The acceptance and use of customer relationship management (CRM) systems: An empirical study of distribution service industry in Taiwan

With the rapid change of business competitive environment, enterprise resource integration and innovative issues of business operation have gradually become the most important issues for businesses. Furthermore, many enterprises have implemented novel information technology and developing the innovative e-business applications systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), knowledge management (KM) and supply chain management (SCM) to enhance their competitive advantages. CRM systems can help organizations to gain the potential new customers, promote the existing customers’ purchase, maintain good relationship with customers as well as to enhance the customer value, thus can improve the enterprise images. Moreover, the development and applications of CRM systems have also been considered as important issues for researchers and practitioners in recent years. For Taiwan’s industry, it has been gradually transferred from manufacturing-oriented to a service-oriented. Thus, the service industry has higher percentage in the GDP and in which the distribution service industry is the biggest one and be a core industry in the whole of service industry. The main purpose of this study is to explore the factors affecting the acceptance and use of CRM systems. Furthermore, the proposed research model was built on the basis of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and task-technology fit (TTF) framework as well as technological and managerial theories. The implications of findings for practice will be discussed.     

E-manufacturing—fundamental, tools, and transformation

Manufacturing industry worldwide has been facing unprecedented challenges brought by ever changing, global and competitive market conditions as well as changing social demands, regional, governmental and environmental regulations. E-commerce and Internet technologies injected “velocity” into the front business activities and enabled companies to shift their manufacturing operations from the traditional factory integration philosophy to a supply chain-based e-factory philosophy. It transforms companies from a local factory focus to a global enterprise and business focus.

This paper introduces e-manufacturing as a new concept to answer the aforementioned needs of business strategies for complete integration of all business elements including suppliers, customer service network and manufacturing units by leveraging the Internet, web-enabling, tether-free technologies and computational tools. Enabling tools will be introduced to support e-manufacturing includes the ability to monitor the plant floor assets, and predict the variation and performance loss for dynamic rescheduling of production and maintenance operations, and synchronize with other related business actions to achieve a complete integration between manufacturing systems and upper-level enterprise applications. Finally, infotronics technologies for next-generation e-manufacturing transformation are discussed.     

A survey of critical success factors in e-Banking: an organisational perspective

We investigate organisational factors critical to the success of e-Banking (EB). Scholars report that a variety of factors are vital to EB success. A shortcoming in the extant EB literature is that much of the research focuses on a small subset of success factors and an overall ranking of factors is still missing. Our aim, therefore, is to synthesise and test the critical success factors (CSFs) identified in the existing literature, thus, substantiating or not the factors purported to be critical. To achieve our aim, we created a survey instrument from a synthesis of CSFs identified from existing EB and e-commerce literature. We draw upon the e-commerce body of knowledge to take in the widest set of CSFs that can affect EB. Data were collected from U.K.-based financial sector organisations that offer EB services. We found the most critical factors for success in EB are: quick responsive products/services, organisational flexibility, services expansion, systems integration and enhanced customer service. Our research shows that organisations need to manage their EB initiative at a strategic level and treat it as business critical rather than simply a technical or operational issue. They need to pay attention to internal integration, which includes channels, technology and business process integration, and improving the overall services to their customers.     

A framework for developing Web information systems plans: illustration with Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd.

Internet technology holds many promises for enterprise information integration. Web information systems are applications that facilitate intra- and inter-firm processes and integration of myriad enterprise information systems. However, these applications require sound planning to really tap into the unique promises of the Internet and the Web technologies and add value to the enterprise. Heavy machinery industry, typified by Samsung Heavy Industries presents a good case in point. Static conventional home pages do not facilitate a manufacturer’s needs of information management in its core production and business functions. Instead, dynamic Web client capabilities must be connected with real-time enterprise databases in a cohesive plan to enhance integration of business processes. Planning of Web information systems needs a proactive review of the capabilities of the Internet technology to serve the particular needs of a firm and its customers. In this paper we describe the application of a generic Web information systems (WIS) planning framework to the construction equipment division of Samsung Heavy Industries of Korea to enhance its core business. The framework is rooted in economic principles that are shown to be the drivers of modern WIS. Further, the framework is applied to the task of developing a strategic plan of WIS for the marketing and service activities of the construction equipment division of the firm. The planning process is shown to cover most of the systems development life cycle from high level information goal setting to design of Internet-based new order managing and service part requisition sub-systems.     

Web Services: An Analysis of the Technology, its Benefits, and Implementation Difficulties

Software reuse and systems interoperability have been primary goals of many IT organizations, especially those that rely heavily on computer networks. Object-oriented (OO) technology has been utilized to accomplish these goals with relative success over the years; but there are many hurdles that OO technology could not overcome. One of them is due to lack of standards. An object developed in one vendor's technology cannot easily communicate with another's. Another difficulty is that the majority of software applications reside behind firewalls - security barriers that restrict communication between networks. Web services, self-describing services that can easily be consumed over the Web, is the latest trend in the industry to address the problems identified above. Web services enable a group of related applications to be programmatically invoked over the Internet. They are rapidly emerging as important building blocks for business integration. Companies are finding important Web service applications in B2B, B2C, and enterprise application integration solutions. This article reviews the technical underpinnings of Web services and discusses their business opportunities and potential benefits. It also assesses the challenges and implementation difficulties of the technology.     

