Information Technology Service Providers Research Articles

Design for Supplier Performance Assessment Model of Information Technology Service Provider in Small Medium Enterprises in Indonesia

This study aims to design a supplier performance assessment model for information technology services provider in small medium enterprises (SME) in Indonesia. Supplier performance assessment is important to improve supplier performance and maintain long-term relationships between SME (buyer) and their suppliers. This supplier Assessment models are developed based on the review literature and interviews with procurement staff in SMEs. Performance assessment criteria are identified and tested for validity by providing a questionnaire to procurement section in SMEs. In order to obtain importance weight of each criteria toward performance score, a questionnaire to weighed the criteria are distributed to procurement staff and analyzed the answers using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The final performance score is calculated based on the standardized value of each criteria multiplied by its weight. Based on the implementation of this model in SMEs, it is known that the proposed model is suitable to assess the supplier’s performance and greatly help the SMEs in managing the performance of their suppliers.

The Impact of Cloud-Based Digital Transformation on IT Service Providers

Cloud-based digital transformation is having a profound impact on new and incumbent information technology service providers. In transitioning from traditional to cloud-based service provision, some IT service providers are experiencing substantial difficulties in realizing effective business models. Taking the perspective of 20 large business model mature and small and medium enterprise born-on-the-cloud multinational IT service providers, this focus group study contributes to the dearth of research examining the broader impact of cloud computing on IT service providers' business model. The study provides two core insights. First, using the STOF business model framework, the paper provides a vivid contextual understanding of the nuanced impact of cloud computing along four core business model domains: service, technological, organisational and financial. Second, the study identifies a number of salient challenges which are impacting IT service providers' efforts to effectively leverage the benefits of cloud-based digital transformation.

Is the Grass Greener?Strategic Implication of Moving Along the Value Chain for IT Service Provider

Information technology (IT) service providers are often advised to consider moving their service offerings along the value chain as a way to enhance their competitiveness. On the basis of this advice, service providers operating successfully at the lower end of the value chain have tried to expand into higher-order consulting services, while those operating higher up on the value chain have attempted expanding into more routinized services. In both cases, such efforts have been met with limited success. In this paper, we examine why this might be the case, using an agent-based model developed specifically for this purpose. As part of the model, we construct firm agents with three distinct strategic orientations (archetypes) operating at different parts of the value chain and endow them with resources of varying quality. We then examine the outcomes associated with these firms when they transition along the value chain. Our analysis shows that the success of such moves along the value chain is contingent o...

Perancangan Sistem Informasi Helpdesk Menggunakan Framework ITIL V3

In order to improve and to ensure the availability of information technology (IT) services quality, many organizations now have a helpdesk which acts as a center point in solving and organizing problems. However, in the planning and implementation of Information Systems Service Helpdesk, it is necessary to do a thorough analysis of the framework of the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) that is appropriate and in accordance with the needs of organizations, that is also capable of providing the function of knowledge management. It is because each type of organization has different needs and Standard Operation Procedure in providing IT services. The purpose of this study is to analyze the right ITSM framework in developing Helpdesk Information System in PT Len Industri (Persero), which is one of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). Helpdesk services provide repairs of hardware, software, and network. Previously, informations about problems and the handling are not complete, and the information storing is unstructured. This causes difficulties in monitoring and evaluation activities conducted by helpdesk admin and manager of Information Systems. To solve this problem, a system is designed using ITSM best practices standard from the Information Technology Infrastructure Library version 3. The system is designed to perform the classification to every problem. Classifications are made into several level of priorities which correspond with profile matching method, according to position and division within the PT Len Industri (Persero)’s value chain. The developed dashboard has been able to support the helpdesk results evaluation process. To ensure the usability of the system, a user acceptance test is conducted with the standard of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. The system obtains overall score of 88,89% in the user interface aspect and 83,715% in the functional requirement of information system aspect.

Global team members’ performance and the roles of cross-cultural training, cultural intelligence, and contact intensity: the case of global teams in IT offshoring sector

This study investigates an unexplored form of global team prevalent in the Information Technology (IT) offshoring sector where IT service providers work alongside with client representatives in a global team context. Guided by theories of intelligence and intergroup contact, this study investigates global team members’ individual-level task performance. Specifically, this study examines the development of global team members’ cultural intelligence (CQ) following cross-cultural training. This study also determines the effects of improved CQ on individual-level task performance and examines the moderating role of contact intensity on the relationship between improved CQ and individual-level task performance. Data on the development of CQ, participation in cross-cultural training, and contact intensity were collected from 225 global team members while data on task performance were obtained from each of the global team members’ supervisors. The results of the statistical analyses reveal that: (i) CQ improved following participation in cross-cultural training sessions; (ii) improved CQ is positively and significantly related to individual-level task performance; and (iii) contact intensity moderates the relationship between improved CQ and individual-level task performance. These findings have a number of theoretical and practical implications for international organizations such as those in the IT offshoring sector.

