Key Business Objectives Research Articles

The Impact of Digital Marketing on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Bangladesh

In the rapidly evolving digital era, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies like Bangladesh increasingly adopt digital marketing strategies to enhance their competitive edge and drive business growth. This study explores how digital marketing practices have been integrated into the business models of SMEs in Bangladesh and evaluates their effectiveness in achieving key business objectives such as customer acquisition, brand visibility, and revenue growth. Through a mixed-method research approach, including surveys and case studies, this article comprehensively analyses the adoption patterns, challenges faced, and outcomes experienced by Bangladeshi SMEs using digital marketing tools. The findings reveal that while digital marketing has significantly improved many SMEs’ market reach and sales performance, challenges such as limited technological expertise, budget constraints, and inadequate infrastructure continue to hinder its full potential. The study concludes with practical recommendations for SMEs to optimise their digital marketing efforts and suggests areas for future research to understand further the long-term impact of digital strategies on SME growth in Bangladesh.

Qualitative design and quantitative analysis of sustainable business models using value triangular business model canvas and system dynamics

To date, the use of three key aspects together has received little attention in studies on sustainable business models (SBMs). These aspects are a) the qualitative design of SBMs based on a valid sustainable business model canvas presented so far, b) the dynamic quantitative analysis of the designed SBMs, and c) the identification of appropriate business policies for different future scenarios, not just for one. Therefore, in this research, an attempt is made to study all three aspects by proposing a new practical framework based on one of the latest SBMs, called value triangular business model canvas (VTBMC), and system dynamics. To evaluate the proposed framework in the real world, it was implemented as a case study in Farassan Industrial and Manufacturing Company, one of the companies producing composite pipes. The results showed that the proposed framework helps business owners and managers identify the proper policies to achieve their key business objectives in the future under critical uncertainties and also create appropriate balanced values for a wide range of stakeholders, rather than just for shareholders.

HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (HIM) IN THE CONTROL OF MEDICAL CLAIMS ERRORS

Preparing and submitting medical claims to health care providers is a crucial component in hospital finance. Owing to the complexity of the process, medical claims errors may result in financial issues.
 Our objective is to examine the process of preparing and submitting medical claims in the distinguished Healthpoint Hospital/Abu Dhabi, also the reasons for rejection of medical claims so as to focus in control hospital’s medical claims errors.
 The cases of claim rejection between the years 2014-2018 according to the hospital records are as follows: 2018 (January – May) 5%, 2017 4.4%, 2016 8%, 2015 & 2014 24%. Other cases of medical claims regarding Vitiligo (37 cases), obesity (14 cases), and Audiometry (23 cases) are also reviewed.
 It seems that the most common medical billing errors are related to technical and nontechnical errors.
 The strategy of controlling medical claims errors is designed in the hospital by applying key performance indicators (KPI) that demonstrate how effectively the hospital is achieving the key business objectives. The result proves that the strongest electronic system and applying the new business strategies led to reducing the rejections of medical claims due to mistakes.

Digital transformation of machine-building complex enterprises

The article is devoted to the analysis of the digital transformation of machine-building complex enterprises. In the theoretical part it is determined that the development is possible due to the effective and qualitative renewal of existing production and business processes on the basis of comprehensive introduction of advanced innovations. There are key business objectives of the technological concept «Industry 4.0» in the article. There are also factors influencing the indicators of competitiveness of Russia in the implementation of the concept of technological breakthrough. In the research part of the article the influence of digitalization processes on the competitiveness of products in the digital production is determined. The «roadmap» is made in accordance with the provisions of the program «Digital economy of the Russian Federation» and «Digital engineering». As a result of the analysis, it was determined that in the developed program, the main importance, of course, is the development of special standards necessary for the qualitative development of the digital architecture of the enterprise. In conclusion, the authors shown that it is necessary to have certain competencies of employees working at the enterprise, as well as the management should understand the growing need to create new jobs for highly qualified specialists processing and analyzing production information within the production enterprise for a competent digital transformation.

