Showing papers on "Enterprise software published in 2013"

Policy-Based Application Management

Abstract: Improved techniques for managing enterprise applications on mobile devices are described herein. Each enterprise mobile application running on the mobile device has an associated policy through which it interacts with its environment. The policy selectively blocks or allows activities involving the enterprise application in accordance with rules established by the enterprise. Together, the enterprise applications running on the mobile device form a set of managed applications. Managed applications are typically allowed to exchange data with other managed applications, but are blocked from exchanging data with other applications, such as the user's own personal applications. Policies may be defined to manage data sharing, mobile resource management, application specific information, networking and data access solutions, device cloud and transfer, dual mode application software, enterprise app store access, and virtualized application and resources, among other things.

Gamification at Work: Designing Engaging Business Software

Abstract: Gamification is a buzz word in business these days. In its November 2012 press release, Gartner predicts that "by 2015, 40% of Global 1000 organizations will use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations". In the same report, they also predict that "by 2014, 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives, primarily due to poor design". What is gamification? Does it belong in the workplace? Are there design best practices that can increase the chance of success of enterprise gamification efforts? Janaki Kumar answers these questions and more in this paper Gamification @ Work. She cautions against taking a "chocolate covered broccoli" approach of simply adding points and badges to business applications and calling them gamified. She outlines a methodology called Player Centered Design which is a practical guide for user experience designers, product managers and developers to incorporate the principles of gamification into their software.

An Exploration of Enterprise Architecture Research

Abstract: Management of the enterprise architecture has become increasingly recognized as a crucial part of both business and IT management. Still, a common understanding and methodological consistency seems far from being developed. Acknowledging the significant role of research in moving the development process along, this article employs different bibliometric methods, complemented by an extensive qualitative interpretation of the research field, to provide a unique overview of the enterprise architecture literature. After answering our research questions about the collaboration via co-authorships, the intellectual structure of the research field and its most influential works, and the principal themes of research, we propose an agenda for future research based on the findings from the above analyses and their comparison to empirical insights from the literature. In particular, our study finds a considerable degree of co-authorship clustering and a positive impact of the extent of co-authorship on the diffusion of works on enterprise architecture. In addition, this article identifies three major research streams and shows that research to date has revolved around specific themes, while some of high practical relevance receive minor attention. Hence, the contribution of our study is manifold and offers support for researchers and practitioners alike.

Appropriability Mechanisms and the Platform Partnership Decision: Evidence from Enterprise Software

Abstract: We examine whether ownership of intellectual property rights IPR or downstream capabilities is effective in encouraging entry into markets complementary to a proprietary platform by preventing the platform owner from expropriating rents from start-ups. We study this question in the context of the software industry, an environment where evidence of the efficacy of IPR as a mechanism to appropriate the returns from innovation has been mixed. Entry, in our context, is measured by an independent software vendor's ISV's decision to become certified by a platform owner and produce applications compatible with the platform. We find that ISVs with a greater stock of formal IPR such as patents and copyrights, and those with stronger downstream capabilities as measured by trademarks and consulting services are more likely to join the platform, suggesting that these mechanisms are effective in protecting ISVs from the threat of expropriation. We also find that the effects of IPR on the likelihood of partnership are greater when an ISV has weak downstream capabilities or when the threat of imitation is greater, such as when the markets served by the ISV are growing quickly. This paper was accepted by Gerard P. Cachon, information systems.

The Cost of High-Powered Incentives: Employee Gaming in Enterprise Software Sales

Abstract: This paper investigates the pricing distortions that arise from the use of a common non-linear incentive scheme at a leading enterprise software vendor. The empirical results demonstrate that salespeople are adept at gaming the timing of deal closure to take advantage of the vendor's accelerating commission scheme. Specifically, salespeople agree to significantly lower pricing in quarters where they have a financial incentive to close a deal, resulting in mispricing that costs the vendor 6-8% of revenue. Robustness checks demonstrate that price discrimination by the vendor does not explain the identified effects.

Application wrapping for application management framework

Abstract: Methods and systems for developing, modifying, and distributing software applications for enterprise systems are described herein. A software component, such as a native mobile application or a template application, may be modified into a managed mobile application, and metadata associated with the managed mobile application may be generated. The managed application and associated metadata may be provided to one or more application stores, such as public application stores and/or enterprise application stores. Managed applications and/or associated metadata may be retrieved by computing devices from public application stores and/or enterprise application stores, and may be executed as managed applications in an enterprise system.

