Chief Information Officer Research Articles

Digital Innovation to Transform the Customer Experience

Digital innovation is becoming a strategic priority for business and IT leaders in many companies. This article explores digital innovation at Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, the world's largest regional theme park company, with emphasis on the strategic leadership role of its Chief Information Officer (CIO). The article shows that digital innovation requires appropriate technology infrastructure, organization, leadership skills and a systematic process to evaluate existing and emerging technologies. Innovation ideas may come from many internal or external sources. Five digital initiatives illustrate how digital innovation can create new revenue streams and transform customer experience. Insights are provided on how to justify such initiatives and how to strike the right balance between a focus on innovation, while meeting the traditional operational needs. Overall, a focus on digital innovation is an opportunity for a strategic role of IT leaders, but that requires new skills and new education.

A Model for Chief Information Officer’s Tasks in Higher Education Institutions

هدف: این پژوهش با هدف شناسایی و ارائه الگوی مفهومی وظایف مدیران ارشد فناوری اطلاعات در مراکز آموزش عالی انجام شد.مواد و روش‌ها: پژوهش حاضر به روش آمیخته (کیفی-کمی) انجام شد. در همین رابطه نخست ادبیات پژوهش‌های مرتبط بررسی و سپس به کمک روش کیفی فراترکیب وظایف کلیدی و خرده وظایف مدیران فناوری اطلاعات شناسایی شد. نمونه‌گیری در بخش کیفی به‌صورت هدفمند و پس از طی فرآیند 5 مرحله‌ای غربالگری اسناد صورت گرفت. داده‌های کیفی نیز به روش تحلیل محتوا و به شیوه کدگذاری اولیه و ثانویه تجزیه ‌و تحلیل شد. هم‌چنین پایایی بخش کیفی با استفاده از ضریب توافق کاپا (653/0) مطلوب ارزیابی شد. در بخش کمی نیز مدیران و معاونین مراکز فناوری اطلاعات دانشگاه شهید بهشتی، دانشگاه تهران، دانشگاه صنعتی شریف و دانشگاه امیرکبیر جامعه پژوهش حاضر را تشکیل داده‌اند. نمونه‌گیری بخش کمی نیز به‌صورت هدفمند و به شیوه سرشماری صورت گرفت. در ادامه بر مبنای یافته‌های کیفی پرسشنامه‌ای 61 سؤالی ساخته شد، روایی پرسشنامه از سوی صاحب‌نظران تأیید و پایایی آن نیز با استفاده از روش آلفای کرونباخ 92/0 برآورد شد و سپس میان 53 نفر از مدیران و معاونین مراکز فناوری اطلاعات دانشگاه‌های منتخب بخش کمی توزیع گردید. هم‌چنین داده‌های حاصل از بخش کمی با استفاده از آمار توصیفی (درصد و میانگین) و استنباطی (آزمون T تک گروهی و آزمون فریدمن) تجزیه ‌و تحلیل شد.بحث و نتیجه‌گیری: براساس یافته‌های پژوهش و درنتیجه فراترکیب اسناد مجموعا 12 وظیفه کلیدی و 61 خرده وظیفه مدیران فناوری اطلاعات در مراکز آموزش عالی شناسایی شد که در این میان وظایف کلیدی تأمین زیرساخت‌ها، مذاکره، رهبری، ائتلاف‌سازی و تسهیل‌گری، کارآفرینی، مدیر مالی و تخصیص منابع، عاملیت تغییر، مربیگری و الهام‌بخشی، نظارت و ارزیابی، سیاست‌گذاری، تیم‌سازی و رابط بودن مدیر ارشد فناوری اطلاعات در مراکز آموزش عالی به ترتیب در اولویت‌های اول تا دوازدهم وظایف کلیدی مدیران فناوری اطلاعات در مراکز آموزش عالی قرار گرفتند. از منظر مشارکت‌کنندگان در پژوهش همه وظایف شناسایی‌شده مدیران ارشد فناوری اطلاعات در آموزش عالی اهمیتی بالاتر از متوسط را داشته‌اند اما با این ‌وجود تلاش برای تأمین زیرساخت‌های فناوری اطلاعات، مذاکره و چانه‌زنی با سایر ذی‌نفعان این حوزه و هم‌چنین ایفا نقش رهبری فناوری اطلاعات در دانشگاه‌ها به‌عنوان سه وظیفه کلیدی این مدیران ارشد تعیین‌شده‌اند.

