Business Operation Model Research Articles

Evaluating New Business Operation Models for Small and Medium Size Logistics Operators within Low Emission Zones

With the enforcement of LEZs, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have to explore different business operation strategies to remain in market. Examples of these strategies are change in delivery operations, change in delivery vehicles, new strategies etc. In this paper, we propose a hybrid approach based on Gap Analysis and Importance Performance Analysis for selecting the most viable strategy for SMEs. In the first step, we identify the criteria for evaluating business strategies using literature review and discussion with logistics experts. In the second step, we conduct gap analysis to identify the gaps between the expected performance of the business operation strategies and the perceived performance. Lastly, we conduct Importance-Performance analysis to determine the areas in which business operation strategies perform best or worst and in which areas they need to improvise. A numerical application is provided.

How to avoid aches and pains in your joint ventures

The Australian oil and gas industry is in a period of substantial challenges, including a significant decline in oil prices, fluctuating spot gas prices, a relentless drive for operating efficiency, and tight capital allocation, together with increased regulatory scrutiny and a reputation for below-standards productivity. On the upside, these market challenges provide significant opportunities for companies to bring in new investors, implement new operating models, apply innovation to update processes and practices, and restructure activities. Making material step-changes, requires companies to review, amend, and update joint venture operating agreements (JVOAs). KPMG has worked with many of Australia’s leading oil and gas companies on a range of joint venture engagements. This extended abstract outlines why JVOAs need to be reviewed with respect to the following key opportunities and challenges: Fast-changing global business operating models. Available cost savings by eliminating inconsistent management and operating models between joint ventures. Planning for potential restructuring, including separation of infrastructure (e.g. plants, pipelines, support) from reserve ownership. Sharing of services (e.g. maintenance and logistics) between unrelated joint ventures. Transparency of costs and asset performance. Improved joint venture governance (not more or over-governance) between participants to attract investment. Effective resourcing, noting the right transition of capabilities between deal-makers and joint venture operators. With this extended abstract the authors aim to provide ideas for consideration. Each of these ideas will impact JVOAs. The authors’ proposition is that now is the right time to complete a comprehensive review of JVOAs to enable organisations to move fast as new and innovative opportunities arise.

Critical design and evaluation factors of mobile business models

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to define critical design and evaluation factors of business models (BM) for mobile network operators (MNOs) in general, and more specifically for mobile data services. Design/methodology/approach – This paper follows a qualitative approach. Aiming to identify critical design factors for mobile BMs, this research, as a part of larger research, examines three real-life cases related to mobile data service BM design and engineering. These cases are Orange Business Services (OBS); Apple’s iPhone services and applications, and NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode service. Findings – In this paper, the authors provide a framework for designing and developing Market-Aligned, Cohesive, Dynamic, Explicit, and Unique BMs with Fitting Network-Mode, which, if adopted by MNOs, would ensure their long-term success by improving the sustainability and innovation capabilities of their BMs. These critical design factors address different spheres of the mobile business: “Cohesion” and “Explicitness” are operator-oriented, whereas “Market-Alignment,” “Dynamicity,” “Uniqueness,” and “Fitting Network-Mode” are industry-oriented. Research limitations/implications – Although the paper provides in-depth analysis of three case studies in the context of mobile telecommunications, the authors cannot claim that the developed framework can be generalized to all services in the mobile telecommunications industry. Further validation through empirical testing is preferred and this could be done in future research. Practical implications – The developed framework is of value to MNOs as it provides them with a holistic approach for designing and also evaluating successful BMs over time. This is because the developed framework defines critical design factors for BMs in the contexts of their environments. Originality/value – The domain of BMs is still emerging within the field of information systems. The majority of prior studies either tackled the issue of BM definition or provided taxonomies and classifications of this concept. The originality of this paper comes from the fact that it takes further steps in developing the concept by providing a comprehensive framework which encapsulates critical design and evaluation factors of mobile BMs.

The 5G Huddle [From the Guest Editors

The articles in this special section focus on the development and applications supported by fifth generation (5G) next generation networking. During the summer and autumn of 2014, the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) was involved in a wide range of activities related mostly to progressing the global discussion on the development of fifth-generation(5G) concepts. Most significantly, on 22–23 September, WWRF, in conjunction with techUK hosted “The 5G Huddle—Towards a Global 5G Vision,” involving two days of interactive discussion aimed at bringing together senior industry and government leaders from North America, Europe, and Asia. The meeting certainly brought out the vision of the future, where the Internet of Things (IoT) and people integrate with new services ranging from medical applications to smart energy, smart buildings, robots, autonomous driving vehicles, and drones, and much agreement emerged from discussions among leading experts from government,industry, and academia from Europe, North America, and Asia. The key issues that emerged around the development of 5G technology were the IoT, spectrum management, data security, privacy, regulation, and competition as well as new business operating models. This future technology will be realized by the integration of technologies and applications on a range of infrastructures from fiber optics to wireless and satellites.

