IT Procurement Research Articles

Government IT Procurement Policy & Firm Behavior: Evidence from a French Open Source Software Policy

Government IT Procurement Policy & Firm Behavior: Evidence from a French Open Source Software Policy

Getting the balance right between functional and non-functional requirements: the case of requirement specification in IT procurement

IT procurement represents a business process of high importance, including the ability to articulate requirements that the procurement deals with. Furthermore, specifying requirements is of importance for both procurer and potential supplier, as it functions as central contractual element between the two. The purpose of this article is two-fold: (i) to show how established terminology for requirement specification is represented in current call for bids for the procurement of IT; and (ii) to introduce an organizing framework that may assist procurers in actively addressing functional requirements and business requirements. Ten “call for bids” were examined from a Swedish national procurement database. From the analysis of the bids, it can be concluded that: (i) the call for bids displays a high degree of precision regarding hardware aspects, but less precision regarding software; (ii) supplier experience and competence is stressed, but rarely elaborated on in detail; and (iii) call for bids vagueness may be used as a lock-in opportunity for suppliers. From the discussion on this, a tentative procurement framework is suggested, aiming on increasing the logical transparency for the procurement of IT.

Cloud Adoption in Accounting Information Systems in Asia & SOC 2® Report – An Empirical Study on Industry’s Perspective

ABSTRACT Many business and technology organizations see cloud adoption and migrating existing systems to the cloud as an accelerator of digital transformation. The benefits of cloud adoption are perceived as increased scalability and cost reduction. At the same time, there are concerns about whether the information on cloud-based systems is secure and whether the privacy of the data in a cloud environment is at risk. This research brings out the industry’s perspective, both from an end-user perspective as well as IT transformation and IT procurement decision makers of accounting information systems and enterprise resource planning systems in Asia geography, on the preference for cloud-based or on-premise systems, top enablers for cloud adoption and importance of SOC 2® as an assurance for information security and data privacy concerns. The findings of this research indicate that decision-makers for IT transformation and IT procurement prefer cloud-based accounting information systems and enterprise resource planning systems over on-premise systems. Scalability, cost reduction, business agility, business continuity and disaster recovery, and enhanced collaboration are top enablers for cloud adoption. This research also indicates that the SOC 2® report is increasingly seen to address information security and data privacy concerns. Keywords: SOC 2®; Trust services criteria; Information security; Data privacy; Cloud computing; Accounting Information Systems

Auctioning IT Contracts with Renegotiable Scope

Motivated by challenges facing IT procurement, this paper studies a hybrid procurement model in which a reverse auction of a fixed-price IT outsourcing contract may be followed by renegotiation to extend the contract’s scope. In this model, the buyer balances the needs to incentivize noncontractible vendor investment and to curb the winning vendor’s information rent by choosing the initial project scope and the buyer’s investment in the quality of the project. We find that a buyer may benefit from inducing ex post renegotiation to motivate vendor investment, especially when the winning vendor has high bargaining power and the quality uncertainty is low. Broadening the initial scope reduces information rent but leaves little room for ex post renegotiation and, hence, discourages vendor investment, whereas increasing the buyer’s investment has opposite effects. Interestingly, the two measures can be strategic substitutes or complements depending on the likelihood of the renegotiation and the two parties’ bargaining powers. The buyer may strategically set a low initial project scope and high investment to incentivize renegotiation and vendor investment, which may explain why many IT outsourcing projects start small and allow expansions. Our findings also generate several testable predictions for IT outsourcing. This paper was accepted by Kartik Hosanagar, information systems.

IT Procurement Case Study of the Japanese Government within the Institutional Theory Context

Japanese government has sought to create and implement an IT procurement system that fosters competitive bidding. This study examines 31 IT procurement case studies surrounding the 2016 launch of Japan’s social security and tax number system with which the author was directly involved. It identifies a disjunction between IT procurement as a legal and a social system, wherein the government and vendors acknowledge that some vendors will inevitably be awarded contracts. The Japanese government should thus reconsider its IT procurement system and abandon competitiveness as a goal.

