IT Service Providers Research Articles

Developing an Improved ITSM Framework for Ethio Telecom

Abstract—Telecom service providers are engaged exhaustively in providing various kinds of IT services for their customers. These IT services should be customer-oriented, and quality-based to be competitive in the market. To this end, organizations should manage their IT services effectively and efficiently by introducing various Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) mechanisms. However, improving or developing optimal ITSM mechanisms is a subject of great concern that needs further investigation academically. Hence, developing an improved and customized ITSM framework to manage the various IT services delivered by the IT service provider is important.To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, little or no research has been conducted to design and develop ITSM frameworks for the telecom sector in Ethiopia. Previous studies focused on the implementation, adoption, tailoring, and system or model development for selected ITSM processes within the Ethiopian context. Ethio telecom (ET), the sole telecom service provider of Ethiopia, has a gap in the existing ITSM practices. Hence, this research study intends to investigate the current ITSM practice of Ethio telecom and propose an ITSM framework based on ITIL best practices that ensures the quality of IT services and improve customer satisfaction. Design science research methodology was employed to design and develop the ITSM framework. Furthermore, a qualitative research approach was followed to gather and analyze the primary data. Semi-structured interviews, observation, and document analysis were employed to collect different kinds of data. Also, thematic analysis was used to analyze the data that was collected from the respondents. A triangulation technique was applied to keep the validity and reliability of the research study. The findings of the research revealed that the existing ITSM practice did not address the needs of the organization. Finally, a new ITSL framework was proposed by incorporating the needs of the organization and demonstrated to selected respondents after passing through rigorous design, development, and evaluation stages. The proposed framework was evaluated by various IT staff through validated evaluation models. Consequently, the evaluation result disclosed that the proposed framework can help to improve the current ITSM practice of the company by maximizing the quality of IT services and customer satisfaction.

The Effect of Internal Factors within the Government Entities on the Implementation of E-gov Projects by External IT Service Providers: An Empirical Study on GCC Area

The building of e-government has become a priority issue as well as a challenge for many local, state, and federal government agencies worldwide. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is now widely employed to help the governments transformation toward smart governments. Many critical success factors (CSF) are there to determine the chance a transformation project can go-live. It has been noticed that the implementation journey for IT solutions in the public sector has lots of barriers and challenges which lead to low success rate of projects. This study examines the effect of the Ease of Delivery of the implementation journey on the Success of Delivery. The result shows that the Ease of Delivery is positively related to the Success of Delivery. The result of this study has the potential to increase the success rate of IT projects in government sector by shedding the light on the most important factors affecting the delivery journey for egovernment projects.

Unusual Foundation Grants to Individuals

The flow of IRS rulings concerning grants to individuals by private foundations, holding that they do not constitute taxable expenditures, is a constant one, with these determinations tumbling out by the tens annually; this is not, by itself, news. Usually, these grants are in the form of scholarships, fellowships, internships, and the like (e.g., most recently, Priv. Ltr. Ruls. 202114025 and 202114026). But, recently, these approved grants have been of more exotic varieties. An illustration follows, involving grants to IT service providers.

Client Relationship Management in IT Services Using CRM Systems

In the evolving landscape of IT services, effective client relationship management (CRM) has become a critical factor for sustaining competitive advantage and fostering long-term partnerships. Client Relationship Management (CRM) systems, leveraging advanced technologies and data-driven insights, play a pivotal role in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of managing client interactions. This research paper explores the integration of CRM systems in IT services, emphasizing their impact on client relationship management. The study begins by examining the fundamental principles and functionalities of CRM systems. It highlights how these systems enable IT service providers to streamline client interactions, centralize client data, and automate various aspects of client management. By integrating CRM systems, IT service firms can achieve a comprehensive view of client interactions, which facilitates personalized communication, efficient problem resolution, and strategic decision-making.

