The Developmental Analysis of China s Information Technology Services

JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 1805 The Developmental Analysis of China s Information Technology Services Wei Gao College of Statistics and Applied Mathematics /Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, China Email: gaowei.@163.com Feng Wang and Li Wang College of Statistics and Applied Mathematics/Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, China Abstract Information technology has become an indispensable part to modern society. Information technology services as an independent industry has a profound effect on the progress of whole society and play on an importance role the development of the overall socioeconomic. This article makes an analysis on the developmental features, significance, present situation and existed problems of China s information technology services and gives some relative suggestions as to how to develop China s information services better. Index Terms Information Technology, Information Technology Services, Present Situation Strategy I. INTRODUCTION Your goal is to simulate the usual appearance of papers in a Journal of the Academy Publisher. We are requesting that you follow these guidelines as closely as possible. Information technology services industry uses networks, computers and other modern scientific technology to produce, collect, process, store, transmit and use information and it is a specialized industry collection for providing service to society by information products. Various economic fields are linked close to information technology. The application of global information technology is developing deeply and widely. The development of information technology makes a very large impact on the technology-related industries and it has a promotion effect on improving productivity of the related industries. But, information technology is an independent industry separated from others, whose contribution has a bright future. As a sunrise industry along with its rapid development, there is a certain degree of shortcomings and deficiencies. Therefore, this article attempts to analyze the existed problems in the development of information technology services. So as to make it play better in the related-industries and to further promote economic development. II. ANALYSIS OF CHINA'S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES FEATURES (a) Information technology services industry is a means of modern services industry. Users use modern means to obtain information, not only using such tools as book-style index and abstracts but also using CD-ROM or on-line search to obtain needed information. (b) Information technology services industry is engaged in industry of information technology. Information technology services, not to industrial enterprises, which is a department of the third industry. (c) Information technology services industry is the services aimed at specific objects, i.e. finding specific information for specific users, and finding specific user for specific information. (d) Information technology services industry is a high value-added industry, compared with the general services department, information services with high value-added. (e) Information technology services industry is a high penetration industry. Information technology and information services can penetrate and spread to all areas of society and industry sectors and has an active leading role to the department of other industry. (f) Information technology services industry is one which provides special commodities. Information technology services industry is characteristic of wide varieties, wide range, high value of transfer, easy to copy, timeliness and sharing. Furthermore, information technology commodity achieving its own value must rely on specific technology and service. (g) Information technology services industry is intelligence-intensive industry. IT services has feature of intelligence-intensive than other services department. Therefore, information technology services industry is the product of the knowledge economy era. (h) Information technology services, information circulation of commodities market has a special industry. The special nature of information goods, information goods exchange form and scope of the diversified characteristics. III. SIGNIFICANCE OF CHINA DEVELOPING OF IT SERVICES The development of IT services as an independent industry has far-reaching impact on development of national economy and social progress. It belongs to a new style of industry with high value-added, high technology, low consumption of energy resources, low environmental doi:10.4304/jcp.6.9.1805-1811

1806 JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 pollution, high industry association leading role and good use of human resources. Its development has a promoting role to the other industry. A. The Promoting Role of the Development of IT Services to the Whole Society and the Development of National Economy (a) The Role of IT Services Development to National Education In the information age, information is the decisive resource. However, in our country, people s understanding that information is a kind of resources is very vague. The waste of information resources is great and the efficiency of intensive utilization of information resources is very low. The development of modern IT services plays an actively educational role in improving and expanding the utilization efficiency of information resources, educating national people to cherish and use information resources and developing awareness of people s consumption. Trying hard to develop databases and consulting services as modern IT services contributes to progressively faster the concept compensation for the use of information and reverses vague understanding of information resources. (b) The Development of IT Services Helping to Promote the Fusion of Industrialization and Information