Global IT Service Research Articles

Digital Skill Transformation and Knowledge Management Challenge in a Global IT Service Firm: An Empirical Study

This paper aims to discover key performance indicators (KPIs) influencing digital skill transformation in global IT service firms, reveal its unique features, and assert the effect of these KPIs on firms’ digital skill transformation and knowledge management initiatives. This research is mainly based on primary data. The researcher started data collection by conducting a Focused Group Discussion (FGD) with subject matter experts (SMEs), followed by in-depth personal interviews with the key organisational individuals. Then, a primary survey is carried out using a qualitative questionnaire across all the existing employees of the largest business unit of a global IT service firm. Findings suggest that Total IT Experience (EXP), Reading Time (RT), Effective Mentoring (EM), and Training Effectiveness (TE) primarily impact employees’ digital skill transformation. Besides, the technical capability and understanding of existing employees’ supervisors or managers directly correlate with the project environment, which in turn impact employees’ effectiveness during their digital skill transformation journey.

Developing offshore outsourcing practices in a global selective outsourcing environment – the IT supplier’s viewpoint

Currently, internal IT organizations use outsourcing and offshore arrangements to achieve cost savings and gain access to new capabilities. It was found that suppliers’ personnel at the operational level can face challenges with internalizing their operations based on the agreed outsourcing practices and transferred responsibilities. This study gives voice to the supplier and studies the impact of offshore outsourcing operation development activities. The internal IT unit from Nokia Devices selectively outsourced global IT service activities and responsibilities to the IT supplier. The outsourced activities were implemented by offshore centers in India and China. It was found that the global selective outsourcing environment (GSOE) did not provide a solution to all of their expectations, and new unexpected challenges occurred. Several practices, communication and information sharing, and behavior-related lessons learned items were identified. It was found that the GSOE operation needs to be developed and implemented in an agile and incremental manner, instead of a singular implementation approach. Also, the globally distributed teams’ group dynamics critically impacted on the teams’ ability to work. The lessons learned items and recommendations can be utilized by other companies during their mode-of-operation development.

EVALUATION OF IT SERVICES MARKET DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE AND THE WORLD

Objective. The main goal of the research is to identify current trends and prospects for the Ukrainian and global IT services market in the deepening of digitalization processes, to investigate statistical indicators of the Ukrainian IT market and further possible vectors of development taking into account global trends in the digital technology sector. The objective is to investigate the role of the state in stimulating the development of domestic IT companies and attracting foreign investments. Methods. In the process of the study, the authors turn to general scientific methods of theoretical and empirical knowledge, such as systems analysis, observation, comparison, analysis, synthesis, modeling and formalization. Economic-statistical, tabular, graphical and econometric methods, as well as forecasting methods are applied for quantitative analysis. Results. The most important trends in the domestic and global IT services market are identified. They include: growth of revenues from the use of cloud technologies, growth of average mergers and acquisitions in the IT services market, growth of the market of mobile applications and platforms, increasing demand for open source software , increasing the requirements for the security of custom software, development of IT outsourcing, development and implementation of new technologies for IT installation and support of business processes; growing demand for digital and blended learning. The impact of IT sector development on the economy of Ukraine is studied. The peculiarities of the development of the Ukrainian segment of the IT services market in the system of world economic relations are revealed. The role of the state in stimulating the development of domestic IT companies and attracting foreign investment is considered. It is found out that the IT sector of Ukraine is showing a growing export orientation.