Agenda of Russian Chief Digital Officers

Digital transformation of business is an increasingly relevant issue for companies across the world, requiring more attention on the part of top management. Appointing an executive focused on digital transformation is a popular, but not the only possible, measure undertaken in an effort to respond to the challenges of the new era. Many believe that the role of CDO (Chief Digital Officer) will prove to be “the most exciting strategic role in the coming decade”. At the same time, there is a wide range of opinions on the CDO’s actual job description and the knowledge and competencies it requires. This study by Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO will help CEOs understand what role the CDO can and should play in each business context, formulate its range of responsibilities, and assess which knowledge and competencies these responsibilities require. Depending on the nature and the environment of a given business, there are three possible strategic approaches: “fully digital”, “digitally wrapped”, and “digitally spiced”. Each of these requires a CDO, a digital transformation-focused executive, as an important condition for success. However, the range of tasks such a manager handles is profoundly different in each case. In the “fully digital” domain, the CDO virtually becomes the corporation’s key visionary. His responsibilities include ensuring competitiveness with companies “born digital”, which look for the slightest faults in wellestablished business models in order to re-direct financial flows through “digital disruption” to their benefit. With the “digitally wrapped” strategy, the CDO is mostly the executive in charge of organizational development. His priorities are to create an innovation culture, develop human capital, and arrange for the respective re-structuring. Lastly, with the “digitally spiced” strategy, the CDO basically has the responsibilities of a top manager in charge of developing advanced technologies. The legacy system stack can remain with the Chief Technology Officer or Chief Information Officer, upon which the CDO will build, developing solutions based on such advanced technologies as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence or cyber-physical systems. The role of CDO, regardless of the specific industry or company, is defined by a diverse and incredibly demanding set of requirements. The perfect CDO is a super-manager with a variety of functions who actively interacts with other executives and has profound knowledge as well as managerial skills. An effective CDO’s knowledge and competencies may be grouped into the following four areas: 1. Strategy and organisation: understanding approaches to strategy development in the conditions of digital transformation, economic opportunities presented by digital business models, and the respective principles of platforms and ecosystems; investment-planning and investment efficiency management skills; knowledge of organisational design and change management; 2. Consumer experience and design-thinking: insight into the digital consumers’ experience and lifestyle, the ability to analyse the pros and cons of a new product and to turn this analysis into working prototypes, mastered methods of launching new products into markets and receiving market feedback; 3. Production and logistics: knowledge of the industry’s value chains, understanding of key company operations, their strengths and weaknesses; business process re-engineering skills; 4. Technology and data: understanding the modern digital stack; knowledge of company data management strategies; ability to analyse data (including big data) for managerial decision-making; deep insight into corporate cybersecurity. The relative weight of the areas of knowledge will vary depending on the transformation type: while the “fully digital” strategy primarily requires strategic and organisational thinking, the “digitally wrapped” strategy focuses on managing the consumer experience, and the “digitally spiced” strategy focuses on the technology and internal manufacturing processes. Will the CDO role be permanently embedded in the organisational charts, or will it only exist for the duration of the relatively short period of revolutionary changes associated with the current digital technology? Digital transformation, as extensive as it is, is a finite process. It will certainly go on for many years, but eventually, the corporation will arrive at a new quality. What will happen to the CDO at that point? The opinions of our respondents were split roughly in half. Some of them indeed see the CDO as a sort of “professional revolutionary” who will be challenged in staffing a role once the revolution is complete and every corporate director has sufficient digital competencies. The other opinion is that the revolution will never end and the digitally-focused executive who ties together the entire company’s digital agenda will constitute an integral part of any major company’s organisational design. Which of the two is more accurate remains to be seen.

