Sohail Chaudhry - Böcker

The idea for this conference came from a meeting of the IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) Technical Committee for Information Systems (TC8) in Guimares, Portugal in June 2005. Our goal is to build an IFIP forum among the different Information Systems Communities of TC8 dealing with the increasing important area of Enterprise Information Systems. In this particular meeting the committee members intensively discussed the innovative and unique characteristics of Enterprise Information Systems as scientific sub-discipline. Hence, in this meeting it was decided by the TC8 members that the IFIP TC8 First International Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems (CONFENIS 2006) would be held in April 2006 in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Li Xu (USA) and Dr. A Min Tjoa (IFIP TC8) were assigned to propose a concept for this conference in order to establish an IFIP platform for EIS researchers and practitioners in the field to share experience, and discussing opportunities and challenges. We are very pleased therefore to have this conference organised by the help of the Austrian Computer Society (OCG). OCG supports the idea of this conference due to the urgent need of research and dissemination of new techniques in this key area. We received 180 papers from more than 30 countries for CONFENIS and the Program Committee eventually selected xx papers or extended abstracts, making an acceptance rate of xx% of submitted papers. Each paper was thoroughly reviewed by at least two qualified reviewers.

For many years now Enterprise Information Systems have been critical in helping businesses successfully navigate the global market. The development that started with design and implementation of integrated systems has evolved to incorporate a multitude of perspectives and ideas. The Enterprise Information Systems functionality extends from principally an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to a portfolio of standard systems including CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems and SCM (Supply Chain Management) systems. Advances in Enterprise Information Systems II is divided into seven thematic sections, each exploring a distinct topic. In “Concepts in Enterprise Information Systems” the authors present new concepts and ideas for the field. “Cases in Enterprise Information Systems” introduces studies of enterprise information systems in an organizational context. “Business Process Management” is one of the major themes within enterprise information systems and “Designing Enterprise Information Systems” discusses new approaches to the design of processes and system and also deals with how design can be taken as a specific perspective. “Enterprise Information Systems in various domains” features generic studies that contribute to advancing the practical knowledge of the field as well as towards “Global issues of Enterprise Information Systems”. Finally, in “Emerging Topics in Enterprise Information Systems”, new technologies and ideas are explored. Cloud computing in particular seems to be setting the agenda for future research in enterprise information systems. The book will be invaluable to academics and professionals interested in recent developments in the field of enterprise information systems.

The goal of this conference is to build an IFIP forum among the different Information Systems Communities of the IFIP TC 8 dealing with the increasingly important area of Enterprise Information Systems. The papers in this volume were selected from a pool of 180 papers from over 30 countries. Each paper was thouroughly reviewed by at least two qualified reviewers before being accepted. As an additional feature of CONFENIS the conference organizers invited distinguished scholars to present and discuss special aspects relevant for future applications and research. Such special presentations include: Dr. Prof. Gottfried Vossen (University of Munster, Germany) the director of the European Research Center for Information Systems's presentation on service-oriented architecture and Dr. Thomas Li, Director of IBM China Research Laboratory's keynote speech on continual business transformation technology.