INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OUTSOURCING: A CASE STUDY OF BEST PRACTICES IN TWO SWEDISH GLOBAL COMPANIES

The paper describes the research approach for defining a new set of best practices for IT Outsourcing (ITO) that will help the Swedish global companies to improve their ITO performance. To define this new set of best practices we have investigated the practices used by two Swedish global companies and compared with those recommendations gathered in a review of IT outsourcing literature. As we have seen till now the best practices for IT outsourcing are underrepresented in the research literature. However, they are fairly well represented in the ITO practitioners’ world. From the ITO research literature, we have selected 88 best practices, compiled and reduced them to 19 by eliminating the duplicates and removing those that are not exclusively related to ITO. Furthermore, we have asked the companies part of our case study about their opinion about these 19 best practices, if and how they have implemented them. The results of this research have shown that 60% of the best practices are accepted and are/or planned to be practiced by these global companies. Furthermore, we have found a new best practice that has not been mentioned in the research literature and which the companies from our case study recommended as very important. Moreover the results of our research show that 25% of the best practices are rejected by these global companies and we argue that the reason for this high discrepancy is “The buyer-seller dilemma”. The rest of the examined best practices, 15%, are partly accepted. Finally, our list of best practices consists of 15 items after removing those that have been rejected but including the partly accepted ones

Facing The Digitalization Challenge: Why Organizational Culture Matters and How It Influences IT Governance Performance

Today it is not possible for the companies to compete without having IT as a strategic driver. That is why IT governance becomes crucial for managers to bring the most value from IT to the business. Additionally organizational culture is an important factor and often blamed when IT governance projects fail. However little in-depth research investigated how the organizational culture changes can improve the IT governance performance. This research is a case study of the IT department of a large company attempting to improve the IT governance while facing the digitalization challenge. In this case the IT department has an organizational culture change journey seeking to improve the IT governance performance. The results indicate that the initial clan culture orientation of the IT department has led to a successful IT governance performance in cost-effective use of IT. Furthermore, adhocracy is identified as preferred culture for improving IT governance for growth

A SOFTWARE TOOL THAT SUPPORTS DECISIONS FOR COMPANIES TO OUTSOURCE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OR NOT

The decision process for companies to outsource information technology (IT) or not is a substantial business change and in many cases the competence to take such decisions is limited and has major consequences for the company future performance. Therefore in the paper we have proposed the development of a software application that can be used in the initial phase for deciding to outsource or not in contrast to the external help with consultants that might have their own interests. In fact the development of a software decision tool (SDT) that is business neutral it could be very usefully for the IT managers in support of the decisions regarding to outsource IT or not. By using this SDT the IT mangers could highlight also some potential risks that have might be hidden by their cost-savings efforts regarding IT outsourcing. On the other hand by using the SDT the IT managers can simulate different situations by changing the parameters and very important can document their decisions regarding outsourcing with more confidence. Additionally, this software tool it might require information that the own evaluation did not considered in the beginning and finally may add vital information to advice the IT managers in different situations. In the development of the SDT in taking the IT outsourcing decisions we have used the generic Transaction Cost Theory (TCE) for evaluation that is adapted to the IT risks according to Aubert et al. (2001) and which gives a qualitative measure of the outsourcing risks. In this context our paper has looked mainly to find answers to the following research questions: (1) is it possible to design such a tool and which decision parameters should be collected, how are those inter-related and how should such a decision tree be built up (2) is it possible to reduce all initially known uncertainties regarding outsourcing and highlight on potential risks? (3) How much trust we could have in such a software tool in order to be really used by the IT managers in decisions regarding IT outsourcing

IT Governance Maturity in the Public Sector Organizations in a Developing Country: The Case of Tanzania

Today in many organizations in the public sector, the use of IT has become crucial in sustaining and extending the organizations’ strategies and objectives. Such use of technology has caused a critical dependency on IT thus a call for specific focus on IT governance. Despite increased practice of IT governance in these organizations, little academic empirical research has been undertaken to investigate its maturity, which is even worse in a developing country environment. Therefore this paper, based on the 15 most important processes of the COBIT framework and a case study in five public sector organizations, establishes IT governance maturity in the public sector in a developing country like Tanzania. In addition, the study result is compared against a similar benchmark in the public sector in a developed country like Australia and internationally from a range of nations. The result indicates some IT processes to have scored relatively lower maturity but very important to the process of IT decision making and monitoring in the studied environment. In addition, it indicates the maturity to be relatively lower in the organizations with less established IT governance mechanisms. Moreover when compared with the public sector organizations from Australia as a developed country and internationally from a range of nations, the IT governance maturity pattern turned out to be relatively lower in all studied IT processes. Finally, based on these results, recommendations are provided to improve poorly performing processes for successful IT governance in support of better public service delivery in this environment

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FRAMEWORK FOR IMPLEMENTING EFFECTIVE IT GOVERNANCE IN PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

