event report
ICISTM-2011
MDI’s International IT Conference
Panelists at MDI Conference
Management Development Institute (MDI) in association with University of Florida, USA and Grenoble, EU, France, organised the Fifth International Conference on Information Systems, Technology and Management
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e are amidst an information age where the rate of growth and complexity of data collected is growing exponentially, fuelling demands for effective and efficient information management, technology and systems solutions which are required in every industry today. ICISTM-2011 aims to bring together researchers, developers and practitioners from around the world in academia and industry for sharing state-of-the-art results and for exploring new areas of research and development in the knowledge economy. The inaugural session witnessed a very enlightening thought exchange by Dr Andrew Lim, Head and Professor, Department of Management Sciences, College of Business, City University of Hong
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Kong. He spoke about the importance of the business value model and measuring KPIs effectively. Purchasing IT packages is essential, but to implement effectively is of paramount importance. Prof Sartaj Sahni and Dr Renaud Cornu Emiux from the University of Florida and Grenoble EU respectively, which are the partner Institutes with MDI for ICISTM 2011, also spoke about the importance of research work in IT. The conference attracted a large number of research papers from India, US, Europe and Africa. The papers presented by the authors under various tracks included Information Systems, Information Technology, Business Intelligence, Information Management, Health Information Management and
Technology and Applications of Information Systems. The basic focus of Prof Prem Vrat’s (Professor of Eminence—MDI) session was on the knowledge society and its edge to India due to demographic dividend and IT strength. Besides the wisdom hierarchy, the knowledge society should ultimately be based on wisdom for the good of the society and also interpret human values in technology. However, there are various challenges that hurdle in the process. Dr Sanjay Ranka (Professor in the Department of Computer Information Science and Engineering at University of Florida, USA) spoke on the “Energy and thermal efficient multicore computing” and pointed out the areas of concern
event report
which include rising temperature, glaciers receding, projected risks – extinctions, population, area and economy (GDP) affected by 1m sea level rise, ICT impact on carbon dioxide emissions, carbon dioxide emissions comparable to aviation industries, cost of cooling, cost of cyber infrastructure, efficient ICT methods – reduce total emissions by 15 per cent climate group and global e-sustainability report. 22 per cent - BCG for US, evolution of multicore processors are the new workhorses – high power density doubles every three years and need for thermal optimisation. He further added that the main job is to develop an integrated framework for multicore that addresses computation, energy and temperature. Dr Sumeet Dua (Upchurch Endowed Professor, Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator of Computer Science Louisiana Tech University, USA) later spoke on the “Associative Learning Algorithm Framework in Data Mining” The agenda of the session included data mining principles – importance on business applications, associative and correlation based learning, applications, image mining, protein classification, data mining – extraction of interesting information or patterns from data in large databases or other information repositories. Prof Renaud Cornu Emieux, from Grenoble EM, France highlighted four powerful worldwide changes that have altered the business environment. These changes in the business environment and climate, pose a number of new challenges to business firms and their management. A growing percentage of the American economy – and other advanced industrial economies in Europe and Asia –depend on imports and exports. Foreign trade, both exports and imports, accounts for more than 25 per cent of the goods and services produced in the United States and even more in countries such as Japan and Germany. Companies are also distributing core business functions in product design, manufacturing, finance, and customer support to locations in other countries where the work can be performed more cost effectively. The success of firms today and in the future depends on their ability to operate globally. The United States, Ja-
pan, Germany, and other major industrial powers are being transformed from industrial economies to knowledge – and information based service economies, whereas manufacturing has been moving to lowwage countries. In a knowledge and information based economy, knowledge and information are key ingredients in creating wealth. There has been a transformation in the possibilities for organising and managing the business enterprise. Some firms have begun to take advantage of these new possibilities. The traditional business firm was – and still is – a hierarchical, centralised, structured arrangement of specialists that typically relied on a fixed set of standard operating procedure to deliver a mass-produced product (or service). The new style of business firm is a flattened (less hierarchical), decentralised; flexible arrangement of generalists who rely on nearly instant information to deliver masscustomised products and services uniquely suited to specific markets or customers. Intensive use of information technology business firms since the mid-1990s, cou-
obstructions pointed out at the session: • Synchronisation of mind sets across globe like punctuality • Lower focus on quality and customer orientation • Law of diminishing calibre • Best talent does not join research and teaching as preferred careers • Shortage of talent and role models, teachers in education system • Learning is not compulsory but neither is survival • Let leaders use all the talent India has • Dimensions in Knowledge Management • Technological, people, process and performance dimension
the rise of information economies and the growth of the internet have recast the role of the business managers in managing information resources pled with equally significant organisational redesign, has created the conditions for a new phenomenon in industrial society -–the fully digital firm. The primary concern of Information Management, in the enterprise today, is to ensure that the knowledge necessary to drive critical business processes is available where it needs to be, when it needs to be. The costs of failure to do this are high. If we just have a re-look at the emerging complexities and dynamic nature of the business, we find that the globalisation of business. Internet technology is supplying the foundation for new business models, new business processes, and new ways of distributing knowledge. This digital integration, both within and outside the firm, from the warehouse to the executive suite, from suppliers to
customers, is changing how we organise and manage a business firm. Ultimately, these changes are leading to fully digital firms where all internal business processes and relationships with customers and suppliers are digitally enabled. In digital firms, information to support business decisions is available anytime and anywhere in the organisation. Systems for supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and knowledge management along with enterprise systems (ERP) are the major enterprise applications that firms today are using to achieve digital integration. Keeping in mind these challenges, the conference provides a good platform to discuss and arrive at some policy issues, which can be useful to industry and the society at large. \\ digitalLEARNING / april 2011
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