The annual CVLBA (Centre for Very Large Business Applications) Workshop was held in conjunction with the SAP Academic Conference EMEA in Dresden this year. Members of the CVLBA team from Munich and Magdeburg attended the half-day workshop which was hosted in the idyllic and serene environs of TU Dresden campus, in particular the Schumann Building, which also serves as the seat for the department of “Wirtschaft Wissenschaft” or Business Management.
Matthias Splieth, Sascha Bosse and Bastian Kurbjuhn represented the Magdeburg side, while Munich was represented by Konrad Dongus, Markus Böhm, Harald Kienneger and Suparna Goswami. The workshop served as an excellent platform for researchers from both universities to meet and interact with each other (for most of the current CVLBA members, this was the first time they were attending such an event, since the last such joint CVLBA workshop was held back in 2009). For me personally, it was also an interesting experience to serve as the moderator and chair for the workshop.
Each participant presented their research/ dissertation topic, outlining the motivation and importance of the topic being studied, the current gap in understanding, and the specific research questions that they aim to address/answer through their research. The topics were wide ranging and interesting, with the Magdeburg members focusing more on technical aspects of VLBAs through their research, while the Munich team engaging themselves with more strategic management oriented research on VLBA and information systems.
After kicking the workshop off with a short introduction, and an overview on my own research on information visibility in value networks and how IS and VLBAs can play a role in achieving this visibility, it was time to hand the stage over to others. Konrad Dongus presented an interesting idea on using transaction cost economics to analyses IS outsourcing contracts and how their performance could be improved from the vendors’ perspective. This was followed by Matthias Splieth’s presentation on the management of IT system landscapes in the context of cloud computing, with a specific emphasis on distributed data centers. The next presentation was by Harald Kienneger, who talked about the critical success factors in SaaS based ERP implementations. His results are based on using SAP Business byDesign as an example. After the first four presentations, it was time for a well-deserved coffee-break which also provided the opportunity of interacting with other attendees of the conference.
The second half of the workshop started off with Bastian Kurbjuhn’s presentation of VLBA Serious Games. Bastian presented his idea on how a simulation framework for serious games, i.e., games with educational purposes could be developed based on ERP systems; what are the requirements for such games that need to be incorporated in the framework based on pedagogical, as well as functional and technical perspective. The next presentation was by Markus Böhm, who will be joining the CVLBA Munich team from October 2012. Markus presented the findings of his PhD dissertation where he has investigated the various dynamics of IT Carve-Outs in corporate divestitures. The final presentation was by Sascha Bosse, who presented his research topic on the estimation of the non-functional properties of an IT system landscape with the objective of improving performance efficiency.
The workshop ended well in time for the participants to explore the TU Dresden campus a bit, and get ready for the Evening Event at the prestigious Albertinium. Also, special thanks to Ilona Inge Kokkinidis for the local arrangements, and making sure that everything went smoothly!
The titles of each of the presentations are as follows:
Suparna Goswami | Welcome / Introduction (Information Visibility in Supplier Value Networks) |
Konrad Dongus | Contract Design and its Performance Implications : An Empirical Analysis of IS Outsourcing Projects from a Vendor’s Perspective |
Matthias Splieth | Management of IT-System-Landscapes in the context of Cloud Computing |
Harald Kienneger | Recommendations for SaaS Based ERP Implementations – |
Bastian Kurbjuhn | VLBA Serious Games |
Marcus Böhm | IT-related Challenges in Corporate Divestitures |
Sascha Bosse | Estimation of an IT-System-Landscape‘s non-Functional Properties |
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