Digital Transformation Project – Albert Heijn – Team 31

14

October

2016

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PROJECT – ALBERT HEIJN

TEAM 31

Albert Heijn is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, possessing a market share of 34.1% throughout the entire Dutch retail industry. The AH supermarkets feature 951 stores all around the Netherlands. Also, Albert Heijn operates convenience stores located in various nodes of public transport, like train stations. Albert Heijn supermarkets are operated by the Albert Heijn Holding, shortened into Ahold. The focus of the firm is to offer supermarkets offering high quality service and high quality products.

However, despite the successful operations of Albert Heijn, the supermarket chain has the potential to further enhance its market share and additionally improve customer experience and satisfaction. This can be achieved through a company-wide digital transformation strategy by further investments in information systems and digital apps ultimately improving the overall in-store customer service of Albert Heijn.

This Digital Transformation Project will address the limitations of the current systems and give opportunities to enhance the level of customer service in different ways. The DTP will be an instore device for customer service in the form of a touch screen with various features. It will contain features for the customers as well as for Albert Heijn itself.

Starting with the customer part, one of the potential features will be a search function for products. The customer has the opportunity to enter the name or the category of a product and the device will provide various characteristics and information about the product. The device shall indicate the location of the searched product in the store, the device shall also indicate the fastest route to get there. Another indication the customer shall see is about out of stock products. The device will show three categories: out of stock, almost out of stock and stuffed. The category almost out of stock is added to avoid disappointments. In case of an almost out of stock or an out of stock the device shall indicate some alternative products which may replace the requested product.

Another feature is the integration of the recipe service of Albert Heijn. Many customers use the recipes of Albert Heijn which are provided through the website, application or Allerhande, the magazine of Albert Heijn. The customers get the opportunity to search for recipes on the device and get all up to date information about all ingredients, from location till any out of stock cases. In case of an out of stock product the device shall give some alternative products or additions to the recipe.

For Albert Heijn the devices can provide many useful insights. The search terms employed by users can offer insights the customers’ point of view. When many customers enter the same products and they get the reaction (almost) out of stock, this is an indication for Albert Heijn to change the way they manage their supplies and products offered on the shelves.. When many customers use the search function for the recipes and the in-store search for all required ingredients is difficult, Albert Heijn can think about changing the locations of the products. All these insights will lead to a better understanding of the customer demand and will give Albert Heijn the opportunity to adjust the store layout to demand and preferences of their customers.

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Author: Anargyros Berdekas

STUDENT NUMBER = 461472 (email= 461472ab@eur.nl) Erasmus University Rotterdam / Rotterdam School of Management / M.Sc. in Business Information Management

Android now available on laptops, too!

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October

2016

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Android now available on laptops, too.

author: Anargyros Berdekas / student number: 461472 / email: 461472ab@eur.nl

Since its launch in 2008, Android has been focused on delivering a novel operating system designed with mobile devices in mind. However, the rapid growth in its popularity and the corresponding increase of apps available for Android have made a large portion of users willing to use Android both on their smart-phones but also on their computers (laptops and desktops). However, Google even until 2016, has consistently retained Android’s exclusive focus on smart-phones, without managing thus far to fully address users’ demand for Android on Laptops and Desktops with the ChromeOS operating system. However, the exclusive nature of the availability of Android on smart-phones is gradually being eroded, thanks to the effort of independent software developers in China.

One of the most promising projects attempting to make Android available on laptops and desktops is called “Android x86”. The name of the project makes reference to the CPU architecture prevalent in modern laptops and desktops, frequently referred to as “x86”, in contrast to the mobile devices architecture, usually referred to as “ARM”. The “Android x86” developers state the project’s intentions in a strict, technical language. The overall project is described as an effort to “port Android” from the ARM architecture to x86. This, although a rigorous and perhaps hard-to-comprehend language for the average user, hits the problem of availability of Android at the most crucial point: Android is impossible to simply install out-of-the-box on laptops and desktops because these computers use mainly the x86-64 (colloquially called “x64”) or x86-32 (colloquially called “x32”) CPU architecture, while mobile devices usually are based on the ARM-64 or ARM-32 architecture, produced by the firm ARM. The demand of computer users for a version of Android available on their non-hand-held devices (like laptops) is so massive, that Android x86 has become one of the most downloaded projects on sourceforge.net, a popular website for open-source software hosting (link to Android x86 on sourceforge.net: https://sourceforge.net/projects/android-x86/?source=directory). Moreover, the projects boast a remarkably good rating by users usually fluctuating between 4.5 /5 to 5/5 on sourceforge and other popular hosting websites like fosshub.com (link to Android x86 on fosshub: https://www.fosshub.com/Android-x86.html). As of October 2016, on sourceforge.net the project exceeds 25000 weekly downloads and on fosshub it has gathered more than 1,5 million downloads thus far. Android x86 is a free and open-source project, thus can be downloaded and installed by any user for free.

