They may be low-, medium- or high- improvements achieved by deploying information technology. One area of the economy which has seen technology usually decrease the number of personnel significant growth is that focused on new technology-based required.
Economies of scale gained through the deployment products and services and the high-technology sectors are of information technology reduce the overall cost for perceived as major sources of future economic prosperity businesses to produce products and services. This has an and employment growth. However, IT includes the management information systems computers, hardware, software, networks used to automate Quality assurance entails systematic testing to ensure that a and support business tasks and decision-making.
IT is used business is producing quality goods and services for its to automate simple, routine tasks such as word processing customers. Rigorous quality standards help business outputs and advanced processes such as production, scheduling and meet the required specifications. Quality assurance can be logistics. In this manner, information technology enables used within processes such as marketing, customer support businesses to operate efficiently and profitably.
The effective and efficient processing of information related to achieving Technological advances in the past few decades have greatly quality assurance goals is key to the delivery of quality increased the competitive nature of the economic business goods and services to business customers.
Investments in world. Many processes much more effective. By making such companies have responded to these changes by automating improvements to its business processes a firm may be able their business processes and capturing industry-related to: information and using it to their advantage. Technology has also forced businesses to remain flexible, adapting their 1.
Dramatically cut costs operations to newer and better technological advances. Improve the quality and customer service 3.
Develop innovative products for new markets Business owners once had very few tools at their disposal: little more than a basic adding machine and paper records. Investments in information systems technology can result in Today's business owners can complete their duties much the development of new products, services, and processes.
By using these tech- tools, companies and employees enjoy a number of 1. Create new business opportunities business-related benefits. Enable a firm to enter new markets 3. Enable a firm to enter into new market segments of existing markets. Volume 3 Issue 12, December www. Information technology has become fundamental to acquiring competitive advantage. The combination of The question is if the need for personal meetings decreases process improvements, cost reductions, communications and when the levels of information technology use increase.
That quality assurance all contribute to the competitive advantage would suggest increased efficiency of meetings, as the use of of a business unit. However, the constant identification and information technology then replaces other means of analysis of new risks and opportunities are critical to the interaction for some types of exchanges.
On the other hand, ongoing success of a business. Evolving Internet aggregation the use of information technology may require additional technologies, including social networks, blogs and meetings, if the technology is difficult use or the purpose of subscription databases, are becoming important tools needed its employment is another than making the information to achieve and maintain advantages within the business exchange more efficient by decreasing the need for sector.
The transfer of information is a significant impact of meetings. The reasons why the use of information information technology in business. Companies gather technology in business relationships would decrease or information from both internal and external sources with increase the need for personal meetings can only be more efficiently than in previous years.
Email is now a speculated on. This paper analyses the extent to which the need for personal meetings has decreased or increased in the investigated 2. The Role of Information Technology business relationships as a result of the use of information technology, as well as to the extent which such a change is 2.
If the use of information technology affects the need for personal meetings, and that effect is related to when The social interaction of a business relationship can be the use is lower or higher, it is interesting to analyze why discussed in terms of how often people from the companies and how the need for personal meetings is affected by the meet, or how well the parties know each other.
It is argued use of information technology. Now, most organizations in that depending on the extent of the use of information all sectors of industry, commerce and government are technology for different exchanges, the impact on the social fundamentally dependent on their information technologies.
One argument that could be The information revolution is sweeping through our raised in the theorizing on the effect of use of information economy. Dramatic technology in business relationships is that the number of reduction in the cost of achieving, processing, and meetings, or need for meetings will decrease, as the use of transmitting information is changing the mode by which we the technology handles a great deal of information do business.
This article moves towards the explaining and exchanges, i. The information revolution is sweeping through information is changing the The question is if the need for personal meetings decreases mode by which we do business.
Many companies in most when the levels of information technology use increase. That our economy; no company can escape its effects. Dramatic would suggest increased efficiency of meetings, as the use of reduction in the cost of achieving, processing, and information technology then replaces other means of transmitting industries have little choice but to implement interaction for some types of exchanges.
On the other hand, some form of information technology in order to remain the use of information technology may require additional both innovative and on the cutting edge of competitive meetings, if the technology is difficult use or the purpose of advantage. The reasons why the use of information Business technology in business relationships would decrease or increase the need for personal meetings can only be There are two basic concepts or principles that can be speculated on. One argument that could be Maintaining focus on the overall goals and mission of an raised in the theorizing on the effect of use of information organization while looking at Information Technology technology in business relationships is that the number of enables management to make appropriate investments, meetings, or need for meetings will decrease, as the use of reduce cost, and provide value.