Exploring the relationship between big data analytics capability and competitive performance: The mediating roles of dynamic and operational capabilities

A central question for information systems (IS) researchers and practitioners is if, and how, big data can help attain a competitive advantage. To address this question, this study draws on the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities view, and on recent literature on big data analytics, and examines the indirect relationship between a firm’s big data analytics capability (BDAC) and competitive performance. The study extends existing research by proposing that BDACs enable firms to generate insight that can help strengthen their dynamic capabilities, which, in turn, positively impact marketing and technological capabilities. To test our proposed research model, we used survey data from 202 chief information officers and IT managers working in Norwegian firms. By means of partial least squares structural equation modeling, results show that a strong BDAC can help firms build a competitive advantage. This effect is not direct but fully mediated by dynamic capabilities, which exerts a positive and significant effect on two types of operational capabilities: marketing and technological capabilities. The findings suggest that IS researchers should look beyond direct effects of big data investments and shift their attention on how a BDAC can be leveraged to enable and support organizational capabilities.

GraceKennedy Group: The new Chief Information Officer and IT Governance

Grace Kennedy Group was the fourth largest Jamaican company listed on the Jamaican Stock Exchange by market capitalization in 2016. The company operated in several market segments focusing mainly on foods and financial services industries. Geographically, GraceKennedy Group had a diversified revenue stream operating across the Caribbean, Central and North America, Europe and Africa. Diversification had led to a diverse set of Information Technology platforms to serve the needs of the various subsidiaries of GraceKennedy Group. With the emergence of new technological trends like big data, social and cloud computing, the Group’s Audit Committee in 2014 conducted a risk profile around the company’s IT governance structure. The Committee recommended a change in the decentralized model of IT governance and the hiring of a Chief Information Officer to inter alia, strategically using IT to create value and to coordinate system security. The Chief Information Officer position was externally advertised; however, after several interviews, the Chief Executive Officer decided to offer the position to Robert Sutherland the then general manager of one of its subsidiaries. Sutherland was a former chairman of the Business Technology (BizTech) Council which was established in 2006 to oversee the delivery of IT services within the group and to provide guidance to the business leadership on enterprise-wide related matters such as the strategic use of IT. The case focuses on the issues faced by a newly promoted Chief Information Officer, in an environment in which the Chief Executive Officer has articulated the need for a new, transformative, strategic and value creating vision for IT.

(Повестка российских CDO) The Agenda of Russian Chief Digital Officers

Russian Abstract: Цифровая трансформация бизнеса становится все более насущной задачей для компаний во всем мире, ее решение требует все большего участия топ-менеджмента. Выделение специального директора, ответственного за процессы цифровой трансформации является популярным, хотя и не единственным возможным шагом в поиске ответов на вызовы новой эпохи. По мнению многих, роль CDO (Chief Digital Officer, Директор по цифровой трансформации) будет «самой захватывающей стратегической ролью в ближайшие де-сятилетия». В то же время существует значительный разброс мнений относительно функционала данной роли и необходимых для нее знаний и компетенций. Представляемое исследование Московской школы управления Сколково поможет генеральным директорам компаний понять, какую роль может и должен сыграть CDO в конкретной бизнес-ситуации, сформулировать спектр необходимых задач, и оценить, какие знания и компетенции требуются для их решения. В зависимости от природы и окружающей среды конкретного бизнеса возможны три стратегических подхода: «полностью цифровой», «цифровая обертка» и «цифровая приправа». В любом из них наличие в компании выделенного топ-менеджера, ответственного за цифровую трансформацию, Chief Digital Officer, является важным условием успеха. Однако спектр задач, стоящих перед таким менеджером, будет существенно различаться. В рамках «полностью цифрового» подхода CDO становится фактически ключевым стратегом корпорации. В зоне его ответственности, помимо прочего, находится обеспечение конкурентоспособности в борьбе за рынок с «цифровыми от рождения» компаниями, ищущи- ми малейшую слабость в устоявшихся бизнес-моделях с тем, чтобы перераспределить финансовые потоки в свою пользу за счет «цифрового разрушения». При стратегии «цифровой обертки» CDO оказывается прежде всего топ-менеджером, ответственным за организационное развитие. Его приоритетом является создание в компании культуры инноваций, развитие человеческого капитала и необходимые для этого структурные перестройки. Наконец, в случае стратегии «цифровой приправы», задачи CDO фактически совпадают с задачами топ-менеджера, ответственного за развитие передовых технологий. При этом унаследованный стек систем может остаться в ведении Chief Technology Officer или Chief Information Officer с тем, чтобы CDO мог развивать поверх него решения, основанные на таких передовых цифровых технологиях, как Интернет вещей, Искусственный интеллект или киберфизические системы. Роль CDO независимо от специфики индустрии или конкретной компании определяется набором разнообразных и чрезвычайно высоких требований. В каком-то смысле идеальный CDO – это «сверхменеджер», работающий на стыке функциональных областей, активно взаимодействующий с другими директорами, способный обладающий как глубоким знаниями, так и развитыми управленческими компетенциями. English Abstract: Digital transformation of business is an increasingly relevant issue for companies across the world, requiring more attention on the part of top management. Appointing an executive focused on digital transformation is a popular, but not the only possible, measure undertaken in an effort to respond to the challenges of the new era. Many believe that the role of CDO (Chief Digital Officer) will prove to be “the most exciting strategic role in the coming decade”. At the same time, there is a wide range of opinions on the CDO’s actual job description and the knowledge and competencies it requires. This study by Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO will help CEOs understand what role the CDO can and should play in each business context, formulate its range of responsibilities, and assess which knowledge and competencies these responsibilities require. Depending on the nature and the environment of a given business, there are three possible strategic approaches: “fully digital”, “digitally wrapped”, and “digitally spiced”. Each of these requires a CDO, a digital transformation-focused executive, as an important condition for success. However, the range of tasks such a manager handles is profoundly different in each case. In the “fully digital” domain, the CDO virtually becomes the corporation’s key visionary. His responsibilities include ensuring competitiveness with companies “born digital”, which look for the slightest faults in well-established business models in order to re-direct financial flows through “digital disruption” to their benefit. With the “digitally wrapped” strategy, the CDO is mostly the executive in charge of organizational development. His priorities are to create an innovation culture, develop human capital, and arrange for the respective re-structuring. Lastly, with the “digitally spiced” strategy, the CDO basically has the responsibilities of a top manager in charge of developing advanced technologies. The legacy system stack can remain with the Chief Technology Officer or Chief Information Officer, upon which the CDO will build, developing solutions based on such advanced technologies as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence or cyber-physical systems.

