Scientists from management and strategy, information systems, engineering and telecommunications have discussed a novel concept: Smart Business Networks. They see the future as a developing web of people and organizations, bound together in a dynamic and unpredictable way, creating smart outcomes from quickly (re-)configuring links between actors. The question is: What should be done to make the outcomes of such a network 'smart', that is, just a little better than that of your competitor? More agile, with less pain, with more return to all the members of the network, now and over time? The technical answer is to create a 'business operating system' that should run business processes on different organisational platforms. Business processes would become portable: The end-to-end management of processes running across many different organizations in many different forms would become possible. This book presents you the outcomes of an energizing and new direction in management science.

How Strategy Works in an Interconnected, Automated World Leaders already know that the classic approach to strategy--analyze, plan, execute--is losing relevance. But they don't yet know what replaces it. As everyone and everything becomes more interconnected and digitized, how do you operate, compete, and win? Ming Zeng, the former Chief of Staff and strategy adviser to Alibaba Group's founder Jack Ma, explains how the latest technological developments, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, the mobile internet, and cloud computing are redefining how value is created. Written especially for those outside the technology industry or the startup arena, this book introduces a simple, overarching framework to guide strategy formulation and execution in this data-rich and highly interactive environment. Revealing the revolutionary practices that he and his team have developed at Alibaba, Zeng shows how to: Automate decisions through machine learning Create products informed by real-time data from customers Determine the right strategic positioning to maximize value from platforms and suppliers Repurpose your organization to further human insight and enable creativity Lead your company's transformation into a smart business With insights into the strategies and tools used by leaders at Alibaba and other companies such as Ruhan and Red Collar, in a variety of industries from furniture making to banking to custom tailoring, Smart Business outlines a radically new approach to strategy that can be applied everywhere.

"The first knowledge-age book to give practical advice on how to organize and make use of knowledge--how to turn knowledge into wisdom."--Jacket.

On behalf of the NDT 2010 conference, the Program Committee and Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, we welcome you to the proceedings of the Second International Conference on ‘Networked Digital Technologies’ (NDT 2010). The NDT 2010 conference explored new advances in digital and Web technology applications. It brought together researchers from various areas of computer and information sciences who addressed both theoretical and applied aspects of Web technology and Internet applications. We hope that the discussions and exchange of ideas that took place will contribute to advancements in the technology in the near future. The conference received 216 papers, out of which 85 were accepted, resulting in an acceptance rate of 39%. These accepted papers are authored by researchers from 34 countries covering many significant areas of Web applications. Each paper was evaluated by a minimum of two reviewers. Finally, we believe that the proceedings document the best research in the studied areas. We express our thanks to the Charles University in Prague, Springer, the authors and the organizers of the conference.

In the past, services had a strong local and national focus. Professional services were very likely to be independently and autonomously organized from country to country in order to cater to local needs and local legal requirements. This has since changed radically, and highly integrated business and delivery models around the globe have become the status quo in clients’ businesses and strategies. Serving clients on a global level requires professional services firms to adopt a structural change from local to distributed global sales and delivery. This book brings together many years of experience, current perspectives and future ideas of international business practitioners, academics, and market researchers. Along those lines it is structured into four parts. Part I “Winning Strategies and Innovative Ideas” lays the book’s foundation: it discusses core strategies behind the globalization movement and introduces the major paradigms and ideas. Part II “Successful Processes for Realization” provides solutions for how to establish successful processes for delivering global professional services. Part III “Inspired Talent Management” goes to the core of the professional services industry: attracting, developing, and keeping the right talent in the right locations. Finally, Part IV offers “Experiences and Case Studies” on all aspects related to successfully building a globalized professional services firm. In short, this handbook provides professional services firms and their clients alike with a sound foundation for responding strategically to fundamental global changes and turning them into business advantages. It offers a comprehensive perspective of why and how to successfully globalize a professional services firm.

This book presents an application-centric approach to the development of smart grid communication architecture. The coverage includes in-depth reviews of such cutting-edge applications as advanced metering infrastructure, distribution automation, demand response and synchrophasors. Features: examines a range of exciting utility applications made possible through smart grid evolution; describes the core-edge network architecture for smart grids, introducing the concept of WANs and FANs; explains how the network design paradigm for smart grids differs from that for more established data networks, and discusses network security in smart grids; provides an overview of communication network technologies for WANs and FANs, covering OPGW, PLC, and LTE and MPLS technology; investigates secure data-centric data management and data analytics for smart grids; discusses the transformation of a network from conventional modes of utility operation to an integrated network based on the smart grid architecture framework.