Martin Mocker | ESB Business School Reutlingen (original) (raw)

Papers by Martin Mocker

As "the most international company on earth," DHL Express promised to deliver packages between al... more As "the most international company on earth," DHL Express promised to deliver packages between almost any pair of countries within a defined time-frame. To fulfill this promise, the company had introduced a set of global business and technology standards. While standardization had many advantages (improving service for multinational customers, faster response to changes in import/export regulations, sharing of best practices, etc.

Für viele Unternehmen ist Informationsverarbeitung (IV) nicht mehr nur ein Kostenfaktor, sondern ... more Für viele Unternehmen ist Informationsverarbeitung (IV) nicht mehr nur ein Kostenfaktor, sondern von strategischer Bedeutung. Dementsprechend findet sich die strategische IV-Planung seit geraumer Zeit auf den vordersten Plätzen der Managementagenda. Bisher lag der Fokus der Forschungsarbeiten allerdings auf dem Planungsprozess und nicht auf den Inhalten des Planungsergebnisses, der Informationsstrategie. In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht welche IV-bezogenen Entscheidungen von strategischer Relevanz für Unternehmen sind. Dabei werden die Argumente der Praktiker mit theoretischen Ansätzen kombiniert um zu einem begründeten und praktisch relevanten Vorschlag für die Inhalte von Informationsstrategien zu kommen.

System Sciences, 2009. HICSS'09. 42nd Hawaii …, 2009

... Interdependence: systems heavily connected to each other (interfaced or "wired"/&qu... more ... Interdependence: systems heavily connected to each other (interfaced or "wired"/"cobbled together ... of IT complexity leads to higher impact (eg higher level of interdependency of applications ... eg applications covering more products also exhibit a higher level of interdependence).. ...

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) has been among the highest ranked issues on managem... more Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) has been among the highest ranked issues on management agendas for many years. As such, SISP should be a major concern for researchers as well. However, SISP does not play that important of a role in the academic discussion, at least in Germany. Leading German textbooks on Information Management devote only small sections to strategy

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Information Technology (IT) strategy is a top-priority issue in practice. However, despite its pr... more Information Technology (IT) strategy is a top-priority issue in practice. However, despite its practical relevance, research on IT strategy has been limited so far. With respect to the definition of an IT strategy and its scope, there are a number of ad hoc recommendations and a few conceptual models with little scientific backing. In particular, latest research indicates a gap between the academic discussion on IT strategy and how IT strategy is perceived in practice. Taking this as a motivation, our research sets out to uncover in more detail the concerns and the notions of IT strategy prevalent in practice.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

The core purpose of strategic information planning (SIP) lies in identifying future directions fo... more The core purpose of strategic information planning (SIP) lies in identifying future directions for investments in information technology, information systems and information supply that will assist an organisation to realise its business goals. SIP is a critical challenge and major concern to both academics and practitioners, in particular consultants. While the latter have proposed a number of formal methodologies and principles of good practice, these are normative recommendations that are hardly justified through theoretical insight. In fact, SIP is yet to be well understood theoretically and requires more empirical support. This motivated us to carry out an in depth case study on SIP in a financial service company. The study aimed at improving the SIP practices in place and was conducted in an action research-like manner. This research report at hand presents the results of the study. We firstly describe the enterprise, its situation and the SIP practices in place. We then refle...

MIS Quarterly

Information systems strategy is of central importance to IS practice and research. Our extensive ... more Information systems strategy is of central importance to IS practice and research. Our extensive review of the literature suggests that the concept of IS strategy is a term that is used readily; however, it is also a term that is not fully understood. In this study, we follow a perspective paradigm based on the strategic management literature to define IS strategy as an organizational perspective on the investment in, deployment, use, and management of IS. Through a systematic literature search, we identify the following three conceptions of IS strategy employed implicitly in 48 articles published in leading IS journals that focus on the construct of IS strategy: (1) IS strategy as the use of IS to support business strategy; (2) IS strategy as the master plan of the IS function; and (3) IS strategy as the shared view of the IS role within the organization. We find the third conception best fits our definition of IS strategy. As such, we consequently propose to operationalize IS stra...