Today in many public sector organizations, the use of IT has become important in enabling public services delivery. This has caused a critical dependency on IT that call a specific focus on effective IT governance. Accordingly, the success factors for governance over IT resources must be established and adhered to if an organization has to increase the contribution of IT in achieving its objectives. Several researches have been done on such IT governance effectiveness and necessary success factors but with no focus on such organizations in a developing country like Tanzania (environment). Several frameworks for IT governance exist with various approaches. These include control frameworks such as COBIT, and IT service management such as ITIL. However none of these frameworks has looked at such improvement to effective IT governance from a high level and holistic view to Critical Success Factors (CSFs). Such view to CSFs on what few aspects to concentrate on for effective IT governance is paramount in such an environment, which on the one hand is characterized by higher IT resources, knowledge, and culture constraints and on the other hand by the increase of IT investment and applications. In this paper, based on design science research we have specifically addressed this gap by developing a CSFs framework for implementing effective IT governance in this environment (CEITG framework). It was mainly achieved using the four previous studies in this environment as a basis, opinions of 43 IT/business people from 25 organizations and 6 industry/academic experts and a case study in one of these organizations during its development and evaluation. This led to a high level and holistic view framework with concrete practices for effective IT governance implementation in this environment

Full Paper: How Hybrid IT Governance Mechanisms Influence Digital Transformation and Organizational Performance in the Banking and Insurance Industry of Indonesia

Incumbent businesses need to accelerate their digital transformation due to disruption from digital technologies, competition, behavioural changes, regulation, and pandemics. Nevertheless, many digital transformation investments have failed due to poor governance. Previous research has identified the hybrid of traditional and agile-adaptive IT governance mechanisms that influence digital transformation. However, it is important to measure the extent of mechanisms’ influence on organizational performance. Therefore, online survey data from 338 Indonesian banking and insurance respondents have been collected and analysed using the SEM-PLS. The results show that hybrid IT governance mechanisms have moderate influences on digital transformation, and digital transformation strongly influences organizational performance. The study contributes to research by analysing the effect of hybrid IT governance mechanisms on organizational performance, fully mediated by digital transformation. In practical terms, the measurement items from the hybrid IT governance mechanisms, digital transformation and organizational performance dimensions can be useful for guiding digital transformation journeys

A Maturity Model of IT Service Delivery

This paper presents a maturity model of IT service delivery that consists of maturity statements grouped on five maturity levels. The model is founded on maturity model properties and IT Capability Maturity Model (IT Service CMM). It was motivated by the interest and limitation of Nicaraguan Internet Service Providers in formalizing and assessing specific IT service elements. The model was applied to traceable information of the current status of IT service delivery in a Nicaraguan Internet Service Provider

A unified strategic business and IT alignment model: A study in the public universities of Nicaragua

A number of attempts have been made to define the strategic business and IT alignment, several representations on what business and IT alignment are available in academic and practitioners field. The literature suggests that firms need to achieve the strategic alignment to be competitive firms. This article provides a prioritization of the components of a defined strategic business and IT alignment model. The strategic business and IT alignment model used in this study is termed the unified strategic business and IT alignment model and it is based on four well know strategic business and IT alignment models. The components of the unified strategic business and IT alignment model were ranked with a group of IT experts and business experts of four public universities in Nicaragua. The result can be used as a basis for improving strategic business and IT alignment

Digital Transformation in Public Organisations: IT Alignment-Related Success Factors

IT alignment is recognised as one of the prerequisites for digital transformation in the extant literature. To further our understanding of this relationship, a case study was conducted in a public organisation (city administration). Data was collected through interviews and internal-organisational documents in four sub-cities within the city administration. The findings suggest that an organisation’s attempt to reach IT- aligned position improves the likelihood of successful digital transformation. The analysis also revealed various factors influencing IT alignment in a public organisation undertaking digital transformation. These factors are presented in eight categories---organisational structure, organisational culture, organisational agility, leadership skills, human resource management, digital metrics, external domain alignment, and stakeholder relationships. The contributions of the study for research and practice are also discussed

IT Alignment and its Influence on Digital Transformation Success

Managing digital transformation is a complex enterprise dependent on various organisational, managerial, and technological factors. Among others, the influence of factors related to IT alignment on digital transformation is recognised. This study attempts to establish the significance of eight organisational and managerial factors (organisational agility, organisational structure, organisational culture, leadership skills, digital metrics, HR management, stakeholder relationships, and external domain alignment). Our aim is to investigate whether these factors’ influence on IT alignment affects the success of digital transformation in public organisations. The proposed conceptual research model, founded on related prior studies, was tested with quantitative data collected through a survey from 402 leaders. Our results indicate that IT alignment is positively related to digital transformation success in public organisations. However, the PLS-SEM analysis reveals a varying degree of influence among the factors on IT alignment as organisations undertake digital transformation