A fuzzy superiority and inferiority ranking based approach for IT service management software selection

Abstract Purpose – Information technology service management (ITSM) has become a major IT department management system in organizations. Successful implementation of ITSM depends on select adequate ITSM software. Evaluation and selection of the ITSM solution or software packages is complicated and time-consuming decision-making problem. This paper aims to present an approach for dealing with such a problem. Design/methodology/approach – This approach introduces functional, non-functional requirements and novel fuzzy out-ranking evaluation method for ITSM software selection. The presented approach breaks down ITSM software selection criteria into two broad categories, namely, functional (service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation, continual service improvement according to Information Technology Infrastructure Library V3) and non-functional requirements (quality, technical, vendor, implementation) including totally 46 selection criteria. A novel fuzzy superiority and inferiority ranking (FSIR) was developed and made applicable for ITSM software selection based on identified criteria. Findings – The proposed approach is applied to IT services company to select and acquire ITSM software, and the provided numerical example illustrates the applicability of the approach for this choice. The approach can facilitate firms to achieve suitable ITSM software and have a precise acquisition decision; however, the limitation of dependency on experts’ competence and proficiency in the both ITSM field and IT technical issues exists. Research limitations/implications – The approach can facilitate firms to achieve suitable ITSM software and have a precise acquisition decision; however, the limitation of dependency on experts’ competence and proficiency in the both ITSM field and IT technical issues exists. Practical implications – Facilitating of ITSM implementation through its handy software selection is the major impact of current research. Originality/value – A facile FSIR-based approach for software selection has been customized to contribute to the current literature in the ITSM field. Facilitating of ITSM implementation through its handy software selection is the major impact of current research

A Review for the Online Social Networks Literature (2005-2011)

Although Online Social Networks (OSNs) such as MySpace, Facebook, and Youtube are still under development; they have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. There are hundreds of OSNs, with various technological affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices. However, impact of OSNs is increasingly pervasive and numerous researchers worked on different aspects on social networks. There is no research work for identification and classification of this literature. So, the purpose of this study is to presents a literature review for research works in OSNs. The review covers 132 journal articles published from 2005 to 2011. The reviewed articles classified OSNs literature into four distinct categories: the “Application”, “Survey and Analysis”, “Concept”, and “Technique”. The findings of our study reveal that “applications” were the most frequently category has been considered in the literature. Also, the subject of social networking is somehow overlooked in developing and under-developed countries. This review will provide a source for anyone interested in discovering research trends in social network sites literature, and will help to simulate further interest fields in the area. Keywords: Social network sites (SNSs), Online Social Networks (OSNs), Social media, Social networking

Empowering benefits of ERP systems implementation: empirical study of industrial firms

Purpose – Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a useful system in today’s organizations that can lead to numerous benefits for them. The employees and managers are the most important stakeholders of this system that can both affect it and be affected by it. This paper aims to study the empowerment benefits resulted from ERP implementation in industrial companies. Design/methodology/approach – This paper investigated the ERP benefits through survey by defining 31 empowering benefits for this enterprise system based on reviewing the literature and classifying them into four groups of empowering benefits including informative, communicative, growth and learning and strategic benefits. Statistical population of the study is the core specialist and managers of these corporations. Findings – The results indicated that the communicative, strategic and informative empowering benefits are as important common advantages. Furthermore, the results of computing the regression coefficient represent that the empowering benefits of strategic, informative, communicative and growth and learning had the maximum impact on the firms’ empowering benefits from ERP implementation. Originality/value – The findings of this study provide a general overview of what to expect from ERP with respect to empowerment and based on it, features, modules and innovations that should be present for realizing these expectations can be determined

A practical framework for assessing business intelligence competencies of enterprise systems using fuzzy ANP approach

As traditional concept in management, decision support had a remarkable role in competitiveness or survival of organisations and following, as modern impression, nowadays business intelligence (BI) has various applications in achieving desirable decision supports. Consequently, assessing BI competencies of enterprise systems can enable decision support in firms. This paper presents a practical framework for assessing the business intelligence capabilities of enterprise systems based on a set of novel factors and utilising fuzzy analytic network process (FANP). Through this, the construct of BI competency is decomposed into three main competency parts including ‘managerial’, ‘technical’ and ‘system enabler’ sub-goals, five main factors and 26 criteria. Using this framework, the BI competency level of enterprise systems can be determined which can help the decision makers to select the enterprise system that best suits organisations’ intelligence decision support needs. In order to validate the proposed model, it is applied to a real Iranian international offshore engineering and construction company in the oil industry to select and acquire ERP system. This research provides a complete frame (factors, criteria and procedures) for firms to assess their proposed software and systems in the field of BI competencies and functions

AI-enabled exploration of Instagram profiles predicts soft skills and personality traits to empower hiring decisions

It does not matter whether it is a job interview with Tech Giants, Wall Street firms, or a small startup; all candidates want to demonstrate their best selves or even present themselves better than they really are. Meanwhile, recruiters want to know the candidates' authentic selves and detect soft skills that prove an expert candidate would be a great fit in any company. Recruiters worldwide usually struggle to find employees with the highest level of these skills. Digital footprints can assist recruiters in this process by providing candidates' unique set of online activities, while social media delivers one of the largest digital footprints to track people. In this study, for the first time, we show that a wide range of behavioral competencies consisting of 16 in-demand soft skills can be automatically predicted from Instagram profiles based on the following lists and other quantitative features using machine learning algorithms. We also provide predictions on Big Five personality traits. Models were built based on a sample of 400 Iranian volunteer users who answered an online questionnaire and provided their Instagram usernames which allowed us to crawl the public profiles. We applied several machine learning algorithms to the uniformed data. Deep learning models mostly outperformed by demonstrating 70% and 69% average Accuracy in two-level and three-level classifications respectively. Creating a large pool of people with the highest level of soft skills, and making more accurate evaluations of job candidates is possible with the application of AI on social media user-generated data

