Optimize IT investments: Literature

A white paper from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in association with the IBM Institute for Business Value.

With service-oriented architecture (SOA), good things don't come to those who wait. While companies shouldn't abandon building a business case for SOA, they should, in the interest of speed, take a simpler, more intuitive approach.

Insurance companies are under increasing pressure to become more innovative and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers a number of advantages that, when understood and exploited by both the business and IT sides of an insurer, can help address any number of business challenges

Businesses should consider implementing service-oriented architecture to become increasing agile in managing supply chain issues in today's complex, global business environment.

Changing the way industries work: The impacts of service-oriented architecture

A Service Oriented Architecture can help public social services and social security organizations become more efficient, flexible and effective by optimizing their existing IT investments

Service-oriented architecture can help the many countries and organizations struggling to address rapidly rising healthcare costs, through efficient and effective information management

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) can serve as the new blueprint for aligning business and IT.

The distinctions are blurring between advertising and marketing, as new forms of communication marry the return on investment (ROI)-characteristics of marketing with emotional characteristics of traditional brand advertising - in short, the old ways cannot meet the challenges of today.

How emerging consumer preferences are met can open new avenues for consumer satisfaction, create new revenue streams, define new business models and accelerate technology deployment, lighting the way to a participatory utility network.

This paper describes how businesses are improving performance and creating value by applying eight new rules in using the emerging technologies of Web 2.0, social computing, service oriented architecture, 3D Internet and virtual worlds.

Food distributors' traditional value proposition, which centered on storing and transporting goods, is no longer sufficient. In a consolidating and intensely competitive industry, these distributors will need to provide more value to remain competitive.

An update to a previous IBM Institute for Business Value study shows insurers in the Americas, like their European counterparts, suffer from a lack of consumer trust and that heightened transparency, service and flexibility will be necessary to reach the customer of the future.

With non-stop change as the "new normal," organizations can improve their project outcomes by better managing change in four key ways: acting on real insights, employing better skills, establishing solid methods and allocating the right investments.

Insurers have for years mistaken optimization for innovation, but true innovation requires a willingness to try something different to address persistent operational challenges.

Imaging biomarkers hold great promise to assuage some of society’s costliest challenges, and technology can accelerate progress as the full ecosystem - including government, academia, BioPharma industry and imaging industry - contributes toward achieving this vision.

All nations in developing and advanced economies have become such extensive users of information and communications technologies (ICT) that their economic success now depends on governments' wise promotion and deployment of ICT at a national level.

Ireland again faces an opportunity to implement bold changes; by fully leveraging its size advantage for the development and implementation of innovative and rapid solutions for public sector reform, Ireland can substantially improve its chances of economic success and prosperity.

Technology can be used to both control and empower citizens, and governments should work toward a resolving this paradox by developing identity management solutions that provide security and engender trust, while maintaining personal privacy and civil liberty.

To decrease the gap between what executives think IT should be doing for grocery manufacturers and consumer products companies, and what, in reality, is being accomplished, companies should invest more time during project planning to more closely align expectations of IT performance with objectives.

As the healthcare industry faces many challenges to the status quo worldwide, we envision the need for proactive, collaborative, systemic responses that will help providers to transform their existing service delivery models and to develop five essential competencies.

As European payments convergence progresses, banks must emphasize all sorts of collaboration: with corporate clients, with peers to help set payments standards and with government representatives for more consistent payments legislation across Europe.

In six European markets, we surveyed a broad sample of insurance customers to find that three success factors that are crucial for the relationship between customer and insurance company: trust, transparency and technology.

To increase passenger satisfaction and become operationally efficient, airlines and airports need to adopt a new business model that features a flexible infrastructure and greater collaboration.

Read about how airlines and airports can prepare for the future flood of passengers and their baggage – not just to cope with the challenge, but to profit from the opportunity it brings?

Learn how Rapid Adopter nations can become more competitive in the world economy.

Among the biggest E-readiness challenges facing Established Leaders (Tier 1 countries) are: replacing older ICT infrastructures; meeting public demand for Internet-based service delivery; promoting more innovative uses of technology; and mitigating the negative consequences of aging populations.

The pharmaceutical industry (Pharma) is at a critical point in its transition to a new model of drug development: making targeted medicines.

Having survived the hiring boom of the late 1990’s, and the cost cutting and layoffs that followed, today’s human resources (HR) organizations must now focus on two overarching objectives: delivering strategic insights to business units, as well as continuing to provide administrative services.

Not long ago, the thought of watching television on a small screen seemed far-fetched.

With increasing competition from convergence players in TV, telecommunications and the Internet, the media and entertainment industry is confronting unparalleled complexity, dynamic change and pressure to innovate.

E-Detailing can strengthen the pharmaceutical-physician relationship by offering physicians an opportunity to improve the way they work, and at the same time, cut costs and increase revenues for pharmaceutical companies.

In a host of people-intensive industries, such as retail, banking, transportation, government, healthcare and customer service, organizations are looking toward improved workforce management tools.

Over the past decade, companies in multiple industries have come to see customer care centers (CCCs) in a new light: as critical components of their customer service and distribution strategies.

Any serious discussion of the future of the retail banking industry eventually raises a basic question: will future customers still need retail banks? The answer, it turns out, depends on banks themselves.

Retailers, manufacturers and distributors have entered a promising, yet challenging, period in their relationships. The way information is managed and shared is becoming a critical issue for industry executives to address.

How can an organization empower its employees, reduce costs and improve data quality? Implementing employee self-service tools is one direction that a number of leading companies are turning to as they look to build win-win propositions with their most important assets: their people.

Emerging IBM research suggests that though chemical companies have a long way to go to meet the demands of an increasingly challenging market, better financial performance is well within reach with a new approach to the business of chemistry –- becoming an on demand business.

While the telecom industry as a whole is yet again on a path to positive growth, the financial markets remain skeptical about the opportunity for revenue growth in the mature wireline sector.

The tech revolution of the 1990s forever altered the competitive landscape for financial services companies. Today's interconnected firms face a business environment that challenges them on multiple levels.

This paper discusses why industry and market forces will propel media businesses to become more open to business partners, customers and consumers -- opening content reserves and formatting, production processes, packaging and sales options without opening the company to increased vulnerability.

This survey identifies current practices, captures significant trends and establishes operational performance benchmarks in five key areas of supply chain management (SCM): new product development, supply chain planning, customer order management, procurement and logistics.

MTV viewers live a 30-hour day -- they simultaneously Web surf, view DVDs, play MP3s, download movies, watch TV -- adding up to 30 hours of daily media consumption. Today audiences of all kinds are revolutionizing how they access media and where and when they consume it.

A recent directive dictated that by 2007 European Original Equipment Manufacturers will be fully accountable and responsible for the treatment of Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). How Will corporations take on this new responsibility?

Strategies to simultaneously balance and optimize the twin goals of trade facilitation for economic development and enhanced border integrity to protect national interests and public safety will help Customs agencies achieve long-term success.

The financial asset growth of the 1990's was an anomaly. As the market normalizes, asset managers will need to focus on cost reductions rather than top-line expansion to fuel earnings. This starts with a change of mindset -- from managing assets to managing a complete portfolio of operations.

The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries have been buzzing with the promise of personalized healthcare since the inception of the human genome project. As this decade unfolds, information technology will accelerate the delivery of advances in medical science and technology to the public.

At one time, the pharmaceutical supply chain was featured on the boardroom agenda only when things went wrong. Today, it is subject to much greater scrutiny, as companies everywhere focus on how best to launch new drugs, assure the safety and supply of those drugs and simultaneously cut costs.