Business Commons^™

The State Of Digital Transformation: A Pilot Study, Ngan N. Chau, Steve Schulz, Vijay Agrawal

Mountain Plains Business Conference

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges for business operations, it has certainly driven businesses to deploy digital technologies in a variety of areas, including customer engagement, customer services, and workflow coordination. In addition to supporting overall business strategies, digital technologies have been shown to carry the capacity to trigger business innovations and renewal. This pilot study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 on digitalization and further investigate the various paths of digital transformation at different businesses. Key findings will be discussed along with their implications for future research.

University/Industry Collaboration: Using A Classroom Business Case To Enhance Student Problem-Solving/Learning Experience, Gregory Benson, Ngan N. Chau

Mountain Plains Business Conference

This study illustrates how an academic program utilizes industry partnerships as a resource to maintain the relevancy of its curriculum. In particular, a university/industry collaboration experience is examined to showcase how a real business problem at an industry partner has resulted in a business case used in the classroom to enhance students’ problem solving.

Key Words: Supply Chain Management (SCM), University/Industry Collaboration (UIC), Business Case Study

Pulte Homes – Reimagining The Homebuilding Industry, Daniel Chaffin, Susan Jensen

Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Technology

In 2016, William J. (Bill) Pulte, founder, and Pulte Homes’ largest shareholder called for the resignation of CEO Richard Dugas. In his letter to the board of directors, Bill stated the value creation strategy first proposed by Dugas in 2005 had been a major failure. Dugas had a bold vision and intriguing rationale for radically reshaping what he termed the “sleepy” homebuilding industry. Drawing from Toyota and Walmart’s strategies, Dugas argued that Pulte Homes could create greater value by scaling purchasing, improving construction processes, and collaborating with suppliers to lower overall costs while simultaneously refashioning and updating Pulte Home’s product …

Ransomware - A Strategic Threat To Organizations, James Frost, Alan R. Hamlin

Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Technology

Ransomware is a strategic threat to government, business, and academic organizations. It has both short term and long term consequences, requiring strategic planning to create defenses, assess options, and create policies.

The purpose of the study is to answer three questions: What is the strategic risk of cyberattack to organizations? What are the current attitudes and practices of executives who are vulnerable to such threats? What are specific options that organizations should consider to prevent and deal with possible incidents in the future? The article is thus comprised of the following components: A) a history of the development and complexity …