Knowledge Management and Perceived Organisational Innovativeness in Global Organisations

This paper aims to examine how knowledge management is associated with perceived organisational innovativeness in global companies operating in Central European country and what role in this relationship is played by organisational environment stimulants – organisational trust, leadership support, training and access to resources, and information and communication technology (ICT). This empirical study used a quantitative approach with the data gathered by questionnaire from global companies functioning in IT service (94) and in money transfer service (109). The findings revealed that knowledge management is significantly associated with perceived organisational innovativeness in the global organisations’ context. Organisational environment stimulants (organisational trust, leadership support, training and access to resources, ICT) were confirmed to have a moderate positive association with perceived organisational innovativeness and mediated the relationship between knowledge management and perceived organisational innovativeness. The findings provide additional insights into the existing research on global companies’ knowledge management and suggest that global organisations aiming to foster their innovativeness through knowledge management should focus on the development of learning capability and orientation at the organisational level, as well as reconsider their level of organisational trust and leadership support perceived by employees. This research contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between knowledge management and perceived organisational innovativeness and looking into organisational environment stimulants’ role in this link in a specific global organisations’ context. Implications for Central European audience: when more and more global IT or financial service providers are looking for options to expand their business across the international borders, Central European countries like Lithuania become an attractive destination. The recommendations derived from the results indicate that leadership in global organisations should strive to create a sense of benevolence and aim to maintain integrity between communication and behaviour, particularly focusing on organisational trust development. Global business organisations’ managers must be able to communicate values and norms in a clear and transparent manner as well as ensure that organisational policies are governed in a coherent way across the offices around the world.

Job Scheduling in Cloud Computing Using a Modified Harris Hawks Optimization and Simulated Annealing Algorithm.

In recent years, cloud computing technology has attracted extensive attention from both academia and industry. The popularity of cloud computing was originated from its ability to deliver global IT services such as core infrastructure, platforms, and applications to cloud customers over the web. Furthermore, it promises on-demand services with new forms of the pricing package. However, cloud job scheduling is still NP-complete and became more complicated due to some factors such as resource dynamicity and on-demand consumer application requirements. To fill this gap, this paper presents a modified Harris hawks optimization (HHO) algorithm based on the simulated annealing (SA) for scheduling jobs in the cloud environment. In the proposed HHOSA approach, SA is employed as a local search algorithm to improve the rate of convergence and quality of solution generated by the standard HHO algorithm. The performance of the HHOSA method is compared with that of state-of-the-art job scheduling algorithms, by having them all implemented on the CloudSim toolkit. Both standard and synthetic workloads are employed to analyze the performance of the proposed HHOSA algorithm. The obtained results demonstrate that HHOSA can achieve significant reductions in makespan of the job scheduling problem as compared to the standard HHO and other existing scheduling algorithms. Moreover, it converges faster when the search space becomes larger which makes it appropriate for large-scale scheduling problems.

МАРКЕТИНГ ТЕЛЕКОМУНІКАЦІЙНИХ ТА ІНФОРМАЦІЙНИХ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ: СВІТОВИЙ ТА НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ ВИМІРИ

Introduction. The development of the information and communication technologies (ICT) market creates the conditions for further growth of other sectors of the economy. ICT companies provide companies, individuals and government with software, Internet, mobile and fixed communications, and so on. The purpose of the article is to study the current state of the ICT market in the world and in Ukraine, to identify major trends and threats for further development of the ICT market. Results. The ICT market is one of the largest dynamically developing markets in the world. Research conducted by leading consulting companies in the world shows that after 2020, the market can grow from 13 to 33 trillion and the blockchain market to 3.1 trillion $. International Data Corporation emphasizes that digital technologies and solutions can reach 60% of global GDP by the end of 2022. The world leader in the number of ICT corporations is the United States, with headquarters of the 65 world's largest companies, 20 in China, Taiwan - 17, Japan - 14, South Korea - 6, India - 5 companies. The IT services market accounts for 0,5% of the global IT services market. In Ukraine there are 125 registered self-employed individuals that are used by large companies to optimize their tax burden. Income of such American ICT companies such as Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft significantly exceeds the size of the state budget of Ukraine, and part of the revenues from the ICT market occupies only 4,5% of GDP, which is clearly insufficient and is evidence of an economic development lag. Conclusions. The imperfection of domestic legislation, the lack of incentives for ICT organizations, the possibility to monopolize the market, the insecurity of the interests of individuals and private companies do not stimulate foreign investments in this sector of the economy. In spite of this, Ukraine has a great potential for its growth, for which it is necessary to develop a national concept and model for the development of the ICT market, to restrain the departure of specialists abroad, to ensure the implementation of the business-state partnership strategy, etc. Keywords: telecommunications market, IT market, telecommunications market and IT services, marketing research, investments, ICT companies.