외국의 정보통신 서비스 제공자에 대한 통신 자료 요청 방법과 형사법적 문제

우리 국민 대다수가 일상생활에서 글로벌 IT 기업의 서비스를 활발히 이용함에 따라 정보통신서비스를 이용한 범죄 또한 빈번해졌다. 이는 IT 기업이 보유하는 서비스 가입자 정보, IP 접속기록 등 통신 자료를 확보하는 것이 수사의 관건이 된다는 것을 의미한다. 국내 서비스 제공자의 경우 수사기관은 통신자료제공요청이나 압수수색 영장 등을 통해 자료를 확보할 수 있을 것이다. 그런데 대상 서비스 제공자가 외국 법인인 경우 우리 수사기관은 어떤 방법으로 자료를 확보하고 있으며, 현행 절차는 과연 형사법적으로 적정한가? 본고에서는 이에 답하고자 경찰청의 외국 IT 서비스 제공자에 대한 통신 자료 요청 방법의 실태를 조사하고 그 적정성을 검토하였다.BR 먼저, 국외 소재 통신 자료를 취득할 수 있는 일반적인 방법들을 먼저 살펴보고, 그중 외국서비스 제공자에게 직접 자료를 요청하는 방법을 구체적으로 조사하였다. 조사 대상으로는 미국법인의 경우 페이스북, 구글, 트위터, 애플을 선정하였으며, 미국 외 법인으로는 텔레그램과 라인을 선정하였다. 나아가 현행 자료 요청 방법과 관련한 형사법적 문제로서 외국 서비스 제공자에게 제시하는 압수수색 영장 관련 문제와 회신받은 자료의 증거능력 관련 문제를 제기하였다. 즉, 우리 수사기관이 외국 서비스 제공자에 대해 영장을 제시하는 것이 형사관할권을 행사하는 강제수사인지 검토한 결과 아니라는 결론을 내었으며, 그러한 공조 방식의 법적 근거가 명확하지 않다는 점, 디지털 증거의 동일성 및 무결성을 담보하는 조치가 부재한다는 점에서 증거능력이 문제 될 여지가 있다는 점을 거론하였다. 결론에서는 현행 절차의 문제를 극복할 수 있는 현실적 대안으로서 사이버범죄협약 가입을 제시하면서 논의를 정리하였다.

SIMULATION OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE WITH CONSIDERATION OF CRITICAL ASPECTS FOR QUALITY OF SERVICE MANAGEMENT

Testing hypotheses about service quality management in IT infrastructure requires large and complex data centers with sufficient resources to explore various possible scenarios of infrastructure operation during the provisioning of IT services. For testing purposes, dozens of solutions already exist, but all of them don’t consider critical aspect of IT infrastructure. In order to solve this issue general mathematical model for quality of service management in critical infrastructures was introduced. Based on the proposed model simplest set of tools was developed for creating heavy simulations which can cover criticality during functioning.

A deep learning-based medication behavior monitoring system.

The internet of things (IoT) and deep learning are emerging technologies in diverse research fields, including the provision of IT services in medical domains. In the COVID-19 era, intelligent medication behavior monitoring systems for stable patient monitoring are further required, because many patients cannot easily visit hospitals. Several previous studies made use of wearable devices to detect medication behaviors of patients. However, the wearable devices cause inconvenience while equipping the devices. In addition, they suffer from inconsistency problems due to errors of measured values. We devise a medication behavior monitoring system that uses the IoT and deep learning to avoid sensing errors and improve user experiences by effectively detecting various activities of patients. Based on the real-time operation of our proposed IoT device, the proposed solution processes captured images of patents via OpenPose to check medication situations. The proposed system identifies medication status on time by using a human activity recognition scheme and provides various notifications to patients' mobile devices. To support reliable communication between our system and doctors, we employ MQTT protocol with periodic data transmissions. Thus, the measured information of patient's medication status is transmitted to the doctors so that they can periodically perform remote treatments. Experimental results show that all medication behaviors are accurately detected and notified to the doctor efficiently, improving the accuracy of monitoring the patient's medication behavior.