How Development and Manufacturing Will Need to Be Structured—Heads of Development/Manufacturing May 20–21, 2014 Continuous Manufacturing Symposium

Continuous manufacturing (CM) is a process technology that has been used in the chemical industry for large-scale mass production of chemicals in single-purpose plants with benefit for many years. Recent interest has been raised to expand CM into the low-volume, high-value pharmaceutical business with its unique requirements regarding readiness for human use and the required quality, supply chain, and liability constraints in this business context. Using a fairly abstract set of definitions, this paper derives technical consequences of CM in different scenarios along the development-launch-supply axis in different business models and how they compare to batch processes. Impact of CM on functions in development is discussed and several operational models suitable for originators and other business models are discussed and specific aspects of CM are deduced from CM's technical characteristics. Organizational structures of current operations typically can support CM implementations with just minor refinements if the CM technology is limited to single steps or small sequences (bin-to-bin approach) and if the appropriate technical skill set is available. In such cases, a small, dedicated group focused on CM is recommended. The manufacturing strategy, as centralized versus decentralized in light of CM processes, is discussed and the potential impact of significantly shortened supply lead times on the organization that runs these processes. The ultimate CM implementation may be seen by some as a totally integrated monolithic plant, one that unifies chemistry and pharmaceutical operations into one plant. The organization supporting this approach will have to reflect this change in scope and responsibility. The other extreme, admittedly futuristic at this point, would be a highly decentralized approach with multiple smaller hubs; this would require a new and different organizational structure. This processing approach would open up new opportunities for products that, because of stability constraints or individualization to patients, do not allow centralized manufacturing approaches at all. Again, the entire enterprise needs to be restructured accordingly. The situation of CM in an outsourced operation business model is discussed. Next steps for the industry are recommended. In summary, opportunistic implementation of isolated steps in existing portfolios can be implemented with minimal organizational changes; the availability of the appropriate skills is the determining factor. The implementation of more substantial sequences requires business processes that consider the portfolio, not just single products. Exploration and implementation of complete process chains with consequences for quality decisions do require appropriate organizational support. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association.

Network Security Isolation System Based on Information Filtering

Internet technology as the cutting-edge of the current information technology, it has penetrated into every aspect of human life, more and more government agencies, enterprises are using Internet to improve their office efficiency and to establish new business operation model, in order to improve its reaction ability in fierce competition. Internet has brought convenience for people to work, while the security problem of network also will follow. The internal network not only needs to ensure the security of their data, but also needs to exchange data with the external network, then by adopting network security isolation system which takes gatekeeper technology as its core technology, so that we can ensure that internal network and external network will have physical isolation at any time, meanwhile, according to business needs, it also has multiple forms of information and data’s exchanges.

Study on Charging Business Operation Model of Electric Vehicle

For the bottleneck of electric vehicle short range and energy supply inconvenience to restrain the fast development of electric vehicle, from the perspective of the electric vehicle power charging model, through analyzing the current situation and developing trend of electric vehicle charging facilities, consulting the existing electric vehicle charging model of advice, and borrowing from the mature business operation model of other domestic industry, one kind of proposal of suitable for the domestic electric vehicle current situation of power supply mode is analyzed. The proposal can provide reference for domestic electric vehicle scale and rapid development.

Hybrid broadcast and broadband networks convergence for immersive TV applications

This article proposes a converged broadcast and broadband platform in order to deliver 3D media to both mobile and fixed users with guaranteed minimum quality of experience (QoE). The work presented offers an ideal business model for operators having both digital video broadcast and Internet Protocol (IP)-based media services. To that end, the DVB and peer-to-peer Internet technologies will be combined to provide sufficient resources for supporting high-bandwidth high-quality 3D multiview video. The motivations behind combining these technologies are outlined with an emphasis on their complementary characteristics. In addition, the overall design of the proposed architecture is presented focusing on the protocols that are exploited to achieve the interworking of the underlying technologies. Moreover, innovative key techniques for supporting both fixed and mobile users in an efficient manner are introduced.

The Business Operation Model and Risk Assessment of Logistics Finance in China

To the present status of logistical finance as the starting point, the potential risk of logistical finance was evaluated and the countermeasures are proposed by analyzing the main modes of operation of logistics finance. The paper mainly using a quantitative analysis combined with fuzzy comprehensive evaluation to evaluate the logistics financial business risk. By using the quantitative analysis, the paper provided the mathematical basis for qualitative research and expounded the rational knowledge of logistics financial business risks.

