This book focuses on the evolving digitisation of the financial ecosystem and the associated impacts of digital technologies on the financial industry at large. Particular attention is given to the emergence of new technologies such as blockchain, smart contracts and AI, as well as the regulatory regime surrounding money, payments and data. The book explores the future of the financial sector as a Digital Financial Ecosystem, a term that encompasses an interconnected data-driven digital and partially decentralised financial sector and that includes many aspects of an individual's or organisation's life, ranging from marketplaces and utilities to payments and identity. We begin by providing an overview of key concepts to then develop a high-level framework and approach to what we call Redecentralisation. As next step, we delve into key technology areas that practitioners need to be aware of and that are changing the landscape of the financial system. Following on from that backdrop we explore the areas of money and payments that are at a turning point with the replacement of key infrastructural components necessary for the future of the Digital Financial Ecosystem. We then discuss the topics of digital identity and data privacy that are being revamped in an increasingly digitising world. Bringing it all together, we look to the future to consider some of the latest trends and 'what if' scenarios for what the future may hold for a new Digital Financial Ecosystem through a more practical approach towards applying the analysis of the previous chapters. It showcases examples of decentralisation that we are observing in the emerging future Digital Financial Ecosystem and forms recommendations on where the journey ideally should be going for practitioners, regulators, students, and researchers, including the open question of a digital social contract to support our digital lives.

This book introduces a new notion of replacement in maintenance and reliability theory. Replacement Overtime, where replacement is done at the first completion of a working cycle over a planned time, is a new research topic in maintenance theory and also serves to provide a fresh optimization technique in reliability engineering. In comparing replacement overtime with standard and random replacement techniques theoretically and numerically, 'Maintenance Overtime Policies in Reliability Theory' highlights the key improvements to be gained by adopting this new approach and shows how they can be applied to inspection policies, parallel systems and cumulative damage models. Utilizing the latest research in replacement overtime by internationally recognized experts, the reader will be introduced to new topics and methods, and learn how to apply this knowledge practically to actual reliability models. This book will serve as an essential guide to a new subject of study for graduate students and researchers and also provides a useful guide for reliability engineers and managers who have difficulties in maintenance of computer and production systems with random working cycles.

Learn to design, build, and scale products consumers can't get enough of How do today's most successful tech companies Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than most tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love and that will work for your business. With sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations dramatically improving their own product efforts. Whether you're an early-stage startup working to get to product/market fit, or a growth-stage company working to scale your product organization, or a large, long-established company trying to regain your ability to consistently deliver new value for your customers, INSPIRED will take you and your product organization to a new level of customer engagement, consistent innovation, and business success. Filled with the author's own personal stories and profiles of some of today's most-successful product managers and technology-powered product companies, including Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix INSPIRED will show you how to turn up the dial of your own product efforts, creating technology products your customers love. The first edition of INSPIRED, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. This thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new sharing the latest practices and techniques of today's most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.

This volume focuses on the issue of change in democratic politics in terms of experimental or actual innovations introduced either within political parties or outside the party system, involving citizen participation and mobilization. Including a wide and diverse range of alternatives in the organization of groups, campaigning, conducting initiatives and enhancing practices, they not only question the relevance of traditional institutions in representing citizens' values and interests, but also share a common goal which is precisely - and perhaps paradoxically - to reshape and invigorate representative democracy This book is of key interest to scholars and students of party politics, elections/electoral studies, social movement and democratic innovations and more broadly to comparative politics, political theory and political sociology.

