Markus Westner

Professor of Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics, OTH Regensburg, Germany

　　Prof. Dr. Markus Westner is professor in the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics at OTH Regensburg, a Technical University for Applied Sciences. As an academic and educator he specializes in IT-Performance-Management and Management Consulting. His main research interests are in IT-Strategy and IT-Sourcing. Furthermore, he is passionate about improving the learning opportunities of his students by applying innovative teaching didactics. His doctoral thesis (German PhD equivalent) focused on success factors for implementing and managing IT offshoring projects. He also holds a Master of Computing degree from Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland (New Zealand), and a diploma in Business Administration (German MBA equivalent) with distinction from EBS University, Oestrich-Winkel (Germany).
　　Markus is Associate Editor for Information ＆ Management (I＆M). Furthermore, he acted as reviewer for the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik, Information Systems Management (ISM), JITTA, and Organizacija.
He is Deputy Dean of Student Affairs, International Coordinator in the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics and E-Learning Coordinator of the university.
Before he started his academic career he worked as a management consultant in a project manager position for Bain ＆ Company, one of the world’s largest management consultancies, in their Munich office. In this position he advised clients from the financial services, telecommunications, and high tech sector regarding issues of strategy, organization, and performance improvement.

Companies nowadays face increased market pressure to become more digital and agile. Experts consider this to be a critical success factor for corporate survival in the 21stcentury. To address this challenge, academics and researchers focus on questions how to increase agility in corporate IT departments. However, could there be other options to make the business more digital and agile? Business-managed IT could be such an alternative solution: Allow, enable, and empower business units to develop and maintain their own information systems with the central IT department only acting in a consulting and assisting role. Where does the concept of Business-managed IT stem from, how does it differ from negatively connoted “Shadow-IT”, and what are constituencies to make Business-managed IT successful? The keynote will provide perspectives on these aspects.