Global Services (Slovakia)

Purpose According to IBM research, companies seeking opportunities in an era of constant customer connectivity focus on two complementary activities: reshaping customer value propositions and transforming their operations using digital technologies for greater customer interaction and collaboration. This paper aims to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach The paper explains that businesses aiming to generate new customer value propositions or transform their operating models need to develop a new portfolio of capabilities for flexibility and responsiveness to fast‐changing customer requirements. Findings The paper finds that engaging with customers at every point where value is created is what differentiates a customer‐centered business from one that simply targets customers well. Customer interaction in these areas often leads to open collaboration that accelerates innovation using online communities. Practical implications Companies focused on fully reshaping the operating model optimize all elements of the value chain around points of customer engagement. Originality/value The article explains how companies with a cohesive plan for integrating the digital and physical components of operations can successfully transform their business models.

Importance: Patient-reported outcome (PRO) data from clinical trials can provide valuable evidence to inform shared decision making, labeling claims, clinical guidelines, and health policy; however, the PRO content of clinical trial protocols is often suboptimal. The SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials) statement was published in 2013 and aims to improve the completeness of trial protocols by providing evidence-based recommendations for the minimum set of items to be addressed, but it does not provide PRO-specific guidance. Objective: To develop international, consensus-based, PRO-specific protocol guidance (the SPIRIT-PRO Extension). Design, Setting, and Participants: The SPIRIT-PRO Extension was developed following the Enhancing Quality and Transparency of Health Research (EQUATOR) Network's methodological framework for guideline development. This included (1) a systematic review of existing PRO-specific protocol guidance to generate a list of potential PRO-specific protocol items (published in 2014); (2) refinements to the list and removal of duplicate items by the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL) Protocol Checklist Taskforce; (3) an international stakeholder survey of clinical trial research personnel, PRO methodologists, health economists, psychometricians, patient advocates, funders, industry representatives, journal editors, policy makers, ethicists, and researchers responsible for evidence synthesis (distributed by 38 international partner organizations in October 2016); (4) an international Delphi exercise (n = 137 invited; October 2016 to February 2017); and (5) consensus meeting (n = 30 invited; May 2017). Prior to voting, consensus meeting participants were informed of the results of the Delphi exercise and given data from structured reviews evaluating the PRO protocol content of 3 defined samples of trial protocols. Results: The systematic review identified 162 PRO-specific protocol recommendations from 54 sources. The ISOQOL Taskforce (n = 21) reduced this to 56 items, which were considered by 138 international stakeholder survey participants and 99 Delphi panelists. The final wording of the SPIRIT-PRO Extension was agreed on at a consensus meeting (n = 29 participants) and reviewed by external group of experts during a consultation period. Eleven extensions and 5 elaborations to the SPIRIT 2013 checklist were recommended for inclusion in clinical trial protocols in which PROs are a primary or key secondary outcome. Extension items focused on PRO-specific issues relating to the trial rationale, objectives, eligibility criteria, concepts used to evaluate the intervention, time points for assessment, PRO instrument selection and measurement properties, data collection plan, translation to other languages, proxy completion, strategies to minimize missing data, and whether PRO data will be monitored during the study to inform clinical care. Conclusions and Relevance: The SPIRIT-PRO guidelines provide recommendations for items that should be addressed and included in clinical trial protocols in which PROs are a primary or key secondary outcome. Improved design of clinical trials including PROs could help ensure high-quality data that may inform patient-centered care.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the augment of the authors, who are IBM consultants, that companies need to meld social media programs with customer relationship management (CRM). This new paradigm – Social CRM – recognizes that instead of just managing customers, the role of the business is to facilitate collaborative social experiences and dialogue that customers value. Design/methodology/approach Social media holds enormous potential for companies to get closer to customers and, by doing so, increase revenue, cost reduction and efficiencies. However, using social media as a channel for customer engagement will fail if the traditional CRM approaches are not reinvented, Findings According to IBM research, there is a large perception gap between what the customers seek via social media and what companies offer. Consumers are far more interested in obtaining tangible value, suggesting businesses may be confusing their own desire for customer intimacy with consumers' motivations for engaging. Practical implications To reinvent the company's CRM strategy it is important to recognize social media is a game changer and the customer is in control; make the customer experience seamless – across social media and other channels; start thinking like a customer – if one isn't sure what customers value, they should be asked; and monetize social media, if that is what customers want. Originality/value Social CRM is a new approach that recognizes consumers have strong opinions about relationships as customers being managed in a social media context and that their willingness to engage with companies should not be assumed or taken for granted.

