2-Day Workshop by Industry and BusinessSchools

Services Ecosystems and Convergence of Business and Social Networks: Implications for Research, PhD Education and Design of Future Enterprises

Location:Brussels, Belgium. Place: EIASMConferenceCenter

Main organizers/sponsors: EIASM, IBM, and ECSS (Complexity Group)

Date: May 3rd and 4th, 2007, Brussels

Abstract: This workshop is set in the context of the growing impact of social and business networks on the future of services ecosystems. The workshop aims to bring together three distinct but related groups - industry practitioners, PhD program directors from business schools and researchers in the emerging fields of social computing and science of services. Common to all groups is an active interest in business services, business networks, social networks, supply-value chains, strategy and change, and business transformation. The workshop will provide a timely opportunity to discuss the emerging business, research and educational challenges in this context.

Over recent decades, with advances in the Internet, Web, Open Systems and Globalization, there has been a fundamental shift in the way enterprises and governments are managed. Centralized, monolithic organisations are being transformed into networked collections of businesses, collaborating and sharing services with partner networks worldwide in order to produce goods and new services faster and better. Enterprises which traditionally have focused on building everything in-house have now embraced partnering with specialists from multiple business ‘ecosystems’ in order to provide critical, core and peripheral products and services to their customers.

Enterprises have always collaborated to achieve value. What has changed is that with better communication, reduced costs of collaboration, and internet based information-sharing, the population of services providers has expanded from thousands to millions world-wide. Understanding this rapid creation of ‘service-chains and networks’, and the value they provide to the ecosystem, is critical to the development of future social and business environments. Here, the field of social computing bridges the gap between IT and the needs of society and business and explores novel business paradigms stemming form the collaborative forces steered by the Internet.

Expected outcomes:

It is expected that the workshop will take a significant step towards building a community of practitioners, PhD directors and researchers keen to engage in a tight dialogue on the research challenges, business opportunities and PhD curriculum and educational needs resulting from the shift from traditional IT and business structures to networked businesses and social networks. The workshop plans to capture this dialogue in a white paper that should be of interest to players from industry, PhD program directors and researchers.

Workshop Sessions

May 3rd, 2007

9.00-9.30: Introduction by EC, EIASM & IBM

9.30-12.00:Session Theme 1: Business Networks.

This session focuses on design and control of business structures in services network environment. The strategies for supply and value chains and human interaction for process management have changed dramatically in the past.

9.30 – 10.30: Invited talks

  • Industry Speaker: Nokia
  • Academic Speaker: OxfordSchool of Business (Felix Reed-Tschosas)

10.30 – 11.00Coffee Break

11.00-12.00 Panel

  • Panel: Ericsson, IESE, Novartis, University of Crete, Telia Sonera, DCX, BMW and CISCO
  • Moderator of Panel: IBM

12.00-16.00Session Theme 2: Social networks

This session focuses on social networks and social computing models for transforming business operations and their interactions with partners, suppliers, dealers and others.

12.00 – 12.30
Invited Talk: Vodafone* (pending)
12.30 – 14.30 Lunch

14.30-15.00

Invited talk:University of Warwick (Prof. Yasmin Merali)

15.00-16.00Panel

  • Panel: BocconiBusinessSchool (Stefano Breschi), University of Agean (Petros Kavassalis), SAP, WHUSchool of Management*, HP (Kemal Delic)
  • Moderator of Panel: EC

16.00 – 16.30 Coffee Break

16.30-18.30Session Theme 3: Micro-societies and small-business communities.

This session focuses on new generation of micro-enterprises, business communities and micro-societies that have evolved because of the low cost of the Internet, better communication capabilities, technology improvements and need for sharing to produce the eventual service

16.30 – 17.30 Invited talks

  • Google* (awaiting confirmation)
  • EC Joint Research Centre IPTS (Jean Claude-Burgelman)

17.30 – 18.30Panel:

  • Panel: Siemens, University of Iceland (Sigurdur Brynolffson) HelsinkiBusinessSchool, Kalrsruhe, Marek Niezgódka, ICM and Nokia*
  • Moderator of Panel: University of Agean (Petros Kavassalis)

20.00: Dinner

May 4th, 2007

9.00 – 10.00Discussion on major emerging topics for long-term research

10.00-10.30 Coffee
10.30-12.30
Session Theme 4: Education and training in Business and Social networks. This session focuses on PhD education and training initiatives on business and social networks and the implications for future syllabus for business schools, economics departments and computer scientists.

10.30 – 11.30 Invited talks

  • IBM
  • IESE

11.30 – 12.30

  • Panel: University of Vienna (Dimitirs Karagiannis), Milano Polytechnic (Mariano Corso), Milan Polytechnic (Alberto Salvodelli), University of Cambridge, EPFL (Mgmt and Tech) (Dominque Foray)*, THESPA (JB Wood)*, ONCE-CS (Jeffrey Johnson)
  • Moderator of Panel: University of Warwick

12.30-12.45 Closing remarks

Organizing Committee

  • Nicole Coopman (EIASM), Director, Brussels
  • Paul Coughlan (Director, EIASM), Brussels
  • Ralph Dum (European Commission)
  • J. Sairamesh (Ramesh) - IBM Research
  • Jonathan Sage* (Governmental Programs), IBM
  • Corrina Schulze (Governmental Programs), IBM
  • Jeffrey Johnson ECSS and Open university

* Pending confirmation