INTELLIGENCE TECHNOLOGIES IN LOGISTIC INFRASTRUCTURE MODERNISATION

The purpose of the paper is to determine the impact of innovative technologies of artificial intelligence on the modernization of logistics infrastructure, the formation of new forms of logistics networks of Industry 4.0. Methodology. The survey is based on a study of the main trends in the field of logistics infrastructure development, analysis of the latest forms and methods of using artificial intelligence technologies in various fields. The study considers the forecasts of IDC “IDC Future Scape: Worldwide Digital Transformation 2021” and contains an assessment of the volume and effectiveness of investment in this area. The results of the survey showed that in addition to the radical transformation of the logistics network itself, the use of artificial intelligence technologies will lead to qualitative changes in the labor market. There is still the tendency to reduce the need for logisticians performing operational functions – automation of warehousing operations, unmanned stackers, and transporters instead of loaders and pickers will accelerate. Practical implications. The use of artificial intelligence technologies allows companies today to generate significant competitive advantages on this basis. However, soon this will not be an advantage, an indisputable condition for the company’s operation in the market of logistics services in general. Value/originality. The authors have highlighted the minimum quality and competencies required in the future, the presence of which in the company’s resource base will allow to use all the advantages of implementing innovative forms of piece intelligence - multi-competent knowledge in the areas of IT technologies, procurement and warehouse, transport, production and distribution logistics, mathematical analysis, and production management processes based on artificial intelligence.

Подготовка медицинской организацией тендера на ИТ‑услуги (на примере сопровождения медицинских информационных систем)

IT procurement is always a challenge for healthcare providers as it is not directly related with the scope of activities. Meanwhile, preparing a tender for IT services for Ministry of Defence depends on some specific peculiarities which are a subject of the current article – pricing, sole source purchasing, products from the Unified Register of Russian Software, etc. The article is intended to help healthcare provider specialists who conclude contracts on specified subjects to prepare and to make a procurement respecting interests of own company complying with the Russian law.

Impact of Information Technology on Human Resource Management Procurement Functions: A Case of A Nigerian University

Information Technology’s (IT) role in Human Resource Management (HRM) has attracted minimal interest and attention in the academia industry. The few empirical studies available did not examine the effect of IT on HRM on a comparative basis. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the nexus between IT and HRM procurement process in Nigerian Universities (education sector) with reference to the University of Ilorin. Other objectives are to:(i) examine the extent to which IT influences the HR procurement functions (ii) determine the nature of relationship that exist between/among IT tools and HR procurement functions. Questionnaire was served to the entire 50 members of the staff of the University HR department being census approach. Two hypotheses stated were tested using regression and correlation analysis. The findings revealed that IT has a significant effect on HR procurement functions and that IT tools and HR procurement functions are correlated. The study concludes that IT impacts strongly on HR Procurement activities. This study recommends that the management of Nigerian higher Institutions, inclusive of University of Ilorin, should consistently upgrade their HRIT software to cover a significant number of HR activities in line with the best HR practice as its long-term benefits exceed the pains of its initial cost.

Repeated selection of supplier, factors and results: the Czech Republic

PurposeThe paper aims to deal with the analysis of the factor leading to the repeated selection of the specific supplier and the effect of this recurrent selection on overpricing of public contracts.Design/methodology/approachA mix of quantitative and qualitative methods is used to achieve this goal. To analyze the chances of obtaining repeated contracts, the logistic regression method is used. To analyze the factor of overpriced contracts, the classic ordinary least squares regression model is used. The focus group method is then used to explain the factors acting on the part of the contracting authorities.FindingsThe results show that the prior procurement of a given contracting authority, or work for the public sector in general, has a statistically significant effect on the conclusion of contracts. The use of less-transparent forms of input has a strong impact. The non-transparent selection of suppliers rather than repetition of contracts generally results in the over-pricing of contracts. The IT sector is an exception.Social implicationsThis research is also essential for real public policy. Given the amount of GDP allocated to the public procurement market, it makes sense to continually seek room for improvement. Here is an attempt to find this by examining the contracting authorities’ behavior when awarding repeated contracts.Originality/valueThis research is original because it looks at the problem of the contracting authority in the wider context and optics of the path dependency theory, which has not yet been applied to the public procurement environment. The focus is also on IT procurement, which according to this study has not been empirically investigated in this way, is also innovative.