Now, one of the major tasks in our country is to achieve the integration of industrialization and information. IT services in upgrading and transformation of traditional industries forms a new road to industrialization by pouring new content into traditional industries and deepening the use information. In turn, new industrialization focusing on the information application also provides a broad market space and material and technical basis for the development of information services. Thus, IT services can drive the integration of industrialization and industry through the promotion information technology. In the cycle of interaction of Information technology and industrialization, the social and economic leaps and bounds will be achieved by promoting the formation of modern agriculture, services, and new industries. (c) The Development of IT Services Industry Itself Being Able to Bring Scale Expansion and the Change of the Mode of Economic Growth IT services belongs to an important part of information industry. IT services has become a highlight of the new century. The rapid development of IT services promotes the rapid development of information industry. Its contribution to the improvement of the information industry improves the proportion of the information industry in GDP. Information production, circulation and consumption scale keeps expanding and further stimulates people to create more demand for information. With the development of information technology, new growth points emerge in economic field such as IT industry, information services and Internet industries, and meanwhile, information can promote the growth of the total national economy through the optimization of production systems. Information technology also helps break the time limit and geographic restrictions of the market and speeds up the market of information processing and circulation. (d) The Development of IT Services Industry Helping the Increase of Economic Efficiency and Promoting the Whole Social Economic Development IT services industry is viewed as the industry of processing information whose information search and the improvement of transmission and switching efficiency has an important promoting role to the reduction of information asymmetry and lowering transaction costs. In addition, IT services industry has a significant multiplier and diffusion effect. On the one hand, IT services is beneficial to raising the utilization efficiency and information content of productive factors in other industries through the penetration of all economic fields, directly or indirectly producing a significant impact. On the other hand, with its own development and innovation, some new type will create of such as virtual tourism and distance education and so on, directly creating employment and economic output. B. The Development of IT Services Industry Having a Promotion Effect on the Other Industries Related (a) The Development of IT Services Industry Providing a Huge Market Demand for the Development of and Third and Other Industries In recent years, the rapidly growing demand of IT services not only provides the market demand of rapid growth for the and third and other Industries but also putting forward an urgent request for the development of IT services industry itself. IT services belongs to knowledge and technology-intensive industries whose rapid development is linked close to the manufacture of a large number of senior technical professional talents. It provides broad market prospects for the development of the related industries and educational career. Therefore the rapid development of IT services has a leading role to the gross economic output and scale of the third and related industries. (b) The Role of IT Services Industry Development Optimizing the Industrial Structure and Softening National Economy IT services industry can act as catalyst role in the development of national economy. The function of IT services optimizing the industrial structure is not only reflected in the development of IT services itself directly promoting optimization of industrial structure but also reflected in IT services as a typical general purpose technology indirectly promoting optimization of industrial structure. It leads to a series of production and change of the related industries, opens some new services industries and spawns a number of new edge industries. At the same time, information service industry has shown a softening effect on solving the employment. The professional tendency of modern IT services industry reduces some pressure, creates new jobs and makes many new careers stand out. (c) The Effect of IT Services Development on the Service of the Related Industries The function of information services is embodied in the reform of traditional industrial information and the

JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 1807 information technology support of the related industries. As for the traditional industrial departments, the development of IT services industry can raise developing efficiency of the new products, the technological content and value-added products. As for the construction industry, IT services like modern engineering consulting services should be developed vigorously, to soften the industrial industries and to achieve business value-added. In addition, to develop vigorously IT services industry can not only raise the added value level of the third industry but also update the traditional means of service industry. IV. TENDENCY ANALYSIS OF PRESENT IT SERVICES STATUS Although late beginning, with the development of IT and its wide use in various fields, China s IT services industry now goes into the rapid growth stage, having a certain scale and achieving substantial results. The scale of software industry continues to grow. IT services, represented by communications industry, has been developing rapidly, the development and application of information resources having made positive