Managers have used Business Analytics (BA) – which is a subset of business intelligence (BI) – to inform their decision making for years. Recent studies point to its growing importance, not only in analyzing past performance but also in identifying opportunities to improve future performance. As business environments become more complex and competitive, managers need to be able to detect – or, even better – predict trends and respond to them early. Companies are giving business analytics increasingly high priority in hopes of gaining an edge on their competitors.
Posted on Thursday, November 17, 2011
Web 2.0 has spawned household names such as Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace, and offers companies a powerful tool fit for the new era of social networking. In particular, the technology maximizes the possibilities for staff to exchange and shape ideas online. But do managers try to control how staff use the system, or give employees the creative freedom to shape it themselves? A study by Steven De Hertogh, Stijn Viaene and Guido Dedene suggests the need for an evolving, bottom-up approach to stimulate the decentralized and democratic patterns of use that emerge spontaneously
Posted on Friday, August 12, 2011
Times of great turbulence open doors for those who are able and willing to lead. In 2009, we reported on a set of interviews with CIOs that had moved beyond mere cost-cutting rationale and were ready to bond with their C-level colleagues to address the strategic challenges that lay ahead. In follow-up CIO dinners, we aim to explore the issues and opportunities further. The CIO Dinner Sound Bites series provides a peek into what was brought to the table. The first three CIO dinners, organised in the second half of 2010, aimed at sharing experiences on the nature of the conversations that lead to great bonding at the top.
Posted on Monday, February 07, 2011
Focus on the process – rather than on the product – is what sets business processes (BPs) apart from most other management techniques. Anna Sidorova (College of Business, University of North Texas) and Oyku Isik (Operations and Technology Management, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School) have studied academic research literature to find out which aspects of BPs have been studied so far, by which academic disciplines, and in relation to which other organisational activities, if any. There findings are available here on Vlerick Knowledge!
Posted on Wednesday, January 19, 2011
“How will companies create business benefits from business intelligence (BI) investments in the foreseeable future?” This was the central question in a research project conducted by Vlerick Management School, in association with SAS Institute and Enqio. By means of two separate focus group sessions, Vlerick researchers sounded out Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and BI Managers from various industries about the future of value creation from BI. In this article the authors synthesize what the participating CIOs and BI managers had on their minds when considering the future of value creation from Business Intelligence.
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2011
Six years of intensive research on the strategic positioning and current and future challenges of Business Process Management, led by Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in collaboration with its business partner MÖBIUS and the member companies of the BPM Network led to some useful insights. Adopting a process orientation means putting a vision into practice by making and committing to deliberate choices for organising and executing work. In order for Business Process Management (BPM) to be able to help businesses looking for an new vision and new ways to manage an ever more complex business context, BPM needs to evolve from a mere methodology (being a stepwise, structured approach to improving business processes – often synonymous for making them more efficient) into a holistic management discipline that takes an integrated approach to the organisation and its business as a whole.
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, mashups, blogs... Web 2.0 technology facilitates and encourages online collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Inherently social and collaborative, web 2.0 has tremendous potential to support and drive the innovation process. Researchers from Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School joined forces with Flanders DC to identify the prerequisites for success.
Posted on Tuesday, May 25, 2010
It is an accepted fact that business and IT are not always on the same wavelength. However, a recent study by Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and Deloitte shows that, in some companies, the crisis is compelling IT and business leaders and their staffs to team up with each other more effectively.
Posted on Thursday, February 18, 2010