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Nowadays, even apps for corporate management are respectable. Manager app portals complement such “run-a-business” apps with apps that make managers’ business life easier. The right mix of apps makes the difference. Accommodating the user perspective, the objective of this article is to examine which apps disproportionately influence managers’ perception regarding the usefulness of information systems (IS). Applying the Kano model and considering both “analyst-” and “consumer-type” managers, we employ findings from a manager focus group survey to discuss the strongest differentiators: (1) Offer collaboration bars and push notifications for analyst managers. Get consumer managers “online” with news tickers. (2) Make core reports more interactive with drill downs and filters for manager self-service. (3) Take “fun and enjoyment” into account when accommodating managers’ business life. (4) Consider that tablets create their own manager use case as a “first-stop information shop.”

With Ansoff's article about weak signals as a flagship example, a substantial body of knowledge about environmental scanning systems exists. However, these concepts often go unused in practice. The 2008/2009 economic crisis provided a strong, ongoing impulse for redesigning such information systems (IS). This article develops six guidelines for the conceptual design of environmental scanning systems that are more applicable than those specified by previous research. We start with literature research, which reveals three gaps in existing approaches. Then we develop design guidelines to fill these gaps with the help of "modern" IS. To address the lack of sound requirements analysis, our first design principle proposes 360-degree environmental scanning systems for executives and suggests how to select the most important scanning areas. Three further findings cover weaknesses in the IS model perspective, focusing on more effective implications of weak signals. In terms of method, we propose incorporating scanning results more closely into executives' decision-making processes. Applying the design guidelines at a raw materials and engineering company, we arrive at a prototype we call the "corporate radar." It includes an IS-based tree with economic value added at risk on top. The resulting lessons learned help to evaluate our findings and the research method presented here, as well provide concrete starting points for future research.

Digital natives increasingly populate organizations’ management. These new-generation managers more naturally accept management support systems (MSS), but also have higher expectations about how they should accommodate their individual user preferences. As a result, managers question MSS that have been developed without configuration mechanisms to accommodate their working style, relevant MSS use cases, and different MSS access modes. The objective of this article is to reveal managers’ different MSS use situations and propose levers for tailoring (conceptual) MSS design to them. Use situations generalize classes of similar user-group preferences. We first apply findings from a literature review to cluster managers’ user-group preferences into 36 MSS use situations. Second, we propose that the selection of end-user devices can serve as a main lever for MSS configuration. Third, we complete the configuration with a MSS user-interface design. Finally, we demonstrate utility of our configuration model by presenting and evaluating a prototype.

Corporate management in today’s international companies has become increasingly complex. To cope with the growing challenges, information technology (IT)-based management control systems (MCSs) covering reporting, planning, and consolidation have been deployed. Despite their tradition in management research, the ‘right’ setup of MCSs is still challenging. Maturity models (MMs) are an established instrument to identify strengths and weaknesses of certain domains. As existing MMs rather focus on single MCS domains, neglect an IT perspective and miss a sound methodical foundation, this paper outlines an empirically and algorithmically constructed MCS MM. The model consists of three partial MMs for reporting, planning, and consolidation, which are integrated into one holistic MCS MM. The five levels of the MCS MM guide MCS evolution from a basic, mandatory/external-driven MCS (level 1) to a balanced MCS (level 2), and a comprehensive MCS (level 3). Ultimately, MCSs show a strong strategic focus (level 4) and leverage the potentials of modern IT (level 5).

Information systems (IS) intended to help managers are known as management support systems (MSS). The present situation is favorable for a redesign that applies in-memory apps. Such apps promise to support managers with benefits ranging from reducing time for MSS data entry and analysis to new topics of analysis. However, from a manager perspective, in-memory apps lack impact. Based on findings from a literature review and results from a workshop with an expert focus group validated with one-on-one manager interviews, we propose six guidelines for an app design that contributes to greater MSS acceptance from both a consumer and analyst manager perspective: (1) For the entrypage, managers prefer a new tile design with a limited number of KPIs. (2) A manager news ticker provides an appropriate starting point for their self-service analysis. (3) In-memory apps require an intuitive navigation that managers already know and appreciate from the general IS consumer market. (4) A collaboration tool fosters joint managerial problem-solving. (5) Exception reporting which includes personal exception limits and a push function helps managers to react faster. (6) Apart from pure financial aspects, the benefits of in-memory apps should be evaluated by their capability to perform new MSS topics of analysis

As an umbrella term, management support systems (MSS) cover management information systems, decision support systems, executive information systems, and – more recently – knowledge management, and business intelligence (BI) systems for managers [1]. By serving as their central, hands-on, day-to-day source of information, MSS help managers to perform their jobs more productively and efficiently [2].

As companies’ environment is becoming increasingly volatile, scanning systems gain in importance. We propose a hybrid process model for such systems’ information gathering and interpretation tasks that combines quantitative information derived from regression analyses and qualitative knowledge from expert interviews. For the latter, we apply Bayesian networks. We derive the need for such a hybrid process model from a literature review. We lay out our model to find a suitable set of business environment indicators to forecast a company’s key financials. Deriving lessons learned from a prototype in the industrial sector, we evaluate the utility of our model following the design science research paradigm. We find our model to especially convince in completeness, transparency and transportability when compared with “pure” mathematical models.

Part 5: Future Subjects; International audience; The 2008/2009 economic crisis provided a sustainable impulse for improving environmental scanning systems (ESS). Although a rich body of know-ledge exists, concepts are not often used in practice. This article contributes a literature review addressing six findings for ESS design to become more applicable than the state of the art. They are structured by the elements of information systems (IS) design theories. Addressing the lack of a sound requirements analysis, our first finding proposes 360-degree ESS for executives’ "managing a company" task and presents how to select just the most important scanning areas to keep focus. Three other findings cover the IS model perspective focusing on a better "grasp" of weak signals: define concrete indicators and use IT to identify relevant cause-effective-chains, leverage IT to automate day-to-day routines and monitor the variety of indicators’ movements, and—as a fourth finding—leverage expert experience with an impact matrix and translate indicators’ impact into a balanced opportunity-and-threat portfolio. From the methods perspective on ESS, we propose to more closely incorporate scanning results into executives’ decision-making process by generating scenarios from a set of environment assumptions as well as to use retrospective controls to continuously update the ESS and collaborate to share the scanning findings day-to-day.

Functional service domains are logical design artifacts that are intended to achieve better business/IT alignment. Their widespread utilization clearly indicates their perceived usefulness in managing the complexity of aligning business structures with IT structures. However, a common understanding of functional service domains and the associated principles that govern their design and evolution is still missing. So far, the literature provides only little guidance in closing this gap. This article contributes to the foundations that allow for the design of a situational method for functional service domain architecture management. Reviewing current literature, a framework is pro posed that supports the identification of functional service domain architecture management patterns. Based on a better understanding of functional domain architecture management approaches, situational method engineering for functional domains can be applied by identifying context types and goal vectors, designing fragments, and associating successfully adopted method fragments with specific situations. The validity of the proposed framework is tested by five case studies.