Readiness in Systems Implementation

Higher education sector is notorious for lagging behind the industrial sector in the application of IT/IS systems and infrastructure. This chapter presents the application of the IT/IS readiness model in a higher education organization. This organisation was established in 1967 and currently has about 2,500 staff and 18,000 students, of which, 3,000 are international students from all over the world. The organization comprises of 14 schools and 13 research institutes and offers programmes various fields, which include virtual reality, magnetic and optics, business, law, genetic algorithms, health-related studies, and building construction. In 1996, Academic Division (AD) identified the need to improve the management of the student database due to the increase of students and programs offered by the organization. AD also identified that the Legacy Student Information System (SIS) was unable to cope with the increasing demand of data administration. This case study presents the overview of issues encountered while assessing the e-readiness of the organisation after most of the systems went live. Post implementation, the system has been able to reduce the redundancies in processes and has been able to provide a more effective support to students and staff. However, still there are several issues and conflicts that need to be resolved, and a radical rethink of the processes supporting the IT system is needed to achieve any further efficiency.

IT/IS Readiness Maturity Model

This chapter explains the concept of an IT/IS readiness maturity model including particular requirements in terms of four domains, embracing nine attributes: IT infrastructure (top management perception, systems and communication), people (skills, roles and responsibility of IT staff, user involvement), process, and work environment (organization behaviour, IT department, leadership). Each of the attributes consists of 14 factors: top management perception (drivers, systems requirements definition), systems and communication (focus, network communication), skills (type of skills, capability building), roles and responsibility of IT staff (position of IT/IS heads, roles of IT staff), user involvement, process (practices), organizational behaviour (characteristics), IT policy (control of IT/IS activities), and leadership (communication, participation). The following section describes the concept of readiness and maturity, the resources used for element extraction/adoption and the description of the model.

Intelligent Decision Making and Risk Analysis for IT Management Processes

IT management processes have been growing as the development of modern IT systems has grown. These are often complex with multiple interdependencies that can make it very difficult for Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to comprehend and be aware of potential risks. These risks have the potential to translate into decision making inefficiencies for an organization. Risk analysis for decision making in the planning and monitoring of these systems can be a complex and demanding task. Intelligent decision making in IT management processes and systems are a crucial element of an organization’s success and its competitive position in the marketplace. This chapter considers the implementation of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) to provide facilities to capture and represent complex relationships in an IT management process model. By using FCMs, CIOs can regularly review and improve their IT management processes and provide greater improvement in development, monitoring and maintenance of those processes. CIOs can perform what-if analysis to better understand vulnerabilities of their designed system.

E-Readiness in IT/IS Implementation

This study is an attempt to bridge the gap in the existing literature by exploring the critical factors that affect IT adoption through a comprehensive benchmarking analysis, using secondary cases. The IT adoption in 100 organizations indicated in the literature, were scrutinized in all the cases analyzed in order to arrive at the most critical factors affecting IT adoption, as well as their degree of criticality. The study identifies twenty-four critical factors that must be carefully considered in IT adoption to attain successful outcomes.

The Use of Collaborative Technologies within SMEs in Construction

Collaborative environments have been evolving and effectively employed in large organisations and are believed to have high potential for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This chapter shares the findings of a case study that was conducted on twelve companies in order to assess the use of collaborative environments and their adaptation approaches through interviews with senior level managers and end-users. The need for such case studies has risen from an intensive literature review which revealed that SMEs are key players within the construction industry; however, there seems to be little evidence of their utilisation of IT for collaborative learning environments. Therefore, this calls for the necessity to developing an approach blending the right combination of factors which are believed to contribute towards the improvement and implementation of collaborative environments and may affect their success.