IT Services market as a driver for the development of the artificial intelligence market

The market of artificial intelligence is currently one of the most dynamically developing markets for advanced technologies of the 6th technological order due to the complexity and versatility of solutions developed within this set of technologies. The key hypothesis of the study is the assumption about the dependence of the development dynamics of artificial intelligence market on environmental factors that form the dynamics of the development of the IT services market. The key research method was the classical toolkit of multiple regression analysis. As a result, an econometric model was obtained describing the structure of the influence of environmental factors on the development of the global IT services market, and the determining influence of the IT services market on the artificial intelligence market was established and substantiated.

Current trends in the IT services market

Relevance. Today, in the context of global digitalization, the world IT services market is developing at quite a rapid pace and remains one of the fastest growing segments of the IT industry. Researchers of this market in their works describe direct dependence between globalization of IT services market and development of national economic systems. Thus, today it is most important to determine the key trends in the development of IT services world market. In this paper, the most important trends of the most significant segments of IT service market are determined and described, such as: IT consulting, system integration, custom software development, IT outsourcing, IT support, and IT education and training. Understanding and following the current trends contributes not only to the development of existing opportunities for companies’ growth, but also to the emergence of new ones, due to which the companies will not only retain, but also increase their competitive advantages on the global market. Goal. To identify and analyze the most important current trends in the global IT service market development, which contribute not only to the reformation of the market itself, but also to change in the relationship of its constituent elements. To systemize the latest trends in the global IT service market and evaluate them in terms of their impact on the economic development of the countries. Methodology. The methodology of system analysis, methods of structural, logical and comparative analysis are used in this paper. Results. The key trends in the development of the main segments of the modern IT service market have been determined and described. Among them, cloud computing technologies, cybersecurity and innovative business models are particularly important. Conclusions. It is obvious that the identified trends in the development of the global IT services market are critical to the effective performance of each enterprise both in terms of understanding, forming a business strategy, timely implementation of innovative business models, following the latest trends, and in terms of building up their competitive advantages in extremely difficult conditions on the global market.

L&T's Hostile Takeover of Mindtree: A Value Destructive Transplant

After twenty years of successful running of their company, Mindtree co-promoters had to exit their company as it was acquired by conglomerate L&T. A passive investor in the firm, V G Siddhartha had to sell his 20% stake, to clear heavy debts of his core business. As the promoters of Mindtree were not in a position to raise the finances to buy off his stake, he approached L&T, which bought his shares. L&T went on to acquire additional stake in Mindtree from the open market and from FIs. The three co-promoters in senior positions at Mindtree, along with another co-promoter Subroto Bagchi tried to fend off the unwelcomed acquirer, but in vain. Without a controlling stake in the firm and resources to buy off the largest individual shareholder, Mindtree co-promoters had to exit and face the harsh reality of the new owner L&T being classified as the promoter of the firm. The original promoters of Mindtree had set up and scaled into a global IT services company.

Exploitation of modern IT services to recover the Polish looted art by the example of the Lost Museum

The article presents the exploitation of global modern IT services required to create the new museum project called virtual museum. Its permise is to acknowledge the museum objects around the world. The example of The Lost Museum shows how the modern IT solutions give the possibilities to generate contemporary and peculiar museum projects. The international virtual museum project called The Lost Museum is created to meet the needs of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Its aim is to gather information and to show the Polish pieces of art stolen after the Second World War by the Nazi German and Soviet forces. The works of art were lost. The Lost Museum publishes the art images being on the list of war losses to help their recovering. The IT services facilitate the publication of information about the huge amount of Polish pieces of art robbed during the war on unimaginably enormous scale in the history. The virtual museum brings them back in memory, showing at the same time their importance for Polish heritage and explaining to the young generation how they were engaged in constructing the national identity.

