Information Systems: The e-Business Challenge Indisputable, e-Business is shaping the future inspiring a growing range of innovative business models. To bring it to the point: the Internet has redefined the way electronic business is performed. In an electronic supported business all relationships are transformed -may it be a seller-to buyer relationship or a an agency-to-citizen relationship. So for instance in commerce new business models incorporate various activities: promoting and communicating company and product information to a global user base; accepting orders and payments for goods and services; providing ongoing customer support; getting feedback and spurring collaboration for a new product development. There are several ways of further differentiating e-Business such as sketching some diversions on various levels: e-Commerce, e-Government; B2C, B2B, B2G, G2C; Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence and so on. Further distinctions may follow divergent criteria such as separating in business stages. Thus particular problem domains emerge. They all state of its own guiding the development of adequate information systems.

Traditional shops are facing challenging and unprecedented times. Future-Ready Retail explains how changing consumer needs, the impact of digital and the issues around health, wellness and distancing have transformed retail and provides compelling solutions to help reimagine the high street and out-of-town malls. Conventional high streets, shopping arcades and retail malls throughout the world no longer attract the crowds needed to sustain them as successful commercial spaces. Suffering from the effects of online shopping, changing consumer attitudes and expectations, and the legacy impact of social distancing, there's a sense of urgency and the need to address the decline in physical retail. Future-Ready Retail provides in-depth analysis of how consumers, health, data and new technologies will continue irreversibly to shake up physical shops and permanently shape the future of traditional retail. Arguing that to be future-ready, retail needs to be driven by people and places, not solely real estate, the book explains how brands can develop strategies to create shops whose main purpose is to recruit, retain and delight customers. Featuring case studies from successful global brand, retail futurist and designer Ibrahim Ibrahim identifies key retail-cultural trends, shows why it's important to make retail space physically smarter and how to use touch points such as social, website and apps alongside the physical space, to achieve a seamless, enjoyable and profitable retail experience.

Marketers and retailers have to understand how to manage different consumer perception levels of retail brands, which have a major determining role on store loyalty across different complex contexts. Addressing these issues, Bettina Berg analyzes first whether corporate reputation and retail store equity have a reciprocal relationship in determining store loyalty. Second, she evaluates whether retail brand equity or store accessibility provides a greater contribution to store loyalty across different local competitive situations. Third, she investigates whether perceptions of format specific core attributes differ in their impact on the brand building process in saturated and emerging markets. "

Brand Revolution offers a radical new approach to brand management. With big brand case studies including L'Oreal and Jaguar, the author draws on her extensive experience as a marketing consultant to put together this highly engaging and practical book for developing, improving and controlling the identity of your brand.

BE 2002 is the second in a series of conferences on eCommerce, eBusiness, and eGovemment organised by the three IFIP committees TC6, TC8, and TCll. As BE 2001 did last year in Zurich, BE 2002 continues to provide a forum for users, engineers, and researchers from academia, industry and government to present their latest findings in eCommerce, eBusiness, and eGovernment applications and the underlying technologies which support those applications. This year's conference comprises a main track with sessions on eGovernment, Trust, eMarkets, Fraud and Security, eBusiness (both B2B and B2C), the Design of systems, eLearning, Public and Health Systems, Web Design, and the Applications of and Procedures for eCommerce and eBusiness, as well as two associated Workshops (not included in these proceedings): eBusiness Models in the Digital Online Music and Online News Sectors; and eBusiness Standardisation - Challenges and Solutions for the Networked Economy. The 47 papers accepted for presentation in these sessions and published in this book of proceedings were selected from 80 submissions. They were rigorously reviewed (all papers were double-blind refereed) before being selected by the International Programme Committee. This rejection rate of almost 50% indicates just how seriously the Committee took its quality control activities.

This volume addresses profound issues in international economics, with contributions from leading researchers on the implications of trade. Empirical studies address preferential trading arrangements, global imbalances and exchange rates, facilitating an understanding of how the economy functions and enabling detailed policy evaluation.

