Narayanasamy Ramasubbu

How information management capability influences firm performance

How do information technology capabilities contribute to firm performance? This study develops a conceptual model linking IT-enabled information management capability with three important organizational capabilities (customer management capability, process management capability, and performance management capability). We argue that these three capabilities mediate the relationship between information management capability and firm performance. We use a rare archival data set from a conglomerate business group that had adopted a model of performance excellence for organizational transformation based on the Baldrige criteria. This data set contains actual scores from high quality assessments of firms and intraorganizational units of the conglomerate, and hence provides unobtrusive measures of the key constructs to validate our conceptual model. We find that information management capability plays an important role in developing other firm capabilities for customer management, process management, and performance management. In turn, these capabilities favorably influence customer, financial, human resources, and organizational effectiveness measures of firm performance. Among key managerial implications, senior leaders must focus on creating necessary conditions for developing IT infrastructure and information management capability because they play a foundational role in building other capabilities for improved firm performance. The Baldrige model also needs some changes to more explicitly acknowledge the role and importance of information management capability so that senior leaders know where to begin in their journey toward business excellence.

Globally distributed software development project performance: an empirical analysis

Software firms are increasingly distributing their software development effort across multiple locations. In this paper we present the results of a two year field study that investigated the effects of dispersion on the productivity and quality of distributed software development. We first develop a model of distributed software development. We then use the model, along with our empirically observed data, to understand the consequences of dispersion on software project performance. Our analysis reveals that, even in high process maturity environments, a) dispersion significantly reduces development productivity and has effects on conformance quality, and b) these negative effects of dispersion can be significantly mitigated through deployment of structured software engineering processes.

Configuring global software teams: a multi-company analysis of project productivity, quality, and profits

In this paper, we examined the impact of project-level configurational choices of globally distributed software teams on project productivity, quality, and profits. Our analysis used data from 362 projects of four different firms. These projects spanned a wide range of programming languages, application domain, process choices, and development sites spread over 15 countries and 5 continents. Our analysis revealed fundamental tradeoffs in choosing configurational choices that are optimized for productivity, quality, and/or profits. In particular, achieving higher levels of productivity and quality require diametrically opposed configurational choices. In addition, creating imbalances in the expertise and personnel distribution of project teams significantly helps increase profit margins. However, a profit-oriented imbalance could also significantly affect productivity and/or quality outcomes. Analyzing these complex tradeoffs, we provide actionable managerial insights that can help software firms and their clients choose configurations that achieve desired project outcomes in globally distributed software development.

mFerio: the design and evaluation of a peer-to-peer mobile payment system

In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of a near-field communication-based mobile p2p payment application, called mFerio, that is designed to replace cash-based transactions. We first identify design criteria that payment systems should satisfy and then explain how mFerio, relative to those criteria, improves on the limitations of cash-based systems. We next describe mFerios implementation and user interface design, focusing on the balance between usability and security. Finally, we present the results of a two-phase user study, involving a total of 104 people, that shows that mFerio has low cognitive load and is also fast, accurate, and easy to use - even outperforming cash in terms of speed and cognitive load in common payment situations.

Towards governance schemes for distributed software development projects

Growth in the adoption of distributed software development business models continues to outpace the development of robust governance schemes for them. In the absence of specific well-tested governance schemes, distributed software teams continue to employ the normative process frameworks, and software engineering practices that were primarily developed in the co-located context. In this position paper, we present a possible research direction for developing and testing governance schemes specifically suited for distributed software development projects. Our proposal draws examples from our recent research initiatives and presents an actionable road map for researchers and practitioners who are working towards establishing governance schemes for distributed software teams.

The impact of process choice in high maturity environments: An empirical analysis

We present the results of a three year field study of the software development process choices made by project teams at two leading offshore vendors. In particular, we focus on the performance implications of project teams that chose to augment structured, plan-driven processes to implement the CMM level-5 Key Process Areas (KPAs) with agile methods. Our analysis of 112 software projects reveals that the decision to augment the firm-recommended, plan-driven approach with improvised, agile methods was significantly affected by the extent of client knowledge and involvement, the newness of technology, and the project size. Furthermore this decision had a significant and mostly positive impact on project performance indicators such as reuse, rework, defect density, and productivity

The Digital Wallet: Opportunities and Prototypes

Example digital wallet applications support secure P2P mobile cash transactions and alleviate point-of-sale confusion for consumers using multiple payment, discount, and loyalty cards.

Evolution of a bluetooth test application product line: a case study

In this paper, we study the decision making process involved in the five year lifecycle of a Bluetooth software product produced by a large, multi-national test and measurement firm. In this environment, customer change requests either have to be added as a standard feature in the product, or developed as a special customized version of the product. We first discuss the influential factors, such as evolving standards, market share, installed-base, and complexity, which collectively determined how the firm responded to product change requests. We then develop a predictive decision model to test the collective impact of these factors on determining whether to standardize or customize a customers change request. Finally, we develop and test a customization cost estimation model, for use by software product teams, which specifically accounts for factors unique to the customization stage of a product lifecycle.