bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The state of digital wallets today and tomorrow: What does this mean for payments in the future?
Authors: Liikamaa Monika , Buss Linda , Vaajanen Ville
Published: July 2024

This paper analyses the current state of digital wallets among consumers, financial institutions and merchants globally and looks at what the future holds in this regard. The findings of this paper are based on the expertise from Enfuce, a Nordic payment service provider, which is looking at digital wallets from a global perspective, as well as case studies from Northern Europe and secondary research. Although the case studies are examples from the Nordics, the lessons learned can be considered to be global. It was found that the use of digital wallets will increase in the future as consumers increasingly prefer digital wallets as a means of payment. Reflective of this is the vast and ever-increasing number of digital wallets available on the market today, which is due to differing demands and behaviours of consumers, financial institutions and merchants in different regions and markets. This means that there is no single solution catering for all market participants. With an increased number of digital wallets available, the competition will get even more brutal — only the most popular and visible apps will thrive, and end-user experience and appealing features are crucial to success.
The resilience web: Interconnections, links and traps
Authors: Wood Phillip
Published: July 2024

Business continuity management is an essential contributor to
resilience that allows organisations to maintain their viability
and functionality — and, in many cases, growth and profitability.
The ability to achieve and maintain necessary resilience within a
changing operating environment can be influenced by multiple
factors. This paper considers the potential damaging influences
upon organisations and analyses, and evaluates the range and depth
of linkages between them or groups of them. While each influence
has its own specific causes, effects, timescales and nuances, some
will be unique to it and some will recur elsewhere. Moreover, these
influences may cause impacts in isolation or may combine to cause
or to deepen the effect of other problems or issues on the
organisation. The ‘resilience web’ makes it possible to look
externally from the organisation at the centre and to think in
depth about anticipation, response and recovery by recognising and
identifying synergies, connections and consequences.
The divides that health organisations experience on their journey towards high reliability: Moving from theory to practice
Authors: Patterson William , Isaacks David
Published: July 2024

Organisations, specifically in the healthcare industry, often find themselves in a state of ‘Reliability Divide’. This is a concept that the authors have developed to explain why most organisations never realise the culture change needed to become highly reliable. In an organisation there is a variable time frame to get to daily work. Because of the time involved, some of the front-line staff who participated in theory, academics and now operations have become mid- or lower senior level leaders. Along the journey they become the vector that infiltrates the organisation to reach Fabric. Multidirectional high reliability organisation (HRO) adoption starts to occur here, which further drives an organisation towards zero harm (nirvana).
Leveraging management engineering and business consulting for rapid response, mitigation and recovery during a pandemic
Authors: Hoover Michele R. , Kamath Janine R. , Dhanorker Sarah R. , Schieffer Chris , Macken Carolyn M. , Donahoe-Anshus Amerett L. , Chihak Anthony A.
Published: July 2024

The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has presented healthcare delivery challenges the world has never encountered before. Healthcare and its practitioners, while finding themselves in difficult situations, must still care for patients with emergent needs and ensure the safety and well-being of all patients and staff. At Mayo Clinic, effective navigation of the dynamic and complex situation created by COVID-19 required unique multidisciplinary collaborations to design and implement solutions quickly. Frontline care providers and staff of ancillary services and other critical healthcare functions partnered with the Department of Management Engineering and Consulting (ME&C) team to organise and re-engineer operations to iteratively adapt to the dynamic ‘new normal’. Health systems engineers (HSEs) and project managers (PMs) accelerated the implementation of innovative interventions by leveraging advanced engineering and consulting frameworks, models and methods. Utilising a patient and staff-centric systems approach to align electronic systems, operational processes, staffing resources and organisational infrastructure has been invaluable for speed and effectiveness. Harnessing the promise of digital technology and advanced analytics was imperative and set the stage for a broader set of possibilities to transform healthcare. These possibilities include scaling of consumerfocused virtual services in multiple and unfamiliar settings, new assets that could be reused for future emergencies, accelerating the implementation of time-sensitive solutions, applied analytics and modelling to predict clinical, financial and community impacts and reimaging the healthcare supply chain. As more has been learned about the trajectory and management of COVID-19, the need to rapidly evolve and pivot interventions for short-, medium-, and long-term applications continues. This article addresses the unique contributions of ME&C during the COVID-19 crisis and the results-oriented collaborations with staff in critical business functions. We believe that the experiences, outcomes and lessons learned through this journey are broadly transferable to other healthcare and nonhealthcare organisations.
Innovation at the crossroads: Partnering in the service delivery ecosystem to foster innovation
Authors: Jordan Brian , Tovar Charemon
Published: July 2024