Briefing: An integrated approach to asset management system IT selection and implementation

Information technology (IT) systems are recognised as key tools for supporting organisations that need to make asset management decisions based on increasing volumes of data and expanding business objectives. The authors of this paper reflect on their experiences from reviewing an existing asset management IT system and planning the next phase of IT system development in order to support the attainment of key business objectives on a 30-year highway Design–Build–Finance–Operate project. This paper focuses on general insights derived from the journey through this complex process and attempts to simplify and share lessons, which it is hoped are applicable to wider fields of asset management.

DuPont-NASCAR Marketing

In 1992 Joe Jackson, former manager of DuPont Motorsports for twelve years, was angling to get the paint business at Rick Hendrick's sixty-five automotive dealerships across the United States. In order to win the Hendrick car dealership paint contract, Jackson and Hendrick met to discuss the possibility of sponsoring Hendrick's new team and rookie NASCAR driver—Jeff Gordon. As a result of that meeting, DuPont signed on to be the primary sponsor. By 2006 Gordon was a NASCAR superstar, and the DuPont logo—viewed by millions—was a household brand. While this level of exposure was exciting for the company, executives at DuPont could not help but wonder if they were fully leveraging this tremendous marketing opportunity. Gordon was on fire—but was DuPont maximizing the heat? The DuPont-NASCAR case tasks students and executives with designing a creative marketing campaign to activate the NASCAR sponsorship opportunity and maximize value beyond conventional sponsorship marketing. This open-ended challenge encourages students and executives to think outside of the traditional marketing tactics typically employed by business-to-consumer (B2C) NASCAR sponsors. Additionally, the nature of DuPont creates the need to develop a multi-dimensional plan that caters to a breadth of brands. Beyond designing a new marketing campaign, a key objective of the case is to focus students and executives on designing metrics for measurement of the return on investment (ROI) into a campaign plan. As a first step, it is important to clearly articulate the campaign, business strategy, and key business objectives mapped to the strategy.Students and executives learn how to design a marketing campaign for measurement. Specifically, they are tasked with designing a new marketing campaign for DuPont to activate the DuPont/NASCAR relationship. Students and executives must define metrics for measurement and learn to use a balanced score card approach. Since the DuPont sponsorship of Hendrick Motorsports is a brand campaign built to reach the DuPont business-to-business (B2B) customer, both non-financial and financial metrics are used. The key to success is to have a clearly defined sponsorship marketing strategy and business objectives. The case teaches students and executives how to define key metrics and articulate a methodology for campaign measurement pre and post to quantify the return on investment (ROI).

Hays Challenge draws graduates to a career in recruitment

Purpose – Reveals how the Hays Challenge, a serious game developed to respond to key business objectives for the attraction of graduate recruits, was developed and implemented. Design/methodology/approach – Describes how a recruitment-orientated serious game was developed and implemented at Hays plc. Applied research was conducted through a series of focus groups that informed the design process. Findings – Reveals that more than 40,000 players from 190 countries have played the Hays Challenge. Within the UK business 73 percent of the most recent graduate applicants have played the Hays Challenge. Practical implications – Explains that anecdotal information from the internal-recruiting teams suggests that there has been an improvement in the quality of applicants and that their knowledge about recruitment consultancies is much more evident. Social implications – Describes an interesting and attractive way of providing information about careers in recruitment to today's internet-savvy young people. Originality/value – Fills a gap in the relatively limited published research into how serious gaming can be used in the attraction and initial self-selection stage of the recruitment process. Adds further insight for practitioners into this area and demonstrates some of the benefits of adopting such an approach.

Using big data to improve customer experience and business performance

In an environment where communications service providers (CSPs) increasingly have the same service offers and devices, offering a superior customer experience is a priority to compete. Solutions that have the ability to highlight what really matters in driving customer satisfaction and deliver actionable insights from their wide-reaching customer, network, and service data are key differentiators for CSPs. This paper explores ways of integrating big data insights with automated and assisted processes related to key customer touchpoints to ultimately improve the customer experience. We show how innovation from Alcatel-Lucent and Bell Labs helps CSPs improve their business performance, using unique methodology designed to select the right key quality indicators, build accurate key business objective “formula,” predict customer behavior, and ultimately understand which factors are influencing the most. This can be used for example to improve the Net Promoter Score (NPS). The net result is a happier customer and a higher customer value.

