Relation of CIO background,IT infrastructure,and economic performance

The literature of the past three decades has not provided a consistent picture of payback for IT investment. Firm strategies and infrastructure play a part in determining return on investment and, in recent years, chief information officer (CIO) characteristics have been cited as essential factors in ensuring economic returns for IT investment. In our study we related CIO background and attitude toward IT investment to the objective measures of a firm's performance. The financial measures tended to be higher when the CIO was from IT rather than general management, however, an IT manager in a firm that had a strategic orientation to IT rather than a utilitarian one was more likely to have higher financial performance. Thus, although a CIO should have a technological background, the CIO who has a strategic rather than utilitarian orientation is more likely to help in forming a highly profitable company.     

Valuing information technology infrastructures: a growth options approach

Decisions to invest in information technology (IT) infrastructure are often made based on an assessment of its immediate value to the organization. However, an important source of value comes from the fact that such technologies have the potential to be leveraged in the development of future applications. From a real options perspective, IT infrastructure investments create growth options that can be exercised if and when an organization decides to develop systems to provide new or enhanced IT capabilities. We present an analytical model based on real options that shows the process by which this potential is converted into business value, and discuss middleware as an example technology in this context. We derive managerial implications for the evaluation of IT infrastructure investments, and the main findings are: (1) the flexibility provided by IT infrastructure investment is more valuable when uncertainty is higher; (2) the cost advantage that IT infrastructure investment brings about is amplified by demand volatility for IT-supported products and services; (3) in duopoly competition, the value of IT infrastructure flexibility increases with the level of product or service substitutability; and (4) when demand volatility is high, inter-firm competition has a lower impact on the value of IT infrastructure.     

Managing information technology investments using a real-options approach

Investments in IT have become a dominant part of the capital budgets of many organizations. While the costs seem readily identifiable, many of the benefits are elusive. In this paper we develop a formal and practical methodology to evaluate information technology infrastructure investments. Our experience in using this approach has shown that it not only impacts the outcome but also improved understanding of how to align operating drivers with business capabilities and investment decisions. Thus, the real value of the real options approach is in how it informs the management process of IT investments.     

Evaluation of information technology investment: a data envelopment analysis approach

The increasing use of information technology (IT) has resulted in a need for evaluating the productivity impacts of IT. The contemporary IT evaluation approach has focused on return on investment and return on management. IT investment has impacts on different stages of business operations. For example, in the banking industry, IT plays a key role in effectively generating (i) funds from the customer in the forms of deposits and then (ii) profits by using deposits as investment funds. Existing approaches based upon data envelopment analysis (DEA) only measure the IT efficiency or impact on one specific stage when a multi-stage business process is present. A detailed model is needed to characterize the impact of IT on each stage of the business operation. The current paper develops a DEA non-linear programming model to evaluate the impact of IT on multiple stages along with information on how to distribute the IT-related resources so that the efficiency is maximized. It is shown that this non-linear program can be treated as a parametric linear program. It is also shown that if there is only one intermediate measure, then the non-linear DEA model becomes a linear program. Our approach is illustrated with an example taken from previous studies.     

Can ITIL contribute to IT/business alignment? An initial investigation

Strategic alignment has been viewed as one of the main concerns of management and IT executives. Organizations have realized that in order to achieve competitive advantage, IT needs to be strategically aligned with business objectives. Strategic alignment enables organizations to choose IT applications that meet their needs and as a result, to enhance their profitability and reduce costs. Despite the importance of this matter and a large body of literature written on this subject, it has not yet been identified how it can be successfully achieved and maintained. This paper attempts to provide insight on this matter by investigating an initiative called Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which ensures the effective and efficient delivery of IT services. The intention of this research was to identify how effective ITIL was in improving alignment between IT and business objectives. The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) developed by Henderson and Venkatraman was used for this research. This consists of four parts: IT strategy; business strategy; organizational infrastructure and processes; and IS infrastructure and processes. By placing ITIL in the internal domain of the model as a substitute for the IS infrastructure and processes it has been identified that it has the ability to impact the other three main areas of the model and as result enables alignment between all the four parts of model to be achieved. In addition to the above an empirical study has been conducted in order to further investigate the ability of ITIL in achieving alignment between IT and business objectives. Four participants have been interviewed from three organizations ranging from education and banking to the IT sector. The results of the research indicate that ITIL has potential as an effective approach in achieving alignment.     

