Books and Publications

Data is an important part of an organization and managing it in an effective way is as important as ensuring its security. Data in organizations is stored in databases. A database is simply a collection of data saved electronically in a computer storage system. It is usually managed by a system called the database management system (DBMS). The increasing potential for data theft and security threats have forced organizations to consider the risks associated with data storage and design processes to safeguard them. There are strategic and technical measures that can be put in place for database security. A good database security strategy according to Malik (2006) focuses on protecting data from internal and external attacks while reducing data exposure to privileged IT users as well as securing production and non-production databases. This suggests that any technical and strategic measures should take care of data access, authentication, encryption, and a safe and secure design. Since information stored in a database is considered an asset in any database management system, it is important to take security measures to ensure that it is safe especially when there is sensitive data involved. In this paper, we were examining the measures both strategic and technical of securing a database. We also looked at what security models are and ended up with an example model for designing and developing a secure database system.

This paper is an attempt to summarize the work of Abomhara and Koien (2015) titled Cyber security and the internet of things: Vulnerabilities, threats, intruders, and attacks. We shall look at the goal of this research and summarize the important issues raised in the paper. We shall also look at how this paper contributes to the body of knowledge in IoT and its recommendations for future research in the security space. The authors concluded by reiterating the overall goal of the study which was to identify assets and document the potential threats and attacks as well as vulnerabilities in IoT. For the authors, to secure IoT fully, security and privacy challenges would need to be addressed. The authors ended by recommending areas where future research could focus on, for them, the focus could be on the various threats and helping develop strategies on how to overcome security concerns that continue to affect the IoT space. The study is very relevant as it adds to the body of knowledge regarding security in the IoT space. Security is a big concern for users of IoT devices and no one would want to have their systems attacked. Owners of IoT devices and organizations in this space would need to understand how to handle threats in IoT to better design their security policies and guidelines.

Contingency planning according to Wang (2003) is the first step of emergency preparedness focusing on the prevention or mitigation of undesirable events. A contingency plan consists of “a set of procedures that state clearly how a business will continue to function or recover its critical functions in the case of an unplanned disruption in the operation of its normal activities” (Wang, 2003). Contingency planning is a risk mitigation process that is put in place to develop backup plans in the event of a disruption in business. Its purpose is to make sure that a business continues to function without interrupting the core areas of business. There are precautions and technical solutions that can be taken to safely share security data. Data management is an important aspect of data sharing. Query management is aimed at managing the way data is queried and responses gotten. In this paper, we shall examine the benefits of scenario and events planning. We will also examine some of the questions to consider when implementing scenario planning. We will look at the various types of scenario planning that are often used and how these are applicable to business organizations. We set out in this paper to examine what contingency planning is all about. We also looked at the benefits of scenario planning and how these benefits affect scenario planning decisions. We examined the various types of scenario planning and highlighted four of them in detail – Descriptive, exploratory, predictive, and normative scenario planning.

ISO/IEC 27001 according to the International Standards Organization (2005) is a robust framework that helps protect information and financial data, sensitive information and/or intellectual property. It helps organizations identify risks that would jeopardize the business by putting in place security measures that fit the business so that risks can be managed or reduced (BSI Group, n.d.). Al-Ahmad and Mohammad (2013) opine that the main aim for this standard is to specify the requirements that are needed in implementing, monitoring, reviewing, operating, and maintaining an information management system in organizations. Capgemini, which is the company I work for, has implemented this framework in some of its units and groups. This research paper will examine the effectiveness of this framework at Capgemini. It will also look at other frameworks described by Al-Ahmad and Mohammad (2013) in their research. It will find out whether other frameworks could be more effective in Capgemini and the reasons why that would be the case. Mitchell Industries has an ERM team which oversees the risk analysis process. The progress of the mitigation plan is tracked by the risk managers and progress reported back to the ERM team quarterly. Organizations adopt different information security Management systems since the security needs vary according to the type of business the organizations operate. The research found out that the different standards and frameworks all have their benefits and weaknesses and that one way to assure ISMS is being well implemented is by having standards in place.

