Opportunity 

Data privacy policy, such as GDPR, is often viewed as an obstacle for digital sales and service companies (DSS-companies). But what if personal big data could be used to create successful and friction free shopping experiences without jeopardizing privacy? And what if consumers could increase the control over their private big data at the same time?  

Online purchases, especially within retail, are often being return due to a gap between customer expectation and the actual product. Returns raise costs across the network and to environment. What if personal big data could increase the rate of purchases of products matching the expectation from the customer? And what if utilization of personal big data within e-commerce could have a positive impact for our planet? 

Approach 

The concept Cipers offers consumers and DSS-companies a digital solution that combines privacy and advanced analytics. Cipers is short for Consumer Integrity Personal data relevant Recommendations and Success attributes identification. It is the result of a six-week innovation sprint where professionals from four tech companies and five researchers from Borås University created and evaluated a tech solution for personalized e-commerce. 

Cipers offers consumers to sign up for an account which safely stores their personal data, making it friction free to get a more personalized treatment. The Cipers account offers consumers to get control and an overview of where, how, and why their personal data are being used. Lastly, at every given moment, the user of Cipers can use their account to retrieve their personal data and remove it from where it has been stored.  

For DSS-companies Cipers offers a cloud service that supports personalization of consumer offers and increases the intent to buy. Also, it helps DSS-companies to retrieve value and insights from consumers’ personal big data within threatening privacy. Taking all of this into account, Cipers will help DSS-companies achieve more successful purchases and less returns. 

The Rewards 

The cost for a DSS-company to use Cipers will be covered within 4 months of integration and the revenue will be more than four times the investment by the second year of usage, resulting in an increase in profit by SEK 2 million. Cipers as a business will reach break-even by the fifth year when targeting a local market with a revenue of SEK 184 million. When targeting a global market, break-even will be reached by the end of the first year with a revenue of SEK 296 million

This study investigates the impact of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) on the development of routine capabilities and practice changes within public organizations. Drawing on the theoretical lens of technology as routine capability, we conducted case studies at two Swedish public universities. Our findings reveal that the implementation of RPA, conceptualized as a routine capability, fostered the emergence of automation practices within these institutions despite their differing implementation experiences. We identified practice changes across four key dimensions: design, execution, diffusion, and shift. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge on RPA by offering detailed empirical insights into how it has advanced practices, induced organizational changes, and identified challenges that require further exploration. This research offers practical implications for public organizations managing RPA-triggered organizational transformations towards automation. 

In several design science research (DSR) frameworks and methods, the need for generalising problemsand solutions has been emphasised. For example, various DSR studies present generalised designprinciples as nascent theories. Due to the creative and contextual nature of DSR, several scholars reportthat generalisation can be challenging. The challenge is particularly valid for single qualitative studiesbecause the design of an artefact always reflects the circumstances in the context where it is to be used.Therefore, the purpose of this study is to present guidelines regarding generalisation. The suggestedguidelines are: strategically plan the generalisation process, validate the generalised knowledge toaugment the reusability and find an appropriate generalisation level. The formulation of the guidelinesis based on the analyses of three DSR projects and insights from previous knowledge. Our knowledgecontribution consists of prescriptive knowledge (guidelines) as a complement to existing explanativeand descriptive knowledge.

Språkmodeller, såsom Open AI GPT-4, erbjuder nya möjligheter för organisationer att förändra sina verksamheter. Men tekniken är så pass ny att få organisationer har hunnit utforska den närmare och undersöka hur den användas i konkreta tillämpningar. I och med språkmodellers mångsidighet passar det bra för flera aktörer att arbeta tillsammans utan att hamna i en konkurrenssituation. Därför genomfördes en innovationssprint på Techarena Borås av företagen Centiro, Eton Shirts, Netonnet, Hive and Five, och XPRNC tillsammans med Högskolan i Borås och Yrkeshögskolan i Borås. Utgångspunkten var utmaningar i fem kundsituationer: kundservice, produktbeskrivning, produktrekommendation, studievägledning och tonalitet. Resultatet består av fyra demonstratorer med tydliga affärsnyttor som alla bygger på tillämpningar av språkmodeller. I den här rapporten delar vi med oss av arbetsflöden, tekniska arkitekturer, utvärderingar, tekniska val och riktlinjer för att inspirera och visa hur organisationer kan dra nytta av tekniken i sina respektive verksamheter. Vi ser ett behov av fortsatt forskning kring de unika handlingsmöjligheter som språkmodeller erbjuder i olika sammanhang. Vi ser också ett behov av nya processmodeller för att beskriva och analysera de nya handlingsmöjligheterna.

This paper presents a prototype aimed at enhancing the customer service workflow of Centiro Solutions, focusing on efficiently resolving incidents related to software products and services. Leveraging a Large Language Model (LLM), the prototype enhances information retrieval, problem-solving procedures, and communication alignment with company values. The design process involved an innovation sprint, a collaborative effort between industry and academia, employing methodologies like design-thinking and agile development. Evaluation results indicate several benefits, including cost reduction, improved customer service, and streamlined training for customer service technicians. The paper proposes four hypotheses for future research, including the integration of language models into workflows and the importance of user involvement in developing routines for utilizing language models effectively.

The public sector has increased its use of robotic process automation (RPA) in administration, decision making and citizen services. Available studies mostly focused on the specific cases of using RPA in public organizations. Thus, we lack the helicopter view of the adoption of RPA in a country. In this paper, we present the results of a national survey of RPA adoption in the public sector in Sweden. The results show that the awareness of RPA is high in the Swedish public sector although the level of adoption is still modest. Also, there are notable differences in the level of adoption between central and local government. The study goes beyond the limitations of case studies, and contribute new knowledge of RRA adoption, benefits, routine capability and governance on a national level. The knowledge and insights can serve as a reference for other countries and public administrative models.