Managing for Better Business-IT Alignment

Business-IT alignment is a complex and multidimensional problem that remains among the top-10 issues for many organizations. IT investment decisions usually fall to CIOs, and often the temptation is to base the decision to buy solely on superior technology. Clearly, organizations can gain a competitive advantage by such investments, but basing them only on the bells and whistles of a particular platform is foolhardy. Any competitive advantage would vanish as soon as the next platform enters the market, and the technological edge that the organization had briefly gained would evaporate. There are four themes in securing B-IT alignment: the role of IT, the business case, IT management intensity, and IT metrics, IT's role is important because not all organizations use IT in the same manner. The next three themes are natural intersections for business and IT investment. The business case is important because it determines how business and IT collaborate to justify the IT investment. The degree of IT management intensity both during and after the actual IT investment determines the organization's commitment to continuous process improvement. Finally, IT metrics are critical to demonstrate to business executives IT investment's value-generating potential     

制造企业IT运维管理实践与研究

本文以ITIL理论为指导思想,从IT运维服务管理对IT基础架构和应用的实时监控、服务台、事故管理、问题管理、配置管理、发布管理、知识库等维护管理进行了探讨和研究,结合制造业IT运维服务管理的现状。提出更合适制造业的IT运维服务管理的设计和实现,保障IT基础架构和应用高效、安全、正常的运行,为生产平稳运行提供支撑。     

A new framework for managing IT-enabled business change

Abstract. Although information systems and technology (IS/IT) investments have always caused varying degrees of business change, the main purpose of many of today's IS/IT implementations is to change the business and/or organization in some significant way. However, most organizations' approaches to managing IS/IT developments have changed little in the last 15–20 years and are heavily dependent on methodologies of IS/IT development and associated project management principles. The philosophy being adopted by many organizations today is that there are few IS/IT projects (some infrastructure investments only) that do not cause business changes and therefore they are really 'business projects involving IS/IT'. This exploratory research set out to devise a new framework for 'IT and change' management, which is more appropriate to today's realities than traditional approaches. The initial framework was derived from 'first principles', then adapted and further developed by applying and testing it in a range of real projects in organizations. This paper summarizes the results of that work.     

Information technology management: the case of the Port of Singapore Authority

The Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) used information technology (IT) extensively to create a high-tech port that has become the busiest port in the world. Now corporatised as a commercial port operator, PSA Corporation Ltd employs four key management success factors in managing IT to meet the demands and challenges facing port operators. They are: (1) having a business-driven IT investment; (2) aligning business and IT plans; (3) maintaining a flexible and extensible IT infrastructure; and (4) encouraging IT innovation and creativity. These management success factors are discussed and examples are given to illustrate how they help PSA more effectively leverage IT to streamline operations and sustain its competitive advantage.     

Bridging the cognitive-cellular neuroscience gap empirically: a study combining physiology,modelling and fMRI

In this article, we present a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach for evaluation of information technology (IT) security investments. For this purpose, we model security scenarios by using defense trees, an extension of attack trees with countermeasures and we use economic quantitative indexes for computing the defender's return on security investment and the attacker's return on attack. We show how our approach can be used to evaluate economic profitability of countermeasures and their deterrent effect on attackers, thus providing decision makers with a useful tool for performing better evaluation of IT security investments during the risk management process.     

