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Showing papers on "Enterprise software published in 2006"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The concept of enterprise agility is defined and deconstruct, the underlying capabilities that support enterprise agility are explored, the enabling role of information technology (IT) and digital options are explained, and a method for measuring enterprise Agility is proposed.
Abstract: In turbulent environments, enterprise agility, that is, the ability of firms to sense environmental change and respond readily, is an important determinant of firm success. We define and deconstruct enterprise agility, delineate enterprise agility from similar concepts in the business research literature, explore the underlying capabilities that support enterprise agility, explicate the enabling role of information technology (IT) and digital options, and propose a method for measuring enterprise agility. The concepts in this paper are offered as foundational building blocks for the overall research program on enterprise agility and the enabling role of IT.

879 citations


Book
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: Researchers and students in enterprise engineering or related fields will discover a revolutionary new way of thinking about business and organization that provides managers, business analysts, and enterprise information system designers for the first time with a solid and integrated insight into their daily work.
Abstract: If one thing catches the eye in almost all literature about (re)designing or (re)engineering of enterprises, it is the lack of a well-founded theory about their construction and operation. Often even the most basic notions like "action" or "process" are not precisely defined. Next, in order to master the diversity and the complexity of contemporary enterprises, theories are needed that separate the stable essence of an enterprise from the variable way in which it is realized and implemented. Such a theory and a matching methodology, which has passed the test of practical experience, constitute the contents of this book. The enterprise ontology, as developed by Dietz, is the starting point for profoundly understanding the organization of an enterprise and subsequently for analyzing, (re)designing, and (re)engineering it. The approach covers numerous issues in an integrated way: business processes, in- and outsourcing, information systems, management control, staffing etc. Researchers and students in enterprise engineering or related fields will discover in this book a revolutionary new way of thinking about business and organization. In addition, it provides managers, business analysts, and enterprise information system designers for the first time with a solid and integrated insight into their daily work.

769 citations


Patent
14 Sep 2006
TL;DR: In this article, a system and method for protection of Web based applications is described, which provides an enterprise wide approach to preventing attacks of Web-based applications by comparing the traffic to a profile of acceptable user traffic when interacting with the application.
Abstract: A system and method for protection of Web based applications are described. The techniques described provide an enterprise wide approach to preventing attacks of Web based applications. Individual computer networks within the enterprise monitor network traffic to identify anomalous traffic. The anomalous traffic can be identified by comparing the traffic to a profile of acceptable user traffic when interacting with the application. The anomalous traffic, or security events, identified at the individual computer networks are communicated to a central security manager. The central security manager correlates the security events at the individual computer networks to determine if there is an enterprise wide security threat. The central security manager can then communicate instructions to the individual computer networks so as to provide an enterprise wide solution to the threat.

206 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
Anant Jhingran1
01 Sep 2006
TL;DR: This talk describes the fundamental transformation that is taking place on the web around information composition through mashups, and asserts that this will also affect enterprise architectures and call it an enterprise information mashup fabric.
Abstract: There is a fundamental transformation that is taking place on the web around information composition through mashups. We first describe this transformation and then assert that this will also affect enterprise architectures. Currently the state-of-the-art in enterprises around information composition is federation and other integration technologies. These scale well, and are well worth the upfront investment for enterprise class, long-lived applications. However, there are many information composition tasks that are not currently well served by these architectures. The needs of Situational Applications (i.e. applications that come together for solving some immediate business problems) are one such set of tasks. Augmenting structured data with unstructured information is another such task. Our hypothesis is that a new class of integration technologies will emerge to serve these tasks, and we call it an enterprise information mashup fabric. In the talk, we discuss the information management primitives that are needed for this fabric, the various options that exist for implementation, and pose several, currently unanswered, research questions.

200 citations


01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: This study provides a comparison of several frameworks that can then be used for guidance in the selection of an EAF that meets the needed criteria.
Abstract: An Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF) maps all of the software development processes within the enterprise and how they relate and interact to fulfill the enterprise’s mission. It provides organizations with the ability to understand and analyze weaknesses or inconsistencies to be identified and addressed. There are a number of already established EAF in use today; some of these frameworks were developed for very specific areas, whereas others have broader functionality. This study provides a comparison of several frameworks that can then be used for guidance in the selection of an EAF that meets the needed criteria.

196 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper proposes a framework for the design, implementation and monitoring of a business continuity management programme within the context of an information strategy.