In the time-worn traditions of the transportation industry, ship pers and carriers regard one another as enemies. There is, to be sure, a certain degree of validity to such a viewpoint. An element of conflict will naturally be present in any vendor-purchaser relationship. The two, after all, are seeking distinctly different things from that relationship; and to a con siderable extent each party's success in realizing its own goals must be achieved at the expense of the other. At the same time, however, viewing that relationship as strictly zero-sum-a gain by one side always resulting in an equal and offsetting loss by the other-is a gross misconception. It overlooks the key reality that, no matter which party comes closest to its own objectives, the relationship, and the business transactions that flow from it, must ultimately benefit both. Without that level of mutual benefit the relationship will simply not exist (or will soon founder if it somehow does come into being); for it is only the self-interest of the two parties that impels them to establish and continue that relationship at all. In transportation, however, this element of mutuality-the attitude that the parties share a common interest in nurturing their relationship-is often forgotten. Instead of working to gether as, fundamentally, partners in a business transaction from which both expect to derive gains, they dedicate the bulk of their energies to fighting, rather than cooperating, with one another."

Post-colonial Africa is littered with regional trade agreements that amounted to little more than a photo opportunity for the leaders that signed them. This book explores conventional explanations for past failures and posits a new theory rooted in the symbiotic relationship between authoritarian politics and crony-capitalism.

Written by experts in Luxury and Fashion Management at SKEMA Business School this exciting new book offers a new perspective that challenges the established rules of the luxury and fashion industry. The authors and contributors examine the evolution of luxury strategy and how the luxury industry is being redefined in the twenty-first century.

In the fall of 1990, the Danish government started a comprehensive research pro gramme to improve the competitiveness of the Danish food sector: The Research and Development Programme in the Danish Food Sector (Det F Ildevareteknologiske Forsk nings- og Udviklingsprogram, F0TEK). The programme was based on a combination of basic research to be carried out by universities and other research institutions, and a series of collaboration projects between researchers and food companies. The programme was originally designed as a technological research programme. However, in the planning phases of the research programme, the view that the development of new technologies and products may not be sufficient to improve competitiveness made some ground. A small comer of the overall research effort was therefore set aside for market-oriented research. This comer was filled by the research programme Market-based process and product innovation in the food sector (MAPP). MAPP was a joint research programme in which researchers from several Danish universities and business schools participated; it was coordinated by the Aarhus School of Business. MAPP set out to achieve a difficult task: to conduct high quality research on various aspects of the marketing of food products, to do so in cooperation with food companies, and to win under standing and recognition from the colleagues in the food technology departments."

The huge expansion of new marketplaces and new retailers over the last fifty years has created a retail revolution. These large and globally sophisticated retailers have harnessed the new technologies in communications and logistics to build consumer markets around the world and to create suppliers, new types of manufacturers, which provide consumers with whatever goods they want to buy. These global retailers are at the hub of the new global economy. They are the new Market Makers, and they have changed the way the global economy works.
Despite the fact that this retail revolution unfolded right before our eyes, this book is the first to describe the market-making capabilities of these retailers. In eleven chapters by leading scholars, The Market Makers provides a detailed and highly readable analysis of how retailers have become the leading drivers of the new global economy.

Wachsende Komplexitat pragt die Unternehmenswelt seit Jahren auf fast allen Ebenen. Die Autoren beschreiben einen praxiserprobten, ganzheitlichen Ansatz, um Komplexitat in Unternehmen beherrschbar zu machen und Wettbewerbsvorteile zu generieren. Dafur verbinden sie Methoden aus Wissensmanagement, Kundenbeziehungsmanagement (CRM) und Change Management mithilfe von wissensbasierten Softwarelosungen. Der Band bietet Managern und Projektleitern einen Handlungsleitfaden zum Aufbau von Mehrwerten fur unterschiedliche interne und externe Zielgruppen."

