Bringing dark data into the light: Illuminating existing IoT data lost within your organization

Companies are making substantial investments in placing sensors out in the field and within products and equipment. These Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies provide an unprecedented opportunity to harness data-driven insights to improve business performance. While the IoT is often framed as a next-generation technology, many businesses already are awash in these data because their existing operational technologies and other equipment generate substantial amounts of data. These data, along with the insights they generate, remain dark—out of sight and unused. Many managers are unaware of the existence and uses of such data. To shed light on the business opportunities afforded by exploiting dark data, this article provides managerial advice and demonstrative case studies in four strategic categories: improving returns on assets, reengaging customers, creating new products and business lines, and transforming business models.     

Internet of things support for marketing activities

ABSTRACT

Internet-enabled consumer devices are to be developed by the manufacturers. In this article, we examine how the Internet of things (IoT) can support marketing activities, including customer relationship management, business intelligence, and product design. In particular, the research reported in this article examines how the IoT can provide communication channels to support targeted marketing for product owners and enhance customer relationship management and product support. In addition, in this article, we examine how data gained from the operational use of Internet-enabled devices can support business intelligence in terms of how consumers actually use a product and can also support new product design in terms what features of current Internet-enabled products are most commonly used and how they are used.     

The Internet of Things: Are you ready for what’s coming?

Are you ready for what’s coming? As senior managers look to connect products, processes, and services to the growing field of the Internet of Things (IoT), this is an important preliminary question. Leveraging the IoT for firm benefit involves revisiting certain ideas that may have gone unquestioned for a long time. In this article, we begin by reviewing the complexity of the IoT, the complexities of an increasingly interconnected environment, and the increasing need to develop partnerships in order to create innovative solutions. We then offer practical insights from a case in which three actors with reciprocal specialties cooperated to create an IoT solution in the form of a connected appliance. While a shared spirit of optimism prevailed throughout the endeavor, reaching the finish line meant jumping a few hurdles along the way. Finally, we describe a number of fundamental issues related to business models, partnership strategy, data ownership, and technology diffusion that every enterprise should address before diving headfirst into the Internet of Things.     

An ecosystemic framework for business sustainability

This article introduces an ecosystemic framework to foster innovation for business sustainability. We emphasize the idea of systemic thinking in which the business operates as a system similar to a living organism. In this framework, businesses impact the environment in which they operate in a fluid, dynamic, and interdependent way. This approach contrasts with the linear approach commonly used in business and other disciplines, which tries to explain what might cause an action or reaction but ignores any feedback effect between the subsequent action and its cause. This article offers practical solutions and guidance for business leaders to incorporate complexity science into creating sustainable businesses.     

Digital transformation: Five recommendations for the digitally conscious firm

Digital transformation is one of the key challenges facing contemporary businesses. The need to leverage digital technology to develop and implement new business models forces firms to reevaluate existing capabilities, structures, and culture in order to identify what technologies are relevant and how they will be enacted in organizational processes and business offerings. More often than not, these profound changes require firms to revisit old truths as they develop strategies that thread the needle between beneficial innovation and harmful disruption. This article uses the Internet of Things (IoT) as a backdrop to demonstrate the concerns associated with transformative technologies and offers five recommendations as to how firms can develop the strategies needed for digital transformation and become digitally conscious: (1) Start small and build on firsthand benefits; (2) team up and create competitive advantage from brand recognition; (3) engage in standardization efforts; (4) take responsibility for data ownership and ethics; and (5) own the change and ensure organization-wide commitment. As such, this article shows that digital transformation should be a top management priority and a defining trait of corporate business strategy, and that by becoming digitally conscious, firms may get a head start on their transformation journey.     

物联网技术和管理在广西制糖企业的应用研究

食糖广泛应用于工农业生产和人民生活之中,为保证食糖质量,必须对食糖生产各个环节和流通中的运输、仓储、装卸、配送、销售等物流活动实施全面、有效的管理。本文从物联网技术和管理角度出发,讨论物联网对广西制糖企业生产和物流运作的影响,以及企业物联网应用和管理,并提出企业物联网实现的对策和建议。     

The power of business models

Over the past few years, “business models” have surged into the management vocabulary. But, while it has become quite fashionable to discuss business models, there is still much confusion about what business models are and how they can be used. In fact, business models can serve a positive and powerful role in corporate management. While other authors have recently offered definitions of “business model,” none appear to be generally accepted. This lack of consensus may in part be attributed to interest in the concept from a wide range of disciplines, all of which have found a connection to the term. To help managers better understand business models, this paper reviews the extant literature and identifies and classifies the components of business models cited therein. Components were classified into four primary categories: strategic choices, the value network, creating value, and capturing value. To address the absence of a generally accepted definition of a business model, a new definition that integrates and synthesizes the earlier work is offered. Based on the proposed definition, business models are then contrasted with strategy. Four problems associated with business models are also discussed.     