The manner in which corporations relate to one another must change to address new competitive forces. Due to the complex nature of corporate innovation and supplier/customer relations, how companies deal with service providers and how service providers view customers must evolve as well. This paper traces the corporate relationship from a buyer/seller association to a strategic partnership and ultimately to becoming an alliance partner. An alliance partnership allows two companies to mutually benefit one another by providing each other with more than just services or revenue, but innovation as well as support and growth in all aspects of the association. In the process of going from a traditional supplier to an alliance partner, the specifics of the innovation framework provide additional value so that both partners in any relationship may move forward with new ideas and strategies for success. Partnerships offer a rich environment for technological innovation that can add significant value for all involved; however, new governance and organisational models are needed to create an environment where innovation can prosper. Innovation within the partnership needs to be fostered by the use of information technology as a key element of success. With a new model for partnership, an effective governance model and the proper technologies, strategic and alliance partners can achieve the absolute potential value that the relationship can yield.
Transforming supply chains through integrated business planning supported by advanced technologies
Authors: Shutay Jeanette , Ahern Jill
Published: July 2024

Integrated business planning first requires multi-disciplinary stakeholder collaboration and alignment, which can be very difficult to achieve in practice and the importance of which is often underestimated. Embracing and implementing a successful stakeholder engagement model requires intentional efforts to share information, remove long-standing silos, align on priorities and align on an execution strategy. Furthermore, planning for future demand through a shared execution strategy poses additional challenges given the complexities of projecting demand and aligning supply plans to marketing strategy and sales goals. This paper presents an overview of the common pain points experienced by supply chain professionals today, along with strategies for transforming supply chains through integrated business planning and the use of advanced technologies. By combining adequate organisational alignment with the power of advanced technologies, the full benefits of integrated business planning can be realised.
Lessons learnt: Digital transformation of processes led to a rethinking of how certificates of completion are issued
Authors: Gray Helen Williamsdóttir , Jónsson Sigurður Fjalar
Published: July 2024

Digital transformation of processes and services is affecting business and everyday life. This paper describes a small training centre in Iceland that has in recent years been involved in this transformation following discussions and actions in connection with Industry 4.0. As a result of the urgency for digital transformation of services due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, a disruption in services emerged. Collecting information about the digital transformation of educational services led to new knowledge on the phenomenon of issuing credentials/certificates for learners. Issues of security and accessibility as well as potential ways for learners to share verifiable credentials resulted in the investigation, creation, testing and issuing of digital credentials to learners upon the completion of courses at IDAN Education Centre. This journey has highlighted the potential of digital credentials, but at the same time revealed weaknesses that have compelled the authors to face up to challenges, address problems and act. The human factor has been, and continues to be, the most challenging factor in issuing digital credentials. Our organisation stalled in their implementation due to lack of resources, clarity and commitment. Looking ahead, management still believes that digital credentials are of immense value for learners, companies and educators. IDAN is regrouping and reorganising for the next phase of digital transformation of services.
How data and user behaviour analysis impacts sales — especially via mobile
Authors: Pavan Enrico
Published: July 2024

This paper presents a case study on how an organisation improved the percentage of purchases by browsers using smartphones to browse its site. The main focus is on understanding how to improve the performance of mobile and traditional ecommerce, especially during the primary annual Western holiday period (Halloween to Christmas), while reducing the amount spent in search advertising campaigns in favour of direct mail marketing and display campaigns. Over the course of this case study, the characteristics of the users that form the basis of visits to the site and the strategies used to retain them and turn them into repeat buyers — especially from mobile — will emerge. This paper also reviews relevant customer journey models and strategies to optimise them, thus making customer journeys more successful.
Thwarting a cyber physical attack in the Internet of Things era
Authors: Mistry Bharat , Malik William (Bill)
Published: July 2024

While businesses and consumers see opportunity and efficiency in the billions of devices now connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), cybercriminals also see an opportunity in the vulnerabilities created with each connection. This paper outlines three things you need to understand in order to prevent a cyber physical attack in the digitally connected world. The paper also highlights best practices you can use to implement the right mix of policy, architecture, training and technology to keep your organisation secure.
Increasing productivity by introducing facilities management software
Authors: Liekens Rudy
Published: July 2024

