Lisa F. Seymour

Web access for IT staff: a developing world perspective on web abuse

– The purpose of this research is to address increasing levels of web misuse, high internet costs and decisions regarding restricting web access, this research set out to identify factors that contribute to positive web use or reduce web misuse in the work environment., – The theory of planned behaviour has been used in previous research to investigate factors that contribute to web abuse in the workplace. These factors, potential demographic factors that could impact web abuse as well as factors that make the advantages of the web possible were surveyed amongst information technology (IT) professionals in the Western Cape IT sector in 2004. The 94 responses were then analysed quantitatively., – Results showed that higher levels of web access increased perceptions of information literacy and information access. None of the subjective norm or attitudinal antecedents showed significant support for reducing web abuse. Interestingly, close managerial supervision displayed significance by increasing web abuse. Demographic factors of firm size, number of years internet use, age and profession showed significance in predicting web abuse., – Attitudinal factors such as playfulness, self‐efficacy and internet addiction were not included in this study and could be useful in future research. Many factors followed the expected trends but failed to show significance, a larger and more diverse sample size could have improved the results., – The research findings are of interest to practitioners trying to manage web abuse and are also relevant in the context of high cost internet access and low bandwidth prevalent in many developing countries.

Towards an Understanding of the Business Process Analyst: An Analysis of Competencies.

The increase in adoption of business process management (BPM) and service oriented architecture (SOA) has created a high demand for qualified professionals with a plethora of skills. However, despite the growing amount of literature available on the topics of BPM and SOA, little research has been conducted around developing a detailed list of competencies required for SOA and BPM professionals. According to Gartner’s 2011 predictions, by 2014 there will be a growing emphasis on process-related skills and competencies to create competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the required competencies of the business process analyst. The new business process analyst role is seen as indispensable to the success of BPM and SOA projects. This qualitative research used data collected through semi-structured interviews and through subsequent thematic analysis; a business process analyst competency framework emerged. The findings show that the business analyst competencies form a foundation for the business process analyst role. Even more than the business analyst role, the business process analyst requires strong interpersonal competencies and strengths as well as both left brain (statistical) and right brain (emotional) thinking. Business and organisational knowledge is seen as important while technical competencies were considered the least important. Although this research is positioned in South Africa, where the availability of skills is a major challenge facing the establishment of the business process analyst role, the resultant framework should be useful for any information systems educators designing curriculum for this new role and for organisations hoping to employ these professionals.

ERP Software as Service (SaaS): Factors Affecting Adoption in South Africa

Within the cloud computing hype, ERP SaaS is receiving more focus from ERP vendors such as ERP market leader SAP announcing SAP by Design, their new ERP SaaS solution. SaaS is a new approach to deliver software and has had proven success with CRM systems such as Salesforce.com. The appeal of SaaS is driven by amongst other things, lower Total Cost of Ownership and faster implementation periods. However, the rate at which ERP SaaS is being adopted is low in comparison to other SaaS applications such as CRM or Human Resource systems. Hence the need to establish the reasons for this low adoption. Consequently the purpose of this research was to determine barriers that affect the adoption of ERP SaaS in South Africa. Using interviews and qualitative data analysis, this study developed a model that explains the factors that affect the adoption of ERP SaaS. Network limitations, customisation, security and cost concerns were raised as dominant factors affecting the adoption of ERP SaaS. The research concludes by suggesting that over time the adoption of ERP SaaS should increase as the technology matures.

Towards a framework for the adoption of business intelligence in public sector organisations: the case of South Africa

This paper investigates adoption of Business Intelligence in the public sector of developing countries, particularly South Africa. The status of service delivery in South Africa is seen as a situation of concern. The South African government operates a Performance Management System to enable service delivery and Business Intelligence is seen as a supporting technology. Through a synthesis of an assessment model and review of Business Intelligence and South African public sector literature, the study derives a framework that allows for identification of factors that might affect Business Intelligence adoption into public sector organisations.

Towards a BPM Success Model: An Analysis in South African Financial Services Organisations

The improvement of business processes has recently emerged as one of the top business priorities for IT, and Business Process Management (BPM) is currently being seen as the best way to deliver process improvements. This research explores the enablers of BPM success, expanding on the Rosemann, de Bruin and Power theoretical BPM success model [1]. Qualitative research was conducted in four South African Financial Services Organisations with developing BPM capability. The research identified multiple success enablers categorised around Strategy, Culture, People / Resources, Governance, Methods and IT. Correlation between these factors was proposed and BPM, process and business success defined. Poor understanding of BPM within the participating organisations was found as well as insufficient supporting IT resources. It was found that the benefits of BPM investment had not yet been realised, which, increased the threat of funding being withdrawn.

