This project paper completely deals with the business value of computing aspects and this can be considered as one of the burning topics across the business world. Author has considered Ubiquitous computing as the core business attribute to discuss this paper and referred many articles and references to gather the information. With the introduction of ubiquitous computing, there were many changes in the business world in terms of digital computing and its latest trends. Information technology has improved a lot with these digital trends and ubiquitous computing and changed the flow of business in the market and these trends are offering lot of improvements and opportunities across an organization. Companies are achieving competitive advantages with the implementation of these latest IT trends across the competitors. To update their information, organizations are using these trends across their CRM and supply chain management and with the increase of IT trends, organizations are posting their core values across the markets in a much sophisticated manner.
The main project dissertation research problem considered by author is the impact of Ubiquitous computing in u-business terms and what are the important factors that need to be considered while talking about ubiquitous computing and how they affect the core value of computing in terms if u-business. System quality, information and service quality are considered as the important factors in this research and the role of these factors are considered through out the discussion. Business value, customers, and services are considered in terms of u-business. Below is the architecture of the research model considered by the author
This model can be considered as the perfect one to make the research on ubiquitous computing aspects. The basic research problem identified by author is perfectly fit in this context as these are important business and technical aspects across the digital computing today. In terms of system quality, design of ubiquitous computing is more complex and advanced when compared with the traditional systems. In general, traditional computers support or server a maximum of two or more users, where ubiquitous computing can support large set of users at a single point of time with a rich user interface that was built in these systems and process many number of queries at a single point of time. Both the hardware and software enhancements of these systems make the users to use the system in a secure and stable manner as discussed by the author. Small components and nodes are connected across these ubiquitous systems and perfect design will help in integrating all the nodes considered at a single platform and make most usage of these systems. Ubiquitous provides better solutions in an environment where the cause of error and faults should be negligible and better optimized performance is required. Compos ability verification is one the advanced features provided by these digital systems, where each and every node is verified before they are integrated across the ubiquitous design proposed.
Information quality factor consider by author is another important aspect that make ubiquitous computing different from the other latest trends in digital computing. Information provided by these systems is exposed through out its technical life and changes as per the dynamic updates in terms of security and quality. As per the changing security and privacy policies of information, ubiquitous design ensures the data exposure in terms of data objects to the valid users and the changes are dynamically reflected across these data objects and ensure the accessibility and validity of the data as per author in this discussion. In terms of business, information provided by ubiquitous computing helps in gathering the customer information and tracking them.
Perfect study of customers and better marketing strategies can be implemented with the help of exposed information provided by these systems and in this perspective I can say that author has considered a good factor in explaining the research. Customers information include few aspects like, customers purchasing habits, their purchase history and based on this information, the actual customers can be identified and the relevant services can be offered to them by the organizations. Even customers can use the data objects provided by these systems to know the exact price of a good and how many people are using the same product and the corresponding price spent by them [3]. Customer data can be in terms of historical, personal and location based and this data can be used by sellers to introduce new offers across their organizations that can attract the customers personally.
Service quality of ubiquitous computing can be defined in terms of technical and behavioral aspects. SERVQUAL is the important tool identified by many organizations in measuring the service quality and this mainly concentrates on the gap in the customer expectations and the actual services provided by the organizations to meet these expectations. Service quality can be evaluated in terms of the following aspects
- Tangibility, which refers to the physical assets and equipments as per the customer needs
- Reliability, which refers to the ability to meet the customer expectations
- Responsibility, refers to the level of responsibility taken by organizations to satisfy the customer needs
- Assurance, refers to the level of confidence and promise given by organizations to the customers in terms of their services
- Empathy, which refers to the personal attention provided by the organizations towards the customers
Customer value in terms of ubiquitous computing can be better explained in terms of shopping. Author has considered customer value in terms of u-business and to support his argument, I would like to evaluate the important aspects of customer supports that can be achieved with the help of ubiquitous systems across the shopping systems. Retail stores can be considered as the best source of customer data in terms of customer value. Information regarding the customer driven services can be in terms of health and food safety, environmental and ethical issues implemented by the organizations and the benefits achieved across the customer value.
A typical super market can be equipped with ubiquitous computing techniques, where it can integrate all the customer databases and get in touch as per the customer needs and satisfaction factors. Consumer associations can be implemented in a better way with the ubiquitous design implemented, where the in-store information can be integrated with the consumer data and thus sellers can upgrade themselves with the latest and exposed consumer data objects technically. Customers are provided access to the latest products information across the super markets and also they can associate with the consumer databases to know the purchasing behavior of other consumers across the same supermarket. Distributors can also provide their in-store information to the customers with the basic infrastructure available with them and thus creating a trust based environment with the customers and sellers.
Another important aspect considered by author is, creating the business value using ubiquitous computing. Ubiquitous computing is creating a lot business opportunities across the market. Human needs can be perfectly anticipated with these systems, where the exact behavior and activities of customers can be analyzed based on their data. Modeling the user behavior helps in creating lot of new business opportunities. Internet aware computing helps in identifying the perfect human needs and their final goal in terms of organizational business value.
Few important business aspects like how users behaving across the companies’ products and best recommendations and feedbacks can be evaluated with the data provided by these systems. Consumer activities can be tracked with the sensors provided by Ubiquitous design and this information is shared with the vendors and thus, these vendors can use this information to improve their business opportunities. Information sharing based on internet helps in collaborating new business opportunities, where the information is gathered from different physical and virtual objects. Below figure is an example, how the ubiquitous information is used to create new business opportunities .
