Open Source Adoption In Large US Companies

Various organizations increasingly adopt open source software, both on desktop PCs and servers. Since the first movements in open source in the 1960’s its growth has lead to new approaches in software development, licensing, and distribution, as well as in software vendors’ business models. The literature includes very interesting studies regarding prospective benefits, business models and case studies. However, the adoption of open source in large, global companies and its relationship with factors such as profitability, revenues and industry sector has not yet been researched. This study aims to answer these questions based on data we collected from Fortune 1000 companies and provides a method that can be applied in similar contexts

Using Customer-related Data to Enhance E-grocery Home Delivery

International audiencePurpose: The development of e-grocery allows people to purchase food online and benefit from home delivery service. Nevertheless, a high rate of failed deliveries due to the customer’s absence causes significant loss of logistics efficiency, especially for perishable food. This paper proposes an innovative approach to use customer-related data to optimize e-grocery home delivery. The approach estimates the absence probability of a customer by mining electricity consumption data, in order to improve the success rate of delivery and optimize transportation.Design/methodology/approach: The methodological approach consists of two stages: a data mining stage that estimates absence probabilities, and an optimization stage to optimize transportation.Findings: Computational experiments reveal that the proposed approach could reduce the total travel distance by 3% to 20%, and theoretically increase the success rate of first-round delivery approximately by18%-26%.Research limitations/implications: The proposed approach combines two attractive research streams on data mining and transportation planning to provide a solution for e-commerce logistics.Practical implications: This study gives an insight to e-grocery retailers and carriers on how to use customer-related data to improve home delivery effectiveness and efficiency.Social implications: The proposed approach can be used to reduce environmental footprint generated by freight distribution in a city, and to improve customers’ experience on online shopping.Originality/value: Being an experimental study, this work demonstrates the effectiveness of data-driven innovative solutions to e-grocery home delivery problem. The paper provides also a methodological approach to this line of research

Service supply chain resilience: a social-ecological perspective on last-mile delivery operations

Purpose Considering the last-mile delivery service supply chain as a social-ecological system rather than just a firm-based service system, this research exploit the COVID-19 pandemic disruption to investigate how the supply chain develops resilience from a viewpoint that integrates a social-ecological perspective with the traditional engineering one. Design/methodology/approach This research adopt a multi-case study approach using qualitative data collected via semi-structured interviews with executive-level managers from nine leading UK last-mile delivery companies. Data analysis is guided by a research framework which is developed by combining the social-ecological perspective with the structure–conduct–performance paradigm. This framework aids the investigation of the impacts of external challenges on companies' resilience strategies and practices, as well as performance, in response to disruptions. Findings The research identifies three distinct pathways to resilience development: stabilization, focussing on bouncing back to the original normal; adaptation, involving evolutionary changes to a new normal; transformation, involving revolutionary changes in pursuit of a new normal-plus. Three strategic orientations are identified as operating across these pathways: people orientation, digital orientation, and learning orientation. Originality/value In contrast to the manufacturing supply chain focus of most current research, this research concentrates on the service supply chain, investigating its resilience with a social-ecological perspective alongside the traditional engineering one