The transformation to smarter cities will require innovation in planning, management, and operations. Several ongoing projects around the world illustrate the opportunities and challenges of this transformation. Cities must get smarter to address an array of emerging urbanization challenges, and as the projects highlighted in this article show, several distinct paths are available. The number of cities worldwide pursuing smarter transformation is growing rapidly. However, these efforts face many political, socioeconomic, and technical hurdles. Changing the status quo is always difficult for city administrators, and smarter city initiatives often require extensive coordination, sponsorship, and support across multiple functional silos. The need to visibly demonstrate a continuous return on investment also presents a challenge. The technical obstacles will center on achieving system interoperability, ensuring security and privacy, accommodating a proliferation of sensors and devices, and adopting a new closed-loop human-computer interaction paradigm.

Social commerce has taken the e-tailing world by storm. Business-to-consumer sites and, more important, intermediaries that facilitate shopping experience, continue to offer more and more innovative technologies to support social interaction among like-minded community members or friends who share the same shopping interests. Among these technologies, reviews, ratings, and recommendation systems have become some of the most popular social shopping platforms due to their ease of use and simplicity in sharing buying experience and aggregating evaluations. This paper studies the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) communication among a closed community of book readers. We studied the entire market of Amazon Shorts e-books, which are digital microproducts sold at a low and uniform price. With the minimal role of price in the buying decision, social discussion via eWOM becomes a collective signal of reputation, and ultimately a significant demand driver. Our empirical study suggests that eWOM can be used to convey the reputation of the product (e.g., the book), the reputation of the brand (i.e., the author), and the reputation of complementary goods (e.g., books in the same category). Until newer social shopping technologies gain acceptance, eWOM technologies should be considered by both e-tailers and shoppers as the first and perhaps primary source of social buying experience.

An eight-transistor (8T) cell is proposed to improve variability tolerance and low-voltage operation in high-speed SRAM caches. While the cell itself can be designed for exceptional stability and write margins, array-level implications must also be considered to achieve a viable memory solution. These constraints can be addressed by modifying traditional 6T-SRAM techniques and conceding some design complexity and area penalties. Altogether, 8T-SRAM can be designed without significant area penalty over 6T-SRAM while providing substantially improved variability tolerance and low-voltage operation with no need for secondary or dynamic power supplies. The proposed 8T solution is demonstrated in a high-performance 32 kb subarray designed in 65 nm PD-SOI CMOS that operates at 5.3 GHz at 1.2 V and 295 MHz at 0.41 V.

Service-oriented modeling and architecture (SOMA) has been used to conduct projects of varying scope in multiple industries worldwide for the past five years. We report on the usage and structure of the method used to effectively analyze, design, implement, and deploy service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects as part of a fractal model of software development. We also assert that the construct of a service and service modeling, although introduced by SOA, is a software engineering best practice for which an SOA method aids both SOA usage and adoption. In this paper we present the latest updates to this method and share some of the lessons learned. The SOMA method incorporates the key aspects of overall SOA solution design and delivery and is integrated with existing software development methods through a set of placeholders for key activity areas, forming what we call solution templates. We also present a fractal model of software development that can enable the SOMA method to evolve in an approach that goes beyond the iterative and incremental and instead leverages method components and patterns in a recursive, self-similar manner opportunistically at points of variability in the life cycle.