The systematic approach to innovation development today is one of the world's most prominent scientific fields, and with good reason. When applied correctly, such system produces regular outcomes, which consistently drive lasting competitive advantage. Unfortunately, as much as it is beneficial, the orchestration of an undisturbed flow of multiple complex, dynamic, and flexible innovation development processes is structurally demanding. In this book, a recognised innovation management specialist sets the record straight, offering a comprehensive approach to the improvement of innovation efficiency with the use of management control system. Unlike other books on the subject, it proposes original representation - the CDI model - of the relationships between management control system, decision-making quality, and innovation system efficiency and explains why management control is fundamental to innovation management. In addition to that, inside the reader will find several original developments. These include: the info-deficiency (I-D) model, depicting the various parameters hindering decision-making in innovation development; the product innovation development (PID) system, offering the original function-based approach to innovation management; and the composite innovation index - specially designed tool intended to evaluate the efficiency of an innovation development system. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and advanced students in the fields of management, strategy, and innovation. Chapter 4 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com

The proliferation of new products has become a common phenomenon in today's business world. Most companies now offer hundreds, if not thousands, of stock keeping units (SKUs) in order to compete in the market place. Companies that expand their product and service varieties now face a new set of problems: accurate demand forecasts, controlling production and inventory costs, and providing high quality delivery performance. In addition, marketing managers will often advocate widening product lines for increasing revenue and market share, but increasing product lines can also decrease the efficiency of manufacturing processes and distribution systems. Hence, firms must weigh the benefits of increasing product variety against its cost and determine the optimal level of product variety to offer to their customers. Product Variety Management examines the interrelated problems between the marketing and production functions in industry, and through a series of research survey papers by leading scholars in economics, engineering, marketing, and operations research, the book addresses the following questions: Why do companies extend their product lines? Do consumers care about product variety? Will a brand with more variety enjoy higher market share? How should product variety be measured? How can a company exploit its product and process design to deliver a higher level of product variety quickly and cheaply? What should the level of product variety be and what should the price of each of the product variants be? What kind of challenges would a company face in offering a high level of product variety and how can these obstacles be overcome? The solutions to these questions are drawn frommultiple functions and a variety of disciplines. Product Variety Management is a state-of-the-art treatment of a multi-disciplinary approach to product variety.

Innovation and IT are intertwined. In order to understand how, this book takes an interdisciplinary view of innovation in an international and digital world. It addresses strategic and operational aspects of R and D and new product development, emphasizing knowledge management, configurational design, distance and diversity.

This book analyzes the drug-discovery process in Japan, based on detailed case studies of 12 groups of 15 innovative drugs. It covers the first statin in the world up to the recent major breakthrough in cancer therapy, the recent immune checkpoint inhibitor, the scientific discovery for which a 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Prof. Tasuku Honjo, Kyoto University. The book shows the pervasive high uncertainty in drug discovery: frequent occurrences of unexpected difficulties, discontinuations, serendipities, and good luck, significantly because drug discovery starts when the underlying science is incomplete. Thus, there exist dynamic interactions between scientific progress and drug discovery. High uncertainty also makes the value of an entrepreneurial scientist high. Such scientists fill the knowledge gaps by absorbing external scientific progress and by relentless pursuit of possibilities through their own research, often including unauthorized research, to overcome crises. Further, high uncertainty and its resolution significantly characterize the evolution of competition in the drug industry. The patent system promotes innovation under high uncertainty not only by enhancing appropriability of R&D investment but also by facilitating the combination of knowledge and capabilities among different firms through disclosure. Understanding such a process significantly benefits the creation of innovation management and policy practices.

This book analyzes how companies and employees can endogenously, i.e., without hiring external experts or consultants, achieve competitive advantages by deviating from behavioral standards in a productive way. The study explores eight transformative behavioral innovations that shaped the development of sports and, by analogy, uses the findings to advance solutions for prevalent problems in business. By developing triggers to creativity and applying mechanisms on how to overcome innovation resistance, the book gives concrete advice on how to manage the difficult quest of human transformation beyond the imperative of technological innovation.

In todays industries, New Product Development (NPD) is often the focal point of competition. Companies that are able effectively to develop, produce and introduce new products are the key competitors in markets where variety and time-to-market play an increasingly important role. This examination into the organisation of Integrated Product Development aims to answer the question: Which integration mechanisms lead to effective co-ordination and overlap of New Product Development activities in which situations? The mechanisms, strat egies and goals, knowledge and skills, and organisational arrangements are presented, and their impact on the results of NPD projects and relationships is discussed. An in-depth understanding of the background and theory is provided, using detailed case s tudies to illustrate both the human and organisational issues in practice.