Створення каталогу ІТ-послуг університетів на основі стандартів ITIL

In today’s information world, the competitiveness of universities is closely related to the effectiveness of the IT services provided. However, the development of IT infrastructure requires maintaining a balance between cost and efficiency of services. An IT service includes information technologies, processes and people. In accordance with ITIL standards, the university’s IT department should move from supporting software, applications, servers and networks to timely providing IT services to end users. The first step to this is to create a catalog of IT services. The purpose of the catalog implementation is to provide a single source of consistent information about all operational services and ensure quick access to them. Unlike foreign universities, domestic higher education institutions do not practice a systematic description of IT services and their presentation through the IT catalog. Direct transfer of management models of foreign universities to the Ukrainian educational environment appears impractical. The publication proposes a three-level catalog model, describes the categories of services that can be provided by Ukrainian universities, and defines the attributes of the IT service description template. The attributes of the description include: name, type of services, brief description, business owner, priority, service owner, consumers, request order, SLA, support system, status/phase. From the moment the IT service catalog is fully formed, its periodic monitoring begins according to the following criteria: SLA validity, correctness of provision of IT services, etc. The publication considers the formation of a catalog by stakeholders of the University on the example of the National University of Water Management and Environmental Management. In general, the use of the suggested recommendations will provide a description of the IT infrastructure of universities in the form of a set of services, the value of which is understandable to stakeholders and university management, as well as will allow to achieve competitive advantages in the educational services market.

Mathematical modeling and optimal control of abstaining attitude of could computing adoption

Communally popularized in the year 2002 with the start of Amazon web services, cloud computing has transformed the way IT services and resources are furnished to the clients. Cloud computing is sprawling the IT view. Pushed by diverse completing and converging influences, cloud computing is progressing as a viable IT service provider model at an amazing pace. It also provides diverse advantages compared to traditional on-premise computing models, including minimized costs and advanced agility and flexibility. Customers can usually demand cloud services through a web browser or web service. Adopting cloud computing, customers can economize cost of hardware implementation, software licenses and system management. On the other hand, it also has some issues which influence the cloud computing adoption by organizations. In the present paper, we propose two optimal strategies using two controls u1 and u2 to minimize the contact between abstainers and susceptible and maximize the users. Pontryagin’s maximum principle is used to characterize the optimal controls and the optimality system is solved by an iterative method. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to verify the theoretical analysis using Matlab.

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.

КОНЦЕПЦІЯ СТВОРЕННЯ 5 ГРУПИ СПРОЩЕНОЇ СИСТЕМИ ОПОДАТКУВАННЯ

The article researches the feasibility and relevance of implementating the 5th group of the simplified tax system. The existing scientific researches and legislative initiatives on this issue are analyzed. A significant increase of registered individual entrepreneurs in the Ukrainian IT industry has been detected (overall increase of registered entrepreneurs of the three main IT KVED for 2018-2020 increased to 44.27%, reaching 188,539 people). It was noted that starting from the 1st half of 2019, KVED 62.01. Computer programming has surpassed retail trade and has taken the first position. The strong agreement about the need to shift perception of the simplified taxation system – from legitimate method of aggressive tax minimization to a tool for the development of small business and personal entrepreneurship has been reached. The positive impact of the IT sector growth on the economic development of Ukraine has been proven. Main attention was focused on the possible extraction of the IT industry into a particular group of the simplified taxation system. The practical economic feasibility of such a decision was substantiated. The author’s own concept of such a reform is proposed, which provides for the creation of a particular 5th group of simplified taxation. Its main features are: turnover tax rate should be increased to 10% and preferential conditions for legal entities will be offered simultaneously. The importance of canceling the “income ceiling” within the group was emphasized, while setting the income criterion at the level of 75% from the provision of IT services is needed. The absence of large Ukrainian IT legal entities with a permanent staff of employees is noted as a matter of fact. At the same time, the vast majority of actors apply “Business-to-business” schema. The level of taxation of the IT sector in foreign jurisdictions has been investigated and compared to Ukrainian conditions. The preferential and discriminatory nature of legal tax regulation of individual entrepreneurs has been established. Further growth of the IT industry provided the implementation of the author’s concept is predicted. The necessity of forming a positive tax culture and fair setting of tax rates was emphasized.

