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Keynote speeches

Innovations Transforming e-Business

Liba Svobodova
IBM Research GmbH
Zurich Research Laboratory
CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
svo@zurich.ibm.com

Driven by business innovation, competitive pressures and technical feasibility, e-business has evolved from its early manifestations embracing the Internet to advanced models emphasizing flexibility and adaptability and enabling complex and dynamic value networks. New business services and service delivery models are emerging.
Software development supports these trends by shifting towards a flexible, standards-based, service-oriented solution assembly approach. Scientific and technological advancements in various disciplines such as speech technology, sensor networks, and exploitation of unstructured information are enabling new applications and services and increased productivity. Breakthroughs in algorithms combined with the availability of extensive data and computational power are dramatically increasing the capabilities of analytics and optimization tools to address complex business problems and interactions in the on demand world.
Where is further innovation needed? What kind of research is needed to establish the foundation for the future? What professional skills will be needed in the increasingly dynamic on demand business world?
While the paths of technological innovations resulting in hardware and software products and solutions are well established, more scientific rigor and interdisciplinary approach is needed to foster the transition of services into an innovative discipline, encompassing and combining business, technology, and organizational aspects (www.research.ibm.com/ssme).

Liba Svobodova was born in Prague, Czech Republic, where she studied electrical engineering at the Czech Technical University (CVUT). She received the MS (1970) and PhD (1974) degrees in EE/CS from Stanford University in California. She held faculty positions at the Columbia University in New York and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Laboratory for Computer Science, where she did pioneering work in the area of resilient distributed systems. In 1982, she joined the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. Over many years she managed research projects in the areas of computer networks and distributed systems, security, and network services and applications. Her current responsibilities focus on technical strategy and development of research directions, in particular in the Services area. She engages in the IBM Industry Solutions Lab (ISL) in Zurich, where customers and researchers come together to discuss emerging technologies and solutions and their potential impact on business. She is also responsible for University Relations programs at the IBM Zurich Research Lab.

SAP and the Age of Logistics
How to Meet Tomorrows Business Challenges [PDF]

Kurt Weiss
Betreuer Hochschulen
SAP (Schweiz) AG
Althardstrasse 80
CH-8105 Regensdorf
kurt.weiss@sap.com

We all have heard about the industrial revolution. Starting in 1750 with the invention of the steam engine, manual work was gradually replaced by machines. The consequences for industry and business were dramatic and partly painful. However, when it ended about 150 years later almost everybody in the industrial world was far better off.
Today things are happening again. This time mental work is replaced by machines. Not gradually but rapidly. The consequences for business are even more dramatic than they were 250 years ago. And they will continue to be dramatic, at an accelerated pace, during the next few years.
How to cope with the situation? One of the main challenges for most companies (and of course also for the public sector) will be to improve the efficiency and structure of their business processes. Streamlining logistics is the call of the day. Only if this is thoroughly pursued there will be room for profit with innovations. We are in the age of logistics.
SAP is fully prepared to meet this challenge. And, sure enough, everybody in a few years will be better off once more.

Kurt Weiss is a physicist (University of Zurich). He started his career as a scientist in basic research with Philips Research in Eindhoven (Netherlands) and as a guest professor at UC Los Angeles and the Johann-Wolfgang- Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (Germany). He then focused his interests on applied work. First as head of research at HILTI AG (Liechtenstein) and later as director at the ETH Lausanne for a Swiss-wide coordinated research effort in applied optics (IOT). Realizing an old dream he then served for five years as director of the Theater am Kirchplatz in Schaan before accepting from SAP (Switzerland) AG the responsibility to conceive and run SAPCollege (a new training program for SAP consultants). To day he runs for SAP a program to establish the art of mapping business processes onto software as a new academic discipline at the Swiss Higher Learning institutions. In addition he presents seminars about the ever more important necessity to think and act in processes and teaches MBA courses on Business, Vision, and Strategy.