Virtual Innovation Clusters: the Grid and Customer Relationship Management. Innovation Clusters are seen as geographically based and focussed on product development. Recent studies however indicate that technical innovation in geographic clusters is lower than geographically dispersed companies, and that their competitiveness arises from innovations in tailoring products and marketing. The emergence of the ?Grid? enhances the capabilities of ?Virtual? Clusters. Through installation of a Grid Por ....Virtual Innovation Clusters: the Grid and Customer Relationship Management. Innovation Clusters are seen as geographically based and focussed on product development. Recent studies however indicate that technical innovation in geographic clusters is lower than geographically dispersed companies, and that their competitiveness arises from innovations in tailoring products and marketing. The emergence of the ?Grid? enhances the capabilities of ?Virtual? Clusters. Through installation of a Grid Portal and Grid-enabling analysis tools, we export the capabilities of a geographical cluster around Europe's leading computational facility and contrast this with a Virtual Cluster in Australia, where we demonstrate an innovative application of High-Performance Computing to modelling consumer behaviour and managing customer relations.Read moreRead less
Outsourcing - Leveraging productivity improvements and better performance from new approaches. Through exploring customer expectations, reasons for outsourcing, and the results obtained, this research will discover those success factors that contribute to positive outsourcing outcomes for key stakeholders, such as the labour force, the outsourcing company and the customer. It will develop models to leverage current performance and use the resulting knowledge to improve Australia's performance in ....Outsourcing - Leveraging productivity improvements and better performance from new approaches. Through exploring customer expectations, reasons for outsourcing, and the results obtained, this research will discover those success factors that contribute to positive outsourcing outcomes for key stakeholders, such as the labour force, the outsourcing company and the customer. It will develop models to leverage current performance and use the resulting knowledge to improve Australia's performance in outsourcing sectors such as Business Processes and IT. The project will lead to a robust, long-term relationship between industry and academia to produce industry relevant, theoretically sound research.Read moreRead less
The Curious Negotiator -- committing only to that which is maximally non-committal. Despite the hype surrounding electronic business-to-business commerce, little business is conducted completely automatically as yet due to the complexity of the issues being negotiated and by the high value of the deals involved. Sophisticated and reliable negotiation technology is required to address this shortcoming. This project looks beyond electronic business to informed negotiation in a broad sense. It w ....The Curious Negotiator -- committing only to that which is maximally non-committal. Despite the hype surrounding electronic business-to-business commerce, little business is conducted completely automatically as yet due to the complexity of the issues being negotiated and by the high value of the deals involved. Sophisticated and reliable negotiation technology is required to address this shortcoming. This project looks beyond electronic business to informed negotiation in a broad sense. It will create reliable automatic negotiators for which information is a strategic weapon. It will build systems to extract reliable market information. The whole project is embedded in electronic institutions that foreshadow the electronic markets of tomorrow.Read moreRead less
The Evolution of Business Networks in Virtual Marketplaces. This project investigates the evolution of business networks and the development of players? strategies in future generation marketplaces. It builds on our electronic trading environment currently being developed. Here, an immersive virtual world marketplace, populated by avatars representing people and agents, contains tools for accessing and presenting all contextual information. It enables observations and measurements that cannot be ....The Evolution of Business Networks in Virtual Marketplaces. This project investigates the evolution of business networks and the development of players? strategies in future generation marketplaces. It builds on our electronic trading environment currently being developed. Here, an immersive virtual world marketplace, populated by avatars representing people and agents, contains tools for accessing and presenting all contextual information. It enables observations and measurements that cannot be achieved in physical marketplaces. Network mining techniques will examine those relationships that shape and are shaped by the innovation and entrepreneurial process. The project will develop techniques that guide these evolving relationships towards innovation, which will be trialed in a real market.Read moreRead less
Shaping E-markets by Timely Information Discovery. The perturbation of market equilibrium through entrepeneurial action is the essence of market evolution. Entrepeneurship relies on intuition and information discovery. This project addresses the problem of identifying timely information for e-markets with their rapid, pervasive and massive flows of data. This information will be distilled from individual signals in the markets themselves and from signals observed on the unreliable, informatio ....Shaping E-markets by Timely Information Discovery. The perturbation of market equilibrium through entrepeneurial action is the essence of market evolution. Entrepeneurship relies on intuition and information discovery. This project addresses the problem of identifying timely information for e-markets with their rapid, pervasive and massive flows of data. This information will be distilled from individual signals in the markets themselves and from signals observed on the unreliable, information-overlaoded Internet. Distributed, concurrent, time-constrained data mining methods will be managed using business process management technology to extract timely, reliable information from this unreliable environment. This project will derive fundamental insight into how e-markets evolve.Read moreRead less