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) has been used commercially to recover oil from geologic formations by enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies for over 40 years. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and its predecessor organizations have supported a large number of laboratory and field projects over the past decades in an effort to improve the oil recovery process including investments to advanced reservoir characterization, mobility control, and conformance of CO2 flooding. Currently, CO2 EOR provides about 280,000 barrels of oil per day, just over 5 percent of the total U.S. crude oil production. Recently CO2 flooding has become so technically and economically attractive that CO2 supply, rather than CO2 price, has been the constraining developmental factor. Carbon dioxide EOR is likely to expand in the United States in upcoming years due to "high" crude oil prices, natural CO2 source availability, and possible large anthropogenic CO2 sources through carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology advances. Despite its well-established ability to recover oil, the CO2 EOR process could be improved if the high mobility of CO2 relative to reservoir oil and water can be effectively and affordably reduced. The CO2 EOR industry continues to use water-alternating-with-gas (WAG) as the technology of choice to control CO2 mobility and/or mechanical techniques (e.g., cement, packers, well control, infield drilling, and horizontal wells) to help control the CO2 flood conformance. If the "next generation" CO2 EOR target of 67 billion barrels is to be realized, new solutions are needed that can recover significantly more oil than the 10–20% of the original oil in place associated with current flooding practices. A recent literature review [Enick and Olsen, 2011] concentrates on the history and development of CO2 mobility control and profile modification technologies in the hope that stimulating renewed interest in these chemical techniques will help to catalyze new efforts to overcome the geologic and process limitations such as poor sweep efficiency, unfavorable injectivity profiles, gravity override, high ratios of CO2 to oil produced, early breakthrough, and viscous fingering. This paper is a concise overview of the recent, comprehensive literature review available on the NETL website entitled "Mobility and Conformance Control for Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery (CO2-EOR) via Thickeners, Foams, and Gels – A Detailed Literature Review of 40 Years of Research" [Enick and Olsen, 2011] that focuses on attempts to enhance carbon dioxide mobility control (in-depth, long-term processes that cause CO2 to exhibit mobility comparable to oil) and profile modification/conformance control (near-wellbore, short-term process primarily intended to greatly reduce the permeability of a thief zone) using CO2 thickeners and CO2 foams. In particular, this paper focuses on the history of CO2 thickeners.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to find out what exactly the term business model innovation encompasses and what type yields the best results. Design/methodology/approach IBM Consulting researchers first identified the main types of business model innovation, which can be used alone or in combination. They then compared these three types of business model innovation across 35 best practice cases. Findings The study found that all new business models can be classified into three types: innovations in industry models; in revenue models and in enterprise models. A key finding was that each type of business model innovation, with the right strategy and strong execution can generate success. Practical implications Researchers found that while network plays are being used by diverse companies in different industries and regions and of varying age, size and other characteristics, this tactic has been a particularly useful strategy for older companies. Originality/value The study found that best business model innovation strategies provide a strong fit between the competitive landscape for a particular industry and the organization's strengths, shortcomings and characteristics such as age and size.

In the current business environment in which companies are under increasing pressure not only to increase revenue but also to respond quickly to changing market conditions, companies will be successful only if they transform themselves and become on demand businesses. In this paper we describe the changes needed to effect this transformation, and in particular, we describe the important role played by componentization and by service orientation. We discuss the way componentization enables a business to operate in a value net, a network of partnerships with customers and suppliers supported by real-time information flows and information technology systems. We also describe the need for service orientation to achieve seamless integration of business components. We illustrate these ideas with a case study from the rental car business. Finally, we describe IBM activities in this area and the resulting methods and tools that help businesses deal with these challenges.