Sustaining innovation of information technology service providers

PurposeHow do knowledge-intensive technology-based offshore information technology service providers (ITSPs) in developing countries sustain their innovation and remain competitive? The purpose of this paper is to answer this question by drawing from the knowledge-based view of firm innovation to argue that organisational collectivism (COLL) plays a crucial role in influencing the effects of knowledge-based capabilities on innovation of ITSPs.Design/methodology/approachThe study develops a model which shows that learning mediates the effects of knowledge sharing on innovation and that COLL moderates the effects of knowledge sharing on both innovation and learning. A moderated-mediation model is tested using structural equation modelling techniques and data (n=388) from a survey of ITSPs in the Philippines.FindingsThe results show that knowledge sharing capability is positively related to innovation and that organisational learning capability fully mediates the effects of knowledge sharing on innovation. Moreover, COLL is found to significantly and positively moderate the effects of knowledge sharing on both organisational learning and innovation. The results indicate that organisational learning serves as the mechanism that transforms knowledge into innovation, but this effect is contingent on COLL of ITSPs.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that ITSPs from developing countries can look beyond costly investments in research and development activities to invigorate their innovative capabilities. ITSPs can focus on the development of their intangible assets such as COLL to enhance the effects of knowledge-based resources on innovation for sustaining their competitiveness.Originality/valueThe moderated-mediation analytical approach to assessing the joint effects of knowledge sharing, organisational learning and collectivism on innovation is novel. The significant effects of the moderator suggest that the mediation mechanisms might differ depending on the levels of development of COLL in the organisation.

Winning Back Technology Disadopters: Testing a Technology Readoption Model in the Context of Mobile Internet Services

We investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) service providers can win back disadopters of an earlier generation of technology when a new technology generation appears on the market. Integrating prior research on consumers’ defensive bias, knowledge accessibility, diffusion of innovation, and technology adoption, we developed a model to predict disadopters’ intention to readopt a technology. We postulate that the primary reason for disadoption moderates the impacts of both the drivers of readoption (perceived superiority, effort expectancy, price value of the new technology generation, and social influence) and the characteristics of prior usage experience with the disadopted earlier technology generation (duration of disadoption, tenure with the old generation, and usage intensity of the old generation) on readoption intention. We tested our technology readoption model in the context of mobile Internet services. Data were collected from 274 disadopters of an earlier generation of mobile Internet services before the advent of the third generation (3G) technology. The results supported most of our hypotheses. These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications, especially for firms interested in winning back technology disadopters. Finally, we present an agenda for further research into technology readoption.

Investigating IT Effectiveness: Perspectives Relative to Cultural Differentiation Between IT Users and Service Providers

The inherent relationship between business and Information Technology creates two simultaneous constituencies of diverse organization architectures with correspondingly valued models. However, the widening chasm between information technology (IT) groups and their business Professionals produces perceptual and cultural gaps between the users and providers of IT services. Several studies have used inductive reasoning to investigate corporate culture, organizational architecture, and IT effectiveness to determine the best framework for mitigating these different perceptual and cultural gaps. Using technological self-efficacy theory, this study tests and analyzes the perceptual and cultural silos in the relationship between modern business and information technology services. The research provides empirical evidence that supports the research hypothesis that there exists the aforementioned chasm between business and IT services, leading to different approaches for delivering IT service in various business organizations. This chasm holds true of the silo effects for all firms regardless of the strategic intents of businesses and information technology. The study also shows a positive relationship between business and IT professionals with differential perceptions and cultural gaps. This relationship illustrates how business professionals rely on “trusted IT partners while IT professionals argue for a valued organizational model with high standards of efficiency and reliability”. The study ultimately provides a framework for measuring the perceived effectiveness of IT within business architecture and the alignment between providers of IT services and the strategic goals of a modern business.

