E-finance-lab at the House of Finance : about us

The financial services industry is believed to be on the verge of a dramatic [r]evolution. A substantial redesign of its value chains aimed at reducing costs, providing more efficient and flexible services and enabling new products and revenue streams is imminent. But there seems to be no clear migration path nor goal which can cast light on the question where the finance industry and its various players will be and should be in a decade from now. The mission of the E-Finance Lab is the development and application of research methodologies in the financial industry that promote and assess how business strategies and structures are shared and supported by strategies and structures of information systems. Important challenges include the design of smart production infrastructures, the development and evaluation of advantageous sourcing strategies and smart selling concepts to enable new revenue streams for financial service providers in the future. Overall, our goal is to contribute methods and views to the realignment of the E-Finance value chain. ..

Sri Lanka Social Enterprise Needs Assessment and Advisory

Authored in collaboration with Oxfam, this research maps social enterprises within the agriculture sector, identifies the key challenges they face, and makes recommendations for donors and development agencies looking to support the space in Sri Lanka. Findings and recommendations developed based on secondary research and field survey of social enterprises in Sri Lanka

Uptake of inter-organizational IT systems in two Australian agricultural cooperatives: a match between business relationships and design features

In this paper we will advance a perspective that links business network analysis to interorganizational IT systems(IOS) uptake, starting with an analytic framework to characterize both different types of electronic business to business interactions (via the web) as well as the network of business relationships in which they are used. In order to see whether inter-organizational IT systems and business networks (mis)match they are compared on two dimensions: 'mode of interaction' (relational versus transactional) and 'nature of coordination' (emergent versus directive). The study analyses two Australian agricultural cooperatives 'Capgrains' and 'Bluegum'. The transactional focus and directive control of Capgrains' online ordering system did not match with the relational interaction and emergent coordination that was common in their network of business relationships, resulting in a mismatch and low level of use of the system. The Bluegum's group communication system much better matched with the business relationships in the cooperative and higher use of the IOS. Indicating a positive relation betweenmatch and uptake of the IOS

Possible kinds of values added by the purchasing department

Value-based purchasing focuses the decisions of purchasing professionals on the creation of value, rather than on the traditional objectives of cost savings and efficiency. Most of the purchasing researchers see purchasing as a strategic contributor to the added value of the organizations. But only a few contributions discuss the possible kinds of values that the purchasing department could actually add to the organization. This paper tries to fill this gap and reviews the traditional and strategic concepts of values added by purchasing and the factors affecting value added. Furthermore the paper presents a conceptual model of factors affecting value added by the purchasing department. In order to discover the influence of these factors on the capacity of the purchasing department to add value to the organization, we conducted an empirical study. The preliminary findings of the empirical research are presented at the end of the paper

E-COMMERCE: A NEW BUSINESS MODEL FOR THE FOOD SUPPLY/DEMAND CHAIN

The use of electronic commerce for quality control and cost cutting efficiencies by the food and agricultural industries in the United States is the focus of this paper. The food industry engages in e-commerce through 1.) Internet shopping for consumers called business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce 2.) Business-to-business (B2B) Internet market discovery exchanges used by food suppliers at any point in the supply chain, and 3.) Business-to-business (B2B) relationships that reduce costs and increase efficiencies in the procurement, storage and delivery of food to retail stores or distribution centers. This third use of e-commerce is the most highly developed and widely adopted. It allows retailers to share information about consumers' purchases and preferences with food manufacturers and farmers and for tracking food products' characteristics, source, and movement from production to consumer. This circle of information allows high quality and consistent products to be consumed at lower prices. This paper is about the development of e-commerce in the food industry, the economic concepts and goals that it meets, and the changes it brings to the industry. E-commerce both fosters and demands vertical coordination. It favors consolidation of firms. It changes the business culture from one of adversarial relationships to one of cooperation and trust. It changes the historical supply chain into a supply/demand loop while it lowers the cost of food. Policy issues arise around monopoly power, privacy, a diminution of variety, and the demise of small, undercapitalized firms.Industrial Organization, Marketing,

The Relationship between Buyer and a B2B e-Marketplace: Cooperation Determinants in an Electronic Market Context

In this article, the authors argue that cooperation may be achieved by adding technology dimensions to the core product. Given the growing importance of real time information exchange and interactivity, a better understanding of the use of technology to the establishment and development of the buyer-supplier cooperative relationships is essential for knowledge advancement. Using a sample of nearly 400 SMEs purchasing managers, this paper reveals that in an electronic market context, cooperation is positively affected by termination costs, supplier policies and practices, communication and information exchange, and negatively affected by product prices and opportunistic behavior. Moreover, both relationship commitment and trust play a major role in mediating the relationships between these five determinants and cooperation.relationship marketing, trust, cooperation, electronic markets, e-commerce

New technologies for e-commerce

Today electronic commerce (e-commerce) has changed the way of doing business, and contributes significantly to economic activity. In any case, e-commerce is not a static field but it is always evolving in order to support new and more complex real world processes. The agriculture sector is expected to undergo significant transformation as a result of new business models being adopted through ecommerce. Examples of the adoption of new technologies in agriculture are provided with a view to demonstrating the benefits that can be achieved. The first part I expound the basics of e-commerce and e-markets. After I describe potential benefits to agriculture from adoption of e-commerce. The last part I describe the ecommerce 2.0, what is a prospect evolution of e-commerce

Internal report cluster 1: Urban freight innovations and solutions for sustainable deliveries (2/4)

Technical report about sustainable urban freight solutions, part 2 of

EDI and intelligent agents integration to manage food chains

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a type of inter-organizational information system, which permits the automatic and structured communication of data between organizations. Although EDI is used for internal communication, its main application is in facilitating closer collaboration between organizational entities, e.g. suppliers, credit institutions, and transportation carriers. This study illustrates how agent technology can be used to solve real food supply chain inefficiencies and optimise the logistics network. For instance, we explain how agribusiness companies can use agent technology in association with EDI to collect data from retailers, group them into meaningful categories, and then perform different functions. As a result, the distribution chain can be managed more efficiently. Intelligent agents also make available timely data to inventory management resulting in reducing stocks and tied capital. Intelligent agents are adoptive to changes so they are valuable in a dynamic environment where new products or partners have entered into the supply chain. This flexibility gives agent technology a relative advantage which, for pioneer companies, can be a competitive advantage. The study concludes with recommendations and directions for further research