Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 2, Year 2023 by Romanian Distribution Committee

Editorial: Human and Digital Transformation and the Future of CX, Being People-Centered

It is well-known the successful involvement of the National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy, in the major strategies (1990, 1995, 2000), by pointing out significant visions (Chivu, Ioan-Franc, 2018; Pop and Ioan-Franc, 2022), being people-centered so as to ensure our biological and spiritual existence. We all know that under the pressure of the current reality dynamically adapted to the new normal a good conversation stimulates minds, reflecting and acting accordingly, considering the importance of changes that only education can induce, with adequate speed, in the social base and decision makers (Romanian Distribution Committee, 2023).

Eleven years ago, the successful Entrepreneur and Professor at the reputed Vlerick (Leuven Gent Brussels) Management School (with triple accreditation: EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA), Steven Van Belleghem, wrote a challenging book entitled “The Conversation Company: Boost Your Business Through Culture, People and Social Media” (Kogan Page, 1st edition, May 29, 2012) Two years earlier, focused on CX future, Steven Van Belleghem challenged us with “The Conversation Manager” (Lannoo Publishers, September 16, 2010).

In December last year, a report by Opus Research (Top and Miller, 2022) underlined the real need for product development, marketing, sales, and customer support to improve outcomes by valorizing the rich source of insights coming from conversations between customers and businesses, the content of these stored and managed insights being called “Conversational Intelligence” – CI. There are significant benefits of CI for sales, marketing, and support, as shown in figure below. Key to augment solution providers’ business and improving their operational efficiencies was considered the judicious implementation of CI, including by making CI consumption more pleasant (for instance, attractive names and logos such as: Siri, by Apple; Alexa, by Amazon; Watson as “AI for smarter business”, by IBM; Einstein as “AI for CRM”, by Salesforce and so on).

Source: Top, D., Miller, D., 2022. 2022 Conversational Intelligence Intelliview: Evaluating 15 Leading Solution Providers Who Surface Insights from First-Party Conversational Data. [pdf] Opus Research, Report, December 2022, p. 5 (work cited)

Coming back to Steven Van Belleghem, it is also worth remembering three other significant books written by the distinguished author: “When Digital Becomes Human: The Transformation of Customer Relationships” (Kogan Page, 1st edition, April 28, 2015; “Customers the Day After Tomorrow: How to Attract Customers in a World of AIs, Bots, and Automation” (Lannoo Publishers, March 8, 2018); “The Offer You Can't Refuse: What If Customers Want More Than Excellent Service” (Lannoo Publishers, November 24, 2020). In his opinion (Van Belleghem, 2015), there is a clear linkage between companies’ human relations transformation and digital transformation, digital and human coming together to reconfigure the customer relationship (as shown in figure below), success being achieved through linking the perfection of the first with the emotion of the second, a greater success depending on a stronger

Figure no. 1: Benefits of Conversational Intelligence for Sales, Marketing, Support (Opus Research)

emotional relationship And there is no doubt about the continuous revolution of CX in the digital world of customer-oriented companies.

Very recently, Steven Van Belleghem (2023) expressed precisely and clearly: “Every digital transformation calls for a human transformation first”. And with the real challenge being the human part, while the easy one is the digital part, he is recommending for today’s world of automation to differentiate as a human company by considering both investment in AI, and investment (as energy and time) in fixing company’s human system. To reach this conclusion, he considered what will humans do and where will they shine, as well as where will be their added value (as employees for an organization, but also for its customers) within the context of the increased use of generative AI tools (such as: Bard, ChatGPT, Midjourney, Dall-e).

In February this year we highlighted (Purcarea, 2023), for example, significant aspects regarding benefits and risks of using ChatGPT And as we are at the beginning of the generative AI era, trying to understand this technology’s benefits and risks, let us reflect on some questions raised by McKinsey’s research (Chui et al., 2023), such as: “How concerned should individuals be about the advent of generative AI? While companies can assess how the technology will affect their bottom lines, where can citizens turn for accurate, unbiased information about how it will

Figure no. 1: Two dimensions in the reconfigured customer relationship Source: van Belleghem, S., 2015. When digital becomes human. J Direct Data Digit Mark Pract 17, p. 3 (work cited)

affect their lives and livelihoods? How can individuals as workers and consumers balance the conveniences generative AI delivers with its impact in their workplaces? Can citizens have a voice in the decisions that will shape the deployment and integration of generative AI into the fabric of their lives?”.

The important thing (to paraphrase again our famous Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi) is not to forget… the essence of things, and remain People-Centered.

Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor-in-Chief

References

Chivu, L., Ioan-Franc, V., 2018. Evoluţia cercetării economice din România în ultimul secol, Studii economice, no. 4/2018, National Institute of Economic Research, Romanian Academy.

Chui, M., Hazan, E., Roberts, R., Singla, A., Smaje, K., Sukharevsky, A., Yee, L., Zemmel, R., 2023. The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier. [pdf] McKinsey & Company, June 2023, pp. 3, 50. Available at: <the-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontiervf> [Accessed 16 June 2023].

Pop, N., Ioan-Franc, V., 2022. A prolonged divorce between economists and politicians. [pdf] National Institute of Economic Research, Romanian Academy, NIER – CEID, November 2022, pp. 7, 9. Available at: <Aprolongeddivorcebetweeneconomistsandpoliticians> [Accessed 12 December 2022].

Purcarea, T., 2023. Disrupted and Reshaped Global Supply Chains, Marketing Performance, and Marketers’ New Tool ChatGPT and Its Competition, Holistic Marketing Management, vol. 13(1), pp. 0411, February.

Romanian Distribution Committee, 2023. Context, Relevant Aspects and Conclusions of the HMM Journal & RDC Magazine Debate, 25 Apr 2023. Available at: <https://www.crd-aida.ro/2023/04/contextaspecte-relevante-si-concluzii-ale-dezbaterii-hmm-journal-rdc-magazine/> [Accessed 25 April 2023].

Top, D., Miller, D., 2022. 2022 Conversational Intelligence Intelliview: Evaluating 15 Leading Solution Providers Who Surface Insights from First-Party Conversational Data. [pdf] Opus Research, Report, December 2022, pp. 1-88, 2, 5-6. Available at: <DigitalNewsletterNICE_Opus_ConversationalIntelligence_Intelliview2022> [Accessed 27 February 2023].

Van Belleghem, S., 2015. When digital becomes human. J Direct Data Digit Mark Pract 17, pp. 2-4. https://doi.org/10.1057/dddmp.2015.36.

Van Belleghem, S., 2023. What CX leaders should know about artificial empathy, CustomerThink, June 30, 2023. [online] Available at: <https://customerthink.com/what-cx-leaders-should-know-aboutartificial-empathy/?> [Accessed 3 July 2023].

Using Information and Communications Technology Advances to Leverage the Search of the World New Balance with Less Resources -Part 2-

Abstract

The paper analysis is focusing on the potential contributions of information and communications technology (ICT) in the context of geopolitical emerging crises, which show that, behind the critical resources/materials and informational war, the information will be the supreme aim, as its power to enable all other critical values, in such dynamic and complex processes, where ICT has the fundamental role, is and will be more and more used to obtain the desired targets. That is why the role of ICT in leveraging savings should be deeply conceived starting from the meaning of costs which must consider ALL the human values, starting with life, but including the quality of life and other human values like humankind evolution/transformation.

Evaluating the ICT role, we believe that the actual World crises represent a major risk for the Earth ecosystem and the humankind life, because of the unprecedented level and extent of the crises, where the lack of information or material/technological resources/progress is intended to be compensated by the use of brutal (military some time) force (or hybrid war), which rise other unprecedented existential dangers, for people and our planet. We also consider that such major crises and challenges reveal, in fact, the complexity of World problems, long time misunderstood, along with the incapacity of incumbents to solve or prevent them, before reaching such dangerous levels or “points of no return”. One major implication of reaching such stage of critical World context is the risk, already proved by some visible trends, to lead the actual challenges of balance between democracy and authoritarian solutions to the point where only force could avoid the worst scenario

On the other hand, this last stage should be analysed in the context generated by World crises, where the old problem of the balance between democracy and security, very much influenced by the prominent role of ICT potential, could degenerate to new dangers or even catastrophes, because of threats like the hybrid war (recalling, for example, infrastructures destructions/sabotages, fake news or ChatGBT vulnerabilities) or other geopolitical conflicts.

Consequently, some crucial links of the World dramatical context with a proper/optimal ICT development are necessary, but they should be timely analysed, for keeping the right role of ICT in the Information Society (IS) on the way towards the Knowledge Based Society (KBS) and also the accurate knowledge refining in order to leverage its influence on Earth ecosystem and humankind evolution, as we repeatedly expressed [3][11][13][16][24].

Beyond any pessimistic impressions, the role of a proper ICT development which should mitigate such risks is anyway very necessary and we have approached some concrete examples that show the potential of ICT, including the human intelligence (HI) and artificial intelligence (AI) synergy, to reach such aims. Among the examples, the actual image of ICT potential is very well illustrated, as 2023 expected technology advances with substantial growing [1].

One of the actual most promising ICT advances is based on linking physical and virtual entities, as the digital twin technology does, being a suitable fit for the actual World crises, either materials or conceptual, but, although it may be seen, in a way, similar with the virtual reality technology, it is even much more productive and powerful, as it could bring solutions, using real time data, for many of the complicate challenges of the present and also for other that we cannot foresee.