There has been a lot of emphasis on big data analytics in the e-commerce space over the years and this continues to witness a lot of growth. This growth in big data analytics in the e-commerce space is fueled by the fact that e-commerce companies that explore big data analytics into their business model, experience a 5-6% productivity increase than their competitors (McAfee et al., 2012). Akter and Wamba (2016) opine that a recent study in the USA shows that big data analytics contributes about 10% growth rate for about 56% of firms. Data science and big data analytics are two big areas that are very prominent in the business world now and organizations are looking for opportunities to leverage these new technologies. The usefulness of big data analytics to e-commerce comes as big data helps customers track behavior and connect dots and determine which methods are most effective for converting one-time customers into permanent buyers (Akter & Wamba, 2016). Predictive analytics is used to predict customer choices and big data helps organizations build personalized services for its customers. When designing a cloud storage environment for big data workloads, I begin to think of scalability, because I understand that big data workloads increase in volume so fast. We set out in this research to look at how organizations use big data analytics to improve the quality of services they offer to their consumers.

We intend in this assignment to summarize the peer-reviewed article titled “Entrepreneurial innovation strategies: an option for small hotels’ growth in Ghana”, by Xuhua et al. (2018). The focus of the article is the hotel innovation industry in Ghana, a country located in the western part of Africa. The article evaluates innovation endeavors of small hotels and how growth can be sustained through it. Ghana’s innovation rate in this industry is in a decline and this study could be an avenue where innovators sprout up new ideas on how to tackle the issues that stall the industry. Xuhua et al. (2018) begin their article by pointing out that innovation is the introduction of notable and novel services with respect to its intended reasons. The article focuses on Ghana’s hotel industry which is falling back in terms of innovative ideas. It investigates how small hotel owners use innovative ideas in managing their businesses and seeks to contribute to a more complete understanding of how to improve on the innovative ideas for small hotels by means of service innovation, process innovation, management innovation and marketing innovation (Xuhua et al., 2018). Entrepreneurs are expected to encourage small hotels to be up to quality standards that bring satisfaction to their clients. This will be attained through innovative activities.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an essential role in fostering innovation, productivity, job creation, and competitiveness at national and international levels. SMEs face unique challenges in accessing and utilizing cloud computing, a technology that offers critical resources for growth, but whose adoption in Cameroonian SMEs is notably lacking. This study examines the adoption, user experience, and impact of cloud computing on SMEs in Cameroon. Using a qualitative grounded theory approach grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the research seeks to understand the factors influencing low adoption rates despite apparent advantages, focusing on implications for organizational growth and competitive advantage. Data were collected from interviews with nine participants across three SMEs in Buea, Douala, and Yaounde. Findings reveal benefits such as enhanced competitiveness, increased customer satisfaction, cost savings, improved disaster recovery, strengthened data security, improved performance and reliability, and enhanced collaboration. However, obstacles including knowledge gaps, financial constraints, privacy and security concerns, poor internet access, and lack of adequate support remain significant. Recommendations are provided for SMEs, cloud providers, and policymakers to boost cloud integration into Cameroonian SMEs and to promote economic growth in developing countries, especially within Africa.

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), developed by Davis in 1989, remains one of the most widely used frameworks for explaining technology adoption, yet it was developed in Western contexts and for the technologies of three decades ago. This paper reviews the literature on cloud computing features, service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS), and deployment models (private, public, hybrid, community), and on factors influencing cloud adoption in SMEs, and tests TAM’s fit for Cameroon. Drawing on a qualitative grounded theory study of nine participants in three Cameroonian SMEs, the paper shows that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use powerfully shaped adoption, while competitive pressure, organizational innovativeness, government policy, vendor trust, infrastructure, and security concerns, factors outside the original TAM, were also decisive. The paper argues for using TAM as a structuring guide extended with contextual constructs when studying cloud adoption in developing countries.