Information Scientist and Some Similar Professionals: Their Role as a Caretaker of Security Vis-à-Vis IT Management—An Analysis

Information is the most important and powerful term in today’s age. Information is needed in almost all the areas and sectors, and there are many practitioners who manage the information and similar contents. Among them, few important are the Chief Information Officer, Information Manager, Information Analyst domains and specific information managerial areas such as Archivist, Librarian, Documentation Officer and so on. Information Scientist, however, performs a different role and duties and responsibilities for the information management with technological solutions and also technology management depending upon need. Creating information systems with proper planning and management are the important task of an Information Scientist. Though there are many misconceptions about these professionals. This paper talks about such professionals and relationship with the Information Scientist.

Give students ownership of credentials with blockchain technology

When Central New Mexico Community College started looking at digital services for diplomas, transcripts, and other credentials, they were guided by the institution's strategic plan. One of the priorities was to shift from college‐owned to student‐owned technology, said Feng Hou, chief information officer and chief digital learning officer.

Big Data Analytics Capabilities and Innovation: The Mediating Role of Dynamic Capabilities and Moderating Effect of the Environment

AbstractWith big data analytics growing rapidly in popularity, academics and practitioners have been considering the means through which they can incorporate the shifts these technologies bring into their competitive strategies. Drawing on the resource‐based view, the dynamic capabilities view, and on recent literature on big data analytics, this study examines the indirect relationship between a big data analytics capability (BDAC) and two types of innovation capabilities: incremental and radical. The study extends existing research by proposing that BDACs enable firms to generate insight that can help strengthen their dynamic capabilities, which in turn positively impact incremental and radical innovation capabilities. To test their proposed research model, the authors used survey data from 175 chief information officers and IT managers working in Greek firms. By means of partial least squares structural equation modelling, the results confirm the authors’ assumptions regarding the indirect effect that BDACs have on innovation capabilities. Specifically, they find that dynamic capabilities fully mediate the effect on both incremental and radical innovation capabilities. In addition, under conditions of high environmental heterogeneity, the impact of BDACs on dynamic capabilities and, in sequence, incremental innovation capability is enhanced, while under conditions of high environmental dynamism the effect of dynamic capabilities on incremental innovation capabilities is amplified.