Beyond all known advantages and expected benefits of electrical cars (another 2023 top growing technology), mainly around reducing carbon footprint and non-fossil consumption, we consider that it is worth to notice other two prominent potential benefits of this industry development, as leveraging the research for innovations to improve actual battery technologies (which is for long time on a saturation level) and also advances in the general striving for the intelligent storage and transportation of the different forms of energy, which are crucial for the Earth ecosystem. It is also well known and equally used the global feature of the automotive industry to leverage a plethora of subsequent industries/branches, which provide all the necessary parts and bring considerable economic and technological benefits for World progress.

Prof. Eng. Ph.D. Victor GREU

Although it could appear much different from electrical cars, we believe that the future will rise another analysed example of similar industry: the autonomous robot [2]. The novelty rises from their penetration in the large industry of the airport services and further in restaurants economy, but, more than the actual economic benefit and context, it is important to notice the technological advances, while matching the restrictive environments (no GPS access) and combining the advance of 3-D lidars, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors. We observe that the system is a relevant example of ICT potential to contribute to new solutions in adverse new environments, i.e., just the World new challenges could bring.

The challenges where ICT support is expected to help, in the dramatic evolutions and World crises context, becoming more complex and difficult to mitigate, could put complicate tasks for the ICT advances and this way the combination of HI and AI tends to be a critical factor for the World future and humankind safe evolution. Recalling just some prominent potential “odds” World have to face, from climate changes, Earth resources fading, social unbalances or geopolitical/security crises to earthquakes, consumption or changes in human behaviour/values, we could understand why it is necessary to optimize and obtain maximal efficacity and efficiency from the “team” HI-AI, which seems to be the main ingredient of ICT advances and eventually of the complex consequences of ICT services, products and applications when supporting IS/KBS progress. The analyse and identification of such challenges are, naturally, also more and more complicate and consequently some relevant examples were also considered.

Starting from the general case of defence, which is better known, where every new arm is generating the appearance of its counter-arm, but without detailing here the challenges induced this way for World crises context, it was interesting to observe the similitude with the case of ICT advances benefits versus the vulnerabilities and risks which are sooner or later exploited by the cybercrime and all other misused applications of ICT. It is relevant, including the above similitude, to also mention an observation, we have often revealed to our students, referring to an inherent vulnerability of ICT, but exceeding this time the IT processes and laying in the communications “garden”, as the vulnerability generated by any emission which could be exploited/intercepted by enemy, we also call it the “Achille’s heal” of the communications. This vulnerability was strongly mitigated by the implementation of defence applications of “spread spectrum systems” principles, we also presented in the early monograph in Romania we recalled in [22]. These observations show the complexity, diversity and the deepness of the potential vulnerabilities, considering just ICT “garden”, where “odds” and threats could appear and action (without neglecting other domains/factors). More than these, our opinion is that, along with the general actions exploiting the ICT vulnerabilities, the complexity of ICT products, applications, services and systems, proliferated all over the World, a specific area of intrinsic or potentially dangerous threats could be generated, especially through the critical infrastructures they are built in, as IS/KBS tend to become more and more dependent of massive ICT presence/infrastructure. The actual debate on AI applications induced risks is just the “tip of the iceberg” we have repeatedly mentioned [11][13][16].

Consequently, the security domain became crucial in the context of IS/KBS, while ICT development must safely cover both positive and negative implications of progress.

The analysis of some relevant examples has detailed and confirmed the real dimensions of the above assertions, although the World context complexity and dynamic, along with ICT fast advances, rise inherent relativity/approximation and time sensitivity on any arguments.

Starting from one of the most credible safety level on Earth, as it is provided for the spatial systems, where NASA is the prominent centre of expertise and software test automation is an essential instrument of risks minimization[4], the needed combination of HI and AI could take a multitude of scenarios, from designing to configurate and exploit ICT in its worldwide products, services and applications, but we consider that modelling, designing and simulating are crucial for ICT development optimization, especially in the complex and complicate context of Earth ecosystem. Although the NASA case of “software test automation to emulate complex user behaviours” is just one of the relevant scenarios, considering its critical importance, the HI component in the design phase was enforced with the highest level of human experience and expertise, while confirming, among other benefits, our earlier opinions about the crucial role of analysis time versus the complexity and the fast development of ICT (and generally of high-tech applications) [16][24][26][27], because “on the ground…you can take time to solve them”. Among the main factors which could determine the capacity of the systems to reduce the risks, the prominent role of the communications, generally in mission-critical cases, was also revealed, based on their crucial importance on managing the remote spatial systems and platforms.

As we already pointed [6][9][22], learning, from the ICT techniques and algorithms of development and also of processing data, brings not only the natural benefits of use, but it could inspire the ways of thinking or acting for organizations, incumbents or individuals, in order to better face the actual and emergent World challenges/crises. The lessons would be even more valuable in the most complex and complicate scenarios, like the example of cyber resilience vast domain revealed [5]. This way we have just arrived to the top of the World dramatical evolutions potential consequences, which, although we do not know exactly, we know how it is better to be approached: “anticipate unexpected risk”. Another refined knowledge we have to consider in our “new normality” is to analyse our risk tolerance and then the best response strategy. Concluding, both anticipation and tolerance, as complex and dynamic targets, are more and more difficult to define and reach, but it is also sure that, for the World stage we are in, the alternatives become fewer and critical as we neglect or fail to see where we are going to. This way, the man (HI), along with imagination and wisdom, using machine-controlled power (as AI), are the needed last resorts to find the expected alternatives for the World crises and decline, which actually ask more creativity from ICT, as an essential requirement.

Consequently, we have to use all these learned lessons and timely refine our knowledge, taking into account the complexity and the dynamic of World changes, which is clearly a continue process of analyses and actions, where man and machine have to be used in a synergic combination in ICT advances design and applications, including AI, robots and so on.

Keywords: Electrical cars, Digital twin technology, Software test automation, Artificial intelligence, Risk tolerance, Autonomous robots, World crises

JEL Classification: L63; L86; M15; O31; O33

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination

-Albert Einstein

1. Developing information and communications technology with more innovation and imagination, oriented to saving costs in World’s decline context

In an everchanging World, the meaning of cost could be elusive, as so many human or material values tend to be reconsidered, sooner or later, while the history is written (or not!).

For example, starting from food or water and further arbitrarily counting iron, copper, gold, oil or houses, for remembering just a few, the material values were always linked with human values like life, but in different, changing and sometimes strange ways, as the centuries of history have flown.

Without philosophical intentions, we still could observe, considering also the well-known Maslow pyramid, among those strange changes of values and associated costs, that food and water suffered the most dramatical evaluations, but their availability tend to become again critical for human life on Earth.

Still, we consider that the most relevant example could be the information value and cost, for present and emerging amazing World evolutions.

More than these, the geopolitical emerging crises show that behind the critical resources/materials and informational war, the information will be the supreme aim, as its potential to enable all other critical values, in such dynamic and complex processes, where information and communicationstechnology(ICT) hasthefundamentalrole,isandwillbemoreandmoreusedtoobtain the desired targets [14][19][20][21][23][25]

Before further details, still, it is also important and sad to observe that, today, the life value of a person tends, in fact but not recognized officially, to decrease, in some non-democratic countries, while Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is the most awful example of disrespect for all human values and creations on Earth

This way we have just arrived to the point where the role of ICT in leveraging savings should be deeply conceived starting from the meaning of costs which must consider ALL the human values, starting with life, but including the quality of life and other human values like humankind evolution/transformation.

Coming back to the ICT role, we believe that the actual World crises represent a major risk for the Earth ecosystem and the humankind life because of the unprecedented level and extent of the crises, where the lack of information or material/technological resources/progress is intended to be compensated by the use of brutal (military some time) force (or hybrid war), which rise other unprecedented existential dangers, for people and our planet.

More than these, we consider that such major crises and challenges reveal, in fact, the complexity of World problems, long time misunderstood, along with the incapacity of incumbents to solve or prevent them, before reaching such dangerous levels or “points of no return”

A further major implication of reaching such stage of critical World context is the risk, alreadyprovedbysomevisibletrends,toleadtheactualchallengesofbalancebetweendemocracy and authoritarian solutions to the point where only force could avoid the worst scenario.

We consider that this last stage should be analysed in the context generated by World crises, where the old problem of the balance between democracy and security, very much influenced by the prominent role of ICT potential, could degenerate to new dangers or even catastrophes, because of threats like the hybrid war (recalling, for example, infrastructures destructions/sabotages, fake news or ChatGBT vulnerabilities) or other geopolitical conflicts.

This way, we consider that some crucial links of the World dramatical context with a proper/optimal ICT development are necessary, but they should be timely analysed, for keeping the right role of ICT in Information Society (IS) on the way towards the Knowledge Based Society (KBS) and also the accurate knowledge refining in order to leverage its influence on Earth ecosystem and humankind evolution, as we repeatedly expressed [3][11][13][16][24].

Probably, such pessimistic impressions could be considered overdone, but the role of a proper ICT development which should mitigate such risks is anyway very necessary and we further approach some concrete examples that show the potential of ICT, including human intelligence (HI) and artificial intelligence (AI) synergy, to reach such aims.

The actual image of ICT potential is very well illustrated, as 2023 expected technology advances with substantial growing, by [1]:

“Heavily powered by the rise in technological innovations and software-centric solutions, our world is now closer than ever to tackling and overcoming many of emerging technology's most complex challenges. The promising capabilities of these new tools, including digital twins, AI, electric vehicles (EV) and autonomous vehicles (AV), quantum computing, and 6G, will continue to evolve in 2023. Keysight Technologies believes this will be a pivotal year as we continue to innovate, learn, and leverage technology for a brighter future ”

OneoftheactualmostpromisingICTadvancesisbasedonlinking physical and virtual entities, as the digital twin technology does:

“In 2023, we will see significant advancement in the form of digital twin technology being superimposed on physical systems. This mixed reality will bring numerous benefits to various sectors ranging from healthcare to manufacturing to retail.