The aim of EUROPEAN RETAIL RESEARCH is to publish interesting manuscripts of high quality and innovativeness with a focus on retail researchers, retail lecturers, retail students and retail executives. As it has always been, retail executives are part of the target group and the knowledge transfer between retail research and retail management remains a part of the publication's concept.

Maritime transport has been the main driver of trade growth, and the emergence and development of a global economy. This collection of essays from distinguished economists and historians takes an international and comparative perspective, covering topics ranging from technological advance and the role of the state to maritime business development.

ED-L2L, Learning to Live in the Knowledge Society, is one of the co-located conferences of the 20th World Computer Congress (WCC2008). The event is organized under the auspices of IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) and is to be held in Milan from 7th to 10th September 2008. ED-L2L is devoted to themes related to ICT for education in the knowledge society. It provides an international forum for professionals from all continents to discuss research and practice in ICT and education. The event brings together educators, researchers, policy makers, curriculum designers, teacher educators, members of academia, teachers and content producers. ED-L2L is organised by the IFIP Technical Committee 3, Education, with the support of the Institute for Educational Technology, part of the National Research Council of Italy. The Institute is devoted to the study of educational innovation brought about through the use of ICT. Submissions to ED-L2L are published in this conference book. The published papers are devoted to the published conference themes: Developing digital literacy for the knowledge society: information problem solving, creating, capturing and transferring knowledge, commitment to lifelong learning Teaching and learning in the knowledge society, playful and fun learning at home and in the school New models, processes and systems for formal and informal learning environments and organisations Developing a collective intelligence, learning together and sharing knowledge ICT issues in education - ethics, equality, inclusion and parental role Educating ICT professionals for the global knowledge society Managing the transition to the knowledge society

Ontologies have been developed and investigated for some time in artificial intelligence to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse. More recently, the notion of ontologies has attracted attention from fields such as databases, intelligent information integration, cooperative information systems, information retrieval, electronic commerce, enterprise application integration, and knowledge management. This broadened interest in ontologies is based on the feature that they provide a machine-processable semantics of information sources that can be communicated among agents as well as between software artifacts and humans. This feature makes ontologies the backbone technology of the next web generation, i.e., the Semantic Web. Ontologies are currently applied in areas such as knowledge management in large company-wide networks and call centers, and in B2C, B2G, and B2B electronic commerce. In a nutshell, ontologies enable effective and efficient access to heterogeneous and distributed information sources. Given the increasing amount of information available online, this kind of support is becoming more important day by day.

The author systematically introduces the notion of ontologies to the non-expert reader and demonstrates in detail how to apply this conceptual framework for improved intranet retrieval of corporate information and knowledge and for enhanced Internet-based electronic commerce. He also describes ontology languages (XML, RDF, and OWL) and ontology tools, and the application of ontologies.

In addition to structural improvements, the second edition covers recent developments relating to the Semantic Web, and emerging web-based standard languages.

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Retail shelf management means cost-efficiently aligning retail operations with consumer demand. As consumers expect high product availability and low prices, and retailers are constantly increasing product variety and striving towards high service levels, the complexity of managing retail business and its operations is growing enormously. Retailers need to match consumer demand with shelf supply by balancing variety (number of products) and service levels (number of items of a product), and by optimizing demand and profit through carefully calibrated prices. As a result the core strategic decisions a retailer must make involve assortment sizes, shelf space assignment and pricing levels. Rigorous quantitative methods have emerged as the most promising solution to this problem. The individual chapters in this book therefore focus on three areas: (1) combining assortment and shelf space planning, (2) providing efficient decision support systems for practically relevant problem sizes, and (3) integrating inventory and price optimization into shelf management.