Traditionally, a public service such as the Federal Public Service (FPS) Economy focused on its internal operation rather than on the wellbeing of citizens. Public servants saw themselves as the guardians of law and order. In 21st-century society, people are no longer satisfied with being governed but want value for their money. For the Belgian federal government this revolutionary idea led to a new vision and an ethical change in the working process. This case study explains what this change in ideas meant for the facilities organisation of the FPS Economy and how this public service proceeded in order to make the necessary changes. Rather than being an organisation that provided services and goods without considering citizens’ needs, this organisation has been transformed into a client-oriented service provider. To become such a service provider, it was necessary to redesign the organisation itself and its operations in order to improve efficiency. The use of a Facilities Management Information System (FMIS) as a tool to support business process re-engineering allows productivity to increase. After the decision of the government to reduce resources, the facilities department was forced to reorganise. In order to achieve this business process re-engineering, a practical and user-friendly methodology was applied. In this paper, the different steps that led to a better organisation are summarised. At the end of this case study, a few lessons learned are given.
Consent for data processing under the General Data Protection Regulation: Could ‘dynamic consent’ be a useful tool for researchers?
Authors: Prictor Megan , Teare Harriet J. A. , Bell Jessica , Taylor Mark , Kaye Jane
Published: July 2024

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets the bar high for consent for the processing of personal data. In the UK, researchers have been directed to rely on legal bases other than consent for processing personal data for research purposes. Informed consent, nonetheless, and despite certain shortcomings, holds a central position in ethical research practice, as well as at common law, and in a range of other legislation dealing with research involving humans. This paper evaluates the place of informed consent in research following the GDPR’s implementation, arguing that a fresh approach to consent — specifically the concept known as ‘dynamic consent’ — could provide a way for researchers to meet the new European regulatory requirements for data processing while adhering to the highest ethical standards for research conduct. It analyses dynamic consent according to specific GDPR requirements and reflects on practical examples that could inform future implementation of the approach, while remaining aware of the need for further empirical research.
The impact of GDPR on WHOIS: Implications for businesses facing cybercrime
Authors: Ferrante Anthony J.
Published: July 2024

To protect privacy rights, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been effectively blocking access to the personal information of individuals who register Internet domains. Prior to the May 2018 GDPR enforcement deadline, this information was available through WHOIS, the directory service maintained by the ICANN, the organisation that manages the global domain system. By preventing access to this information, GDPR is depriving cyber security professionals of data that is vital for fighting a variety of Internet-based crimes. ICANN and European authorities have been engaged in high-stakes negotiations over who may legally access the data in the future, and how. To address the concerns of security professionals and others, ICANN has proposed creating a tiered system to allow accredited users, including security professionals, to continue accessing personal data. However, how that tiered system would work is unclear, complicated and mired in controversy. Corporate security officials should take note, as it could speed up the already rapidly escalating problem of cybercrime.
Processes and decision automation for financial markets trade surveillance: Challenges and recommendations — next-generation solutions
Authors: Soviany Cristina , Soviany Sorin
Published: July 2024

This paper presents the challenges institutions encounter when implementing or deploying market surveillance solutions. A guidance framework is provided to design and deploy solutions that can overcome the current challenges. The support technologies that should be used include artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, advanced data science and statistics. The next-generation surveillance solutions should make use of these technologies that provide a robust framework for the detection of any market abuse, both known and new emerging patterns, while reducing the operational cost.
African Union's data policy framework and data protection in Africa
Authors: Yilma Kinfe
Published: July 2024

The African Union (AU) has in recent years launched a number of initiatives with the goal of enabling member states to benefit from the emerging digital economy. One such initiative is the AU Data Policy Framework endorsed by the Executive Council in February 2022. This paper considers what value the Data Policy Framework adds to the protection of data privacy in Africa. It finds that the Data Policy Framework offers little that would further data protection systems at the continental, subcontinental and national levels. With far more progressive international best practices already available, member states are likely to ignore the Policy as they ignored preceding standards like the Malabo Convention.
What are the benefits of creating an omnichannel brand experience?
Authors: Blakeney Jon
Published: July 2024