progress, outsourcing service becoming a new highlight, some excellent digital content products having been created, information services promoting information technology having preliminary breakthrough and leading to upgrade of optimization. But, compared with the international advanced level, China s information technology industry is still in lower level. Specific development status and future trends show as follows. A. Analysis of Information Technology Services (a) Unbalance of the Development Shown from Market Structure, Low Level of Market Development Unbalanced development of information technology services is mainly reflected in the unbalance of balance industrial structure and the regional development. In recent years, the information service level of information service industry has been obviously improved, but, the entire IT services market presents low-level trend. At the same time, the development of information services level is vigorously unbalanced. The information service industry level of cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou is far above the China s average level. As for the present, the communication industry in China accounts for over half of IT services industry, but, the software, technical services and information content services accounts for miner proportion. The development is unbalanced. In addition, due to the influence of many aspects such as its own conditions and external environment, the overall strength of IT services industry in China is low and small. The large groups with internationally competitiveness are too limited. (b) Developing Fast Scale, a Big Gap to the International Advanced Level, Belonging to Growth Stage Viewing from the revenue of the whole industry, the growth tendency of China s IT services is great. Although China s IT services industry, especially, modern IT services industry has made great progress, the proportion in the national economy and services industry is still low. Compared to the developed countries the overall level falls behind twenty to thirty years. In the global share of modern IT services market, IT services market scale of the United States, Western Europe and Japan altogether accounts for 90 percent of the global market, while China s IT services market share accounts for only less than 10%. The gap is obvious. (c) Falling Behind Relatively in Information Resources Construction, the Information Infrastructure Not Being Sound Enough Not enough is the input of China s database information systems infrastructure. Nor is the development strength of information resources. For example, there are many shortcomings in database construction: small quantity of database construction, small capacity, lack of database product with high quality, present database information resources focusing on hardware neglecting software, slow updating speed, contents focusing on science and technology and difficult to meet the market requirements. B. Analysis on Future Development Trend of IT Services Industry (a) The Traditional IT Hardware Manufacturers Transformation to Software and Services Many well-known enterprises of today s IT manufacturing fields in the whole world see IT services as a key development. Some manufacturers like internationally renowned electronic data processing companies successfully realize transformation from the traditional hardware manufacturers to software and hardware manufacturers and service. In the Unite States, the largest feature of IT services industry is meanwhile providing the integrated IT services of hardware and software. The largest project in Japan s IT services industry is software development services, which accounts for 60% of total sales. While, now in China, IT services industry should do better to prepare for strategic transformation, leading it to transformation of software and services in developing hardware manufacturing industry and realizing IT service industry s convergence with international standards. (b) Adaping International Trends, Realizing Outsourcing of Software and Services The local industrial cluster formed and developed under the global background is the carrier of the regional and global economy. The IT development makes the industrial cluster theory take on a revolutionary change. The border region and national boundary and therefore, conduct development, production and sales activities in different areas. Software outsourcing, compared with the previous one, in terms of scale or in the related content, has presented unprecedented differentiation and development. Shown as follows, first, scale enlarging and energy degree increasing. To ensure the quality and speed, the contractor establishes more and more large development centers where the party contracting locates. Second, diversification of outsourcing situation, there are two types: direct and indirect sub-contracting. The United

1808 JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 States usually adopts direct contracting. Japanese software enterprises adopt indirect subcontracting. In the initial stage of IT services development, China has become contractors of developed countries. (c) Highlighting IT Services Development of key Areas, Emphasizing Its Services to Producers All countries emphasize highlighting IT services development of key areas and put forward specific plans. The United States puts the emphasis of IT services industry development on software industry. Japan puts the emphasis of IT services industry development on software industry on e-government and e-commerce. While China should combine its own characteristics and simultaneously develop IT services industry by drawing on foreign development mode. When the manufacturing industry developing to a certain stage, it is bound to transfer to the productive services industry of high profit and high value-added such as research and development; consulting and design. It is bound to generate the demand for the productive