Cloud computing can bestow competitive advantage by reducing operational costs, enhancing agility, and improving customer satisfaction, yet adoption among SMEs in developing countries like Cameroon remains slow. This paper answers the dissertation’s second research question: why have certain Cameroonian SMEs not yet adopted cloud technology, and what strategies can promote adoption? From interviews with nine participants across three SMEs and a grounded theory analysis, the paper identifies five principal barriers: lack of technical expertise, poor internet access, financial constraints, unsupportive or unclear government policies and regulations, and data security and confidentiality concerns, compounded by low cloud awareness, limited management and vendor support, and trust deficits. For each barrier the paper gives the evidence from the study and a practical strategy for SMEs, providers, and policymakers, so the analysis functions as both a research contribution and an adoption playbook.

This research delved explicitly into cloud computing adoption, user experience, and performance within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cameroon. Employing a qualitative research methodology, the study aims to identify the variables influencing cloud computing adoption in SMEs, assess the user experience of individuals utilizing cloud computing in SMEs, and examine the impact of cloud computing on SME performance in Cameroon. The research aims to aid SMEs in enhancing their performance and competitiveness by conducting in-depth data analysis and drawing conclusions regarding the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing adoption. Furthermore, the study seeks to provide insights to policymakers and practitioners concerning the prospects and obstacles of cloud computing adoption in SMEs while contributing to the body of knowledge, particularly in developing nations, focusing on Africa. This paper reorganizes the study’s analysis around the constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and the external variables that bend both.

Small and medium-sized (SME) organizations play a vital role in the economies of developing nations, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are instrumental in driving innovation, enhancing productivity, generating employment opportunities, and bolstering competitiveness, both in domestic and international markets (Skafi et al., 2020). Developing a robust IT infrastructure and gaining access to computing resources poses significant challenges for many small and medium-sized organizations, especially in developing nations. The advent of cloud computing has revolutionized the accessibility of these previously remote resources, reshaping the landscape for entrepreneurs, small and large businesses, researchers, and governments, and ushering in new possibilities (Cho & Chan, 2015). This research primarily focused on examining the implications of this emerging paradigm for small and medium-sized enterprises in developing nations, with a specific emphasis on Cameroon. Despite the rapid growth in internet penetration rates in African countries, the adoption of cloud computing among small and medium-sized enterprises remains relatively low despite its myriad advantages (Skafi et al., 2020).

Within that wider investigation, one thread ran through the study’s second research question, its interview design, and its coding alike: security. Trust was built into the framework itself and evaluated through questions on security concerns, and the analysis devoted one of its primary themes to security factors. This paper isolates that thread and asks a single question: how do data security and privacy concerns shape trust in cloud services and in the providers who supply them, and thereby the adoption decisions of SMEs in Cameroon? It follows the evidence in sequence: what the prior literature establishes about security, privacy, and trust; how the study was conducted; what the nine participants reported about security concerns and the safeguards their organizations had in place; how vendor attributes ground or undermine trust; and what the discussion and recommendations imply for building the assurance on which adoption depends.

Among the external variables the study identified, this paper isolates one layer for sustained attention: the institutional layer of government policy, regulation, infrastructure provision, and public promotion. The dissertation’s evidence speaks to that layer from several directions at once, in its literature review, in its findings on the factors associated with adoption, and in its recommendations addressed to policymakers. The question this paper asks is therefore a focused one: what role do government policy, regulation, and the institutional environment play in the adoption of cloud computing by SMEs in developing economies, and what should policymakers do with that role? The paper answers from the study’s own evidence, then records, in a clearly marked section, the change in Cameroon’s legal landscape since the study was completed, before closing with the study’s discussion and its recommendations for government.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in the economies of developing nations, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are instrumental in driving innovation, enhancing productivity, generating employment opportunities, and bolstering competitiveness, both in domestic and international markets (Skafi et al., 2020). However, these organizations encounter numerous challenges impacting their ability to access, utilize, and benefit from cloud computing infrastructure and resources. Factors such as government policies, shortages in technical skill sets, and limitations in internet connectivity greatly influence their capacity to leverage these resources (Seifu et al., 2017). Nonetheless, cloud computing represents a novel paradigm that holds the potential to provide SMEs with remote access to the resources necessary for fostering economic growth. This research delved explicitly into cloud computing adoption, user experience, and performance within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cameroon. Employing a qualitative research methodology, the study aims to identify the variables influencing cloud computing adoption in SMEs, assess the user experience of individuals utilizing cloud computing in SMEs, and examine the impact of cloud computing on SME performance in Cameroon.

