The rapid advancement in information and communication technologies (ICTs) has brought enormous business opportunities as well as challenges. One of these challenges is the demand for ICTs skills and expertise in adopting and implementing these emerging technologies. Coping with skills shortage poses a serious challenge across all European countries. Lack of ICTs skills and knowledge is more evident in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). As training is regarded as the most effective way of improving skills and enhancing knowledge, this paper attempts to address skills shortage at pan‐European level by identifying SMEs’ needs on ICTs training in the UK, Portugal and Poland. The investigation focuses on the most needed training areas, the required training levels and the preferred training delivery channels. The paper summarises findings from three‐country investigations and highlights the implications of findings for the design and development of a Web‐based training system for the use of ICTs in SMEs.

Big data is transforming the world, and it’s especially changing the way in which modern enterprises conduct business and strategic, informed decisions. By incorporate big data analysis, organisations can make decisions based on facts rather than intuition or hidden internal knowledge. When decision makers and knowledge workers have access to increasingly accurate and up-to-date trusted source of information, along with the analytical tools to make sense of it, their organisations benefit from more informed decisions and more consistent outcomes than ever before. This approach for supporting decisions can affect overall company’s business and the way knowledge workers do their jobs. Analytic tools took insights from big sets of data. They help broaden the context and background available for making informed, accurate, and consistent decisions. This research renders how Big Data analysis can extend the DSS part of the Adaptive Case Management (ACM) systems. Authors of the article discusses the thesis that by merging analytical tools, flexible process management and access to all required information into a single application - organisations can use big data to help improve the way they do business.

The present paper deals with selected aspects of energy prosumers’ security needs. The analysis reported aim to illustrate the concept of the implementation of intrusion-detection systems (IDS)/intrusion-prevention systems (IPS), as supporting agent systems for smart grids. The contribution proposes the architecture of an agent system aimed at collecting, processing, monitoring, and possibly reacting to changes in the smart grid. Furthermore, an algorithm is proposed to support the construction of a smart-grid-operating profile, based on a set of parameters describing the devices. Its application is presented in the example of data collected from the network, indicating the process of building a device-operation profile and a possible mechanism for detecting its changes. The proposed algorithm for building the operating profile of devices in the smart grid, based on the mechanism of continuous learning by the system, allows for detecting network malfunctions not only in terms of individual events but also regarding limits of the scope of system alerts, by determining the typical behavior of devices in the smart grid. The paper gives recommendations to a software-agent system development, which is dedicated to detecting and preventing anomalies in smart grids.

The explosive growth of the Big Data concept and its applications in multiple domains of human activity has increased interest in the benefits it could offer to public services. The paper seeks to emphasise the added value that stems from the use of Big Data in handling heterogeneous data sources accessed by crisis management structures. Authors wants to highlight the ways in which the concept could support decision makers during the crisis management process by showing two cases. First authors’ own creation known as Hybrid Decision Support System for Crisis/Disaster Management. Second, showing application of Big Data in security management to illustrate the implications of using Big Data in practice. In case of that the Big Data is a term that is vendor driven and creates more confusing than clarity author’s conclusion brings together critical observations and judgments voiced in the paper using SWOT analysis toll and providing a blueprint for further development of the concept of Big Data in the area of Crisis/Disaster management.

Modern approaches to project management link project success both to sustainability and with the value delivered to project stakeholders. In the final analysis, it is the satisfaction of the identified stakeholders based on the sustainability principle which decides whether a project is successful or not. The value delivered to appropriate stakeholders has to be incorporated in the earliest phases of the project defining process. Otherwise, it may be too late to introduce changes which would allow the right value to be delivered to the right stakeholders. In this paper, we propose that a simulation is used in the phase of project definition to choose such implementation forms for individual project phases or tasks which would facilitate the delivery of the value expected by the stakeholders. Our approach also supports the process of agreeing (among the stakeholders) on the value expected from the project. We show, using a post-factum real-world project case, that the application of a simulation in the predictive project stage may considerably increase the probability of the project’s success.