Instruments to support decision competencies of an investment project manager

From among many competencies of a manager, the abilities of team, project and organization management become especially important. However, to make right decisions, one needs to have appropriate tools supporting effective company management. In case of companies carrying out investment, modernization or innovative projects, it is especially important. Implementation of those projects takes place in various conditions resulting from changing and turbulent environment. Thus, if the manager does not have sufficient information support, provided in time and allowing for effective decision making, which mitigates negative effects of previous actions, he is basically doomed to failure. In such a case, what decides about the situation in the project execution process is a coincidence, not intentional actions of the staff, based on their knowledge about potential risks. Such a knowledge, gained early enough, allows for taking more effective corrective actions. This paper is an attempt to define an operational model of a company along with principles of monitoring actions of an enterprise that carries out projects and functions in the current economic situation, illustrated by an example of a construction company. Its implementation is supposed to provide the managing staff with stores of information that efficiently support the company management process

Enterprise portals: addressing the organisational and individual perspectives of information systems

Enterprise portals are being viewed as the next generation application platform of choice, offering benefits over both client/server and thin client arrangements. By providing a mediating layer between the information applications and resources of the organisation and the individuals using them, enterprise portals appear to provide a unique context to allow both the organisational and individual perspectives of information systems to be addressed. This study seeks to examine these often competing perspectives of information systems by using an exploratory empirical survey to investigate the actual deployment of enterprise portals within a range of different organisations. It is found that both the individual and organisational benefits that enterprise portals can offer appear to have been recognised, and coherent sets of services addressing each of these perspectives are being developed. Consistent with diffusion and acceptance of technology models, organisations appear to be commencing their portal developments with services that will ensure utilisation by individuals, and are subsequently seeking to realise organisational level benefits

Unleashing the Effectiveness of Process-oriented Information Systems: Problem Analysis, Critical Success Factors, Implications

Process-oriented information systems (IS) aim at the computerized support of business processes. So far, contemporary IS have often fail to meet this goal. To better understand this drawback, to systematically identify its rationales, and to derive critical success factors for business process support, we conducted three empirical studies: an exploratory case study in the automotive domain, an online survey among 79 IT professionals, and another online survey among 70 business process management (BPM) experts. This paper summarizes the findings of these studies, puts them in relation with each other, and uses them to show that "process-orientation" is scarce and "process-awareness" is needed in IS engineering

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

Policy Issues of e-Commerce Technology Diffusion in Southeast Nigeria: The Case of Small Scale Agribusiness

The benefits brought about by the emergence of e-commerce, e-business and other Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) applications have not been fully explored in the developing economies of the world. The less developed economies are still struggling to catch up with ICT application as opposed to its heavy deployment in the developed economies. Empirical evidence suggests that ICTs and other related technologies are increasingly emerging in the communities of the developing economies such as Nigeria. Rural actors engaged in the Agricultural industries (Agribusiness) feel that the implementation of ICTs can influence the development of new business processes and the way existing processes are organised. In the Southeast of Nigeria, which is a typical example of a less developed community, the impact of e-business technologies has yet to be determined. This paper identifies two classical traditional agribusiness supply chains and hence reports on the impact of e-commerce technology diffusion along the equilibrium of the supply chains, focusing on the elimination of intermediary actors from the chain. It provides an assessment of the Governments’ policies and strategies on e-commerce adoption for the sustainability of small-scale agricultural businesses. The paper examines the politics surrounding ICT implementations by actors engaged in the agribusiness sector. This research has motivated The South East State Government, in collaboration with the Federal Government, to give closer attention to their earlier policy of making Nigeria an ICT-enabled country

Challenges and influential factors in ERP adoption and implementation

The adoption and implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is a challenging and expensive task that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have a detailed analysis of such factors that are critical to the adoption or implementation of ERP systems. Many efforts have been made to identify such influential factors for ERP; however, they are not filtered comprehensively in terms of the different perspectives. This paper focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different perspectives such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project. Results from the literature review are presented and 19 such factors are identified that are imperative for a successful ERP implementation, which are listed in order of their importance. Considering these factors can realize several benefits such as reducing costs and saving time or extra effort

MULTIMEDIA INTERFACE AS A SUPPORT TOOL FOR LOGISTICS DECISION-MAKING

Growing complexity of problems of logistics management in enterprises anddifferentiation of the used applications without common database force businesses tosearch for solutions which facilitate the processes of logistics decision-making. One ofthe concepts proposed in this chapter is a design of decision-maker/logistics interface.Firstly, technologies of corporate portals were described, being a basis for ergonomicand useful interface. Next the properties typical of functional multimedia interfaceadapted to the logistics decision-makers’ needs were listed. Further in the chapter,methodological assumptions for interface creation were made whereas the benefitsbrought by personalization of both form (in terms of topography, colours andarrangement of main components of the interface) and content were emphasized.corporate portal, dynamic internet applications, graphical user interface model;