Information governance is a concept that has rapidly gained ground due to the tightened legislation governing businesses, privacy issues, legal demands, external pressures such as data breaches and threats, and the many issues related to information management in an environment that is increasingly being regulated. In the context of the healthcare industry, which is our focus for this paper, information governance is “the structures, policies, and relevant procedures initiated and adhered to by hospitals, healthcare providers, and medical insurance companies to collect, organize, utilize secure data. Legislation in the healthcare industry includes HIPAA, which provides data privacy rules, and compliance requirements for organizations dealing with healthcare data, patient records, and sensitive healthcare information. Some of the critical concepts of IG in the healthcare industry we set out to explore include compliance, security and privacy, cloud computing strategy, and email and social media strategy. We noticed that the healthcare industry deals with sensitive data, health records, and patient information, which faces threats from hackers and exposure if not well protected. We articulated that organizations need strong security and privacy policies to guide employers in their processes of accessing and sharing healthcare data. We also emphasized the urgency of healthcare organizations using cloud-based systems to use modern methods of encrypting and securing their data due to the imminent threats that cloud computing brings. The major reason for ensuring that medical records are appropriately preserved in healthcare institutions is that healthcare providers and professionals have information at their fingertips when they need it.

Blockchain is a potentially very disruptive but at the same time transformative technology that is growing and expanding as innovators and investors test it out and attempt its implementation at different levels. In this paper, we will examine Blockchain technology and its major components and look at how it influences the global economy. Blockchain is a decentralized technology which does not need a third party to act as middleman in any transaction. There are predictions that blockchain will not only revolutionize the financial/banking industry but will also be very useful in the supply chain industry, the utility industry as well as many other sectors. I think Cryptocurrencies are the future of money as well as the future of many other areas of our global economy. We noticed that accessing and storing huge sets of data needs a lot of processing power and compute capabilities and that traditional methods of computing are giving way to new technologies that are increasingly being used because of the volume, velocity, and variety of Big Data. We will also look at the role of the government in the global economy, discussing how the government influences business decisions in the global business space. Policy evaluation is a tool that is used to measure the worthiness, performance and efficacy of policies or any programs. We noticed that there are different views as to what form of government policies should be in place for business to flourish in the global economy.

A data warehouse is a system that is designed to store both past and present data that is collected from a single or multiple sources. Data warehouses (DW) provide organizations with historical information to support their decision-making processes. Data cleansing is the process of stripping out corrupted, inaccurate, and extraneous data to make sure it’s clean while data de-duplication is the process of eliminating data duplicates that may cause data redundancy. Big data is a term used to describe the techniques and technologies that make it economical to handle vast amounts of data sets. These large datasets become challenging to store, process, and analyze using the traditional data management systems, and so there is a need for new technologies that can handle them. Data analytics is a broader term that encompasses many different techniques and processes of identifying and drawing meaning and insights from historical data over time. We shall study the trends in the big data space and indicate how we have used it personally or professionally. I have used Python over the years in the different projects I’ve worked on. The last part of this paper focuses on Green Computing, analyzing its meaning and why it is becoming popular. Companies like Dell which we cited above, are beginning to take measures to combat environmental pollution through the production of energy efficient laptops, promotion of green environments and a general reduction of energy use.

Disaster recovery planning is a technique that most organizations use during a calamity. All organizations should have a disaster recovery plan for its employees and to minimize the losses that may ensue when disaster hits. Failure of information technology services and other occurrences such as system intrusions, malware attacks, cyberattacks, infections, floods, earthquakes etc., can impact the continuity of business processes. As a result, a good business continuity plan or disaster recovery plan is essential. A disaster recovery plan cannot help an organization make any financial gains or profits but would help in preventing losses. A disaster can occur at any time and that is the reason why organizations need to be always prepared. A good plan will consider factors like cost constraints, RTO, RPO, etc. We shall design a disaster recovery plan for a university institution or college setting. We do not have a specific institution in mind and so the phone numbers, addresses and names used here will be represented by “X” or “person’s name” to represent real names in a real disaster recovery plan. This guide is not intended to be followed strictly as the exact nature and circumstances of each situation cannot be predicted. This document is an attempt to capture some of the disaster areas in a school setting.

