Dissertations, News

Congratulations to Andrea Giessmann on her successful PhD defense!

On February 27, Andrea Giessmann successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Designing Business Models for Cloud Services”. Members of the jury were Prof. Christine Legner and Prof. Katarina Stanoevska (University of St. Gallen) as co-supervisors, Prof. Yves Pigneur as internal expert, Prof. Niels Bjorn-Andersen (Copenhagen Business School) as external expert, and Prof. Alessandro Villa as president of the jury. Andrea’s dissertation comprises 8 essays, thereof 6 conference articles (among them 1 x ECIS and 2 x ICIS) as well as 2 manuscripts for IS journals.

The BISA team congratulates Andrea on her successful PhD defense!

Members of the jury

Bachelor course, News

New Round of “HEC Business Game” – Evidence-Based Management in Practice

The next round of “HEC Business Game” has started on February 9-13, 2015 with more than 80 students!

“HEC Business Game” is a capstone course for 3rd year Bachelor students, based on ERPsim. It allows students to review and apply the knowledge acquired during their studies in a serious game. In a real-time business simulation game, students play as muesli manufacturers and have to define and defend their strategy on a dynamic market. HEC Business Game also covers an financial analyst / investor’s role. In this role, students invest in the Muesli manufacturing companies and manage their investment portfolio on a dynamic financial market.

This year’s focus is on evidence-based management – leveraging data and management concepts for better decision-making.

Check out the video (in French) to learn more about the course and see students’ testimonial.

If you want to learn more about the pedagogical concept and learning experience, checkout the article published at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS).

 

 

Master Thesis Topics

Real-time Sales Performance Management – Assessment of SAP HANA and Prototype Implementation

(Research project funded by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation – CTI, collaboration with an IT consulting and a consulting company)

  • Assessment of SAP HANA (in-memory database) and SAP Lumira for real-time sales performance analysis (training and access to development environment will be provided)
  • Prototype implementation based on raw data from the automotive industry (KPI calculation, visualization, dashboards)
  • Optimization of data structure in-memory databases
  • Evaluation (comparison between SAP HANA and an existing implementation

Contact: Thomas Boillat or Christine Legner

Master Thesis Topics

Real-time Sales Performance Management – Requirements Analysis for Cloud-based Sales Performance Management Solutions

(Research project funded by the Commission for Technology and Innovation, collaboration with an IT consulting and a consulting company)

  • Survey / interviews to assess the current state of sales performance management in different industries (automotive and others)
  • Analysis of industry specificities and distribution channel specificities
  • Validation of a concept for a cloud-based Sales Performance Management solution

Contact: Thomas Boillat or Christine Legner

Master Thesis Topics

Digital Transformation in Multinational Firms – How Do Mobile, Social and Cloud Technologies Impact their Business and IS/IT Architecture?

(Project funded by UNIL’s Fonds d’Innovation Pédagogique)

  • Expert study (interviews) to analyze the impact of mobile, social and cloud technologies on their global business and IS/IT architecture
  • In-depth analysis of one or two companies and their digitial transformation trajectory
  • Documentation as case study (including modeling of business, process and IS/IT architecture)

Contact: Christine Legner

Projects

Real-Time Sales Planning and Performance Management (SPPM)

Title: Real-Time Sales Planning and Performance Management (SPPM) – A Collaborative Cloud Solution for Multi-Level Distribution Channels

Motivation: With increasing globalization, manufacturers rely on distribution channels – comprising national sales organizations, independent distributors and retailers – to sell their products on local markets. However, the costs of these distribution channels are high, and sales activities are often not systematically managed and coordinated. The current way of working can be substantially improved through increasing transparency and measurability in the sales process.

Project Objectives: This project conceptualizes an innovative real-time sales planning and performance management approach for multi-level distribution channels (business innovation), which is implemented as a collaborative cloud solution and takes advantage of in-memory and mobile technologies (technology innovation).

Business innovation: As a proactive approach, SPPM relies on process-oriented KPI to assess sales performance, instead of result or revenue-oriented KPIs. It aligns top-down and bottom-up performance management, thereby coordinating key sales activities and targets of the different stakeholders at retail, wholesale and manufacturer level. SPPM covers the complete performance management cycle:

  • Plan (and set targets)
  • Act (and measure)
  • Monitor (and visualize)
  • Review (and correct)

 

Technology innovation: In this project, we are looking into cloud and mobile technologies, as well as in-memory computing in order to provide an easy-to-use tool for real-time sales planning and performance management to sales employees and managers. As a collaborative cloud solution, SPPM supports the different levels and roles in the sales channels with role-specific mobile or Web frontends to plan and manage their sales performance in real-time.

Project approach: The first year focusses on the automotive industry, whereas we will extend the concept to other industries.

Funding: The Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI)
Duration: 24 months (April 2014 – March 2016)
Team: Christine Legner, Thomas Boillat, Andrea Giessmann
Partner: proaxia consulting group, CMT

Conference Attendance, Events, News

“Serious games” based on SAP ERP – ERPsim Workshop in Berlin

More than 50 European professors and lecturers participated in two ERPsim workshops co-organized by Jean-François Michon (HEC Montréal), Prof. Christine Legner (HEC Lausanne) and Dr. Sonja Hecht (TU Munich) at SAP’s Academic Conference in Berlin. The workshops’ goal was to introduce professors to game-based learning with ERPsim. ERPsim comprises a set of business simulations, developped by HEC Montréal, and runs on live SAP ERP systems. Participants make on the spot decisions regarding sales, pricing, product components, marketing investments, cash management, production sequencing and more, all by using the reports and transactions found in SAP. The workshop in Berlin covered a “hands-on” ERPsim session as well as the discussion of teaching experiences and pedagogical strategies for using ERPsim in class.

Collaborators, Dissertations, News

Congratulation to Kazem Haki on his successful PhD defense

KazemDefenseOn July 17, Kazem Haki successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “Essays on the principles and adoption of enterprise-wide architecture”. Members of the jury were Prof. Yves Pigneur as internal expert, Prof. Stephan Aier (University of St. Gallen) and Prof. Alain Wegmann (EPFL) as external experts, and Prof. Joerg Dietz as president of the jury. Kazem Haki’s dissertation comprises 6 essays, thereof 4 published conference articles (ECIS, ICIS and TEAR) and 2 manuscripts for IS journals.

The BISA team congratulates Kazem on his successful PhD defense!