For example, imagine if a surgeon can operate with an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant providing input on human anatomy and patient history instead of having to recall these details from memory. This sounds futuristic, but work is already underway to make it a reality, so expect to see more companies cropping up next year to help further blur the line between the physical and the virtual worlds. ”

Beyond the above impressing futuristic image, we consider that the digital twin technology (DTT) impact is not only a suitable fit for the actual World crises, either materials or conceptual, but, although it may be seen, in a way, similar with the virtual reality technology, it is even much more productive and powerful, as it could bring solutions, using real time data, for many of the complicate challenges of the present and also for other that we cannot foresee. This is why DTT is an issue worth considering for later detailed analyses.

A further example for 2023 top growing technologies, as they “drive more integrated and intelligent energy consumption”, is provided by the electric vehicles (EV):

“Within the next decade, electric vehicles will become an energy repository for users, whether on the road or in their homes. According to the United States Department of Energy, the number of consumer EVs offering at least 300 miles of range tripled from 2021 to 2022. Intelligent applications will look at calendars to determine the energy required to power the next day's travel, and the individuals will utilize the remaining battery for their home energy needs. I predict major power providers will awaken to this possibility by 2025 and realize that electric vehicles pose a clear and present threat to their static grid infrastructure ”

Beyond all advantages and expected benefits of electrical cars, mainly around reducing carbon footprint and non-fossil consumption, we consider that it is worth to notice other two prominent potential benefits of this industry development:

- leveraging the research for innovations to improve actual battery technologies, which is for long time on a saturation level;

- advances in the general striving for the intelligent storage and transportation of the different forms of energy, which are crucial for the Earth ecosystem

It is well known and equally used the global feature of the automotive industry to leverage a plethoraofsubsequentindustries/branches,whichprovideall thenecessarypartsandbringconsiderable economic and technological benefits for World progress.

Although it could appear much different, we believe that the future will rise another, similar, industry: the autonomous robot

The next example we shall analyse is relevant and might confirm our estimation, by some details exceeding the main aim presented by [2]:

<<Sometime next year, an autonomous robot might deliver food from an airport restaurant to your gate. The idea for Ottobot, a delivery robot, came out of a desire to help restaurants meet the increased demand for takeout orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ottobot can find its way around indoor spaces where GPS can’t penetrate

Ottobot is the brainchild of Ritukar Vijay, Ashish Gupta, Hardik Sharma, and Pradyot Korupolu. The four founded Ottonomy in 2020 in Santa Monica, Calif. The startup now has 40 employees in the United States and India. Ottonomy, which has raised more than US $4.5 million in

funding, received a Sustainability Product of the Year Award last year from the Business Intelligence Group.

Today Ottobot is being piloted not only by restaurants but also grocery stores, postal services, and airports. Vijay and his colleagues say they focused on three qualities: full autonomy, ease of manoeuvrability, and accessibility.

“The robot is not replacing any staff members; it’s aiding them in their duties,” Vijay says. “It’s rewarding seeing staff members at our pilot locations so happy about having the robot helping them do their tasks. It’s also very rewarding seeing people take their delivery order from the Ottobot.”>>

From the beginning, weshould observe that, although it seems to be an example of startup, here we see another iceberg tip, as generally the industrial robots have a long enough history and even the walking robots have it.

Perhaps, the novelty rises from their penetration in the large industry of the airport services and further in restaurants economy, but, as we have said, other further details might bring relevant issues for our actual context:

“For 15 years Vijay, an IEEE senior member, worked on autonomous robots and vehicles at companies including HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, and THRSL. In 2019 he joined Aptiv, an automotive technology supplier headquartered in Dublin. There he worked on BMW’s urban mobility project, which is developing autonomous transportation and traffic-control systems. During Vijay’s time there, he noticed that Aptiv and its competitors were focusing more on developing electric cars rather than autonomous ones. He figured it was going to take a long time for autonomous cars to become mainstream, so he began to look for niche applications. He hit upon restaurants and other businesses that were struggling to keep up with deliveries.

Ottobot reduces delivery costs by up to 70 percent, Vijay says, and it can reduce carbon emissions for small-distance deliveries almost 40 percent. OttonomyUsing wheelchair technology, the Ottobot can maneuver over curbs and other obstacles. ”

Now we can observe the main links with the electric cars industry and more than these, with autonomous transportation, i.e., two gigantic industries of the future.

More than the economic benefit and context, it is important to notice the technological advances, while matching the restrictive environments (no GPS access):

“Within the first few months of the startup’s launch, Vijay and the Ottonomy team began working with Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport. The facility wanted to give passengers the option of having food from the airport’s restaurants and convenience stores delivered to their gate, but it couldn’t find an autonomous robot that could navigate the crowded facility without GPS access, Vijay says.

To substitute for GPS, the robot used 3-D lidars, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors. The lidars provide geometric information about the environment. The cameras collect semantic and depth data, and the short-range ultrasonic sensors ensure that the Ottobot detects poles and other obstructions. The Ottonomy team wrote its own software to enable the robot to create high-information maps a 3D digital twin of the facility.”

Combining the advance of 3-D lidars, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors, the system is a relevant example of ICT potential to contribute to new solutions in adverse new environments, i.e., just the World new challenges could bring

Maybe one of the intrinsic features of this industry development is the update use of other similar innovations from mobility domain (wheelchair technology) and extend this way the potential applications areas:

<< “Imagine passengers are boarding their plane at a gate,” he says. “Those areas get very crowded. During the robot’s development process, one of our engineers joked around, saying that the only way to navigate a crowd of this size was to move sideways. We laughed at it then, but three weeks later we started developing a way for the robot to walk sideways.”

The team took its inspiration from electric-powered wheelchairs. All four of the Ottobot’s wheels are powered and can steer simultaneously which allows it to move laterally, swerve, and take zero-radius turns. The wheelchair technology also allows the Ottobot to maneuver outside an airport setting. The wheels can carry the robot over sidewalk curbs and other obstacles.

“It’s rewarding seeing staff members at our pilot locations so happy about having the robot helping them do their tasks.”>>

Finally, it is not a surprise to see that the applications domains/industries are very large and could easily be perceived from the practical tasks and features the system provide:

“Ottobot is 1.5 meters tall enough to make it visible. It can adjust its position and height so that its cargo can be reached by children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, Vijay says. The robot’s compartments can hold products of different sizes, and they are large enough to allow it to make multiple deliveries in a single run. To place orders, customers scan a QR code at the entrance of a business or at their gate to access Crave, a food ordering and delivery mobile app. After placing their order, customers provide their location. In an airport, the location would be the gate number. The customers then are sent a QR code that matches them to their order ”

This way, the image of ICT potential for leveraging solutions in the new context generated by World crises is clearer, but this is far from considering it enough efficacy or efficient if we just recall the large uncertainty and diversity of the above presented Earth ecosystem dramatically changing context, which needs deeper and timely refined knowledge and analyses.

2. Man and machine against all odds

Recalling just some prominent potential “odds” World have to face, from climate changes, Earth resources fading, social unbalances or geopolitical/security crises to earthquakes, consumption or changes in human behaviour/values, we could understand why it is necessarytooptimizeandobtainmaximalefficacityandefficiencyfromthe“team”HI-AI,whichseems to be the main ingredient of ICT advances and eventually of the IS/KBS progress.

The analyseand identification of such challenges are, naturally, alsomore andmore complicate and consequently some relevant examples should be considered.

The inherent secondary effects of the general technological progress are largely known and sometimes even expected, but, as World is becoming more complex, with ICT massive and fast proliferation in all industries or human activity fields, new and quite extremely dangerous threats appear, either naturally (because of the concrete technical reliability) or especially because of the ICT potential to be misused, in what is called cybercrime plethora.

Perhaps, the general case of defence is better known, where every new arm is generating the appearance of its counter-arm, but without detailing here the challenges induced this way for World crises context, it is interesting to observe the similitude with the case of ICT advances benefits versus the inherent vulnerabilities and risks which are sooner or later exploited by the cybercrime and all other misused applications of ICT.

It could be relevant, including the above similitude, to also mention an observation, we have often revealed to our students, referring to an inherent vulnerability of ICT, but exceeding this time the IT processes and laying in the communications “garden”, pointing the vulnerability generated by any emission to be exploited/intercepted by enemy, we also call it the “Achille’s heal” of the communications This vulnerability was strongly mitigated by the implementation of defence applications of “spread spectrum systems” principles, we also presented in the early monograph in Romania we recalled in [22].

These observations show the complexity, diversity and the deepness of the potential vulnerabilities, considering just ICT “garden”, where “odds” and threats could appear and action (without neglecting other domains/factors).

More than these, our opinion is that, along with the general actions exploiting the ICT vulnerabilities, the complexity of ICT products, applications, services and systems,proliferated all over the World, a specific area of intrinsic or potentially dangerous threats could be generated, especially throughthecriticalinfrastructurestheyarebuilt in,asIS/KBStendtobecomemoreandmoredependent of massive ICT presence/infrastructure. The actual debate on AI applications induced risks is just the “tip of the iceberg” we have repeatedly mentioned [11][13][16].