Triangulation of audit evidence in fraud risk assessments

Drawing on the triangulation framework of audit evidence ( Bell, Peecher, & Solomon, 2005; Peecher, Schwartz, & Solomon, 2007), we experimentally test for the conditions, if any, under which financial-statement auditors alter their fraud-risk assessments based on whether external evidence provides positive or negative news about underlying business performance. We focus on the condition in which two kinds of management-controlled audit evidence – evidence from the financial statements and evidence from internal data depicting performance of a key business process – is contradicted by external evidence suggesting that a key business objective has not been attained. According to the triangulation framework, such contradictory external evidence should heighten auditors’ skepticism about the veracity of management-controlled evidence and increase their assessment of fraud risk. The experimental findings indicate that auditors’ assessments of fraud risk significantly depend on whether or not external evidence disconfirms the attainment of a key business objective, but only when conflicting messages are provided by the two kinds of internal evidence. Importantly, auditors did not rely on external evidence when, in isolation, the two kinds of management-controlled internal evidence both suggested low fraud risk. Auditors’ failure to use external evidence as a means of ensuring the veracity of management-controlled internal evidence is more consistent with a credulous than with a skeptical mindset.

Using knowledge to improve preparation of construction projects

PurposeEfficient project execution is a key business objective in many domains and particularly so for capital projects in the construction industry. Each construction project is unique in terms of how specialist professionals manage knowledge. Construction projects generate a large body of knowledge for sharing and reuse within the construction organization and across projects. In addition, projects provide opportunities for new knowledge to emerge in a cross‐functional, team‐work context. There are many factors in the construction industry that can influence the execution of construction projects, both positively and negatively, and so it is increasingly important to anticipate risks and implement the best solutions. Therefore, the preparation of the project before execution is crucial for any construction firm. This paper sets out to improve project preparation for execution in large construction firms. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to look at ways by which construction projects are prepared, based on the empirical data collected from five case studies. It also seeks to provide and discuss a model of a knowledge management (KM) system aimed at improving the preparation of large construction projects.Design/methodology/approachThe prerequisite for developing a KM solution in which project knowledge can be used to enable and improve project‐preparation processes is identifying the sources and nature of knowledge and its flow from a particular source to a specific destination. In order to understand the source flow of project knowledge, a qualitative case study approach was undertaken whereby various actors, knowledge retention practices, access and retrieval of knowledge, and issues in sharing knowledge were identified and analyzed. Case study research is one of the most widely used research designs in qualitative research. The methodology looks at five large construction projects, but not typical projects, which nonetheless provide useful insights for developing KM solutions aimed at improving project preparation.FindingsThis paper discusses how to improve project preparation in construction projects with KM and presents a KM model aimed at improving project preparation.Research limitations/implicationsConstruction firms need to be aware of the advantages of KM initiatives and practices in project organizations. KM requires an organisation environment that allows workers to create, capture, share, and leverage knowledge to improve project preparation.Originality/valueThis paper presents a new framework for managing project knowledge needed for undertaking project preparation. The knowledge map and the content of the knowledge base may be changed to fit the organization to be applied.

Continuous Improvement: Detroit's Key to Sustainability

This article begins by providing a brief overview of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). DWSD's five step plan for long‐term sustainability is presented, which DWSD developed in answer to a nearly 50% reduction in workforce due to retirements over the past 10 years. The five steps are: define the strategic direction and key business objectives; develop customer‐driven performance measures; collect and communicate performance measurements; identify requisite knowledge and skills; and, bridge the gap in current and future knowledge and skills.

Building design strategy: using design to achieve key business objectives

Building design strategy: using design to achieve key business objectives

Project success and project team management: Evidence from capital projects in the process industries

Efficient project execution is a key business objective in many domains and particularly so for capital projects in the process industries, but existing project management research gives little direction about how project team factors influence three important capital project outcomes: cost, schedule, and operability. After an extensive cross-disciplinary review of the general team and project management literatures, we constructed and tested a theoretically based, five-dimensional model of organizational context, project team design, project team leadership, project team processes, and project outcome factors. We examined the model by means of an empirical study of 56 newly completed capital projects executed by 15 Fortune 500 companies in the process industries. The results indicate the value of disaggregating project outcomes for research purposes. Different bundles of project team factors were found to drive project cost, schedule, and operability. Project team efficacy, cross-functional project teams, autonomous project team structure, and virtual office usage were the strongest predictors of project cost effectiveness. Continuity of project leadership, cross-functional project teams, and project manager incentives were the strongest predictors of project construction schedule. In contrast, clear project goals and an office design to facilitate effective communication were the main predictors of plant operability. Implications of these findings for researchers and project practitioners are discussed. One major practical implication of our findings is that project managers need to clearly focus and prioritize their goals for each project so they can adopt the appropriate bundles of project team practices that will facilitate their goal achievement.

