IT Vendors Research Articles

Pivotal Decisions in Outsourcing

This discussion case follows a manager of IT for a global mattress manufacturer as he contemplates a decision surrounding conflicting feedback regarding a IT vendor named Pivotal IT. The case may be taught in both undergraduate (upper level) and graduate courses.

Software Vulnerability and Application Security Risk

This research investigates the software vendor-based relationships between software vulnerability and application security risk. The data is obtained from the China National Vulnerability Database of Information Security (CNNVD). At first, we use the latent class model to classify the software vendors into three categories, and then employ regression models to estimate relationships between software vulnerability and application security risk for each of the three categories of the software vendors. The results show the relationships vary across the software vendors. The findings suggest that an IT vendor should learn specific vulnerability features according to its type to effectively avoid vulnerability generation on their products.

A study of differences by industry using factor models influencing software development estimates

Recently, IoT and AI/machine learning have attracted attention, and software development has been a critical activity for the companies that use IT. The investment in IT has been increasing, and it varies with the industry. In addition, software development has become complex with the growing sophistication in the target applications; therefore, it is a challenging task for the software vendors to prepare an accurate estimate. Consequently, the estimates grossly deviate from the true value. In this paper, we propose a method based on the previous research that uses the factors related to productivity of software development to find factors that affect the estimation of man-hours. We analyzed the parameters among populations using two factors and simultaneous analysis of multiple populations from nine industries. We used two-factor models extracted from “the study of software estimation factors extracted using covariance structure analysis” and verified the method by applying five constraints, including factor load amount and error variance, simultaneously for the nine industries. As a result, it was possible to separate industries with large factor variance and those with small factor variance. Moreover, it was possible to separate industries with large correlation coefficient between factors and industries with small factor correlation coefficient. For industries with small variance of factors, the factors are consistent within the industry, and in industries with large correlation between factors; the relationship between the two factors is more relevant. In other words, we could find out the relationship of factors influencing software estimation for each industry type. In addition, the variance of these two factors and the correlation coefficient between the factors were grouped, and a cluster analysis was performed. It was found that there was a difference in the estimate for each group of Business-to-Business and Business-to-Customer industry groups. Based on these results, while preparing software estimates, IT vendors would capture the characteristics of the factors for each type of industry and clarify the influential factors of fluctuation by being conscious of the productivity fluctuation factors related to the two factors.

The Link between Vendor Certification and Performance in IT Outsourcing: A Tale of Two Stories

There has been a great deal of ambiguity in the relationship between vendor certification and vendor performance in the outsourcing context. In this study we build a competitive mediation model, where we examine both the direct and the indirect effects of vendor certification on vendor growth. Using a combination of primary data (i.e., survey) and secondary data from a sample of 120 IT vendors in India, we find that vendor certification directly helps vendor growth but it hurts vendor innovation and therefore indirectly hinders vendor growth. We further explore the moderating role of the number of clients. Our results demonstrate that an increase in the number of clients does not moderate the positive relationship between certification and growth; however, it weakens the negative relationship between vendor certification and innovation. In this sense, a large client base seems to attenuate the dark side of certification in organizational innovation activities.

Examining information and communication technology (ICT) adoption in SMEs

PurposeSince the 1980s, a substantial number of theories have contributed extensively to information and communication technology (ICT) adoption. Much of such theories regarded ICT adoption as a one-off action as they specifically focus on factors affecting decision making at one decision point. They tend to play down on the fact that as adoption decision progresses through stages, they are supposedly influenced by the same or different factors. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic process of ICT adoption using the concepts of dynamic capabilities.Design/methodology/approachThis study used qualitative approach to gain in-depth insight into the dynamic and evolutionary process of emerging information and communication technology (EICT) adoption in UK small service SMEs. Unstructured and semi-structured interviews were conducted in two separate rounds with 26 participants drawn from Crunch Online Data Base and Luton Business Directory. The participants were selected from a sample of 65 drawn from extended classification of professional service businesses proposed by Ramsey et al. (2008). They include managers, government agencies, SMEs consultants and IT vendors; and then purposeful random sampling and snowball sampling were used.FindingsThe study developed a framework from the concept of dynamic capabilities and found that using the concept of dynamic capabilities to examine the process of EICT adoption helps to unveil the recursive nature of the process and how the factors vary at both single and multiple stages of adoption.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited by its focus and other factors. Studying the opinions of small service UK SMEs limits the power of generalizing the identified causal relationships; therefore, extended measures are required on accounts of environmental, cultural, geographical and sectoral differences. While some errors seemed unavoidable when measures appear subjective and prone to common error biases, the study advised on recognizing the over-riding influence of the factor(s) at each stage of the adoption process in order to be proactive in committing resources.Originality/valueThis work focuses on emerging ICT adoption in SMEs from the dynamic and evolutionary process perspective using the concept of dynamic capability. It advances ICT adoption research by developing a framework to depict that ICT is not a one-off event, rather it is dynamic and interactive in nature and factors influencing adoption vary from one stage or the other.

