forward.
Abstract: Shared services have gained significance as an organizational arrangement, in particular for support functions, to reduce costs, increase quality and create new capabilities. The Information Systems (IS) function is amenable to sharing arrangements and information systems can enable sharing in other functional areas. However, despite being a promising area for IS research, literature on shared services in the IS discipline is scarce and scattered. There is still little consensus on what shared services is. Moreover, a thorough understanding of why shared services are adopted, who are involved, and how things are shared is lacking. In this article, we set out to progress IS research on shared services by establishing a common ground for future research and proposing a research agenda to shape the field based on an analysis of the IS literature. We present a holistic and inclusive definition, discuss the primacy of economic-strategic objectives so far, and introduce conceptual frameworks for stakeholders and the notion of sharing. We also provide an overview of the theories and research methods applied. We propose a research agenda that addresses fundamental issues related to objectives, stakeholders, and the notion of sharing to lay the foundation for taking IS research on shared services forward.
10 Nov 2014
TL;DR: This paper is aimed at covering cloud computing from overall perspective, basics of Cloud computing, the service and deployment models used today, the components of cloud Computing, the need and working of cloud computing, cloud computing reference model, enabling technologies, challenges and advantages ofcloud computing.
Abstract: Commercially popularized with the year 2002 with the launch of Amazon web services cloud computing has changed the way IT services and resources are delivered to the customers. With its varied platforms like SaaS, PaaS and IaaS it has made available resources which was once never available on demand and scalable manner. With the advantages of high scalability and flexibility, excellent reliability and availability and with no upfront cost in procuring and managing IT infrastructure, it is widely adopted by organizations. This paper is aimed at covering cloud computing from overall perspective. It cover basics of Cloud computing, the service and deployment models used today, the components of cloud computing, the need and working of cloud computing, cloud computing reference model, enabling technologies, challenges and advantages of cloud computing.
TL;DR: This issue includes four papers that tackle important issues in the context of the special issue “Digital Services for Consumers”, which aims to answer a vast amount of new questions about what services are useful, best adapted to each and every user.
Abstract: This issue includes four papers that tackle important issues in the context of our special issue “Digital Services for Consumers” As we highlighted in our call for papers, mobile computing, high speed communication, internet of things, and a plethora of services available through several devices change the way we live This is a huge potential but also a challenge for consumers as well as enterprises We observe that this digitization of our everyday life has already led to a change in the preferences of the customers and this change will continue (Dellarocas 2013; Rechert et al 2014; Reichhart et al 2013) Successful services are often personalized, context adaptive, real-time, available anywhere, connected, and fun to use The digital user has become powerful, since the competitor is just one click away Thus, only perceivable usefulness, ease of use, and individual user-centricity of the service will bind the user to an offering These innovative services have emerged first in the consumer world, making consumer markets for the first time the pacemakers of IT transformation Furthermore, these consumer IT innovations change user expectations fundamentally, not only with respect to IT services, but to products and services in general Everything as a service when, how, and where each user wants it – becomes a paradigm for many successful new offerings In this new Digital World, companies have much more problems understanding and anticipating customer demands since user behavior and preferences have changed dramatically Most of the traditional approaches for designing and delivering products and services in this digital world seem outdated and incapable to address this fast changing environment of digital users (Leimeister et al 2014) Consequently, we need to answer a vast amount of new questions: What services are useful, best adapted to each and every user?Which are fun to use? How to handle complexity of different offerings? What types of services havewhich benefit, when, how, and for whom? What services around product offerings are most beneficial for which purpose?Which services work best for digital natives and digital immigrants? What are underlying mechanisms for explaining successful design, use, and effects of digital services for consumers? Service innovations, new ways of service creation, orchestration, and consumption, using and creating vast amounts of openly available or user-generated data, offer great potential for improving everyday life of large parts of our society Examples range from healthcare (with eg, offerings such as patientslikemecom) to new business models and ways of value creation and value capturing become critical, as a big opportunity, but also as a challenge for enterprises and other organizations Electronic web services emerge for all areas of life, eg, entertainment, communication, shopping, household, health, mobility, work, and finance These questions and opportunities are the outcomes of a transformation of our society towards a digital society Historically, the advent of information technology (IT) in businesses led to a transformation from the industrial society into the information society, putting much emphasis on scalability of businesses through automization and standardization Process orientation was the paradigm for efficiency gains, especially in back office environments Today, the increasing ubiquity of IT and its penetration of our everyday life transforms the information society into the digital society, J M Leimeister (*) Resarch Center for IS Design (ITeG), Chair for Information Systems, University of Kassel, Pfannkuchstrasse 1, 34121 Kassel, Germany e-mail: JanMarcoLeimeister@unisgch