Janet Edwards

Email training significantly reduces email defects

Organisations are now becoming aware of the problems associated with email use and are keen to reduce these defects. These email defects relate to the ineffective way that email is used within organisations, and are not only limited to the volume of email that is sent and received, but also the quality of the email content. Email defects lead to inefficiencies within the workplace as employees spend more time dealing with email rather than doing other aspects of their job. This paper firstly examines how email is used within a large organisation and highlights the defects associated with email. The initial results show that these defects affect some groups of employees more than others. The paper also reports on the effectiveness of email training in reducing the defects associated with email use. The results show that some of these defects are related and that training can significantly reduce some of the email defects and improve the way people write emails.

E-commerce adoption of travel and tourism organisations in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda

Africa, with its great wealth in wildlife and unique resorts, can benefit from the ever increasing user population of the Internet, particularly in the USA and Western Europe where most of the tourists to Africa come from (Internet World Stats, 2004. World Internet Users and Population Stats. .). A first survey was carried out to find the nature and extent of e-commerce adoption by tourism organisations from South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda which are all popular tourist destinations in eastern and southern Africa. For comparison, a second survey of tourism organisations from USA and Western Europe was also carried out. A total of 373 websites from the four African countries and 180 from the USA and Western Europe were accessed and then evaluated against a list of e-commerce features. The surveys revealed that few of the African organisations are embracing e-commerce and that, although some websites were comparable to those of their western counterparts, the majority had room for considerable improvements. The African websites were found to be generally informative but lacked interactive facilities for online transactions. It is recommended that these African organisations evolve their websites into marketing tools to capitalise on the potential Internet market.

Recommendations for e-commerce systems in the tourism industry of sub-Saharan Africa

The recommendations described in this paper are a continuation of research previously reported in the Telematics and Informatics journal. This paper explains how the tourism organisations from sub-Saharan Africa can evolve their websites into marketing tools and how they can overcome the impediments to e-commerce adoption and usage. The recommendations also explain how the other major players within the economies of these countries can make the environment conducive for e-commerce development and growth so that the tourism organisations from this region can break into the lucrative international tourism market. The recommendations were tested by sending them to the African organisations and experts in e-commerce and tourism who have worked in, or are currently based in Africa, south of the Sahara. The results showed most organisations and experts who responded think that these recommendations will help African tourism organisations adopt and use e-commerce. African tourism organisations that intend to implement or are in the process of implementing e-commerce systems should follow the recommendations outlined in this paper to help sub-Saharan Africa reach its tourism potential.

A simple approach to improving email communication

Going back to basics.

Providing demonstrable return‐on‐investment for organisational learning and training

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to present a holistic approach to training, that clearly demonstrates cost savings with improved effectiveness and efficiencies that are aligned to business objectives.Design/methodology/approach – Extending Kirkpatricks evaluation framework with Phillipss return‐on‐investment (ROI) concepts, the paper conveys a number of successes; including trainee satisfaction and the capturing of improved knowledge and skills.Findings – The paper includes case studies of how, and to what extent this knowledge has been applied with examples of resulting efficiency savings. The paper shows that there is growing agreement that one of the primary drivers, if not the key driver of long‐term organisational effectiveness, is the ability of an organisation to learn effectively. The methodology requires some additional assessment and course preparation to establish a basis from which to demonstrate learning effectiveness. The financial benefits of the applied learning are far greater than t...

The Strategic Importance of E-Commerce in Modern Supply Chain

Considering some aspects of the motor industry as an example, this paper outlines strategic opportunities for e-commerce-enabled supply chains and, hence, greatly improved responses to customers. The authors demonstrate that there will be resulting strategic advantage for firms that become enabled to take a further step of making changes to their much wider manufacturing process philosophies. The developed knowledge associated with these changes will not be easily copied by competitors, and as such, provides the basis for a sustainable competitive advantage for those firms that are able to lead the way with the enabling technology of e-commerce in supply chains. However, leadership and change management are identified as key issues requiring further investigation.

Analysis of Usability and Accessibility Errors of E-Commerce Websites of Tourist Organisations in Four African Countries

This paper seeks to establish the nature and extent of errors in e-commerce websites as diagnosed by two automated evaluation tools and how the websites of tourist organisations from South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda compare with those based in Europe. A total of 318 websites from various sectors of the tourism industry were accessed and rated for content accessibility and usability using the automated tools Bobby and LIFT. Although the errors detected did not affect the great majority of e-commerce users, they hinder the usability and accessibility by people with disabilities. It was found that the African web sites were comparable with their European counterparts in terms of their Bobby and LIFT rating. It is recommended that the African countries put in place their own web accessibility and usability regulations, which would ensure accessibility for all users, as this may give them the competitive edge they need.

Towards real process improvement from internal auditing--A case study

The analysis of audit findings should prove useful in uncovering the problems practitioners have in implementing a software quality management regime. The understanding gained from this analysis could then be used to solve the issues involved, and make software management, e.g. development or procurement, more effective. This case study presents an initial analysis of audit findings that led to the need to review some of the approaches taken in gathering audit data. This review included the techniques used and the motivation of auditors. A detailed implementation rating system was devised to further investigate and accurately identify specific problems. It was also used to test and validate initial conclusions and highlight problems with audit sampling. Without proper management, particularly for the analysis of audit findings, the internal audit process can be an ineffective use of resources. The recommendations made by this paper can provide practical solutions to making internal auditing a cost-effective, problem solving, management tool.

Parallel access to an English dictionary

Abstract This paper describes how a computer-based dictionary can be accessed in parallel. The application, which is written in Occam-2, uses up to five transputers and the dictionary is split over these. Words input to the system are preprocessed in order to find the relevant section of the dictionary, except in the case of high-frequency words, which are dealt with separately by means of a trie search. Morphological analysis is employed to find the roots of words that appear in different forms from those listed in the dictionary. Results of implementations with and without an index for the dictionary are presented in respect of various inputs consisting of individual words and sentences requiring use of the trie search, the different sections of the dictionary and the morphological analysis.

An evolutionary cultural-change approach to successful software process improvement

With a plethora of models, systems and standards to choose for a basis of software process improvement, decisions on which to adopt may depend on a number of factors. This paper presents an evolutionary and extremely cost effective approach to implementing a software quality system that requires minimum resource and little disruption to programme delivery. The method presented, achieved a 40% improvement in the level of implementation of the AWE plc software quality management system over a 5-year period. A critical success factor is the treatment of the users’ of the defined software quality system as customers, understanding their concerns and problems, and being responsive to them. The importance of a well designed system is highlighted together with the essential and extensive consultation process required to gain buy-in and lay the foundation for cultural change. This was supported with a helpful programme of facilitated self-assessment and sustained by a closely aligned training scheme. As a consequence some of the cultural elements were changed from one of thoughtless “tick-in-the-box” compliance to one of true understanding of the system requirements, true quality implementation, and subsequent added value.