Information technology, service productivity and service quality - the application of information technology based on a company-customer opening production system

An important characteristic of service sector is that customers participate in service process, and form a so-called opening production system. Thus, a dual company-customer orientation, which gives consideration to both party's inputs and outputs, needs to be built into the application of information technology in services, so that the integrated service productivity could be enhanced, and service quality finally could get improved fundamentally. This is very different from carrying on technical innovations and applications in a closed system of manufacturing. And it is also a breaking point of overcoming "productivity paradox." This paper, taking the interactive service process as its main clue and based on the characteristics of service, discusses the functions of IT in improving service productivity and service quality at each different stages of the interactive process, which will have theoretical directive significance in our country's strategy of energetically developing service sectors in the information economy era.