Personalized Interactive Technology for Residents Connects Generations

Personalized Interactive Technology for Residents Connects Generations

Communication and collaboration between chief data officers and chief marketing officers

To deliver a seamless, personalised customer experience, marketers require high-quality, complete and accurate data. In practice, however, data are frequently dispersed throughout the enterprise, locked away in siloed applications, in inconsistent formats or of poor quality. Ownership is not centralised, making it very difficult to remedy the situation and unlock the full potential of state-of-the-art industry tools and technologies. The magnitude of the challenge is beyond the scope and capabilities of the chief information officer. For this reason, some organisations have created a new role: the chief data officer (CDO). This paper explores a number of issues including the role of the CDO, the responsibility of the CDO compared with that of the chief information officer or chief digital officer, how organisational data maturity correlates to use of the CDO, how the chief marketing officer (CMO) has yet to leverage this new function, the challenges associated with such a collaboration and how various organisations are viewing the marketing data challenge. The paper goes on to describe the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation as a catalyst for data-quality initiatives and models for collaboration between the CMO and CDO. This paper forms the preliminary framework for a larger research initiative to be completed in the second and third quarters of 2019.

Give students ownership of credentials with blockchain technology

When the enrollment services division at Central New Mexico Community College started looking at digital services for diplomas, transcripts, and other credentials, they were guided by the institution's strategic plan. One of the plan's priorities was to shift from college‐owned technology to student‐owned technology, said Feng Hou, chief information officer and chief digital learning officer.

The CIO Gap and Mismatch

Descriptions of Chief Information Officer (CIO) profiles reveal challenges posed by the evolution of information systems and technologies demanding a variety of abilities and skills to meet business strategies and objectives. However, there is a perceived misalignment between the supply of and demand for different CIO profiles. By applying semisupervised segmentation techniques to a sample of individuals hired as CIOs, this article documents the mismatch and gap between supply and demand and introduces the discussion to address it.

The Challenges in Personal Health Record Adoption

Communication between patient and healthcare provider is an essential part of care planning. A patient's personal health record (PHR) contains medical information that can be easily accessed, updated, and used via the Internet to facilitate and improve treatment plans. However, PHRs are not widely adopted. The goal of this study was to explore the challenges and design a roadmap to adoption. Data were collected via semistructured face-to-face interviews and analyzed with a qualitative approach. This study included 35 subjects selected from a sample of CEOs, chief information officers (CIOs), and health informatics project managers (HIPMs); the sample included key executives and project managers in the health information technology business. This study revealed that executives see the PHR as a tool to improve communication and patient care and reduce cost. However, a lack of electronic health record (EHR) systems, poor PHR integration with EHR systems, lack of user experience, and computer and health illiteracy were identified as barriers to PHR adoption. Therefore, adoption was not found to be a top priority for executives. Nevertheless, the PHR ought to be part of the information technology strategy in every hospital. Effective staff training, better patient orientation, and dedicated health informaticians can ensure a smooth and safe journey toward a useful PHR.

Give students ownership of credentials with blockchain technology

When the enrollment services division at Central New Mexico Community College started looking at digital services for diplomas, transcripts, and other credentials, they were guided by the institution's strategic plan. One of the plan's priorities was to shift from college‐owned technology to student‐owned technology, said Feng Hou, chief information officer and chief digital learning officer.

Give students ownership of credentials with blockchain technology

When the enrollment services division at Central New Mexico Community College started looking at digital services for diplomas, transcripts, and other credentials, they were guided by the institution's strategic plan. One of the plan's priorities was to shift from college‐owned technology to student‐owned technology, said Feng Hou, chief information officer and chief digital learning officer.

Big data analytics and firm performance: Findings from a mixed-method approach

Big data analytics has been widely regarded as a breakthrough technological development in academic and business communities. Despite the growing number of firms that are launching big data initiatives, there is still limited understanding on how firms translate the potential of such technologies into business value. The literature argues that to leverage big data analytics and realize performance gains, firms must develop strong big data analytics capabilities. Nevertheless, most studies operate under the assumption that there is limited heterogeneity in the way firms build their big data analytics capabilities and that related resources are of similar importance regardless of context. This paper draws on complexity theory and investigates the configurations of resources and contextual factors that lead to performance gains from big data analytics investments. Our empirical investigation followed a mixed methods approach using survey data from 175 chief information officers and IT managers working in Greek firms, and three case studies to show that depending on the context, big data analytics resources differ in significance when considering performance gains. Applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method on the quantitative data, we show that there are four different patterns of elements surrounding big data analytics that lead to high performance. Outcomes of the three case studies highlight the inter-relationships between these elements and outline challenges that organizations face when orchestrating big data analytics resources.