E-Readiness in Governmental Public Service Institution

This case study revolves around a governmental public service institution, which receives public and government money that it invests. There were several challenges associated with the implementation of the IT system to improve public service. It was found that the organizations need, in the contract, to have the qualifications of the vendor’s staff, and agree that prior approval for any change of staff or new recruitment would be agreed beforehand. This is because the vendor’s staff had a high turnover. Experienced staff, which were agreed upon by the organization, were assigned to the project for a short time, only at the beginning of the project. The lack of positive relationships between different groups in the organization caused resistance to the required changes in structure and processes. Because key staff considered keeping knowledge and experience to themselves as a job security tool, they were not forthcoming in cooperating with the project team. This was complicated by the almost complete absence of systems’ documentation, and the little documentation that did exist was obsolete or not comprehensive. The void of decisive leadership by top management allowed the conflicts between different entities in the organization to go on in an increasing mode until the end of the project, which had a negative effect on the project success. The new system design was not successful in resolving the ownership of the data within the organization. This was an issue that caused user resistance to the project.

Building for the Future

This chapter provides the IT readiness assessment for before and after scenarios of IT systems implementation in a construction consultancy company providing multi-disciplinary services for the construction industry throughout the United Kingdom. The services offered include building surveying, quantity surveying, project management, civil and structural engineering design, and mechanical and electrical engineering design, among others. On application of the maturity model it was found that the overall processes for managing information are improving since the introduction of the new IT system. Prior to the project, the development of IT/IS was driven to perform daily work tasks that required the company to run a business. The new systems has streamlined the organization-wide communication, which the previous system did not have the capability to do, and to reduce cost for document reproduction. The level of IT skills prior to the project was relatively low; the introduction of the new system has helped the company to increase their staff’s IT skills.

Improving the Tendering Process

Construction sector is unique in a way because more than 90% companies are Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME). This chapter presents a case study of a construction company with past and current projects valued up to £15 million, and has completed a number of construction projects both in private and the public sectors including housing, commerce, leisure, health, education, retail, et cetera. The company operates out of multiple locations and decided to improve the tendering process using a new IT system. On applying the IT readiness model it was found that almost all the attributes identified were not at lower level 1. The practice achieved maturity in three areas – skills and leadership are identified at level 5, and roles & responsibility were identified at the top of the level.

An E-Support Firm’s Response to Local E-Readiness and the Global E-Business Environment

The purpose of this study is to understand a small e-support firm’s response to the local e-readiness and the global e-business environment in a developing context. E-Support firms provide Web development and consultancy services to user organizations, assisting them in their uptake and maintenance of their Internet applications. Within the e-readiness research area, little is known about e-support firms, particularly in connection with their interaction with their local and the global e-business environment. As yet the emphasis on e-readiness studies has been at the national level. Nevertheless, the e-support sector is very significant in the successful adoption and diffusion of the Internet and related applications in any economy. It is thus important to understand how such firms relate to their e-business environments. That said, this study draws on the interpretive case study of a small e-support firm in Ghana, a developing context, to investigate the firm’s response to the e-readiness level of the local and the global e-business environment. Findings show that the firm could employ resources from the global environment to address most of the infrastructural challenges posed by a relatively poor local e-readiness context. However, its attempt to transfer advanced e-business technologies from the global e-business environment to the local e-business context did not succeed. This chapter offers implications for practice and research concerning the notion of reconciling local and global e-business environments in the small e-support sector.

The Ways of Assessing the Security of Organization Information Systems through SWOT Analysis

The chapter is focused mainly on assessing the factors of the external environment in the area of security of information systems in the organization through SWOT analysis. At first the method is characterized from the viewpoint of its purpose and nature. The emphasis is laid on the principles of SWOT analysis, the possible use of methods and tools, and also the most common problems occurring during the implementation of the analysis. The recommended methodical procedure for the implementation of SWOT analysis is described in another part of the chapter with individual phases and particular activities, which are appropriate to be carried out within these phases. The main part of the chapter is focused on the ways of semi-quantitative assessment of threats to the area of information systems of the organization, while evaluating their risks, and the assessment of opportunities, while evaluating their benefits. Both cases include a detailed description of procedure leading to an objective outcome during the classification of identified threats and opportunities according to the set criteria.