Jochen Wulf

Massive Open Online Courses

From an information systems research perspective, MOOCs represent an innovative, web-based business model for financing, designing, and provisioning educational services. Due to the increasing digitization and respective structuring of these services, the laws of the Internet economy Shapiro and Varian 1999; marginal costs of additional participants tend towards zero, occurrence of network and long-tail effects) open up higher education and vocational training to the masses. Thus, MOOCs offer great potential (e.g., increased effectiveness and eefficiencyin education) and challenges (e.g., new competitors) for academic institutions and other providers of educational services. The current academic discussion on MOOCs focuses on the different types of MOOCs the involved didactic concepts, as well as the technology and mechanisms that facilitate the scaling of educational services.

Carrier activities in the CDN market - An exploratory analysis and strategic implications

The commercial structure of the Internet is changing. Content delivery networks (CDN) are becoming potent players in the bandwidth market and are responsible for an ever growing fraction of total Internet traffic. Carriers on the other hand are looking for strategies to escape the “dumb pipe” scenario and are increasingly seeing added value services as a way out. Several Tier-1 carriers are expanding their business models into content delivery which appears as a natural extension of their core business in an upstream direction. In this paper, the trend is discussed based on case examples. Resource based view is applied to provide economic reasoning.

The new role of developers in the mobile ecosystem: An Apple and Google case study

The objective of this thesis is to determine the value of software developers for the mobile value chain. To identify different strategies for mobile platforms integrating developers, two case studies are conducted: Apple and Google. Porters approach of key activities is used to identify, how the two companies create a sustainable competitive advantage and which roles developers fulfill within the strategies. The cases reveal two different strategies, showing how both companies integrate developers to increase their competitive advantage: While Apple created a ‘gated garden,’ focused on user experience and the lock-in of customers, Googles strategy is based on a more open concept which has been coined as ‘architectural control,’ created by numerous strategic partnerships.

Cross-Sector Competition in Telecommunications

Cross-sector competition in the information and communications technology sectors (ICT sectors) constitutes a key strategic challenge for telecommunications companies. Due to increasing convergence, value creation is resulting in a greater degree of interaction. The diversification potential of telecommunications businesses is therefore changing with respect to associated ICT sectors, such as hardware, software and media.The article analyses cross-sector competition in the telecommunications industry on the basis of the diversification activities of ICT companies. A concentration of competitive interdependence in the ICT sectors is demonstrated using a cluster analysis of 34,142 companies. The cross-sector activities of telecommunications companies are investigated using contingency and dependency analyses, and the diversification-related competition in the telecommunications sector is also analysed. With regard to the telecommunications sector, particularly high level cross-sector competition with the media industry is identified, as well as strong diversification activities in the software sector. The results are used to derive the potentials and risks that have a significant bearing on the structure of the cross-sector competitive environment of telecommunications companies.

Fixed and Mobile Broadband Substitution in the OECD Countries -- A Quantitative Analysis of Competitive Effects

In this paper we analyze the competitive effects between mobile and fixed broadband. We use the Lotka Volterra competition model, known from ecology, to analyze these competitive effects in the OECD area. The results suggest that mobile broadband demand is stimulated by a high demand for fixed broadband services. Hence, the majority of consumers does not view fixed broadband as a substitute for mobile broadband but rather complement their fixed broadband access with a mobile access. Reverse effects, i.e. a positive or negative influence of mobile on fixed broadband diffusion, are not clearly identifiable to the present. The results imply that mobile broadband diffusion at the moment does not strongly affect competition in the fixed broadband market. With regard to competitive strategies, the results suggest that bundling fixed and mobile broadband can indeed provide super-additive customer value.

Technologies for the Electronic Distribution of Information Services - A Value Proposition Analysis

Since the original design and deployment of the Internet architecture, the economical and technological requirements regarding the distribution quality of web-based information services have changed drastically. Business models have evolved that particularly address quality and cost aspects of information service distribution, e.g. content delivery networks and peer-to-peer distribution. In addition, network operators apply differentiated routing technologies in dedicated infrastructures to guarantee a superior quality of service (QoS). This article compares the value propositions of technologies for information service distribution. 103 information services were analyzed by means of discriminant analyses in order to identify the main aspects influencing delivery quality and costs. The results indicate that the value propositions differ with regard to the type of services they support rather than with regard to direct QoS criteria, such as latency and packet loss. The insights derived from this work support information service vendors in their choice of a distribution provider.