Assessing ERP SAP implementation in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia

The consistent growth of Indonesian SMEs has received attention of global IT vendors. One of major ERP player in Indonesian market such as SAP, has introduced ERP solutions for SMEs through SAP Business One. Due to its fast growth, unfortunately, there are still very few articles can be found to understand the ERP implementation in Indonesian SMEs. The article addressed the common factors that affect the successful of the ERP implementation at SMEs. They are: identifying vendor quality, opening balance data migration, and A-SAP methodology. The article applied case study method to examine the fast growth companies owned by same owners, such as: GRK, MMM, and KM25; with the objectives to identify the practical pattern of ERP implementation in SMEs that will be useful for SAP project manager and consultants.

Health IT Adoption in Nursing Homes: The Role of IT Vendors

Applying exploratory qualitative methodologies such as interviews and focus groups, we examine the role of IT vendors in health IT adoption in nursing homes in Texas. We identify three roles pertaining to IT vendors in various adoption stages — information sources and financiers, strategic consultants, and educators in the initiation, implementation, and the institutionalization phases, respectively. Thus, vendors could be a critical factor in the health IT adoption, but nursing home management must critically evaluate not only the services, but also the strategic partnerships offered by the vendors. This is because their business interests may not address nursing homes’ distinctive need, and may prevent integration and institutionalization of health IT. As such, this research has important implications for technology adoption by nursing facilities.

Interoperability Specifications and Conformance Testing Services Made Available on the Tukan Platform

In 2018 Polish health IT community faces critical challenges related to the national eHealth agenda. The mission of HL7 Poland is to establish a community around interoperability standards and integration profiles with health IT vendors, medical providers and public authorities. One of the activities that would support this goal is providing tooling for specification publication and implementation validation. HL7 Poland has started a project to create a central hub for specifications and tools. The Tukan is an online platform dedicated to Polish healthcare IT community, where national specifications for interoperability are published together with a set of testing tools supporting their implementation. The platform is based on software components originating from various sources: open source release of IHE Gazelle components, development tooling of Polish National Implementation Guide of HL7 CDA, ART-DECOR platform software components, HAPI FHIR reference implementation for FHIR STU3 standard and Central Authentication Server (CAS) software components. Tukan platform is ready to be used as an environment supporting peer-to-peer testing in connectathon-like events. The pilot phase of Tukan platform has shown that there is a significant interest in testing services, especially when there are official specifications of interoperability standards published. In 2018 the first Polish connectathon will be held by HL7 Poland on Tukan platform in cooperation with national and regional projects.

Translocality in Global Software Development: the Dark Side of Global Agile

What happens when agile methods are introduced in global outsourcing set-ups? Agile methods are designed to empower IT developers in decision-making through self-managing collocated teams. We studied how agile methods were introduced into global outsourcing from the Indian IT vendor’s perspective. We explored how agile processes in global outsourcing impacts work conditions of the Indian IT developers, and were surprised to find that agile methodologies, even after 3 years of implementation, created a stressful and inflexible work environment negatively impacting their personal lives. Many of the negative aspects of work, which agile methodologies were developed to reduce, were evident in the global agile outsourcing set-up. We propose translocality to repudiate the dichotomy of global/local reminding us that methodologies and technologies must be understood as immediately localized and situated. Translocality helps us to explain why we cannot determine the impact of global agile as a methodology independent of how it unfolds at particular sites. Instead, we must attend to concrete practices of use when evaluating the impact of new methods.