Quantitatives IT-Portfoliomanagement

Based on previously released research this paper focuses on the question of how IT projects should be allocated to a risk/return balanced IT portfolio. Therefore we develop an approach that exploits the structure of IS Architectures and scenarios to identify project risks as well as dependencies between projects. As a result, different clusters of efficient portfolios with distinctive risk/return-properties can be derived. The presented approach is designed to support management decisions in a pragmatic manner when selecting IT portfolios. By using real data of a major German financial services provider we exemplify the implementation and the results of the presented approach.     

A practical approach to software metrics

Metrics programs that create meaningful change in software practice must start with business goals in mind. Software metrics are quantitative standards of measurement for various aspects of software projects. A well-designed metrics program will support decision making by management and enhance return on the IT investment. There are many aspects of software projects that can be measured, but not all aspects are worth measuring. Starting a new metrics program or improving a current program consists of five steps: identify business goals; select metrics; gather historical data; automate measurement procedures; and use metrics in decision making     

Information Systems, Operational Research and Business Reengineering

There has been much concern expressed during recent times to ensure that information technology (IT) considerations are firmly aligned with business imperatives. For example, two of the top ranked information systems management issues during the 1980s were concerned with the problems incurred in aligning the Information Systems function with that of the organisation as a whole, and in linking information systems and business strategies. Conversely, recent research and practice has provided us with a vision of IT-induced business process redesign, the opportunity for inter-organisational systems and even the redefinition and refocusing of business products and services. The reality for many organisations remains that IT investment is seen as a necessary evil at best, with many questioning whether it represents value for money. There have also been somewhat negative reactions to the topic of business process redesign itself: is it old wine in a new bottle? And is it all too risky a business to suggest that radical change rather than incremental change is what is required? This paper reviews these issues and argues for a refocussing of our attention on (i) information and business systems, and (ii) implementation issues and organisational change, as opposed to the more common practice of concentrating on information technology per se. It takes an organisational, soft operational research perspective on the subject of business reengineering, and provides some outline guidelines for the process of managing the change that is often both necessary and potentially desirable with the introduction and utilisation of new IT. It raises the question whether the lessons from the application of the softer operational research approaches over the past 20 years or so could be used to provide a more informed intervention, given the complexity of the task... and answers that question in the affirmative!     

Unleashing the Power of mCRM: Investigating Antecedents of Mobile CRM Values from Managers’ Viewpoint

Mobile technology together with Internet-based electronic commerce has transformed the way businesses operate. Mobile Customer Relationship Management (mCRM) combines mobility and CRM (customer relationship management) to enable organizations to increase their business performance by delivering better products/services to their customers. Incorporating location-based information into CRM systems has created new values and business opportunities. Using location information, for example, businesses can offer more personalized and real-time location-based services (LBS) to their customers. In this study, we investigate how the IT infrastructure and LBS support of mCRM, as technical resource capabilities, and mCRM knowledge and education, as human resource capabilities, can enhance business performance of the organization by improving mCRM’s quality dimensions. We propose a research model that integrates the resource-based view (RBV) of a firm and DeLone and McLean IS success model to investigate the effects of mCRM quality dimensions on business performance. To validate the proposed research model, we collected a set of empirical data from managers in a wide range of organizations that use mCRM in South Korea. The results indicate that the IT infrastructure of an organization as a technical resource, along with mCRM users’ knowledge, as a human resource capability can significantly influence managers’ perceptions of quality along various dimensions of mCRM: customer data quality, system quality, and service quality. Consequently, improving these quality dimensions will significantly influence the performance of an organization in terms of financial performance, productivity, and customer satisfaction. The present study would help both academic and professionals to understand and improve business performance by employing the appropriate resources that can harness the full potential of mCRM.     