Data Migration Need, Strategy, Challenges, Methodology, Categories, Risks, Uses with Cloud Computing, and Improvements in Its Using with Cloud Using Suggested Proposed Model (DMig 1)

Data Migration is a multi-step process that begins with analyzing old data and culminates in data uploading and reconciliation in new applications. With the rapid growth of data, organizations constantly need to migrate data. Data migration can be a complex process as testing must be done to ensure data quality. Migration also can be very costly if best practices are not followed and hidden costs are not identified in the early stage. On the other hand, many organizations today instead of buying IT equipment (hardware and/or software) and managing it themselves, they prefer to buy services from IT service providers. The number of service providers is increasing dramatically and the cloud is becoming the preferred tool for more cloud storage services. However, as more information and personal data are transferred to the cloud, to social media sites, DropBox, Baidu WangPan, etc., data security and privacy issues are questioned. So, academia and industry circles strive to find an effective way to secure data migration in the cloud. Various resolving methods and encryption techniques have been implemented. In this work, we will try to cover many important points in data migration as Strategy, Challenges, Need, methodology, Categories, Risks, and Uses with Cloud computing. Finally, we discuss data migration security and privacy challenge and how to solve this problem by making improvements in it’s using with Cloud through suggested proposed model that enhances data security and privacy by gathering Advanced Encryption Standard-256 (ATS256), Data Dispersion Algorithms and Secure Hash Algorithm-512. This model achieves verifiable security ratings and fast execution times.

Аналіз вимог до процесів управління функціональними сервісами єдиної інформаційної системи управління оборонними ресурсами

The article highlights the needs to create a Unified Information System for Defense Resources Management (DRMIS). The main problems of creating DRMIS are identified in the article. The research shows that form of consolidation of information and providing prompt access to it for analysis and effective decision-making process. The core of IT service in the military-defense environment is also revealed. There are three areas of management of functional services of a Single Information System for Defense Resources Management is separated to: - Development, acquisition and implementation of IT services; - Provision and support of IT services (formalization of customer service requirements for IT services, coordination of divergences between service requirements with the relevant IP service resources and provision of end users with IT services that meet requirements); - Monitoring. Requirements to the processes of management of functional services of DRMIS are formed: functionality, service time, availability, reliability, confidentiality, scale and cost. The basic requirements for the management of functional services are also determined not only by the properties of the IP that provide them. The quality of the IP service itself is essential, as well as the level of regulation of the IP service and end users of IT services. The advantages of using DRMIS functional services in the Defense Sector are indicated: - Transparency of state bodies; - Increasing public confidence in the activities of government agencies; - Reduction of costs and time for the implementation of strategic, large-scale tasks; - Increasing labor productivity; - Access to services 24/7/365; - Clear and timely response to changes in regulations and focus on future global challenges; - Creating the image of Ukraine as an IT state. It is established that in modern conditions the complexity of information systems in the field of defense is growing, and methods and technologies for effective management of their IT infrastructure are developing dynamically. The directions of further effective management of IT services in the field of defense are developed.

A Hybrid Method for Measuring Service Supply Chain Performance Management in IT Service Providers

A Hybrid Method for Measuring Service Supply Chain Performance Management in IT Service Providers

Prototype Planning and Technician Job Report System at PT Visionet Data Internasional

PT Visionet Data International is a subsidiary of PT. Multipolar tbk, based in lippo Cyber ​​Park, and is engaged in outsourcing IT service providers, serving data center operational services and a company's daily IT operational services (IT Help desk). As a company engaged in services, PT Visionet Data International always strives to run its projects optimally and always maintain the reliability and scalability of computerized infrastructure that supports the customer's main business activities. The prototype planning, control and technician report system is an information system for scheduling, monitoring and reporting the job of technicians in the customer. In this study, researchers conducted an analysis and design of a technician job report system at PT. Data International Data Tangerang. The research method used was interview, survey and literature study methods. The system design process uses UML and the application is developed using PHP. The results of this study are information systems that can improve the services provided by PT. Visionet International Data to customers.

