Informatics (also referred to as computer science) is the science that has as its domain information processes and related phenomena in technological artefacts. In the spirit of this definition, business informatics is considered as the scientific discipline targeting information processes and related phenomena in their socio-economical context, including companies, organizations, administrations and society in general. As such, it endeavours to take a systematic and analytic approach in aligning core concepts from management science, organisational science, economics information science, and informatics into an integrated engineering science for businesses.
Business informatics is a fertile ground for research with the potential for immense and tangible impact. Enterprises and their supporting IT systems are a critical element of our rapidly developing digital society. There is an ongoing need to push towards new frontiers of business modelling, automation, monitoring and analytics technologies, in order to more effectively improve and innovate enterprise. Advances in the field of IT also enable innovation in enterprises: socially synergistic business processes, cloud-based enterprise applications, real-world-aware business solutions, and business intelligence driven by big data, just to name a few.
Business informatics is of a multi-disciplinary and crosscutting nature, and it is important to draw upon a variety of established disciplines in order to develop key business innovations and optimise enterprise operations. A key characteristic of business informatics research is that it considers a real-world business context in developing new theories and concepts that enable new practical applications. Thereby, business informatics research does not only extend the body of knowledge of the information society, but at the same time provides a tangible impact to industry. Or put it in other words: Business informatics is research that matters!
The IEEE Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) is sponsored by the IEEE TCBIS (Technical Committee on Business Informatics and Systems). The series has a rich history dating back to 1998. Its focus on Business Informatics was initially targeted at the area of e-Commerce, while already bringing together IT, economical and business aspects.
The series started in 1998 with the DARE (Dependable and Real-Time E-Commerce Systemsworkshop. In 1999, this initial workshop evolved into the WECWI (Workshop on Advanced Issues of E-Commerce and Web-based Information SystemsConference on e-Commerce and Enterprise Computing) conferences in 2003, while also integrating the EEE (Conference on E-Technology, E-Commerce and E-Service).
By 2012, the field of business informatics had established itself as the overarching field bringing together business, organisation, economics and IT. Therefore, it was decided to further evolve the conference series to become the CBI (Conference on Business Informatics) series, marking the next step in its maturation.
The current domains of interest of the conference series include: