Institute for Information Systems

We shape digital change.

The Institute for Information Systems (IWI) has over 50 employees who actively shape digital transformation and support society and our research and practice partners in managing future challenges. In our nine areas of expertise we investigate, research, teach and shape digital change in the business world and society. Our key competence lies in managing complex systems and in the interplay between humans, data, information, knowledge and processes – with artificial intelligence whenever and wherever appropriate.

Our research activities
Our consulting offers
Our continuing education products
Our commitment to undergraduate education

Competence Centres

The Competence Center acts as an incubator for blockchain innovations and investigates the implications of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies in a business context. We are academic partners for managers, as well as technology and industry experts aiming to share knowledge and best practices. Our industry focus is on the life sciences and health care industries with a specific attention to supply chains, logistics, and ‘Industry 4.0’. Building on three strands, our research encompasses the areas Governance, Application and Education.

Further information

Digital technologies offer extensive opportunities for new business models. In particular they offer agile, worldwide internet projects and contacts. This, however, also encourages the “dark side” of the internet: all kinds of cyber attacks are on the increase and threaten enterprises and, not least, our privacy.
In our Competence Centre for Cyber Security & Cyber Resilience we bundle competences from a range of areas of information technology. We identify and develop mechanisms to build and operate a resilient system that can absorb malfunctions and attacks.
In the context of information technology our research questions come from the fields of governance, risk management, compliance (GRC), security and data protection. We link these questions with cyber security and resilience and look for application-oriented solutions.

Contact: Petra Asprion, cGV0cmEuYXNwcmlvbkBmaG53LmNo

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Digital opportunities are changing our society and economy with increasing speed. Businesses that are not prepared will not be able to keep up with the pace while business areas that were previously considered stable could suddenly no longer be in demand with customers, in spite of the high quality of their products or services.
Our Competence Center for Digital Economy & Business Agility supports leaders on their way to a digital, networked economy through innovative knowledge management and agile processes, so that businesses can in future continue to perform successfully in the market. To this end we use economy 4.0, an approach that explicitly anchors the digital element as the fourth production factor in management and take it into account on all levels of management and business.

Contact: Dino Schwaferts, ZGluby5zY2h3YWZlcnRzQGZobncuY2g=

The centre for Supply Chain is the central contact point in Northwestern Switzerland for the digital transformation of supply chain, distribution and logistics. Medicine, omni-channel-commerce or Industry 4.0—digitally connected added value over the entire life-cycle shapes a new basis for the success of industries in Northwestern Switzerland and abroad. The centre for Supply Chain emerged as an initiative of the economy in Northwestern Switzerland. Together, we will establish the new, digital competencies in supply chain and logistics and will implement innovative solutions.

Contact: Joachim Ehrenthal, am9hY2hpbS5laHJlbnRoYWxAZmhudy5jaA==

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Creating added value across organisations using business concepts from e-procurement and business software to electronic invoicing and e-commerce – this is the task of the e-business team.
We support enterprises in the conceptualisation and realisation of solutions that involve networked systems as well as interdisciplinary tasks and, in so doing, prioritise the perspective of responsible management.
The Competence Center for E-Business works on research projects, delivers services and publishes its results primarily for readers from practice and undergraduate education. Our key topic areas include IT supported business concepts across organisations, e-business in customer-supplier relationships (B2B), e-commerce and the eXperience initiative.

Contact: Ralf Wölfle, cmFsZi53b2VsZmxlQGZobncuY2g=

Artificial intelligence (AI) is much more than just machine learning from large amounts of data. In intelligent systems, the experience and expertise of employees remains indispensable. Especially in cases where decisions have farreaching consequences, it is people who ultimately have to take responsibility. Some areas are highly regulated and require strict compliance. This knowledge cannot be learned automatically, but can be represented and used by knowledge-based systems.

Contact: Knut Hinkelmann

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Digital change is not just about technology. The digital transformation is largely shaped, lived and claimed by people. For this reason, a systemic perspective is important, which considers in particular the mutual organisational and social impact of digital transformation. The team of the Competence Center Technology, Organisation & People explores connections between digital technologies, social and cultural perspectives as well as business and society. The aim of our work is to successfully shape the development of sustainable organisations.

Contact: Theresa Schmiedel, dGhlcmVzYS5zY2htaWVkZWxAZmhudy5jaA==">dGhlcmVzYS5zY2htaWVkZWxAZmhudy5jaA==

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The economic and technical challenges faced by the energy sector, such as the integration of decentralised renewable energy sources, call for approaches to solutions that intelligently combine both economic and technical aspects. The field of business information systems is predestined to carry out this task and provides support in the transformation of the energy sector to prepare it for future challenges.
To support the transformation of the energy sector and prepare enterprises for future challenges in this area, the Competence Center Smart Energy Systems is researching and developing solutions in the areas of Smart Grids, Smart Markets, new business models in the energy area as well as Smart Home.

Contact: Holger Wache, aG9sZ2VyLndhY2hlQGZobncuY2g=

The Competence Center Systems Engineering addresses complex issues from industry and business as well as public administration and society. We use clever algorithms, software technical solutions and/or new IT infrastructure. We adopt state-of-the-art methods from the fields of modelling, data analysis, simulation and optimisation to answer this question.
We focus on modelling and developing software systems. In terms of content, the topics of software and web engineering, programming and the development of tailored algorithms are central in our research, consulting and continuing education projects. For complex problems, methods from the field of computational intelligence can be employed that, for example, support pattern recognition, modelling processes or finding optimal solutions.

Contact: Thomas Hanne, dGhvbWFzLmhhbm5lQGZobncuY2g=

Two of the driving trends in digital transformation are the rapid developments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and novel robotics hardware. Their combination enables new, socio-technical forms of human-machine interaction. Beyond such human-robot systems, complex intelligent systems can also be found in a wide variety of areas of technology, economy, and society. Using biology-inspired and AI-derived methods, Computational Intelligence (CI) presents a valuable approach to researching such systems, e.g., supply chain optimization, self-driving vehicles, or cooking robots. In the meantime, research of complex intelligent systems goes beyond individual intelligent systems as it also deals with the environment and interactions of intelligent systems according to the complexity theory. As intelligent systems are more frequently and deeper integrated into our society, e.g., in chat systems or social robots, we are increasingly confronted with complex intelligent systems. The next competence centre at the Institute of Information Systems will therefore be called "Complex Intelligent Systems" and will deepen research in AI, CI, complex intelligent systems, and meta-intelligence.

Contact: Rolf Dornberger, cm9sZi5kb3JuYmVyZ2VyQGZobncuY2g=