Time-based competition is here to stay. Firms wishing to compete successfully must reengineer every function within the value chain. Here is a blueprint, drawn on the author's extensive field research in over 50 companies, that addresses the practical problems and tactical issues faced by executives and managers. Scholars and students of business, operations management, strategic management, international business, organizational behavior, materials management, engineering management, purchasing, and logistics will also find this work an invaluable aid in understanding how to benchmark an organization against the best time-based competitors in the world.

Through visits and interviews with material managers, procurement managers, design engineers and sales personnel, the author has compiled an unparalleled set of benchmarks and best practices in supply chain management. Some of the strategic time-based initiatives discussed include supply chain management, integrated order entry systems, process capability, component life cycle management, electronic data interchange, time-based logistics, automated manufacturing technology, design for manufacturability, and global strategic sourcing. Extra attention is given to supply chain management, a new form of business process reengineering focusing on quick response, spanning the functions of sales, order entry, design engineering, purchasing, manufacturing, and logistics. An examination of how to create a time-based culture based on the experiences of Fortune 500 firms interviewed by the author concludes this richly detailed analysis of time-based competition.

This book provides--for the first time in a single source--a complete--and systematic treatment of the varying perspectives and dimensions of product management. Onkvisit and Shaw focus on product management and decision making within a product life cycle context, integrating theory, applications, and managerial implications to provide product managers, corporate planners, and entrepreneurs with a balanced, meaningful framework for strategic decisions. Throughout, examples of actual products and company strategies are used to illustrate the authors' points.

Following an introductory chapter on the nature and types of products--such as product vs. commodity--and what constitutes a product from the consumer's and management's viewpoint, the authors demonstrate how to formulate appropriate marketing strategies for a variety of market situations. Unusually comprehensive in scope, the book devotes separate chapters to demographic trends and their marketing implications, the evolution of pricing and marketing strategies as the product moves through its life cycle stages, the diffusion of innovations and the adoption process for new products, and the international product life cycle and strategies for meeting foreign competition. An important resource for product managers and marketing professionals, this book is also an ideal text for business school courses in product and marketing management.

The book begins with an introductory chapter that sets the parameters of the technology assessment process. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship between technology and science and examine the changes wrought by technological advances. The central chapter gives general principles to assist the reader in identigying key technologies and their applicability to corporate value chain activities. White demonstrates how product development, manufacturing, and sales activities can be evaluated for possible improvement. He also shows how the goals of reducing cost, blocking competition, restructuring one's industry, and improving the idea flow among staff members can be achieved through technological innovations. At the same time, the human element is not ignored. White notes that organizational effectiveness versus efficiency, acceptance of change, political threats created by technology, holistic approaches to problem solving, and learning to learn are key organizational development issues that must accompany technological innovations. Finally, he looks at key technologies in the company of the future, including powerful microprocessors, communications networks, and artificial intelligence systems. The detailed appendix provides an introduction to computers, terminology and systems applications for readers without a technical background.

Enterprise Level Security 2: Advanced Topics in an Uncertain World follows on from the authors' first book on Enterprise Level Security (ELS), which covered the basic concepts of ELS and the discoveries made during the first eight years of its development. This book follows on from this to give a discussion of advanced topics and solutions, derived from 16 years of research, pilots, and operational trials in putting an enterprise system together. The chapters cover specific advanced topics derived from painful mistakes and numerous revisions of processes. This book covers many of the topics omitted from the first book including multi-factor authentication, cloud key management, enterprise change management, entity veracity, homomorphic computing, device management, mobile ad hoc, big data, mediation, and several other topics. The ELS model of enterprise security is endorsed by the Secretary of the Air Force for Air Force computing systems and is a candidate for DoD systems under the Joint Information Environment Program. The book is intended for enterprise IT architecture developers, application developers, and IT security professionals. This is a unique approach to end-to-end security and fills a niche in the market.

