Zulkhairi Dahalin

Financial Sustainability Issues in Malaysia’s Telecentres

Telecentres plays an important role in bridging digital divide in Malaysia. A study was conducted to identify the issues of financial sustainability on 132 telecentres in Malaysia. The study focused on TCs in four regions of Malaysia Peninsular (northern, central, southern and eastern). Questionnaires were sent to the telecentres’ operators. The results prove that financial support is critical in operating and maintaining the centers. The costs incurred in running telecentres involve the costs for promotion, staff, utilities, premise renting, and training. More than 75 percent of the telecentres are operating under tight cash budget. Recommendations are given to encourage telecentre’s financial sustainability in the future.

Factors influencing IT-business strategic alignment and sustainable competitive advantage: A structural equation modelling approach

Preceding research attributed the lack of direct causal impact of Information Technology (IT) on firm’s sustainable competitive advantage. Numerous missing links include antecedents of the ITbusiness strategic alignment (also known as strategic alignment) and the sustainable competitive advantage. Furthermore, reviewers of recent literature have called for more research into the factors that affect strategic alignment, and the linkage between alignment and sustainable competitive advantage. In this paper, we develop and empirically test specific forms of management structures and processes which are required to drive strategic alignment. Further, we propose a causal-chain model to examine the impacts of six antecedents on strategic alignment. The data are collected from over 172 Jordanian public shareholding firms. Using structural equation modeling for data analysis, this study finds general support for the hypotheses that leadership, values and belief, IT managerial resources, service quality, and IT implementation successes significantly impact IT-business strategic alignment. However, no relationship is found between structure and process and strategic alignment.

Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA): Assessment of Current Practices in Malaysian Organizations

In this paper we described the findings based on a research study on current enterprise information architecture (EIA) practices in Malaysian organizations. Ten organizations from public and private sectors were chosen for case study analysis. The Zachman framework was chosen as a guideline to assess the current practice of EIA in these organizations. This study had successfully investigated the current practice and conditions of EIA in selected public and private organizations in Malaysia. The study found that majority of the organizations do practice some kind of enterprise information architecture either in-house or outsource to third parties. The study also found that certain aspects of the framework were not addressed at all, whilst other aspects that were addressed vary in terms of the different perspectives. This gives a general outlook of EIA implementation in the selected organizations, which could be incomplete or not adequately addressed. The study revealed a poor knowledge and understanding of EIA among the organizations though there had been efforts at implementing EIA focusing on the data, function and network architectures. The study discovered gaps in the current practice and provides suggestions for organizations to consciously embark on the EIA paradigm in order to better align the whole organization to its goals. Results of this study can be used by the government and private sectors to formulate new policies and guidelines on enterprise architecture so that the enterprises IT adoption and information requirements fit nicely into its business strategy

The influence of community characteristics towards telecentres success

Telecentres are physical spaces that provide public access to information and communication technology particularly the Internet for educational, personal, social, and economic development. This paper will closely look into the characteristics of the community that influence the success of telecentres. Although there are a number of influential factors in regards to community characteristics, the emphasis will be on groups and networks factor. Survey was conducted to collect data from users regarding their use of telecentres. In the questionnaire, apart from the users’ profiles, items related to the groups and networks were also included.Sampling was done based on a population comprising of telecentres implemented by state governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sectors. The findings suggest that there are some indications showing certain self belonging, as consequences to the usages of telecentres, to a group and establishing networks which can contribute to the success of telecentres.

An Enterprise Architecture Methodology for Business-IT Alignment: Adopter and Developer Perspectives

This paper proposes the use of an enterprise architecture methodology known as the Systemic Enterprise Architecture Methodology to determine the relevance of EA in addressing the business-IT alignment. A construct that characterized EA was developed based on review of the literature. A theoretical framework build upon the Systemic Enterprise Architecture Methodology (SEAM) was used based on a business-IT alignment market, in which supplier business systems compete to provide a value to an adopter business system. Data was empirically gathered based on survey respondents who are concerned with the adoption, planning and implementation of EA in their organizations. Respondents were managers and executives representing the IT and senior level management of public and private organizations in Malaysia. The data collected was then analyzed based on the following factors: (1) EA business issues; (2) EA environment; (3) EA governance; and (4) EA methods, tools and frameworks. Comparative analysis was carried out based on the four factors to examine the trend and status of EA adoption and implementation in Malaysia vis-a-vis the international scenario. Statistical analysis was used to validate the SEAM, which was found to be relevant in addressing the business-IT alignment.