Risk Assessment and Operational Approaches to Manage Risk in Global Supply Chains

Abstract Global supply chains encounter low-occurrence/high-disruption risks that are not addressed adequately by adding inventory. Although many operational risk-management tools exist, these tools and methods have not been synthesized into a comprehensive management system. This article evaluates risk-assessment methodologies and operational approaches to manage risk in global supply chains, and proposes a closed-loop risk-management system with inputs, outputs, and feedback. A focal OEM company's global supply chain is used to analyze the feasibility of proposed risk assessment and an operational business model. A tool for determining supply chain root causes (supply chain failure modes and effects analysis—FMEA), and a tool for supply chain risk assessment (global supply chain risk-management scorecard) are presented. Results of completed supply chain FMEAs and global supply chain risk-management scorecards are reported. Supply chains need scalable risk-management tools to ensure supply continuity during major disruptions while balancing efficiency considerations during normal operations. The proposed management system includes scalable strategic and tactical tools to identify risks, determine root causes, assess change-management capabilities, monitor performance, and evaluate execution of the system.

The road ahead: A perspective of drug discovery in psychiatry in 2013 from inside an evolving industry

Psychiatric drug discovery is in a state of flux in 2013. Significant reductions in investment across large pharmaceutical companies combined with shifts in academic funding have led to a necessary new world of opportunity based around collaborations, partnerships and business operating models. These new modes of research and drug development will only bring future success by learning from past failures and we will highlight some areas for consideration. Finally, in this apparent era of doom there are some success stories to cheer, which suggest that there will be future advances in treatment for the large patient population whose lives are spent in the shadow of mental illness.

BUSINESS MODEL ROADMAPPING: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO COME FROM AN EXISTING TO A DESIRED BUSINESS MODEL

Literature on business models deals extensively with how to design new business models, but hardly with how to make the transition from an existing to a newly designed business model. The transition to a new business model raises several practical and strategic issues, such as how to replace an existing value proposition with a new one, when to acquire new resources and capabilities, and when to start new partnerships. In this paper, we coin the term business model roadmapping as an approach to define the transition path from a current to a desired business model. We develop our approach based on core concepts from business model literature as well as technology roadmapping. The approach is illustrated using a simplified case study. We find that visualizing business model road maps elicits how operational actions and business model impacts are interrelated. The merits of business model roadmapping not only lie in defining a road map of actions and business model changes, but also in identifying and discussing trade-offs between strategic business model issues and operational activities. Especially if an organization still has to choose between different alternative business models, business model roadmapping may help to identify overlapping paths, path dependencies and points of no return.

Exploiting PONs for mobile backhaul

The growing popularity of mobile data services necessitates a rapid rise in network capacity not only on the air interface to the end user, but also in the backhaul network. The latter is quite important for the mobile operator business model, affecting capital investment, operational expenses, service deployment, and customer experience. Fiber infrastructure is inevitably the only long-term solution, and the deployment of passive optical networks presents an opportunity for a cost-effective, scalable, and future-proof solution. In this article we investigate the use of PONs for mobile backhaul and propose a resource allocation framework building on the efficiency of PONs to share resources, dynamically allocate bandwidth in real time, and enhance efficiency by improved statistical multiplexing. The main objective of this work is to exploit existing standardized technologies, and provide design and deployment guidelines regarding PON MAC operation, enabling a gradual and future-safe infrastructure upgrade of mobile backhaul systems.

Fashion Customization Brand Model Analysis in China

Based on brand model classification and analysis. Customization fashion brands in china can be divided into three different types. After analyzing operation model, business model, profitability model, and service model. We can find that these three customization fashion brands are greatly different in target customer, service method, wearing occasion, and so on. As a customer centric fashion format, fashion customization brand type can be summarized as follows. First one, high-end customization fashion brand; second one, customization product line or sub-brand accompany with brand upgrading; third one, mass customization fashion brand. The research will be helpful to brand repositioning and other specific problem solving. 

IT-Business Alignment in a 21st Century Corporation

This article describes the main Enterprise Architecture Controls that are required for a modern 21st Century Corporation to align its IT systems to its business functions to operate effectively, such as: enterprise architecture framework, business operating model of the organization, business process narratives, enterprise architecture repository, management plan for designing and implementing an enterprise architecture framework and enterprise architecture development roles.

Applied financial non-linear programming models for decision making

Financial programming portfolio evaluation is a contemporary analysis technique which combines linear and non-linear mathematical programming with financial investment analysis. The study examined an applied model at a case study, which used linear and non-linear programming to forecast profits and investment returns of various alternatives. A unique perspective of the case study was the type of investments ranged from operational (business model) improvement, stock market beta risk analysis, and also low risk bond return on investment. A financial spreadsheet example is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework and methodology for decision making in a business.