IT services. At the same time, IT services industry gradually takes on the developing trends of the outside and professional. Now it becomes necessary requirements of China s economic development to a certain period how to adapt to the new situation of economic development and to accelerate IT services industry. (d) Realizing the Integration of Consulting and IT Services Industry, Providing Professional Value-Added IT Services The integration of consulting and IT services industry not only promotes revolutionary breakthrough of consulting industry but also the development of information services industry. Information value-added services is a service mode that uses market means to increase the asset value of the information service by classifying, processing, arranging and analyzing a large number of original information, aiming at different customer s demands and features. Information valueadded service is one of the developing trends of information services industry. Today, in such a colorful information contents, only to make good use of information resources to improve the technology of using information, to satisfy customer s various demands and keep competitive forces. Moreover, the added value services of production largely reflects the professional level of service, so, the needs for the professional information service is IT services industry developing to a certain stage. V. PROBLEMS EXISTED IN CHINA S IT SERVICES INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT Because of late start, there is a big gap compared to the international advanced level. IT services industry is developing very rapidly in recent years, but, whether from the external macro environment of IT services industry or from the internal factors of micro aspects, there are some problems and shortcoming, affecting IT services industry to develop better. A. Macro Aspects (a) Imperfect Legal System of IT Services Industry At present, in the rapid development of IT services industry, there is no corresponding laws and regulations of IT services industry. The serious delay of policy and regulation leads to the irregularities of information market operation. With the development of the times and IT, China s laws and regulations of promoting consulting industry development made in the eighties and ninties of last century were not suited to the demands of the Internet times and must accelerate replacement pace. The legislation of IT services industry in China has long been lacking a commanding basic law with a higher status. China s legal system of existing information services technology is still in its infancy, lacking comprehensive legislation system and the clear legislative goals. The existing legislation is largely for the sector and local one with imcomplete system, low grade (b) Imperfect Management and Organization Coordination Mechanisms of IT Service Industry China s information market, whether business income or employment maintains a fairly large growth every year, but lacks effective and integrated management. The structural integrity of information market system and the integrated development policy and planning depends on sound management system and organizational coordination mechanisms. As for our country, there aren t any comprehensive, integrated and centralized leading departments. Such a new industrial service institution as IT services industry scatters various administrative departments of various fields and brings great difficulties to the organizational management. Meanwhile, the chaotic situation of higher-level managing departments and higher authorities fragmented many leaders and management disorder reduces the government s control and operational efficiency. It is not conducive to the rapid development of the entire IT services industry. (c) Imperfect Market Operating Mechanism of IT Services Industry Information market operation mechanism based on IT services industry mainly consists of the price mechanism, competition mechanism and supply and demand mechanism. Now, information market of IT services industry in China is still at an early stage of development. There exists a great defect in the operation mechanism of information market. First, it is difficult to determine reasonable price of information products and there exists a large subjective arbitrariness in the price determination, causing some disorder to the information product price of IT services industry. So, it is difficult to form reasonable price mechanism. Second, duo to the asymmetry of social information, resulting in unbalanced contradiction of information product supply and demand in IT services industry, there often appears the phenomena of some information products in short supply or oversupply. The contrast between supply and demand information is fairly larger. The supply and demand mechanism of IT services industry is still not mature. Third, the Information market of IT services industry lacks effective competitive mechanism. At present, IT

JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 1809 competitive conditions between the services sectors are not mature. There exist many unequal competitive phenomena, lacking standardized competitive behavior in information services departments. Furthermore, IT services agencies themselves do not establish a sound internal operation mechanism. B. Micro Aspects (a) Lacking the Advanced Technology Management Personnel of Modern IT Services The rapid development of IT services industry depends on high-quality technical personnel and management personnel. This is a knowledge-intensive industry. Although there are a large number of qualified personnel, some of which is very excellent, generally speaking, the quality is universally low. The reason for this phenomenon is duo to the rapid expansion of China s IT services market and the market is still in its infancy with a serious shortage of supply of professionals, (especially lacking the senior personnel