Productivity Drivers in British Columbia: Strategic Areas for Improvement

A brief analysis of British Columbia’s productivity performance and the state of the drivers of this performance reveals that five areas merit additional focus and research. They are, in the proposed order of completion: Education and literacy, including professional qualifications and education for targeted groups such as aboriginals and recent immigrants, credentials recognition. Public and private investment, including public infrastructure, business investment and taxation structure. Research and innovation, including R&D investment, product and process innovation, knowledge diffusion and technology adoption. Resource reallocation, including competition policy, improving market mechanisms, product market regulation and foreign ownership rules. Trade and migration, including interprovincial and international movement of goods and services, skilled and unskilled immigration and emigration and interprovincial migration.Productivity, Diagnosis, British Columbia,Human Capital, Physical Capital, Innovation,

ICT Investment Evaluation and Mobile Computing Business Support for Construction Site Operations

The intangible qualitative innovation benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are essential for improving quality of production, enhancing business activities and creating new competitive opportunities. Still, these benefits are not accounted for in traditional financial investment evaluation methods like Return On Investment (ROI) and Net Present Value (NPV). The strict quantitative financial methods for evaluating ICT investments leave out most of the strategic long-term performance benefits that ICT provide. There is a need for a multidimensional evaluation method that includes the long-term performance perspective, generation of system usefulness and future business value of ICT investments.This paper starts from a general perspective of ICT investment evaluation. It describes the complexity of ICT benefits, some of the common pitfalls when estimating the business value of ICT and two general approaches for evaluating ICT investments. The paper then reflects upon the benefits of mobile computing for the construction site production environment and the evaluation of such a technology investment in that business context

Performance evaluation and indices of cyber cafe business: a factor analytic approach

The advent of the World Wide Web has opened up a new vista of opportunities for investment in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry. In recent years, the cyber café business has attracted considerable investment, providing job opportunities for many people. On the other hand, it has also been observed that some hitherto vibrant cyber cafes are also closing down due to the fact that they could not break even. This study, is therefore, aimed at identifying the factors/indices that could enhance the performance of cyber cafes. A total of 250 users of cyber cafes in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria were randomly selected and a structured questionnaire was administered on them. Data collected was analysed using factor analysis by principal component. The result revealed that four factors, namely quality of hardware, speed of processing, cost, and reliability of service are the major factors that influence users’ patronage. It is therefore recommended that investors and would-be-investors in the cyber cafe business should pay attention to these facors in order to enhance the success of their investment

Influence of electronic commerce on business performance: Evidence from e-commerce organisations in Harare, Zimbabwe

Abstract: The purpose of the study was to explore the impact of electronic commerce on business performance with specific focus on business organisations in Harare, Zimbabwe. This was achieved through investigating the relationship between e-commerce investment and indicators of business performance such as cost operations, service operations and profit levels. A structured questionnaire was developed and administered to 40 respondents from 10 e-commerce organisations. The study revealed that there was a positive relationship between e-commerce investment and business performance. It was revealed that an investment in e-commerce by organisations in Zimbabwe would increase profit levels, improve service operations and reduce transaction costs. The researchers recommended that organisations that have already adopted e-commerce should raise customer awareness and interest in e-commerce and promote the usage of the technology. They also recommended that policy makers such as the Government must take a leading role in the funding of education and the development of infrastructure in order to encourage more organizations and consumers to participate in e-commerce.Keywords: E-commerce, Business performance, Business organisations, Service operations, Cost operation

Requirements Development and Management: Supporting the Business Objective

The complexities and competitiveness of today’s business environment are forcing hard assessments of the return on investment for information technology expenditures. The process of developing system and software requirements is still one of the hardest tasks an IS organization performs. The infusion of technology into business has changed the way business is conducted. When there is a substantive change in the technology, the business is again changed. This paper presents the IS organization as a sponsor of business process innovation. The requirements development and management processes should be conducted as a collaborative effort, linking system and software requirements to business performance improvement

Modeling inventories over the business cycle.

