Configuring the Enterprise Systems Portfolio: The Role of Information Risk

Information risk, the likelihood that corporate financial information is of poor quality, adversely impacts investor confidence regarding a firm’s financial health, making it an economically important problem. Viewing a firm’s enterprise systems (ES) portfolio as made up of operational modules (customer relationship management and supply chain management) and functional modules (accounting and finance, and human resource management), we examine how firms configure their ES portfolio by changing the balance in the implementation of two types of modules in response to information risk. We find internal controls to be an important contingency in determining how firms change their ES portfolio balance when information risk increases. When there is no weakness in internal controls, firms change their ES portfolio balance more toward operational modules. However, when internal controls are afflicted with material weakness, firms change their ES portfolio balance more toward functional modules instead. When evaluating the link between ES portfolio configuration and information processing requirements in the context of financial processes, managers should assess both information risk and internal controls to decide how to change the balance between operational and functional modules that are implemented.

Putting Sense and Mind into Your Enterprise Systems: A Qualitative Study of IS Assimilation in Large Public Organizations in India

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the information systems (IS) assimilation level of an enterprise system in the post-implementation phase, through the lens of IS governance mechanisms and IS support structures, impacted by the socio-cognitive processes. The research follows a qualitative approach and builds on semi-structured interviews with enterprise system stakeholders in large public sector organizations in India. The study posits that high levels of IS governance mechanisms and high levels of IS support structures lead to a high level of IS assimilation only in the presence of higher level socio-cognitive processes. A not-so-higher level of socio-cognitive fabric results in low or moderate IS assimilation levels in spite of high levels of IS governance and/or IS support structures. Despite close to a couple of decades of IS research on enterprise systems, IS assimilation is still an enigma for practitioners and academicians. The generalizability of the results of this study may be applicable to any public organization in a developing country, like India, which are using enterprise system solutions but are yet to reap the potential benefits. The results present a way forward for practitioners to ensure optimal resources and focus for the triad- IS governance, IS support structures and socio-cognitive processes.

Applications of Systems Engineering Technical Process Flows on Enterprise Systems

Systems engineering (SE) and SE management is the objective of all SE efforts, which defines the transformation of specific customer needs into a system product, service, or enterprise systems. Enterprise systems of systems engineering apply systems engineering fundamentals to the design of an enterprise. It is created by knowledge, principles, and processes tailored to the design of enterprise systems. Enterprise is a complex, socio-technical system that includes interdependent resources of people, information, and technology to reach a common goal. Enterprise systems is complex that a system configuration can be controlled among the different stakeholders. There are four different steps in enterprise systems process; it includes technology planning (TP), capabilities-based engineering analysis (CBEA), enterprise architecture, and enterprise analysis and assessment. This is the main reason that the enterprise work is developed and established at HAVELSAN Inc., Information and Security Technology Division. SE and technical processes for enterprise projects require establishing a systematic taxonomy and SE process customization. This chapter presents the work done on SE for enterprise projects at HAVELSAN. The chapter presents the results of the study of similarities and differences of the various applications of systems engineering of product systems oriented against enterprise systems.