The discipline of enterprise engineering

Abstract: A century ago, Taylor published a landmark in the organisational sciences: his Principles of Scientific Management. Many researchers have elaborated on Taylor’s principles, or have been influenced otherwise. The authors of the current paper evaluate a century of enterprise development, and conclude that a paradigm shift is needed for dealing adequately with the challenges that modern enterprises face. Three generic goals are identified. The first one, intellectual manageability, is the basis for mastering complexity; current approaches fall short in assisting professionals to master the complexity of enterprises and enterprise changes. The second goal, organisational concinnity, is conditional for making strategic initiatives operational; current approaches do not, or inadequately, address this objective. The third goal, social devotion, is the basis for achieving employee empowerment as well as knowledgeable management and governance; modern employees are highly educated knowledge workers; yet, the mindset of managers has not evolved accordingly. The emerging discipline of Enterprise Engineering, as conceived by the authors, is considered to be a suitable vehicle for achieving these goals. It does so by providing new, powerful theories and effective methodologies. A theoretical framework is presented for positioning the theories, goals, and fundamentals of enterprise engineering in four classes: philosophical, ontological, ideological and technological.

Policy-based dynamic information flow control on mobile devices

Abstract: A method for securing data on a mobile device that supports both enterprise and personal applications According to the method, information flows and data accesses are tracked on the device at run-time to enable access control decisions to be performed based on a policy, such as an enterprise privacy policy that has been distributed to the device from an enterprise server The policy may be updated by events at the device as well as at the enterprise server

Search-based genetic optimization for deployment and reconfiguration of software in the cloud

Abstract: Migrating existing enterprise software to cloud platforms involves the comparison of competing cloud deployment options (CDOs). A CDO comprises a combination of a specific cloud environment, deployment architecture, and runtime reconfiguration rules for dynamic resource scaling. Our simulator CDOSim can evaluate CDOs, e.g., regarding response times and costs. However, the design space to be searched for well-suited solutions is extremely huge. In this paper, we approach this optimization problem with the novel genetic algorithm CDOXplorer. It uses techniques of the search-based software engineering field and CDOSim to assess the fitness of CDOs. An experimental evaluation that employs, among others, the cloud environments Amazon EC2 and Microsoft Windows Azure, shows that CDOXplorer can find solutions that surpass those of other state-of-the-art techniques by up to 60%. Our experiment code and data and an implementation of CDOXplorer are available as open source software.

Information systems for enterprise integration, interoperability and networking: theory and applications

Abstract: Today, enterprises can be characterized by various key facets: globalization, distributed manufacturing, data and knowledge management, advanced automation and robotics, virtual engineering, rapid response to market and more. In today's competitive economy, enterprises need collaborating using Information Technology (IT) and other tools to succeed in this dynamic and heterogeneous business environment. Enterprise integration, interoperability and networking are some of the major disciplines that are enabling companies to improve collaboration and communication in the most effective way. In this direction, the enterprise information systems engineering process aims to develop information systems to respond to increasingly complex objectives, to align these information systems with business goals and processes of the company, or simply to adapt and improve them when facing given requirements or rapidly changing opportunities. As enterprise information systems models become more ubiquitous, the sharing of best-in-class models becomes more desirable. Interoperability between dissimilar systems in sharing information is important, but other aspects are also required in the sharing of enterprise systems knowledge. First, this process is based on the need for collaboration, sharing and mutual understanding of the needs of each stakeholder i.e. each persons involved or affected by the future information system, at each stage of its development. Second, this process follows principles which highlight the need for formal semantics definition of these models to facilitate this work, at various abstraction levels ranging from specification to implementation on site. There is a need to also couple new theoretical results with applied methods and tools supporting existing business reconfiguration and transformation both locally and globally. In this editorial, we reflect on the current and future theory and applications that would further empower networked enterprises by means of collaborative information systems.

