Diplomová práce se zabývá channel marketingovou strategií společnosti ASUS, předního výrobce notebooků. Channel marketing se zabývá distribucí produktu od výrobce ke konečnému zákazníkovi, resp. motivací a podporou prodeje distribučních mezičlánků. Na základně podrobné analýzy IT trhu, distribučních kanálů, spotřebitelů a konkurence a na základě analýzy současného systému channel marketingu společnosti ASUS, je připraven nový návrh channel marketingové strategie.

The theoretical part of the thesis analyzes several selected methodologies and best-practices related to information technology risks management, with focus on documents and guidance developed by ISACA. It builds a set of ideas and basic requirements for effective model of an IT risk register. Strong emphasis is placed on mapping CobiT 4.1 based Risk IT to COBIT 5. The practical part describes implementation of an exploratory web-based IT risk register in Python programming language utilizing the Django framework and employs concepts from the analysis.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the role of IT specialists in systems integration during M&A processes including the issues faced during the process and provide suggestions based on experience from top management staff and IT specialists about improving the merger-IT integration process. Methods: In-depth interviews with open-ended questions were conducted on ten individuals belonging to the senior management of the companies under the study. The collected data were transcribed and analyzed and coded using qualitative thematic analysis to derive categories and themes. Results: The analysis resulted in 5 themes and 14 categories from a total of 39 codes. The analysis revealed the implications of "Underestimating the importance of IT" and analyzed the "Preferred IT integration approach" methods followed by the participants. The coded data also revealed the "Perception of management toward including IT and IT experts" and the “Issues faced in the M&A process due to the delay/non-involvement of IT experts". The results of the analysis conclude with the "Perceptions of managers toward the timing of IT integration" and suggestions from the participants based on their experiences. Conclusion: The five themes obtained from the qualitative thematic analysis from the interviews of ten participants suggest that IT and IT specialists were a necessary and core function of the M&A process. The analysis also recommends senior management responsible for the merger or acquisition engage IT, specialists, during the early stages of the process to enable better IT integration and follow a centralized approach towards merging the IT systems.

Purpose – Motivated by the increasing role of information technology (IT) in today’s organizations, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between business and IT executives in order to improve the organizational performance of the different aspects of IT technology and related systems. In the process, special attention is given to drivers which facilitate the cooperation between the parties involved. Design/methodology/approach – This survey-based research utilizes structural equation modeling methodology to uncover the relevant variables pertaining to the promotion of a positive social and strategic context needed to increase the effectiveness of organizational IT facets. Findings – The effectiveness of IT in modern organizations is contingent on a social alignment, business – IT alignment, strategic consistency, and common vision among the people who manage the IT function and those who need the organization. Research limitations/implications – This study is based on a sample of Portuguese manufacturing organizations. Therefore, findings and conclusions should be interpreted accordingly. In this context, future research in other organizational cultural settings is called for in order to refine and validate the results of this study. Practical implications – The role of establishing an organizational culture which stresses the common goal and mutual trust and cooperation in creating effective IT organizational utilization is underscored. As such, business executives are encouraged to exercise their leadership skills in order to create an organizational strategy which aligns IT capabilities and investments with the competitive strategy of the organization. In this context, creating an organizational culture which promotes business – IT alignment in a healthy social context is necessary. Originality/value – The issues and concerns addressed in this study should bridge the gap between business and IT executives. In the process, this study facilitates and encourages the effective utilization of the different facets of IT technology as they better serve the people of the organization. This advances the cost and practice of the strategic organizational role of IT investments.

The failure rate of new government information technology (IT) projects in developing countries is high, with 35% classified as total failures and approximately 50% as partial failures. The population for this study was 10 senior managers of a public sector organization in Uganda selected because of high IT project successes achieved through leveraging IT return on investment (ROI) reports. The purpose of this qualitative single-case study was to explore the strategies Ugandan senior public sector officials used to leverage IT ROI reports during planning, budgeting, and implementation of IT projects to reduce failure rates. The conceptual frameworks were the strategic IT alignment model and framework for success. Qualitative data were collected through face-to-face interviews and review of the organization performance reports. Member checking of interview and document review data were used to strengthen credibility of the findings. The following themes emerged: involve senior managers in IT ROI reporting; use previous IT performance reports during planning, budgeting, and implementation; empower project teams to undertake IT ROI performance assessment; ensure completeness of the IT ROI reports; ensure comprehensive monitoring and evaluation indicators for IT projects; ensure availability of periodic IT ROI reports; and implement a change management program. The findings may contribute to social change by providing key strategies senior public sector officials might leverage during planning, budgeting, and implementation of IT projects to reduce failures, lead to increased citizen access to e-government services, and promote transparent government.

