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Businesses will increasingly use robots to deal with theexplosion of data

The term “Robotic Process Automation” (RPA) connotes visions of physical robots wandering around offices doing the job of humans. However, the term really means automation of service tasks. Let’s think of business processes such as transferring data from multiple input sources such as email and spreadsheets to systems of record like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Here the term RPA most commonly refers to configuring software to do the job

A new approach to automating services

Companies are achieving productivity gains by using software robots to perform routine, rules-based service processes. If implemented well, such automation can result in high-performing human-robot teams, in which software robots and human employees complement one another

The Aim to Decentralize Economic Systems With Blockchains and Crypto

As an information systems (“IS”) professor, I wrote this Article for legal professionals new to blockchains and crypto. This target audience likely is most interested in crypto for its legal implications—depending on whether it functions as currencies, securities, commodities, or properties; however, legal professionals also need to understand crypto’s origin, how transactions work, and how they are governed

Governance of Offshore IT Outsourcing at Shell Global Functions IT-BAM Development and Application of a Governance Framework to Improve Outsourcing Relationships

The lack of effective IT governance is widely recognized as a key inhibitor to successful global IT outsourcing relationships. In this study we present the development and application of a governance framework to improve outsourcing relationships. The approach used to developing an IT governance framework includes a meta model and a customization process to fit the framework to the target organization. The IT governance framework consists of four different elements (1) organisational structures, (2) joint processes between in- and outsourcer, (3) responsibilities that link roles to processes and (4) a diverse set of control indicators to measure the success of the relationship. The IT governance framework is put in practice in Shell GFIT BAM, a part of Shell that concluded to have a lack of management control over at least one of their outsourcing relationships. In a workshop the governance framework was used to perform a gap analysis between the current and desired governance. Several gaps were identified in the way roles and responsibilities are assigned and joint processes are set-up. Moreover, this workshop also showed the usefulness and usability of the IT governance framework in structuring, providing input and managing stakeholders in the discussions around IT governance

The Outsourcing Unit Working Research Paper Series Paper 14/1 – Cloud Services: The Great Equalizer for

Acknowledgements: We thank and acknowledge our research sponsor, Accenture. In particular, we are grateful to Miguel Gabriel Custodio, IT Strategy Australia/Cloud Strategy- APAC, for his support. We also thank the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals for their support in administering a survey, and Ken Saloway and Frank Casale for connecting us with SME cloud adopters