Knowledge Management Goals Revisited – A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Social Software Adoption in Corporate Environments

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide both practice‐oriented researchers and practitioners with detailed insights into the social software goals and implementation strategies for corporate environments Also, to illustrate the novelty and specificity of corporate social software (CSS) compared to other groupware or knowledge management systemsDesign/methodology/approach – The paper is grounded in the ongoing discussion on differences and commonalities of knowledge management and Enterprise 20 applications and motivated by the lack of scientific studies on this topic The authors have therefore made a comprehensive study of social software adoption in corporate environments, performing a cross‐case analysis of 23 enterprises The study was meant to enable researchers and practitioners to acquire a better understanding and appropriate related explanations of the relatively new phenomenon of CSS appropriation and useFindings – From the cross‐case analysis, six main goals of CSS adoption were d

A Method for Enterprise Ontology based Design of Enterprise Information Systems

Abstract: A method for designing an Enterprise information system, which is based on an implementation independent model of the organization, has been developed. This model, also called an ontological model, consists of both implementation independent business processes and implementation independent information processes. An Enterprise information system (EIS) has to be understood as an implementation scenario of the ontological model. This study contains a specification framework that provides rules for taking into account during engineering the EIS.

From e-commerce to social commerce: a framework to guide enabling cloud computing

Abstract: Social commerce is doing commerce in a collaborative and participative way, by using social media, through an enterprise interactive interface that enables social interactions. Technologies such as Web 2.0, Cloud Computing and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) enable social commerce. Yet, a framework for social commerce, putting Enterprise Social Interactions as central entities, would provide a strong business justification for social commerce design and adoption with these enabling technologies. This work first proposes a framework for social commerce-oriented business that captures: (a) three main entities: Enterprise social Interactions, Actors, and Business Processes (and their output: products/services), (b) the relationships between these entities, and (c) the constraints (if any). Then, it focuses on the conceptualization of the key entity, Enterprise Social Interactions, to shape the required enterprise interface that promotes openness, collaboration and participation, which enables the required knowledge emergence and intelligence for the value (co-)creation. A central component of the enterprise technology architecture, we refer to as Enterprise Social Interaction Manager (ESIM) realizes the interface. An example shows how the realization of the ESIM functionalities with Web 2.0, Cloud computing, and SOA enables the different categories of collaborative B2B integration that underlines and backs social commerce.

Enterprise Risk Management Integrated framework for Cloud Computing

Abstract: Enterprise Risk Management Integrated framework for Cloud Computing Dr. M. Suresh Babu Professor & Head, Department of Computer Applications, Madanapalle Institute of Technology & Science, Madanapalle, AP, India – 517325. A. Mahesh babu Research Scholar, Department of Computer Science & Technology, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur – 515003, AP, India. M.Chandra Sekhar Research Scholar, Department of Computer Science & Technology, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur – 515003, AP, India. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------ABSTRACT---------------------------------------------------The emergence of cloud computing is a fundamental shift towards new on-demand business models together with new implementation models for the applications portfolio, the infrastructure, and the data, as they are provisioned as virtual services using the cloud. These technological and commercial changes have an impact on current working practices. Businesses need to understand the impact of the new combinations of technology layers, and how they work together. A crucial part of this is analyzing and assessing the risks involved. In the evolution of computing technology, information processing has moved from mainframes to personal computers to server-centric computing to the Web. Today, many organizations are seriously considering adopting cloud computing, the next major milestone in technology and business collaboration. A supercharged version of delivering hosted services over the Internet, cloud computing potentially enables organizations to increase their business model capabilities and their ability to meet computing resource demands while avoiding significant investments in infrastructure, training, personnel, and software. In fall 2010, a Google executive testified before a U.S. congressional subcommittee that more than three million businesses worldwide were customers of its cloud service offerings. As with any new opportunity, cloud computing entails commensurate risks. It brings to organizations a different dimension of collaboration and human interaction, new organizational dependencies, faster resource fulfilment, and new business models.

Gamification @ work

Abstract: Gamification is a buzz word in the businesses these days. Is this just the latest hype, or a meaningful trend worth paying attention to, or a bit of both? Most importantly, what promises or benefits does gamification hold for the enterprise, and what are the challenges or dangers? We will address these questions and more in this interactive panel discussion on "Gamification @ Work". We have assembled a distinguished and diverse panel of gamification experts who will share industry, academic and vendor perspectives.

