Tridas Mukhopadhyay

Information Technologies and Business Value: An Analytic and Empirical Investigation

An important management question today is whether the anticipated economic benefits of Information Technology IT are being realized. In this paper, we consider this problem to be measurement related, and propose and test a new process-oriented methodology for ex post measurement to audit IT impacts on a strategic business unit SBU or profit centers performance. The IT impacts on a given SBU are measured relative to a group of SBUs in the industry. The methodology involves a two-stage analysis of intermediate and higher level output variables that also accounts for industry and economy wide exogenous variables for tracing and measuring IT contributions. The data for testing the proposed model were obtained from SBUs in the manufacturing sector. Our results show significant positive impacts of IT at the intermediate level. The theoretical contribution of the study is a methodology that attempts to circumvent some of the measurement problems in this domain. It also provides a practical management tool to address the question of why or why not certain IT impacts occur. Additionally, through its process orientation, the suggested approach highlights key variables that may require managerial attention and subsequent action.

Business value of information technology: a study of electronic data interchange

A great deal of controversy exists about the impact of information technology on firm performance. While some authors have reported positive impacts, others have found negative or no impacts. This study focuses on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) technology. Many of the problems in this line of research are over-come in this study by conducting a careful analysis of the performance data of the past decade gathered from the assembly centers of Chrysler Corporation. This study estimates the dollar benefits of improved information exchanges between Chrysler and its suppliers that result from using EDI. After controlling for variations in operational complexity arising from mix, volume, parts complexity, model, and engineering changes, the savings per vehicle that result from improved information exchanges are estimated to be about

Strategic and Operational Benefits of Electronic Integration in B2B Procurement Processes

60. Including the additional savings from electronic document preparation and transmission, the total benefits of EDI per vehicle amount to over

Contracts in Offshore Software Development: An Empirical Analysis

100. System wide, this translates to annual savings of

Interdependent benefits from interorganizational systems: opportunities for business partner reengineering

220 million for the company.

The HomeNet field trial of residential Internet services

Our goal is to assess the strategic and operational benefits of electronic integration for industrial procurement. We conduct a field study with an industrial supplier and examine the drivers of performance of the procurement process. Our research quantifies both the operational and strategic impacts of electronic integration in a B2B procurement environment for a supplier. Additionally, we show that the customer also obtains substantial benefits from efficient procurement transaction processing. We isolate the performance impact of technology choice and ordering processes on both the trading partners. A significant finding is that the supplier derives large strategic benefits when the customer initiates the system and the supplier enhances the systems capabilities. With respect to operational benefits, we find that when suppliers have advanced electronic linkages, the order-processing system significantly increases benefits to both parties.

Examining the feasibility of a case-based reasoning model for software effort estimation

We study the determinants of contract choice in offshore software development projects and examine how the choice of contract and other factors in the project affect project profits accruing to the software vendor. Using data collected on 93 offshore projects from a leading Indian software vendor, we provide evidence that specific vendor-, client-, and project-related characteristics such as requirement uncertainty, project team size, and resource shortage significantly explain contract choice in these projects. Our analysis suggests that contract choice significantly determines project profit. Additionally, some ex ante vendor-, client-, and project-related characteristics known at the time of choosing the contract continue to significantly influence project profits after controlling for contract choice. We also provide evidence to show that project duration and team size affect project profits.

The role of software processes and communication in offshore software development

Managing the growth of interorganizational systems (IOS), such as electronic data interchange (EDI), and the adoption decisions of trading partners have become major concerns for network managers. The fact that IOS are shared by separate trading partners means that the benefits from IOS are both unequal and interdependent. Therefore, how trading partners implement and use the system internally may directly affect the original firms benefit. In order to maximize benefits from IOS, we propose that firms engage in business partner reengineering.We study two buyer-initiated EDI systems where the way in which trading partners internally implement the technology directly affects the level of benefit for the initiating buyer. In both cases, the buyers benefit is increased when suppliers choose to adopt an optional buyer-initiated modification to their system. However, because it is not clear how suppliers benefit from the modification, they may not have adequate incentives to make the modification. Buyers with substantial leverage over their suppliers may require trading partners to implement the system in a particular way or not be considered for future business.

Software processes and project performance

H OMENET IS AN EMPIRICAL FIELD TRIAL OF residential Internet use whose goal is to increase our knowledge about the use and impact of residential electronic services. It uses longitudinal data collection techniques to study families’ online behavior over time. This article is an early attempt to describe how ordinary citizens use the Internet and explore their motivations for doing so. The HomeNet Field Trial of Residential Internet Services R o b e r t K r a u t , W i l l i a m S c h e r l i s , T r i d a s M u k h o p a d h y a y , J a n e M a n n i n g , a n d S a r a K i e s l e r

An economic analysis of strategic information technology investments

Existing algorithmic models fail to produce accurate software development effort estimates. To address this problem, a case.based reasoning model, called Estor, was developed based on the verbal protocols of a human expert solving a set of estimation problems. Estor was then presented with 15 software effort estimation tasks. The estimates of Estor were compared to those of the expert as well as those of the function point and COCOMO estimations of the projects. The estimates generated by the human expert and Estor were more accurate and consistent than those of the function point and COCOMO methods. In fact, Estor was nearly as accurate and consistent as the expert. These results sug.