Customer Behaviour Forecasting in FMCG Retail Industry; Golpakhsh Avval Co. Case Study

Objective: Providing that data mining has been an effective solution of improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of the retail industry, this industry has been the subject of data mining science due to the nature of its data. In this study, the prediction of customer behavior in the retail industry of Fast Moving Consumer Goods is aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of sales in the study of Golpakhsh Avval Co. Methods: The present study is applied in terms of purpose, using data survey to collect data. The research is based on the CRISP-DM process, which uses the RFMCL clustering model, regression classification and regression techniques as well. Eventually, a collaborative recommendation method has been applied for recommendation. Results: The result is a forecasting model recommended to the best customers goods that they have not bought on a particular date and to a certain amount, so that, the order-based sale is changed to hot sale method. The final solution involves three sub models of customer clustering, sale forecasting and a recommendation system. The five variables model –with MSE/Range accuracy of 2.24% – is solved for recommendation of sales amount. Conclusion: By implementing the developed recommender system in Golpakhsh Avval Co., the proactive production master plan would be possible to execute. In addition, the marketing approach could be transformed from visiting sales to hot sales in the future which provides considerable savings in shipping and personnel costs

What do we know about the big data researches? A systematic review from 2011 to 2017

Big data are defined as a new phenomenon that can be novel step for improving social life and business condition. Analysing the big data’s researches to extract insights by systematic literature review is the main objective of this research. For synthesis systematically, data from 123 articles are extracted and kinds of studies that were usually done on big data area are investigated. The Systematic Review showed: the most studies were published in 2014, also the main journal that published big data’s article was ‘Big Data Research’ and country with highest investigate about big data were ‘United State and China’. Beside, most researches were done with analytic background. The main research method was experimental and major research type was case study. Our study proved that the majority of researches carried out around big data focused on data management, and most of them identify ‘volume and variety’ of as significant challenges of big data. Likewise, ‘business analytics’ was described in the major benefits

World Energy Balance Outlook and OPEC Production Capacity: Implications for Global Oil Security

The imbalance between energy resource availability, demand, and production capacity, coupled with inherent economic and environmental uncertainties make strategic energy resources planning, management, and decision-making a challenging process. In this paper, a descriptive approach has been taken to synthesize the world\u27s energy portfolio and the global energy balance outlook in order to provide insights into the role of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in maintaining stability and balance of the world\u27s energy market. This synthesis illustrates that in the absence of stringent policies, i.e., if historical trends of the global energy production and consumption hold into the future, it is unlikely that non-conventional liquid fuels and renewable energy sources will play a dominant role in meeting global energy demand by 2030. This should be a source of major global concern as the world may be unprepared for an ultimate shift to other energy sources when the imminent peak oil production is reached. OPEC\u27s potential to impact the supply and price of oil could enable this organization to act as a facilitator or a barrier for energy transition policies, and to play a key role in the global energy security through cooperative or non-cooperative strategies. It is argued that, as the global energy portfolio becomes more balanced in the long run, OPEC may change its typical high oil price strategies to drive the market prices to lower equilibria, making alternative energy sources less competitive. Alternatively, OPEC can contribute to a cooperative portfolio management approach to help mitigate the gradually emerging energy crisis and global warming, facilitating a less turbulent energy transition path while there is time

Business Intelligence Systems Adoption Model: An Empirical Investigation

Decision support and business intelligence systems have been increasingly adopted in organizations, while understanding the nature of affecting factors on such adoption decisions need receiving much academic interest. This article attempts to provide an in-depth analysis toward understanding the critical factors which affect the decision to adopt business intelligence (BI) in the context of banking and financial industry. In this regard, it examines a conceptual model that shows the impacts of different technological, organizational, and environmental factors in the decision to adopt BI by a firm. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for data analysis and test the relevant hypothesis. The results of this article which are derived from theoretical discussion of hypothesizes show that from nine hypothesized relationships—perceived tangible and intangible benefits, firm size, organizational readiness, strategy, industry competition and competitors absorptive capacity—affect BIS adoption in the surveyed cases

The impact model of business intelligence on decision support and organizational benefits

Purpose – Decision support (DS), as a traditional management concept, have had a remarkable role in competitiveness or survival of organizations and nowadays, business intelligence (BI), as a brand modern impression, has various contributions in supporting decision-making process. Although, a variety of benefits are expected to arise from BI functions, researches, and models that determining the effect of BI functions on the decisional and organizational benefits are rare. The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between BI functions, DS benefits, and organizational benefits in context of decision environment. Design/methodology/approach – This research conducts a quantitative survey-based study to represent the relationship between BI capabilities, decision support benefits, and organizational benefits in context of decision environment. On this basis, the partial least squares (PLS) technique employs a sample of 228 firms from different industries located in Middle-East countries. Findings – The findings confirm the existence of meaningful relationship between BI functions, DS benefits, and organizational benefits by supporting 15 out of 16 main hypotheses. Essentially, this research provides an insightful understanding about which capabilities of BI have strongest impact on the outcome benefits. Originality/value – The results can provide effective and useful insights for investors and business owners to utilize more appropriate BI tools and functions to reach more idealistic organizational advantages. Also it enables managers to better understand the application of BI functions in the process of achieving the specified managerial support benefits. Keywords Decision support benefits, Organizational benefits, BI functions, Business intelligence (BI) benefits, Partial least squares (PLS) technique Paper type Research pape