Customer support optimization using system dynamics: a multi-parameter approach

Purpose – Customer support has always been considered a competitive advantage in many industries. In recent years, firms have begun to provide customers with a high-quality service experience, in order to attract more customers and achieve higher customer satisfaction. Although customer service and satisfaction have been discussed by other researchers, to the knowledge, there has been no dynamic and intelligent way to model and optimize customer support systems for product and service providers. The purpose of this paper is to develop a modeling method for customer support optimization. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, a system dynamics (SD) model has been formulated to investigate the dynamic characteristics of customer support in an IT service provider. The proposed simulation model considers the dynamic, non-linear, and asymmetric interactions among its components, and allows study of the behavior of the customer support system under controlled conditions. Furthermore, a particle swarm optimization method was developed to investigate the proper combination of parameters and strategy development of the support center. Findings – This paper proposes a novel modeling, simulation, and optimization approach for complex customer support systems of information and communications technology (ICT) service providers. This method helps managers improve their customer support systems. Moreover, the simulation results of the case study show that ICT service providers can gain benefit by managing their customer service dynamically over time using the proposed artificial intelligent multi-parameter modeling and optimization method. Research limitations/implications – The proposed holistic modeling approach and multi-parameter optimization method will greatly help managers and researchers understand the factors influencing customer support. Moreover, it facilitates the process of making new improvement strategies based on provided insights. Originality/value – The paper shows how SD simulation and multi-parameter optimization can provide insights into the field of customer support. However, the existing literature lacks a holistic view of these kinds of simulation systems, as well as a multi-parameter optimization method for SD methodology.

Predicting motivators of cloud computing adoption: A developing country perspective

Cloud computing is a recent and significant development in the domain of network applications with a new information technology perspective. This study attempts to develop a hybrid model to predict motivators influencing the adoption of cloud computing services by information technology (IT) professionals. The research proposes a new model by extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with three external constructs namely computer self-efficacy, trust, and job opportunity. One of the main contributions of this research is the introduction of a new construct, Job Opportunity (JO), for the first time in a technology adoption study. Data were collected from 101 IT professional and analyzed using multiple linear regression (MLR) and neural network (NN) modeling. Based on the RMSE values from the results of these models NN models were found to outperform the MLR model. The results obtained from MLR showed that computer self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, trust, perceived ease of use, and job opportunity. However, the NN models result showed that the best predictor of cloud computing adoption are job opportunity, trust, perceived usefulness, self-efficacy, and perceived ease of use. The findings of this study confirm the need to extend the fundamental TAM when studying a recent technology like cloud computing. This study will provide insights to IT service providers, government agencies, academicians, researchers and IT professionals.

Designing Game-Based Service Desk towards User Engagement Improvement

<p>Along the implementation of Information Technology (IT), there are incident, request, problem, and event. According to this, organizations need to implement a function which can be a single point to provide communication between IT service provider and IT users. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) mentions service desk as a function to operate solution of this matter. But, recently organizations find new challenge which is related to service desk staffs’ motivation. The repeated activities which are run by service desk may cause saturation. This situation will affect workplace enviroment and productivity. In this research, we propose a design to help organization build game-like activities as solution to boost service desk’s motivation which can give good impact to service desk’s quality. Our proposed design uses game approach and ITIL practices to ensure that game-based service desk is well designed.</p>

Pricing Personalized Bundles: A New Approach and An Empirical Study

This paper studies the pricing strategies for personalized product bundles. In such problems, a seller provides a variety of products for which customers can construct a personalized bundle and send a request for quote (RFQ) to the seller. The seller, after reviewing the RFQ, has to determine a price based on which the customer either purchases the whole bundle or nothing. Such problems are faced by many companies in practice, and they are very difficult because of the potential unlimited possible configurations of the bundle and the correlations among the individual products. In this paper, we propose a novel top-down and bottom-up approach to solve this problem. In the top-down step, we decompose the bundle into each component and calibrate a value score for each component. In the bottom-up step, we aggregate the components back to the bundle, define important features of the bundle, and segment different RFQs by those bundle features as well as customer attributes. Then we estimate a utility function for each segment based on historical sales data and derive an optimal price for each incoming RFQ. We show that such a model overcomes the aforementioned difficulties and can be implemented efficiently. We test our approach using empirical data from a major information technology service provider and the test result shows that the proposed approach can improve the effectiveness of pricing significantly.