An Enterprise Resource Planning study of IT Procurement and Lessons Learned

IT procurement process is an important process that exists in every organization that acquires information technology. As users of information systems increasingly find themselves in roles as customers of multiple technology vendors, IT procurement process assumes greater management significance. In addition to hardware, operating system software, and telecommunications equipment and services there are various information resources required from the marketplace for which the organizations turn to outside providers for many components of their application systems, application development, maintenance , support and integration, and a broad variety of system management services. Deployment processes consist of activities that are performed, each time an IT product or service is acquired. Each individual procurement can be thought of in terms of a life cycle that begins with requirements determination, proceeds through activities involved in the actual acquisition of a product or service, and is completed as the terms specified in the contract are fulfilled.

Optimal Auction Design for Wi-Fi Procurement

The unprecedented growth of cellular traffic driven by the use of smartphones for web surfing, video streaming, and cloud-based services poses bandwidth challenges for cellular service providers. To manage the increasing data traffic, cellular service providers are experimenting with the use of third-party Wi-Fi hot spots to augment their cellular capacity. We develop an analytical framework to study the optimal procurement auction for Wi-Fi capacity. Such an auction design is complicated by the fact that Wi-Fi networks have much more limited spatial coverage compared with the cellular network. Neither a global auction that includes all Wi-Fi hot spots nor multiple local auctions that include only hot spots in each local Wi-Fi region is optimal. We find that the optimal mechanism is an integration of one global auction that includes hot spots from an endogeneously determined set of Wi-Fi regions and many separate local auctions that are only held in the rest of the Wi-Fi regions. To implement the optimal mechanism, we also provide an efficient algorithm whose computation complexity is of the order of the number of Wi-Fi regions. Our work contributes to the literature by designing the optimal mechanism for a unique type of IT procurement auction problem that is a tight integration of economics and computational technology. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0742 .

Vergaberecht als Digitalisierungsfolgenrecht

Abstract The State bears a certain responsibility for the consequences of digitalizing public administration and services. The principles of democracy and the rule of law demand that the state retains effective control over the digitalized performance of ist tasks. This “digital responsibility” of the State also has an impact on the application of public procurement rules governing the procurement of information technologies and services (IT). On the one hand, ensuring digital responsibility will often mean that the contracting authority needs a broad margin of appreciation when interpreting the rules of procurementlaw – for examplewith regard to the legal requirements for choosing special procurement procedures enabling a particulary flexible IT procurement. On the other hand, the contracting authority’s digital responsibility can also be turned against it: When involving, for instance, private parties in the preparation of substantial decisions concerning the procurement of IT, the authority must keep itself well informed and may not simply take over prepared decisions. This way, the digital responsibility of the State can be (and should be) used as a distinct legal argument under public procurement law.

Influence of big data adoption on manufacturing companies' performance: An integrated DEMATEL-ANFIS approach

Big Data is one of the recent technological advances with the strong applicability in almost every industry, including manufacturing. However, despite business opportunities offered by this technology, its adoption is still in early stage in many industries. Thus, this study aimed to identify and rank the significant factors influencing adoption of big data and in turn to predict the influence of big data adoption on manufacturing companies' performance using a hybrid approach of decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)- adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS). This study identified the critical adoption factors from literature review and categorized them into technological, organizational and environmental dimensions. Data was collected from 234 industrial managers who were involved in the decision-making process regarding IT procurement in Malaysian manufacturing companies. Research results showed that technological factors (perceived benefits, complexity, technology resources, big data quality and integration) have the highest influence on the big data adoption and firms' performance. This study is one of the pioneers in using DEMATEL-ANFIS approach in the big data adoption context. In addition to the academic contribution, findings of this study can hopefully assist manufacturing industries, big data service providers, and governments to precisely focus on vital factors found in this study in order to improve firm performance by adopting big data.

How is service procurement different from goods procurement? Exploring ex ante costs and ex post problems in IT procurement

Several studies suggest that, in practice, service procurement is more challenging than goods procurement. The underlying but largely implicit argument is that the procurement process for services involves higher buyer uncertainty and therefore requires extra efforts to mitigate this uncertainty. Drawing on Transaction Cost Economics, we use a database of information technology transactions to investigate the relationship between transaction characteristics and social embeddedness, and ex ante cost and ex post problems. We explore whether the same relationships hold across transactions that involve only goods versus transactions that also involve services. Our findings support conventional wisdom that managing the procurement process for transactions involving services is more challenging than for transactions involving goods. However, when controlling for typical transaction characteristics, there is no difference between transactions involving goods and transactions that also involve services.