This way,thesecuritydomainbecamecrucialinthecontext ofIS/KBS,whileICT development must safely cover both positive and negative implications of progress.

The analysis of some relevant examples could detail and confirm the real dimensions of the above assertions, although the World context complexity and dynamic, along with ICT fast advances, rise inherent relativity/approximation and time sensitivity on any arguments

Perhaps, one of the most credible safety levels on Earth is provided for the spatial systems, whereNASAistheprominentcentreofexpertiseand software test automation isanessentialinstrument of risks minimization, as it is also presented by [4]:

“The centerpiece of NASA's Artemis missions, the Orion spacecraft is an engineering wonder. It's a symphony of software with all systems operating in perfect harmony to shuttle passengers and payloads safely through the cosmos. And when it comes to essential software systems, few things are more crucial than the cockpit displays the astronauts rely on. A veritable nerve centre for the spacecraft, they control everything from thrust vectoring to status-check monitoring.

Long before the first Artemis mission lifted off, NASA needed to ensure its highly complex software systems including the cockpit display software were ready for the rigors of spaceflight. That's why they selected Keysight Eggplant test automation platform to test the Orion spacecraft's three cockpit displays.

By using software test automation to emulate complex user behaviours such as the hand motions used by the astronauts to display essential cockpit data the Eggplant software helped NASA save precious time during development while minimizing the risk of human error. ”

The needed combination of HI and AI could take a multitude of scenarios, from designing to configurate and exploit ICT in its worldwide products, services and applications, but we consider that modelling, designing and simulating are crucial for ICT development optimization, especially in the complex and complicate context of Earth ecosystem.

The above case of software test automation to emulate complex user behaviours is just one of the relevant scenarios, but, considering its critical importance, the HI component, in the design phase, was enforced with the highest level of human experience and expertise:

<<NASA's software team needed someone with firsthand astronaut experience and subject matter expertise, so they enlisted the help of now-retired NASA Chief Astronaut and Navy SEAL Chris Cassidy to help develop and test the spacecraft's cockpit software.

"I don't think I was really appreciative of the level of effort and technical challenges that go into robust testing," Cassidy said. "Problems are a lot easier to solve on the ground. That's where you can take time to solve them, where you're not going to hurt somebody."

But that's not all he has to say on the subject. Not by a long shot >>

Weconsiderthat anotheressentialideacouldbenoticedhere,asconfirmingourearlieropinions about the crucial role of analyse time versus the complexity and the fast development of ICT (and generally of high-tech applications) [16][24][26][27], because on the ground…you can take time to solve them

Some of the main factors which could determine the capacity of the systems to reduce the risks are also shortly pointed:

“Joining him are Keysight's own Greg Patschke, General Manager of Aerospace, Defense, and Government Solutions, and Jay Epps, Solutions Engineering Manager. Boasting nearly a hundred years of combined experience across the aerospace, defense, and engineering sectors, the trio will answer a wide range of questions. Here are just a few.

• What are the best practices in software test automation for critical missions in space and defense?

• How do you test for extremes and anticipate the human side of software use?

• How will digital twin technologies put a communication network on the moon?

• How do you test complex integrations for mission-critical 5G and satellite communications?”

We would note here the prominent role of the communications, generally in mission-critical cases, reflected above and based on their crucial importance on managing the remote spatial systems and platforms [12][15][17][18][22][26][27].

Finally, a realistic image of the impact of software test automation on improving safety for space travel and mission success is presented:

“It's tempting to look at Orion as our next giant leap into the cosmos. But it's just a small step towards the Artemis mission's ultimate goal: Mars. Eighty-one million miles stretch between Earth and the red planet. But that's nothing compared to the technological leaps needed to make the journey. Although it's fun to daydream about what those bold new technologies will look like, the truth is much more realistic. Systems like navigation, decision-making, and communications depend on software. As long as that remains the case, any future mission to Mars will rely at least in part on software test automation to help ensure safe space travel and mission success. After all, you can't afford to take shortcuts when lives are on the line. That's why it's so important to test early and often ”

The lessons would be even more valuable in the most complex and complicate scenarios, like the cyber resilience vast domain could reveal, as it is also presented by [5]:

“We live in a time of unprecedented technological innovation. We are more digitally connected in our work and personal lives than ever before. If you can dream it, you can print it on a 3D printer. The Nanobots of the Terminator movies are routinely used in medical procedures, and cars drive themselves – or at least are trying to!

But technological innovation isn’t confined to the good guys. For every technological advancement that makes our lives better, easier, and more convenient there are seemingly two new cyber-attack techniques, or two forms of new malware designed to damage our businesses and our bank accounts.

A quick google search will show that today’s security programs are being outpaced by a rapidly changing threat landscape. For organizations of all sizes and across all industries, it’s not a matter of if they are attacked, it’s a matter of when. It is undeniably clear that one’s perimeter WILL be breached at some point. So, as security professionals come to terms with the reality that they cannot prevent attacks from happening, they need a new strategy: Resilience.”

Confirming the inherent combination between benefits and vulnerabilities, we have mentioned above, here we also observe the rising of the known confrontation of action-reaction (good/bad guys), but emphasizing its actual essential feature (a rapidly changing threat landscape)

In the same time, the main practical and also visionary point (it’s not a matter of if they are attacked, it’s a matter of when), we all have to consider for the future, should be the base of any defence strategy and this way it will orientate the main security actions:

“If there’s anything global turmoil of the past few years have taught all of us, it is to anticipate unexpected risk. That is why, at Bitdefender, we believe both threat prevention and detection, as well as response, are important in equal measure. It is important to prevent attacks from causing security incidents in the first place whenever possible, but it is equally important to have an effective detection and response strategy that takes into consideration the organization’s risk tolerance.”

Another refined knowledge we have to consider in our “new normality” is to analyse our risk tolerance and then the best response strategy.

There is no doubt that both anticipation and tolerance, as complex and dynamic targets, are more and more difficult to define and reach, but it is also sure that, for the World stage we are in, the alternatives become fewer and critical as we neglect or fail to see where we are going to.

That is why, the man (HI), along with imagination and wisdom, using machine-controlled power (as AI), are the needed last resorts to find the expected alternatives for the World crises and decline, which actually ask more creativity from ICT, as an essential requirement. Consequently, we have to use all these learned lessons and timely refine our knowledge, takinginto account the complexity and the dynamicof World changes,which is clearly a continue process of analyses and actions, where man and machine have to be used in a synergic combination in ICT advances design and applications, including AI, robots and so on.

3. Conclusions

The geopolitical emerging crises show that behind the critical resources/materials and informational war, the information will be the supreme aim, as its potential to enable all other critical values, in such dynamic and complex processes, where information and communications technology (ICT) has the fundamental role, is and will be more and more used to obtain the desired targets

Analysing the Earth ecosystem values evolution, still, it is also important and sad to observe that, today, the life value of a person tends, in fact but not recognized officially, to decrease, in some non-democratic countries, while Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is the most awful example of disrespect for all human values and creations on Earth.

That is why the role of ICT in leveraging savings should be deeply conceived starting from the meaning of costs which must consider ALL the human values, starting with life, but including the quality of life and other human values like humankind evolution/transformation.

We also consider that such major crises and challenges reveal, in fact, the complexity of World problems, long time misunderstood, along with the incapacity of incumbents to solve or prevent them, before reaching such dangerous levels or “points of no return”.

One major implication of reaching such stage of critical World context is the risk, already proved by some visible trends, to lead the actual challenges of balance between democracy and authoritarian solutions to the point where only force could avoid the worst scenario.

Consequently, some crucial links of the World dramatical context with a proper/optimal ICT development are necessary, but they should be timely analysed, for keeping the right role of ICT in IS on the way towards the KBS and also the accurate knowledge refining in order to leverage its influence on Earth ecosystem and humankind evolution, as we repeatedly expressed [3][11][13][16][24].

Among the examples, the actual image of ICT potential is very well illustrated, as 2023 expected technology advances with substantial growing [1]

Oneoftheactualmost promisingICTadvancesisbasedonlinking physical and virtual entities, as the digital twin technology does, being a suitable fit for the actual World crises, either materials or conceptual, but, although it may be seen, in a way, similar with the virtual reality technology, it is even much more productive and powerful, as it could bring solutions, using real time data, for many of the complicate challenges of the present and also for other that we cannot foresee.

Beyond all known advantages and expected benefits of electrical cars (another 2023 top growing technology), mainly around reducing carbon footprint and non-fossil consumption, we consider that it is worth to notice other two prominent potential benefits of this industry development, as leveraging the research for innovationsto improveactual batterytechnologies (whichis forlongtime on a saturation level) and also advances in the general striving for the intelligent storage and transportation of the different forms of energy, which are crucial for the Earth ecosystem. It is also well known and equally used the global feature of the automotive industry to leverage a plethora of subsequent industries/branches, which provide all the necessary parts and bring considerable economic and technological benefits for World progress.

Although it could appear much different from electrical cars, we believe that the future will rise another analysed example of similar industry: the autonomous robot [2].

The novelty rises from their penetration in the large industry of the airport services and further in restaurants economy, but, more than the actual economic benefit and context, it is important to notice the technological advances, while matching the restrictive environments (no GPS access) and combining the advance of 3-D lidars, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors We observe that the system is a relevant example of ICT potential to contribute to new solutions in adverse new environments, i.e., just the World new challenges could bring.