We search for useful models of aggregate fluctuations with inventories. We focus exclusively on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that endogenously give rise to inventory investment and evaluate two leading candidates: the (S,s) model and the stockout avoidance model. Each model is examined under both technology shocks and preference shocks, and its performance gauged by its ability to explain the observed magnitude of inventories in the U.S. economy, alongside other empirical regularities, such as the procyclicality of inventory investment and its positive correlation with sales. We find that the (S,s) model is far more consistent with the behavior of aggregate inventories in the postwar U.S. when aggregate fluctuations arise from technology, rather than preference, shocks. The converse is true for the stockout avoidance model. Overall, while the (S,s) model performs well with respect to the inventory facts and other business cycle regularities, the stockout avoidance model does not. There, the essential motive for stocks is insufficient to generate inventory holdings near the data without destroying the model’s performance along other important margins. Finally, the stockout avoidance model appears incapable of sustaining inventories alongside capital. This suggests a fundamental problem in using reduced-form inventory models with stocks rationalized by this motiveInventories ; Business cycles

Investment, Tobin's Q, and Multiple Capital Inputs

Despite their solid theoretical basis, models of business investment based on Tobin's Q theory have recorded a generally disappointing empirical performance. This paper examines one possible source of misspecification. When the firm's technology is expanded to include two or more capital inputs, the investment equation following from maximizing behavior includes Q as well as a series of additional explanatory variables. The importance of these omitted variables is assessed, and the econometric evidence is mixed, as the Multi-Capital Q model clearly dominates the Conventional specification but empirical problems remain. In addition, the implications of the parameter estimates from the Conventional and Multi-Capital models for tax policy are noted.

Performance Management System for Information Technology Project (Case Study: NEW ROAM SR Project in Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia)

Information Technology is playing a big role integrating information flow. Information technology implementation is an investment with targeted to gain the efficiency of competitive edge over competitor for business. Ensuring the investment made in Information Technology project to reach the objective and provides value for the business is something that people are used to rely on triple constraint on time, on scope and on budget. Triple constraint only evaluate project fulfillment based on the project plan, on time, on scope and on budget but does not guarantee the final output is providing expected value for business, triple constraint is considered as short term goal which is easy to use for evaluating project but do not reflect the actual impact and benefit. A case study conducted in Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia to design a performance management system to provide a comprehensive IT project key performance indicator based on PRISM approach to ensure all necessary strategy, process and capability in place to achieve project stakeholder satisfaction and contribution. Keywords: Analytical Hierarchy Process, PRISM, Information Technology Projec

Effectiveness of Information Technology Strategy in an Organization: A Case Study

Information Technology is a tool for an organization to compete with the competitor in the same sector. The purpose of developing IT strategy is to ensure that there is a clear relationship between IT investment and the overall organization goal. Furthermore it should support the business strategy to achieve the organization goal and objective. This project will focus on indicating the influence of IT strategy in the organization and how the IT strategy can improve business performance in construction, publication and agriculture sector. The researcher used case study approach for conduct this study. In the study of the effectiveness of IT strategy in organization, the study found that there are link between business and IT strategy that help an organization to achieve their goal. Besides that, IT investment in an organization is related with business and company needs. Decisions making for IT investment are make to fulfil business needs and help to improve organization performance

Some philosophical enquiries on E-learning: preparing the tomorrow business school

Emerging digital technologies and increasing interest in the computerized delivery of higher education have led to e-learning through electronic mail, the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), and multimedia. The major objective of this research outlet is to examine the e-learning evolution in business schools. Our research intentions are to investigate: 1. if universities understand the market dynamics (regarding to segmentation and crossing the chasm); 2. mapping the s-curve to student needs and 3. how business schools will change the value map. From the analysis of existing empirical evidence and our research results from 140 business students of the University of Ioannina (Greece) and 50 business students of the University of Winchester (UK), we can summarize that: a. value is created when new technology is matched to student need; b. but student needs change: as the technology evolves existing students develop new needs and in addition the technology may appeal to new kinds of students, with new kinds of needs and c. understanding the structure of student needs may be particularly important at times of potential discontinuity, when existing students may reject new technologies (for excellent reasons!).  The authors suggest that business schools interested in being productive should invest in implementing performance tools for all educational methods in order to accomplish the educational objectives. Further research in this crucial field of the evolution of e-learning in business schools is the examination of anticipated benefits and the experiences by early e-learning adopters, return on investment and expectations for the future