A critical evaluation of the standardisation potential of business plan evaluation aids (BPEA) used in venture capital investment decision-making

The research objective was to perform a critical evaluation and comparison of four, representative Business Plan Evaluation Aids (BPEA) to facilitate constructive discussion of the proposition that greater standardisation of venture capital decision-making might be both desirable and possible.The four BPEA were systematically compared using a structured, taxonomic process employing seven key criteria. The evidence of this investigation suggests a clear superiority for BPEAs, which are based on the known attributes of successful ventures and use actuarial modelling. Discussion centred on the importance of using BPEAs in a quest for greater consistency of venture capital investment decision-making.<br /

Strategic Predictors of Successful Enterprise Systems Deployment

Purpose The delivered wisdom to date has enterprise system purchase and implementation as one of the most hazardous projects any organization can undertake. The aim was to reduce this risk by both theoretically and empirically finding those key predictors of a successful enterprise system deployment. Design/methodology/approach A representative sample of 60 firms drawn from the Fortune 1000 that had recently (1999-2000) adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems was used to test a model of adoption performance with significant results. Findings Leadership (social learning theory), business process re-engineering (change the company not the technology) and acquisition strategy (buy, do not make) were found to be significant predictors of adoption performance (final model R 2=43 percent, F=5.5, pp Originality/value The “four factor” model we validate is a robust predictor of ERP adoption success and can be used by any organization to audit plans and progress for this undertaking

The Knowledge Application and Utilization Framework Applied to Defense COTS: A Research Synthesis for Outsourced Innovation

Purpose -- Militaries of developing nations face increasing budget pressures, high operations tempo, a blitzing pace of technology, and adversaries that often meet or beat government capabilities using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies. The adoption of COTS products into defense acquisitions has been offered to help meet these challenges by essentially outsourcing new product development and innovation. This research summarizes extant research to develop a framework for managing the innovative and knowledge flows. Design/Methodology/Approach – A literature review of 62 sources was conducted with the objectives of identifying antecedents (barriers and facilitators) and consequences of COTS adoption. Findings – The DoD COTS literature predominantly consists of industry case studies, and there’s a strong need for further academically rigorous study. Extant rigorous research implicates the importance of the role of knowledge management to government innovative thinking that relies heavily on commercial suppliers. Research Limitations/Implications – Extant academically rigorous studies tend to depend on measures derived from work in information systems research, relying on user satisfaction as the outcome. Our findings indicate that user satisfaction has no relationship to COTS success; technically complex governmental purchases may be too distant from users or may have socio-economic goals that supersede user satisfaction. The knowledge acquisition and utilization framework worked well to explain the innovative process in COTS. Practical Implications – Where past research in the commercial context found technological knowledge to outweigh market knowledge in terms of importance, our research found the opposite. Managers either in government or marketing to government should be aware of the importance of market knowledge for defense COTS innovation, especially for commercial companies that work as system integrators. Originality/Value – From the literature emerged a framework of COTS product usage and a scale to measure COTS product appropriateness that should help to guide COTS product adoption decisions and to help manage COTS product implementations ex post

Strategic Predictors of Successful Enterprise Systems Deployment

Purpose The delivered wisdom to date has enterprise system purchase and implementation as one of the most hazardous projects any organization can undertake. The aim was to reduce this risk by both theoretically and empirically finding those key predictors of a successful enterprise system deployment. Design/methodology/approach A representative sample of 60 firms drawn from the Fortune 1000 that had recently (1999-2000) adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems was used to test a model of adoption performance with significant results. Findings Leadership (social learning theory), business process re-engineering (change the company not the technology) and acquisition strategy (buy, do not make) were found to be significant predictors of adoption performance (final model R 2=43 percent, F=5.5, pp Originality/value The “four factor” model we validate is a robust predictor of ERP adoption success and can be used by any organization to audit plans and progress for this undertaking

London Creative and Digital Fusion

date-added: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000 date-modified: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000date-added: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000 date-modified: 2015-03-24 04:16:59 +0000The London Creative and Digital Fusion programme of interactive, tailored and in-depth support was designed to support the UK capital’s creative and digital companies to collaborate, innovate and grow. London is a globally recognised hub for technology, design and creative genius. While many cities around the world can claim to be hubs for technology entrepreneurship, London’s distinctive potential lies in the successful fusion of world-leading technology with world-leading design and creativity. As innovation thrives at the edge, where better to innovate than across the boundaries of these two clusters and cultures? This booklet tells the story of Fusion’s innovation journey, its partners and its unique business support. Most importantly of all it tells stories of companies that, having worked with London Fusion, have innovated and grown. We hope that it will inspire others to follow and build on our beginnings.European Regional Development Fund 2007-13

Information systems evaluation methodologies

Due to the prevalent use of Information Systems (IS) in modern organisations nowadays, evaluation research in this field is becoming more and more important. In light of this, a set of rigorous methodologies were developed and used by IS researchers and practitioners to evaluate the increasingly complex IS implementation used. Moreover, different types of IS and different focusing perspectives of the evaluation require the selection and use of different evaluation approaches and methodologies. This paper aims to identify, explore, investigate and discuss the various key methodologies that can be used in IS evaluation from different perspectives, namely in nature (e.g. summative vs. formative evaluation) and in strategy (e.g. goal-based, goal-free and criteria-based evaluation). The paper concludes that evaluation methodologies should be selected depending on the nature of the IS and the specific goals and objectives of the evaluation. Nonetheless, it is also proposed that formative criteria-based evaluation and summative criteria-based evaluation are currently among the most and more widely used in IS research. The authors suggest that the combines used of one or more of these approaches can be applied at different stages of the IS life cycle in order to generate more rigorous and reliable evaluation outcomes