Is it really worth the time, trouble and investment that it takes to create a truly great omnichannel brand experience? This paper helps to explain what omnichannel really means and how a company can benefit from aligning all its channels into one consistent brand experience. It also looks at what customers are expecting from brands as they move from smartphone to tablet and finally complete their shopping mission in-store. Both the rational and the emotional factors that affect experiences are explored to establish how to optimise the performance of each individual channel and achieve the maximum return on investment. These findings are used to highlight the danger of overinvesting in one channel at the expense of others. This phenomenon is brought to life through real-life examples of brands that have experienced the pain of unhappy customers using multiple channels to vent their anger. The paper also highlights the major trends in omnichannel and includes a ‘how to’ user guide to creating a world-class omnichannel experience. And, finally, the proof of the pudding — the author gives real-life examples of global businesses that have embraced the principles of omnichannel branding and reaped the rewards.
Continuity of operations plans: Simple or detailed?
Authors: Hanwacker Linda S.
Published: July 2024

A continuity of operations plan (COOP) is designed to ensure the stability and continuation of essential services during a wide range of potential events. A successful COOP will: (1) ensure the continuous performance of essential functions before, during and after an event; (2) ensure employee safety and communication; (3) protect essential equipment, vital records and other assets; (4) reduce disruptions to operations to minimise damage and losses; and (5) achieve an orderly recovery, identifying relocation sites and ensuring operational and managerial requirements are met before, during and after an event occurs. This paper focuses on these specific objectives, and discusses the information required, the methodology to consider and what templates to apply in order to create a successful COOP, regardless of whether it is simple or detailed. This paper is based on a workshop given at DRJ SpringWorld 2018.
Meeting compliance under Medicare and Medicaid emergency preparedness Final Rule requirements
Authors: Walsh John J.
Published: July 2024

Nursing home residents experience death and injury at a disproportionately higher rate than other populations during and after a disaster. This paper addresses the complex chronic conditions of vulnerable residents that will become even more challenging due to compounding effects from continued disasters and rapid population aging. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) established national emergency preparedness requirements for long-term care (LTC) and skilled nursing (SN) facilities. The problems facing nursing facilities created by an increasing population to serve, present a challenge to meeting the highest level of requirements and responsibilities for healthcare preparedness. This paper argues that nursing facility personnel are required to participate in an unfamiliar culture of operational processes, using terminology foreign to their profession, in an environment requiring planning and decision-making skills using organisational concepts they most likely have never experienced. Furthermore, unlike hospitals, LTC and SN facility staff have not had extensive access to standardised training to meet the current requirements. The paper concludes that this environment adversely affects emergency managers and unnecessarily increases their planning and operational burden.
A dynamic risk-based approach to managing a pandemic
Authors: Siegel Marc
Published: July 2024

A pandemic is a unique natural disaster that will pose challenges for any organisation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, organisations of all types have struggled to maintain operations while assuring the health and wellbeing of the various persons who work on their behalf. Certainly, many organisations have found that their risk management and business continuity plans fail to consider adequately the disruption associated with a pandemic caused by a novel pathogen. As this paper discusses, this suggests a need to revisit risk assessments and business impact analyses; the assumptions and timeframes on which they are based; and the plans that they have generated. The paper argues that static plans are ill-suited to address the evolving threat of pandemic, and that effective planning and management of pandemic response must be dynamic in nature.
Finding one source of truth between multiple digital asset management platforms at Autodesk
Authors: Britt Sarah , Ederer Kristen , Karpov Jacqueline , Martin Rebeka
Published: July 2024

The Autodesk digital asset management (DAM) system utilises an application programming interface (API) protocol to connect assets between two digital asset management platforms. In preparing, designing and implementing the API, the DAM librarian team reduced taxonomic noise, reinforced file-naming to one schema and backed up the asset life cycle to a single archive. These decisions and implementations have helped the Autodesk DAM team to work with a single source of truth for marketing and sales assets. This paper covers how the DAM API functions, the benefits the API has brought the team and asset stakeholders, and the single source of truth model reinforced by the API call.
Building a grateful patient donor pipeline through strategic events
Authors: Garber Alessandra , Merle Robin
Published: July 2024

Founded in 1863, Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a specialty hospital dedicated to musculoskeletal health. HSS is nationally ranked highest in orthopaedics and second highest in rheumatology by U.S. News & World Report (2016–2017), and has been ranked highest in these specialties for the past 25 years. HSS has a US$1bn budget and is in the final year of a historic US$300m Your Life: Our Mission fundraising campaign focused on building support for capital expansion, research and endowment needs that align with the Hospital‘s strategic plan. Central to the success of the campaign has been an effort to engage grateful patients, secure new donors and inspire greater levels of support. This paper provides an overview of our approach to building the pipeline of major donors through strategic events and practical tools for the successful replication of this method, including ways to engage physicians and high-level volunteers in the fundraising process.
The evolution of digital marketing in the era of AI
Authors: Cutler Kelly
Published: July 2024

