Factors influencing branchless banking for microfinance in Sudan: Theoretical perspectives and future directions

In Sudan more than 40% live below the poverty line and getting basic financial service poses a challenge to financial institutions. Most of these unserved populations live in far-flung areas that make it difficult for microfinance institutions to reach them. But the enormous growth of mobile technology industry has created new opportunity to expand financial services to this unserved population. Branchless banking is one of the latest technologies that have been employed in different developing countries to expand financial services to the unbanked poor. Despite the potential benefits and relevance of Branchless banking to Sudan, there are still very few studies on Branchless banking in Sudan. To address this gap in the literature, this study aims to investigate the factors that are essential to the development of branchless banking in Sudan using mobile technology. This is a research-in-progress paper, the critical review of the literature so far revealed that there are essential factors for the success of branchless banking in Sudan e.g. the identification of the industry key players and their roles, the enabling regulatory environment, the infrastructure readiness and Sudanese cultural values. The paper will provide regulators and policy makers in Sudan a way forward to expedite the development of suitable Branchless banking for microfinance in Sudan

Extending IT infrastructures in the service sector organisations through enterprise resource planning – a telecom case study

Copyright @ 2012 ISEing.Service Sector Organisations (SSOs) have significantly focused on adopting and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to automate their prime business processes, enhance organisational productivity with lower costs and prompt service delivery to fulfil consumer demands. Thus, ERP systems are considered as a principal source to provide imperative information vital for strategic decision making process. On the contrary, ERP systems adoption and implementation is also highly considered as a challenging and expensive process that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have an exhaustive investigation of influential factors that are critical to the adoption and implementation of ERP systems. As a result, the authors exhibit that it is of great significance to investigate this area within SSOs. In so doing, this paper thus focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different categories such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project based on the literature analysis. These perspectives comprise of 24 factors that are imperative for a successful ERP adoption and implementation. These factors are validated through an in-depth qualitative single case study based research. The findings from the literature and empirical demonstrate that most of the factors influencing the decision making process for ERP adoption and implementation are highly significant with exception to few that have either low or medium importance

An investigation of aligning project management to business strategy: A review and conceptual framework

Copyright (C) 2011/12 ISEing.This paper discusses in depth the factors that lead to misalignment between the project management and the business strategy by investigating four case studies in the telecomunications industry in Saudi Arabia. Project management has been an important issue for many years and for many companies worldwide. Many implementations of project management (PM) have been successful, while others have failed to deliver the outcome of the project. The literature indicates that misalignment between large projects and the business strategy leads to 30% of all projects failing. Indeed, the literature highlights few internal factors (e.g. effective communication, executive support, involving the project manager in the business strategy development, and the project manager leadership competence) that may tie the project management to the company's business strategy. However, this study indicates very important external factors that affect the implementation of the company's business strategy. A framework will be developed to provide a clear guide to the project management efforts towards a competitive business strategy

An integrated framework to classify healthcare virtual communities

Healthcare (HC) strives to improve service quality through its cost-effective social computing strategy. However, sudden rise in the count of virtual community of practices (VCoPs) introduced many choices for physicians; As a result, it is not surprising to observe current literature reporting lack of study to investigate ideas integration within and between VCoPs. VCoPs need to be categorized for HC physicians so they will be able to pin-point effective a VC to attain assistance from. This paper is one of the first investigative studies, in HC sector, that proposed a framework to classify and pin-point appropriate VCoPs, for physicians, after it reviewed and analyzed traditional and up-to-date theoretical, empirical and case study literature in the area of social computing, knowledge management (KM) and VCoPs. The implementation of this framework pinpointed professional VCoPs as most appropriate for physicians based on strict requirements, i.e. closed physician communities holding many participants, which are older than 5 years with high boundary crossing. This framework is also a “one-size-fit-all” formula to build an organizational VCoP, utilizable by other business sectors

Knowledge Sharing in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Review

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to help in providing a better understanding on knowledge sharing amongst academics in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The aim in this study is realized by profiling existing literature to understand the determinants of knowledge sharing, research trends, theories and future research opportunities. Design/methodology/approach – After carefully examining the extant literature, and by utilising relevant academic-based research databases, a total of 73 papers published in peer-reviewed journals over the last decade were reviewed and analysed using well established systematic literature review methodology. Findings – The adopted systematic review revealed that there is limited contributions in understanding knowledge sharing in HEIs when compared with other sectors. The review provides a number of avenues for future research including technological, cultural, organisational and behavioural aspects at different levels. Practical implications – This study helps in offering a focal point to senior management in HEIs for realising the requirements for developing appropriate strategies and programmes to promote knowledge sharing among academics and consequently enhance their institutions’ performance. Originality/value – This study utilised Jesson et al. (2011) in presenting a comprehensive systematic review of knowledge sharing specifically in the context of HEIs. This paper offers some theoretical and practical insights on what contributes towards understating the determinates affecting knowledge sharing practices among academics

Hybrid simulation challenges and opportunities: a life-cycle approach

The last 10 years have witnessed a marked upsurge of attention on Hybrid Simulation (HS). The majority of authors define HS as a joint modelling approach which includes two or more simulation approaches (mainly Discrete Event Simulation, System Dynamics and Agent Based Simulation). Whilst some may argue that HS has been in existence for more than 5 decades, the recent rise tended to be more problem driven rather than technical experimentation. Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) 2015, 2016, 2017 have witnessed 3 panels on the purpose, history and definition of HS, respectively. This paper reports on a comprehensive review conducted by the panelists on HS and its applications. The aim of the paper is to move the debate forward by exploring potential platforms for developing concrete avenues for research on HS in conjunction with the modelling life cycle