I work for a consulting firm and provide services to a retail company that deals in fast food. For the purposes of this research work, I will call the company Alpha and I will be analyzing its current IT environment and its virtualization readiness. Physical datacenters as well as physical hardware are quickly being replaced by virtual infrastructure in many organizations as the concept of virtualization and cloud computing makes its way into the corporate business world. Virtualization is a useful way to design architectures since it enables resources to be shared and allocated as needed by the user. This mode of computing makes it easy for businesses as they pay only for the resources that they use without having to do large investments at once. There are many benefits that cloud computing and virtualization brings to businesses including the elimination of physical servers, reduced cost, better performance, application scalability, redundancy, and better security. Virtualization sprawl or server sprawl is a situation which occurs when the number of VMs on a virtual machine network reaches a max point and sys admins can no longer manage them effectively. Telecommuting and mobile work arrangements continue to grow as we witness advancement in technological developments. There has been a huge demand for speed in communications networks over the past 3 decades. We noticed that Alpha is already leveraging virtualization and other Cloud services and we evaluated the extent to which these services are used.

Penetration testing according to Yadav et al. (2019) is a process to identify vulnerabilities in an application by evaluating the system or the network through various malicious techniques (Yadav et al., 2019). This indicates that the purpose of a penetration test is to secure critical data from external visitors like hackers who can have unauthorized access into the application. Yadav et al. (2019) affirms that a penetration test helps measure the security level of the system. It identifies whether the defense mechanisms are strong enough to prevent security breaches or weak to expose sensitive data. Penetration test results or reports suggest countermeasures to be taken to reduce or mitigate attack risks if the defense system is identified as weak. In this assignment, we will examine the various stages of penetration testing which include the planning stage, discovery, vulnerability exploitation, and data exploitation stages. Brute Force attacks are straightforward attacks that can be done through guessing a combination of password options. Web server auditing therefore can go a long way in enforcing tighter security and ensuring business continuity. Security vulnerabilities in web applications and firewalls may result to breaches in data integrity, confidentiality, data theft etc. This process helps discover the vulnerabilities and loopholes that might have been missed when the application was being developed. We noticed that web applications are critical for business hence testing it to ensure there are no vulnerabilities is an important part of the software development process.

Netflix is one of the biggest online media streaming providers in the world. According to Maddodi and Krishna (2019), Netflix uses big data analytics and business intelligence to understand its customers better. The data that Netflix uses is collected from its large base of subscribers. Based on this information, Netflix makes use of algorithms to give personalized recommendations to its users based on the parameters obtained from the data (Maddodi & Krishna, 2019). It will look at Netflix’s approach to big data analytics with business intelligence, the challenges the company faces, what they may be doing wrong, and the successes recorded so far. Netflix, which is the company this paper focused on, has seen an explosion in growth due to its quick adoption of big data analytics with business intelligence that has resulted to personalized content, huge membership in its subscription program and a new business model tailored to value the customer preferences. Netflix’s recommendation system has revolutionized media content delivery and distribution thanks to machine learning algorithms and decision making that stems from accurate business intelligence insight. This paper intended to evaluate Netflix’s big data analytics integration with business intelligence and also examine the success factors that Netflix has registered, as well as its challenges and growth opportunities in the integration process. In healthcare, for instance, data can be used to get insights about what treatments are most effective for different conditions to identify patterns, disease outcomes, and treatments.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 known as SOX 404 requires firms with above 75 million in public equity to report on the effectiveness of their internal control implementation status and financial reporting (Klamm & Watson, 2009). According to Klamm and Watson (2009), COSO consists of five interrelated components. These components include the control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication and monitoring. It is implemented by people at all levels of the organization. It can provide assurance to the organization’s management and board of directors. 10 months after the start of the process, Capgemini got its information security management system certification (ISO/IEC 27001). In summary, metrics will drive the organizational strategy and direction, provide focus for the organization and its employees, help in decision making, performance, as well as help the organization direct its change management decisions. A strong internal control system is one of the strong points of organizations that perform well. An effective internal control structure can help companies move towards the right direction, avoid risks, or mitigate them as well as implement effective ways of operating and dealing with compliance issues. We ended by suggesting some factors which Alpha, a healthcare organization could consider while implementing the COSO Framework to ensure operational excellence.