We recommend a top-down the technology handles a great deal of information approach and have found the seven layer OSI Open Volume 3 Issue 12, December www. OSI is an the more complicated it becomes as well as inflexible. By keeping IT simple we have found funds can be reallocated from maintenance and routine operational We found the same approach can be used when thinking activities to spending on strategic information technology about your Information Technology needs.
How can the preceding and Information Technology needs with the overall strategy competitive strategy concepts be applied to the strategic role and goals of your organisation. Strategy, Goals, Mission and of information systems? Information technology can be used Culture drive Business Processes. Business Processes to implement a variety of competitive strategies.
These determine necessary tasks who, what, why, where and include the five basic competitive strategies differentiation, how. The tasks define the Information Technology cost, innovation, growth, alliance , as well as other ways that requirements software and hardware to be investigated, companies can use information systems strategically to gain decided upon, and implemented. For example: The challenge occurs when discussing the tasks and 1 Lower Costs Information Technology requirements.
The communication 2 Differentiate channel tends to break down. Both sides have their own jargon, 4 Promote Growth abbreviations, and unique experiences. And the alignment of business processes switching costs that lock in customers and suppliers. Everyone on the team needs to take a look at the total picture and approach the products unattractive.
If this occurs it is possible to align business processes and Information 3. Reengineering Business Processes Technology needs with the overall strategy and goals of an organization. The result is motivated employees, satisfied One of the most popular competitive strategies today is customers, and reduced costs.
Reengineering is the fundamental 2. BPR combines a strategy of promoting business complicate their Information Technology environment. It is innovation with a strategy of making major improvements to our belief that Information Technology should not and does business processes so that a company can become a much not need to be complicated. We believe organizations should stronger and more successful competitor in the marketplace. This clear throughout the organization.
Are they taking too much time to complete? Is the quality of the outcome being compromised? In reality, block, there is no chance of success.
Finally, the characteristics of IT itself have an influence on the decisions taken by organizations regarding its use. Company strategies and operations must be able to handle business pressures by offering the organizational responses necessary to ensure their success or at least their survival in the new business environment. Market pressures, competition, customers, technology and other such things demand responses from organizations, process improvements, alliances and strategic systems, etc.
The responses also change the market, by altering the pressures, regulations, social responsibility, ethical aspects and other issues. Individuals become more demanding and more dependent on the use of IT.
This situation also tends to influence to a large degree the characteristics of these individuals as professionals and consumers. IT also obeys the dynamic of pressures and responses. The market, organizations and individuals demand that the technology be developed and used to resolve their problems and to offer the innovation necessary for creating new opportunities. At the same time IT offers a great degree of functionality and a large number of innovations that the organizations and individuals can or cannot assimilate, although both assimilation and refusal to assimilate bring risks.
This dynamic allowed for the rise of the digital environment. The perspectives of this environment are directed towards broad access to the Internet, both by companies and by individuals, through the convergence and integration of the means used in this environment Albertin, b.
Information Technology Use in Organizations The use of IT has to be understood according to the perspective, vision and value that the organization has for this technology and which define the level of use and innovation offered by this use. The challenge for companies is how to determine the degree of transformation they will accept and what will be its contribution to their performance.
The current perspective is that in which organizational directives supply sufficient and essential information for putting together the strategy and for the successful use of IT, at the same time that the strategy is influenced and altered by IT, which offers new opportunities for internal and external action, often in a revolutionary way Sampler, According to Devarej and Kohli , the challenge of managing and evaluating IT is becoming increasingly more complex because the investment has increased significantly.
The function of IT has been based on itself and has shown to be of strategic and business value. Calculation of operational results is often simpler, but for strategic results it is a critical measurement process for companies. The levels of business re-engineering that are IT-led include the localized exploitation of certain organizational processes, internal integration of the processes and functional areas, changes and the re-design of organizational processes, external integration with suppliers, customers and partners and alteration of the scope of the business caused by changes in the way of carrying it out processes or in its area of operation Venkatraman, Remenyi, Money and Sherwood-Smith argue that the main implication of the notion of IT value is that the real benefit from the use of IT cannot be perceived directly or as a benefit in itself.
Only when IT is integrated with other resources, especially the people directly involved with its use, can some benefit or value be guaranteed, but there is no standard way of achieving this integration. The Benefits of Information Technology in Business Performance important as the present is how it is taken advantage of in relation to business performance. Figure 1 shows these benefits and gives examples of how they are measured.
When companies identify the benefits coming from the use of IT they need to develop appropriate ways of measuring how these benefits are in fact helping business performance Atkinson, Banker, Kaplan and Young, ; Kaplan and Norton, ; Kaydos, ; Kuczmarski, ; Slack, According to Kaydos , achieving maximized performance is a question of balancing actions and not merely the optimization of a single variable.