Purpose To ascertain whether the choices CEOs were making about particular types of innovation and key enablers had any correlation with financial performance, IBM looked at a subset of our sample where publicly reported financial information was available. Design/methodology/approach The findings in this report are based on in‐depth, consultative interviews on the topic of innovation with 765 CEOs, business executives and public sector leaders from around the world. Findings For a subset, the authors compared their financial performance to that of an industry‐accepted list of their nearest competitors (up to ten companies with similar revenue and publicly available information). Some of their competitors were CEO study participants, but most were not. By taking a five‐year view, the researchers were able to identify which companies outperformed and under‐performed the average revenue growth, operating margin growth and historical operating margins of their closest competitors. Research limitations/implications Throughout the analysis, IBM used these top‐half and bottom‐half groupings to look for notable financial correlations. In this report, the term outperformers refers to the study participants that are in the top 50 percent based on this competitive comparison, and under‐performers are those that fall in the bottom 50 percent. Practical implications The authors report on how business leaders are seeking and finding new ways to adapt their business models to remain competitive in their current industry – or to seek growth by entering new industries. Originality/value Companies focusing on business model innovation have enjoyed significant operating margin growth, while those using products/services/markets and operational innovation have sustained their margins over time.

Purpose This article describes the five‐year success of a lean Six Sigma approach to improving operations that is also a way of doing better things – innovating in products, services, markets and even a company's underlying business model. Design/methodology/approach Consultants from IBM's Operations Strategy group and from the Institute for Business Value analyzed the innovation records of several leading companies that have implemented operations strategies based on Lean Six Sigma management techniques. Findings They found that lean Six Sigma initiatives also led to product innovations, such as Caterpillar's phenomenally successful low‐emissions diesel engine, and also to redesigned processes, including a streamlined supply chain. After five years, by 2005, revenues at Caterpillar had grown by 80 percent. Research limitations/implications A case study of Caterpillar illustrates the points of the lean sigma six approach. Practical implications For more than five years, industry leaders have used company‐wide lean Six Sigma programs to create an organizational climate in which innovation becomes instinctive, and, consequently, they have surfaced major innovation opportunities that have revitalized their businesses. Originality/value Identifies several distinguishing characteristics that set successful approaches apart from those with a traditional operational improvement mindset. Successful innovators have: an innovation vision based on factual customer and market insights; leadership committed to perpetual innovation; alignment across the extended enterprise; organizational capabilities that made innovation habitual.

Conceptually, customer relationship management (CRM) has been widely embraced by businesses. In practice, however, examples of success contrast with anecdotes where the diffusion of CRM into organizations continues to be a slow process and/or where CRM implementation outcomes have fallen short of expectations. Successful implementation depends on a number of factors such as fit between of a firm’s CRM strategy and programs and its broader marketing strategy, and intraorganizational and interorganizational cooperation and coordination among entities involved in implementation. Building on the results of a survey of the CRM-implementation-related experiences of 101 U.S.-based firms, in this article the authors identify factors associated with successful CRM implementation and advance directions for future research.

Purpose Business‐model innovation is critical to success in today's increasingly complex and fast‐changing environment. So corporate leaders need to understand when to adapt the business model and how to execute the change. This paper aims to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach Data from IBM's Global CEO Study 2008 and an analysis of 28 successful business‐model innovators, produced insights into both the best timing and process for business model innovation. Findings The IBM researchers identified a set of characteristics that strong business‐model innovators demonstrate consistently. Practical implications A set of characteristics, which the IBM researchers call the “Three A's,” are critical to the successful design and execution of business‐model innovation: Aligned – Leverage core capabilities and design consistency across all dimensions of the business model, both internally and externally, that build customer value; Analytical – Use information strategically to create foresight, and prioritize actions while measuring and tracking for rapid course correction; and Adaptable – Link innovative leadership with the ability to effect change and institutionalize operational flexibility. Originality/value The paper answers two questions that can help companies develop their innovation strategy and transformation approach for the new economic environment: Under what conditions should companies adapt their business model?; and What capabilities and characteristics support the design and execution of successful business‐model innovation?