The challenges where ICT support is expected to help, in the dramatic evolutions and World crises context, becoming more complex and difficult to mitigate, could put complicate tasks for the ICT advances and this way the combination of HI and AI tends to be a critical factor for the World future and humankind safe evolution. Recalling just some prominent potential “odds” World have to face, from climate changes, Earth resources fading, social unbalances or geopolitical/security crises to earthquakes, consumption or changes in human behaviour/values, we could understand why it is necessarytooptimizeandobtainmaximalefficacityandefficiencyfromthe“team”HI-AI,whichseems to be the main ingredient of ICT advances and eventually of the IS/KBS progress.

The analyseand identification of such challenges are, naturally, alsomore andmore complicate and consequently some relevant examples were also considered.

Consequently, the security domain became crucial in the context of IS/KBS, while ICT development must safely cover both positive and negative implications of progress.

Although the NASA case of software test automation to emulate complex user behaviours is just one of the relevant scenarios, considering its critical importance, the HI component in the design phase was enforced with the highest level of human experience and expertise, while confirming, among

other benefits, our earlier opinions about the crucial role of analysis time versus the complexity and the fast development of ICT (and generally of high-tech applications) [16][24][26][27], because “on the ground…you can take time to solve them ” Among the main factors which could determine the capacity of the systems to reduce the risks, the prominent role of the communications, generally in missioncritical cases, was also revealed, based on their crucial importance on managing the remote spatial systems and platforms.

This way we have just arrived to the top of the World dramatical evolutions potential consequences, which, although we do not know exactly, we know how it is better to be approached: anticipate unexpected risk. Another refined knowledge we have to consider in our “new normality” is to analyse our risk tolerance and then the best response strategy.

In conclusion, both anticipation and tolerance, as complex and dynamic targets, are more and more difficult to define and reach, but it is also sure that, for the World stage we are in, the alternatives become fewer and critical as we neglector fail to see where we are going to. This way, the man (HI), along with imagination and wisdom, using machine-controlled power (as AI), are the needed last resorts to find the expected alternatives for the World crises and decline, which actually ask more creativity from ICT, as an essential requirement.

Consequently, we have to use all these learned lessons and timely refine our knowledge, takinginto account the complexity and the dynamicof World changes,which is clearly a continue process of analyses and actions, where man and machine have to be used in a synergic combination in ICT advances design and applications, including AI, robots and so on.

REFERENCES

[1]***, Keysight Predicts: Top Technologies Expected to Grow Substantially in 2023, 2023-02, https://www.keysight.com/blogs/keys/thought-leadership/2023/02/10/keysight-predicts-top-technologies-expected-to-growsubstantially-in-2023?elq_cid=3286481&cmpid=ELQ-24271

[2]Joanna Goodrich, This Autonomous Robot Might Soon Make Food Deliveries in Airports, 14 DEC 2022, https://spectrum.ieee.org/robot-food-delivery-inairports?utm_source=feedotter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=theinstitutealert011023&mkt_tok=NzU2LUdQSC04OTkAAAGJOaqnDtOTFmlEkw1LkOtAf2hptnNB9cv51y0026tndC6EnK4biwBHlLzqa OCq4o8wJs5MaraDEx0Ssora0hVqA292As34r0U19myaTPxM5fs

[3]Victor Greu, Using information and communications technology advances to leverage the search of the World new balance with less resources-(Part 1), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 14, Issue 1, Year 2023.

[4]Mike Hodge, NASA Orion + Keysight Eggplant Help Make Space Travel Safer 2023-03-243, https://www.keysight.com/blogs/keys/thought-leadership/2023/03/24/nasa-eggplant-small-step-for-test-automation-or-giantleap-for-humankind?elq_cid=3286481&cmpid=ELQ-24665

[5]Amy Blackshaw, How Cyber Resilience Enables Business Growth, July 06,2022, https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/businessinsights/how-cyber-resilience-enables-business-growth?utm_campaign=hviopen- source&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=93802209&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9h7etfPPjDkO3RoUDsSik2A2mMFNGaqjVujgI2LTXuCywRkF13zeyJANACDrIc4cX_4kowRZ2cjb0YlDQVc1SBjAtEA&utm_content=93802209&utm_s ource=hs_automation%2F

[6]Florin Enache, Victor Greu, Petrică Ciotîrnae, Florin Popescu, Model and Algorithms for Optimizing a Human Computing System Oriented to Knowledge Extraction by Use of Crowdsourcing, 2020, 13th International Conference on Communications (COMM), (Politehnica University of Bucharest, Military Technical Academy, IEEE Romania), (COMM 2020 is covered in IEEE Explore Database and ISI Web of Science in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index)

[7]Kathy Pretz, IEEE Discusses 6 Simple Solutions to Climate Change at COP27, IEEE Spectrum -The Institute, Jan 2023, https://spectrum.ieee.org/6-solutions-to-climatechange?utm_source=feedotter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=theinstitutealert020723&mkt_tok=NzU2LUdQSC04OTkAAAGJydzxSHpuq5OM3DCG1vf09lo7cS9SF4diBorTarLno1KsPH

DxoBUdWtlSl7n1JnvJ-xzsuSpD5nTSp4emRYFU-PhQVmCqj5VigYPQwsBCo

[8]Sudip Misra, Chandana Roy, Thilo Sauter, Anandarup Mukherjee, Jhareswar Maiti, Industrial Internet of Things for Safety Management Applications: A Survey, IEEE Access ( IF 3.476 ) Pub Date: 2022-07-27, https://www.xmol.net/paper/detail/1566136228154413056

[9]Victor Greu et all, Human and artificial intelligence driven incentive-operation model and algorithms for a multi-purpose integrated crowdsensing-crowdsourcing scalable system, Proceedings of International Conference Communications 2018, (Politehnica University of Bucharest, Military Technical Academy, IEEE Romania), June 2018(COMM 2018 is covered in IEEE Explore Database and ISI Web of Science in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index)

[10]***, Strategies to Tackle Uncertainty With AI Deployment, Computer Society Team, 12/19/2022, https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/research/strategies-to-tackle-uncertainty-with-ai-deployment

[11]Victor Greu, Searching the right tracks of new technologies in the earth race for a balance between progress and survival, Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “InternationalAssociation of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association

A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 3, Issue1, Year 2012.

[12]Giuliano Punzo et al, Engineering Resilient Complex Systems: The Necessary Shift Toward Complexity Science, IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL. 14, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2020

[13]Victor Greu, Information and communications technology is merging data science and advanced artificial intelligence towards the core of knowledge based society -(Part 3), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 12, Issue 3, Year 2021.

[14]Samuel K. Moore, How and When the Chip Shortage Will End, IEEE Spectrum, Volume: 58, Issue: 6, Jun 2021

[15]Srividya K. Bansal, Sebastian Kagemann, Semantic Extract-Transform-Load framework for Big Data Integration, Computer, Volume: 48, Issue: 3, Mar. 2015

[16]Victor GREU, Information and Communications Technologies are Learning from Nature’s “Research” to Push the Performance Limits, Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 5, Issue 1, Year 2014.

[17]Robert W. Lucky, Deep Complexities in EE, IEEE Spectrum, May 2018

[18]Raj Kumar Hansdah, Scientific Progress Without True Wisdom Will Cause More Harm Than Good, https://www.beaninspirer.com/scientific-progress-without-true-wisdom-will-cause-more-harm-than-good, Updated: October 21, 2021

[19]Victor Greu, Information and communications technologies go greener beyond IOTbehind is all the earth-Part1, Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the“International Association oftheDistributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 7, Issue 2, Year 2016.

[20]Gareth Smith, Demystifying intelligent automation, May 2022, https://www.enterpriseitworld.com/demystifyingintelligent-automation-2/

[21]Jordi Grau-Moya et all, Beyond Bayes-optimality: meta-learning what you know you don’t know, Technical Report 202210-13, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.15618.pdf

[22] VictorGreu,Communicateon…Communications -FromaConferenceevery2yearstotheneedto communicateeveryday and everywhere, Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine (international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 5, Issue 2, Year 2014.

[23]Ernesto Villalba, The Concept of Knowledge for a Knowledge-based Society From knowledge to learning, European Commission Joint Research Centre © European Communities, 2007

[24]Victor Greu, The information and communications technology is driving artificial intelligence to leverage refined knowledge for the World sustainable development

(Part 2), Romanian Distribution Committee (affiliated to the “International Association of the Distributive Trade”-scientific association – A.I.D.A. Brussels) Magazine(international; electronic; covered in RePEc International Data Base), Volume 10, Issue 1, Year 2019.

[25]Andreas Poltermann, Education for a Knowledge-Based Society? A Concept Must be Rethought, 17 April 2014, https://rs.boell.org/en/2014/04/17/education-knowledge-based-society-concept-must-be-rethought

[26]Victor Greu, Using the information and communications technology data deluge from a semantic perspective of a dynamic challenge: What to learn and what to ignore?

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Abstract

The Usage of Information Technology Tools for Social Network Analysis

by Cosmin TĂNASE

An Honorary Member of the Romanian Distribution Committee

Nature has shown many different ways of creating life. The essential thing about life is that it requires great cooperation. We see cooperation starting at an atomic level through cells forming complex organisms. As these structures get complicated, cooperation also gets complicated. It does not require so much to build stable structures at an atomic level but at higher levels, things are much more complicated. Living beings have created tribes, cliques, states, etc., to survive. Maybe it is not wrong to say that the ‘survival of the fittest’ is strongly tied to the ability of creating strong communities. These forms of living together ensure the viability of the species. Different species created different forms of living together. As one of the most sophisticated species, the human species also has built different structures, like tribes, societies, etc. What makes human beings different from other living beings is that they possess the ability to examine the social networks and structures built and think about them. Besides, the knowledge and intellect of studying them can shape them and as well as they get shaped by them.

