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Glossary
The CGS Service Offering Portfolio, an integrated framework of
services offered to clients by Cap Volmac Group and its sister organisations
within CGS, is outlined below.
Consulting
- Advice provided to improve performance by means of innovative
solutions to clients' business problems. Consultancy includes
the application of expertise, knowhow and understanding of strategic
business planning and the improvement of operational business
processes, information technology and its practical utility.
Strategic Consulting
- Design and implementation of solutions to business problems
at the strategic level. Advice and support for senior management
in formulating strategy, making strategic decisions based on analysis
of business problems and assistance with taking corrective action
and implementing strategic options and plans.
Organisational Consulting
- Design and implementation of programmes to bring about change
in one or more business functions in order to achieve a permanent
improvement in performance. Advice, support and expertise in the
field of management techniques, personnel, optimisation of business
processes and information flows.
Information Technology
Consulting
- Advice and expertise relating to the organisation of management
information systems and IT management, and advice and expertise
on the use of information technology in business.
Application Consulting
- Advice and expertise relating to business information needs
and application software.
Project Services
- A group of services which has been developed to help clients
to implement information systems and the associated processes
of change.
Systems Integration
- As principal contractor, providing for project management, planning,
design, building and implementation of complete information systems
by integrating components (hardware, software, communications
etc.) from different suppliers.
Software Development
- Providing for project management, planning, design, building
and implementation of clientspecific applications, taking responsibility
for achieving contractually specified results.
Migration
- As principal contractor, providing for project management and
implementation in relation to the migration of information systems
from one technical infrastructure to another (including dismantling
the existing environment, establishing the new infrastructure
converting, redesigning or replacing applications).
Professional Services
- Providing staff of an agreed level and quality of knowledge
and expertise to work on projects on which the client itself is
responsible for project management.
Information Systems
Management
- Providing the maintenance required for the client's information
on the basis of a longterm service level contract, including
responsibility for planning, managment, availability, operation
and maintenance of some or all of the components of the client's
information systems (see also 'Facilities Management' and 'Outsourcing'
below).
Centralised Computing
Services
- Providing ongoing management and operation of hardware used
for central dataoriented information systems on behalf of clients.
Distributed Computing
Services
- Providing ongoing support for and maintenance of distributed
computer environments to optimise the client's infrastructure
and maximise usage, flexibility and costeffectiveness of applications.
Applications
Management Services
- Taking contractual responsibility for the management and execution
of all activities relating to applications maintenance, within
closely defined service levels.
Network
Services
- Providing access to and managing infrastructure networks and
valueadding applications linked thereto.
Hardware &
System Maintenance
- Taking contractual responsibility on an ongoing basis for the
planning and execution of all activities relating to the maintenance
of hardware and system software, within closely defined service
levels, to maximise usage, flexibility and costeffectiveness
of applications.
Education & Training
- A group of services which has been developed to improve the
motivation, knowledge and skills of the client's personnel in
terms of the use and management of information technology.
Management Education
- Providing courses for nonlT management to introduce them to
and raise their awareness of useful and practical applications
of IT.
End User Training
- Providing education and training for nonIT professionals to
help them understand IT and use it effectively in their daily
work.
Professional Skills
Training
- Providing education and training to improve the knowledge and
skills of IT professionals in areas of their work which are unrelated
to specific information systems (such as methods, techniques and
tools).
Technical Training
- Providing courses for IT professionals to improve their competence
and performance in the efficient and effective design, implementation
and operation of systems within specific technical environments
(programming languages, system software, DBMS etc.).
Software
Products
- Supplying, implementing and providing ongoing support for readymade
packaged software solutions.
Methodologies & Tools
- Computerised and noncomputerised instruments to assist in the
efficient and effective design and building of information systems.
Standard
Applications
- Application packages to meet marketspecific or generic requirements
(such as logistics and financial systems).
Alphabetical list of other terms
Adaptive
systems
- Information systems employing learning techniques, distilling
rules from historical data which are applied repetitively to improve
the internal process. Adaptive systems come within the domain
of knowledge engineering.