Towards a Conceptualization of Architectural Support for Enterprise Transformation

Abstract: Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is supposed to be a helpful means to support the management of enterprise transformations, i.e., fundamental changes. However, in current corporate practice, there seems to be no regular application of EAM as leading authority or support service for enterprise transformation. Thus, we examine, which activities need to be conducted in order to manage enterprise transformation. We further identify the needed information inputs for these activities. Based on this foundation, we analyze, which of the information inputs can be provided by EAM. We identify eight major activity areas of enterprise transformation management (ETM). We further identify information inputs that these ETM activities need. Additionally, we identify content elements that EAM can provide by analyzing EAM meta models. Comparing the demand by ETM and the supply by EAM shows that EAM in general provides valuable inputs to the ETM activities but shows weaknesses when it comes to information about individual actors or environmental information. ETM information needs that are strongly supported are e.g. organizational goals, roles and actors. ETM information needs that are weakly supported are e.g. organizational culture, resistances or organizational rituals.

From on-premise software to cloud services: the impact of cloud computing on enterprise software vendors' business models

Abstract: Cloud computing is an emerging paradigm that allows users to conveniently access computing resources as pay-per-use services. Whereas cloud offerings such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud and Google Apps are rapidly gaining a large user base, enterprise software's migration towards the cloud is still in its infancy. For software vendors the move towardscloud solutions implies profound changes in their value-creation logic. Not only are they forced to deliver fully web-enabled solutions and to replace their license model with service fees, they also need to build the competencies to host and manage business-critical applications for their customers. This motivates our research, which investigates cloud computing's implications for enterprise software vendors' business models. From multiple case studies covering traditional and pure cloud providers, we find that moving from on-premise software to cloud services affects all business model components, that is, the customer value proposition, resource base, value configuration, and financial flows. It thus underpins cloud computing's disruptive nature in the enterprise software domain. By deriving two alternative business model configurations, SaaS and SaaS+PaaS, our research synthesizes the strategic choices for enterprise software vendors and provides guidelines for designing viable business models.

System and method for orchestration of services for use with a cloud computing environment

Abstract: A system and method for orchestration of services for use with a cloud computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a cloud platform enables provisioning of enterprise software applications within a cloud environment, including packaging enterprise applications as service definition packages (SDP), and instantiating the services using service management engines (SME). In an embodiment, an orchestration engine communicates with a plurality of SMEs to control the flow of service creation, provider dependency resolution, association of services and providers, and the life-cycle management of services within the cloud platform.

Enterprise Content Management

Abstract: If one had to choose the single most powerful word in state and local government today, it would be data. There is not one operation an agency can undergo or decision a leader can make without it. But what was once a collection problem of “Where do we get it?” has now evolved into the conundrum of “How do we find it — and quickly?” Massive amounts of information are available to assist in doing the public’s business, but often it sits in siloed systems, or worse, in a box on a shelf. How do we cost effectively handle enormous amounts of data? How do we organize that data and put it together in a way that is readily useable? Enterprise content management — collecting, storing, sharing and retrieving information electronically — is a pragmatic solution in helping government leaders lower the cost of government service delivery and reduce risk while improving service delivery. Read on to learn how the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the county of San Diego are using it.

Communication of Enterprise Architectures

Abstract: This chapter presents a communication perspective of enterprise architectures. We provide both a theoretical and a practical perspective of the issues involved in the communication of enterprise architectures. The general idea is that the chapter helps the reader see how architecture development and modelling can be optimally supported by discussing why certain forms of modelling are used in some situation and how this fits the goals in the process. The theoretical perspective will focus on communication during system development in general, where the word system should be interpreted as any open and active system, consisting of both human and computerised actors, that is purposely designed. The practical perspective will take shape as a set of practical guidelines that should aid architects in the selection and definition of architecture description approaches that are apt for a specific (communication) context.

System and methods for social data sharing capabilities for enterprise information systems

Abstract: Systems and methods for enabling a display of updates to enterprise information in a social feed are described herein. A social subscription component receives instructions from a user pertaining to an enterprise information system entity and creates an enterprise information update rule or conditions corresponding to the instructions. A social data storage component stores the enterprise information update rule. A social content generation component monitors updates to data stored in an enterprise information system, tests any updates against the enterprise information update rule(s), if applicable accesses data related to those updates, and generates social posts pertaining to the updates for display to the user. A social user interface component may format and presents the social posts to the user.