Threat modeling is a technique aimed at finding assets, analyzing potential threats, and mitigating them. For Cagnazzo et al. (2018), threat modeling is an important aspect of the security development lifecycle, and this process has as its main aim to build better and more secure software. Almost all industries that make use of software systems face a variety of threats and more are being introduced daily as technology changes. Threat models as Shevchenko et al. (2018) argue are methods used to create an abstraction of the system, the profile of potential attackers, their goals, and methods, as well as a list of threats that may arise. From this we deduce that cyber-attacks become cyberterrorism when the goals are motivated by some political, social or religious factors, and when the result of the attack harms or causes injury to individuals and or even leads to death. There are different types of threat modeling frameworks available and in this paper, we shall focus on three models – STRIDE which is a model that’s developed by Microsoft, DREAD and PASTA. We looked at three models including STRIDE, DREAD and PASTA and noticed that these have their advantages and disadvantages and that the benefits of each could be leveraged to get a better framework; we however recommended STRIDE as the best option to be chosen for the medium-sized company where we have been appointed CIO.

Yli-Huumo et al. define blockchain as a distributed database solution that keeps track of data records that are confirmed participants in it. The goal of blockchain for them is to create a decentralized environment where no third party oversees any transactions or data. Blockchain is a technology that has a lot of potential to revolutionize the business environment. The method of research used by Yli-Huumo et al. is systematic mapping. Bibliometric analysis is analysis that is used for the study of the growth of literature published by researchers on a topic. The first question helped them identify two very important areas that currently constitute an issue. These include security and privacy. These limitations however do not reduce the potential that Blockchain has as research and adoption of blockchain is growing consistently as evidenced in the findings of the authors. This shows that there is a steady increase in Cloud computing publications as well as in cloud computing research. Tribis et al. (2018), quoted by Andreas et al., highlight that blockchain in supply chain management is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of 87% and increase from $45 million in 2018 to $3,314.6 million by 2023. In 2016 it successfully executed the world’s largest first settlement of 23.46 tons of grain on blockchain. On the fourth question, the authors believed that future research will not only focus on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but it will span across different sectors of life and even the global economy.

In this paper, we will establish a computer network policy designed for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet systems. The purpose of this policy is to establish administrative direction, procedures, requirements, and technical guidance to ensure the appropriate protection of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet computer and internet systems. This policy is applicable to all USERS who access and use the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet computer network systems. It also is applicable to all computer and network systems owned by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. This policy is designed to protect and prohibit unauthorized access, disclosure, duplication, modification, diversion, destruction, loss, misuse, or theft of this information, property, and assets of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for establishing, maintaining, implementing, administering, and interpreting organization-wide information systems security policies, standards, guidelines, and procedures. Physical security for IT organizations as well as their assets is an area of security that has been overlooked for a while. We will make use of sample security policies and peer-reviewed articles and books from the UC library. In this assignment, we took the place of a chief security officer for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and drafted a security policy for computer and email systems, an internet policy, and a password protection policy. These measures will safeguard the organization by protecting unauthorized access, detecting it on time, squashing it effectively and making sure there is recovery in case there is a breach of the security system.