Business Modelling
- A technique for representing business processes in a readily
understandable form.
Client/Server
Architecture
- A hardware, software and applications architecture designed
to give optimum userfriendliness. PCs and related software (clients)
are used for the ultimate presentation of the information, often
in graphic form, while the server (such as a mainframe) is used
as the single system for information storage, processing, security
and distribution control.
Electronic Mail
- Post sent by computer, ranging frorn a simple message sent from
one work station to another in a local network to messages sent
all around the world by X.400 network. The messages may be simple
written texts or complex communications that include sound and
graphics.
Facilities Management
- Management and operation of a large part of a client's IT facilities
under a contract extending over several years.
Front Office
- All the (usually physical) locations where customers are able
to gain access to a supplier's products and services, such as
travel agencies, bank branches and insurance brokers.
Groupware
- Software that runs on a local network and enables network users
to take part in a joint, often complex project.
Information Superhighway
- A system comprising all the facilities infrastructure, basic
technology (hardware and control software) and electronic services
needed to support the further digitisation of society and thus
the development of the nonmaterial economy.
Knowlegde Engineering
- The development of applications to mimic or support such human
functions as reasoning and pattern recognition, for example clinical
diagnostic systems .
Multimedia
- The field of information technology which is concerned with
the seamless integration of different types of information (data,
text, video images, sound, photographs) and their interaction
with human senses. Multimedia is particularly valuable in hightech
applications in new markets such as interactive TV, teleshopping,
remote learning, teleworking, video on demand, industrial design
etc.
Notebook
- A portable computer roughly the size of an A4 page.
Outsourcing
- Facilities management where the contractor takes over the hardware,
software and personnel.
Software
Factory
- 'Production line' development of application systems. New computer
tools are making it easier to generate software fully automatically
on the basis of specifications. The 'production line' approach
also facilitates reutilisation.
Team Support
- Professional support for document processing and document creating
office organisations and processes.
Business
- Systematic labour performed by people and companies, especially
for the creation of value.
Business
Operation
- Business operation is the way a company is operated: the way
in which the business processes of a company are controlled and
executed, including the resulting products and services and the
external relations with customers, suppliers, partners and other
parties.
Business
Process
- A business process is a certain activity or set of activities
with a specified output, carried out by people and resources in
a company. By business process we specifically mean the activity
in progress, meaning the control and execution of the activity.
Typical business processes are selling a car and fitting a dashboard
in a car.
Business
Sector and Branch of Industry
- A business sector is a part of industry that includes a number
of related branches of industry. A branch of industry is a group
of companies that produce the same type of goods and/or services.
Banking firms and insurance companies are branches of industry
within the financial sector.
Collaborative
Applications
- Collaborative applications are the IT applications in collaborative
systems. The applications facilitate the collaboration between
people, companies and other organisations. [1].
Collaborative applications in themselves are a co-operation of
objects [2] that are distributed among the computers in the network
system on which the collaborative system is based.
Collaborative
(Information) Systems
- Collaborative systems are information systems that are aimed
at supporting co–operation of people and companies, in other
words, organisations [1] and interorganisations.
The basis of a collaborative system is a network system that connects
the workstations and the computers of all the people and companies
involved. This network system serves as a platform for the collaborative
applications that support the co-operation. The growing use of
IT in companies eventually leads to the existence of one big collaborative
information system based on a world-wide network of computers.
This information system supports the work and collaboration of
companies and private individuals.
Communication
- Communication is the connection between people for the purpose
of consultation or exchanging messages. Communication always involves
at least two parties in the roles of sender and receiver.
Company
- A company is an organisation [1] of people and resources for
carrying on a commercial enterprise or business with the objective
to sell goods or supply services to other organisations [1] or
private individuals.
In this book, the term company is used for all enterprises, institutions
and other organisations [1] – both commercial and non-profit
– that provide goods or services to third parties. Organisations
[1] with objectives other than the production of goods or services
for third parties are not considered companies, but they are regarded
as organisations [1]. The government, for example, is not a company
but an organisation [1]. Several organisation units of the government
are, however, companies with a clear product or service intended
for third parties.