This paper explores the far-reaching impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the evolving digital marketing landscape. In the digital age, marketing is undergoing a profound transformation led by data privacy and changing technology, with a focus on the benefits and the risks of adopting AI. Increased productivity and the value of AI must be balanced with careful ethical, legal and privacy considerations. Technologies like third party cookies, once the cornerstone of digital advertising, are being retired and replaced. Simultaneously, ad blockers, wielded by users seeking respite from intrusive advertisements, are reshaping the marketing paradigm. Marketers are at a crossroads. Insights and ideas will be explored pertaining to how AI is poised to reshape the way that marketers do business. While emphasising the role of AI in aspects of marketing such as customer engagement, personalisation, marketing automation, content curation, predictive analytics, campaign creation and more, there is also the need for oversight, management and responsible deployment. This can be accomplished by combining automation and technology with human intervention and direction. Careful examination of the potential benefits and the multifaceted risks posed by AI will define how marketers move into a privacy-centric digital future. This paper delves into the rapidly evolving digital marketing ecosystem as it adapts to changing user behaviours, tightening regulations and new technologies.
Using RFM segmentation to support alumni reunion fundraising
Authors: Orange John , Sharif Selim , Uviedo Cynthia
Published: July 2024

Alumni reunion planning is a major annual undertaking for US colleges and universities. Alumni reunions are cherished events that provide opportunities for alumni to reflect and reconnect with classmates. In the current environment of declining federal and state financial support, fundraising has increasingly become an integral part of the alumni reunion planning process. One of the problems that alumni reunion planners encounter is the development of messaging that is tailored to influence the broad pool of potential donors. This paper provides a strategy to address the messaging problem by using RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value) segmentation to identify and group potential donors in a manner that supports effective target messaging. The reunion fundraising strategy guides the development of messaging that is intended to influence the donor pool. The donor pool is a mixture of major gift, leadership gift, and annual fund prospects. One common characteristic among the prospects in the donor pool is that they all have some type of historical record of financial activity with the institution. The historical record of financial activity is a valuable resource that provides the basic data requirement to conduct an RFM segmentation. The RFM model is an analytic tool that is designed for analysis of data from prospects with historical records of financial transactions. Higher education fundraisers and industry database marketers have used the RFM model with k-means cluster analysis to create segmentation structures that can be used to improve the planning and efficiency of philanthropic and commercial solicitation efforts. Our segmentation results successfully classified each of the alumni reunion potential donors as a member in one of the unique segments of major gift, leadership gift, and annual fund prospects. The characteristics of each identified segment provides information to guide the planners on developing tailored messaging to selectively influence the potential donors.
Estimating earthquake-induced failure probability and downtime of critical facilities
Authors: Porter Keith , Ramer Kyle
Published: July 2024

Fault trees have long been used to estimate failure risk in earthquakes, especially for nuclear power plants (NPPs). One interesting application is that one can assess and manage the probability that two facilities — a primary and backup — would be simultaneously rendered inoperative in a single earthquake. Another is that one can calculate the probabilistic time required to restore a facility to functionality, and the probability that, during any given planning period, the facility would be rendered inoperative for any specified duration. A large new peer-reviewed library of component damageability and repair-time data for the first time enables fault trees to be used to calculate the seismic risk of operational failure and downtime for a wide variety of buildings other than NPPs. With the new library, seismic risk of both the failure probability and probabilistic downtime can be assessed and managed, considering the facility’s unique combination of structural and non-structural components, their seismic installation conditions, and the other systems on which the facility relies. An example is offered of real computer data centres operated by a California utility. The fault trees were created and tested in collaboration with utility operators, and the failure probability and downtime results validated in several ways.
Perfect strangers: Digital asset management and lean Six Sigma
Authors: Goldstein Beth
Published: July 2024