An effective enterprise risk management program gives visibility into the risk horizon that can impact an organization’s ability to deliver its goals and mission. ERM includes the management of all risks that an organization may face. This research paper intends to study the relationship between enterprise risk management and organizational strategy and how the adoption of these can benefit organizational performance. It is important for us therefore to examine whether the adoption of enterprise risk management alongside organizational strategy is the solution to organizational performance. Traditional risk management places responsibilities on business unit leaders to take care of risks within their business units. ERM is indeed replacing the siloed method of risk management as organizations have realized the limitations of the traditional risk management framework. Through this effort, this paper will examine some of the issues, protocols, methods, and frameworks around enterprise risk management and how organizations can use ERM as an effective strategy. The research found that ERM is a continuous process which should be well positioned in an organization. This research found out that the COSO framework has some components which help in the integration process, and which when clearly articulated, organizational enterprise risk management will align with its corporate strategy, and this will bring value to the organization. Communication is of great importance in the process as it helps in educating those involved in the process such that it can be better appreciated.

I work for a consulting company that is already available in many countries in the US, Europe, and Asia. Business strategy is the direction an organization takes to achieve its goals over a certain period. Alpha was founded in 1967 in France, and in 1975, it acquired two IT services companies that operated computer systems, and it quickly became a leader in Europe, expanding to 21 countries. From 1975 – 1989, Alpha continued to grow and focus on fields ranging from capital investment solutions to intellectual services. In 1989, there was an internal restructuring and then a decision to penetrate the American market. This decision enabled Alpha to become a global leader in the sector. We shall evaluate how the company maintains a presence in over 30 countries and how its management keeps more than 180,000 workers engaged, and its strategy to stay global amidst astute competition. Alpha’s strategy was one of acquiring smaller companies and merging them while making use of the senior leadership, just as Ness did in our example above. Alpha made use of this model, and it participated in the offshore model of sourcing its project with talented engineers from centers of excellence in India and Europe. Zwikael (2008) opines that top management’s role is critical for the success of a project. We realized that Alpha’s model was no different from some of the models that other Fortune 500 companies have used in the past to scale globally.

In this paper, we intend to analyze business process redesign in seaports. Our specific attention will be directed at the Hamburg seaport which is our case study. Hamburg is a German port, one of the main European maritime logistics ports which adopted technologies based on IoT over the last five years. This simply means that IoT is indeed growing, and our case study makes a case for the Hamburg seaport as it redesigns its system using IoT. Mobile devices are handheld tablets, phones etc., that are designed to be portable, connected, and lightweight in nature. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that devices leverage to communicate without any direct cable connections. According to Ferretti and Schiavone (2016), authors of the peer-reviewed journal in question, the success of adopting IoT must be well planned strategically and should necessarily involve many actors including industrial and logistic companies, professional partners as well as public institutions. Our case study shows that redesigning IoT is a difficult process that involves a lot of components that need to work together, and it takes time to figure this out especially as IoT is a new IT technology without a lot of use cases available. The goal of the Hamburg Port Authority was to redesign the functioning of the seaport processes and make them more efficient and cost effective. In the study, we also noticed some challenges that the Hamburg port authorities faced during the implementation and provided some suggestions from our research.

There has been continuous growth in developing countries especially in Asian countries than in other developing countries since the 1970s (Shu et al., 2019). Countries and companies need explicit strategies for technology development to help shape creativity and redirect energies and talents that are abundantly available but may not be well harnessed due to lack of knowledge in new technologies or yet a lack of the capability of making use of these growing technological advancements. In it, we intend to explain how governance helped in the electronic transformation of two cities in China, Shenzhen, and Dongguan. During our study of this journal, we noticed that Shenzhen and Dongguan shared many things in common in their industrialization process. Despite the location feature, it seems that the policy differences played a major part in the difference in growth levels. The study in the journal realized that the dirigiste governance system in Shenzhen led to a more mature RIS than the grassroot governance system put in place in Dongguan. Despite this, mobilizing local resources has its disadvantages, as it benefits from cheap labor and many local available resources. For David, countries need strategies to create ecosystems that allow for innovation to grow. Web 2.0 refers to a suite of technologies that have lowered the cost of interaction for two-way communications over the World Wide Web. This has democratized the production and sharing of information and applications across the internet (Reich, 2008).