‘An end to the job as we know it’: how an IT professional has experienced the uncertainty of IT outsourcing

This article foregrounds the voice of an IT professional who is directly employed by a large British company and who, along with colleagues, is experiencing career uncertainty resulting from a management initiative to replace the established workforce with an alternative labour supply provided by a global IT services company. As an account that reflects the uncertainty of the age, the narrative offers insights into current discussions concerning the contemporary nature and experience of work generally. More specifically it tells of a loss of confidence and status of technical professionals as they are methodically undermined by the confident assertion of a ‘shareholder value’ rhetoric. The suggestion is made that the application of commercial–professional rationality to the outsourcing of IT operations may underestimate the commercial risks associated with the loss of embodied technical knowledge gained across time as IT systems evolve to become complex constructions.

Strategy, human capital investments, business‐domain capabilities, and performance: a study in the global software services industry

Research summary: In knowledge‐based industries, continuous human capital investments are essential for firms to enhance capabilities and sustain competitive advantage. However, such investments present a dilemma for firms, because human resources are mobile. Using detailed project‐level operational, financial, and human capital data from a leading multinational firm in the global IT services industry, this study finds that deliberate investments in improving general human capital can help firms develop superior capabilities and maintain high profits. This paper identifies two types of capabilities essential for success in this industry—technological and business‐domain capabilities—and provides empirical evidence justifying such investments. Theoretical and practical implications of capability‐seeking general human capital investments are discussed.Managerial summary: The primary managerial implication of this research is that capability‐seeking investments in developing general human capital through strategic learning (training and internal certifications) can enhance firm performance. Although investing in general human capital is risky, the firm considered this a strategic necessity in order to thrive in the fast paced IT services industry. By leveraging general technological skills in combination with business‐domain knowledge to address customer's business problems firms can earn and sustain higher profits. Our study also demonstrates how a developing‐country firm responded to strong competitive challenge from global rivals possessing superior capabilities by upgrading the capabilities of its employees through internal development. In doing so the firm was able to narrow the capability gap vis‐à‐vis its foreign peers and expand its business globally. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Transportation Planning Aspects of a Smart City–Case Study of GIFT City, Gujarat

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Limited (GIFTCL) is developing a financial Central Business District (CBD) namely GIFT City between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar as a global financial and IT services hub, a first of its kind in India. GIFT City is being developed as a high quality commercial zone along with an ideal blend of residential and social facilities that optimise land and real estate values with global connectivity and generation next infrastructure. GIFT City transport master plan aims at a transit oriented development based on walk to work approach, pedestrian friendly infrastructure with zero fatal accidents, easy and fast mobility with minimum conflicts and efficient public transport systems which reduce the per capita energy basket. In accordance with the GIFT City transport vision, the transport infrastructure has been planned to cater to the daily demand as well as that of the peak hour and Multi Level Parking (MLP) lots have been proposed at suitable locations in the GIFT city. To enhance the mobility and safety in GIFT city, various smart transport applications like advanced traveller information system, security and surveillance system, intelligent parking management system, parking guiding system, automatic vehicle location and tracking, real time travel response etc are planned. GIFT City transport master plan addresses the needs of all users of GIFT City, thereby it can be called as “User-Centred Smart Transport System” and its makes it possible for all GIFT City users to enjoy a world class life style in this vibrant global city. GIFT City smart transport planning parameters and design details are elaborated in this paper.

