MIS Research Center Seminar Series

Date:  October 31, 2003 Speaker:  Paulo Goes, University of Connecticut Topic:  "Geography and Time Independent Solutions for Service Operations"

Abstract:

Under intense pressure to reduce costs and possibly gain efficiency, IT and other service organizations are looking to adopt geography and time independent solutions for their operations. Examples of such solutions include: offshore outsourcing of software development; offshore call centers; virtual operations, where workers are geographically dispersed, possibly working from their homes; flexible workforce approaches. In many scenarios, mobility of the workers is essential, so there are solutions that range from hybrid office/hoteling/home office approaches to a seamless mobility of “everywhere, all the time” connectivity.

Based on my experience in the last 4 years working on projects for General Electric through the University of Connecticut / GE edgelab partnership, I will overview technology, infrastructure, industry directions, applications, implementations, as well as the main issues associated with the organizational and economic feasibility of some of the solutions.

Biography:

Dr. Paulo B. Goes , Professor of Operations and Information Management, is   the Gladstein Professor of Information Technology and Innovation at the School of Business of the University of Connecticut. As Associate Director of the Connecticut Information Technology Institute, he played a fundamental role in the conceptualization and implementation of edgelab , a multi-million dollar e-business partnership between General Electric and UConn. Dr. Goes also conceptualized and is now the director of the endowed Treibick Electronic Commerce Initiative ( TECI ), a top-notch research unit dedicated to the advancement of knowledge in e-commerce. From 1996 to 1999 he was the Technology Director of UConn's School of Business.

Dr. Goes received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computers and Information Systems from the University of Rochester. He also has a M.S. degree in Production Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has been teaching information technology courses in the areas of e-business, database management, client/server systems, networking, and management information systems at the University of Connecticut since 1990. He teaches at all academic levels and has received several teaching awards for his teaching excellence. His research interests are in the areas of design and evaluation of models for e-business, online auctions, database recovery and security, Internet technologies and electronic commerce, computer networking and technology infrastructure. His publications have appeared in highly prestigious journals such as Management Science , Management Information Systems Quarterly , Operations Research , Decision Sciences , Journal of Management Information Systems , Communications of the ACM, IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on Communications, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Decision Support Systems, Information Technology and Management among others, and in several conference proceedings and book chapters. Dr. Goes is Associate Editor of Information Systems Research , the INFORMS Journal on Computing , and Production and Information Management . He has served as guest Associate Editor of Management Science special issue on e-business and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Database Management . He also constantly participates in organizing committees for the International Conference of Information Systems, the International Conference on Conceptual Modeling and the Workshop on Information Technology and Systems .