Green IT Adoption

Green Information Technology (GIT) refers to using information technology in ways that help to reduce environmental impacts including the use of energy more efficiently and reducing waste. To date, however, few studies attempt to provide a holistic understanding of GIT adoption in developing countries, which GIT plays a significant role in achieving a sustainable environment and economic performance. This paper explores the practices, processes and enablers in GIT adoption within the Philippines Business Process Outsourcing Industry (BPO). The authors used the revelatory multiple-case study as a research approach in understanding GIT adoption in BPO organizations. They found five areas of GIT adoption covering IT procurement, IT applications as low carbon enabler, working environment, data center and IT end of life management. Essentially, strategy and governance, processes, structure, people, technology support, and measurement and improvement enabled GIT adoption in BPO organizations. The authors further found that BPO organizations have the strong long-term commitment to environmental sustainability.

A Configuration-Independent Score-Based Benchmark for Distributed Databases

The business potential of big data is leading to a data-driven economy , where low-cost and low-latency data analysis represents a major competitive advantage. The research community has proposed many technological solutions for big data, such as NoSQL databases, which are difficult to evaluate and compare via standard IT procurement procedures. In addition, lack of competences in big data domains make procurement of big data solutions a tedious and uncertain process, which might impair the success of a business. In this paper, we present a score-based benchmark for distributed databases, which supports adopters in selecting a solution that fits their needs. The proposed benchmark is independent from the configurations of the specific database and deployment environment, requires low effort on the part of end users, is extensible and can be applied to both SQL and NoSQL databases, can be used to evaluate databases according to different properties (e.g., performance, consistency), and can be integrated with existing benchmarks to reduce the burden of their execution. We experimentally evaluate our methodology to validate its effectiveness.

Experimental Study on Overall Judgment Open Bidding in Local Government IT Procurement(General Contribution)

Experimental Study on Overall Judgment Open Bidding in Local Government IT Procurement(General Contribution)

IT governance in the Brazilian central government: developments and constraints

This paper is based on a case study conducted from October 2011 to August 2012 in the Secretariat for Logistics and Information Technology SLTI of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management in Brazil. SLTI was successful in improving IT governance in the central government from the mid-2000s onwards, through the adoption of initiatives focused on: 1 enacting, disseminating and enforcing rules and regulations; 2 human resources training and skill development; 3 providing technical assistance through consultancies. The Secretariat effectively disseminated throughout public bodies of the central government the importance of establishing IT committees, conducting IT procurement planning and designing an IT strategy. Nonetheless, this study also shows a number of drawbacks that need to be addressed to further improve IT governance in the Brazilian central government. Particularly, it is necessary to increase the participation of non-IT management staff in the IT committees as a way of promoting greater alignment between IT strategies and organisational objectives and to intensify communication exchange between IT divisions in order to avoid duplication of procurement procedures and inefficient allocation of financial and human resources.

The Impact of Competing Standards: On Innovation and Interoperability for E-government

Should e-government support competing standards or choose one? There is a controversy about the impact of standards wars on innovation with far-reaching implications for public IT procurement. To help governments weight their decision, this article discusses the impact of competing standards on interoperability as well as market and innovation effects. An equation is formulated to illustrate in a nutshell what is at stake.

Exchange Rate Variation in Defence Contracts in India: Charting a Way Forward for MoD Beyond the New MoF Memorandum

Recent depreciation of the Indian Rupee saw increased advocacy by certain sections of the Indian industry for exchange rate protection in government contracts, and one occasion, for incorporating the same in the Public Procurement Bill that was recently placed by the Government before the Parliament. This short academic note analyses industry demands and reviews existing regulations in IT and defence procurement markets, culminating with suggestions on a possible way forward for reforms that can avoid certain adverse implications of industry demands, particularly in view of their potential conflict with important national public policies fostering indigenisation and domestic manufacturing in India.