The success of the company depends as much on internal as external variables, and this interaction leads the company to deal in a more appropriate way with its critical success factors. The key performance factors, or measures, can have various dimensions according to the specification of the company. Company performance can certainly be measured using several dimensions Venkatraman, ; Murphy Business performance, according to the Balanced Scorecard model Kaplan and Norton, can also be understood as having four perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes and learning and growth.
The use of IT must directly contribute to business performance and therefore be measured for its contribution to and dependence on these perspectives, this being one of the challenges of IT administration. Rockart used the critical success factor concept as the basis for putting together a method for defining management information.
This use has three aspects: 1 if a factor is considered critical, it must receive the due attention and investment; 2 if a factor is considered critical and receives the attention and investment, it must be accompanied by information that allows it to be controlled, the consequent corrective actions taken and improvements made.
Veen-Dirks and Wijn argue that in the strategic control system based on the critical success factor method the critical factors are derived from the market and the company mission, and that it is impossible for them to be automatically managed. This method describes the critical business processes and identifies critical control variables. The Balanced Scorecard is not considered appropriate for strategic control, because it does not supply information about it.
This situation is the basis for creating the relationship between the critical success factors and the Balanced Scorecard perspectives, thereby allowing for the implementation of the strategies. Organizations need to evaluate their strategies taking as a basis this more formal system of strategic control, which brings together the advantages of the two models. The challenges can be understood by the critical success factors of IT administration, associated with the functions of this administration.
In the Planning function these factors include the support of top management, strategic alignment, the prioritization and the estimation processes relating to IT; in the Organization function, organizational structure and participation in the organization; in the Personnel function, social and political aspects and new technologies; in the Management function, IT management; in the Control function, control of the performance and quality of IT products and services Albertin, a.
Considering the technical and social aspects of IT administration, Albertin and Moura identified the support of top management as one of the main critical success factors of this administration.
This support by top management should include its participation, involvement, management style, communication, support and commitment. The relationship of top management with the administration of IT is a determining factor in the quality of IT planning, the IT vision, strategic alignment, the prioritization process, the management process, the relationship between the IT area and the organization, and political aspects and commitment.
The principal executives have different attitudes in relation to IT that are consistent with their involvement and knowledge of how to manage this technology.
Schein identifies four typical attitudes of CEOs Chief Executive Officer in relation to the use of IT: 1 skeptical delegating skeptics ; 2 dependent information dependent service managers ; 3 involved hands on adopters ; and 4 positive the positively focused. According to this institute, IT Governance is defined as a structure of relationships and processes for directing and controlling the company to achieve its goals by adding value while it weighs up the risks against the investments in IT and its processes COBIT, The IT governance model has four basic administration processes.
These are: planning and organization, acquisition and implementation, delivery and support and control. The start of this cycle is information about the objectives and strategies and the resources necessary for carrying out these activities.
A way of identifying the attitude of executives, both those from the business area and from IT, is to identify their degree of maturity in relation to the administration of this technology, by using the analogy of the Capability Maturity Model as defined by Humphrey , as presented in COBIT : 0 - nothing; 1- incidental; 2- repeatable but intuitive; 3 — defined; 4- managed and measured; and 5- optimized. According to Yin there are three basic conditions for choosing the research strategy, regardless of whether the purpose is exploratory, descriptive or explanatory, and even if the frontier between strategies like experiments, field research, file analysis, historical and case studies are not clearly and well-defined.
Conditions include the type of basic research question, the extension of control that the researcher has over the behavioral events and the degree of emphasis given to contemporary events as opposed to historical events. The questions in this research such as , control over behavioral events there is no control and the emphasis on contemporary events evolution and current situation are in accordance with the field research strategy.
The sample used in this research project was made up of one hundred companies from various sectors - service, industry and commerce. The questionnaires were validated in a pre-test situation with approximately 8 participants in each group, CIOs and CEOs, allowing us to confirm the validity of their structure, the construction of the questions and the appropriateness of the terms used, always respecting the criteria for this methodology. Cooper and Schindler, The analysis was based on the main concepts of quantitative research, fully described on the original research report Albertin and Moura, The Benefits of Information Technology in Business Performance The replies were discussed and validated in workshops with all the respondents in four sessions, two with all of the business executives and two with all of the IT executives.
In the first sessions we discussed the questions and the responses and if the components covered the necessary aspects. In the second session we discussed and validated the results. Dimensions of the Use of Information Technology Organizations use information and communication technologies in various ways, thereby seeking operational and strategic benefits. The uses can be classified starting from the application of these technologies in specific company processes, internal integration of the processes and functional areas to external integration with suppliers, customers and partners and the use of public information infrastructure and communication to do business in the digital environment.