Towards a Virtual Enterprise Framework for Effective Business Process Outsourcing. With the advent of the Internet, Virtual Enterprises (VEs) are breaking down geographical barriers of nations, enabling the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) of corporate business activities. The primary objective of this project is to leverage international expertise in Australia and Japan to develop a VE framework for effective BPO by studying the effect of evolving virtual team coordination techniques under al ....Towards a Virtual Enterprise Framework for Effective Business Process Outsourcing. With the advent of the Internet, Virtual Enterprises (VEs) are breaking down geographical barriers of nations, enabling the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) of corporate business activities. The primary objective of this project is to leverage international expertise in Australia and Japan to develop a VE framework for effective BPO by studying the effect of evolving virtual team coordination techniques under alternative VE orderings. An organising framework for VEs will provide the ideal structure for high technology Australian firms to compete globally by drawing on entrepreneurial and knowledge capital of technologically advanced nations, whilst sustaining and maximising their own domestic array of skills and capabilities through an efficient vertical international division of labour.Read moreRead less
Collaborative Commerce for SMEs in Regional Knowledge Networks. This research project will investigate the most effective and efficient models for regional SMEs to engage in collaborative online commerce. The study will evaluate different models of (cross) regional collaboration and the knowledge management support mechanisms needed to facilitate these. An online assessment system will be developed which can be used by SMEs, SME clusters and local government to identify best fit models for c-com ....Collaborative Commerce for SMEs in Regional Knowledge Networks. This research project will investigate the most effective and efficient models for regional SMEs to engage in collaborative online commerce. The study will evaluate different models of (cross) regional collaboration and the knowledge management support mechanisms needed to facilitate these. An online assessment system will be developed which can be used by SMEs, SME clusters and local government to identify best fit models for c-commerce. A methodology for benefits appraisal of c-commerce will be made available for continual monitoring of real value accrual. Policy guides will be developed for local government identifying best practice models for ICT infastructure development.Read moreRead less
Evaluating the Benefits of Regional e-Marketplaces for SMEs. Electronic marketplaces proliferate yet there are few research studies on the benefits of electronic-trading and its impact on businesses, particularly SMEs. Should a company join an e-marketplace and if so which one should it select and what criteria should be used to evaluate the appropriate model? This research project explores these issues and examines the benefits of a unique e-market concept "2Cities" sponsored by regional govern ....Evaluating the Benefits of Regional e-Marketplaces for SMEs. Electronic marketplaces proliferate yet there are few research studies on the benefits of electronic-trading and its impact on businesses, particularly SMEs. Should a company join an e-marketplace and if so which one should it select and what criteria should be used to evaluate the appropriate model? This research project explores these issues and examines the benefits of a unique e-market concept "2Cities" sponsored by regional government and focussed on SMEs. The findings and recommendations will be of immense value in regional economic planning and provide business and Government with a best practice model for e-marketplace participation for improved economic development.Read moreRead less
"It's all about me" - Anthropomorphised Trading in Believable Electronic Markets. There is a need for trustful business environments that will open up the e-markets to a greater population of traders. This project looks at the development of believable e-markets that address this need. Proposed 3D electronic institution technology is expected to facilitate the establishment of robust business structures as the believability of the business activities and interactions in such e-markets will ensur ...."It's all about me" - Anthropomorphised Trading in Believable Electronic Markets. There is a need for trustful business environments that will open up the e-markets to a greater population of traders. This project looks at the development of believable e-markets that address this need. Proposed 3D electronic institution technology is expected to facilitate the establishment of robust business structures as the believability of the business activities and interactions in such e-markets will ensure the principles of trust and reputation in the electronic markets of tomorrow.Read moreRead less
Autonomous Agents and Systems with General Intelligence. Autonomous software agents and robotic systems with general intelligence are frontier technologies that have the potential to significantly enhance Australia's leading role in information and communication technology. A new generation of intelligent software is provided by computer programs that can adapt fully automatically to previously unknown situations without the need to be re-programmed. Innovative products will also emerge from a n ....Autonomous Agents and Systems with General Intelligence. Autonomous software agents and robotic systems with general intelligence are frontier technologies that have the potential to significantly enhance Australia's leading role in information and communication technology. A new generation of intelligent software is provided by computer programs that can adapt fully automatically to previously unknown situations without the need to be re-programmed. Innovative products will also emerge from a new generation of autonomous systems that are able to adapt to different environments.Read moreRead less