182 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Ilsoon Shin1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the effects of EA (Enterprise Application) software on SMEs' productivity and found that easy-to-understand, and relatively long-experienced enterprise applications are more effective than hard-tounderstand and brand-new applications.
Abstract: Due to the rapidly changing business and IT environments, firm-level adoption of IT shifted from in-house development to purchasing EA software. This paper analyzes the effects of EA (Enterprise Application) software – ERP, CRM, SCM, Groupware, KM, EAI – on SMEs’ productivity. The distinct feature of this paper is that I use a formal econometric approach with combined data of SMEs’ accounting and IT usage aspects, while case studies have been mostly used in the previous works. The empirical results show that Groupware and SCM significantly raise the SMEs’ productivity, and the manufacturing sector has stronger effects than the service sector. From these results, the following implications are derived. First, the adoption rate and the real benefits of EA software are not closely related domestically. Second, in SMEs, EA software facilitating the inter-firm relationship is more effective than EA software focusing on the internal efficiency. Third, easy-to-understand, and relatively long-experienced enterprise applications are more effective than hard-to-understand and brand-new applications. Finally, the government IT policy on SMEs should focus on the process coordination and standardization of the manufacturing sector with upstream and downstream firms.

150 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The study represents the first empirical investigation of the relative importance that managers ascribe to various factors that are believed to be important in evaluating packaged software, and provides important insights for both organizations that acquire such systems and those that develop them.
Abstract: While a large body of research exists on the development and imple- mentation of software, organizations are increasingly acquiring enterprise soft- ware packages (e.g. enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems) instead of custom developing their own software applications. To be competitive in the mar- ketplace, software package development firms must manage the three-pronged trade-off between cost, quality, functionality. Surprisingly, prior research has made little attempt to investigate the characteristics of packaged software that influence management information system (MIS) managers' likelihood of recommending purchase. As a result, both the criteria by which MIS managers evaluate prospec- tive packaged systems and the attributes that lead to commercially competitive ERP software products are poorly understood. This paper examines this under- studied issue through a conjoint study. We focus on ERP systems, which are among the largest and most complex packaged systems that are purchased by organizations. In a conjoint study, 1008 evaluation decisions based on hypotheti- cal ERP software package profiles were completed by managers in 126 organi- zations. The study represents the first empirical investigation of the relative importance that managers ascribe to various factors that are believed to be impor- tant in evaluating packaged software. The results provide important insights for both organizations that acquire such systems and those that develop them. The results show that functionality, reliability, cost, ease of use and ease of customi- zation are judged to be important criteria, while ease of implementation and ven- dor reputation were not found to be significant. Functionality and reliability were found to be the most heavily weighted factors. We conclude the paper with a detailed discussion of the results and their implications for software acquisition and development practice.

133 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Given the complexity, size and organisational embeddedness of ERP systems, it can be said that the implementation project never ends and the ERP system becomes a significant variable in the future direction of the organisation.

130 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Fundamental enterprise changes begin by looking at the challenges from technical, behavioral, and social perspectives.
Abstract: Fundamental enterprise changes begin by looking at the challenges from technical, behavioral, and social perspectives.