The business benefits offered by IT, in order to have real value, must contribute to business performance. With this focus, the executives evaluated which were the most significant perspectives of business performance for companies and which relied most heavily on IT.
The evaluation points to the customer, learning and knowledge, and financial perspectives as those that best represent business performance. However, the internal processes perspective is the one that most depends on IT in the perception of the executives, especially CEOs, as Graph 1 shows. Besides evaluating the dependence on IT the executives also indicated which of the benefits offered by IT in fact contribute to business performance.
Graph 2 shows that, according to the CEOs and CIOs, the productivity increase achieved by using this technology is the benefit that most contributed to business performance, even if it is still small in comparison to its contribution potential. For the CEOs the increase in quality is also significant and for the CIOs the reduction in costs also contributes, but to a lesser extent.
This situation allows us to make at least three points; IT is little used in comparison with its potential; not all the benefits of its use are wanted or valued; and the benefits taken advantage of in the context of business performance are more focused on operational aspects and those that are more easily used and measured. These points reinforce the importance of perfecting our knowledge of these dimensions and their relationships so that better decisions regarding the use of IT can be taken.
The CEOs and CIOs reckon that the four components of IT administration are important and have an influence on business performance, with planning and organization, acquisition and implementation and product and service delivery and support being evaluated in a very similar way. In the perception of the executives acquisition and implementation is a little better performed than the other functions, but not in any significant way. Control stands out as being evaluated with the lowest indices.
With regard to their importance, there is still a relative equilibrium between the three components already mentioned, but we can see a subtle increase in the perception of the importance of planning and organization and delivery and support on the part of CEOs, while CIOs attribute greater importance to acquisition and implementation.
There is also equilibrium in the evaluation with regard to the influence of the functions of IT administration on business performance, with delivery and support standing out slightly, as can be seen in Graph 3. Control Delivery and Support Acquisition and Implementation Planning and Organization 0,0 1,0 2,0 3,0 4,0 5,0 CEO CIO Graph 3 — Influence of the Components of IT Administration This situation is consistent with the perception that all the benefits are available, but the increase in productivity, because of its more operational relationship, contributes in a more significant way to operational performance.
The Benefits of Information Technology in Business Performance support are seen as more important for company processes, because of their dependence on IT. Planning, which includes strategic alignment and future vision, is more related to the innovation benefit, which is still not so widely used in business performance. Finally the role played by CEOs and by CIOs themselves, as represented by their attitude to IT and their participation in business and IT administration, is very relevant, since they define the benefits the company perceives and takes advantage of, as well as guaranteeing the contribution they can make to business performance and its actual measurement.
Graphs 4 and 5 show the attitude of the business executives and their participation in IT administration respectively, according to the perception of the two types of executive. While CEOs consider themselves to be involved with IT administration, the CIOs see them as dependent; despite believing in IT they do not actually participate in its administration and this tends to prejudice the planning, alignment and other processes. This situation emphasizes the difference in perception of the two types of executive that can have an influence on the vision that both have about IT, which tends to create conflict.
The Benefits of Information Technology in Business Performance The same happens in relation to the participation of CEOs in IT administration, showing clearly that while they perceive their participation as intense and well-defined, IT executives feel keenly about a more effective participation of these same executives. Just as important as analyzing if the perceptions that executives have of their roles coincide or not, is to analyze that, in addition to the difference in their perceptions, the participation of executives can and should be more intense and effective.
This participation defines the vision that the company has of the benefits of the use of IT, and which must guide its use, both for the evolution and revolution of business practices. It also defines the contribution and measures of the benefits of business performance. Therefore participation must be defined and carried out in the IT administration planning and control processes, which defines the maturity of the company in this area. It needs to be emphasized that this influence is more critical and conflicting when those who are in the main positions of responsibility as far as the business and IT areas are concerned have perceptions of this important dimension of the organizational model that are so different, which underlines the importance and contribution of this work.
Using the structure Information Technology and the Organization Albertin e Moura, , Figure 2 shows the consolidation of all the information obtained in the research and makes the relationship with the theory developed for analysis by this research. Therefore, the awareness of the importance of IT for the organization is a fact practically absorbed. The Benefits of Information Technology in Business Performance The lack of understanding and communication between the two areas being studied is what still creates possible differences between the expectations of both parties.
With regard to the CIOs the perception of the need for the CEOs to participate in a more active way in IT decisions in organizations was heavily emphasized, both in the responses and with the work during the workshops. They are increasingly conscious that IT for the sake of IT is not the way for the organization to be successful and furthermore, with information architecture everyday more integrated the exchange of information between IT and the organization becomes absolutely essential.
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