Investigating the Feasibility of Open Development of Operations Support Solutions

The telecommunications Operations Support Systems supply chain must address many stakeholders: R&D, Product and Requirements Management, Purchasing, Systems Integration, Systems Administration and Users. While the management of next generation networks and services poses significant technical challenges, the present supply chain, market configuration, and business practices of the OSS community are an obstacle to rapid innovation. Forums for open development could potentially provide a medium to shorten this supply chain for the deployment of workable systems. This paper discusses the potential benefits and barriers to the open development of OSS for the telecommunications industry. It proposes the use of action research to execute a feasibility study into the open development of OSS software solutions within an industry wide Open OSS project

Government IS Implementation: A Framework for Stakeholder Orientation

Information systems (IS) researchers and management practitioners have increasingly begun to use the concept of stakeholder engagement to explain diverse outcomes associated with implementing new technology, yet the IS literature largely omits this focus in the context of enterprise systems implementation. While the literature has established stakeholder engagement‘s significance, it has not done the same for organizational stakeholder orientation. As such, I develop a theoretically sound framework to analyze organizational stakeholder orientations during a multi-partner IS implementation process. Researchers have traditionally viewed stakeholder engagement as corporate responsibility in action, but, in reality, stakeholder engagement may or may not involve a moral dimension. In this grounded theory research, I introduce a stakeholder engagement framework that contains two new constructs (i.e., stakeholder engagement and stakeholder sensitivity) and eight different dimensions guided by four major motivating factors. Additionally, I conducted a case study on a IS implementation project to analyze the stakeholder engagement for the project‘s implementation phases to capture the dynamic nature of the stakeholder engagement process and stakeholder sensitivity

Understanding how OSS Development Models can influence assessment methods

One of the most important aspects of OSS that distinguishes it from COTS is both the variety and specific characteristics of the development models used. Understanding these development models will be critical to the effective design of assessment approaches. This paper documents the more common development models used by OSS projects and explores the complex landscape of stakeholders that these models expose

Uncertainty explicit assessment of off-the-shelf software: A Bayesian approach

Assessment of software COTS components is an essential part of component-based software development. Poorly chosen components may lead to solutions of low quality and that are difficult to maintain. The assessment may be based on incomplete knowledge about the COTS component itself and other aspects (e.g. vendor’s credentials, etc.), which may affect the decision of selecting COTS component(s). We argue in favor of assessment methods in which uncertainty is explicitly represented (‘uncertainty explicit’ methods) using probability distributions. We provide details of a Bayesian model, which can be used to capture the uncertainties in the simultaneous assessment of two attributes, thus, also capturing the dependencies that might exist between them. We also provide empirical data from the use of this method for the assessment of off-the-shelf database servers which illustrate the advantages of ‘uncertainty explicit’ methods over conventional methods of COTS component assessment which assume that at the end of the assessment the values of the attributes become known with certainty

Joining the Department of Defense Enterprise Resource Planning Team: The Air Force\u27s Role in the Enterprise

Over time, the Air Force (AF) built customized legacy logistics data and information systems, which have evolved into an inflexible network of obsolete systems that are costly to maintain and upgrade, and struggle to share data in a timely and coherent manner. The Department of Defense (DoD), to include the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the US AF, the US Army, and the US Navy, have all recognized the need to modernize and integrate their legacy systems to improve warfighter support. The DLA, the US Army, and the US Navy all see Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology as a commercial best practice, and consequently as the best way to replace their legacy systems. They are all in the process of implementing ERP pilot tests. The AF has adopted a watch and learn\u27 position on ERP, while continuing to upgrade its legacy systems piecemeal

The evolving dynamics of outsourcing: control and conflict a vendors perspective

This paper reports on unique longitudinal research conducted within a complex multi-vendor environment in the defence sector and describes the evolving relationship between the vendors and the defence client organization as they developed and implemented an outsourced HRM application development within Europe. The scale, technical complexity and multinational nature of the project drove the formation of a supplier consortium to deliver the project. The project was tracked over a period of four years and a contextualised process model was applied, focused on the design and configuration phase, to clarify complex social processes and to expose the key incidents that framed its evolution. The analysis demonstrated the critical nature of initial and antecedent conditions and how governance and strict contractual controls interacted to cause project failure. The study gives a unique insight into the vendor perspective in an outsourced context and shows how the interplay between bargaining and control led to the focal organization shifting between collaborative and compliant work processes

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATIONS

The growing forces of increasing global competition, continuing customer demands, and the significant revolution in Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solutions, especially Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, have together put pressure upon many organisations to implement CRM solutions and to switch their organisational processes from being product-centric to being customer-centric. A CRM initiative is not only technology; it is a business strategy supported by technology which automates and enhances the processes associated with managing customer relationships. By the end of 2010, it is predicted that companies will be spending almost $11 billion yearly on CRM solutions. However, studies have found that 70% of CRM projects have failed. Understanding the factors that enable success of CRM is vital. There is very few existing specific research into Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of CRM implementations, and there is no comprehensive view that captures all the aspects for successful CRM implementation and their inter-relationships. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the current literature base of CSFs for CRM implementations and proposes a taxonomy for them. Future research work will continue to investigate in depth these factors by exploring the complex system links between CSFs using systems thinking techniques such as causal maps to investigate the complex, systemic networks of CSFs in organisations which result in emergent effects which themselves influence the failure or success of a CRM

Strong contracts: the relationship between power and action

Purpose – There is a view that strong preventative contracts are essential to control supplier opportunism and delivery during an outsourcing implementation. This paper tests the proposition that contractual environments, typical of outsourcing engagements, are essentially conflictual and that context and circumstance can act to overwhelm formal contractual and project control and lead to poor outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports on a supply case study focused on the outsourced delivery of an application development in the defence sector. Data was gathered by a participant observation in situ for a period of three years. A grounded analysis from observations, diaries, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, documentary analysis, and emails was carried out with six case organisations within the extended supply chain. Findings – Collaboration between suppliers and buyers can be blocked by preventative fixed price contracts and as a result when requirements are incomplete or vague this adversely impacts success. Implications for practice Strong contractual control focused on compliance may actually impede the potential success of outsourcing contracts especially when collaborative approaches are needed to cope with variability in demand. Originality/value The research raises the important practical and conceptual notion that an outsourcing can be a conflictual inter-firm phenomenon, especially where multiple actors are involved and business uncertainty is present

A Systematic Mapping Study on Off-The-Shelf-based Software Acquisition

Acquiring software from external suppliers and developing less software in-house can help software-developing organizations improve operational efficiency by reducing costs, time and reusing current technologies. Software projects increasingly use Off-The-Shelf (OTS) products. From the acquirer perspective, there is a need to understand in more detail OTS-based software acquisition processes, because they are different to and less well-understood than those for the acquisition of custom software. In this paper we have undertaken a systematic mapping study on OTS-based software acquisition. The study compares and contrasts OTS-based software acquisition and non-OTS-based software acquisition, and identifies factors influencing decision making in OTS-based software acquisition. We find that the main difference is that there is a relationship between determining the software requirements and OTS selection in OTS-based software acquisition. For commercial OTS software, the major factors are functionality and quality of the software, but for open-source OTS software, cost was the most important factor