In order to grow, organisations must be nimble at problem-solving, agile at exploiting opportunities and adept at surmounting challenges. Growing a business entails more than just a focus on efficiency and costs, as quality and effectiveness matter too. It is a common misconception that adopting lean processes means doing more with less. In reality, the main focus is on simplifying processes, thus improving output and making work better (for everyone). Lean thinking entails looking at what you do, the kind of problems you have and how you currently solve them. Within the field of digital asset management, problem areas may be anything from mistakes or errors in metadata, to waiting on assets to be uploaded to be used, to moving files from one place to another manually. This paper discusses the benefits of lean continuous improvement for digital asset management. It describes how to utilise lean principles that have been vetted and practised by businesses all over the world, in all kinds of industries, to help them be successful, and discusses how these principles apply to digital asset management.
Hygrothermal risk assessment of external wall insulation retrofit to non-traditional wall types in an Irish context, using the Glaser method and a heat, air and moisture transient model
Authors: Mc Donnell Gareth , Little Joseph
Published: July 2024

The Climate Action Plan 2019 targets the low-energy retrofit of 500,000 existing Irish homes before 2030.1 Up to 80 per cent of building failures can be attributed to moisture risks.2 The literature indicated that external wall insulation (EWI, ETICS) failures are mostly due to moisture ingress at junctions and interfaces. A hygrothermal risk assessment of EWI on three walls with rendered concrete/concrete blockwork/cavity walls in Dublin, Belfast and Belmullet was undertaken using transient numerical simulation and the Glaser method. The guidance, common practice indicates a preference for Glaser. The initial simulation results were compared to assess the appropriateness of Glaser. Material measurements were undertaken and this data was used in the transient numerical simulations. A parametric study was undertaken using a selection of the initial transient numerical simulations stressed with parameters of 1–2 per cent driving rain at different window positions. The results of the initial transient numerical simulations indicate that most retrofit cases, except on cavity walls, are low risk. All cases assessed using Glaser pass the assessments. The parametric study indicated between 40–67 per cent were high risk depending on the wall types. All cases with mineral wool/mineral render were low risk, while most cases with acrylic render were high risk. The research described in this paper indicates that using the Glaser method for hygrothermal assessment of EWI cannot capture the extent of the risk when buildings are leaking.
Which social media channels are most frequently used by small businesses and does the choice reflect the age of the business?
Authors: Roberts Sherry J. , Geho Patrick R. , Hall Webb Susan
Published: July 2024

With rising costs of advertising, social media has become the number one channel for small businesses’ external communication. This study examines small businesses’ use of social media, the frequency that they use social media, and the impact that the age of the business has on this frequency. The research indicates that small businesses that have been in business for less than ten years are frequent users of social media, company websites and letters for external communication. The findings lead to several other questions for further research. The answers to these questions will determine the communication skills that will be needed by future entrepreneurs.
Audit rights: The gateway to proactive and sustainable portfolio governance
Authors: Patten Jarrod M.
Published: July 2024

Audit rights have never been more relevant with continued, accelerated global adoption of auditing as a mechanism through which to truly enhance portfolio governance. With heightened compliance demands and cost control objectives, corporations and governments are looking for means through which material, dynamic real estate portfolios can be turned into strategic assets. While lease audit programmes provide that solution, it is the audit clauses themselves, and the distinct rights within them, that make or break the opportunity and success levels of such governance initiatives.Audit right strategy is a leading indicator of savings and compliance opportunity. The intention of this paper is to explore ‘best practices’ to maximise audit right strategy in order to drive proactive and sustainable portfolio governance.
Overnight index swap and integrated credit valuation adjustment discounting
Authors: Douglas Rohan , Pugachevsky Dmitry
Published: July 2024

A new generation of interest rate modelling based on dual curve pricing and integrated credit valuation adjustment (CVA) is evolving. This new framework requires a rethink of derivative modelling from first principles and presents significant challenges for existing valuation, risk management and margining systems. Prior to the credit crisis, interest rate modelling was generally well understood. The underlying fundamental principles had existed for over 30 years with steady evolution in areas that were most relevant to options and complex products. Credit and liquidity were ignored as their effects were minimal. Pricing a single currency interest rate swap was straightforward. A single interest rate curve was calibrated to liquid market products and future cash flows were estimated and discounted using this single curve. There was little variation between implementations and results across the market were consistent. Following the credit crisis, interest modelling has undergone nothing short of a revolution. During the credit crisis, credit and liquidity issues drove apart previously closely related rates. For example, euro interbank offer rate (Euribor) basis swap spreads dramatically increased and the spreads between Euribor and euro overnight index average (Eonia) overnight index swaps (OISs) diverged. In addition, the effect of counterparty credit on valuation and risk management dramatically increased. Existing modelling and infrastructure no longer worked and a rethink from first principles had to take place.
Turning islands into bridges: Communitybased response after a catastrophic earthquake
Authors: Crow Consuelo , Schmit Lucia
Published: July 2024

