Corporate Environment

The goal is to understand the context in which the private or public firm is evolving. This context gives, on first hand, the sector dynamic - to where we must go for a business solution - and, on second hand, the origin of the dynamic - which are the indicators to look after.

This dynamic is important because it generates a repositioning of the firm, thus a transformation of its organization, from which emerge information system needs. And Up ! Virtual Business Machine is a mightily supplier for these needs.

Major Past Events

• 35 hours.
  Switching to 35-hours working-time per week and setting the year-based working-time.
  
• Year 2000.
  Migration of the information systems to handle the dates greater than the first January 2000.
  
• Growth of the activity.
  It could be wanted or undergone.
  
• Deregulation.
  A decision to harmonize laws at the European level or to open the competition the traditionally state-owned monopolies.
  
• Vertical disintegration.
  A decision to separate the operations of a unique strategic activity into several strategic activities interconnected by a client-supplier relation.
  
• Euro.
  Switching to the European currency.
  
• Vertical integration.
  A decision to gather the operations of several strategic activities interconnected by a client-supplier relation into a unique strategic activity.
  
• Modernization by the use of New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT).
  A change of operational processes without a change of the activities.
  
• Globalization.
  Globalization of the business line.
  
• Pressure on the costs and the delays.
  Generated by the competition due to the maturity of the business line.
  
• Private-owning or articles change.
  A nation-wide decision to change the legal organization of the business line.
  
• Stability.
  No change in and into the activities.
  
• Transformation by the use of New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT).
  Change of the operational activities that generates a need of new resources - financial, technical or human ones.
  
• Transformation of the society.
  Aging of the population, re-composition of the family and rising of the delinquency.
  

Opportunity or Threats About the Business

• Resource-based approach.
  To propose new product and service offers on a market for which the demand is implicit or latent.
  
• Market-driven approach.
  To propose new product and service offers on a market for which the demand is explicit or confirmed.
  
• Merging / acquisition.
  Restructuring of the business line through merging or buy-in operations.
  
• Geopolitical incertitude.
  Due to the second gulf war and to the attempts executed by Islamic fundamentalists, there is incertitude about the international business with developing countries.
  
• Modernization by use of vertical software.
  Renewal of the information system by the use of generic and integrated vertical software to the detriment of specifically developed vertical software.
  
• Empowerment of the free software community.
  Rising of the free software under the general public license such as Linux, MySql, Php. You can notice that Java / J2EE is not belonging to the free software community.
  
• Legal change.
  New laws about the choice of the family name - the impact could be as important as the one for the switching to year 2000 in the public sector -, the introduction of a public analytical accounting, the tracing of food components or the health care reform.
  
• No visibility.
  The environment is so moving that there is no visibility.
  
• Focus on the business information system.
  The decision to invest into information systems is no more based in a technical choice but on a functional need to automate and to take into account in priority.
  
• Reengineering of the information system.
  Cutting of the information system into logical modules that are interchanging logical information flows. This allows making independent the vertical software from each others, which are used to build one or more logical modules.