Business process value provided by Ubiquitous computing discussed by author plays a very important role in the factors affecting the u-business in terms of both technology and business. When compared to internet, ubiquitous computing provides much safety and quality in terms of security across the large enterprise business applications. Automatic inventory system is one of the examples that can be considered while discussing the process value of business in terms of ubiquitous computing. There are three important ubicomp technologies that have a major role to play in terms of business process and they are Localization,
Sensor technology and Automatic identification. Automatic identification can be used in identifying the products and delivery units. Barcodes, smart cards and RFID are few examples of these automatic identification systems. Localization can be implemented with integrating the technology with automatic identification and thus improving the process to gather the local information based on the location considered. Most of the business problems can be solved with these techniques and as an example, all the business organizations are looking forward for latest innovative techniques. Inefficient information flows are responsible for the business failures and they can be perfectly rectified with the help of proper implementation of Ubiquitous computing design.
Theoretical background given by author mainly focus on Information systems and their evaluation. Author has covered all the factors that affect the IS and the major security and performance issues of IS and has mapped the success factors of IS to the IT industry in terms of business and them evaluated the emerging technologies like ubiquitous computing. As per authors view, ubiquitous computing is an emerging technology of IS, where different people can connect over these computing techniques and share the data and knowledge by connecting to the network from any where across the world. As per Mark Weiser, Ubiquitous computing can be considered as the third generation computing techniques, where the required computers nodes can be identified any where across the desired network. There are two previous generations of computing like Mainframes and PC’s and now the third generation has a lot of differences and the trends in these computing techniques.
There are several forms of computers that can support this ubiquitous computing technology like Tabs and PADS, where the main constrain in using these devices is about the power consumption and the size of the device. Another important aspect covered in this theoretical discussion by author is about the u-business values. Production and management process can be optimized with the introduction of U-business process with the implementation of information technology in terms of business and few processes like CRM, supply chain management, business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) can be automated with this business process.
Product development and distribution process can be automated with the introduction of u-business process. All the products and services can be created and distributed as per the consumer needs by the organization with the knowledge of shared data objects. Consumers can use the U-business process and values effectively with the intelligent components in the ubiquitous computers like the sensors and chips and make the users to use the system in a convenient way. RFID can be considered as an important component in ubiquitous computing and with the proper implementation of RFID technology across the production process; the production rate can be increased. Few factors like increasing the operation ratio, raw material utilization and decreasing the labor cost can be achieved with the RFID implementation.
Research methodology implemented by author to gather the information is an excellent contribution to this work. Five point scale survey is used to gather the information from different users and organizations that are using the ubiquitous computing technology. Interviews are conducted across 1550 people directly through the questioners prepared and also online interviews. Direct interviews and internet based interviews can be considered as the best option in gathering the information and thus I can say, author has taken good source to collect the relevant data. Interviewing the right people who are using the ubiquitous computing technology will always result in good results and thus author has succeeded in gathering almost 143 questioners were answered by the people who are using the RFID technology in their business process like production. PLS regression methods are used to test the data provided across different questioners and this can be considered as the best method adopted by author to test the reliability and validity of the data.
Author has implemented Hypothesis method to prove the assumed statements and developed 12 hypothesis and thus proved each and every hypothesis with the data evaluated from the PLS regression method. System stability and ability along with the information relevance is considered as the important factors in developing these hypothesis statements. Few industries like electric and electronics and distribution industries are considered to gather the information from these industry experts, where the maximum usage of ubiquitous computing is done.
The empirical results produced based on the investigation done by author shows the clear description of the usage of these systems. Research is done based on few factors like number of employees, their age and the corresponding annual turnover of the organizations. RFID based logistic management; car navigation and U-banking was the core competencies considered in this research. Survey is conducted based on few dimensions like System quality, information quality, service quality and u-business value, where the survey items include few questions like the easy of using them and the number of people accepting the hypothesis considered by the author. Demographic characteristics are presented in a tabular form with the appropriate percentage values. Following are the important demographic factors considered
- Industry area
- Number of employees
- Age and Gender
- Annual turnover
- Job position
As per the results it is clear that few factors like ease of use, stability, reliability, secrecy doesn’t play a great role in terms of Ubiquitous computing and this is as per the survey results. Customers, business and information quality has a greater influence with the implementation of Ubiquitous computing techniques. Based on the empirical results, following are the conclusions from author side and even I too agree with these results as per my research done
- System quality is directly proportional to the system accessibility. As per the confidence factor of 0.01 of empirical results, it is clear that greater system accessibility will lead to much usage of ubiquitous computing techniques.
- Information quality and timeliness has a positive affect on the ubiquitous computing, if the techniques are fixed to the timelines provided to the system
- Better service quality is directly proportional to the usage of ubiquitous computing. With the proper implementation of better software, hardware and networking solutions the usage of ubiquitous computing can be improved and vice versa
- Usage of ubiquitous computing will increase the customer base, business and process values as well and thus ubiquitous computing shows positive results towards the main customer and business values. Increase use of ubiquitous computing will also lead to improvement in sales, market base and also the typical customer base.
Based on the complete discussion of author, it is clear that Ubiquitous computing plays a very important role in enhancing the system quality, information quality and good customer and business values. Information management and business process management can be better achieved with the proper implementation of Ubiquitous computing techniques. Customer database can be easily shared among the service providers in terms of data objects and service providers can produce the goods and services as per the customer needs based on the historical purchase behaviors of respective customers and their personalized data.
When the factors considered to proceed with the research are compared, information quality is on the top of system and service quality and customer base has important role than the service provider’s base. Author has collected information from different resources to proceed with the research and even though there are few limitations while using the ubiquitous computing techniques that were not covered in the author’s discussion and few of them are discussed below