The workforce rallying point model is intended to activate within the first 24 hours after a catastrophic earthquake. Its purpose is to provide employees with access to critical information and early response assignments following a Cascadia subduction zone-type event. The consequences from a catastrophic event could include loss of communication with departmental leadership, as well as loss of safe worksite facilities. A systems failure of this magnitude requires rethinking traditional centralised disaster response models. Building from lessons learned in past catastrophes, the City of Seattle is rewriting its earthquake response plan to account for an unknown period of isolation. The Seattle Office of Emergency Management has identified eight sites as potential workforce rallying points based on anticipated impacts to bridges, roadways and other infrastructure. Workforce rallying points serve four primary purposes: (1) citywide communications connectivity for consequence management activities, (2) City of Seattle staff collection and assignment points, (3) impact assessment and reporting hubs, and (4) public information distribution points, including the availability of in-language community messaging. The new plan embraces decentralised decision making, through workforce rallying points, and by supporting community empowerment through spontaneous community response efforts.
How does hotline and incident management stack up in the financial services industry? An analysis of comparative metrics
Authors: Penman Carrie
Published: July 2024

An efficient and trusted mechanism by which employees can anonymously or confidentially report allegations of suspected or actual misconduct is the hallmark of a well-designed compliance programme. Yet, every industry will have different metrics related to their reporting processes and systems. There is not a ‘right’ answer because all metrics will be influenced by the risk areas facing each industry. The finance sector is no exception. So, what does the data show for the finance sector and how can the data be used to impact programme effectiveness? To answer this question, in 2023, NAVEX®, a provider of governance, risk and compliance information system software and services, examined financial-industry specifics within a large global data set of anonymised hotline and incident management metrics. This research, published here for the first time, follows the release of NAVEX's 2023 ‘Hotline & Incident Management Benchmark Report’ — an annual, publicly available analysis of hotline reporting data generated through the intake channels NAVEX provides to its customers. This research publication, published in March, involved a total of 1.52 million reports worldwide. Financial services was the third-most represented sector across the larger benchmark report. Comparing financial services to global benchmarks, it appears the industry is outperforming other sectors in several key incident management metrics. Yet for individual financial firms, the industry-specific benchmark data revealed in this analysis could provide a more refined look into the ways organisations can compare their programmes to their industry peers. Overall, the financial services industry received more reports per 100 employees, fewer anonymous reports, and were consistently closing cases even with a different mix of issue types, ie more business-related issues than other industries.
COVID-19 triggers great nonfinancial risk crisis: Nonfinancial risk management best practices in Canada
Authors: Tullo Lois
Published: July 2024

The spread of viral disease COVID-19 is the most transformative nonfinancial risk (NFR) of this decade triggering the Great Nonfinancial Risk Crisis. The uniting of strategy and risk management has never been more crucial for financial institutions. The interrelationship between the pandemic and the increases in ageing, chronic diseases, interstate conflicts, nationalism, cyber attacks, cyber dependency, asset bubble, and sovereign debt is transforming our reality in previously unimaginable ways. NFR management best practices Canadian Financial Institutions (FIs) prioritised NFR and adopted a NFR framework that enabled them to identify the spread of viral disease (COVID-19). Then they reprioritised COVID-19 risk into their existing enterprise risk management framework to reduce the exposure and impact of the pandemic and re-evaluated their strategic assumptions to reset their business strategy in light of the reprioritised risk matrix. In this paper, the author reviews best practices in managing NFRs and trends from the practitioner’s point of view. Thirteen Canadian FIs are reviewed along with their positioning of NFR pre- and post-COVID-19, and their recent enhancements to their NFR-management process. The author illustrates how the adoption of the Global Risks and Trends Framework by several Canadian FIs has influenced their preparation and resilience in this pandemic. Finally, the author discusses best practice examples, as well as challenges that still exist, how organisations have adjusted their strategy linking risk to their recent experience, and what lessons other FIs can learn about managing these NFRs.
Basware's journey to modern business-to-business performance marketing
Authors: Jones Ceri
Published: July 2024

