Some empirical evidence on business-IT alignment processes in the public sector: A case study report

An empirical study that explores business-IT alignment processes in a networked organization among the province Overijssel, the municipalities Zwolle and Enschede, the water board district Regge & Dinkel and Royal Grolsch N.V. in The Netherlands, is summarized in this report. The aim of the study was to identify processes that contribute to improve such alignment. This study represents a continuation of previous validation efforts that help us to confirm the business-IT alignment process areas that should ultimately be included in the ICoNOs MM. Evidence was sought for the alignment of business and IT through the use of information systems to support the requirements of the organization in a specific project. The results of this study in the public sector also are relevant to the private sector where (i) business-IT alignment plays an increasingly valuable role, and (ii) the characteristics of collaborative networked organizations are present

Contextual Components of an Enterprise Architecture Framework for Pan-European eGovernment Services

Enterprise Architecture (EA) frameworks provide a wide range of architecture components. Contextual EA components provide the necessary guidance to design specific architectures in a given context e.g. for Pan-European Government Services (PEGS). Contextual EA components help to describe the background and scope of architecture work and provide a ground to tackle architecture challenges in an agreed way. The main contribution of this conceptual paper is to connect existing theoretical models as a basis to examine contextual components of an EA framework for PEGS. Three aspects are elaborated using a model-based approach: a Critical Success Factor Model, a Strategy Management Model and a Stakeholder Engagement Model. The identified models are aligned with EA standards and provide guidance to empirical research and to programs, projects and initiatives that wish to create interoperability architectures

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Principles of Enterprise Systems

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) through its Lean Advancement Initiative (LAI) research team has been conducting research and facilitating enterprise-level transformations in large complex sociotechnical enterprises for over fifteen years. These enterprises have spanned a broad base of industries and governmental organizations including aerospace, automotive, electronics, health care, transportation, construction, defense acquisition and logistics, research labs and many others. What has emerged from both the action research in the field and its application in case studies in graduate courses is the concept of “overarching” enterprise principles and transformation methodologies that are independent of the industry or organization. A framework for transformation that consists of a set of interdependent methodologies, tools and enterprise principles that support holistic enterprise transformation is described and includes the following five elements: 1) Key Principles of Enterprise Thinking, 2) Enterprise Transformation Roadmap, 3) Lean Enterprise Self Assessment Tool (LESAT), 4) Enterprise Strategic Analysis for Transformation (ESAT) and 5) Enterprise Architecting Framework. The application of this framework to the enterprise systems analysis and design of various industry and governmental organizations is discussed

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

IT governance framework for e-government

E-Government (EG) management represents a challenging task for many stakeholders. As an emerging notion, IT Governance (ITG) represents an opportunity to fulfil different strategic objectives including EG. However, research on the impact of ITG on EG development-phases and success is limited. Thus, the objective of this research is to investigate how ITG could be extended to EG and attempt to develop an ITG framework to assist govern EG. This exploratory research uses qualitative data to investigate how ITG elements impact EG development-phases. The application of the proposed ITG framework makes it possible to enhance and improve the development of EG.<br /

INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY PLANNING RELAT-ED TO SEAM: A CASE STUDY OF EA AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION COMBINATION

Inconsistency always occurs between digital transformation (DT) strategy and information system（IS）and enterprise architecture (EA) planning. This symptom leads to repeated investment, de-lay, or failure in DT projects. In addition, it will create leakages in DT value. Moreover, in the dy-namic digital environment, the inconsistency of between DT strategy and EA planning process is exacerbated due to dynamic business strategies. This paper applies SEAM and BPM theories to explore the scenario method for applying EA to DT strategies operation to explain inconsistent strategic planning symptoms and outline the DT-EA strategy planning integration process frame-work. The research method of this paper is multiple case studies, and the data collection sources include semi-structured interviews of 106 interviewees, material collection, literature comparison, and observation. By comparing four critical cases, this research shows the relationship between DT and EA and reveals the dysfunction in DT strategic implementation from the SEAM and BPM perspective. In practice, this research integrates DT and EA to provide a context method for enter-prise DT strategy planning design

A Bi-Directional Approach for Developing Data Warehouses in Public Sectors

Data warehouse is proclaimed as the latest decision support technology. As data warehouses require a significant amount of organizational resources to develop, more research have been devoted to identifying the critical success factors and the formulas for assured investment return from data warehouses. This study proposes a bi-directional development approach for data warehouses in public sectors. The primary rationale for the proposed approach is the fundamentally different organizational goals of public sector organizations from private sector organizations. Whereas the ultimate goal of private sector organizations is profit making, public sector organizations have a set of conflicting goals including different social and political objectives. The star schema as a dimensional data model for data warehouse is not totally suitable for data warehouses that demand the analyses of both quantitative and qualitative measures. Using the data warehouse in the College of Business Administration at the California State University, Sacramento as a case study, we illustrate how the QQ (Quantitative and Qualitative) data schema accommodates the need of capturing both quantitative and qualitative information. In addition, we show the bidirectional top-down/bottom-up initiative, the formal/informal information collection, and the enterprise data warehouse/subject data mart architecture for the data warehouse