A decision support methodology to enhance the competitiveness of the Turkish automotive industry

This is the post-print (final draft post-refereeing) version of the article. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Three levels of competitiveness affect the success of business enterprises in a globally competitive environment: the competitiveness of the company, the competitiveness of the industry in which the company operates and the competitiveness of the country where the business is located. This study analyses the competitiveness of the automotive industry in association with the national competitiveness perspective using a methodology based on Bayesian Causal Networks. First, we structure the competitiveness problem of the automotive industry through a synthesis of expert knowledge in the light of the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness indicators. Second, we model the relationships among the variables identified in the problem structuring stage and analyse these relationships using a Bayesian Causal Network. Third, we develop policy suggestions under various scenarios to enhance the national competitive advantages of the automotive industry. We present an analysis of the Turkish automotive industry as a case study. It is possible to generalise the policy suggestions developed for the case of Turkish automotive industry to the automotive industries in other developing countries where country and industry competitiveness levels are similar to those of Turkey

Giving the customer a voice: A study of market research methods and their perceived effectiveness in NPD

There is a widely held view that a lack of, “…customer understanding,” is one of the main reasons for product failure (Eliashberg et al., 1997, p. 219). This is despite the fact that new product development (NPD) is a crucial business process for many companies. The importance of integrating the voice of the customer (VoC) through market research is well documented (Davis, 1993; Mullins and Sutherland, 1998; Cooper et al., 2002; Flint, 2002; Davilla et al., 2006; Cooper and Edgett, 2008; Cooper and Dreher, 2010; Goffin and Mitchell, 2010). However, not all research methods are well received, for example there are studies that have strongly criticized focus groups, interviews and surveys (e.g. Ulwick, 2002; Goffin et al, 2010; Sandberg, 2002). In particular, a point is made that, “…traditional market research and development approaches proved to be particularly ill-suited to breakthrough products” (Deszca et al, 2010, p613). Therefore, in situations where traditional techniques—interviews and focus groups—are ineffective, the question is which market research techniques are appropriate, particularly for developing breakthrough products? To investigate this, an attempt was made to access the knowledge of market research practitioners from agencies with a reputation for their work on breakthrough NPD. We were surprised to find that this research had not been conducted previously. In order to make it possible for the sample of 24 market research experts identified for this study to share their knowledge, repertory grid technique was used. This psychology based method particularly seeks out tacit knowledge by using indepth interviews. In this case the interviews were conducted with professionals from leading market research agencies in two countries. The resulting data provided two unique insights: they highlighted the attributes of market research methods which made them effective at identifying customers’ needs and they showed how different methods were perceived against these attributes. This article starts with a review of the literature on different methods for conducting market research to identify customer needs. The conclusions from the literature are then used to define the research question. We explain our choice of methodology, including the data collection and analysis approach. Next the key results are presented. Finally, the discussion section identifies the key insights, clarifies the limitations of the research, suggests areas for future research, and draws implications for managers. We conclude that existing research is not aligned with regard to which methods (or combination of methods) are best suited to the various stages of the NPD process. We have set out the challenges and our own intended work in this regard in our section on ‘further research’. Also, the existing literature does not explicitly seek the perceptions of practitioner experts based in market research agencies. This we have started to address, and we acknowledge that further work is required. Although our research in ongoing, it has already yielded the first view of a model of the perceptions of 24 expert market researchers in the UK and Denmark. Based on the explanation of these experts, the model situates a derived set of categories in a manner that reflects the way in which they are inter-linked. We believe that our model begins to deal with the gaps and anomalies in the existing research into VoC methods

A Consumer-Centric Open Innovation Framework for Food and Packaging Manufacturing

This article has been archived following written permission from IGI Global.Closed innovation approaches have been employed for many years in the food industry. But, this sector recently perceives its end-user to be wary of radically new products and changes in consumption patterns. However, new product development involves not only the product itself but also the entire manufacturing and distribution network. In this paper, we present a new ICT based framework that embraces open innovation to place customers in the product development loop but at the same time assesses and eventually coordinates the entire manufacturing and supply chain. The aim is to design new food products that consumers will buy and at the same time ensure that these products will reach the consumer in time and at adequate quantity. On the product development side, our framework enables new food products that offer an integrated sensory experience of food and packaging, which encompass customization, healthy eating, and sustainability

Toward the standardization of venture capital investment evaluation : decision criteria for rating investee business plans

This study examined the criteria used by venture capitalists to evaluate business plans in order to make investment decisions. A literature survey revealed two competing theories: &ldquo;espoused criteria&rdquo; where evaluation decisions are based on what venture capitalists say are the decisive factors; versus the use of &ldquo;known attributes&rdquo; that successful ventures actually possess. Brunswik&rsquo;s Lens Model from Social Judgment Theory guided an empirical investigation of several different evaluation methods based on information contained in 129 business plans submitted for venture capital over a 3 year period. Data evaluation culminated in the comparison of the percentage of correct decisions (&ldquo;hit-rate&rdquo;) for each method. We found that decisions based on the known attributes of successful ventures have significantly better hit-rates than decisions made using espoused criteria. Discussion centred on the goal of achieving consistency in the conduct of venture analysis. Process standardization can aid in the achievement of consistency. Future research will both deepen and broaden insights.<br /