Understanding the innovativeness of information technology products and service providers in an IT cluster in Nigeria

Every society has social and other systems that encourage and promote, or otherwise, individuals to engage in creative processes and/or support new ideas and experimentation that may result in new products, services or technological processes. This study examined how the most popular innovation variables provide explanation for the capacity of information technology (IT) products and service providers in the Otigba Computer Hardware Cluster in Lagos, Nigeria to devise and harness new strategies of solving IT problems. The study also investigated the respondents’ capacity to acquire, assimilate, transform and use knowledge, and the relationship between these capacities and their innovativeness. Data were collected from 273 respondents with the aid of a questionnaire and an indepth interview schedule. The study confirms the importance of stronger networking for transfer of knowledge by showing that the respondents’ interaction with knowledge sources has strong relationship with their capacity to innovate, acquire, understand and use knowledge. However, innovativeness among the operators in the cluster is not necessarily a function of the traditional innovation variables of absorptive, acquisition, transformation, exploitation and other capacities. The capacity to transform knowledge into applications has a significant effect on the capacity of the operators to introduce new ideas, processes and techniques. Findings from the interviews reveal that the information technology products and service providers are able to devise new ways of solving old and new IT problems, especially as they relate to computer hardware. Research on innovativeness among operators in this cluster must seek explanation from local circumstances in addition to the popular recognised variables

Identifying Relevant Socio-Theoretic Foundations for Supporting Multi-Issue IT Cloudsourcing Negotiations

Service level agreement (SLA) negotiations involving cloud-based information technology (IT) service providers and customers are now commonplace. Although historical research on negotiation has often relied on economic foundations, the important nature of IT service levels to organizations’ operational effectiveness suggests that negotiation complexities in the context of cloud-based outsourcing (or cloudsourcing ) cannot be well understood by relying on economic perspectives alone. To that end, this paper reports on experiments designed to determine the relevance of competing sociotheoretic frameworks as they pertain to IT cloudsourcing negotiations. Contributions include a rigorous examination of hypotheses derived from social exchange theory, equity theory, learning theory, and the win–win theories of negotiation. Additional contributions include the development of methodological constructs (using the Euclidean geometry) that reflect the complex nature of IT cloudsourcing SLAs, i.e., that they are composed of numerous service category contract clauses where negotiation tradeoffs within a service category as well as across service categories are possible. We find strong support for the relevance of the social exchange theory to IT cloudsourcing negotiations, as well as moderate support for the win-win theories of negotiation. Our conclusions provide clear directions for extending our work into the realm of negotiation support systems, and we rely on our findings to conjecture that IT cloudsourcing negotiation is a unique context for sociotheoretic negotiation research due to the inherent importance of information technologies to organizations’ operational effectiveness.

Surviving in Global Online Labor Markets for IT Services: A Geo-Economic Analysis

Global online labor markets (OLMs) lower the barriers to entry and enable global competition for information technology (IT) services from providers around the world. Although the prior OLM literature predominantly found systematic advantages for IT service providers from developed countries because of their higher perceived quality, the reality is that most service providers in OLM are from developing countries. This phenomenon requires a robust analysis of how OLMs are evolving. In this study, we conduct a geo-economic analysis on IT service providers’ survival utilizing a unique longitudinal panel data set from an OLM, which comprises 40,874 IT service providers from different countries over a period of more than four years (2006 to 2010). Based on results from Survival models and a series of robustness checks, we were able to decipher how geo-economic factors (specifically the country development level) and reputation interact to determine service providers’ survival. Our findings provide a different perspective from the prior literature on OLM by showing a systematic advantage for IT service providers from developing countries in terms of survival, especially when providers from developing countries were able to signal their individual quality through reputation. We explain and discuss the mechanisms underlying these effects, and highlight implications for OLMs for IT services. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0751 .

Antecedentes da Retenção de Clientes Pós-Falha e Recuperação de Serviços de Tecnologia da Informação em Ambientes Business-To-Business

The competitiveness of markets has forced companies to become more efficient every day and in this context, the activities related to Information Technology (IT) are great allies, becoming a key differentiator to ensure sustainable growth. Since the 90s it has been increasingly common to adopt business models in which IT support activities are provided by third party companies, thus creating a relevant context to provide B2B services. However, as with any services, the occurrence of failures in the provision of IT services is inevitable, making it vital to providing services companies, the adoption of efficient recovery actions in order to ensure the maintenance of good levels of trust and commitment in the relationship customer/supplier, reinforcing and extending thus the relationship between the two companies. Additionally, to ensure customer retention, it is essential to evaluate, concomitantly, aspects such as the perceived value and the switching costs in order to be able to properly manage the relationship with the client companies. The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical model that shows how the relationship between the variables trust, commitment, switching costs and perceived value by customers and its retention in contexts of providing outsourced IT services, after the occurrence of a service failure and recovery. Finally, 10 theoretical propositions are presented and a final discussion of the nature of the constructs and relationships propose.