The future of Big Data in facilities management: opportunities and challenges

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the current condition of the Big Data concept with its related barriers, drivers, opportunities and perceptions in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry with an emphasis on facilities management (FM).Design/methodology/approachFollowing a comprehensive literature review, the Big Data concept was investigated through two scoping workshops with industry experts and academics.FindingsThe value in data analytics and Big Data is perceived by the industry, yet the industry needs guidance and leadership. Also, the industry recognises the imbalance between data capturing and data analytics. Large IT vendors’ developing AEC industry-focused analytics solutions and better interoperability among different vendors are needed. The general concerns for Big Data analytics mostly apply to the AEC industry as well. Additionally, however, the industry suffers from a structural fragmentation for data integration with many small-sized companies operating in its supply chains. This paper also identifies a number of drivers, challenges and way-forwards that calls for future actions for Big Data in FM in the AEC industry.Originality/valueThe nature of data in the business world has dramatically changed over the past 20 years. This phenomenon is often broadly dubbed as “Big Data” with its distinctive characteristics, opportunities and challenges. Some industries have already started to effectively exploit “Big Data” in their business operations. However, despite many perceived benefits, the AEC industry has been slow in discussing and adopting the Big Data concept. Empirical research efforts investigating Big Data for the AEC industry are also scarce. This paper aims at outlining the benefits, challenges and future directions (what to do) for Big Data in the AEC industry with an FM focus.

A view from the vendor’s side: factors that determine satisfaction

PurposeWith the growth in outsourcing it is imperative to understand the vendor’s satisfaction with IT outsourcing relationships since contractual and relationship factors affect the ability of vendors and clients to work together over time. A recent study demonstrated that relational factors such as trust and information exchange dominated in their ability to explain client satisfaction when compared to contractual factors. The purpose of this paper is to further examine how the relational factors work together to lead to vendor satisfaction in an outsourcing relationship.Design/methodology/approachA survey was developed and pre-tested with vendors in India and client firms in the USA that used international IT vendors. Using data collected from 214 vendor firms in the Indian subcontinent the paper examines the main effect of two client focused variables, namely, competence-based trust and client dependence on vendor satisfaction; it also explores whether social control moderate the main effect relationships.FindingsThe findings indicate that client dependence and competence-based trust were significant direct predictors of vendor satisfaction. Social control or the ability to resolve conflicts positively moderated the effect client dependence on vendor satisfaction. But it did not impact the effect of competence-based trust on vendor satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors identify three limitations: a dyadic analysis using both the client and the vendor perspective would have provided a richer understanding of the relationship; since the data were collected on a cross-sectional basis, it is hard to make predictive assessments; and a limited response rate.Practical implicationsThese findings help us understand the factors that impact vendor satisfaction in an outsourcing relationship and this is one of the keys to maintaining a long-term relationship between transacting parties.Originality/valuePrevious studies have explored the relational aspects of a vendor-client interaction from the client’s point of view and, here, the authors take the vendor’s perspective, which is increasingly important due to the increasing complexity of work outsourced. Besides exploring the direct effect competence-based trust and client dependence on vendor satisfaction, the authors also analyze the role of social control as a moderator.

Taxonomy of Public Clouds for the Next Generation of ICT Development

Since the information and communications technology (ICT) development was a policy of national competitive advantages to support the 21st-century development of Asia-Pacific countries decades ago, computing technology has been undergoing cultural changes from static websites, interactive portals, to cloud computing in recent years. While many private clouds keep emerging to help business firms in new competition environment, IT vendors and researchers have recognized huge potential of public clouds. Gartner, a renowned research firm, forecasted the expenditure on public clouds growing from $91 billion in 2011 to $109 billion in 2012, with a target at $200 billion by 2016. Governments will flag public cloud development as ICT driver to further stimulate socio-economic growth in their countries over the next ten years. However, government policy is critical to sustaining this trend of growing public clouds, and in turn stirs up the next generation of worldwide ICT revolution. Subject to realizing the revolution with support of the growing Internet populations, every part in the world, like city facilities, industries, government services and education, etc., may significantly change. It is foreseeable that different countries expect to foster tailor-made public cloud solutions to fit with their own demographic and socio-economic needs. While foreseeing the influences of national ICT strategic policies on the formation of potential public cloud solutions, we propose this study to review a possible taxonomy of public clouds, like City cloud, Industry cloud, Government cloud (G-cloud), Education cloud, and Hybrid cloud, etc., for strategic ICT development in the next generation of the information age.

Expanding Role of Certified Electronic Health Records Technology in Radiology: The MACRA Mandate

Radiology has historically been at the forefront of innovation and the advancement of technology for the benefit of patient care. However, challenges to early implementation prevented most radiologists from adopting and integrating certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT) into their daily workflow despite the early and potential advantages it offered. This circumstance places radiology at a disadvantage in the two payment pathways of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015: the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and advanced alternative payment models (APMs). Specifically, not integrating CEHRT hampers radiology’s ability to receive bonus points in the quality performance category of the MIPS and in parallel threatens certain threshold requirements for advanced APMs under the new Quality Payment Program. Radiology must expand the availability and use of CEHRT to satisfy existing performance measures while creating new performance measures that create value for the health care system. In addition, radiology IT vendors will need to ensure their products (eg, radiology information systems, PACS, and radiology reporting systems) are CEHRT compliant and approved. Such collective efforts will increase radiologists’ quality of patient care, contribution to value driven activities, and overall health care relevance.