In the early years of the 21st Century, as a result of many changes, it has become possible for the first time for tens of thousands of companies to offer manufactured products to customers across six continents. For many of these "global products," there are potentially more than a billion customers. In 2007, Wall Street hit new highs as the enormous opportunity for increased sales and profits became clear. However the new environment is not easy to manage and the risks are high.

Meeting the various requirements of customers from a range of countries, choosing the most suitable locations for the different stages of development and manufacturing, deciding what can be global and what must be local, implementing suitable processes and systems, accommodating different national regulations, and efficiently dividing the workload between diverse sites are among the many challenges faced by providers of global products.

Product Lifecycle Management is now used worldwide to manage the innovation, development and support of global products. This key new business activity manages a product anywhere in the world, at any time in its life: from the first idea through to recycling and disposal.

Based on interviews with executives and managers in companies such as ABB, Alcatel-Lucent, Dow Corning and Siemens, Global Product outlines the new environment and driving forces, and the resulting opportunities and challenges. From lessons learned, it draws conclusions about best practices and the ground rules for successful strategies, structures and implementation. In addition, the objectives and components of Product Lifecycle Management are highlighted.

This book uses machine-learning to identify the causes of conflict from among the top predictors of conflict. This methodology elevates some complex causal pathways that cause civil conflict over others, thus teasing out the complex interrelationships between the most important variables that cause civil conflict. Success in this realm will lead to scientific theories of conflict that will be useful in preventing and ending civil conflict. After setting out a current review of the literature and a case for using machine learning to analyze and predict civil conflict, the authors lay out the data set, important variables, and investigative strategy of their methodology. The authors then investigate institutional causes, economic causes, and sociological causes for civil conflict, and how that feeds into their model. The methodology provides an identifiable pathway for specifying causal models. This book will be of interest to scholars in the areas of economics, political science, sociology, and artificial intelligence who want to learn more about leveraging machine learning technologies to solve problems and who are invested in preventing civil conflict.

This book explores the practical implementation of an advanced after-sales management framework devoted to warranty management. The framework is intended for companies producing either standardized or customized products and such a management tool will facilitate organizational improvement and support innovative decision making processes for technical assistance in after-sales services.

After sales Service of Engineering Industrial Assets comprises a proposal for a warranty management framework, with an account of the different methods that can be used to improve decision making in the different stages of the after-sales service management process, and strategies for strengthening the structure and foundations of the framework. A review of the fundamental issues and current research topics in warranty management and after sales services is also provided, which is exemplified by a case study. This book is intended for postgraduates, researchers and engineers who are interested in after sales management, assets engineering and warranty management."

Companies competing on a global scale must endeavor to launch new initiatives, products, and services aimed to set them apart from their competitors. Integrating technology and knowledge management strategies into the product development process is one solution to remaining relevant in a highly competitive marketplace. Product Innovation through Knowledge Management and Social Media Strategies is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly research on the application of social networking platforms to enhance knowledge sharing and innovative practice within organizations. Highlighting pertinent theories and techniques for improving communication and ensuring successful product development, this book is ideally designed for corporate managers, organizational leaders, researchers, and professionals interested in the value of knowledge sharing and social media tools in modern organizations.

This book explores - at the macro, meso and micro levels and in terms of qualitative as well as quantitative studies - theories, policies and practices about the contributions of artistic research and innovations towards defining new forms of knowledge, knowledge production, as well as knowledge diffusion, absorption and use. Artistic research, artistic innovations and arts-based innovations have been major transformers, as well as disruptors, of the ways in which societies, economies, and political systems perform. Ramifications here refer to the epistemic socio-economic, socio-political and socio-technical base and aesthetic considerations on the one hand, as well as to strategies, policies, and practices on the other, including sustainable enterprise excellence, considerations in the context of knowledge economies, societies and democracies. Creativity in general, and the arts in particular, are increasingly recognized as drivers of cultural, economic, political, social, and scientific innovation and development. This book examines how one could derive and develop insights in these areas from the four vantage points of Arts, Research, Innovation and Society. Among the principal questions that are examined include: - Could and should artists be researchers? - How are the systems of the Arts and Sciences connected and/or disconnected? - What is the impact of the arts in societal development? - How are the Arts interrelated with the mechanisms of generating social, scientific and economic innovation? As the inaugural book in the Arts, Research, Innovation and Society series, this book uses a thematically wide spectrum that serves as a general frame of reference for the entire series of books to come.