Assessing output performance of information technology service industries: Productivity, innovation and catch-up

The purpose of this paper is to assess the output performance of information technology (IT) service industries of twelve Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries over the years from 2000 to 2011. We use Malmquist productivity index (MPI) as the performance metric and stochastic production frontier (SPF) as the measurement approach. We then decompose MPI into two ingredient components that represent technological change for innovation capability and efficiency change for catch-up effort. It is found that the IT service industries display an impressive annual rate of 7.4% for productivity growth during the study period. The parametric decomposition of MPI unveils that almost all of the productivity growth observed is enabled by technological advance made to the production process by IT service providers while efficiency change has little effect. Moreover, each country׳s IT service industry demonstrates a distinctive pattern relating to the three measures of productivity growth, technological change, and efficiency change. This observation suggests that each country׳s IT service industry possesses certain strengths that become the sources of its competitive advantage, and there are weaknesses that could be targets for performance improvement. Based on our empirical results, we offer practical implications and identify future research topics for performance evaluation of IT service and other industries.

Information Technology and School Libraries: A Social Justice Perspective

This research takes an emergent approach to data analysis (Charmaz, 2008) through the use of an emic/etic data coding process, and proposes a typology for understanding the connection between social justice principles and the provision of information technology services in school libraries. The study used data from seven school libraries in the state of New Jersey, obtained from focus groups consisting of forty-eight teachers, eighteen librarians, ten department supervisors, eleven principals/assistant principals, four district directors, and three librarian-teachers. The emergent process and typology employed in this research can aid school libraries in assessing how particular factors of the school/school library environment influence the provision of IT services to school library users. This study confirmed that school librarians and teachers rely on several social justice principles, such as distributive justice, utilitarianism, and egalitarianism, in making decisions regarding how to provide information technology services within the school environment. In particular, it was found that the type of social justice principle used in the school environment depended on the school librarians’ and teachers’ perceptions of the information competencies of their constituents and the availability of resources within the school environment. This research contributes to the study of social justice in the library and information science (LIS) professions in the following ways: first, by expanding ideas of “social justice” in LIS beyond traditional notions of “disenfranchised groups”—such as people having lower socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic or sexual minorities, and individuals with physical or mental disabilities—to include any group that may experience injustice in the context of information, such as school teachers, librarians and students; second, by portraying how social justice principles are enacted as strategies in school librarianship and pedagogy that advance student information-seeking and learning objectives; third, by highlighting the value of social justice to both practice and scholarly research in school and school library environments; and fourth, by proposing a methodology for studying social justice in a library environment.

An empirical investigation into the adoption of open source software in Information Technology outsourcing organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of outsourcing on open-source software (OSS) and further investigate the factors that impact the adoption of OSS in global information technology (IT) outsourcing organizations serviced by Indian IT services organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors developed a conceptual model that describes the factors influencing the OSS adoption by using the technology-organization-environment framework. This quantitative explanatory study used self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 482 middle and top management employees of Indian IT services organizations. The authors analyzed the data using partial least squares to test this conceptual model. Findings – The proposed conceptual model identified the factors which play a significant role in OSS adoption such as reliability, legal concern, software costs, management support, OSS support availability and software vendor. In contrast, this study did not find enough evidence that IT outsourcing was a significant determinant of OSS adoption. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of the research is that it is focused on global IT outsourcing organizations (clients) serviced by Indian IT services providers (vendors). Hence, the authors cannot generalize the finding to other regions. Also, the analysis is based on the view point of employees in vendors. Views of clients’ employees must be analyzed and triangulated with current evidence. Practical implications – IT services providers can offer “OSS as a service” for its clients and help them address the gaps in support availability and achieve reduction in total cost of ownership of software. Originality/value – IT services providers can use this research model to increase their understanding of why some IT outsourcing organizations choose to adopt OSS, while seemingly similar ones facing similar market conditions do not.

Quality of Work Life Metrics as a Predictor of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment: A Study with Special Reference to Information Technology Industry

Information Technology (IT) industry in India is playing a very important role in putting India on the global map. This industry has become one of the most significant growth catalysts for the Indian economy. Indian firms, across all other sectors, largely depend on the IT service providers to make their business processes efficient. NASSCOM expects the IT services sector in India to grow by 13-14 per cent in 2013-14 and to touch US$ 225 billion by 2020. The major strength of IT industry lies in its human resources. Human resources play a pivotal role in the success of the IT industry. Today’s IT industry concentrates on its so called intellectual capital for enhancing its growth. They make the employees committed and satisfied through providing a satisfactory quality of work life. QWL in IT industry influences job satisfaction and organizational commitment to a greater extent as compared to other industry. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s2p170