Strategic information planning is an important topic in practice as well as in research. Work so ... more Strategic information planning is an important topic in practice as well as in research. Work so far has focused mainly on the planning process itself rather than on the actual information strategy as its output. The paper points out different approaches to substantiating the concept of information strategy with perhaps the most advanced approach being the system of plans approach. However, existing approaches are not satisfactory regarding their structure, completeness and rationales. We propose a more comprehensive model of information strategy that is argued to overcome the deficiencies of the existing approaches. Our model introduces the concepts of information infrastructure and information function. It helps to clarify ongoing discussions devoted to information strategy as a functional departmental strategy, to strategic alignment as well as to the role of the CIO and allows the integration of separate views on information strategy from different disciplines.

Originally started as a mono-line business focused purely on savings, by late 2012 ING Direct Spa... more Originally started as a mono-line business focused purely on savings, by late 2012 ING Direct Spain was well on its way to becoming a full-service bank. To achieve that goal, the direct bank had substantially increased its portfolio of products and channels over the years. ING Direct’s original business was built on providing “simple,” “transparent,” “good value for money” products to customers in an “easy to deal with” way at low cost supported by a direct model. In many ways, ING Direct Spain was still simpler than most banks. But with the growth in its product portfolio during the previous decade and the ambitious goal of becoming a full-service bank, increasing complexity seemed inevitable. ING Direct Spain was finding that it needed to decide which complexity was creating value for its customers and which wasn’t. This case study describes how ING Direct Spain addresses the challenges of a growing company whose pronounced aim it is to provide customers with simple banking services.

Businesses continue to grow more complex—they enter new geographies, introduce and integrate more... more Businesses continue to grow more complex—they enter new geographies, introduce and integrate more products, add more granular customer segments, etc. Some of this complexity adds value. But some of it ends up confusing customers or distracting managers and employees. In order to assess whether a business' complexity is creating or destroying value, managers need to answer two questions: (1) how much does it benefit customers, and (2) how much more difficult does it make getting things done internally. Using Bayer Material Science, DBS Bank, USAA, and ING Direct Spain as examples, this briefing introduces three practices that help assess and manage business complexity.

Since its founding in 1922, financial service provider USAA has grown its product portfolio from ... more Since its founding in 1922, financial service provider USAA has grown its product portfolio from auto insurance to over one hundred P&C insurance, banking, life insurance, and investment management products. More recently, USAA has also created connections between different products by linking them in integrated services addressing life events. Life events like buying a car or house—or getting married—involve multiple products such as loans and insurance. Introduced in 2010, one of the company’s first integrated services targeted the car buying life event, allowing members to select, buy (at a pre-negotiated price), finance, and insure a car in one seamless process. This case study describes the motivation for and challenge of providing financial products in a more integrated way, as well as how USAA worked towards making this integration a success. USAA found that making its members' lives simpler involved making its own organizational life more complex.

MIT Sloan Management Review

As businesses grow and diversify, they almost inevitably make their range of offerings more compl... more As businesses grow and diversify, they almost inevitably make their range of offerings more complex. Complexity brings costs — but smart use of today’s digital technologies can help companies finesse the trade-offs between complexity’s costs and benefits.

European Journal of Information Systems, 2013

ABSTRACT Despite significant research progress, alignment-related issues are among the top concer... more ABSTRACT Despite significant research progress, alignment-related issues are among the top concerns of executives. Previous studies mostly focus on a company-wide strategic level of alignment; while this 'top-down' view has benefits, it largely ignores the operational practices that help achieve alignment in IT projects as well as the impact that timing and complennentarity of practices have on achieving alignment. In our research we apply four alignment practices communication, shared understanding, management commitment and IT investment evaluation to individual IT projects rather than at a company level; specifically, we look at the role of timing and complementarity for these alignment practices throughout different project phases. A detailed analysis of six IT projects carried out at three companies in the telecommunications industry reveals that IT projects creating higher business value employ all four alignment practices immediately from the start. No project was able to recover from failing to establish these four alignment practices in the first phase. While supporting the importance of complementarity of alignment practices, our findings also add the importance of the earliness of this complennentarity.