Effects of time-inconsistent preferences on information technology infrastructure investments with growth options

Increasing information technology (IT) infrastructure spending and the capability of such projects to provide a platform for a firm to realize value from IT marks their importance. Effective management of IT infrastructure investments includes identification of embedded growth options in the infrastructure, and exercising them in a timely manner. Extant research has recognized that while managers could use real options thinking in IT investment management, managerial bias could affect the timing of option exercise and their realized value. We analyze the effect of time-inconsistent preferences of present-biased managers on the exercise time of real growth options and the realized value using a discrete time option valuation model. The results show that present-biased managers are more likely to exercise options early when the net payoffs are low, the option payoffs have high volatility, and the risk free discount rate is small. In addition, present biased managers are more likely to exercise a growth option early in its life when the project is performing well. We provide implications for practice and IT governance.     

A methodology of constructing a decision path for IT investment

Information Technology (IT) may be used for organizational efficiency, but should also be flexible to adapt to the rapidly changing competitive business environment. In competitive business circumstances, management continually asks: (1) How flexible must the firm be in investing in IT in order to meet unknown business needs in the future? At the same time, how efficient must the firm be in order to meet current business needs?; (2) How well must the firm align its business strategy with IT investment in order for it to support its strategic goals?; (3) how to construct a decision path for IT investments with respect to flexibility, efficiency and alignment between business strategy and IT investments?Although many researchers have struggled to answer these questions, they generally provide no means for incorporating these factors into the IT investment decision process.This paper suggests a method that identifies the degree of flexibility required (α-value), and accounts for and incorporates the α-value in making IT investments. The proposed method is based on a product development method called Quality Function Deployment (QFD). It will be applied to a real case of the “H-company” in Korea to validate and evaluate the proposed methodology.     

Information management in the global enterprise: an organising framework

Much has been written over the last decade on managing global enterprises. While the predominant concern of this literature has been strategic in orientation, the management of information is a neglected area. By drawing on a diverse range of literature in the international business, strategic management, organization design, and information system (IS) disciplines this paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing information management in the global enterprise, providing a basis for organising existing literature on the topic and for creating a map of the field. This framework is structured around four domains: global business drivers, global business strategy, global business model and global information strategy. It highlights the role of information technology (IT) as supporting global business strategies while at the same time IT can also be a major catalyst in the globalisation process itself. In the context of the global information strategy, the paper develops a distinction between business infostructure, IT infrastructure and the IS/IT suprastructure. Significant relationships between the four domains of the framework are surfaced and an agenda for action developed.     

水文基建财务监管平台设计与实现

近年来,水文水资源建设项目逐渐增多,也对水文基本建设财务管理提出更高的要求,加强水文基本建设财务监管,是切实管好用好水文建设资金的重要保证。在分析水文基建项目财务监管要求的基础上,剖析当前水文主管部门财务监管平台的不足,对新形势下水文基建项目财务管理新模式进行探讨,提出财务监管平台的业务需求及流程,设计财务监管平台的功能,完成财务监管平台的架构设计。水文基建财务监管平台按照"中央、流域、省集中部署,市、县共用"的原则进行建设,为水文水资源建设项目财务监管工作的开展提供信息化服务,主要包括项目财务、统计上报、财务预警监督管理等子系统。此平台将对其他智能化财务监督管理平台建设提供指导。     

Evolving a pervasive IT infrastructure: a technology integration approach

Over the past five years or so, pervasive computing has emerged as a new computing paradigm with a great deal of appeal. Enterprises are increasingly showing interest in deploying pervasive information technology (IT) infrastructures to realise the perceived benefits offered by this new computing paradigm. However, a return on the investment and considerations of the currently deployed infrastructure is a constraint for businesses to invest in a pervasive IT infrastructure. Realising that the economics of an investment in a new infrastructure can affect the embracing of pervasive IT, we suggest an approach that shows how the existing technology solutions available in the market and deployed in an enterprise can be used to develop a pervasive IT infrastructure, thereby protecting investments and maximising returns. We present an evolution model to systematically and incrementally achieve a pervasive IT environment, and present guidelines for evaluating which services to develop first based on evolving the existing infrastructure point of view. This work provides practical implications for enterprises as well as pointers for research.