Home > Introduction to Service-Orientation > Services (Part I)
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In the every day world around us services are and have been commonplace for as long as civilized history has existed. Any person carrying out a distinct task in support of others is providing a service. Any group of individuals collectively performing a task in support of a larger task is also demonstrating the delivery of a service.
Figure: Three individuals, each capable of providing a distinct service.
Similarly an organization that carries out tasks associated with its purpose or business, is also providing a service. As long as the task or function being provided is well defined and can be relatively isolated from other associated tasks it can be distinctly classified as a service.
Figure: A company that employs these three people can compose their capabilities to carry out its business.
Certain baseline requirements exist to enable a group of individual service providers to collaborate in order to collectively provide a larger service. The above figure, for example, displays a group of employees that each provide a service for ABC Delivery. Even though each individual contributes a distinct service, for the company to function effectively, its staff also needs to have fundamental, common characteristics, such as availability, reliability, and the ability to communicate using the same language. With all of this in place, these individuals can be composed into a productive working team. Establishing these types of baseline requirements is a key goal of service-orientation.
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