Computer
System (Hardware)
- The term computer system refers to the whole of computer hardware,
components, peripherals and data communication equipment.
Peripherals with the emphasis on the computer interface, such
as digital and analogue input and output, but also simple sensors
and actuators in process control, are usually considered to be
part of the computer system, too. Computer systems belong to the
basic elements of an IT infrastructure that facilitates IT applications.
Control
- Control is the operation, co-ordination and termination of (business)
processes.
We do not only mean human-operated business processes, but also
processes that are operated by machines or computers.
Co-operative Competition
- Co-operative competition is a form of competition in which companies
constantly have to decide whether they should co-operate or compete.
It may be necessary to co-operate in order to arrive at a common
product or a common standard for new products or services. Competing
means offering similar products and services in the same market
place and applying different standards. Co-operative competition,
with its choice between competing and co-operating arises, because
companies depend, more than they used to, on co-operation –
even across different business sectors – to be able to accumulate
the core competences needed to realise increasingly complex products
and services.
Core
Activity
- Core activities are the business processes a company must carry
out to be able to produce its specific products and services.
The core activities include the actual production process (the
so-called primary process) and the control and management processes
involved.
With core activities, the emphasis is on the business processes
that are essential for the production process. When a company
confines itself to its core activities, this means that it will
contract out the activities that are not included in the core
activities to other companies, or that it privatises the business
units that execute these secondary processes. The leaner company
now purchases products or services from these new companies.
Core
Competence
- The core competence of a company forms the company’s ‘working
capital’ in the form of knowledge and skills of people and
in the form of immaterial, material and financial resources a
company must have to be able to produce its current products and
services as well as create new products and services with which
new markets can be opened up.
When a company focuses on its core competences, it will always
try to have the right people and resources at its disposal to
be able to realise its present and future business operations.
If a certain competence is not available within a company, the
company will for example have to recruit new staff, enter into
strategic alliances with other companies or create the required
competence by means of research, development and training.
Data
- In IT the term ‘data’ is the name for matters that
are digitally stored in the computer (in binary code) and that
are processed by means of programmes.
In a wider sense, data are the elements that make up an immaterial
product, such as the characters and words in books, the images
and sound in films or the texts and pictures on a computer screen.
The nature of data is therefore not so much determined by the
fact that they are digitally stored, but by the shape they take
on when they are presented via a user interface.
The development of data runs from alphanumeric fields via texts
and pictures to multimedia with (moving) images, sound and speech.
The next phase is that of realistic objects [2] (virtual reality).
The user can use the computer to retrieve, enter and edit data,
store them on media such as magnetic disks and transmit them to
other computer via data communication. The traditional separation
between data and programmes vanishes when data are stored as objects
[2] that do not only contain static data, but also hold their
own instructions for interaction with the user and for the rest
of their behaviour. This is particularly true for virtual reality
objects of an interactive ‘game-like’ nature.
Data
Communication
- Data communication is communication between computers. Data
communication concerns the exchange of digital data between computers.
This concerns messages with a contents varying from alphanumeric
fields to complete documents. Nowadays, data communication between
computers also supports digital speech telephone and videophone,
thus supporting direct communication between people.
Digital
- Of or relating to calculation by numerical methods or by discrete
units. The term digital is used for equipment that works on the
basis of the representation of data and programmes in binary code.
Since nowadays, all electronic equipment is based on binary code
and binary circuits, the term electronic is often used instead
of the term digital.
Digital Highway
- The Digital Highway is the future world-wide network with an
extremely high capacity for the transmission of digital data such
as multimedia documents, speech, sound and images. The network
connects the local network systems of companies, the home systems
of private individuals and the local stations that support mobile
communication.
Document
- A document is a set of data (or objects [2]) recorded as a whole
and presented as such to the user. ā Examples of documents are
books, films or text documents stored electronically in computers.
Electronic
- Electronic is the designation used for equipment that works
with circuits based on the behaviour of free electrons in conductors
and semiconductors. The designation electronic is used for all
equipment working with semiconductors and microprocessors.