基于服务总线（ESB）的应用集成（EAI）探索和研究

科研院所设计研究中各类异构软件应用系统并存,数据和信息在各个应用系统中同步和共享成为现代企业信息化的瓶颈。针对这种现状,文中采用Java技术,通过建立异构系统底层的消息通讯机制,构建连接异构系统的ESB,实现各个异构系统通过ESB进行通讯,最终达到EAI的目的。实际中,基于该ESB构建了船舶设计行业应用软件系统集成平台,在数据集成、应用集成和业务流程集成中取得了较好的效果,肯定了文中成果的可行性。文中重点叙述了所构建的ESB结构图、ESB内部通讯原理及实现中所使用的数据结构,并给出了以该ESB为核心纽带设计的相关EAI平台架构。     

An enterprise integration methodology

As more and more organizations pursue the benefits of e-business, they are looking to a process called enterprise integration, or EI, as a key technical enabler in transforming their business processes. A typical form of EI is Webification; in this scenario, a company wants to offer its existing products and services over the Internet, so it builds Web front-end systems and integrates them to its backend legacy systems. (In this article, we use "legacy system" to mean any IT system already in operation.) A more complex El scenario involves enterprise application integration. By this process, the organization links up previously separate and isolated systems to give them greater leverage. For example, an organization might integrate a customer-relationship-management system, a call center system, and legacy customer account systems to give the organization a consolidated view of its customers. An emerging EI scenario is business-to-business (B2B) integration (also called extended enterprise models), which occurs when an organization integrates its own business processes with those of its business partners to improve efficiency within a collaborative value chain.     

基于业务服务的企业遗留系统集成框架

企业应用集成(EAI)是当前企业进行业务扩展的一项主要技术,基于SOA实现EAI面临着一个重要的问题,如何将遗留系统无缝地连接到不断变化的新业务需求中.利用面向服务的架构来解决企业遗留系统应用集成.结合业务服务的概念和传统企业应用集成解决方案,讨论了基于业务服务的遗留系统应用集成框架,使用IBM平台对一个遗留销售系统集成案例进行了实现.     

Interoperable enterprise systems: Principles, concepts, and methods

Interoperable enterprise systems (be they supply chains, extended enterprises, or any form of virtual organizations) must be designed, controlled, and appraised from a holistic and systemic point of view. Systems interoperability is a key to enterprise integration, which recommends that the IT architecture and infrastructure be aligned with business process organization and control, themselves designed according to a strategic view expressed in an enterprise architecture. The paper discusses architectures and methods to build interoperable enterprise systems, advocating a mixed service and process orientation, to support synchronous and/or asynchronous operations, both at the business level (business events, business services, business processes) and at the application level (workflow, IT and Web services, application programs).     

ERP财务信息集成与相关业务系统解决方案

ERP模式下财务信息与相关业务信息的集成实现了企业资金流、业务流、信息流的统一。文中讨论了财务信息集成对企业信息化建设带来的新挑战,分析了相关业务系统的接口需求,给出了企业综合业务信息系统解决方案。设计了专用API用以实现财务对相关业务系统的信息集成,使企业业务系统在原有功能的基础上通过API自动实现为财务系统提供符合会计核算要求的信息源,既保证了财务系统和各业务系统的独立性,又使企业经营活动在财务数据中得到及时反映,实现了基于ERP财务信息集成的企业信息一体化。     

Assessment of employees’ perceptions of service quality and satisfaction with e-business

In a competitive environment of frequent and rapid change, electronic business (e-business), whose supply, production, and logistics and distribution networks are enabled digitally, is increasingly dependent on electronic interconnections that are innovative in their functionality. Conceivably, its ability to deliver functions and services is closely associated with and helpful for the completion of employees’ tasks and jobs, leading to service quality being critically important for both the employees and e-business (EB). On the other hand, since EB utilizes enterprise applications, user satisfaction, as a surrogate measure of information system (IS) or information technology (IT) effectiveness/success is also important for enterprise applications success. Thus, this research attempts to extrapolate the results of marketing research concerning customers’ perceptions of service quality and IS/IT research as to employees’ perceptions of service quality with EB. First, we revise the SERVQUAL instrument to fit the new context of EB and measure employees’ perceived service quality with EB. Based on a survey of 161 respondents practicing mostly in seven international electronic businesses in Taiwan, a 13-item EB-SERVQUAL instrument is proposed. This can be used to improve and diagnose the service quality of EB. Second, we examine user satisfaction with enterprise applications and its causal link in relation to service quality with EB. The instrument and our findings in this paper will be valuable to researchers and practitioners interested in designing, implementing, and managing EB.     