SaaS ERP Adoption Intent: Explaining the South African SME Perspective

This interpretive research study explores intention to adopt SaaS ERP software within South African SMEs. Semi-structured interviews with participants from different industry sectors were performed and seven multidimensional factors emerged explaining the current reluctance to adoption. While, improved IT reliability and perceived cost reduction were seem as benefits they were dominated by other reasons. Reluctance to adopt was attributed to systems performance and availability risk; sunk cost and satisfaction with existing systems; data security risk; loss of control and lack of vendor trust; and finally functionality fit and customization limitations. The findings provide new insights into the slow SaaS ERP adoption in South Africa and provide empirically supported data to guide future research efforts. Findings can be used by SaaS vendors to address perceived shortcomings of SaaS ERP software.

Towards a model for user adoption of enterprise systems in SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises are seen to be the future of emerging economies and the driving force in the global economy. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have recently been developed for this sector but their successful implementation is a challenge. One of the major factors contributing to this challenge is user adoption. This paper presents an overview of user adoption constraints affecting two medium sized South African organisations when adopting an ERP system. Two qualitative in-depth case studies were analysed using the grounded theory method. The 11 direct and 3 indirect user adoption constraints identified were categorized under organisational conditions, facilitating conditions, implementation actions, system expectations and system perceptions. User communication was the dominant constraint and was found to be influenced by organisational culture and reseller value. Many conditions and experiences were found to be distinct from previous research typically performed in large organisations in developed economies. It is hoped that the model presented will be able to assist SMEs within emerging economies in improving the success of their ERP implementations.

Enterprise Resource Planning Business Case Considerations: A Review for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Previous studies have estimated the failure rate of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations to be between 40 to 60%. This high failure rate also extends to ERP adoption by Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. The failure rate is concerning since SMEs contribute to the development of many nations. It is known that the quality of a business case has a profound effect on the outcome of an investment. Hence, stronger business cases would increase the success of IT implementations. Yet, there is a lack of research or guidance for SME on preparing business cases. As a first step in addressing this concern, this study aimed to integrate various business case elements from the academic literature, distilling a set of considerations which SMEs adopting ERP systems can use to develop realistic business cases. The study uses a general inductive approach to analyse the academic literature as a secondary data source. The review looks at the broad area of IT business cases reviewing in more detail ERP business cases at one side of the spectrum and SME IT business cases on the other extreme. The final result is a description and a summary of categorised business case considerations for SMEs adopting an ERP system. The practical contribution of the paper is that SMEs adopting ERP systems may use the proposed framework to build realistic business cases, thereby increasing their chances of implementing ERP systems successfully. Secondly, the study lays a foundation for further research on business case considerations for SMEs adopting ERP systems and the subsequent confirmation of the proposed framework to support the development of better business cases.

An RFID Adoption Framework: A Container Supply Chain Analysis

While the benefits of RFID (radio frequency identification) in supply chains have had extensive press, publicised cases showing poor returns on investment and a relative lack of research into its adoption has left organisations feeling uncertain about the challenges to be managed when assessing RFID adoption. This qualitative study in the South African port community refines and extends an RFID adoption framework and provides insight into the factors potentially affecting the adoption of this new technology as well as the probability of adoption in that community. Four new factors not previously mentioned in research were identified: related initiatives; the integrated structure of the industry; organisational dominance with the supply chain and the supply chain culture. An argument for their validity within the RFID adoption framework is presented. The research reveals that cost, the absence of a universally-adopted standard and the supply chain culture are currently the major setbacks to RFID adoption in the South African port community.

A review of enterprise content management (ECM): Growth and maturation of ECM from the year 2001 to 2011

Managing information and content in organisations can be a challenging task hence the implementation of the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems. ECM can be classified as integrated approach to information management. The ECM concept has received much attention from the practitioners and vendors perspective but ECM research is still an emerging field in Information Systems (IS) research. ECM research is approximately more than one decade but it only received little consideration from scholars and a lot of attention from industries. This paper will provide an in-depth review of the ECM literature mainly its implementation and the benefits associated with it. When looking at the four ECM dimensions, research indicates that the majority of the literature focuses on content mainly on the information and system views. However, ECM research still lacks consistency and well accepted definitions as it is a concept that is still evolving. Most of the literature consists of case studies and most frequent contribution in field studies with a promising trend towards contributing theory. This is a comprehensive analysis of the ECM literature across a number of sources and offers an important insight about the directions of the ECM research.