PURPOSE: To develop expert consensus on a suite of reporting standards for HRQL outcomes of RCTs. METHODS: A Task Force of The International Society of Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL) undertook a systematic review of the literature to identify candidate reporting standards for HRQL in RCTs. Subsequently, a web-based survey was circulated to the ISOQOL membership. Respondents were asked to rate candidate standards on a 4-point Likert scale based on their perceived value in reporting studies in which HRQL was a study outcome (primary or secondary). Results were synthesized into draft reporting guidelines, which were further reviewed by the membership to inform the final guidance. RESULTS: Forty-six existing candidate standards for reporting HRQL results in RCTs were synthesized to produce a 40 item survey that was completed electronically by 161 respondents. The majority of respondents rated all 40 items to be either 'essential' or 'desirable' when HRQL was a primary RCT outcome. Ratings changed when HRQL was a secondary study outcome. Feedback on the survey findings resulted in the Task Force generalizing the guidance to include patient-reported outcomes (PROs). The final guidance, which recommends standards for use in reporting PROs generally, and more specifically, for PROs identified as primary study outcomes, was approved by the ISOQOL Board of Directors. CONCLUSIONS: ISOQOL has developed a suite of recommended standards for reporting PRO results of RCTs. Improved reporting of PROs will enable accurate interpretation of evidence to inform patient choice, aid clinical decision making, and inform health policy.

BACKGROUND: This research addresses the need for population-based studies on the burden of chronic low back pain (CLBP) by examining healthcare service use and costs for patients with and without neuropathic components in the US population. METHODS: Data were analyzed from PharMetrics IMS LifeLink™ US Claims Database (2006-2008). Patients (≥18 years) with 36 months continuous enrollment, ICD-9 code for low back pain, and claims in 3 out of 4 consecutive months in the 12-month prospective period were included and classified with CLBP. Patients were further classified with a neuropathic component (wNP) and without a neuropathic component (woNP) based on ICD-9 codes. Healthcare resources, physical therapy, prescription medication use, and associated costs were assessed for the period January 1-December 31, 2008. RESULTS: A number of patients (39,425) were identified with CLBP (90.4% wNP). Patients wNP included more women, were older and more likely to have clinically diagnosed depression, and made significantly greater use of any prescription medication at index event, opioids (particularly schedule II), and healthcare resources. Total direct costs of CLBP-related resource use were ∼US$96 million over a 12-month follow-up. CLBP wNP accounted for 96% of total costs and mean annual cost of care/patient was ∼160% higher than CLBP patients woNP (US$ 2577 vs US$ 1007, p < 0.0001). LIMITATIONS: This study was descriptive and was not designed to demonstrate causality between diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Resource use and costs for reasons other than LBP were not included. Patients with neuropathic pain are more likely to seek treatment; therefore CLBP patients with a non-neuropathic component may be under-represented. CONCLUSIONS: The disproportionately high share of interventional resource use in CLBP wNP suggests greater need for new treatment options that more comprehensively manage the range of pain symptoms and signaling mechanisms involved, to help improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden on healthcare systems.

Abstract The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), part of the European Union’s Earth observation program Copernicus, entered operations in July 2015. Implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) as a truly European effort with over 23,500 direct data users and well over 200 million end users worldwide as of March 2022, CAMS delivers numerous global and regional information products about air quality, inventory-based emissions and observation-based surface fluxes of greenhouse gases and from biomass burning, solar energy, ozone and UV radiation, and climate forcings. Access to CAMS products is open and free of charge via the Atmosphere Data Store. The CAMS global atmospheric composition analyses, forecasts, and reanalyses build on ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and exploit over 90 different satellite data streams. The global products are complemented by coherent higher-resolution regional air quality products over Europe derived from multisystem analyses and forecasts. CAMS information products also include policy support such as quantitative impact assessment of short- and long-term pollutant-emission mitigation scenarios, source apportionment information, and annual European air quality assessment reports. Relevant CAMS products are cited and used for instance in IPCC Assessment Reports. Providing dedicated support for users operating smartphone applications, websites, or TV bulletins in Europe and worldwide is also integral to the service. This paper presents key achievements of the CAMS initial phase (2014–21) and outlines some of its new components for the second phase (2021–28), e.g., the new Copernicus anthropogenic CO 2 emissions Monitoring and Verification Support capacity that will monitor global anthropogenic emissions of key greenhouse gases.