IT Implementation Contract Design: Analytical and Experimental Investigation of IT Value, Learning, and Contract Structure

Abstract: This article analytically and experimentally investigates how firms can best capture the business value of information technology (IT) investments through IT contract design. Using a small sample of outsourcing contracts for enterprise information technology (EIT) projects in several industries—coupled with reviews of contracts used by a major enterprise software maker—the authors determine the common provisions and structural characteristics of EIT contracts. The authors use these characteristics to develop an analytical model of optimal contract design with principal–agent techniques. The model captures a set of key characteristics of EIT contracts, including a staged, multiperiod project structure; learning; probabilistic binary outcomes; variable fee structures; possibly risk-averse agents; and implementation risks. The model characterizes conditions under which multistage contracts enable clients to create and capture greater project value than single-stage projects, and how project staging enables f...

Impact of Supply Chain Management on the Relationship between Enterprise Resource Planning System and Organizational Performance

Abstract: Two of the essential IT investment options that managers resort are supply chain management and enterprise resource planning. These options are known in the relevant literature as factors contributing to the enhancement of organizational performance. The objective of this study is to investigate the enterprise resource planning adoption and its influence on organizational performance through supply chain management. This article suggests a new model which applies enterprise resource planning with supply chain management to optimal organizational performance. Structural equation model was utilized to test the model fitting level and the four proposed hypotheses. The required data for this research was collected from 174 companies in Malaysia through prepared surveys. The results support, through empirical evidences, the existence of positive effects of enterprise resource planning on the supply chain which ultimately results in improved overall performance of the studied organizations.

An Examination Of Organizational Factors Influencing Enterprise Architecture Management Challenges

Abstract: Continuous business, technical, and regulatory changes constantly force organizations to transform. Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) is a means to plan, conduct, and coordinate these complex transformations. It provides a holistic view, a common vocabulary, and a solid decision base for enterprise transformation planning. And yet, with issues like a decoupling between requirements and final results, a long delivery period, or unappreciated value, the discipline of EAM is not immune to domain-specific challenges. While literature from an academic and practitioner authorship acknowledges these issues, the actual occurrence, pervasiveness, and degree of relevance from an industry standpoint remains unclear. More precisely, the question whether, how, and to which extent organizational factors like an organization’s size or its experience in EAM exert influence on these challenges has not been answered on empirical basis yet. This paper is set out to clear up this nebulous state by means of an expert survey among 105 industry experts located in 10 different countries. The results underline the situational character of the management discipline with respect to challenges it is confronted with.

Enterprise systems in Russia: 1992–2012

Abstract: This paper introduces the enterprise systems ES development and implementation in Russia in the past three decades Historic analysis shows that, in terms of time frame, the development of ACS Automated Control Systems in the former Soviet Union and the ERP Enterprise Resource Planning in the West was almost parallel In this paper, the current status and the major trend of ES in Russia is discussed

Enterprise managed systems with collaborative application support

Abstract: Described herein is an enterprise system including an enterprise social platform associated with an application store platform, which is accessible by a computing device in a secure manner. The enterprise social platform stores information indicating user roles within the enterprise and provides at least one social networking feature to a group of users that are associated based on the roles, where the social networking feature is associated with an enterprise application store. An application catalog system of the enterprise application store platform includes sets of enterprise applications that are available for selection by enterprise users, and the application catalog system provides access to selected enterprise applications. An application store storage system includes a plurality of files associated with each one of the plurality of applications, wherein the plurality of files includes enterprise customized application templates, enterprise application usage information, application evaluation information, application recommendations, or an application support forum. An application store management system presents selected ones of the files to a user within the enterprise social platform based on the user's membership in the group of users.

Gamification: when it works, when it doesn't

Abstract: The concept of using game mechanics to attract and retain customers in the consumer space is now well accepted. However, the use of gamification in the enterprise space is still catching on. There are a number of reasons to believe that acceptance of gamification will grow in the enterprise space. The most likely reason is that companies are increasingly concerned about the effect of employee engagement on productivity. But, there are circumstances where gamification can be successful and circumstances where gamification can fail.