The bring‐your‐own‐device unintended administrator: A perspective from Zimbabwe

AbstractAs bring your own device (BYOD) becomes part of workplace tools for employees in Zimbabwe, the responsibility to implement information security management methods, which was traditionally confined to the information technology (IT) employees, has extended to all the employees, who now become unintended administrators because of the usage of their devices. The purpose of this paper is to show how banks can mitigate the information security risks caused by the unintended administrator using the BYOD information security behavioural (BISB) model. A literature review of the BYOD information security and organisational information security culture was conducted. A questionnaire was developed from the literature and sent to 270 bank employees in Zimbabwe. A total of 205 employees participated, and 179 completed the questionnaire. An expert review consisting of chief information officers (CIOs) at banks in Zimbabwe was conducted to evaluate the proposed model. From the literature review, individual traits of attitude, knowledge, and habit, as well as organisational traits of the environment, governance, and training, were identified as key traits that constituted the constructs of the BISB model. The overall theme of this paper is that banks can mitigate the BYOD information security challenges by using of the BISB model.

Challenges Faced by CIOs in cloud and IoT based organizations- A Study on IT and Business Leaders

The Internet of Things (IoT) is turning into the following Internet-related insurgency. It enables billions of gadgets to be associated and speak with one another to share data that enhances the nature of our day by day lives. Then again, Cloud Computing gives on-request, advantageous and adaptable system which makes it conceivable to share computing assets; surely, this empowers dynamic information integration from different information sources. There are numerous issues hindering the effective implementation of both Cloud and IoT affecting the role of a chief information officer (CIO).The integration of Cloud Computing with the IoT is the best path on which to conquer these issues. The immense number of assets accessible on the Cloud can be to a great degree advantageous for the IoT, while the Cloud can acquire exposure to enhance its confinements with true protests in a more powerful and conveyed way. This paper gives an outline of the integration of the Cloud into the IoT by featuring the integration advantages and implementation challenges. Cloud computing has developed enormously throughout the years. Since the term appeared in mid 90s it was produced and being worked upon to make it a conceivable answer for business information stockpiling and availability issues. Expansive undertakings are progressively discovering cloud an affable arrangement even inside their stringent hierarchical approaches.Cloud has been such advanced that there is a surge of executing virtualization among CIOs. This has prompt a larger number of complexities than arrangements. The issues with cloud implementation are for the most part because of the scurry without legitimate investigation of one's circumstances and necessities previously. Following is a concise dialog on the difficulties looked by organizations amid executing cloud computing.This study focuses on the challenges faced by CIOs in a cloud and IOT based organization. This study will analyze the major challenges in cloud and IOT environments like security, privacy, performance, compliance, governance, portability, interoperability, lack of resources, cost management etc. As part of this study a survey was conducted on 400 plus IT and business leaders from various organizations from almost 30 plus countries and their responses are recorded and analyzed as part of this study

A Systematic Review of Recent Developments in IT Outsourcing Research

ABSTRACTIncomplete conceptualization of the information technology outsourcing (ITO) literature represents a challenge for navigating extant research and engaging into purposeful academic discourse. We extend the analysis of empirical findings on determinants of ITO decisions, outcomes, and governance. We identify increasing levels of research maturity, analyze effects of 38 new independent variables, highlight contradictory findings, and observe increasing interest in emerging topics such as innovation through ITO and multisourcing.Abbreviations: AIS: Association for Information Systems; ASP: Application Service Provision; EBIT: Earnings Before Interest and Taxes; CIO: Chief Information Officer; IS: Information Systems; IT: Information Technology; ITO: Information Technology Outsourcing; OTH: Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule/East Bavarian Technical University; PPE: Profit Per Employee; R&D: Research & Development; ROA: Return on Assets; TCO: Total Cost of Ownership; TU: Technische Universität/Technical University