Integrating information and knowledge for enterprise innovation

It has widely been accepted that enterprise integration, can be a source of socio-technical and cultural problems within organisations wishing to provide a focussed end-to-end business service. This can cause possible “straitjacketing” of business process architectures, thus suppressing responsive business re-engineering and competitive advantage for some companies. Accordingly, the current typology and emergent forms of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies are set in the context of understanding information and knowledge integration philosophies. As such, key influences and trends in emerging IS integration choices, for end-to-end, cost-effective and flexible knowledge integration, are examined. As touch points across and outside organisations proliferate, via work-flow and relationship management-driven value innovation, aspects of knowledge refinement and knowledge integration pose challenges to maximising the potential of innovation and sustainable success, within enterprises. This is in terms of the increasing propensity for data fragmentation and the lack of effective information management, in the light of information overload. Furthermore, the nature of IS mediation which is inherent within decision making and workflow-based business processes, provides the basis for evaluation of the effects of information and knowledge integration. Hence, the authors propose a conceptual, holistic evaluation framework which encompasses these ideas. It is thus argued that such trends, and their implications regarding enterprise IS integration to engender sustainable competitive advantage, require fundamental re-thinking

Business intelligence as the support of decision-making processes in e-commerce systems environment

The present state of world economy urges managers to look for new methods, which can help to start the economic growth. To achieve this goal, managers use standard as well as new procedures. The fundamental prerequisite of the efficient decision-making processes are actual and right information. Managers need to monitor past information and current actual information to generate trends of future development based on it. Managers always should define strictly what do they want to know, how do they want to see it and for what purpose do they want to use it. Only in this case they can get right information applicable to efficient decision-making. Generally, managers´ decisions should lead to make the customers´ decision-making process easier. More frequently than ever, companies use e-commerce systems for the support of their business activities. In connection with the present state and future development, cross-border online shopping growth can be expected. To support this, companies will need much better systems providing the managers adequate and sufficient information. This type of information, which is usually multidimensional, can be provided by the Business Intelligence (BI) technologies. Besides special BI systems, some of BI technologies are obtained in quite a few of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. One of the crucial questions is whether should companies and firms buy or develop special BI software, or whether they can use BI tools contained in some ERP systems. In respect of this, there is a question if the modern ERP systems can provide the managers sufficient possibilities relating to ad-hoc reporting, static and dynamic reports and OLAP analyses. A one of the main goals of this article is to show and verify Business Intelligence tools of Microsoft Dynamics NAV for the support of decision-making in terms of the cross-border online purchasing. Pursuant to above-mentioned, in this article authors deal with problems relating to managers´ decision-making, customers´ decision-making and a support of its using the BI tools contained in ERP system Microsoft Dynamics NAV. A great deal of this article is aimed at area of multidimensional data which are the source data of e-commerce systems.Business Intelligence, decision-making, e-commerce system, cross-border online purchasing, multi-dimensional data, reporting, data visualization

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Benchmarking performance management systems

The Balanced Scorecard and associated performance management approaches, has become a widely practiced and popular management reporting method in recent times. Moreover, enabling technology, which assists in the delivery and personalisation of corporate performance information, is having a deeper and more rapid impact than ever before. This paper presents a brief comparative benchmarking study of leading enterprise performance management systems. Also, the author discusses the merits of bespoke internet technology development and out-of-the-box portal functionalities. An analysis of key business drivers and implementation risks of such approaches is highlighted via a case study example, and concludes the paper

Towards the integration of enterprise software: The business manufacturing intelligence

Nowadays, the Information Communication Technology has pervaded literally the companies. In the company circulates an huge amount of information but too much information doesn’t provide any added value. The overload of information exceeds individual processing capacity and slowdowns decision making operations. We must transform the enormous quantity of information in useful knowledge taking in consideration that information becomes obsolete quickly in condition of dynamic market. Companies process this information by specific software for managing, efficiently and effectively, the business processes. In this paper we analyse the myriad of acronyms of software that is used in enterprises with the changes that occurred over the time, from production to decision making until to convergence in an intelligent modular enterprise software, that we named Business Manufacturing Intelligence (BMI), that will manage and support the enterprise in the futurebusiness manufacturing intelligence, enterprise resource planning; business intelligence; management software; automation software; decision making software

10. Interuniversitäres Doktorandenseminar Wirtschaftsinformatik Juli 2009

Begonnen im Jahr 2000, ist das Interuniversitäre Wirtschaftsinformatik-Doktorandenseminar mittlerweile zu einer schönen Tradition geworden. Zunächst unter Beteiligung der Universitäten Leipzig und Halle-Wittenberg gestartet. Seit 2003 wird das Seminar zusammen mit der Jenaer Universität durchgeführt, in diesem Jahr sind erstmals auch die Technische Universität Dresden und die TU Bergakademie Freiberg dabei. Ziel der Interuniversitären Doktorandenseminare ist der über die eigenen Institutsgrenzen hinausgehende Gedankenaustausch zu aktuellen, in Promotionsprojekten behandelten Forschungsthemen. Indem der Schwerpunkt der Vorträge auch auf das Forschungsdesign gelegt wird, bietet sich allen Doktoranden die Möglichkeit, bereits in einer frühen Phase ihrer Arbeit wichtige Hinweise und Anregungen aus einem breiten Hörerspektrum zu bekommen. In den vorliegenden Research Papers sind elf Beiträge zum diesjährigen Doktorandenseminar in Jena enthalten. Sie stecken ein weites Feld ab - vom Data Mining und Wissensmanagement über die Unterstützung von Prozessen in Unternehmen bis hin zur RFID-Technologie. Die Wirtschaftsinformatik als typische Bindestrich-Informatik hat den Ruf einer thematischen Breite. Die Dissertationsprojekte aus fünf Universitäten belegen dies eindrucksvoll.

IT&C Impact on the Romanian Business and Organizations. The Enterprise Resource Planning and Business Intelligence Methods Influence on Manager’s Decision: A Case Study

The aim of the paper is to study the use of the advanced management methods in the 2010 year in Romania. The research results were obtained with the use of a questionnaire, and our purpose was to demonstrate some hypothesis concerning identify the effect that implementation of ERP and BI applications in all functions of an organization has over the management method and the IT&C based decision. The originality of this article consists in the study realized in computer based advanced management methods implementation. The study is limited to the SIVECO companies portfolio. The purpose of the study was to demonstrate some hypothesis concerning the relationship between the size of the organization, the management method used, and the role of IT&C in decision making. The practical value of this study consists in the measurement of the impacts of contingency factors, including size, and in the assessment of the ERP systems success. The results demonstrate that the relationship between firm size and ERP success is moderated by IT assets.Enterprise Resource Planning, Business Intelligence, Management Methods, Balanced Scorecard

Adoption of Open Source and conventional ERP solutions for small and medium enterprises in manufacturing

Many studies on the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market have indicated that very few ERPs have succeeded to fully meet the expectations of an organisation in particularly the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This is usually due to commercial reasons, because most of the ERP systems are primarily designed and developed for large corporations which is not suitable for simplified and rapidly changing SMEs. With the arrival of licence free open source ERPs and at an affordable price, the problem of capital shortage in SMEs is partially resolved while flexibility remains a problem. In order to solve the flexibility issue, this paper presents methods of (a) an industrial survey and (b) a multistage initiation model to compare open source ERPs and the advantages of conventional ERP’s modular structure to propose an alternative ERP platform. The finding concludes that this alternative platform is feasible to be developed by users as well as flexible enough for growing SMEs in manufacturing