Kieth Hales

Strategic ICT alignment in uncertain environments: An empirical study in emergency management organizations

Marcus Vogt et al. — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:25:12 PDT

Today’s society is exposed to an increasing number of disasters and large scale emergencies (e.g. earthquake in Haiti, global swine flu, or manmade disasters like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico). Information and communication technology (ICT) can help to prevent and mitigate the effects of threatening situations if applied appropriately. In industry ICT governance methods have become important tools to successfully align ICT with business goals. However, the domain of emergency management (EM) has to deal with unpredictable situations, multi organizational collaborations and ad-hoc teams, conditions which make conventional ICT governance frameworks and methods less useful. Based on a qualitative analysis of several European and Australian EM organizations and government agencies this paper discusses the issues and benefits of strategic ICT alignment in EM and identifies the current barriers and the special requirements of this domain. Finally, it presents a prototypical approach to fill this gap.

The impact of strategic alignment perspectives on IT projects: Analysis and discussions

Abdullah Al-Hatmi et al. — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 23:05:11 PDT

The problem investigated in this research concerned factors influencing the success of IT projects. These factors are called Strategic Alignment (SA) Perspectives. Based on a literature review and on the organizational structure theory and knowledge theory, a reference model of Strategic Alignment Perspectives was developed to better achieve the alignment between business and IT strategy. The methodology of this research is based on archival records. The rich data provided us with the insight to enable us to understand the deployment of SA in the real context of a public agency. Four IT projects from a public agency were randomly selected and their SA perspectives were analysed in the IT governance context in which they were most appropriately used. A reference model was used and proved to be a simple but effective method of measuring the maturity levels of the SA perspectives and their attributes.

A significant implication of the study is that the delivery of IT projects on time and on budget is an inadequate measurement for the value realization from IT. The consideration of alignment domains is essential and this can be employed to increase the understanding needed for a better achievement of value realization in a public organization. If these domains are put into a holistic approach and IT governance is implemented properly (De Haes & Grembergen, 2008) many limitations in public organizations should be overcome. It is a crucial issue to investigate the role of SA in the success of IT projects. A conclusion and a recommendation are provided.

Adapting IT governance frameworks using domain specific requirements methods: Examples from small and medium enterprises & emergency management

Marcus Vogt et al. — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 23:05:10 PDT

IT Governance methods and frameworks have been applied in most large for-profit organizations since these enterprises realize the benefits of IT Governance for their business. However, former research and our own surveys show that frame works such as ITIL and COBIT are not very well established in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) as well as in Emergency Management (EM) organizations. Thus, we investigated what kind of barriers can be the cause for the low adoption rate. These results built the basis for our Domain Specific Engineering (DSE) approach. The research is based on the data of two research projects. The first project investigated the utilization of ITSM methods in European SMEs, and the second has researched different emergency management organizations. This paper defines similarities and differences of the two domain specific solutions, describes the engineering approach, and gives guidelines for further research in other domains.

Optimizing ICT portfolios in emergency management: A modular alignment approach

Marcus Vogt et al. — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 23:05:08 PDT

Today’s society is exposed to an increasing number of disasters and large scale emergencies (e.g. earthquake in Haiti, global swine flu, or manmade disasters like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico). Information and communication technology (ICT) can help to prevent and mitigate the effects of threatening situations if applied appropriately. In industry ICT governance methods and portfolio management techniques have become important tools to successfully align ICT with business goals. However, the domain of emergency management (EM) has to deal with unpredictable situations, multi organizational collaborations and ad-hoc teams, conditions which make conventional existing methods less useful. Based on a qualitative analysis of several European and Australian EM organizations and government agencies this paper discusses a modular approach to optimize ICT portfolios in Emergency Management organizations in order to achieve strategic ICT alignment.

Strategic alignment of ICT projects with community values in local government

Marcus Vogt et al. — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:04:22 PDT

ICT Governance's principles and its associated frameworks and methodologies are important approaches to deriving organizational value from ICT investments. Achieving strategic alignment is a major governance concern in both the private and public sectors, but many of the private sector's, financially focused evaluation methodologies are less useful in the public sector because of the broad set of public values that drive the public sector. This research uses a case study of a large Australian municipal council to examine how the public sector achieves ICT strategic alignment and the consequential prioritization of ICT projects. A new methodology: Community Value Estimation (CVE), which combines the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Delphi technique, is introduced and demonstrated as an important method of combining public values and ICT strategies.

Strategic ICT alignment in emergency management

Marcus Vogt et al. — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:53:17 PDT

This paper shows preliminary results of an ongoing research project on the benefits of Strategic ICT Alignment in the domain of disaster management. The research is based on current literature in that area, an observation of a multi-organizational pandemic exercise in a large German municipality and interviews with stakeholders of different emergency management organizations in Germany and Australia. The preliminary results show that emergency managers can feel overwhelmed by the complexity of ICT and are unable to estimate the value and impact of ICT on their processes. Consequently, the paper identifies a research gap in the area of ICT Governance and Emergency Management, which will guide the coming research stages in order to develop a Strategic ICT Alignment framework for emergency management organizations.

Value creation in a virtual world

Kieth R. Hales — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:38:56 PST

During the past two decades, increasingly powerful and capable information technologies have made information more accessible and valuable so that it has become the prime resource for business; ahead of the traditional resources of land, labour and capital. Improved information acquisition, usage and distribution has also driven and enabled globalisation. The emergence of the virtual enterprise (VE) is one consequence of changed market conditions and advanced information communications technology (ICT). VE s are characterised by various configurations of networks of collaborating partnerships and intensive ICT linkages. As ICT has become more pervasive, businesses have become increasingly reliant on it for their effective operation so now the question for business strategists is how to create value and sustainable competitive advantage in a virtual world? This thesis offers an answer to that question.

This thesis uses rational arguments drawn from a wide variety of research from both the business and ICT disciplines to examine the theoretical foundations of value creation. It explores the development of corporate strategy and value driven sources of competitive advantage from the viewpoints of industrial organisation (IO), the resource based view (RBV) of the firm, innovation, transaction cost economics, network theory and value and supply chains. However, these established strategy theories, whose origins often predate the internet, do not adequately accommodate the expanded roles that information and digital technologies play in creating value in an increasingly digital environment. Alternately, Information Systems research, which is rich in information technology, struggles to accommodate the notion of value as legitimate information systems goal. Virtual organisation (VO) is a new strategic paradigm that is centred on the use of information and ICT to create value. VO is presented as a meta-management strategy that has application in all value oriented organisations. Within the concept of VO, the business model is an ICT based construct that bridges and integrates enterprise strategic and operational concerns.

The Virtual Value Creation (VVC) framework is an innovative and novel business model that draws on the concept of virtual organisation. The VVC’s objective is to provide enterprises with a framework to determine their present and potential capability to use available information to create economic value. It owes its inspiration to Porter and Drucker, both of whom emphasised value creation as the legitimate focus for enterprise activity and the source of sustainable competitive advantage. The VVC framework integrates existing and emerging theories to describe the strategic processes and conditions necessary for the exploitation of information in a commercial setting.

The VVC framework presently represents a novel and valuable tool that enterprises can use to assess their present and potential use of information to create value in a virtual age.