HOW DO ICT FIRMS REACT TO CONVERGENCE? AN ANALYSIS OF DIVERSIFICATION STRATEGIES

Convergence represents a dominant force in the evolution of the ICT industry. Under convergence, the identification and analysis of strategies to efficiently leverage firm resources and to configure firm cooperations represents a challenging task. Diversification is considered a central firm strategy with regard to convergence. Former research has mainly focused on the phenomenon of ICT convergence per se. In this article, we analyse how ICT firms react to convergence. Network analysis techniques are applied to assess the degree to which ICT market segments are exposed to convergence. Based on this assessment, we evaluate firm diversification strategies under convergence with a focus on diversification objectives and firm performance. The data analysis provides two major implications. Firstly, convergence creates synergy potentials for diversifying ICT firms. Secondly, diversification does not generally allow ICT firms, which are exposed to convergence, a more efficient application of resources. Even though the term convergence is often cited in ICT research, empirical analyses addressing ICT convergence and firm strategies are rather scarce. This work provides such an analysis by applying a novel research approach based on network analysis

Distribution of Cost Over the Application Lifecycle - A Multi-Case Study

IT management focuses on planning and developing new IT solutions. The importance of production (operation, support, maintenance) and further development of existing solutions is often neglected, although these tasks are responsible for the majority of today’s IT costs. The paper presents the results of a survey of the life cycle costs of 30 IT application systems. Within the survey, the distribution of costs over the application life cycle was recorded and evaluated. The results show the central importance of recurring costs for production and further development. For a production time of 5 years these costs amounted to 79% of all life cycle costs, whereas only 21% of the costs were incurred during the planning and initial development stages. Further findings include an evaluation of the poor quality of the cost data and the important role of business units as service providers

An Expert View on the Role of Complementary Assets for the Adoption of Smart Home Platforms

Smart home (SH) products and services aim to enhance the comfort, convenience, security, entertainment, health, education and communication of tenants and their guests enabled by information technology platforms. Despite ongoing waves of enthusiasm, the SH market has remained a niche for more than three decades. At the same time, recent forecast expect the market to grow at high rates in the upcoming years as various global players, like Google, Apple, AT&T, Cisco and Samsung, are lining up with own SH platform initiatives. Accounting for the multi-sidedness of the market, we employ a platform ecosystem perspective to investigate the role of complementary assets for SH adoption by consumers and firms. Based on interviews with 25 experts from 22 companies, our qualitative content analysis reveals and prioritizes complementary goods, sales channels, brand image, expertise, support infrastructure, operational footprint and financial resources as critical complementary assets. Further, we provide managerial implications for platform sponsors regarding the affiliation with complementary suppliers, the legitimacy of sponsorship, platform openness as well as on platform envelopment

Reference Model for Sustainable Information Systems Management: Establishing a Holistic Research Agenda

Green IT has become a well-known topic in academic journals and conferences of the IS research community. Recently, a shift from Green IT to Green IS could be observed. Green IS is a more far-reaching concept that comprises IT-enabled business and production processes as well as human skills and activities such as IT management. To proceed towards a holistic approach of sustainable IS management that addresses all dimensions of the triple bottom line, social aspects should be considered next to environmental issues. To do so, we propose a research agenda in the form of a matrix that reveals possible fields of action where a new triple bottom line thinking has to be integrated into prevalent business practices and decision-making processes. As a first step, we define the core processes of IT management as basis for our reference model: govern, source, make, and deliver. On the basis of the ten suggested fields of action, we identify a wide range of possible sustainability initiatives that allow for a more sustainable IT management in the context of an extensive literature review. The practice-oriented Reference Model for Sustainable Information Systems Management adds to the body of knowledge by consolidating and structuring established concepts. This is helpful for both practitioners and academics: practitioners get an overview of possible measures to make their organizations more sustainable and academics can draw on the classification system to identify and close research gaps in a systematic way

Counting Customers in Mobile Business – The Case of Free to Play

In recent years mobile games have become a major part of the mobile market since gaming apps generate a major amount of the platforms revenue. Whilst different business models have been used - free to play seems one of the most promising to monetize games in the mobile market. Yet, this new concept of monetizing digital content has not obtained much attention of researchers. One research gap is the prediction of users purchasing behavior, as it is a major challenge for practitioners as well as for researchers and of vital importance for managing marketing expenses and designing game mechanics. In this paper we use an existing prediction model for purchasing behavior to analyze its applicability in the mobile market. We use two data sets from free to play games to train and test this well-known model. We can show that existing models, even though they are designed for the same type of customer relationship, struggle with the case of free to play. We show detailed information on the model performance and conclude that because of the unique purchasing behavior in free to play models should be redesigned or the process of application should be more structured

