MCI professorship for Christian Ploder

In recognition of his achievements in research and teaching, his exemplary translation of research achievements into practice and his contributions to the further development of the MCI as well as the higher education sector, the MCI recently conferred a professorship on FH Prof. Dr. Christian Ploder. The appointment as professor was made by the Vice Chair of the MCI College, Claudia Mössenlechner, together with Peter J. Mirski, Head of the Department of Management, Communication & IT. The subsequent inaugural lecture by FH Prof. Dr. Christian Ploder was dedicated to the topic "Will digitalization kill process management?"

Christian Ploder, a lecturer at MCI since 2017, stands out as a particularly committed teacher and researcher at the MCiT Department. He has just been awarded the Teaching Award of the Entrepreneurial University® and combines teaching, research and practice in an exemplary manner. He teaches and researches in the areas of ERP systems, process management, business informatics and data analytics. He also heads the Next-Gen Lab, a centre of excellence set up by SAP at the MCI, and teaches as a guest lecturer at the University Guelph Humber in Canada.

After graduating from the HTL Jenbach, he completed his business studies with a focus on business informatics at the University of Innsbruck in 2005 and worked as a research assistant on his dissertation on the topic of "Diagnosis of knowledge-intensive business processes in SMEs" until 2009. This was followed by a move into business. He held several senior positions in international industrial and software companies and also completed a number of training and further education courses in the areas of quality management and university didactics. His outstanding knowledge in the IT sector, his research activities and his profound practical experience, combined with modern didactics, result in the combination that makes FH Professor Dr. Ploder an authentic and inspiring lecturer.

In his inaugural lecture in English, he took the numerous relatives and friends, colleagues and students who attended on an exciting journey into the research topic of "Operational Excellence & Agile Auditing". He showed how data and technology can be used to improve business processes. In any case, any modifications should be seen in the triangle of people, process and technology. Ultimately, he said, it is about designing processes so that they correspond to the real world and can be supported by technology. Audit trails help to control and monitor compliance with the processes by the employees.