Fudan University’s Center for Service Marketing and Management (CSMM) joined hands with Arizona State University’s Center for Services Leadership (CSL) from USA to host “2008 Shanghai Service Symposium,” which was held between May 23 and 24 of 2008 in Shanghai.

The Economic Committee of Shanghai municipal government and Heidrick & Struggles Co. have extended their full support to the successful delivery of the event.

Shanghai Vice Mayor AI Baojun, Professor GUI Yonghao who is vice president of Fudan University, and Professor Stephen Brown who is executive director of CSL, delivered their welcome speeches at the opening ceremony.

Professor LU Xiongwen, dean of Fudan’s School of Management, and Professor FAN Xiucheng, executive director of CSMM, presided over the opening ceremony.

Themed in “Creating value through service,” the symposium was actually a three-part event, that is, “Manufacturers in the service era,” “Innovations in services,” and “Processes for service excellence.”

Mr. WANG Jian, who is director of Shanghai Economic Committee, was present to deliver a welcome speech at the opening ceremony.

Besides experts and professors from CSMM and CSL, as well as scholars from Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland, also invited to speak at the symposium were Mr. Ron Hutchinson, who is senior vice president of Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Mr. XU Jianguo, who is board chairman of Shanghai Electric Group Co., Ltd., Mr. MA Weihua, who is president of China Merchants Bank, Mr. HU Maoyuan, who is board chairman of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, Mr. XU Luode, who is president of China Unionpay, Dr. Gary Bridge, who is senior vice president of Cisco Systems, Inc., Mr. ZHANG Weihua, who is president of Shanghai Telecom, Mr. Mike Jannini, who is executive vice president of Marriott International, Inc., Dr. Larry Crosby, who is chief loyalty architect of Synovate Loyalty.

Shanghai Vice Mayor AI Baojun said to the symposium that, The 2008 Shanghai Service Symposium is certain to drive an impact on modern service industry growth in the city with fresh-new developing visions and ideas, which, like its theme hoped, were brought up by the reputed enterprises in circles of manufacturing and services onto the event.

AI said that, China deems it strategically crucial for the benefit of realizing macro-regulation on national economy, to escalate the development of service industry, so proactively as to transform its modes of economic growth.

Vice mayor continued that, by borrowing forces from Shanghai’s effort to realize the “four centers” goal, the city is working to lower the threshold of service industry, so as to help build up an industrial structure which is centered on service businesses.

Professor GUI Yonghao, Fudan’s vice president, said that, Fudan’s School of Management has responded to the call of responsibility which is demanded by China’s current social and economic growths.

GUI later explained that, tremendous progress as China has achieved during the last 30 years of reform and opening up, a series of problems have kept popping up, such as over-sized energy and environmental costs.

It is one of effective methods, the vice president added, to ease such concerns by increasing the service industry development, while such development also represents the direction of Chinese industrial structure in its process of optimization, as well as its society increasingly becoming matured.

Facts prove that, the service industry is driving more and more impacts on the life quality of Chinese people, and only by means of innovation would that industry be given an impetus for further development, FAN said.

Eyeing that, CSMM has delivered this service symposium and attached it with full attention, hoping to discover innovative service models and help create a mature China-style service industry, it is added.

Themed in “Creating value through service,” the event is purposed to brainstorm on status quo of Chinese service industry, values and prospects of domestic service industry development, and ways to drive forward this kind of development on a fast and sustainable track, by borrowing force from government officials, reputed managers and scholars in service industry from home and overseas.

Professor Stephen Brown who is executive director of CSL, said that the booming development of service industry has helped to cushion the increasing impact of de facto resources and energy shortage. Meanwhile, the ushering of services concept into the manufacturing industry has worked its way of not only improving the product values, but extending to facilitate the process of transformation in manufacturing industry as well as to streamline the process in public services sector.

He added that, he is happy to have witnessed a close partnership to tie up Arizona State University of USA with Fudan University’s Service Marketing and Service Management Center.

He said that, he felt it an honor for City of Shanghai to host the service forum of such scale, and that he believed it is already on the horizon that the service industry in Shanghai is going to have a prosperous future.

Mr. Ron Hutchinson, who is senior vice president of Harley-Davidson Motor Company, said in his speech that: “I take it as an extremely great opportunity to share experience with each other at the symposium. It is also an opportunity for me to learn what I need to learn.”

“‘Service’ is one of big issues concerning almost every company. And for my company, service is anything but an independent segment of work process, it is everywhere in the company,” he said. “A loyalty to the client-comes-first concept, a desire to know what they want, and a ready-to-change attitude based on our clients’ need to adjust product designs and marketing strategies, are what we believe keeps us going forward.”

Approximately 200 academic representatives and entrepreneurs who have attended the 2008 Shanghai Service Symposium agreed that, the event of such scale would de