Business Value of the Internet of Things – A Project Portfolio Selection Approach

The Internet of Things (IoT) counts among the most disruptive digital technologies on the market. De-spite the IoT’s emerging nature, there is an increasing body of knowledge related to technological and business topics. Nevertheless, there is a lack of prescriptive knowledge that provides organizations with guidance on the economic valuation of investments in the IoT perspective. Such knowledge, however, is crucial for pursuing the organizational goal of long-term value maximization. Against this backdrop, we develop an economic decision model that helps organizations determine an optimal IoT project port-folio from a manufacturer’s perspective and complies with the principles of project portfolio selection and value-based management. For our purposes, IoT project portfolios are compilations of projects that aim to implement IoT technology in an organization’s production process, products, or infrastructure. Our decision model schedules IoT projects for multiple planning periods and considers monetary as well as monetized project effects. On this foundation, it determines the project sequence with the highest value contribution. To evaluate our decision model, we discussed its real-world fidelity and under-standability with an industry expert renowned for its proficiency in IoT technology, implemented a soft-ware prototype, and demonstrated its applicability based on real-world data. Keywords: Internet of Things, economic valuation of IoT, value-based management, project portfolio management

How to Exploit the Digitalization Potential of Business Processes

Process improvement is the most value-adding activity in the business process management (BPM) lifecycle. Despite mature knowledge, many approaches have been criticized to lack guidance on how to put process improvement into practice. Given the variety of emerging digital technologies, organizations not only face a process improvement black box, but also high uncertainty regarding digital technologies. This paper thus proposes a method that supports organizations in exploiting the digitalization potential of their business processes. To achieve this, action design research and situational method engineering were adopted. Two design cycles involving practitioners (i.e., managers and BPM experts) and end-users (i.e., process owners and participants) were conducted. In the first cycle, the method’s alpha version was evaluated by interviewing practitioners from five organizations. In the second cycle, the beta version was evaluated via real-world case studies. In this paper, detailed results of one case study, which was conducted at a semiconductor manufacturer, are included

Smart Things im Internet der Dinge Ein Klassifikationsansatz

Das Internet der Dinge ist eine der disruptivsten Technologien auf dem Markt. Im Internet der Dinge werden physische Objekte mit Sensoren, Aktuatoren und Rechenleistung ausgestattet sowie mit dem Internet verknüpft. Die dadurch entstehenden Smart Things bilden die Grundlage für neuartige Interak-tionen zwischen Unternehmen, Dingen und Individuen sowie für innovative Geschäftsmodelle, die auf einer zunehmenden Verschmelzung von digitaler und physischer Welt, einer umfassenden Verfügbarkeit von Daten sowie auf allgegenwärtiger Vernetzung beruhen. Trotz aller Aktivitäten rund um das Inter-net der Dinge herrscht nach wie vor Unklarheit darüber, was ein Smart Thing überhaupt ist und wie sich Smart Things voneinander unterscheiden. Wir schlagen daher eine Taxonomie für Smart Things vor, klassifi zieren beispielhaft 50 Smart Things aus dem Business-to-Consumer-Umfeld und leiten Handlungsbedarf ab

What\u27s in a Smart Thing? Development of a Multi-layer Taxonomy

Digital technologies immerse in our private lives and force businesses to rethink existing work practices. Among the emerging digital technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT) is attributed disruptive potential, as it refers to the equipment of physical things with sensor and communication technologies and to the integration of these things into the networked society. Until today, the IoT is low on theoretical insights. Most notably, smart things, which constitute a vital building block of the IoT and the foundation of IoT-based business models, have been neglected by academic research. Taking a smart thing’s perspective, our study aims to complement extant work on the IoT. We offer a multi-layer taxonomy of smart things that comprises ten dimensions structured along the architectural layers of existing IoT stacks (i.e., the thing itself, interaction, data, and services). To evaluate our taxonomy, we used a sample of 50 real-life smart things from the B2C context

Modernisierung von ERP-Systemen. Chance für digitale Geschäftsprozesse im Mittelstand

Die Digitalisierung beeinflusst bestehende Geschäftsmodelle, verändert die Ansprüche der Kunden und zwingt Unternehmen dazu, ihre Organisation und Prozesse anzupassen, um dauerhaft wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. In diesem Kontext führte die Projektgruppe Wirtschaftsinformatik des Fraunhofer FIT mit dem Glasflakon-Hersteller HEINZ-GLAS ein ERP-Auswahl- und Organisationsgestaltungsprojekt durch