Convergys managers build platform for success

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe how 19 managers from the European and Middle Eastern divisions of multinational business consultancy Convergys built a badger‐watching platform during a training weekend, to assess and improve skills in leadership, motivation and performance management.Design/methodology/approachDetails how the training was commissioned and delivered, and the benefits it brought.FindingsExplains that the managers were split into four teams, responsible for catering, public relations, resourcing and entertainment. Each team had a functional responsibility, but the group as a whole was in charge of planning, designing and building the badger‐watching platform within 24 hours.Practical implicationsClaims that, overall, the managers were helped to see the company's key business objectives more clearly, and how their individual performance relates to these objectives.Originality/valueReveals that asking team members as a group to plot the way forward and set some rules for themselves was an effective way of fostering a common understanding and shared goals.

Unwritten ground rules: transforming organization culture to achieve key business objectives and outstanding customer service

Discusses the importance of bringing to the awareness of all employees the “unwritten ground rules” (UGRs) that operate in an organization. UGRs can be used to transform an organization’s culture to a new set of ground rules that directly reinforce behaviours that contribute to strategic organizational objectives and excellent customer service. Defines and describes unwritten ground rules and then discusses their relevance to customer service and the achievement of organizational objectives. Examples of negative and positive unwritten ground rules that were described by staff to be at the core of their organization’s actions are provided. Provides a model that defines unwritten ground rules in four quadrants of organizational activities and suggests that all four quadrants need to have effective ground rules for an organization to succeed. Finally, it provides an UGR change process that involves seven elements for changing the UGRs to achieve the organization’s strategic objectives and a truly “balanced scorecard”.

Global Pay? Maybe Not Yet!

Business executives around the world agree that attracting, retaining and motivating employees globally is a key business objective in the 21st century. Organizations that can provide mean-ingful motivational rewards to employees across cultures stand to gain a competitive advantage through their human capital. This article dis-cusses the need for companies to take a much broader view of pay and rewards as they form global organizations. Although companies will approach the issues differently depending on their industry, their organizational hierarchy and their business life cycle, some common key factors characterize successful global pay programs.

Re-engineering the direct marketing organization structure: A business process view

Most contemporary direct marketing organizations are structured around business functions such as sales, marketing, customer service, product procurement, and accounting. In this paper we argue that the functional view does not fully realize the direct marketer's potential in satisfying and creating value for customers. As an alternative we develop a business process view of direct marketing using concepts from business process re-engineering. In this framework, the organization is conceptualized as a set of end-to-end processes cutting across several functional areas. Based on an actual re-engineered consumer direct marketing organization, we contrast the traditional functional view with the business process view and discuss implications for diret marketing strategy, performance measurement, and impact on customer satisfaction in the two frameworks. We show how a functional view drives performance measurement towards evaluating each functional area separately, resulting in suboptimal performance due to potentially conflicting objectives and procedures of different functional areas. In contrast, we show how a business process view is better able to resolve these conflicts by making customer satisfaction the key business objective.

Information systems planning: Lessons from strategic planning

IS planning has changed considerably since its inception as an operational planning tool, expanding its scope to address key business objectives and forging a link with strategic business planning. A great deal of attention is currently focused on identifying and developing strategic information systems. Strategic planning has also become more broadly-focused over time, as simple forecasting techniques have been replaced by a variety of adaptive approaches that emphasize industry structure analysis and environmental dynamics. However, strategic planning has come under fire recently for failing to live up to its promises. As these two disciplines become more closely aligned, IS planners can learn from the experiences of strategic planners and, hopefully, avoid a similar crisis of confidence.