127 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
04 Jan 2006
TL;DR: A process model for the management of architectural decisions in enterprise architecture planning, derived from previous work and empirical findings in three large organizations, and produces refinements to an enterprise architecture process model presented before.
Abstract: This paper presents a process model for the management of architectural decisions in enterprise architecture planning. First, decisions are made at the enterprise level, with strategic business considerations on the enterprise information, systems and technology strategy and governance issues. The next step is to define the domains, to then go on with domain architecture decisions. At the systems level, the enterprise and domain architecture decisions are collected and converted into architecture descriptions accurate in precision, form and detail to be given as input to the information systems development process, following the architectural planning. The model is derived from previous work and empirical findings in three large organizations, where the enterprise architecture and enterprise systems have been developed. This case study contributes with considerations on the domains, their definition, and produces refinements to an enterprise architecture process model presented before. For the development of the model, the "living system" paradigm is followed.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper discusses how to deploy KM and ERP concurrently in the framework of enterprise information systems, with a discussion of the interaction of KM andERP systems in systems perspectives.
Abstract: Knowledge is considered as an enterprise's invisible assets. Surviving in today's highly competitive and ever expanding global economy requires efficiently managing corporate knowledge. Increasing requirements for extended enterprises have stimulated the integration of knowledge management (KM) function into ERP systems for knowledge asset management. So far enterprise information systems such as ERP systems are developed and implemented for mainly managing physical assets of an enterprise since 1990s. Due to the fact that both types of assets need to be properly managed, the integration of KM and ERP becomes a strategic initiative for providing competitive advantages to enterprises. This paper discusses how to deploy KM and ERP concurrently in the framework of enterprise information systems, with a discussion of the interaction of KM and ERP systems in systems perspectives. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article argues that the CIO role is the primary stakeholder of Enterprise Architecture, so his/her need for decision support should guide Enterprise Architecture research and framework development and presents a brief review over how well two existing Enterprise Architecture frameworks address the surveyed concerns of the Cio.
Abstract: The challenge of IT management is today considerable. In industry, the organizational role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) has been promoted as the owner of these challenges. In spite of a general acceptance of the problems associated with the responsibilities of the CIO, very little academic research has been conducted on the issues and constraints of this role. In order to address these shortcomings, this article presents the results of a survey in which Swedish CIOs have prioritized their most important concerns. In academia, a response to the IT system management challenges has presented itself in the discipline of Enterprise Architecture. The article argues that the CIO role is the primary stakeholder of Enterprise Architecture, so his/her need for decision support should guide Enterprise Architecture research and framework development. Therefore, the article presents a brief review over how well two existing Enterprise Architecture frameworks address the surveyed concerns of the CIO. Results from the survey indicate that the three highest prioritized concerns of CIOs are to decrease the cost related to the business organization, to improve the quality of the interplay between the IT organization and the business organization and to provide new computer-aided support to the business organization. The comparison between the CIOs' prioritization and the foci of the frameworks shows some discrepancies. The largest disharmony lies in the lack of decision support for issues related to the IT organization. Furthermore, support for explicitly estimating and managing costs is lacking within the frameworks.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A distributed system architecture that utilizes dominant state-of-the-art standard technologies, such as workflows, ontologies, and web services, in order to address the need for interoperability in the industrial enterprise environment in an efficient way is presented.
Abstract: The need for interoperability is prominent in the industrial enterprise environment. Different applications and systems that cover the overall range of the industrial infrastructure from the field to the enterprise level need to interoperate. This quest is driven by the enterprise need for greater flexibility and for the wider possible integration of the enterprise systems. This paper presents a distributed system architecture that utilizes dominant state-of-the-art standard technologies, such as workflows, ontologies, and web services, in order to address the above quest in an efficient way.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Although the opinions expressed indicate some mutual hostility, IT and general management perceptions of IS implementation were very similar and overall importance assessments of business functions were more strongly correlated with their overall level of implementation.
Abstract: . This paper compares information systems (IS) integration in high-tech organizations from the information technology (IT) and general management perspectives. All the organizations studied have experience of integrated Enterprise Resource Planning systems, and some with their extension to Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management systems. The operational scope of the sample systems, and senior IT and general management perceptions of the importance of their functions, benefits and implementation success factors, obtained by qualitative interviews with 49 senior managers and a quantitative survey of 219 high-tech companies, are described and compared. Although the opinions expressed indicate some mutual hostility, IT and general management perceptions of IS implementation were very similar. IT managements overall importance assessments of business functions were more strongly correlated with their overall level of implementation, and they tended to rate system benefits and system reliability more highly. The significance of these findings is discussed and some suggestions for further investigation, placing them in a wider context, are made. Arguably, the similarities found are more important than the differences.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role that discourse plays in the social construction of enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) has been explored in this article, where the authors demonstrate the role of discourse in the development of ERPs.
Abstract: According to software vendors and consultants, Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) transform the nature, structure and management of work regardless of organisational context. This paper contests this technologically deterministic view of organisational change by demonstrating the role that discourse plays in the social construction of ERPs.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is suggested that future research on enterprise systems research should include experimentation that focuses primarily on judgment and decision making at the individual level and improvements in organizational performance, and triangulation methods that integrate case research, surveys, and cross-sectional field studies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This issue of the journal is the first in a planned series of annual special issues on the role of enterprise systems in accounting, and aims to promote the extension and growth of the enterprise systems research in accounting.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper aims both at comprehensive understanding of policy‐level definitions as part of REA enterprise systems and at understanding of the semantic constructs that enable such definitions.
Abstract: The Resource‐Event‐Agent (REA) enterprise model is a widely accepted framework for the design of the accountability infrastructure of enterprise information systems. Policy‐level specifications define constraints and guidelines under which an enterprise operates, and they are an extension to the REA enterprise model, adding the “what should, could, or must be” to the “what is.” This paper aims both at comprehensive understanding of policy‐level definitions as part of REA enterprise systems and at understanding of the semantic constructs that enable such definitions. We first explore two distinctive semantic abstractions essential to policy‐level specifications: typification and grouping. The typification abstraction links instances of an object class to concepts for which they are concrete realizations, while the grouping abstraction aggregates objects into collections. We next present a number of patterns for the semantic modeling of policies. Following, we look at policy‐level applications for REA enter...