INFOSYS: MEETING THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGE

Dr. J. K. Suresh, Vice President and Principal Knowledge Manager at Infosys Limited (Infosys), pondered a question that continually needed to be addressed, but never could be truly answered. For a number of years, he had been responsible for overseeing the internal knowledge management (KM) activities of the large, global IT-services company, headquartered in Bangalore, India. The existing system was widely recognized—in case studies, articles and books—for its excellence. But the company, whose revenues for FY 2013 were in excess of $7 billion, was evolving rapidly in its business model. What changes to the KM system, if any, would improve the company’s ability to move its services to the next level? The particular challenge of greatest long term interest was presented by the company’s Products, Platforms, and Solutions (PP&S) operations, seen by many at Infosys as being crucial to the firm’s long term prosperity. Margins on the offshoring of support and routine development activities—the business that had been the bread-and-butter of Infosys as it grew—were becoming narrower, squeezed both by increasing competition and by rising personnel costs in countries like India. An important remedy to this pressure was to develop software products that the company could sell to its customers as part of a larger package, building an asset category that did go home every night. For KM to benefit these PP&S activities, however, a substantially different focus would likely be required. Traditionally, KM at Infosys had been inward focus, facilitating the exchange of code and experience between the company’s employees, currently numbering over 150,000. Where KM could be of greatest help to PP&S, would be in looking outward—e.g., identifying market trends and desirable features, capturing customer experiences, developing sales strategies, finding market niches. Could a system that was designed principally for internal use later be modified for these purposes? Or would it make more sense to build a new system from the ground up? And what might such as system look like?

글로벌 소싱 활성화를 위한 지식요건에 관한 연구 : 네러티브 분석

논문투고일:2014년 05월 02일 논문수정완료일:2014년 06월 09일 논문게재확정일:2014년 06월 13일 * 이화여자대학교 경영대학 교수 As Korea’s global IT sourcing is sluggish and supply of qualified IT personnel does not meet the demand, IT developers currently do not worry about their job security. The sluggish global sourcing is attributed to the lack of system design and analysis skills as well as lack of communication skills of IT personnel. Most of big Korean IT service firms operate in captive market. This is also attributed to the cause of the sluggish global sourcing. Some IT managers, especially in global IT service firms, concerned about the negative long term effect of the sluggish global sourcing on competitiveness and human infra capability of Korea’s IT service industry. Managers in IT service firms expect skill requirement changes in the future when global sourcing becomes active. The skills and knowledge that they wish to retain in-house is business knowledge, system analysis and design knowledge, customer relation management skills, project management skills and industry knowledge. The jobs with the above knowledge usually involve customers. Keyword:Global IT Sourcing, Knowledge Transfer, Skill Set, Barriers to Global Sourcing, Narrative Analysis 韓國IT서비스學會誌 第13卷 第2號 2014年 6月, pp.55-69

Measuring IT service quality: evaluation of IT service quality measurement framework in industry

IT service quality is determined by the value that the IT service brings to both the IT service provider and its customers, but service value is not measured in most IT service organizations today. We describe the fourth iteration of our IT service quality measurement framework and report on the evaluation of the framework in the Australian IT service industry. The data was gathered from 63 IT service providers through an online survey. The paper focuses on the application of the proposed IT service quality measurement framework in industry as well as the importance and feasibility of measuring and interlinking various IT service quality aspects. An important finding is that although the majority of respondents recognize the importance of IT service value, very few providers actually measure the value of their IT services. The findings also support the importance of taking a systemic approach to IT service measurement. It is clear that various service areas are inter-linked: IT service stability impacts on customer satisfaction, and process performance affects IT service stability. With the exception of three indicators, all the proposed indicators and measures were applied in the surveyed IT service organizations. Further efforts to confirm these findings will be under-taken within the global IT service industry.

