Business model requirements and challenges in the mobile telecommunication sector

The telecommunications business is undergoing a critical revolution, driven by innovative technologies, globalization, and deregulation. Cellular networks and telecommunications bring radical changes to the way telecom businesses are conducted. Globalization, on the other hand, is tearing down legacy barriers and forcing monopolistic national carriers to compete internationally. Moreover, the noticeable progress of many countries towards deregulation coupled with liberalization is significantly increasing telecom market power and allowing severe competition. The implications of this transition have changed the business rules of the telecom industry. In addition, entrants into the cellular industry have had severe difficulties due to inexistent or weak Business Models (BMs). Designing a BM for a mobile network operator is complex and requires multiple actors to balance different and often conflicting design requirements. Hence, there is a need to enhance operators’ ability in determining what constitutes the most viable business model to meet their strategic objectives within this turbulent environment. In this paper, the authors identify the main mobile BM dimensions along with their interdependencies and further analysis provides mobile network operators with insights to improve their business models in this new ‘boundary-less’ landscape

Modeling supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure systems

While strategies for emergency response to large-scale disasters have been extensively studied, little has been done to map medium- to long-term strategies capable of restoring supply chain infrastructure systems and reconnecting such systems from a local urban area to national supply chain systems. This is, in part, because no comprehensive, data-driven model of supply chain networks exists. Without such models communities cannot re-establish the level of connectivity required for timely restoration of goods and services. This dissertation builds a model of supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure (SCICI) as a complex adaptive systems problem. It defines model elements, data needs/element, the interdependency of critical infrastructures, and suggests metrics for evaluating success. Previous studies do not consider the problem from a systematic view and therefore their solutions are piecemeal, rather than integrated with respect to both the model elements and geospatial data components. This dissertation details a methodology to understand the complexities of SCICI within a real urban framework (St. Louis, MO). Interdependencies between the infrastructures are mapped to evaluate resiliency and a framework for quantifying interdependence is proposed. In addition, this work details the identification, extraction and integration of the data necessary to model infrastructure systems --Abstract, page iv

The "fuzzy front end" of innovation

The fast transformation of technologies into new products or processes is one of the core challenges for any technology-based enterprise. Within the innovation process, we believe, the early phases (fuzzy front end) to have the highest impact on the whole process and the result (Input-Output Process), since it will influence the design and total costs of the innovation extremely. However the Fuzzy Front End is unfortunately the least-well structured part of the innovation process, both in theory and in practice. The focus of the present chapter is on methods and tools to manage the fuzzy front end of the innovation process. Firstly, the activities, characteristics, and challenges of the front end are described. Secondly, a framework of the application fields for different methods and tools is presented: Since a product upgrade requires a different approach compared to radical innovation, where the market is unknown and a new technology is applied, we believe such a framework to be useful for practitioners. Thirdly, a selection of methods and tools that can be applied to the fuzzy front end are presented and allocated within the framework. The methods selected here address process improvements, concept generation, and concept testing. --fuzzy front end,innovation management,stage-gate process,frontloading,triz,dsm-matrix,lead user

Identifying Geographical Interdependency in Critical Infrastructure Systems Using Open Source Geospatial Data in Order to Model Restoration Strategies in the Aftermath of a Large-Scale Disaster

In the wake of a large-scale disaster, strategies for emergency search and rescue, short-term recovery and medium- to long-term restoration are needed. While considerable effort is geared to developing strategies for the former two options, little comprehensive guidance exists on the latter. However, medium- to long-term restoration has a significant effect on local, regional and national economies and is essential to community vitality. In part, the deficit of robust strategies can be linked to the complexity in the data acquisition and limited methodologies to understand the interconnectedness of the relevant systems elements. This research utilizes infrastructure data for Supply Chain Interdependent Critical Infrastructure Systems (SCICI) such as transportation, energy, communications, or water, obtained or derived through open sources (such as The National Map of the U.S. Geological Survey) to identify, understand, and map the interdependencies between these system elements to enable restoration planning. Specifically, internal geographical relationships (herein called the ‘geographical interdependency’) of SCICI elements are mapped. These interdependencies highlight the stress points on the larger SCICI where failures occur and are not included in current built environment models. The mapping of these interdependencies is a key step forward in attempts to optimally restore an urban center’s supply chain in the wake of an extreme event

A Suggestion on the Roadmapping Process to Make an Integration Roadmap between Service-Device-Technology–With a Focus on the Case of U-City

The Technology Roadmap(TRM) is a technical strategic decision support framework in order for the anticipation and projection of the changes of technologies in the future, which has higher uncertainty in general. While the importance of technology management is receiving more attention these days, the research works on the TRMs have been limited to project future technology trends yet diversely studied in different sector such as the service industry The aim of research is therefore to explored and proposed a integrated roadmapping process based on the service oriented business model which based on technology. Proposed methodology has been applied into smart city development project to validate its usefulness and benefit

Risk and vulnerability analysis in society’s proactive emergency management: Developing methods and improving practices

Risk and vulnerability analyses can play important roles in the society’s proactive emergency management. This thesis addresses two ways of improving the analysis of risk and vulnerability analysis in this context. First, by developing methods for risk and vulnerability analysis of technical infrastructure networks and emergency response systems. Secondly, by aiming to improve practises related to RVA through an evaluation of Swedish municipal RVAs and an empirical study of how various disaster characteristics affect people judgments of disaster seriousness. The research has to a large extent been carried out by using a design research approach developed in the thesis

A Generic Four-step Methodology For Institutional Analysis

The central hypothesis of this paper is that there may be situations in which the traditional approach to institutional analysis is of limited applicability. Such an approach, which has been called 'comparative institutional analysis', consists of comparing institutional environments and institutional arrangements in terms of specific economic or other efficiency criteria to see which one performs better. However, because of limitations to accurately predict the future performance of alternative institutional settings, comparisons are not always possible. Furthermore, in most cases the only information available is the performance of the current institutional setting. To account for this methodological deficiency, a generic methodology for institutional analysis, which consists of four steps (institutional structure, institutional efficiency, institutional choice, and institutional change), is proposed in this paper. Accordingly, the emphasis switches from evaluating alternative institutional choices to improving current scenarios. To show the validity of this methodology, some results of its application to a case study are presented. Although more research on this four-step methodology is needed, it proved to be robust when applied to the analysis of the governance of irrigated agriculture in the Peninsula of Santa Elena, Ecuador.New Institutional Economics, Governance structures, Institutional Change., Institutional and Behavioral Economics, B52, D02, Q25,