Enterprise
- Synonym for company.
The term enterprise emphasises the fact that a company launches
activities of an innovative nature, in which process the company
consciously takes risks.
Environment
(of a company)
- The environment of a company is the circle of external relations
in which a company operates.
The environment includes customers, suppliers, competitors, partners,
the government, public bodies and the media.
Immaterial
Product
- An immaterial product is a product with an immaterial contents.
An immaterial product consists of data that are stored on a material
medium. An immaterial product is the result of ideas in the human
mind, expressed by people in the immaterial product. An immaterial
product has a meaning for people, and it is converted into information
[1] in the human mind.
Information
[1]
- Information is everything that is received by a person from
an external source in the form of messages, items of knowledge
or data.
Information can enhance a user’s knowledge of or insight
into certain matters. Information can also ‘trigger’
the user to perform certain action or feel certain emotions.
Information [2]
- Formalised data (stored on external media) that can serve as
input for data processing machines such as computers.
This is the meaning of the term ‘information’ in present
day information technology. By information, people mean data in
the form of alphanumeric fields that are formally stored in databases.
As a result of the development of multimedia and virtual reality
the computer is also capable of storing unformalised and unstructured
data, and therefore all kinds of immaterial products. In this
book we rarely use the term ‘information’ in this sense.
We prefer to use terms such as ‘data’, ‘documents’
or ‘objects’ [2].
Information
System
- An information system is a data processing system that engages
in collecting, processing, editing, storing, transmitting and
supplying data relating to a certain area of application.
The term information system is normally used in a narrower sense
to refer to an automated system, It then refers to the applications
in combination with the IT infrastructure. In a wider sense the
information system includes all the procedures and resources in
connection with the data of a certain area of application. A non-automated
administrative system is therefore an information system, too.
Information
Technology (IT) [1]
- Information technology (in a narrow sense) is the industry involved
with designing and constructing the hardware and basic software
to be used in computer systems.
This definition refers to a rather technical form of information
technology.
Information Technology (IT) [2]
- Information technology (in a wide sense) is the whole of applied
knowledge of designing and organising computer systems and IT
applications and of supporting the use of these systems and applications.
Information technology [2] does not only include the technical
aspects, but also matters such as application architectures and
knowledge of methods and techniques involved with the development,
management and use of information systems. In this book we use
the term IT in this wider sense.
Infrastructure
- The infrastructure consists of the resources of a company that
have the following basic characteristics:
- the resource is of a relatively durable or permanent nature;
- the resource is a facility that to a large extent functions
independently of the specific use made of it;
- the resource is a facility for general and common use.
The infrastructure therefore constitutes the permanent part
of the resources of a company, for example buildings, computer
systems and the telephone system. Companies also use external
(public) infrastructure, such as roads, telephone networks
and electricity supply.
Interface
- An interface is the ‘tangent plane’ between man and
computer (the user interface) or the link between components (both
software and hardware) in computer systems. Data are exchanged
in two directions via the interface.
The nature of the term interface is well expressed in its German
equivalent: Schnittstelle. There have to be proper standards concerning
the way the data are exchanged via the interface. This standardisation
concerns the functional meaning of the data, their physical shape
and the technology used for the interface. A proper standardisation
of the user interface leads to the simplification of human/computer
interaction and contributes a great deal to the transparency for
the user. The standardisation of the interfaces between components
facilitates the reusability of components and stimulates the development
of world-wide computer networks with collaborative applications.
Interorganisation
- An interorganisation is an organisation [1] of independent legal
bodies, both natural and artificial persons, who have agreed to
co-operate as one organisation [1] and possibly to act for the
world as one organisation [1]. ā The term interorganisation is
introduced in this book and it is mainly used for interorganisations
of legally independent companies and possible freelance workers
who have entered into agreements to work as one organisation and
deliver products or supply services to others together.
Interorganisational
System
- An interorganisational system is an information system that
supports the common business process of an interorganisation of
companies and private individuals.