During the last two decades, we have seen mobile communication becoming the dominant medium of communication. In numerous countries, especially the developed ones, the market is saturated to the extent that each new customer must be won over from the competitors. At the same time, public policies and standardization of mobile communication now allow customers to easily switch over from one carrier to another, resulting in a fluid market. Since the cost of winning a new customer is far greater than the cost of retaining an existing one, mobile carriers have now shifted their focus from customer acquisition to customer retention. As a result, churn prediction has emerged as the most crucial Business Intelligence (BI) application that aims at identifying customers who are about to transfer their business to a competitor i.e. to churn. This paper aims to present commonly used data mining techniques for the identification of customers who are about to churn. Based on historical data, these methods try to find patterns which can identify possible churners. Some of the well-known algorithms used during this research are Regression analysis, Decision Trees and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). The data set used in this study was obtained from Customer DNA website. It contains traffic data of 106,000 customers and their usage behavior for 3 months. We also discuss the use of re-sampling method in order to solve the problem of class imbalance. Our results show that in case of the data set used, decision trees is the most accurate classifier algorithm while identifying potential churners.

Purpose Although cloud computing is widely recognized as a technology game changer because it offers anytime, anywhere services, its potential for driving business innovation remains virtually untapped. This article seeks to define that potential for generating new business models and disrupting industries. Design/methodology/approach The authors show how cloud technology has the power to fundamentally shift competitive landscapes by providing a new platform for creating and delivering business value. Findings IBM research suggests that organizations are just beginning to understand the power of cloud services to help drive business innovation. Research limitations/implications To track how organizations use cloud tech today and how they plan to employ its power in the future, IBM surveyed 572 business and technology executives across. Practical implications The survey found that companies worldwide are beginning to recognize cloud's capabilities to generate new business models and promote sustainable competitive advantage. Originality/value By assisting in developing new operating capabilities, cloud technology can help a company change its role within its industry or enter a different industry.

PURPOSE: Studies were conducted to establish the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of the antiepileptic drug (AED) ganaxolone. Ganaxolone belongs to a novel class of neuroactive steroids called epalons, which specifically modulate the gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA[A]) receptor in the central nervous system (CNS). Chemically related to progesterone but devoid of any hormonal activity, the epalons have potent antiepileptic, anxiolytic, sedative, and hypnotic activities in animals. METHODS: Ninety-six healthy male and female volunteers received ganaxolone in a variety of formulations, doses, and dosing regimens. The pharmacokinetics of ganaxolone were systematically characterized, and adverse events associated with drug use were documented. RESULTS: Ganaxolone was well tolerated after single doses (< or =1,500 mg) and after multiple doses (< or =300 mg b.i.d. for 10 days). Steady-state plasma levels (trough) occurred after approximately 7 days of dosing, with mean steady-state plasma concentrations (Cmax) in multiple dose studies of between 32 ng/ml (50-mg doses) and 376 ng/ml (500-mg doses). No serious or life-threatening adverse events attributed to the drug were observed. The majority of adverse events reported were mild (82%) to moderate (14%) and were limited to headache, dizziness, somnolence, gastrointestinal disturbances, and malaise. CONCLUSIONS: Ganaxolone alone or formulated with pharmaceutical-grade excipients is rapidly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract after oral administration in doses ranging from 50 to 1,500 mg. Pharmacokinetic analysis revealed a linear and proportional increase in the area under the curve (AUC) and Cmax values with increasing dose within the expected therapeutic dose range. Safety and tolerability in the clinical program were unremarkable.