Jai Ganesh

Web services and flexible business processes: towards the adaptive enterprise

The full potential of the expected role of Information Technology (IT) in facilitating organizational adaptation has not yet been realized because most of the existing systems do not lend themselves to the levels of flexibility required to support changes in business processes. This problem is accentuated with increase of inter-organizational linkages involving disparate IT systems. Web services have emerged as a disruptive technology, with a real potential of enabling flexible business processes. This paper examines the influence of Web services on business process flexibility and analyses its impact on organizational adaptation.

Adaptive Strategies of Firms in High-Velocity Environments: The Case of B2B Electronic Marketplaces

The adaptation-evolution strategies of firms have been a major area of interest. Internet based businesses operate in highly unstable environments witnessing shakeouts and changes in the industry structure. In this paper, we focus on the adaptive strategies and paths of adaptation of independent B2B marketplaces. The independent B2B marketplaces have undergone tremendous change with regard to their business models and products/services. Since their inception as pure market makers, these marketplaces have morphed into integration service providers with market making being one of the functions. What makes the adaptive strategies of B2B marketplaces interesting is the extremely short time period within which these changes happened. The research uses the case study methodology to identify the adaptive strategies of B2B marketplaces in terms of their product/service class evolution. The results based on the case studies suggest a three-stage adaptation model wherein the marketplaces progress through stages such as aggregation, transactions and integration.

Managing customer preferences in a multi‐channel environment using Web services

The technology impact on the various functions in retailing has been increasing. As the number of channels for a retailer increases, managing the dynamics of customer behaviour in the rapidly emerging multi‐channel environment becomes complex. Building and retaining a long‐term association with customers require that relationship management applications should be able to accommodate the various channels. Multi‐channel customers are the most valuable customers and hence multi‐channel integration would improve customer loyalty and retention. This paper considers the impact of Web services on multi‐channel integration, the customer decision‐making process and the implications of effectively managing buyer behaviour for competitive advantage. The role of Web services is explored with the help of a few customer purchase scenarios.

Perspectives on service oriented architecture

SOA and Web services are the hottest topics of discussion currently with regards to enterprise architecture. The technologies are maturing from a standardization perspective and the level of understanding of various aspects of a SOA is gradually rising with an increasing number of clients thinking about service implementation and adoption. This trend has generated significant interest in IT and business circles alike, owing to the promise of bridging the gap between business strategists and IT architects. Service Oriented Architecture builds upon decades of distributed computing technologies and advocates the delivery of software applications in the form of an open interface based on strict contracts, leading to loosely coupled systems which are implementation independent. This tutorial will focus on providing an overview of service oriented architecture with emphasis on the evolution of SOA from other technologies such as object oriented programming and distributed computing. Subsequently, the tutorial will delve into exploring SOA from multiple perspectives, such as the relevance of SOA in EAI, SOA features of J2EE and .NET apart from illustrating specific recommendations on migrating to SOA based on some: sample implementations.

A hybrid approach to innovation by social enterprises: lessons from Africa

Purpose – This paper aims to provide a detailed analysis of the key capabilities needed for social enterprises to succeed in the context of extreme poverty. Facilitating growth and alleviating poverty in the world’s most impoverished regions requires introducing innovative solutions to achieve social impact while generating financial returns. Design/methodology/approach – This paper studies two social enterprises operating in Africa. Semi-structured interviewers were conducted with co-founders of the organizations. The transcribed interviews were analyzed through an open coding process, iterated to overarching categories, and compared between the organizations using a grounded theory approach. Secondary archival data and respondent validation were used to triangulate these findings. Findings – This paper proposes a model that highlights five key capabilities social enterprises need to tackle complex societal challenges while overcoming resource constraints and institutional voids. The processes followed t...

Web services, grid computing, and business process management: exploiting complementarities for business agility

Recent technologies including Web services, business process modeling tools, and grid computing, are key to facilitating business agility. Web services standardize application interfaces to ease inter-application communication, and facilitate standards based business process management. Grid computing provides a way for virtualizing heterogeneous resources to collectively yield a computationally powerful IT environment with tremendous promise in improving utilization levels of individual IT resources. By leveraging Web services, a standards based grid is being envisaged in the OGSA model. In this paper, we explore the complementarities of Web services and business process management (BPM) technologies. We also lay the foundation for using Web services based BPM in solving orchestration and workflow issues in grid computing.

Perspectives on Service-Oriented Architecture

SOA and Web services are the hottest topics of discussion currently with regards to enterprise architecture. The technologies are maturing from a standardization perspective and the level of understanding of various aspects of a SOA is gradually rising with an increasing number of clients thinking about service implementation and adoption. This trend has generated significant interest in IT and business circles alike, owing to the promise of bridging the gap between business strategists and IT architects. Service Oriented Architecture builds upon decades of distributed computing technologies and advocates the delivery of software applications in the form of an open interface based on strict contracts, leading to loosely coupled systems which are implementation independent. This tutorial will focus on providing an overview of service oriented architecture with emphasis on the evolution of SOA from other technologies such as object oriented programming and distributed computing. Subsequently, the tutorial will delve into exploring SOA from multiple perspectives, such as the relevance of SOA in EAI, SOA features of J2EE and .NET apart from illustrating specific recommendations on migrating to SOA based on some: sample implementations.

Bridging the Economic Divide through Service Innovations

Service Innovations have played an important role in enabling social initiatives and in many cases have facilitated bridging the economic divide. In this paper we examine a few successful case studies in the context of developing economies, which have implemented sustainable service innovations. The motivation behind the paper is to understand how technology driven service innovations are bridging the economic divide and the characteristics of sustainable business models emerging out of the technology driven service innovations. We also discuss the patterns and derive lessons for the future.

Web services, enterprise digital dashboards and shared data services: a proposed framework

Enterprise digital dashboard (EDD) is an effective tool for executives to get a top level view of their enterprise as well as closely linked partners. Decision makers need to have easy access to data such as total sales per month, inventory status and a number of other key performance indicators (KPI). These business needs are not in sync with the technological challenges such as the presence of disparate enterprise systems (e.g. ERP, SCM, CRM, etc.). Web service is an effective technology to link disparate systems. This paper discusses a solution based on Web services in the context of EDD. We explain the solution with respect to a business scenario and propose a reference architecture for the same.

WaterHealth International in India: crafting sustainable solutions for potable water

Synopsis The case features WaterHealth International India (WHIN) – a subsidiary of WaterHealth International (WHI) Inc. WHIN was launched in 2006 with the vision to “be the leader in providing scalable, safe, and affordable water solutions to underserved populations through an innovative business model.” The company incorporated a Build-Operate-Transfer model with decentralized production and distribution. Following a successful pilot project, WHIN installed its WaterHealth Centers in 175 sites throughout rural India by 2009, and attracted a