… on Tools Pacific: Objects for internet, …, 2002

The development of electronic commerce (EC) systems is subject to different conditions than that ... more The development of electronic commerce (EC) systems is subject to different conditions than that of conventional software systems. Consequently, software development processes used for conventional systems to date need to be adapted to these new conditions. This includes the introduction of new activities to the development process and the removal of others. In addition, the roles involved in the development process, their tasks, qualifications and the software tools used by them, are different to other processes. An adapted process must cope with important idiosyncrasies of EC system development: EC systems typically have a high degree of interaction, which makes factors like ergonomics, didactics and psychology especially important in the development of user interfaces. Typically, they also have a high degree of integration with existing software systems such as legacy or groupware systems. Integration techniques have to be selected systematically in order not to endanger the whole software development process. Furthermore, the approach to the development of EC systems should take into account the "timeto-market" factor and allow development time reduction while retaining quality. This paper introduces and describes an adapted software development process for EC systems and its special features using the development of an EC portal system as an example. .

Management Information Systems Quarterly, 2010

This special theme of Electronic Markets focuses on research concerned with the use of social tec... more This special theme of Electronic Markets focuses on research concerned with the use of social technologies and “2.0” principles in the interaction between organization (i.e., with “inter-organizational systems [IOS] 2.0"). This theme falls within the larger space of Enterprise 2.0 research, but focuses particular on inter-organizational use (between enterprises), not intra-organizational use (in a single enterprise). While there is great interest in practice regarding the use of 2.0 technologies to support intra-organizational communication, collaboration and interaction, information systems (IS) research has largely oblivious to this important use of social technologies.

As "the most international company on earth," DHL Express promised to deliver packages between al... more As "the most international company on earth," DHL Express promised to deliver packages between almost any pair of countries within a defined time-frame. To fulfill this promise, the company had introduced a set of global business and technology standards. While standardization had many advantages (improving service for multinational customers, faster response to changes in import/export regulations, sharing of best practices, etc.

Für viele Unternehmen ist Informationsverarbeitung (IV) nicht mehr nur ein Kostenfaktor, sondern ... more Für viele Unternehmen ist Informationsverarbeitung (IV) nicht mehr nur ein Kostenfaktor, sondern von strategischer Bedeutung. Dementsprechend findet sich die strategische IV-Planung seit geraumer Zeit auf den vordersten Plätzen der Managementagenda. Bisher lag der Fokus der Forschungsarbeiten allerdings auf dem Planungsprozess und nicht auf den Inhalten des Planungsergebnisses, der Informationsstrategie. In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht welche IV-bezogenen Entscheidungen von strategischer Relevanz für Unternehmen sind. Dabei werden die Argumente der Praktiker mit theoretischen Ansätzen kombiniert um zu einem begründeten und praktisch relevanten Vorschlag für die Inhalte von Informationsstrategien zu kommen.

System Sciences, 2009. HICSS'09. 42nd Hawaii …, 2009

... Interdependence: systems heavily connected to each other (interfaced or "wired"/&qu... more ... Interdependence: systems heavily connected to each other (interfaced or "wired"/"cobbled together ... of IT complexity leads to higher impact (eg higher level of interdependency of applications ... eg applications covering more products also exhibit a higher level of interdependence).. ...