IT 서비스 상황에서의 심리적 기제 : 갈등, 만족, 신뢰 그리고 몰입

In IT service quality research, the relationship between the service quality and clients' satisfaction was the focus of many studies while in relationship quality research, the influence of trust and conflict on relationship commitment seems to be the focus. In this study, these two research streams are integrated and a theoretical research model is proposed consisting of IT service quality, satisfaction, trust and relationship commitment with conflict as a moderator for the overall psychological mechanism. As satisfaction represents emotional response while trust cognitive response, this research model integrated both emotional and cognitive aspects of relationship maintenance in the IT service context. Analysis of data collected from 262 employees of global IT service firm revealed the differential effects of reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy on satisfaction and trust. Also, depending upon the level of conflict, the effects of reliability and assurance were found to be moderated. Further analysis revealed more profound mechanism at work relating emotional and cognitive aspects in the psychology of relationship maintenance in IT service context. Practical implications are further discussed in the conclusion.

Information Security Management (ISM) Practices: Lessons from Select Cases from India and Germany

The increasing dependence of businesses over information and the changing ways of information usage with modern IT/ICT tools and mediums, have created an unavoidable need of information security in organizations. Earlier, the technical measures were used to fulfill this need; however, it has been realized that technology alone is unable to address the challenges of information security management (ISM) in organizations. Management and behavioral aspects are pivotal to build an ISM system in organizations. This paper makes an attempt to understand and examine the current ISM practices of two large size, global IT and management services and consulting orga- nizations, one from India and another from Germany. In a case design, the study adopts qualitative research route and semi-structured interviews were conducted across hierarchy in both the organizations. Observations from interviews are portrayed using descriptive analysis meth- odology. Further, to draw learning from the cases, SAP- LAP method of inquiry was used to understand the present status of ISM practices in both the organizations. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the findings and scope for the future research.

Social intelligence and top management team: an exploratory study of external knowledge acquisition for strategic change in global IT service providers in India

This paper focuses on the processes by which firms, particularly knowledge intensive firms, can augment their overall knowledge stock by tapping into external sources of knowledge. It is argued that Top Management Teams' (TMTs') social intelligence is a critical learning capability in acquiring external knowledge that leads to strategic change. Social intelligence involves social awareness, social understanding and social skills. The study draws from the experience of 11 of the largest Information Technology Service Providers (ITSPs) in India and based on in-depth interviews. The findings show that TMTs' learning capability in the context of social intelligence to interact with external stakeholders is important to ITSPs in facilitating external knowledge acquisition and allowing new knowledge emerge within and across networks. The findings provide significant insights into ITSPs emerging in other developing countries such as in China. Research limitation and future research direction are also provided.

A study of integrated KM in IT support services companies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop and evaluate a good knowledge management (KM) framework for IT services companies to provide an integrated approach to IT services for efficient knowledge management.Design/methodology/approachThe framework is evaluated at three Indian IT organizations providing global IT services with successful KM programs dedicated to services. Expert interviews were conducted with senior management involved in the KM programs. Information collected was used for studying the KM framework implemented by each organization for services and then content analyzed and evaluated.FindingsThe paper provides evidence of various strategic, technological critical factors influencing the success of KM programs in IT services companies. Organizations with successful KM programs typically adapt attrition control measures, rewards and recognitions. Application of key enabler tools of KM help in robust knowledge management, reducing cost to client, helping companies to excel better.Research limitations/implicationsInterviews are limited to three large companies in the Bangalore region. Future in‐depth studies across regions, with a mix of medium/large organizations would benefit from a larger and more diverse sample.Practical implicationsIt is suggested that IT services organizations develop specific capabilities to create knowledge management system (KMS) for productivity benefits and increased profitability. To provide clear benchmarks for developing these capabilities, mainly from the outsourcing point of view, a KM framework for IT services is provided.Originality/valueIntegrated KMS is discussed from a unique perspective of IT services by integrating knowledge management and IT services. The paper also reviews customers' expectations from IT service providers. The paper conducts preliminary evaluation of the KM framework for IT services and provides a broader view for future research opportunities.