About the authors

This article is inspired by a somewhat counter-intuitive phenomenon that has recently been highlighted in the contemporary business literature, but which does not appear to have been examined within a peer-reviewed environment. We are witnessing increasing successes by domestic brands in China, often at the expense of established multinational brands. Given that China is the world's largest national market in terms of population, this trend is worthy of investigation. Our approach is neither causal nor confirmatory. Instead, we undertake an exploratory review of robust secondary data sources. Our goal is to shed empirical light on what appears to be a ‘Sinosyncratic anomaly’, and then to provide a framework and springboard for future research in this domain. Clearly, our approach is not without limitations, which we do consider. However, there is a pressing need for global marketers to recognise and understand the reasons behind the mixed fortunes being experienced by some of the world's most admired (Western) brands in China, with a view to making empirical generalisations to other emerging markets.     

The Role of Infomediaries: CSR in the Business Press During 2000–2009

Given the important role that business media play in corporate life, scarce attention has been paid to the role of media in the construction and popularization of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, we understand media as a key infomediary and examine how the business press has framed and presented CSR over the last 10 years. Based on a content analysis of how CSR is presented in two English-language business newspapers with an international readership, we develop a framework for understanding the role of business media setting the corporate CSR agenda. The results show that business media contribute to the construction of what CSR means in corporate practice by creating links between CSR and certain corporate activities, between CSR and arguments that strengthen the view of CSR as a business case, and between CSR and certain spokespersons. These links contribute to create a notion of what CSR stands for, what it means in practice, and why it is important that one should pay attention to.     

Operationalizing peace through commerce: Toward an empirical approach

Most scholars would agree that the goal of business is to create value. Yet, can there be anything more valuable than peace? This article tackles the following research question: How can, or do, businesses advance peace? It explains why peace through commerce is a topic worthy of study and sets out an empirical approach to operationalize it. The implementation of that approach remains in the future, but in this article, I seek to examine the contours of a possible approach. The proposed study will demonstrate how some businesses have already begun to move toward advancing peace and will give direction for how businesses could follow suit in the future. With both a content analysis and a panel data analysis, there would be data to help determine an index for peace through commerce, which would contribute a great deal to the existing body of literature. The proposed study will help scholars and practitioners alike understand the relationship between business and peace better.     

Make pricing power a strategic priority for your business

In the face of rising business complexity and competitive pressure, many firms succumb to price pressures and enter pricing wars. Others focus on creating, quantifying, and capturing pricing power from their market. Since 2011, with help from Warren Buffet and Jim Cramer, Wall Street financial analysts have begun paying close attention to firms with great pricing power. But what is pricing power? How do firms know whether they have it? And how does it affect profit? This research, based on a survey of 128 organizations, identifies and validates the drivers of pricing power and its impact on firm performance. In this article, I create and validate a pricing power assessment instrument that firms can use to get started. This article offers practical recommendations for go-to-market functions on how to start the pricing power discussion, how to measure it, and how to operationalize it.     

首旅酒店EVA业绩评价研究

EVA业绩评价法立足于为股东创造更多财富的经营目标,有助于企业更加客观地判断经营现状和调整经营策略,近年来被越来越多的企业选择采用.本文以首旅酒店为例,探讨EVA模型在旅游业中的具体应用,分析EVA模型相较于传统的业绩评价指标的优点,并提出具体的实施建议.     

物联网产业商业模式的本质与分析框架

物联网是实现物体智能化识别、定位、跟踪、监控和管理的一种网络。随着物联网新技术、新产品和新服务的普及,物联网产业正在形成。物联网产业的发展离不开商业模式的支撑,在回顾国内外有关商业模式、物联网产业商业模式研究的基础上,根据实际情况、全方位考察和抽象总结,文章提出由业务运营模式、技术服务模式和资本投资模式三大模块构成的物联网产业商业模式分析框架,进而探讨不同模块的运营内容。     

Toward an Applied Meaning for Ethics in Business

The field of business ethics has been active for several decades, but it has yet to develop a generally agreed upon applied ethical perspective for the discipline. Academics in business disciplines have developed useful science-based models explaining why business people behave ethically but without a generally accepted definition of ethical behavior. Academics in moral philosophy have attempted to formulate what they believe ethical behavior is, but many seem to ignore or reject the basic mission of business. The purpose of this article is to offer one view of ethics in business that accommodates the mission of business. This purpose is achieved by reviewing the mission of ethics in applied disciplines like business and melding it into the mission of business in capitalistic societies.     