Managing Federations and Cooperative Management: A Report on ManFed.Com 2011

The first IFIP/IEEE international workshop on Managing Federations and Cooperative Management (ManFed.CoM) took place in conjunction with the IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM 2011) conference in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland on May 23rd 2011. The multi-mode, loosely coupled, user-centric nature of modern communications and services, coupled with the diversity of operator business models, ensure that modern end-to-end service provision frequently crosses heterogeneous management and administrative domains. Thus, management approaches that can be applied across organizational boundaries are increasingly important in a wide range of application areas. There are a number of significant, common, complex issues which must be addressed in all technologies and applications that involve federated organizations, yet research has heretofore been mostly confined to particular technical or application areas. The first installment of ManFed.Com addressed this gap by bringing together researchers from a broad array of application and technical areas who shared an interest in cross-domain management. The workshop drew out common themes, problems and issues encountered, and the solutions being designed to deal with the problems of managing information systems that span autonomous domains. More than 30 researchers participated in a lively and interactive day of paper presentation, panels and software demonstrations. The success of the inaugural event was such that the organizing committee is now committed to running further installations--we are in the process of preparing a submission to run a the 2nd ManFed.CoM in conjunction with the IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS) 2012 conference. We believe that these workshops will help to provide the basis for a common understanding and common approaches to inter-domain management and governance that synthesizes the insights and best-of-breed solutions being developed in the diverse areas in which these problems are encountered. The technical program of ManFed.CoM 2011 was organized as a single track and was composed of two panels of invited experts, two full paper sessions, one short paper session and a demonstration session in which practical software tools were presented. Of the 16 papers submitted, 6 were selected for presentation as full papers, with a further 3 being presented in condensed form as short papers. All the papers submitted underwent a rigorous review process, receiving between 2 and 5 reviews each, with the accepted full papers receiving a minimum score of 7.5 out of 10 from reviewers. The papers presented constituted a good cross-section of current cross-domain management research work--they covered modeling, semantic interoperability, trust management and security, policy based management, business process orchestration, collaboration and delegation and look at management on a number of different layers--from low level network management, all the way up to high level business-driven management.

Future Internet services: tiered or neutral

Novel Internet applications not only demand more capacity, but also their prevalent request for near-to-real-time transmission requires to increasingly provision high levels of delivered quality of service (QoS). Bandwidth and end-to-end delay of connections across the Internet vary by several orders of magnitude, therefore unequal data handling per node is commonly applied to achieve differentiated QoS. This practice contradicts Internet neutrality if it is not restricted to pure application awareness. A strict separation of network operation from service provisioning would perfectly fit to achieve Internet neutrality. But this may lack economic business models for network operators, especially in a flat-rate world. Differentiated charging offers a solution to achieve fair, autonomous, and cost-related revenue distribution among stakeholders.

State-of-the-art of ‘Lean’ in the aviation maintenance, repair, and overhaul industry

The increasing need for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) organizations to meet customers’ demands in quality and reduced lead times is key to its survival within the aviation industry. Furthermore, with the unpredictability in the global market and difficulties with forecasting characteristic of the MRO industry there is an increased need for the re-evaluation of the operation models of organizations within this sector. However, severe economic turmoil and ever-increasing global competition introduce the opportunity for the adoption of a resilient, tried, and tested business operation model such as ‘Lean’. In order to understand this concept, its long-term viability, and its application within the aerospace MRO sector fully, this paper presents the state-of-the-art in terms of the adoption of Lean within the MRO industry by carrying out a systematic review of the literature. This paper establishes the common perception of Lean by the MRO industry and the measurable progress that has been made on the subject. Some issues and challenges are also highlighted including the misconceptions that arise from the direct transference of the perception of Lean from other industrial sectors into the aerospace MRO industry. The ‘enablers and inhibitors’ of Lean within the aviation industry are also discussed. This paper exposes the scarcity of the literature and the general lagging behind of the industry to the adoption of the Lean paradigm and thus highlights areas where further research is required.

QoS differentiation and Internet neutrality

Internet neutrality is a debate controversial to a tiered, application-aware Internet. Bandwidth and end-to-end delay of connections across the Internet may vary by several orders of magnitude, therefore unequal data handling per node is commonly applied to achieve differentiated QoS. This practice contradicts Internet neutrality if it is not restricted to pure application awareness. A strict separation of network operation from service provisioning would perfectly fit to achieve Internet neutrality. But this may lack economic business models for network operators, especially in a flat-rate world. This paper provides a review on differentiated quality requirements, discusses the different viewpoints of network and content providers, and closes with a discussion on potential differentiated charging intended to achieve a fair, autonomous, and cost-related revenue distribution among stakeholders.