An interorganisational system is based on a network system that
connects the computers of the companies and people involved and
uses applications that support the control and execution of the
common business process. An interorganisational system is a specific
form of a collaborative system, aimed at the co-operation between
independent organisations [1].
IT
Infrastructure
- The term IT infrastructure refers to the part of the infrastructure
of a company that forms a platform for the IT applications.
The IT infrastructure of a company consists of :
- the computer systems of the company;
- the supporting software (middleware) needed to develop,
manage and operate IT applications, such as operating systems,
database management systems, development tools and management
tools.
IT
Application
- An IT application (or simply, an application) is formed by the
programmes and data or the objects [2] of an information system
that support a certain business process.
To the user an application appears as a unit that automatically
executes a certain business process or supports the user in executing
the process. At present, an application is a programme that is
activated by the user. In the future, an application will consist
of objects [2] that are opened by the user. Generic applications,
such as a word processor, support certain generic tasks. Specific
applications support certain prescribed business processes , for
example a certain clerical process.
Material
Product
- A material product is a product that is the result of the processing
of matter (raw materials) by people (manually or with the use
of tools) or by machines.
A typical example of a material product is a car.
Message
- A message is a set of data exchanged between people who communicate
orally, in writing or via machines (for example computers).
A message is intended to convey certain information [1] from a
sender to a receiver.
Multimedia
- Multimedia is the part of information technology that is involved
with the integrated processing and presentation of all types of
electronic data, such as text, images and sound. Multimedia works
with electronic documents that can contain all of these types
of data in the form of electronic objects [2].
Network
- A network is a set of interconnected items.
The term network is used in three different ways in this book
:
- A network of computers that are interconnected by means
of data communication lines (a network system).
- A network of collaborative applications in the form of communicating
objects [2] running on the various computers in a network
system.
- The network as a form of organisation in which relatively
autonomous companies and people collaborate on the basis of
equality.
Network
System
- A network system is a computer system based on a network of
computers.
The term network system is used to distinguish from the traditional
company computer systems that are based on one central computer
and from stand-alone personal computers. A network system contains
workstations for the users and server computers for tasks such
as data storage, network control and massive transaction processing.
Nonmatter
- Everything that does not consist of matter: the immaterial.
The term nonmatter is used to distinguish from matter, the (raw)
materials from which material things (material products, the human
body) are made up of. Nonmatter is the data (the ‘immaterial
raw material’) of which immaterial products are made up of.
The knowledge and insights in the human mind, which are expressed
in spoken language, are nonmatter, too.
Nonmatter
Revolution (Information Revolution)
- This is our name for the coming socio-economic revolution in
which through the application of IT the importance and the role
of immaterial products in society will increase strongly.
In literature, the name for this is the information revolution.
Object [1]
- An object is everything that presents itself to the human senses,
or it is a thing, a process or a person of which people are speaking
or thinking.
Objects can be both real and imaginary.
Object
(in the form of an IT application) [2]
- An object in the form of an IT application is a set of digital
data intended to imitate, store and render the behaviour of an
object [1].
An object consists of:
- the data necessary to store and render the state of the
object [1];
- the instructions (also consisting of digital data) to imitate,
store and render the behaviour of the object [1].
An object can interact with the user via a user interface and
it can communicate with other objects by means of messages. Objects
facilitate the creation of a new kind of immaterial product. Until
today, immaterial products were constructed of static data, for
example the text in books, images in a film and digital data in
a database. The images in a film can render dynamic behaviour
through projection, but this behaviour will be the same at every
projection session. An immaterial product consisting of objects,
contains data that hold the instructions for its own behaviour.
The user or the object itself can modify these instructions.
Organisation
[1]
- An organic and purposefully sought co-operational structure
of natural persons or legal bodies, who may or may not be using
resources.
In this definition, an organisation is an independent, structured
body of people and resources that execute certain processes. A
company is an organisation that supplies products or provides
services to other persons or legal bodies. An organisation does
not necessarily have to be a company, but a company is always
an organisation.
Organisation [2]
- Organisation [2] is the act or function of organising.