Keywords: Machine Learning, Connections, Opinion Mining, Computational Tools, Analysis, Networks

JEL Classification: C88; D83; M31; M37; O33

Social networkshavealways beenpervasiveinourdailylivesbutwiththeprevalent useofinformation technologies in modern societies, social networks evolved to become social media networks. Social media is shaping societies in many profound ways. It is imperative to create better tools and methods to understand them. We need newer approaches and utensils to create satisfactory documentation and visualization of these networks to understand ‘human behavior’.

Although it is a simple and somewhat clear truth, it should be stated again that social media networks are networks. The science dealing with the study of patterns of connections is network science. Network science deals with all kinds of patterns of connections in physical and also in social occurrences. Tools, methods and methodologies of network science can be applied to local area networks in computer engineering, to swarm behavior of Sturnus vulgaris, electricity networks, city or country maps, neural networks, etc. A network consists of entities or things which are called nodes, vertices, agents, items or entities and, in case of social networks, also people. They can represent people, workgroups, teams, institutions, countries, cities, etc. They can also represent things like Web pages, videos, documents and so on.

Considering all kinds of connections among a group of people and things, one can define social networks as being created from such a kind of collection of connections. From that point of view, it is evident that social networks are a subset of networks. These kinds of networks are created whenever people interact with other people, institutions or artifacts. This interaction may be direct, e.g., one person sending an email or a letter to another person or it may be indirect, e.g., broadcasting a video on YouTube. The connections between the vertices are called edges, ties, links, relationships or connections. They can represent a friendship, a relationship, a transaction, some shared attributes like students of a class, members of a club, etc. Edges can be directed or asymmetric. Such kinds of edges have a clear starting vertex, an origin and a clear end vertex, a destination. Their visual appearance in a graph is mostly an arrow from one vertex to another vertex. A line without an arrow in a graph is called an undirected, symmetric or mutual edge. Directed edges can be reciprocated or not, e.g., if one person sends a letter to another person, the receiver can answer this letter with another letter or not. Another property of an edge is its weight; an edge can be weighted or unweighted. Unweighted edges are also called binary edges because they only show the existence or non-existence of an edge. In contrast to them, weighted edges include some values that are related to that edge. These values show the strength of a connection. Commonly, for the analysis, edges are stored and represented in matrices or edge lists.

In many cases social networks are considered from an individual’s point of view. In these cases, the individual iscalledego andthe connectedpeoplearecalled alters. When networks include only people connected to a specific ego, they are called egocentric networks. Networks are also examined by their completeness. A full or complete network contains the subset of people or entities who match some interest or attribute and includes information about the set of connections among them all. Networks connecting the same type of entities are called unimodal.

In applications like Facebook, Twitter or web sites, like Imdb.com or Amazon.com, there are connections not only between people but also between people and documents, like pictures, videos, Web pages, etc. In such cases where the vertices can be of different types, the network is called multimodal. The analysis of multimodal networks is cumbersome and their handling is more difficult than unimodal networks. For the sake of better and meaningful analysis, such kinds of multimodal networks are often transformed into simpler unimodal networks. The same definitions and thoughts also apply to the edges; in many practical applications, edges are considered to be only of one type, like two people who send each other e-mails or messages. In such cases, the networks show a uniplex

relationsymbolized as asingleconnectionbetweentheentities.In fact,theinteraction andrelationship between people can be of much broader complexity, e.g., a woman can be the wife of a man but also his manager at work. For such kinds of relationships networks with different type of edges could be constructed, although they are not very common. Such kinds of networks with multiple connection typesarecalledmultiplex networks. Initiallythemeasurement of social networkswas based on simply counting the connections. With the increase of computational power and strong computational tools, more sophisticated and complex measures have been developed in network analysis. Some basic concept of the measurement methods can be summarized as follows:

● Density: Density can be defined as the division of existing relationships by the total number of possible relationships which could be presented in a network.

● Centralization: Centralization as an aggregate metric designates the “amount to which the network is centred on one or just a few important nodes”.

● Degree centrality: Degree centrality is a “simple count of the total number of connections linked to a vertex”. It is regarded as a sort of ‘popularity measure’. Although it measures popularity, it should be noted that it does not differentiate between quality and quantity.

● Degree: “Degree is the measure of the total number of edges connected to a particular vertex.”

● Distance: The distance is given as the minimum number of neighbour-to- neighbour hops from one vertex to another. In the context of social media analytics, the vertices are considered as people and the distance is measured between people who are not neighbors.

● Geodesic distance: The shortest path between two people.

● Structural hole: A ‘structural hole’ is a term for recognizing a missing bridge.

● Closeness centrality: Closeness centrality measures each individual’s position in the network. It captures the average distance “between each vertex and every other vertex in the network”. If we assume that nodes can only pass messages to their existing connections or can only influence them, a low closeness centrality indicates that this node which is considered to be people is directly connected or ‘just a hop away’. In contrast, nodes in distant or peripheral spots can have high closeness centrality scores. This case designates that these nodes/vertices/people need a high number of hops to connect to these peripheral locations, which is also an indication of more connections.

With the advent of information technologies and computers, social analytics also changed. The immense computational capacities and power of computers is both a curse and a blessing for social analytics. Now it is possible to visualize and analyze amounts of data very fast. On the other hand, the pervasiveness of information technology devices means the increase in data and also raises the complexity of networks. Today we are speaking about ‘big data’ but technologies, like the Internet of Things, and approaches like Industry 4.0 will push the ‘big’ into the direction of ‘huge’. The good

news, for example about IoT, is that data is and will be generated in machine-readable form so that automated analysis becomes easier after being freed of the burdens of data collection and preparation. Artificial intelligence, data mining, machine learning and all related computer science tools promise a better handling of social media networks and a better understanding of human interactions.

The drastic shifts from read-only to read-write access to the Web lead the people to interact with each other through social media networks, like Wikis, online forums, communities, etc. Due to this, usergeneratedcontentthroughsocialmediaplatformsisincreasingtremendously.Specifically,Web-based data of the form opinionated text, reviews of products and services has been one of the most contributing factors in social big data.

Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is a relatively new field of research.It has blossomed rapidly since the 2000s. Even though there is some earlier work on this subject, research concerning sentiment analysis has surged upasaresultofthesocial platforms,suchasTwitterandFacebookgettingprevalent.Amongtheterms that refer to the same or similar fields of research are sentiment mining, review mining, opinion mining, opinion extraction, affect analysis, subjectivity analysis, emotion analysis, etc. The essential issues in sentiment analysis are to identify how sentiments are expressed in texts and whether the expressions indicate positive (favorable) or negative (unfavorable) opinions toward the subject. Sentiment analysis, also called opinion mining, is the field of study that analyzes people’s opinions, sentiments, evaluations,appraisals, attitudesand emotions towardsentities, such as products, services, organizations, individuals,issues, events, topics and their attributes. Some conceptsare closely related to sentiment analysis. Among them are opinion, view, belief, conviction, persuasion and sentiment. Sentiment analysis is essentially a document classification task. Machine learning is one of the bestknown techniques of classification. In general terms, machine learning is the technique whereby computers make generalizations resting on inductive inference strategies. More specifically, machine learningislearningahypothesisthat converges withaset of exampleinput-outputpairstothefunction that maps the inputs to the outputs.

Another crucial question that needs to be answered when doing sentiment analysis is: Which learning attributes to use? An answer to this question can be given by detecting which attributes are most informative for any given learning task. A common assumption in the field of sentiment analysis is that adjectives and adverbs are the most informative words and, hence, the words of other syntactic categories can be ignored. The sentential positions of words, the syntactic structures of sentences, the semantic features of words and sentences and the discursive properties of texts can also be used as learning attributes when doing sentiment analysis with machine learning. However, the extraction of attributes of these kinds largely necessitates to do natural language processing.

Some researchers maintain that machine learning is sufficient as a technique to do Natural Language Processing (NLP). It is a fact that almost every contemporary approach to NLP involves a learningbased element, however, we still hold the view that linguistic knowledge bears non-negligible importance to this field, and hence, to sentiment analysis. The core work of rule-based NLP is to

transform texts in natural language to general-purpose linguistic structures, such as phonemes, morphemes, syntactic categories, tree-structured representations of phrasal structures and logic- based representations of meaning.

There are many ways in which rule- and learning-based techniques can be combined in sentiment analysis. Texts to be analyzed often need to be pre-processed for various reasons. Before feeding the text to the classifier, it might, for instance, be desirable to remove uninformative characters from it, to tokenizeitintowords,ortoanalyzeitswordsintomorphemes.Anyofthesetaskscanbeaccomplished by using rule-based methods. Words are often used as learning features in sentiment analysis applications. Still, sometimes phrasal structures might be informative for a learning algorithm. It is true however that advanced machine learning techniques have cleaned up expert-engineered representations from the peripheral areas of NLP, namely those concerning phonetics and text/discourse pragmatics. But learningbased algorithms do not perform satisfactorily when the task is more abstract, such as detecting phrasal structures or conducting reasoning processes. Parsers based on syntactic knowledge or logic-based reasoners can handle such abstract tasks to some extent. Paradigms, like inductive logic programming, can serve to combine learning- and rule-based approaches when doing sentiment analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

Life is social and species can only survive within a well-defined structure. Humans also created different social structures. The study of these structures is not only an intellectual amusement but also vital for the species. With the rise of information technologies, the creation and the analysis of social network analysis reached another quality, and not only is the quality affected, but also the quantity of social networks. The good news about the extensive usage of information technologies is that all data created is in a machine-readable form and we have now the strong computational powers to analyze them. The bad news is that it turns out to be a vicious circle; we have the ability to analyze big data much faster, but we also have the power to create much more data. With new technologies it will be not only the humancreatingthe databutalso machineswill contribute on alargescale. In atime where data is created very fast but also destroyed and forgotten, the need to understand human relations still exists and becomes more important. New approaches are needed and deep learning looks like a promising direction to handle the upcoming complexity and break the vicious cycle.