Patent
30 Mar 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a service architecture for enterprise services having customer relationship management functionality at the level of an enterprise application, which includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units.
Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, for a services architecture design that provides enterprise services having customer relationship management functionality at the level of an enterprise application. The design includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units. Suitable business objects are also described.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Oct 2006
TL;DR: This article reviews the concept of Business Intelligence and provides a survey, from a comprehensive point of view, on the BI technical framework, process, and enterprise solutions.
Abstract: Business intelligence (BI) has been viewed as sets of powerful tools and approaches to improving business executive decision-making, business operations, and increasing the value of the enterprise. The technology categories of BI mainly encompass data warehousing, OLAP, and data mining. This article reviews the concept of Business Intelligence and provides a survey, from a comprehensive point of view, on the BI technical framework, process, and enterprise solutions. In addition, the conclusions point out the possible reasons for the difficulties of broad deployment of enterprise BI, and the proposals of constructing a better BI system.

Patent
31 Jan 2006
TL;DR: An automated transaction integrity monitoring system operative to monitor electronic transactions of an enterprise and detect exceptions indicating noncompliance with enterprise policies is described in this paper.The system allows establishment, codification, and maintenance of enterprise policies, monitors electronic transactions, detects exceptions to established policies, reports such exceptions to authorized users such as managers and auditors, and/or provides a case management system for tracking such exceptions and their underlying transactions.
Abstract: An automated transaction integrity monitoring system operative to monitor electronic transactions of an enterprise and detect exceptions indicating noncompliance with enterprise policies. The system allows establishment, codification, and maintenance of enterprise policies, monitors electronic transactions of the enterprise from various and possibly heterogeneous data sources, detects exceptions to established policies, reports such exceptions to authorized users such as managers and auditors, and/or provides a case management system for tracking such exceptions and their underlying transactions. The invention specifically relates to systems and methods for transforming or mapping information from a data source relating to a transactional entity associated with an enterprise into a form for processing by a transaction analysis engine operative upon data expressed in a predetermined ontology. The ontology expresses data items in a manner common across plural heterogeneous databases. The enterprise policies are expressed in terms of the ontology.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
04 Jan 2006
TL;DR: This paper uses the perspective of a complex adaptive system as a metaphor to examine 11 e-government projects with each involved the development of enterprise architecture in the Netherlands and identifies architectural design principles that will increase inter-organizational jointness and IT implementation success.
Abstract: Within the public sector, the deployment of enterprise architecture is often an attempt to address the decentralization/centralization relationships to improve the links between the central and the local governments. The underlying aim is to provide a better structure to manage the diverse, independent and local IT-related projects and development activities. In this paper we propose a novel approach to analyzing and understanding the requirements and limitations for enterprise architectures in government. We use the perspective of a complex adaptive system as a metaphor to examine 11 e-government projects with each involved the development of enterprise architecture in the Netherlands (1980s - 2004). Through analyzing the key interaction points between the central and the local governments, we identify architectural design principles that will increase inter-organizational jointness and IT implementation success.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study investigates management data systems technologies in terms of how they are used and the issues that are related to their effective management within the broader context of enterprise performance management (EPM).
Abstract: Purpose – Managing enterprise performance is an important, yet a difficult process due to its complexity. The process involves monitoring the strategic focus of an enterprise, whose performance is measured from the analysis of data generated from a wide range of interrelated business activities performed at different levels within the enterprise. This study aims to investigate management data systems technologies in terms of how they are used and the issues that are related to their effective management within the broader context of enterprise performance management (EPM).Design/methodology/approach – A range of recently published research literature on data warehousing, online analytic processing and EPM is reviewed to explore their current state, issues and challenges learned from their practice.Findings – The findings of the study are reported in two parts. The first part discusses the current business practices of these technologies, and the second part identifies and discusses the issues and challeng...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A Habermasian framework is developed and used in analyzing the cultural and social context within which ERP systems are developed and implemented and facilitates a critique of the underlying ideologies and assumptions associated with, and incorporated into, the ERP system design.