In this definition, ‘organisation’ is an activity, as
in ‘He is in charge of the organisation of this meeting’.
Organisation [3]
- Organisation [3] is the way in which an organisation [1] functions.
Preferably, this is the result of the act of organising, but sometimes
an organisation [3] has grown historically without conscious organisational
activities. The following is true in this definition: a company
has an organisation, by which we mean a specific configuration
of the human and other resources and a specific lay-out of the
business operations, in which the roles of people and resources
are defined. It is this organisation [3] that changes in a business
transformation. There are different organisational forms, such
as the hierarchic organisation and the network organisation described
in this book.
Policy
(of a company)
- Strict: The desired way of collaboration of people within a
company within a pre-set common frame of reference that includes
ideas, preconditions, principles and standards. Wide: Policy can
also include the establishing of the vision, the objectives and
the business strategy of a company.
Policy making
- The establishing of the company policy.
Policy making can be a conscious and well-organised process within
a company. It usually is a continuous and often implicit process
in companies.
Product
- A product is something produced by physical labour or intellectual
effort which is transferable to others. ā Work done by a company
results in a product that can be sold and supplied to customers.
The product becomes the possession of the customer. The customer
in turn can sell the product or lend it to third parties.
Programme
- A programme is a set of coded instructions according to which
an electronic device (such as a computer) is to process, store
or present data or according to which the behaviour of an electronic
device (such as a robot or a modern sewing machine) is controlled.
Computer programmes as well as computer data are represented in
binary code. The current distinction between programmes and data
is becoming increasingly dim since programmes and data are more
and more often combined in objects [2] that include both the data
and the instructions for their own behaviour.
Prosperity
- Prosperity is a state of affluence and thriving social and economic
development, both for individual people and for society as a whole.
Prosperity does not only refer to economic growth, but also and
particularly to social progress and cultural bloom in which great
parts of the population share.
Real Company
- By the real company we mean that part of the business processes
of a company that takes place at the company’s own premises
and that uses the company’s own resources.
The company premises consists of the central offices of the company,
the back-offices and production plants, where the actual production
or service offering processes and the management processes take
place, and the decentral, customer-oriented front-offices, such
as the branch offices and the shops that are used to approach
customers.
Service
- A service is an act performed for the benefit or at the command
of others.
Services are supplied to other persons. The work done by a company
in providing a service does not produce any products that can
be sold to customers. Services are provided directly on behalf
of the customer, like in health care and education, or at the
customer’s home or office, with cleaning work, for example.
A service therefore has results for the customer, such as a better
health, new knowledge or a clean house or office. The results,
however, are not products that come in the possession of the customer.
Telecommunications
- Telecommunications are communication between people and/or data
communication between computers, taking place over a certain distance
by means of networks such as the telephone net and the Internet.
Transformation
- A transformation is a deliberate change a company implements
in its organisation [3].
The transformation can result in a change in:
- the scope of the company, consisting of the products or
services the company offers in the marketplace;
- the external network of the company, consisting of the relationships
with customers, suppliers, partners and other external persons
and organisations;
- the way in which the business processes are controlled and
executed.
For the sake of these business transformations, the configuration
of human and other resources is also changed, including the role
they play in the business operations.
Virtual Company
- By the virtual company we mean that part of the business processes
of a company that takes place outside the company’s premises
and that uses resources of third parties.
Examples of the virtual company are the home office of people
who work from home and personal home banking systems for clients
of banks (extended office).
Virtual Reality
- Virtual reality is the name for the part of information technology
that focuses on making realistic electronic objects [2] and user
interfaces that allow the user to undergo a certain situation
as realistically as possible. This situation may be created artificially
or may have been recorded at a different time or place than the
time or place at which it is rendered.
Well-being
- The physical and spiritual welfare of people.
Well-being is something personal for people. Well-being is not
connected with prosperity. Even without prosperity, people can
have a sense of physical and spiritual well-being. Conversely,
certain consequences of prosperity can threaten the well-being
of people. Well-being is determined by social stability and cultural
bloom rather than economic progress.
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