References

[1] Arif, T. 2015. The mathematics of social network analysis: metrics for academic social networks, International Journal of Computer Applications Technology and Research, 4(12): 889–893

[2] Eisenstein, J. 2019. Introduction t o Natural Language Processing, The MIT Press.

[3] Freeman, L.C. 2004. The Development of Social Network Analysis. A Study in the Sociology of Science

Vancouver BC North Charleston

[4] Hansen, D.L., Shneiderman, B., Smith, M.A. and Himelboim, I. 2020. Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL. Insights from a Connected World, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

[5] Jiang, Y., Meng, W. and Yu, C. 2011. Topic sentiment change analysis. Machine learning and data mining in pattern recognition, MLDM 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 443–457.

[6] Jurafsky, D. and Martin, J.H. 2020. Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition. Pearson.

[7] Pathak, R.A., Agarwal, B., Pandey, M. and Rautaray, S. 2020. Application of deep learning approaches for sentiment analysis. pp. 1–31

[8] Zhai, S. and Z.M. Zhang. 2016. Semisupervised autoencoder for sentiment analysis. pp. 1394–1400. Proceedings of the Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI’16)

For Nearly a Decade of Advocacy for E-Commerce and M-Commerce

maximize ecommerce business’s revenue potential. There is no doubt about the importance of ecommerce capabilities, and the relationships with innovation and economic development. Better understanding what really matters in e-commerce and its subset m-commerce within the context of the evolution of digital commerce and e-commerce platform. That is why we are continuing to advocate for e-commerce and m-commerce.

Keywords: E-Commerce; M-Commerce; Digital Commerce Transformation; Innovation; Economic Development

JEL Classification: D83; L21; M21; M31; M37; O31; O33

E-commerce within the digital commerce transformation and implementing effective strategies to maximize ecommerce business’s revenue potential

According to McKinsey & Company (2023), within their digital commerce transformation sellers keep at steadily to appeal to more customers and earn more profits, by optimizing e-commerce (understood as the buying and selling of goods online), shopping being

revolutionized by it, and being expected that one-fourth of all global sales to be made on the internet by 2025. For SMEs, there is an enormous opportunity to valorize e-commerce (not only for large retailers), McKinsey’s practice offering important recommendations with regard to special challenges faced by the just coming into existence e-commerce businesses, such as: harmonizing operations and channel management with the focus on technology, ensuring the proper technology stack for launch (based on the right technology architecture defined on the longer-term), investing funds and capabilities so as to prevent setbacks, understanding the key drivers of growth and profitability without interrupting the run (based on profit and loss), harmonizing the new e-commerce business with the core businesses (based on the right internal policies, and agile ways of working on the new path).

With regard to larger retailers McKinsey’s practice offered two very interesting examples:

- Lessons learned as a result of its working with a European retail chain (having around 1,000 brick-and-mortar retail stores globally) that involved in an e-commerce business and obtained successful results in just 13 weeks: be focused on one region and direct customer impact; launching at speed based on clearly designated teams (responsible for technology and design, operations, product assortment, and marketing); installing during the start of this process the right key performance indicators (KPIs) so as to track e-commerce business process evolution, and adapt accordingly, ensuring constant improvement;

- The advantages offered to many large retailers (such as Amazon and Target) in the USA and UK by their already built and scaled retail media networks (RMNs) enabling e-commerce innovation driven by the high-margin business built by valorizing RMNs (profound customers’ knowledge via advertising opportunities, first-party data, and seamless, digitally frictionless omnichannel shopping experience).

McKinsey’s practice also underlined the significant value driven by e-commerce for brands (via DTC e-commerce, live commerce and social commerce), for CPG manufacturers (based on e-commerce metrics, marketing investment, revenue growth management tactics, and omnichannel supply chain actions), and for B2B companies (by valorizing e-commerce channel, digital marketplaces and so on).

According to SaleCycle (Ward, 2023), a necessary part of managing an ecommerce business are the lost sales, regaining them and turning them into valuable conversions being a real challenge. To recover from these unwanted situations (determined by cart abandonment, website malfunctions, or customers’ choice paralysis), e-commerce businesses need to implement effective strategies (like abandoned cart recovery, optimized checkout experience, personalized retargeting campaigns, excellent customer support etc.), so as to maximize ecommerce business’s revenue potential.

E-commerce capabilities, innovation and economic development

According to Fuller et al. (2022), to maintain a benefit on sales performance companies need to adopt e-commerce capabilities (which are disproportional in their general effects on different performance metrics) ahead of time and frequently, considering both performance expectations of capability adoption, and the timing of adoption, setting realistic goals and expectations, and allocating e-commerce operating budgets efficiently. It is very important not only to distinguish each capability’s specific contribution to e-commerce outcomes, but also to determine when the e-commerce outcomes may be achieved after adoption, making difference between some new digital capabilities providing advantages to the early adopting companies, and other capabilities offering even after widespread capability adoption lasting benefits to early adopters, because an increase in companies’ performance metrics can be obtained even by lateradopting companies Fuller et al. showed that e-commerce capabilities’ influence on performance can be lasting only a short time, delayed, or sustained (beyond the contribution of these capabilities to the creation of business value), these capabilities operating as part of a larger system, where the possible synergistic effects resulting from different combinations of capabilities

Skare et al. (2023) demonstrated that there are low e-commerce outputs when there are low innovation outputs, innovation being positively related to e-commerce output (B2C, B2B, and B2G being considered as one variable in the quantitative research), that is why a positive effect on e-commerce can be obtained through a higher innovation rate, a higher rate of ecommerce being associated with a higher rate of countries’ economic development. Their quantitative analysis was based on annual data from all (27) EU member from 2013 to 2021, the 12 e-commerce companies’ indicators being classified according to company size (B2C Large enterprises; B2C medium enterprises; B2C Small enterprises; B2B, B2G Large enterprises; B2B, B2G medium enterprises; B2B, B2G Small enterprises; B2C Small turnover; B2C Medium turnover; B2C Large turnover; B2B, B2G Small turnover; B2B, B2G medium turnover; B2B, B2G Large turnover). They quantified the relations (see the below figure) in the countries’ trajectory of innovation activity (considering the Global Innovation Index – GII), the outputs of companies’ B2C, B2B, and B2G e-commerce (considering sales characteristics), and the EU member countries’ economic development (considering both: the human development index

HDI, from the social point of view; and GDP from the the economic point of view). Skare et al. took into account the following research questions: RQ 1, the relationship between companies’ innovative activity and EU countries’ outcomes of e-commerce; RQ 2, the relationship between e-commerce outcomes and EU countries’ economic development; RQ 3, the differences in the B2C, B2B, and B2G businesses’ outcomes among EU countries explored concerning the companies carefully watched with innovation and economic development

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The above-mentioned explored relationships (RQ 1, RQ 2, and RQ 3) were confirmed by their research (which considered the specifics of B2C and B2B with B2G). It is also worth mentioning that among the countries needing to give close and thoughtful attention to these highlighted relationships are Bulgaria and Romania, according to the cluster analysis made within this framework.

In our last RDC Magazine issue (Purcarea, 2023), we made reference, among other aspects, to the well-known wise words of Peter Drucker: “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action”; “The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity”

Instead of conclusions: Better understanding what really matters in e-commerce and its subset

m-commerce

Nine years ago (Negricea & Purcarea, 2014) we highlighted how increasingly critical is to understand what really matters in mobile, mobile being a critical channel for engaging customers, and the mobile screen targeting to be the primary screen. We also showed that marketing strategies have to keep pace with the consumer-related changes in the today’s fastmoving world of online retail

According to Lucas et al. (2023), one of the fastest growing forms globally of ecommerce is m-commerce (a subset of e-commerce that is popularized mainly by the mobile applications stimulating consumer engagement), being important to better understand the

Figure no. 1: Relations between the explored components and the research question Source: Skare, M., Gavurova, B., Martin Rigelsky, M., 2023. Innovation activity and the outcomes of B2C, B2B, and B2G ECommerce in EU countries, Journal of Business Research, Volume 163, 113874, p. 4 (work cited)

relationship between e-commerce, m-commerce and consumers’ intention to continually using ecommerce access platforms, starting from the so-called VAM (value-based adoption) model proposed by Kim et al. (2007), who allowed measuring the perception of value by the consumer of technology, by combining the theory of consumer choice and decision making (from economics and marketing research). The VAM model offered a cognitive trade-off between perceived benefits (as constructs of usefulness and enjoyment) and sacrifices (as technicality and perceived fee), the perceived benefits being divided into extrinsic (perceived usefulness of the platform) and intrinsic (satisfaction or pleasure in using the platform). Lucas et al. (who examined the user’s experience with different access platforms from e-commerce to mcommerce), made also reference to by Wang et al. (2019) underlined perceived promotions (together with product quality, perceived price, and eWOM) as another extrinsic benefit present in the e-commerce system The research findings of Lucas et al. showed (after identifying perceived usefulness, enjoyment, and perceived promotions as important influencers of using an online platform) that the main predictor of the consumer’s perceived value (in all by them tested platforms) is the perceived usefulness, while the main barriers or disadvantages faced in the online business environment are some different perceived sacrifices (perceived privacy risk, technicality, and navigation and design) which are not having influence in all tested platforms.