This book discusses theories of monetary and financial innovation and applies them to key monetary and financial innovations in history - starting with the use of silver bars in Mesopotamia and ending with the emergence of the Eurodollar market in London. The key monetary innovations are coinage (Asia minor, China, India), the payment of interest on loans, the bill of exchange and deposit banking (Venice, Antwerp, Amsterdam, London). The main financial innovation is the emergence of bond markets (also starting in Venice). Episodes of innovation are contrasted with relatively stagnant environments (the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire). The comparisons suggest that small, open and competing jurisdictions have been more innovative than large empires - as has been suggested by David Hume in 1742.

Research Methodology in Strategy and Management advances understanding of the methods used to study organizations - including managers, strategies, and how firms succeed. Just like the impact felt across many other aspects of life and work, COVID-19 significantly changed the way we approach and conduct research. Many researchers will need to tread unfamiliar methodological ground to address these challenges and seize these opportunities to hone their craft, conducting interesting research in a novel environment. That is precisely why we are making 'crisis' the central focus of this volume. Research in Times of Crisis is an informative book for all academics and researchers working in the fields of management, strategy, international business, entrepreneurship and organization theory.

This book covers important issues related to managing supply chain risks from various perspectives. Supply chains today are vulnerable to disruptions with a significant impact on firms' business and performance. The aim of supply chain risk management is to identify the potential sources of risks and implement appropriate actions in order to mitigate supply chain disruptions. This book presents a set of models, frameworks, strategies, and analyses that are essential for managing supply chain risks. As a comprehensive collection of the latest research and most recent cutting-edge developments on supply chain risk and its management, the book is structured into three main parts: 1) Supply Chain Risk Management; 2) Supply Chain Vulnerability and Disruptions Management; and 3) Toward a Resilient Supply Chain. Leading academic researchers as well as practitioners have contributed chapters, combining theoretical findings and research results with a practical and contemporary view on how companies can manage the supply chain risks and disruptions, as well as how to create a resilient supply chain. This book can serve as an essential source for students and scholars who are interested in pursuing research or teaching courses in the rapidly growing area of supply chain risk management. It can also provide an interesting and informative read for managers and practitioners who need to deepen their knowledge of effective supply chain risk management.

Research and development is no longer a headquarters function. More and more companies internationalize their R&D activities. The pros and cons of this approach are discussed in this book. The organizational alternatives for international R&D as well as the consequences that they have for decision making and performing R&D are also of great interest. Furthermore, measuring success of international R&D is a very difficult problem that is not yet fully understood. However, suggestions are made to improve present day practise. They are based on a large body of empirical research and management literature.

Praise for Fourth Generation R&D "A sweeping and insightful analysis of an architecture for innovation in the knowledge economy. Technologists, strategists, and organizational architects will all find this book worth reading, as will students of the modern organization." —John Seely Brown Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation "The new realities of competition beg a new approach to innovation and R&D; Fourth Generation R&D answers that challenge. With lucid arguments and detailed case studies, Fourth Generation R&D sketches a powerful new paradigm for planning and managing innovation. Every manager concerned with innovation and its role as a strategic resource—that’s to say, every manager—will profit from this new understanding." Lawrence Wilkinson President, Global Business Network "Fourth Generation R&D is a tour de force. Its sweep, depth, and use of graphics are all truly remarkable (not to mention its command of the literature on innovation). The distinctions it draws between continuous and discontinuous innovation—and between tacit and explicit knowledge—are fundamental." —John Yochelson President, The Council on Competitiveness