Towards an Application Life-Cycle Approach for Selective Outsourcing

Selective outsourcing has been proven to be more likely to succeed in archiving efficiency targets. For application services outsourcing (ASO), selecting applications to outsource is critical for successful outsourcing. Thus, the implementation of application portfolio management (APM) is essential, in order to provide the necessary transparency throughout the entire life-cycle of an application. APM enables the classification of applications which guides the outsourcing decision. Furthermore, the application life-cycle perspective allows a differentiated and comprehensive view, which is required for selecting applications for ASO. In combination with common selection criteria identified by prior research, we studied the decision to in-or outsource an application. We evaluated outsourcing decisions in a comparative cross-case study with 37 German and Swiss companies. Our research revealed that the life-cycle perspective allows a differentiated view on outsourcing decisions.

Physiolytics at the workplace: Affordances and constraints of wearables use from an employee's perspective

Wearables paired with data analytics and machine learning algorithms that measure physiological (and other) parameters are slowly finding their way into our workplace. Several studies have reported positive effects from using such “physiolytics” devices and purported the notion that it may lead to significant workplace safety improvements or to increased awareness among employees concerning unhealthy work practices and other job‐related health and well‐being issues. At the same time, physiolytics may cause an overdependency on technology and create new constraints on privacy, individuality, and personal freedom. While it is easy to understand why organizations are implementing physiolytics, it remains unclear what employees think about using wearables at their workplace. Using an affordance theory lens, we, therefore, explore the mental models of employees who are faced with the introduction of physiolytics as part of corporate wellness or security programs. We identify five distinct user types each of which characterizes a specific viewpoint on physiolytics at the workplace: the freedom loving, the individualist, the cynical, the tech independent, and the balancer. Our findings allow for better understanding the wider implications and possible user responses to the introduction of wearable technologies in occupational settings and address the need for opening up the “user black box” in IS use research.

Branchenübergreifender Wettbewerb in der Telekommunikation

ZusammenfassungDer branchenübergreifende Wettbewerb in den Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie-Branchen (IKT-Branchen) stellt für Telekommunikationsunternehmen eine zentrale strategische Herausforderung dar. Aufgrund der zunehmenden Konvergenz ergibt sich in der Wertschöpfung ein höherer Interaktionsgrad. Damit ändern sich auch Diversifikationspotentiale für Telekommunikationsunternehmen in Bezug auf benachbarte IKT-Branchen, wie z. B. Hardware, Software und Medien.Der Beitrag analysiert den branchenübergreifenden Wettbewerb in der Telekommunikation anhand von Diversifikationsaktivitäten von IKT-Unternehmen. Mit Hilfe einer Clusteranalyse von 34.142 Unternehmen wird eine Konzentration wettbewerblicher Interdependenzen in den IKT-Branchen nachgewiesen. Unter Einsatz von Kontingenz- und Abhängigkeitsanalysen werden die branchenübergreifenden Aktivitäten von Telekommunikationsunternehmen untersucht sowie der diversifikationsbedingte Wettbewerb in der Telekommunikationsbranche analysiert. Hierbei werden in Bezug auf die Telekommunikationsbranche insbesondere ein hoher branchenübergreifender Wettbewerb mit der Medienbranche sowie starke Diversifikationsaktivitäten in der Softwarebranche identifiziert. Mit Hilfe der Ergebnisse lassen sich Potenziale und Risiken ableiten, die die Gestaltung des branchenübergreifenden Wettbewerbs von Telekommunikationsunternehmen maßgeblich beeinflussen.AbstractCross-sector competition in the information and communications technology sectors (ICT sectors) constitutes a key strategic challenge for telecommunications companies. Due to increasing convergence, value creation is resulting in a greater degree of interaction. The diversification potential of telecommunications businesses is therefore changing with respect to associated ICT sectors, such as hardware, software and media.The article analyses cross-sector competition in the telecommunications industry on the basis of the diversification activities of ICT companies. A concentration of competitive interdependence in the ICT sectors is demonstrated using a cluster analysis of 34,142 companies. The cross-sector activities of telecommunications companies are investigated using contingency and dependency analyses, and the diversification-related competition in the telecommunications sector is also analyzed. With regard to the telecommunications sector, particularly high level cross-sector competition with the media industry is identified, as well as strong diversification activities in the software sector. The results are used to derive the potentials and risks that have a significant bearing on the structure of the cross-sector competitive environment of telecommunications companies.

Understanding the Value and Organizational Implications of Big Data Analytics – The Case of AUDI AG

Abstract“Understanding the value and organizational implications of big data analytics: the case of AUDI AG” presents the case of AUDI AG and its attempts to implement big data analytics in its organization. The case highlights the situation of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the automotive industry and the potentials and challenges the emerging technology big data analytics may entail for such organizations. The case tries to help students to grasp the technical characteristics, the value, and organizational implications of big data analytics as well as the distinct types of analytics services. The case is presented through the eyes of Hortensie, an aspiring manager at AUDI, who gained strong interest in the phenomenon of big data analytics and received the task to position it within AUDI. To ramp up the topic big data analytics, AUDI is engaging with industry and design experts as well as an external consultancy ITConsult.