of market management and international management.) Moreover, the staff currently has no unified system of accreditation and assessment with the uneven quality. There universally exists the phenomenon that expertise is obvious, but they lack the awareness and experience of the modern of consultation. At the same time, many excellent personnel of information services flows to developed countries and domestic foreign-funded enterprises, especially high-level brain drain is serious. (b) Information Products and Service Standards Are Not Unified, Producer Services and Information Value- Added Services Expecting Further Development It is difficult to form a united definition to the standard that information services software products provided by IT services industry to intangible products, producing the result that there are no uniform rules and standards in the products and services provided by IT service in our country. But, with the development of IT, the productive services raise the requirements of standardization and specialization, the degree of outside gradually increasing. At the same time, with the services of manufacturing industry and the adjustment of profit nodes in industrial chain, the world s manufacturing industry is conducting a big strategic shift to China, causing the growing demand for the information services of production and value added services. (c) Information Language Not Compatible with Technology That information technology is not compatible with the language makes all the system difficult to communicate and link, resulting in language barriers between systems. Duplication of existing databases and separation from the market demand is mainly due to the reason that many information industry sectors haven t implemented the national standards and international standards, causing irregular organization of information resources and seriously hindering the progress of information industry and network. (d) Poor Information Resources and Poor Service Chinese information in China s online is too small and the information resources are poor so that it is difficult to meet the needs of many customers. Many information technology services agencies have financial problem, most of which only conduct a simple collection and accumulation and don t deeply analyze or evaluate the information. So, the short-term behavior of research leads to the poor information services. (e) Insufficient Capacity of Independent Innovation At present, the innovation capacity China s information service enterprise has been considerably improved, but there is still a big gap compared to developed countries, which is mainly reflected in the inadequate innovation capacity such as core technology, business development, products development technology and service model. Because of the basic institutions and core technology lying in the hands of international companies, controlled by others in core technology; due to inadequate protection of business ideas in the innovation of the service model, the copying phenomenon of information services being universally serious; difficult to grasp customer needs in business innovation, making few original innovation of information service products, the most being imitation and lead innovation; the homogenization phenomenon of business and application being serious in products development. VI. RELATED COUNTERMEASURES ON CHINA S DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN IT SERVICES INDUSTRY A. Macro Aspects (a) Optimize the Policy Environment of Information Services Development, Further Improving the Legal System Some key areas of China s IT services are still in the early stages of development. The information industry must rely on the state s information policy and the corresponding legal protection and need the strong support of government and the society. Government departments should improve the legislative and legal system of IT services. The first is to make and improve the legislative and legal system closely related to IT services industry such as Information Services Management Ordinance, Information Law, database revitalization Law, Government Information Resources Management Regulations, and software standards, information standards, network technology standards and those related to IT standards and regulations of IT services market. The second is to make the public law of government information. Because of no reliable law, there are the contradictory relationships between information resource sharing and safety security, the public law of government development and use of no confidential information resources. The last is to build and improve the related market-oriented industrial policy, optimizing the external environment of IT services development such as financial, fiscal and tax policy. (b) To Further Establish and Improve a Strong Administration of Information Technology Services

1810 JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 IT services development goes deep into all fields of society, to change the present situation of no unified industrial management developments against managing disorder and many leaders, it is necessary to establish and perfect a strong national administration of information services so as to implement effective unified management to the IT services industry and coordinate the business between the competent departments, to formulate development strategy of IT services industry. At the same time, it is necessary for the industrial institutions to give play to the function of standard and self-discipline on IT services industry, learning form the U.S. management model of IT services industry and gradually forming a line with the management system of socialist market economic system. (c) Perfecting Operational Mechanism of Information Market Information, as a social resource, depends on the information market for allocate. The market of information transaction and the commercialization of