Effectiveness of standards consortia: Social network perspectives

With the rapid assimilation of e-business capabilities into generally accepted business practices, there has been a rush to ensure standards exist to allow for seamless integration and interfaces between all the concerned parties. While standards consortia have grown in number and importance in the private sector over the past decade, little is known about how effective standards consortia are in addressing the needs for developing e-business standards. The current study examines the relationships between task characteristics of e-business standards and group effectiveness of standards consortia in terms of group centralization, group cohesiveness, and group diversity. We took a case study approach and analyze email archives from the ebXML standards efforts using social network analysis techniques. The findings of the study indicate that the expanding nature of e-business standards and a broader participation of IT vendor and users must be considered in order to improve group effectiveness of standards consortia. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed.

A Study of software estimation factors extracted using covariance structure analysis

Customers and IT vendors must be in agreement regarding the process and result of project delivery estimation. However, IT vendors often have difficulty explaining the complexity and dynamic difficulty of project specification for customers, who do not have IT expertise. Moreover, customers may feel unsatisfied because they often receive unexpected project estimations from IT vendors without clarification about the estimation method. This is because the degree of difficulty is not considered in project scale estimations, such as LOC (lines of code) and FP (function point).In this study, we identify potential productivity fluctuation factors that are not considered in software estimation methods such as software LOC, FP, etc. Specifically, the variation factor considered to affect the project is set as an observation variable. Next, the model is evaluated from the population estimation results using the structural equation model. Using this evaluated model, we discover concepts that could not identified before estimation. Additionally, we also identify factors that may affect the composition.

Influential Factors in IT Outsourcing Relationship in a Swedish Municipality

Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) has generated considerable interest within Information Systems (IS) research as a consequence of its benefits in terms of cost efficiency and freedom to focus on core capabilities. This study covers the area of ITO in the public sector, specifically, in Swedish Municipalities where ITO has become a mainstream strategy. The influential ITO factors of the post-contract stage of an ITO relationship are examined and debated in light of existent research literature. The research is based on a case study of a Swedish Municipality and a direct IT vendor. A thematic analysis brings light upon three new ITO influential factors which are: (1) mutual understanding and long-term engagement; (2) Multi-sourcing, and (3) Communication between Municipalities, together with other seven factors present in the research literature that have an influence on the ITO relationship. The findings of this study can support ITO decision-makers from Swedish municipalities in improving the ITO relationship between their organizations and IT vendors.

Enhancing the Self Management of Type II Diabetes in Elderly Greeks Using m- and e - Health Facilitated Integrated Care Services and Policy Implications for Greece

Chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in Greece, a country suffering from a rapid deterioration of public health indicators during the years of the crisis. In the case of Type II Diabetes, the prevalence of the disease is estimated at more than 10% % among Greek adults. The managements of Type II Diabetes has been so far mainly medical centred, specialists in special diabetic clinics providing secondary services to patients. However, Type II Diabetes can be effectively managed in community settings if the patient is empowered to self - manage the condition. The presence of a multidisciplinary team of care professionals, that offers a holistic service, putting the needs and wishes of the patient and the caregiver at the centre of the care process, is of paramount importance in improving health related outcomes and decreasing the costs for management of the disease. For the first time in Greece, a network of local government social and health providers, a Type II Diabetes advocacy group and an IT vendor planned and implement together an m - and e - health facilitated integrated care model in primary care settings within the framework of the EU co-funded project SmartCare. This is a unique endeavor since currently, fragmentation of care services, lack of coordination, lack of appropriate IT systems to support co-decision making and medical - centred orientation of service provision are significant obstacles in planning and implementing integrated care services for the chronically ill. Hence, the ATTICA pilot aims at supporting a shift towards vertical integration of chronic care and in this case Type II Diabetes, in an environment co-created by the main stakeholders and where the patient has a central role in defining the services appropriate to the individual needs in a community care pathway. The objective of the pilot ATTICA is to apply integrated care services facilitated by m-health technologies in order to improve self - efficacy, patient activation and satisfaction measurements in adult T2DM patients (50+). Furthermore, to investigate whether after at least 6 months of such a service, clinical indicators of disease are improved (HbA1c) and whether the QoL of patients has increased compared to usual care. The SmartCare Intervention consists of coordination of care carried out by trained care coordinators (nurses), supported by a multidisciplinary team of professionals (diabetes specialist, social worker, dietician) that apply e - care services and directed to adult T2DM patients based on individual needs. Professionals assess the clinical, nutritional, psychological, social need status online in the vida24 platform and set out personal targets in discussion with patients and in terms of diet and basic parameter measurements such as blood glucose and pressure. QoL, Satisfaction with the service, Patient Activation, Self Efficacy, Perception of Integration are also assessed at the beginning, interim and at end of the project. Patient's compliance to targets is enhanced by automatic reminders and alerts generated by the platform and sent to an application in the patient's tablet (vidame). Messages to the app and Telcos are also means by which the multidisciplinary team encourages the patients to achieve targets set and to comply better. ATTICA will present how the pilot planned activities related to: (1) user recruitment, (2) professional enrollment, (3) organizational changes, (4) IT and e-health technologies restructure, (4) Help - Desk Operation, (5) training of end users and (6) ethical and regulatory aspects. The problems encountered in all the above topics, solutions put in place, risks encountered and lessons learned will also be presented, alongside interim outcomes from the pilot based on the MAST evaluation methodology for m-health technology facilitated integrated care as well as the preliminary results of the CBA conducted. ATTICA will discuss sustainability and transferability issues in other care settings and moreover make proposals on how the service can be further developed in primary care settings for a more complex case - mix of patients and including more involvement of the social care sector. Finally, Critical Success Factors for m-health facilitated Integrated Care service deployment will be discussed and the the results of the self assessment with respect to readiness and capacity for deployment of innovative solutions in the pilot, illustrating self-defined strengths and weaknesses, will be presented, based on the B3 Action Group Maturity Model of the EIP - AHA.

Benchmarking, Estimation & Productivity Assessment Framework for IT Implementation

The dependence and fusion of Information Technology in modern organizations has led to the development of extremely mature service delivery models in recent years. Business units are augmenting their IT budget/spending to encapsulate & leverage the latest technology innovations thus empowering their product/service portfolio. Subsequently, technology sector is witnessing wide variance in service offerrings of IT firms offering a bouquet of solutions to meet business requirements. This beckons the need of a robust 'benchmarking and estimation' framework for analyzing the efficacy of vendor solution and accomplish savings in the procurement phase leading to enhanced operational efficiency. Further, a proficient logical model is also needed to measure the productivity of the IT vendor vis-a-vis Industry standards at the end of implementation. In this paper, we would discuss the intricacies of the procurement phase and devise a reformed benchmarking, estimation & productivity assessment framework for IT Implementations.

Modeling and analysis for mobile application services: The perspective of mobile network operators

The success of Apple's App Store has motivated many mobile network operators (MNOs) to embrace the application store. However, finding a successful strategy that provides meaningful differentiation in an increasingly competitive mobile application market is a great challenge for MNOs. This research treats the mobile application service as a two-sided market and develops a system dynamics model to understand the diffusion behavior of mobile application services. Choice-based conjoint analysis is used to collect multi-attribute preference data of end-users and developers in order to understand how they select application store service offerings in Taiwan's mobile application market. We found that under the great pressure of application stores offered by mobile platform providers, MNOs have to provide services that directly attract adoption by end-users and developers, because the cross-side network effect is not significant. MNOs need to apply a localization strategy based on their strengths while improving their store service quality by collaborating with third-party IT vendors to persuade developers and end-users to adopt their stores as another “home base”. We conclude that MNOs need to not only fully exploit their resources to sense and seize emerging opportunities, but also reconfigure their resources with respect to market dynamics to rebuild their core competences for sustaining their competitive advantages.

Efficiency analysis of ERP packages—A customization perspective

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages developed by ERP vendors are designed not only to standardize the existing business processes of the implementing organization, but also to bring in some of the best practices of the industry. There are many past studies on the assessment of the efficiency of standard ERP projects; however, to date no research has been conducted to assess the efficiency of ERP packages from the point of view of customization. Assessing the efficiency of customized ERP packages is vital for benchmarking best customization practices. In this study we examine the efficiency of customized ERP packages using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We also examine the relationship between the degree of customization of ERP packages and their efficiency. Data was collected from an IT vendor who had deployed ERP package in 12 educational institutions. The results suggest that customization adversely affects the efficiency of ERP packages. We also discuss the implications of the results for research and practice.