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) has been among the highest ranked issues on managem... more Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) has been among the highest ranked issues on management agendas for many years. As such, SISP should be a major concern for researchers as well. However, SISP does not play that important of a role in the academic discussion, at least in Germany. Leading German textbooks on Information Management devote only small sections to strategy

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Information Technology (IT) strategy is a top-priority issue in practice. However, despite its pr... more Information Technology (IT) strategy is a top-priority issue in practice. However, despite its practical relevance, research on IT strategy has been limited so far. With respect to the definition of an IT strategy and its scope, there are a number of ad hoc recommendations and a few conceptual models with little scientific backing. In particular, latest research indicates a gap between the academic discussion on IT strategy and how IT strategy is perceived in practice. Taking this as a motivation, our research sets out to uncover in more detail the concerns and the notions of IT strategy prevalent in practice.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

The core purpose of strategic information planning (SIP) lies in identifying future directions fo... more The core purpose of strategic information planning (SIP) lies in identifying future directions for investments in information technology, information systems and information supply that will assist an organisation to realise its business goals. SIP is a critical challenge and major concern to both academics and practitioners, in particular consultants. While the latter have proposed a number of formal methodologies and principles of good practice, these are normative recommendations that are hardly justified through theoretical insight. In fact, SIP is yet to be well understood theoretically and requires more empirical support. This motivated us to carry out an in depth case study on SIP in a financial service company. The study aimed at improving the SIP practices in place and was conducted in an action research-like manner. This research report at hand presents the results of the study. We firstly describe the enterprise, its situation and the SIP practices in place. We then refle...

MIS Quarterly

Information systems strategy is of central importance to IS practice and research. Our extensive ... more Information systems strategy is of central importance to IS practice and research. Our extensive review of the literature suggests that the concept of IS strategy is a term that is used readily; however, it is also a term that is not fully understood. In this study, we follow a perspective paradigm based on the strategic management literature to define IS strategy as an organizational perspective on the investment in, deployment, use, and management of IS. Through a systematic literature search, we identify the following three conceptions of IS strategy employed implicitly in 48 articles published in leading IS journals that focus on the construct of IS strategy: (1) IS strategy as the use of IS to support business strategy; (2) IS strategy as the master plan of the IS function; and (3) IS strategy as the shared view of the IS role within the organization. We find the third conception best fits our definition of IS strategy. As such, we consequently propose to operationalize IS stra...

Strategic information planning is an important topic in practice as well as in research. Work so ... more Strategic information planning is an important topic in practice as well as in research. Work so far has focused mainly on the planning process itself rather than on the actual information strategy as its output. The paper points out different approaches to substantiating the concept of information strategy with perhaps the most advanced approach being the system of plans approach. However, existing approaches are not satisfactory regarding their structure, completeness and rationales. We propose a more comprehensive model of information strategy that is argued to overcome the deficiencies of the existing approaches. Our model introduces the concepts of information infrastructure and information function. It helps to clarify ongoing discussions devoted to information strategy as a functional departmental strategy, to strategic alignment as well as to the role of the CIO and allows the integration of separate views on information strategy from different disciplines.

Originally started as a mono-line business focused purely on savings, by late 2012 ING Direct Spa... more Originally started as a mono-line business focused purely on savings, by late 2012 ING Direct Spain was well on its way to becoming a full-service bank. To achieve that goal, the direct bank had substantially increased its portfolio of products and channels over the years. ING Direct’s original business was built on providing “simple,” “transparent,” “good value for money” products to customers in an “easy to deal with” way at low cost supported by a direct model. In many ways, ING Direct Spain was still simpler than most banks. But with the growth in its product portfolio during the previous decade and the ambitious goal of becoming a full-service bank, increasing complexity seemed inevitable. ING Direct Spain was finding that it needed to decide which complexity was creating value for its customers and which wasn’t. This case study describes how ING Direct Spain addresses the challenges of a growing company whose pronounced aim it is to provide customers with simple banking services.