information is very important way to promote the development of IT services industry. Only by establishing a unified, open, competitive and orderly information market system, constantly improving the operational mechanism of the information services market, can the sound development of information technology services industry be promoted. The main areas are as follows: first, using the market-oriented mode of operation to perfect supply and demand mechanism, putting the production and sales process of IT services industry into the orbit of market operation; second, by the improvement of the price mechanism, playing its full role in the adjustment of the market, balancing supply and demand relationship of information products in the operation of information services markets; Finally, by improving the competitive mechanism, having each sector of information services form survival of the fittest and a mutual competition in the information services market, forming a prosperous market of IT services. B. Micro Aspects (a) Raising Professional Service Level, Training and Introducing Professional Personnel on Information Services IT services industry belongs to knowledge-intensive industries and the professional service level it provides depends on the practitioners knowledge reserve and the professional level. At present, our country lacks the professional personnel of IT services, particularly in IT services industry and other industries of mutual penetration. The market needs a large number of professional personnel and puts forward higher requirements to the personnel. Therefore, it is extremely important to introduce and train the qualified professional of IT services by variety of measures improve the gathering space of high-end qualified personnel of information services, to raise the professional level and to promote the development of information technology services. First, to pay attention to talent cultivation strategically, to implement national strategy planning of the qualified personnel of IT services industry and strive to create a large number of professional personnel of high skill and high-level, familiar with modern IT services industry of international regulation and management. Second, full implementation vocational qualification certificate system, strengthening vocational job training, improving the basic quality of information services practitioners. Third, introducing domestic and international qualified personnel by many forms and channels and retaining them by establishing effective incentives and compensation mechanisms. Fourth, training high-intermediate information services personnel strengthening subject construction related to information services in colleges and universities so as to adapt to the needs of the rapid development of modern information service. (b) Full Developing and Using Information Resources Speeding Up Construction of Various Types of Databases Information service providers should focus on the development and utilization of information resources. Therefore, to fully develop and use information resources, it is necessary to build basically complete market demand-oriented databases and databases with local features, to mainly develop all kinds of the public and commercial databases serving the society, to adopt the principle of unified management, building databases in different places, resource sharing and multi-service, gradually forming a large practical database network. (c) Forming New Economic Growth Points, Grasping Innovation Project Innovation is the soul of information services development and the theme of a new era. In today s network environment such as information visualization, digital, commercialization and globalization of information, it is imperative to use modern information technology to establish IT service innovation projects with high-speed information network as its main body. Therefore, innovation information management of system must be carried out well, information management, information systems, information services and information application technology to further promote better development of IT services industry. REFERENCES [1] ZHAN Jing. Innovation and Development of 21st Information Service Industries in Our County. Modern Library and Information Technology, 2002. [2] LI Jian-Ge. Developing Strategies of Modern Information Service Industries. China Information Fields, 2007. [3] WANG You-Gang. Research on Development Mode of Information Service Industries. Industry Analysis, 2005. [4] GUO Dong-Qiang. Current Situation and Solution of Development Information Service Industries in Our County. Market Weekly, 2008. [5] CAO Kuan-Zeng. Research on Development strategy of information Service Industries in Our County. Practice Research, 2003. [6] LI Jian-Ge. Development strategy of Modern Information Service Industries. China Information Industry, 2007. 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JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS, VOL. 6, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 2011 1811 [8] WANG Xin. Development Mechanism and Measurement Theory of Information Industries and Methods. Jilin University PhD thesis. 2008. [9] YANG Xiang-Ming. Some Thoughts on Development of Information Service Industries in China. Library Theory and Practice, 2007. [10] HOU Fu-Li. Research on Current Situation and Solution of Modern Information Service Industries Development. Group Economic Research, 2007. Wei Gao (1964- ). Female, Han Dynasty, Nantong Jiang Su, College of Statistics and Applied Mathematics, Anhui University of Finance and Economics Vice Professor. Research Field: Quantity Economics. E-mail: gaowei.64@163.com, Mobile Phone: 15805525532. Feng Wang (1962- ). Male, Han Dynasty. Nantong Jiang Su, Anhui University of Finance and Economics. Vice Professor. Research Field: National Economiy Li Wang (1984- ) Male, Handan, Bank of Communication Hebei. Research Field: Quantity Economics.