LEVERAGE ONCE, EARN REPEATEDLY – CAPABILITIES FOR CREATING AND APPROPRIATING VALUE IN CLOUD PLATFORM ECOSYSTEMS

Information technology (IT) advancements enabled new delivery models (i.e. Cloud Computing), thereby facilitating the emergence of new business models in the IT industry, such as Cloud platform ecosystems. With their growing acceptance and diffusion in practice, we need a deeper understanding of their IT capabilities in order to implement their business model, thereby creating and appropriating value. We draw on empirical data from four case studies of Cloud platform ecosystems utilizing a framework on IT-enabled business models for data analysis. We found four key motivations for inter-firm collaboration that each generated business model requirements specified in the context of Cloud platform ecosystems. These drive the development of unique B2B IT capabilities enabling value crea-tion and appropriation mechanisms. We propose three dyadic (relation-specific) IT customization and two network IT standardization (network-oriented) capabilities based on our cross case analysis. Fur-thermore, we describe prevalent value creation and appropriation mechanisms and suggest two addi-tional mechanisms grounded in the data: downstream capabilities and platform resourcing. We pro-vide a possible reasoning on the underlying logic of IT capabilities, value creation and appropriation of Cloud platform ecosystems

Towards a Typology of Green IS Strategies: Insights from Case Study Research

In this paper we develop a typology of Green IS strategies and address two research questions: 1) What different types of Green IS strategies can be identified in a real-life context? 2) How do firms with distinct Green IS strategies conceive the role of Green IS within their organization? We begin with the a priori definition of Green IS strategy and conduct an exploratory case study that examines multinational companies from different industries. Across these cases, four distinct Green IS strategies are identified as a result of a within-case analysis and the emerging patterns are more closely defined using a cross-case analysis. Insights are compared with extant literature and findings are consolidated in five propositions that outline characteristics of Green IS strategies. These propositions guide the conceptualization of a typology of Green IS strategies which illustrates four generic strategies: Green IS for Efficiency, for Innovation, for Transformation, and for Credibility

Common Patterns of Cloud Business Models

Cloud computing has been established as a significant topic in the information technology (IT) industry, especially since cloud services are expanding in the portfolios of IT service providers. New businesses emerged to provide cloud services and established businesses extend their traditional business with aspects of cloud computing. The contribution of this paper is how the cloud focus influences the IT service provider’s business model. Based on an extensive literature analysis and synthesis, the characteristics of a cloud business model are transferred into a structured research framework with 103 design features. Subsequently, cloud business models of 29 selected IT service providers are analyzed and matched with the framework. With the help of a cluster analysis, four common patterns of combination are identified for cloud business models. Finally, these patterns will be evaluated with respect to critical success factors and to issue recommendations for action

Carbon Footprint of IT-Services – A comparative Study of energy consumption for Offline and Online Storage Usage

This paper focusses on the Carbon Footprint of IT-Services (CFIS) by presenting a comparative study of energy consumption for Offline and Online Storage. We therefore conducted a case study with an IT-Service provider as well as experimental simulation of customer’s ICT hardware. Based on literature review, we initially present related work and describe underlying concepts e.g. Carbon Footprint of Products, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as well as ICT energy and performance measurement. The paper proposes a methodological framework for CFIS based on the phases of LCA. Geared towards the framework we present a comparison of ICT-related energy consumptions for Offline and Online Storage as well as allocation and calculation approaches. Finally, presented carbon footprint results are discussed in terms of limitations and further research directions. The CFIS is an inevitable step to advance Green IS/IT research, since it quantifies dependencies between IT-Services, ICT energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions

Successful Business Model Types of Cloud Providers

The acceleration of technical change in the fast moving electronics market increases the uncertainty and risk for IT providers. Influenced by new IT provisioning concepts such as cloud computing, providers are looking to identify stable guidelines and success factors within existing and new business models. The authors have conducted an intensive analysis of the business model characteristics of 45 providers in the cloud market that are critical to success. A cloud business model framework with 105 characteristics was used to systemize the business models, and the data was analyzed statistically in regard to indicators for success. The results revealed 42 success-related business model characteristics, and a cluster analysis led to three common combinations of characteristics that describe meta types of cloud business models. The most promising meta type is a specialized cloud provider with customer-oriented branch solutions, while small-scale newcomers with aggregation services experience difficulties to be competitive. To evaluate and verify the results and the success of each business model type, 12 expert interviews were conducted. The interview statements were aggregated and summarized to offer recommendations for action and a prediction for the success of cloud business models