Franchise,innovation and entrepreneurship

Since franchise business can be an alternative to independent business, it seems interesting to look at those factors that encourage individuals to choose franchise rather than independent business. It is also relevant to consider the role of innovation because it is generally accepted that independent business facilitates innovations to a greater degree than does franchise. The main goal of this paper is to determine the factors that encourage individuals to choose franchise activity and what role plays innovation in their decision.     

Collaborative business models: Aligning and operationalizing alliances

It is not unusual for companies to generate substantial revenue through alliances. However, alliance failure rates are high, leaving much revenue at risk and value unrealized. The big challenge facing managers is to align company interests with alliance interests. Such alignment can only be achieved when executives pay considerable attention to building the right collaborative business model. In this article, we synthesize the insights of the existing literature to arrive at three collaborative business models—sharing, specialization, and allocation—that managers can use to address the specific requirements of their alliances. Because the literature provides limited insight regarding how to operationalize these models, we highlight what managers need to focus on when operationalizing each of these models. We find that the choice for an overall business model is relatively straightforward in most cases but that operationalization of business models requires more complex combinations of management techniques. Finally, we show how the three collaborative business models can be combined to build hybrid models.     

Using Cross-Cultural Dimensions Exercises to Improve and Measure Learning Outcomes in International Business Courses

This article proposes an approach for using cross-cultural dimensions exercises to improve and measure learning outcomes in international business courses. The following key issues are highlighted: (a) what are the targeted learning outcomes to be assessed, (b) how to measure the accomplishment of these learning outcomes, (c) the input measures needed to determine what the students had learned, and (d) the measurement process. Also, this article offers educators strategies for merging assurance of learning approaches into business courses that are integrative in nature, and an example on how to use cross-cultural dimensions exercises as a pedagogical tool for enhancing and measuring learning.     

Values and Poetic Organizations: Beyond Value Fit Toward Values Through Conversation

In the midst of greed, corruption, the economic crash and the general disillusionment of business, current conceptions of leadership, organizational values, and authenticity are being questioned. In this article, we fill a prior research gap by directly exploring the intersection of these three concepts. We begin by delving into the relationship between individual values and organizational values. This analysis reveals that the “value fit” approach to creating authenticity is limited, and also indicates that a deeper exploration of the nature of values and the role of leadership is necessary. More specifically, we propose that organizational values should be viewed as an opportunity for ongoing conversations about who we are and how we connect. Through this type of dialogue which we define as “value through conversation”, we can create what we call poetic organizations. A typology of four interconnected values each of which forms a foundation for the critical questioning and inquiry that might be found in poetic organizations is developed. We suggest that this conceptualization offers a new and dynamic approach for thinking about the relationships between leadership, values, and authenticity and has important implications for both research and practice.     

Entrepreneurship: From motivation to start-up

The goal of this article is to reveal the origins of entrepreneurial motivation and to identify the logics of action (entrepreneurial projects) associated with each dimension of this attitude. The study looks to answer the following questions: What needs are at the beginning of a business, what are their intensities, and to what extent does entrepreneurial motivation influence projects? Using questionnaires answered by entrepreneurs who have just created their business, we evaluate the characteristics of entrepreneurial motivation (needs and their intensities), identify the antecedents liked to this attitude, and isolate the entrepreneur logics of action (imitation, innovation–adventure, reproduction, and innovation–valorisation). This study is supported by a theoretical framework that is the result of research on motivation and entrepreneurship. A series of causal relations are isolated and then tested. Analysis enables an ensemble of conclusions to be drawn on entrepreneurial motivation. Pathways of motivation lead to logics of action linked to innovative projects and explain the phenomenon of reproduction (or imitation) found in some entrepreneurs. Development objectives and a need for personal independence are identified at the beginning stages of entrepreneurial planning. Creators hope that their business will bring tangible financial and material results. Entrepreneurs are conscious that they must make a commitment across a range of dimensions for their organisation (managerial, commercial, etc.). In their quest for valorisation, entrepreneurs take risks, exploiting advantageous business contexts, thanks to their competences, and show a need for creativity. These two dimensions (competences and creativity) are associated with the objective of independence. The logic of reproduction is characterised by self-confidence (locus of control) and responds to the objective of business development.