The use of IT in companies is constantly expanding, and therefore, so is the energy consumption and carbon footprint from IT. If companies do not take steps towards more sustainable IT usage, the footprint will continue to expand, toxic metals will be used in hardware and the usage of world resources will not become more circular. Few studies are made regarding internal and external factors that affect the implementation of sustainable IT. Sustainability is seen as a “core IT objective” by 90% of European IT leaders. There is a knowledge gap concerning internal and external demands within sustainable IT, since no research studies have been found. The aim of this study is to understand what large companies in Sweden do to act more sustainably in their IT usage. What demands are put on suppliers to make more sustainable solutions and which demands are put on employees internally to make their IT usage more sustainable. The research question is: “What external sustainability demands do large companies put on their suppliers of IT systems and hardware, and what internal demands do the companies have on their own IT usage?”. This study will be carried out using survey as a research strategy. Data will be collected from semi-structured interviews with employees from nine different companies as well as the collection of internal documents and documents from the websites of the companies. The data analysis method used is thematic analysis. From the interviews with employees with high knowledge in the companies sustainable IT work, five themes with sixteen different demands were found. Five of the demands were identified as new that previous research has not addressed while the remaining eleven demands can be found in previous research. Some of the demands were repeated no matter how long the company have worked with sustainable IT, such as Recycling hardware, Increasing the life cycle, Involve employees in sustainable IT, Server location and Move to cloud computing. While other demands like System boundaries, Sustainable software development, and Sustainably developed software were more common among more mature companies within sustainable IT. This study found that the two most considerable demands are the external demand Hardware can be recycled and the internal demand Recycling hardware, which implies that circularity has become a more critical topic.

The Swedish government’s objective regarding information technology is to be world-leading in using the possibilities that digitization provides. In some aspects this has already been done, but in some areas much is yet to be accomplished. Although sports and recreational fitness activities are amongst the fastest growing areas of personal and consumer-oriented cloud computing-based technologies around the globe, there are areas within the genre that’s not evolving as quickly. In Sweden, football is the biggest sport but it lacks in the use of technology. Related research shows that usable technology exists, but the using of it is hampered by its accessibility. Meanwhile, Urban Computing is an growing, interdisciplinary field which pertains to the study and application of computing technology in urban areas. This made us raise the question whether the technology used in Urban Computing can influence the field of Sport-IT and provide valuable insight in designing the next generation football coaching tool. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the outcome of integrating IT-solutions from Urban Computing into environments suited for team sports and combining them with the individualized technologies that already exists in Sport-IT. We also explore what technology requirements football coaches have and how the weather and the climate effects designing the next generation coaching tool. The result of the study indicates that the needs of football coaches, as of today, is not met and that Urban Computing very well may influence the development of the next generation coaching tool.

The increasing administration in IT-systems is the target of much debate today. It is viewed as taking time from what is considered to be managers’ real tasks as well as resulting in an ineffective and stressful work environment. This view of IT-systems as problematic and time consuming can also been found among unit managers in a municipality in the north of Sweden. To be able to understand why IT-systems are perceived in this way this study’s aim has been to find what leads to this view. The results we have found is that what is usually considered a problem which presents the use of IT-systems as a given solution to why administration is problematic, is a complex problem with many involved factors. Some of these factors are presented in this study and we find that there is a need for further studies in each of these to fully understand the situation. We argue that to only see IT-systems as the problem is to reduce a very difficult and multifaceted situation into something that only scratches the surface of the problem.

I den här uppsatsen har värdeskapande genom IT-investeringar inom en organisation studerats för att hitta vad som styr värdeskapandet samt hur värdet formas. Inledningsvis utfördes en kvantitativ studie för att urskilja företag med tydliga IT-investeringstrender i Sverige. Utifrån detta gjordes sedan en kvalitativ studie genom en djupgående undersökning av tre svenska företag som verkar inom branscherna livsmedel, bank och tillverkning för att kunna göra intressanta jämförelser. Syftet har varit att finna hur värdeskapande med hjälp av IT fungerar genom att granska strategiarbetet och dess utmaningar. Ytterligare ett syfte var att studera vad för slags värden olika IT-investeringar skapar. Genom de studier som har gjorts har vissa trender uppvisats, främst att IT är av stor betydelse för alla tre bolagen. Detta syns både i ökade resurser samt ett ökat intresse genom hela organisationen för IT:s värde. Resultatet tyder på att det tydligaste och främsta värdet som IT medför är kostnadseffektivisering samt kontroll av interna processer. Ett mindre, men växande värde är intäktsökning genom innovationsrika IT-investeringar. Integration av IT- och affärsstrategier är av betydelse för att få ut ett högre affärsvärde av IT-investeringar.

Over the past few years information technology (IT) and business alignment has become a great concern to organizations. To achieve alignment has become a daunting task for organizations due to rapid changes in business environment and lack of IT support. In business organizations business processes and IT are interrelated and interact with each other where one entity influences to another entity i.e. evolution in business processes requires evolution in IT and vice versa. When this co-evolution is not well aligned, a gap is created due to wrong configuration between business requirements and IT deployment. Organizations usually strive to bridge the gap by implementing business and IT strategies (i.e. top-down planning) and tend to ignore other aspects of the co-evolution. Alignment is a continuous co-evolutionary process in which all components of business and IT are interrelated and enhance organization performance. The co-evolution between business and IT is not restricted to a level but it occurs at all levels and therefore, it is necessary to understand and study co-evolution at all levels within organizations. This thesis presents a co-evolutionary framework that helps to study and understand the co-evolution at three levels i.e. strategic level, operational level and individual level in an integrated fashion. The three levels need to co-evolve so that all components at each level co-evolve. This framework will speed up the alignment in organizations. We argue that the lack of knowledge of business among IT people and IT knowledge among business executives may cause the gap; therefore, a need arises to have a knowledgeable mediator between the domains that could help in the co-evolution. A K-mediator (i.e. knowledge mediator) has been used in the proposed co-evolutionary framework that facilitates the co-evolution at each level. Finally the thesis presents a case study in financial domain in order to evaluate and validate the framework.