And as we underlined last year (Purcarea, 2022), within the context of the evolution of digital commerce and e-commerce platform, there is no doubt about the need of a frictionless commerce, better understanding that now it is the real time to enter the path to NeXT Commerce.

References

Fuller, R.M., Harding, M.K., Luna, L., Summers, J.D., 2022. The impact of E-commerce capabilities on online retailer performance: Examining the role of timing of adoption, Information & Management Volume 59(2), 103584, pp. 13-14, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2021.103584

Kim, H.-W., Chan, H.C., Gupta, S., 2007. Value-based adoption of mobile internet: an empirical investigation, Decision Support Systems, Volume 43, Issue 1, February 2007, pp. 111-126, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2005.05.009.

Lucas, G.A., Lunardi, G.L., Dolci, D.B., 2023. From e-commerce to m-commerce: An analysis of the user’s experience with different access platforms, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Volume 58, 101240, pp. 1-3, 9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2023.101240.

McKinsey & Company, 2023. What is e-commerce? Featured insights, June 29, 2023. [online] Available at: <https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-e-commerce?> [Accessed 1 July 2023].

Negricea, C.I. & Purcarea, I.M., 2014. Digital Marketing and a Better Understanding of the Consumer Mobile Journey, Holistic Marketing Management, vol. 4(4), pp. 15-21, December.

Purcarea, I.M., 2023. Social Commerce Ecosystem, Social Media Marketers’ New Tool ChatGPT, and E-Commerce Profitability Improvement Based on Immersive Product Imagery, Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine, vol. 14(1), pp. 25-32, March.

Purcarea, I.M., 2022. E-Commerce Development and Entering the Path to NeXT Commerce, Holistic Marketing Management, vol. 12(4), pp. 40-53, December.

Wang, Y.-S., Tseng, T.H., Wang, W.-T., Shih, Y.-W., Chan, P.-Y., 2019. Developing and validating a mobile catering app success model. International Journal of Hospitality Management, Volume 77, January 2019, pp. 19-30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.06.002.

Skare, M., Gavurova, B., Martin Rigelsky, M., 2023. Innovation activity and the outcomes of B2C, B2B, and B2G E-Commerce in EU countries, Journal of Business Research, Volume 163, 113874, pp. 1, 3-4, 10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113874.

Ward, B., 2023. How To Recover Lost Sales [Step by Step Guide], SaleCycle, June 27, 2023. [online] Available at: <https://www.salecycle.com/blog/strategies/five-ways-lose-customer-website/> [Accessed 29 June 2023].

SuccessfulAmCham Panel Discussion on the occasion of the Launch of theAnnual Report of the Romanian Competition Council

On May 25, 2023 the Romanian Competition Council launched

within the context of the Conference “Competing in today’s economy - keeping markets running” – itsAnnual Report (http://holisticmarketingmanagement.ro/romanian-competition-councils-annual-report-2022competing-in-todays-economy-keeping-markets-running/ ; http://holisticmarketingmanagement.ro/panelul-amcham-cu-ocazia-conferintei-anuale-aconsiliului-concurentei-25-mai-2023/ ).

The special event took place at the Pentagon Events (Romexpo, Bucharest), and enjoyed a significant professional representation, confirmed otherwise by the ConferenceAgenda including significant Panel Discussions, such as the interesting and engaging AmCham Panel –American Chamber of Commerce in Romania being a leading business association in Romania that represents over 530 members

It is well-known that among the values that characterize professional practice is to deliver specific activity results to the agreed quality standards and deadlines. This is why we really appreciated lecturers’presentations – Livia Zamfiropol, DLAPiper; Răzvan Pele, DLAPiper; Anca Jurcovan, Wolf Theiss;Anca Diaconu, Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen; Lucian Bozian, David & Baias – and interaction with each other and the audience after the panelists’ initial remarks, making the talks memorable. The chosen topic was thought-provoking: “Vertical agreements in the perspective of the new Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/720” (of 10 May 2022 on the application ofArticle 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

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to categories of vertical agreements and concerted practices – VBER; the Regulation entered into force on 1 June 2022).

It should be remembered, making a parenthesis, that I had the honor of representing the Romanian Competition Council at the debate organized by the European Commission on 6-7 October 1997, in Brussels (with approx. 250 attendees representing different stakeholders such as: producers, merchants, consumers, competition authorities, consulting firms, etc.; of course, there were also attendees from the USA), on the topic of Vertical Restrictions in EU Competition Policy. Previously, on January 21, 1997, the European Commission had presented the “Green Paper on Vertical Restraints in EU Competition Policy” – COM(96) 721 final Moreover, the students of the Romanian-American University are aware of these developments, including the fact that: we referred to the respective provisions in a point of view submitted in 1997 to the European Rapporteur for the Green Paper on Commerce, Riccardo Garosci; in the context of the traditional collaboration of the Romanian Competition Council with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ,Antitrust Division) and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), we enjoyed valuable technical assistance; in the first issue for the year 2023 of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal (p. 8, http://holisticmarketingmanagement.ro/RePEc/hmm/v13i1/1.pdf ) even images from two official meetings with the distinguished Mrs. Deborah Platt Majoras (Assistant to theAttorney General, DOJ, in 2003, and then Chairman of Federal Trade Commission, in 2007) are shown.

TheAmCham Panel was a true success, lecturers delivering engaging and impressing presentations, confirming that a great presentation makes all the difference by matching with the objective, and stimulating discussion:

• Livia Zamfiropol, DLA Piper: Impact Changes to Revised Rules in 2022 (Agency Contracts; Non-Compete Clauses; Passive Sales vs.Active Sales; Imposition of Resale Prices; Distribution Systems; Parity Obligations; Exchanges of Information);

• Răzvan Pele, DLAPiper: Imposition of Resale Prices (Serious infringement of competition; How to reach RPM – Resale Price Maintenance according to the new Vertical Guidelines; Synthesis of the main innovations brought by VBER and the new Vertical Guidelines; Relevant case studies);

•Anca Diaconu, Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen: Exclusive distribution – practical implications of the new VBER (Customer/territory restrictions. Basic rules; Exclusive distribution. Shared exclusivity; Exclusively assigned territory/ customers; Exclusive distribution. Pass on; Combining exclusive distribution with selective distribution. Conditions under which it is permitted);

•Anca Jurcovan, Wolf Theiss: Dual distribution. Current Practice and Consequences for Compliance (Non-reciprocal vertical agreement between competing undertakings benefiting

from the block exemption; Dual distribution rules under the new VBER; Dual distribution information sharing; Recent practice; Compliance measures);

• Lucian Bozian, David & Baias: Parity obligations (What the old regime stipulated regarding parity obligations; From the relevant case law – different approaches; What the new regime provides regarding parity obligations; Conclusions, in the context in which the new regime shows the Commission’s high interest in protecting competition at the level of online intermediation platforms).

Theodor Valentin Purcărea

Member of the Advisory Board of the Romanian Competition Council

Professor at Romanian-American University

President of the Romanian Distribution Committee

● RDC, 29 June 2023

– In Memory of Distinguished Professor Bernd HALLIER

The distinguished Professor Bernd Hallier passed away

It is difficult to find the right words at this difficult time, being a tremendous loss for all those who knew Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier, the “designer” of the European RetailAcademy (ERA, www.european-retail-academy.org) – a virtual platform that brings more transparency about retail-research and retail-education and promotes the international transfer of know-how between business and universities – and President of EuCVoT (European Competence Center for Vocational Training for Retail).

Professor Bernd Hallier was the Managing Director of the EHI Retail Institute (former EuroHandelsinstitut ), Chairman of theAdvisory Board of EuroShop (world’s largest capital goods show in the retail sector), Member of the Board ofAIDABrussels, Member of theAstana Economic Scientists Club, Member of theAdvisory Board of “Transparent Food”, Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent (the largest German labelling organisation in the beef sector), and Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P (a private sector body setting voluntary standards for the certification of production processes of agricultural products around the globe, and serving as a practical manual for GoodAgricultural Practice – G.A.P anywhere in the world).

Professor Bernd Hallier began many years ago a fruitful collaboration with the prestigious Professor Klaus Toepfer (former Federal German Minister for Environment, former director of the United Nations Environment Program UNEP and initiator of the Kyoto Protocol), and with Dr.Angela Merkel (former Chancellor of the Federal Republic, and who pushed “environment” to become a high political issue during the EU-Presidency of Germany, in 2007).

Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier is an Honorary Member of the Romanian Distribution Committee, and distinguished Member of both the Editorial Board of “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”, and the Editorial Board of RAU “Holistic Marketing Management”. It is also worth remembering that immediately after visiting Romania for the first time on the occasion of the 24th International Congress of the InternationalAssociation for the Distributive Trade (AIDA Brussels), Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier sent us, in May 1998, a memorable letter we have referred initially in the Journal of the Romanian MarketingAssociation (AROMAR), no. 5/1998, and also later, in 2010, in the first issue of the Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine. The Romanian-American University (RAU) has awarded Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier a “Diploma of SpecialAcademic Merit”. The “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, has awarded Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier a “Diploma of Excellence”. Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier was involved from the very beginning in the organization of SANABUNAInternational Congress.

May his memory be for a blessing.