Basware helps businesses around the world control and reduce costs, manage spend and forecast for business growth. As such, the company needs to be at the forefront of digital service delivery. From a company perspective, this has meant a long-term change programme, undertaken over the past four years, finding new ways to connect with prospects and build robust relationships with customers. A focus on performance marketing has been central to this new approach, focused on an improved customer experience achieved via data-driven decision-making and activities. The changes have required a shift in focus from product to customer centricity, a more agile approach to marketing, and a new mindset for staff. At the same time, the company has developed a centralised centre of excellence to deploy resources more efficiently, to monitor and manage key performance indicators more precisely, and to better meet customer needs. This paper outlines the external conditions that drove the need for change, and the essential drivers that include customer centricity, a shift from outsource to in-house, centralisation and the customer experience. It outlines how the changes have given the company a common and joined-up, scalable means of going to market, bringing together central and local activity, removing inefficiencies and taking a complete view of prospect data.
Ogilvy versus Aristotle: How creative briefs fail and why brand strategists should adopt a new patron saint
Authors: Jones Casey , Bonevac Daniel
Published: July 2024

Chief executive officers, general managers, marketers and those who strive to create compelling creative content in the pursuit of business objectives lack the kind of foundational thinking that underpins other critical business functions such as law, operations and finance. The advertising industry has failed to define what matters most in a creative brief or develop industry standards for how to identify ‘what the work should say’ so that creative teams can develop creative ways to say it. This is a systemic problem that damages the credibility of creative presentations as well as the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. ‘Messaging’ is seen as the development of statements, without thought as to how those statements should be organised to optimise their persuasive impact. The paper argues for a more reasonable and more powerful approach based on perception-shifting cases.
Transaction banking in the cloud: Towards a new business model
Authors: De Meijer Carlo R. W. , Brown Alastair
Published: July 2024

Transaction banks are confronted with a growing number of challenges that are affecting their present business models. They are increasingly pressed to adapt to changes in their competitive and technological environments. Transaction banks need to redefine their business models to reflect these changing trends better. That means finding more cost-effective IT delivery methods that also support the rapid creation of innovative new transaction banking services to their corpor­ate clients. Innovations such as cloud computing are set to play an increasingly influential role. Banks have, for a long time, been reluctant to adopt computing technologies, particularly for security reasons. Cloud computing, however, has gained greater prominence over the past year, and is now also generating interest from transaction banks. They are increasingly aware of the benefits that cloud computing could bring, giving them a cost-effective way to respond to the present changing conditions. This paper discusses what cloud computing could mean for the transaction banking industry. What are the main drivers, the benefits and the various challenges that transaction banks will need to overcome? It discusses ways in which innovative transaction banks could leverage the cloud for competitive advantages in the coming years. What shape should their cloud take; which model can be used at sufficient scale to make it cost effective and operationally efficient; and when and how to implement the cloud? How will it impact their business model? Some forward-thinking on cloud computing in transaction banking is explored.
New lease accounting standards are evolving: Is there a scary monster under the bed and will it really affect lease versus buy or other CRE decisions?
Authors: Maiona Marc A.
Published: July 2024

The new lease accounting standards will change some business practices, but not the ones most have previously imagined. Why? What has changed? Very recently, the accounting boards (FASB and IASB) made significant changes to the proposals they originally released in August 2010. These changes served to alter the impact the original proposals were expected to have on CRE business practices and strategy. Thankfully, both for CRE and its counterparts in corporate finance, the changes adopted over just the past few months mean some of the most controversial aspects of the new lease accounting standards have been moderated so that they will not have as material an impact as originally envisioned. While all leases will still be capitalised with a front-loaded impact on the tenant's profit and loss, the revisions to how renewal options and contingent rents are to be accounted for, among other important changes, result in a smaller impact on the corporate balance sheet and income statement — provided CRE professionals understand the newly revised proposals. Importantly, the revised proposals mean CRE's lease versus buy decisions should not be impacted, but other business practices will be affected. So while the new lease accounting standards represent a monster hiding under CRE's bed, this paper explains why the monster is not as scary as most originally envisioned.
Using a data warehouse to solve risk, performance, reporting and compliance-related issues
Authors: Stock Tom
Published: July 2024

This paper discusses how a data warehouse fits into an overall enterprise data management (EDM) strategy. It discusses three common business problems in the financial services industry and how a data warehouse can be used to solve these typical industry issues. Real life case studies are used to illustrate data warehouse usage in solving performance and attribution, risk and customer reporting related business problems.