Patent
30 Mar 2006
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe a service architecture for enterprise services having accounting functionality at the level of an enterprise application, which includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units.
Abstract: Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, for a services architecture design that provides enterprise services having accounting functionality at the level of an enterprise application. The design includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units. Suitable business objects are also described.

Proceedings Article
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: Evaluations indicate that a simple security policy comprised of the Extended COIbased profile and Relaxed Throttling Discipline can effectively contain worm behavior within an enterprise without significantly impairing normal network operation.
Abstract: Enterprise networks today carry a range of mission critical communications. A successful worm attack within an enterprise network can be substantially more devastating to most companies than attacks on the larger Internet. In this paper we explore a brownfield approach to hardening an enterprise network against active malware such as worms. The premise of our approach is that if future communication patterns are constrained to historical “normal” communication patterns, then the ability of malware to exploit vulnerabilities in the enterprise can be severely curtailed. We present techniques for automatically deriving individual host profiles that capture historical communication patterns (i.e., community of interest (COI)) of end hosts within an enterprise network. Using traces from a large enterprise network, we investigate how a range of different security policies based on these profiles impact usability (as valid communications may get restricted) and security (how well the policies contain malware). Our evaluations indicate that a simple security policy comprised of our Extended COIbased profile and Relaxed Throttling Discipline can effectively contain worm behavior within an enterprise without significantly impairing normal network operation.

Journal Article
TL;DR: The concept of enterprise content management (ECM) represents integrated enterprise-wide management of the life cycles of all forms of recorded information content and their metadata, organized according to corporate taxonomies, and supported by appropriate technological and administrative infrastructures as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The concept of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) represents integrated enterprise-wide management of the life cycles of all forms of recorded information content and their metadata, organized according to corporate taxonomies, and supported by appropriate technological and administrative infrastructures Based on a case study of a Norwegian oil company (Statoil), we identify a wide range of issues related to management of content, infrastructure, and change The ECM perspective is found to integrate and extend the existing research areas of information resource management and document management, as well as the repository model of knowledge management ECM thus deserves further attention beyond its current market hype, as a potential area of IS research crossing several previously separate areas of information management from the viewpoint of the enterprise

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The framework introduced in this paper provides guidance for future research in the area of interorganizational systems control and risk assessment and highlights the need to shift from an enterprise‐centric view of risk management to an extended‐enterprise risk management view.
Abstract: Purpose – This article aims to focus on raising awareness of the limitations of traditional “enterprise‐centric” views of enterprise risk management that ignore the risks that are inherited from key business and supply chain partners. In essence, enterprise systems implementations have allowed organizations to couple their operations more tightly with other business partners, particularly in the area of supply chain management, and in the process enterprise systems applications are redefining the boundaries of the entity in terms of risk management concerns and the scope of financial audits. Design/methodology/approach – The prior literature that has begun to explore aspects of assessing key risk components in these relationships is reviewed with an eye to highlighting the limitations of what is understood about risk in interorganizational relationships. This analysis of the prior research establishes the basis for the logical formation of a framework for future enterprise risk management research in the area of e‐commerce relationships. Findings – Conclusions focus on the overall framework of risks that should be considered when interorganizational relationships are critical to an enterprise's operations and advocate an “extended‐enterprise” view of enterprise risk management. Research limitations/implications – The framework introduced in this paper provides guidance for future research in the area of interorganizational systems control and risk assessment. Practical implications – The framework further highlights areas of risk that auditors and corporate risk managers should consider in assessing the risk inherited through interorganizational relationships. Originality/value – The paper highlights the need to shift from an enterprise‐centric view of risk management to an extended‐enterprise risk management view.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of the literature on the design, implementation and use of enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) can be found in this article, where the authors find that most of this literature is managerialist in orientation, and concerned with the impact of ERPs in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business performance.
Abstract: This paper reviews literature that examines the design, implementation and use of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs). It finds that most of this literature is managerialist in orientation, and concerned with the impact of ERPs in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business performance. The paper seeks to provide an alternative research agenda, one that emphasises work- and organisation-based approaches to the study of the implementation and use of ERPs. © 2006 The Authors; Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.