业务事件驱动型会计信息系统的分析与研究

为了使信息系统能够支持企业内外密切协作,企业信息系统的宏观结构是企业间过程集成,Web服务的出现和发展为企业间的过程集成提供了新的实现手段;为了提高信息系统对组织结构和业务流程变化的适应能力,信息系统的业务流程建模及控制与业务功能、业务规则要相互独立;为了实现财务业务一体化,企业信息系统的微观结构要采用业务事件驱动模式。     

基于构件的可重构ERP系统研究

实施ERP系统已成为企业信息化的重要标志之一,剖析了传统ERP系统的不足,即过程集成和企业间集成方面存在的不足,引出新一代ERP系统的新特征;结合一个实际ERP系统讨论了基于先进管理模式,面向中小型制造企业,适用于多行业的,可根据具体业务需求进行功能裁减并支持企业业务流程重组的可重构ERP系统的构建方法,并提出一个基于J2EE标准,面向软件构件的可重构系统体系结构模型,该模型已在RERP系统中得到成功应用。     

Business process integration as a solution to the implementation of supply chain management systems

In the domain of supply chain management (SCM), various software packages have been developed for planning business strategies. To solve the problem of system productivity in applying planning packages, we propose a solution concept, business process integration (BPI), which fuses workflow and enterprise application integration (EAI) technology. Two characteristic policies are included in BPI. The first is to design the minimum set of business processes for real-time information sharing with planning packages without changing other processes. The second is to integrate several systems with EAI technology and to manage their execution with a workflow tool. Based on these policies, we propose various design templates and integration adapters. Our evaluation shows that using BPI, a target system can be developed with less manpower, in less time, and with higher quality than previous methods.     

信息集成关键技术——企业服务总线

信息化技术和信息化应用的快速发展向企业信息集成提出了更高的要求,以往的EAI已经很难符合企业的需要。在以面向服务架构（SOA）为方向的新的集成方式中,企业服务总线（ESB）是集成的关键技术。ESB包括了通信、消息、安全、管理、集成等多方面的技术和功能。有了ESB的支撑,SOA将以往复杂繁琐的集成系统清晰地分为服务、ESB、业务流程三个主要的层次,并且对遗留系统的集成提供支持。尽管现阶段SOA的应用仍有许多局限,但是随着技术的发展和应用的成熟,ESB终究会成为企业应用的必备软件。     

基于语义Web服务的业务过程集成的研究及实现

文中在分析目前业务过程集成所存在的问题(如缺乏统一描述、各系统之间缺乏语义等问题)的基础上,采用最新的语义Web服务技术设计了一种基于语义Web服务的业务过程集成模型,该模型不仅支持跨企业的业务合作,而且使在本领域内有共同的语义基础及业务过程规范,从而增强了企业间业务集成能力和协调能力。最后给出了一个简化的供应链上企业间业务过程集成的应用实例的设计与实现。     

面向业务过程管理的Agent平台的设计及实现

业务过程管理能够支持企业业务流程优化运行,因而日益成为学术界和工业界研究和开发的重点.目前绝大多数的业务过程管理系统都是在传统的工作流管理系统基础上的扩展,因而具有适应性能力不强等缺点.介绍了一个面向业务过程管理的Agent平台,它包含了Agent的建模工具和运行环境.对该Agent的模型、相关工具和环境的实现方法进行了说明.该平台能够方便地支持面向业务过程管理的Agent的构造,并提供了求解业务问题的能力.     

基于XML的业务流程及虚拟组件互操作规则知识描述

为了提高应用集成系统的柔性,集成适配器一般被设计为是基于规则驱动的适配器Agent,其核心目的是为了使集成系统具有随企业业务流程的变化而快速的动态适应能力。如何刻画系统的业务流程,并给出基于业务流程的虚拟组件互操作规则是适配器Agent构造的关键技术问题。在充分分析业务流程模型基础上,利用EBNF刻画了业务流程模型的形式语义,并给出了基于XML的业务流程及互操作规则的描述。     

Business information modeling for process integration in the mold making industry

Driven by industrial needs and enabled by the latest information technology, enterprise integration has rapidly shifted from information integration to process integration for performance excellence in the entire business process. This paper reports on the modeling of a business information model which enables mold making companies to achieve business process integration. The needs of process integration in mold making companies are first highlighted. Typical mold making business processes are analyzed and four critical business processes to be integrated are identified. Further, a process-oriented business information model is proposed, which associates business information entities to meet the needs of all business processes. Based on the model, the integration of four critical business processes is investigated, which enables seamless information flows to streamline the business processes, maximize information sharing across the business processes and achieve the automation and concurrency of the business processes. Finally, the implementation and benefits to industry of the system derived from the developed information model is presented.