Category: IT-Enabled Services and Process Innovations

Working it out: Stock-market players detect and reward smart outsourcing

Last year, some 28 percent of corporate managers surveyed told Evans Data, a market research firm, that their primary driver for outsourcing was cost cutting. You’d think saving money would catch the eye of Wall Street but, in fact, it doesn’t. Researchers Haluk Demirkan, Michael Goul and Robert St. Louis from the W. P. Carey School of Business examined the effect outsourcing announcements had on firm value as measured by abnormal stock returns; they found that only truly innovative contracts made investors take notice and applaud the decision with market buy-in that elevates stock value.

Meeting software: Strategic value beyond time and space

Convenience and cost-savings are powerful incentives for companies to use technology as a way of convening meetings, and they do so knowing that an electronically-mediated session will be different from a face-to-face meeting. Compare a conversation to an e-mail exchange and the differences in the content and quality of the communication are obvious. Ajay Vinze, director of the W. P. Carey School’s Center for the Advancement of Business through Information Technology, has studied what happens when meetings move away from the conference table. If managers understand the dynamics they can utilize these technologies strategically, he says.

Research supports value of IT consults in post-SOX age

In the wake of spectacular corporate collapses, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act established new rules on a scale not seen since those meant to ameliorate the economic calamities of the 1930s. But three experts at the W. P. Carey School of Business argue that although many of the law’s provisions are sound, it may overreach in others. The researchers disagree with the common perception that the pre-SOX consulting fees paid by companies to their auditing firms were actually veiled bribes or leverage to ensure positive audit opinions. They also concluded that, despite growing skepticism, businesses believe that information technology is more than a simple commodity and can indeed produce value and competitive advantage.

Can the flow of knowledge be captured in a business-process rubric?

Remember the last time your organization developed a new product? Think about how many people were involved and how much expertise you had to find within the organization: marketing, engineering, operations, accounting and sales. Few would disagree that new product development is an intense process, as are undertakings such as developing a strategic plan or putting together a competitive bid. Researchers at the W. P. Carey School of Business say these processes are more than just complicated — they fall into a new rubric called Knowledge Intensive Business Processes (KIBP). Is it possible to apply what has been learned about improving basic business processes to more complex, knowledge-intensive processes? The researchers believe it is.

Smooth integration of web services depends on common vocabulary — part three

Many IT professionals, called upon to specialize in the integration of Web services, have morphed into "service choreographers." In working to employ service-oriented architecture (SOA), they are developing "ecosystem" awareness, an understanding of IT services interrelationships. In this third part of a series on the new IT paradigm, W. P. Carey Professor Michael Goul explains that the key to easily employing SOA may well start with ontology, or "a common vocabulary that allows multiple stakeholders to communicate and interact." Goul is a member of a team of researchers in an ontology development project aimed at creating just such a common vocabulary for IT services. Once complete, it could dramatically simplify how companies share capabilities and interact in service-oriented IT infrastructures.

SaaS integration: The emerging trend in service-oriented architecture

Businesses large and small are becoming familiar with SaaS (software as a service) — most easily defined as software bought and maintained by an outside party which charges business customers to access their applications via the Internet. The rapid widespread adoption and integration of SaaS is facilitated by a continuing push toward service-oriented architecture. The future belongs to companies willing to join the next wave of the high-tech revolution, if they haven’t already done so. "This is a journey, not a destination," says one IT expert in a recent presentation at the W. P. Carey School of Business. "We will always be moving toward a service-oriented architecture, not getting there."