Businesses continue to grow more complex—they enter new geographies, introduce and integrate more... more Businesses continue to grow more complex—they enter new geographies, introduce and integrate more products, add more granular customer segments, etc. Some of this complexity adds value. But some of it ends up confusing customers or distracting managers and employees. In order to assess whether a business' complexity is creating or destroying value, managers need to answer two questions: (1) how much does it benefit customers, and (2) how much more difficult does it make getting things done internally. Using Bayer Material Science, DBS Bank, USAA, and ING Direct Spain as examples, this briefing introduces three practices that help assess and manage business complexity.

Since its founding in 1922, financial service provider USAA has grown its product portfolio from ... more Since its founding in 1922, financial service provider USAA has grown its product portfolio from auto insurance to over one hundred P&C insurance, banking, life insurance, and investment management products. More recently, USAA has also created connections between different products by linking them in integrated services addressing life events. Life events like buying a car or house—or getting married—involve multiple products such as loans and insurance. Introduced in 2010, one of the company’s first integrated services targeted the car buying life event, allowing members to select, buy (at a pre-negotiated price), finance, and insure a car in one seamless process. This case study describes the motivation for and challenge of providing financial products in a more integrated way, as well as how USAA worked towards making this integration a success. USAA found that making its members' lives simpler involved making its own organizational life more complex.

MIT Sloan Management Review

As businesses grow and diversify, they almost inevitably make their range of offerings more compl... more As businesses grow and diversify, they almost inevitably make their range of offerings more complex. Complexity brings costs — but smart use of today’s digital technologies can help companies finesse the trade-offs between complexity’s costs and benefits.

European Journal of Information Systems, 2013

ABSTRACT Despite significant research progress, alignment-related issues are among the top concer... more ABSTRACT Despite significant research progress, alignment-related issues are among the top concerns of executives. Previous studies mostly focus on a company-wide strategic level of alignment; while this 'top-down' view has benefits, it largely ignores the operational practices that help achieve alignment in IT projects as well as the impact that timing and complennentarity of practices have on achieving alignment. In our research we apply four alignment practices communication, shared understanding, management commitment and IT investment evaluation to individual IT projects rather than at a company level; specifically, we look at the role of timing and complementarity for these alignment practices throughout different project phases. A detailed analysis of six IT projects carried out at three companies in the telecommunications industry reveals that IT projects creating higher business value employ all four alignment practices immediately from the start. No project was able to recover from failing to establish these four alignment practices in the first phase. While supporting the importance of complementarity of alignment practices, our findings also add the importance of the earliness of this complennentarity.

… on Tools Pacific: Objects for internet, …, 2002

The development of electronic commerce (EC) systems is subject to different conditions than that ... more The development of electronic commerce (EC) systems is subject to different conditions than that of conventional software systems. Consequently, software development processes used for conventional systems to date need to be adapted to these new conditions. This includes the introduction of new activities to the development process and the removal of others. In addition, the roles involved in the development process, their tasks, qualifications and the software tools used by them, are different to other processes. An adapted process must cope with important idiosyncrasies of EC system development: EC systems typically have a high degree of interaction, which makes factors like ergonomics, didactics and psychology especially important in the development of user interfaces. Typically, they also have a high degree of integration with existing software systems such as legacy or groupware systems. Integration techniques have to be selected systematically in order not to endanger the whole software development process. Furthermore, the approach to the development of EC systems should take into account the "timeto-market" factor and allow development time reduction while retaining quality. This paper introduces and describes an adapted software development process for EC systems and its special features using the development of an EC portal system as an example. .

Management Information Systems Quarterly, 2010

This special theme of Electronic Markets focuses on research concerned with the use of social tec... more This special theme of Electronic Markets focuses on research concerned with the use of social technologies and “2.0” principles in the interaction between organization (i.e., with “inter-organizational systems [IOS] 2.0"). This theme falls within the larger space of Enterprise 2.0 research, but focuses particular on inter-organizational use (between enterprises), not intra-organizational use (in a single enterprise). While there is great interest in practice regarding the use of 2.0 technologies to support intra-organizational communication, collaboration and interaction, information systems (IS) research has largely oblivious to this important use of social technologies.