The internet and the electronic economy are a technological revolution whose secular importance is apparent. The internet eliminates the temporal and spatial constraints on the exchange of information. It changes deeply the world of production and of labour. It transforms the exchange relationships between producers and consumers as well as between the suppliers within the supply-chain. The electronic economy is able to generate more accurate con sumer profiles and, therefore, a more powerful and effective marketing di rected to the individual consumer. There is no industry that is not undergoing thorough changes caused by the internet. The volume at hand gives an analysis of the internet revolution. It covers questions reaching form the highly controversial thesis of the end of property rights in the internet caused by the non-rivalry of the "consumption" of in formation to questions regarding the repercussions of the internet on our understanding of the human person. Technological changes like the introduction of the electronic economy pose the question of how to handle it and how to manage reasonably its ethi cal problems and dilemmas. The ethical problems and the business ethics of the electronic economy in the fields of production and labour, of consump tion, and in handling trust and the abuse of trust are analysed by the contribu tions from applied ethics and business ethics."

Tourists are drawn to explore new environments and peoples. What better way to interact with a locality than to seek out and roam its marketplaces? The nature of tourist shopping activity thus goes beyond mere functional purchasing into multi-sensory explorations of place and space. Awareness of the shifting nature of these attractions is crucial to retailers and place marketers, in this age of the internet, in order that the physical space of the market is also social and cultural space. This book offers new perspectives on the intersection between tourism and retail research that is liminal to both fields yet central to the tourist experience, standing as an important and illuminating realm of consumer behaviour. It features a selection of multidisciplinary researchers' perspectives on tourist retail format and formation attractiveness for consumers, from the economist to the fashion retailer. By reviewing selected developments in space, place and behaviours within leisure, entertainment and recreational shopping, encompassing travel points, retail centres, sensory/festival marketplaces, leisure/cityscapes, department stores and fashion, the book offers thought-provoking insights into the past, present and future of tourist retail across a variety of global locations. Given the emphasis upon consumer experience in place and space study and the apparent importance of retail activities within the tourism sphere, this book will be valuable reading for all those interested in retail, tourism and wider socio-cultural leisure environments and behaviours.

As potentially the largest retail market, China has attracted a great number of foreign retail operations. Based on case study research, this book provides valuable insights international retailers need for success in China. The newly developed theoretical model helps to extend the body of knowledge on firm internationalization.

This book investigates the transfer of parent country organizational practices by the retailers to their Chinese subsidiaries, providing insights into employment relations in multinational retail firms and changing labour-management systems in China, as well as their impact on consumer culture.

Most marketing scholars implicitly consider independent merchants as conservative and passive actors, and study the modernization of retailing via department stores, chains and supermarkets. In this innovative study, Franck Cochoy challenges this perspective and takes a close look at the transformation of commerce through the lens of Progressive Grocer, an American trade magazine launched in 1922. Aimed at modernizing small independent grocery stores, Progressive Grocer sowed the seeds for modern self-service which spread in small retail outlets, sometimes well before the advent of the large retail spaces which are traditionally viewed as the origin of the self-service economy. The author illustrates how this publication had a highly influential role on what the trade considered to be best practice and shaped what was considered to be cutting edge. By displacing the consumer and their agency from the centre of analytic attention, this innovative book highlights the complex impact of social, technical and retailing environment factors that structure and delimit consumer freedom in the marketplace. This detailed critical analysis of the origins of self-service will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars not only in marketing and consumer research, but also in business history, sociology and cultural studies.

China has become such an important element of the global economy that its influence cannot be ignored in almost any field of endeavour. The phenomenal impact of FDI in China and its (largely trade-related) consequences has been well documented and now there is a significant literature on the phenomenon of outward investment from China too. This book is an in depth study of the international business relationships of China covering both inward and outward foreign direct investment, its impact and related theoretical and policy issues. This volume of highly renowned author Peter Buckley's collected papers from 2005-8 continues his interest in the theory of international business (Section I) and policies towards foreign direct investment (FDI) (Section IV) but has a major concentration on China, both as regards outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from China (Section II) and FDI in China (Section III).

The aim of EUROPEAN RETAIL RESEARCH is to publish interesting manuscripts of high quality and innovativeness with a focus on retail researchers, retail lecturers, retail students and retail executives. As it has always been, retail executives are part of the target group and the knowledge transfer between retail research and retail management remains a part of the publication's concept.