Another similar effort to bring Android on laptops and desktop computers is “Remix OS”. This is a version of Android x86 produced by the Chinese firm Jide Technology, with collaboration from a portion of the developers from the original Android x86 project. However, it should be noted that Remix OS, in contrast to Android x86, is not an open source project. Still, it is a free operating system that can be downloaded legally and installed by each user for free, yet offers no access to the source code of the operating system. Moreover, Remix OS attempts to offer an out-of-the-box experience targeting not just experienced users but also the mainstream, average user. The project is available both for computers, but interestingly makes a step closer to its ARM origins by offering its own compatibility for ARM like the original Android produced by Google. This project is accessible online at the firm’s website (www.jide.com/en/remixos). Favourable reviews and ratings have been given to Remix OS, in the same fashion that Android x86 has received favourable reviews. Notable among the prestigious computer magazines and websites rating Remix OS is the “The Verge” (www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11092128/remix-os-android-desktop-mwc-2016) and the “Digital Trends” (http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/remix-os-hands-on/). Both reviews rate Remix OS very positively, indeed making the claim that it surpasses in maturity even Google’s own ChromeOS.

Overall, both “Android x86” and “Remix OS” seem to spearhead the response to a new trend among computer users: The growing desire to have accessibility to plentiful apps and features for free, in the context of an integrated computer experience across hand-held and traditional computer devices. And judging from the remarkable popularity of both projects on their hosted websites, this new trend might be a catalyst of sweeping changes in the way operating systems are marketed for the laptop and desktop market, moving away from a paid-for model towards a free (and possibly open-source model) in the near future, exactly as recently happened with Microsoft’s free offer of Windows 10.

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Author: Anargyros Berdekas

STUDENT NUMBER = 461472 (email= 461472ab@eur.nl) Erasmus University Rotterdam / Rotterdam School of Management / M.Sc. in Business Information Management

Technology of the Week – Information Goods and the Newspaper Industry

23

September

2016

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newspapers

TEAM 31

Information Goods are all goods deriving their value from the information they contain. An interesting topic in the context of information goods is the newspaper industry. The growth of Digital Media makes access to Information Goods, including News, easy and frequently free. Thus, newspaper companies explore new business models, built around their Internet websites.

The first Business Model is the Premium Subscription. One of the business leaders in the Premium Pricing Model is the Times. The Times is a leading News provider. However, only a very small part of every article is visible online without a paid for subscription. The main part of each article is protected by a Pay Wall, allowing only two articles per week for the free subscription. A Pay Wall is an internet technology restricting access to online content only to Premium Subscribers.

The Freemium strategy allows access to part of the content for free, yet restricting other parts behind a paywall. This strategy is currently used by Wall Street Journal. Usually, older news items are available for free online. However, breaking news require a paid for subscription. Moreover, the basic functionality of financial tables or charts is provided for free. However, important tools are restricted to premium subscribers.

Another popular business model is providing free access to the full continent with revenue made by hosting ads on the newspaper webpage. The Guardian is currently utilizing this model. The full content of the newspaper is available online, for free. Yet, carefully placed advertising is hosted on the newspaper website, allowing for the collection of crucial revenue.

All three newspapers practice versioning by offering the print, digital and combined version. Also, they all practice Pricing Discrimination by offering special lower prices exclusively for students. The Times conducts bundling through organizing different content and features into distinctive bundles like Classic or Ultimate Pack. The Wall street Journal differentiates versioning by making special regional versions available to customers, like European or American.

To compare these different business models, we visualize the Porter Five Forces model for each of these companies. The Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian are all well established brands and experience considerably low bargaining power of suppliers and customers. However, due to the rapid growth of Internet, they face considerable threat of new entrants and substitutes. Also, there is is intense competition in the industry as all players are fiercely competing with each.

