Mary C. Lacity

While there are many books on blockchains, this guide focuses on blockchain applications for business. The target audience is business students, professionals, and managers who want to learn about the overall blockchain landscape -- the investments, the size of markets, major players and the global reach -- as well as the potential business value of blockchain applications and the challenges that must be overcome to achieve that value. We present use cases and derive action principles for building enterprise blockchain capabilities. Readers will learn enough about the underlying technologies to speak intelligently to technology experts in the space, as the guide also covers the blockchain protocols, code bases and provides a glossary of terms. We use this guide as the textbook for our undergraduate and graduate Blockchain Fundamentals course at the University of Arkansas. Other professors interested in adopting this guide for instructional purposes are welcome to contact the author for supporting instructional materials.

Robotic Process Automation will continue its exponential growth over the next five years. This book brings a new focus on RPA's strategic potential: the innovations made possible and how to deliver through effective sourcing stakeholder-buy-in, governance, change management, and capability development practices.

This pioneering guide offers the first comprehensive analysis to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) risks as actually experienced and dealt with by organizations. The authors present analysis and findings from a two-year study. As more organizations adopt RPA, they find that best practice companies are able to gain a 'triple win' from RPA: a win for shareholders, a win for customers, and a win for employees. But while such results are impressive, they are far from guaranteed. Service automation, like all organizational initiatives, is fraught with risks that need to be mitigated. The RPA risk mitigation framework reveals the significantRPA risks, and identifies 30 key risk mitigation practices that the research found to be successful. Whether an organization is just beginning its RPA journey or has reached maturity, this definitive guide serves as a key source of knowledge.

Since 2007, South Africa has been one of the world's upcoming Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) offshore destinations. This book is based on the authors' most recent research into high performance BPO globally and new research streams specifically on South Africa.

While China is known for its huge manufacturing base, in recent years the government has given high priority to science and technology services. This book provides an in-depth, contemporary view on where China is heading, how it is going to get there, and how companies and countries can engage with China's emerging outsourcing capabilities.

A close look at the main developments in IT, business processes and offshore outsourcing. This book studies these topics in both theory and practice, exploring the rising prominence of outsourcing with a multi-dimensional, contextual perspective.

A close look at the main developments in IT, business processes and offshore outsourcing. This book studies these topics in both theory and practice, exploring the rising prominence of outsourcing with a multi-dimensional, contextual perspective.

This study is based on research with 75 worldwide organizations including Dupont, British Aerospace and BP Exploration. Authors offer from the evidence gathered the best practice through this complex and ever-developing market.

This book provides a forum of current thinking by prominent scholars and practitioners from around the globe. Edited and with a lengthy introduction by two internationally recognised experts in this field, the book's coverage includes: Selective Outsourcing, Total Outsourcing, Total Insourcing, IT department as a trading agency, Offshore Development. Theoretical perspectives allow critical variables to be extracted in order to explain successful or unsuccessful decisions, while decision frameworks and case studies provide guidelines on which sourcing options to select, and how to manage outsourcing arrangements.