Market reaction of the business cooperation with IT service provider: an investigation of IBM

PurposeSince business competition has become more intense throughout the world, most enterprises are seeking to engage in business cooperation with other partners in order to enhance their competitive strengths. However, they do not necessarily develop mature information technologies’ (ITs) capabilities and skills internally but rather outsource them to IT providers. Therefore, the benefits received by firms which adopt the approach of business cooperation with IT providers have become an interesting issue for managers and shareholders.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted an event study methodology for apprising the short-term business value from the stock market. The authors predicted that investors will react as they receive news coverage about the strategy of business cooperation between outsourcing firms and an IT provider, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. The authors then collected all news coverage regarding the firms which had announced business cooperation with IBM and observed different types of abnormal returns.FindingsOn analyzing 53 announcements of cooperation with IBM from 2008 to 2016, the authors found that the announcement of business cooperation had a significantly positive influence on companies' market value.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the issue for market reaction to the announcement of business cooperation with IBM.

How Does a Humble Leader Help the Team to be Reflective?

Due to the significant impact on team innovation and team effectiveness, team reflexivity which is viewed as teams’ self- regulatory actions, has been received great attention from scholars. The current study suggests leader humility as a key indicator for fostering team reflexivity. In addition, this study attempts to provide a deeper understanding regarding the effect of leader humility on team reflexivity through examining the mediating role of shared leadership and the moderating role of leader trust. Using survey of 313 employees in 60 teams from the IT service provider of a large telecommunications company in South Korea, the study has indicated that leader humility is positively associated with team reflexivity through increasing shared leadership among team members particularly when they have higher level of trust. Theoretical and practical implications were also addressed.

Legal Challenges for IT Service Providers in Pharmacogenomics.

IT providers offering services based on genetic data face serious challenges in managing health data in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Based on a literature research and our experiences, an overview of GDPR compliant processing of sensitive data is given. The GDPR requirements for processing sensitive data were specified for a use case concerning a service provider of a pharmacogenomic decision support system. Start-ups who want to enter into the health market also have to comply with the Medical Device Regulation (MDR). The associated efforts for legal compliance constitute an impediment for many start-ups. We created a comprehensive overview, which aligned the requirements of the GDPR with the life-cycle of a medical device. This overview shall help start-ups to grasp and overcome the regulatory hurdles faster.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Load balancing based hyper heuristic algorithm for cloud task scheduling

The cloud computing environment provides computing assets in a pay-per-use way for IT service providers. Guaranteeing QoS amid job scheduling is a most noticeable need. This paper proposed an algorithm that expects to accomplish all-around adjusted load crosswise over virtual machines for minimizing makespan time. The proposed algorithm provides balanced scheduling solutions by employing the honey bee load balancing and improvement detection operator to conclude which low-level heuristic is to be utilized to search improved candidate solutions. The consequences of the proposed task scheduling algorithm are matched with existing heuristic-based scheduling procedures. The experimental consequences demonstrate that our approach is efficient when it is compared with the existing algorithms.

Models and mechanisms for planning service improvements

Models and mechanisms for project portfolio management, constantly generated by the IT service provider and designed to optimize IT processes of IT service life cycle stages are the subject of this article. The service improvement plan is formed from the project portfolio and is aimed at achieving critical indicators of IT services market success relevant for the current period. Two linear and one nonlinear models of the problem of forming a service improvement plan were considered. The criteria chosen for task optimization are absolute and relative value of the complex IT process efficiency indicator. Problems take into account the investment costs on implementing projects and changing the operational costs on functioning of optimized IT processes. All the problems were solved with the use of network programming methods.