If we look at particular strengths, all three newspapers enjoy high internet visibility, customer loyalty and brand recognition. Yet, all are threatened by the increasingly high quality offered by emerging free access news websites. Also, the Guardian model is threatened by the popularity of ad blocking software, which makes clear a weakness of the model: the exclusivity of ads as revenue source.

Overall, these business models face the imminent need to rapidly adapt to the new Information Goods landscape dominated by Social Media and Networks. Otherwise, their potential to sustain the newspapers employing them will diminish and will become obsolete.

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Author: Anargyros Berdekas

STUDENT NUMBER = 461472 (email= 461472ab@eur.nl) Erasmus University Rotterdam / Rotterdam School of Management / M.Sc. in Business Information Management

Information Science revolutionizes Genetics

23

September

2016

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Information Science revolutionizes Genetics

Anargyros Berdekas – Student Number 461472 – aberdekas1993@gmail.com

Information Science has delivered explosive advances in all of human life with its world-changing contributions to the emergence of new technologies. Now, Information Science proves once more its scientific vitality and intellectual vigour, by spearheading a revolution in Genetic Engineering.

As it frequently is the case, Medicine requested the contribution of Information Science as a scientific equivalent of a last-minute firefighter: After many years of lingering problems in genetic manipulation techniques and growing regulatory and political threats, the entire field of genetic engineering was threatened with a dead end. First, the growing tide of demagoguery and political extremism against Genetically Modified Organisms created severe political problems hampering the advancement of Genetics. Second, the intrusive and aggressive nature of many scientific tools employed in DNA engineering was creating gradually increasing concerns inside the scientific community in terms of the unintended fallout that such methods might have. Yet, the problems confronted by genetic engineering became even worse, when socio-political actors and groups of scientists started targeting and boycotting corporations and institutions associated with GMO research and commercialization. These corporations provide the lion’s share of Research and Development funding for genetic engineering, thus making the commercial boycotts of such firms an existential threat against many scientific institutions depending on the private sector for life-sustaining financing.

However, Information Science in the last year has produced novel genetic engineering techniques and innovative DNA manipulation instruments promising to break the deadlock reached by Genetics and revolutionize the entire scientific field. The joint effort of biologists, computer scientists and electrical engineers working in commercial and non-profit institutions in China and the United States has yielded CRISPR. This is an effective, easy-to-perform and highly-controllable genetic manipulation method allowing for a well-targeted intervention in the DNA of organisms that researchers desire to modify. Moreover, CRISPR facilitates the option for genetic engineering to alter certain parts of an organism’s DNA without the distortions caused on DNA by the procedures traditional manipulation methods. Indeed, this new technique offers such a non-intrusive and effective procedure for Genetics that the United States regulatory bodies do not require organisms processed with CRISPR to conform to the regulations demanded of traditional GMOs. What’s more, despite the very young age of CRISPR as a technology, already corporations and research institutes are benefiting from the immense potential of CRISPR by producing with much lower cost than before organisms with genetic properties almost impossible to achieve with the older genetic engineering tools, due to their difficulty and high costs. Specifically, in the United Kingdom plants have been successfully modified in a manner making them more resistant against harmful diseases and insects.. Also, American scientists have managed to utilize CRISPR in order to genetically edit many commercially popular products like soybeans and produce new varieties of them with properties allowing for their easier production by farmers and major savings in water consumption during the farming process. In China, similarly novel products have been produced, catering for more accessible food by the populations in the provinces along the Russian-Chinese border.

Yet, despite these major innovations and cost-savings CRISPR offers, political factors emerge again as a threat. The European Union, traditionally over-zealous to regulate – and frequently ban – the commercial products of Genetic Engineering, has already initiated a revision of its previous regulatory framework in order to enforce restricting regulations on CRISPR and its gene-editing innovations. However, more positive signs are emitted by the regulatory bodies of the United States and China, where commercial products based on CRISPR-edited organisms have been allowed to enter the market without needing to meet the regulations imposed on traditional GMOs. Thus, Information Science, through CRISPR, offers a serious window of hope to Genetics, as a science and as a business, to acquire new momentum and deliver world-changing innovations and products.

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Author: Anargyros Berdekas

STUDENT NUMBER = 461472 (email= 461472ab@eur.nl) Erasmus University Rotterdam / Rotterdam School of Management / M.Sc. in Business Information Management