Applying the triangulation approach in IT – business strategic alignment and sustainable competitive advantage

While researchers have encouraged more research on the causal chains between information technology investments and Business performance, the results of empirical studies have been inconclusive. This is partly due to the exclusion of IT-business strategic alignment. This study has examined the impact of IT-business strategic alignment antecedents in terms of leadership, structure and process, service quality, and value and belief on IT business strategic alignment in terms of alignment gap, followed by the impact of IT-business strategic alignment on sustainable competitive advantage. In order to explore the above research relationships, the study further utilizes the positivism paradigm by applying a mixed research method both quantitative and qualitative data. Such triangulation would help to provide more insight into the issues studied in this research. Particularly, this study has tested the research model by conducting 172 survey questionnaires with public shareholding firms in Jordan. After that, the study conducted several follow-up interviews in Jordan in order to further validate the research results. Thus, the results obtained from the structural equation modeling (SEM technique and supplementary qualitative analysis of the interviews offer a valuable insight into the research. However, the universal applicability of this research may be limited due to the fact that the results are based only on the cross-sectional data from the Jordanian public shareholding firms. Consequently, further research is needed with regards to several countries since this would help to advance understanding of the IT-business strategic alignment issue and the conditions and outcomes of achieving it in different contexts.

Mobile network quality of experience using big data analytics approach

Traditionally, Quality of experience is mostly examined in a laboratory experiments to enable a fixed contextual factor. While the results present an estimated mean opinion score representing perceived QoE. It is imperative to estimate mean opinion score employing large data (big data) gathered from the mobile network comprising of different users location and time for a specific service. Because time and location can have a huge influence on the user perceived quality of experience. Therefore, this paper proposed a framework for modelling perceived QoE through big data analytics. The proposed framework describes the process of estimating perceived quality of experience to assist the mobile network operators effectively manage the network performance and aid satisfactory provision of mobile internet services.

Investigation on the importance of enterprise architecture in addressing business issues

Enterprise architecture describes the principles and guidelines in governing the implementation of information, technology and business mission in organizations. The main aim of enterprise architecture is to improve the alignment between information technology strategy and business strategy. The intent of our study is to broaden and strengthen the understanding of enterprise architecture by specifically looking at the business issues. We used Systemic Enterprise Architecture Methodology (SEAM) as the foundation of the studys theoretical framework. Data was empirically gathered using questionnaire survey respondents who are concerned with the adoption, planning and implementation of EA in their organizations. A survey research method was employed involving one hundred organizations chosen at random. Descriptive and exploratory methods were used for data analysis. The findings gave us a general outlook of the EA activities in Malaysian organizations and its future directions. The study found Business and IT Alignment, and Business Change, which is also followed closely by Application Renewal as the important business issue in which enterprise architecture is required.

ICT Adoption and Value Creation: A Telecentre Ecosystem Approach

As Malaysia aspires to become a fullydeveloped country by 2020, efforts are currently underway to transform the nation into a knowledge-based society. This is one marked by ICT literacy with a diffusion of ICT infrastructure, even in remote areas and villages, and communities that embrace ICT in their everyday life. In preparation for this journey, the Malaysian government formulated a national framework to ensure equitable access and opportunity for ICT adoption across the country. The National Strategic Framework for Bridging the Digital Divide (NSF-BDD) forms part of the government transformation program to provide access to ICT in underserved communities to enable ICT adoption, which eventually will evolve into activities that can add socio-economic value to the community. The framework is a government policy that describes a nationwide strategy to address the inequality of universal access to ICT, with the aim to narrow the digital gap that exists between these communities. This framework identifies nine underserved groups that have been “digitally” marginalized. These are: youth, disabled, rural, poor, indigenous peoples, small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMME), elderly, women and children (Yogeesvaran, 2007). Abstract

Using business process re-engineering to increase process efficiency of e-catalogue distribution system

The traditional printed paper based product catalogue is restricted to customers and places, which is difficult to handle in addition to time and cost of printing, storage area and shipping. Thus, this study attempts to present the results of a business process re-engineering of a direct selling catalogue distribution that is able to eliminate such physical limitations and enable the distribution business process to become more efficient.Incorporating e-catalogue as an outcome of the business process re-engineering shows that the business process can be simplified from 32 activities to 13 activities.With this approach the percentage of process efficiency rate for business process selected has been increased dramatically from 20% up to 86% and also reduced the waiting rate from 55% to 7%.In order to rate the usefulness of the e-catalogue solution, 30 respondents from direct selling dealers were selected to test the e-catalogue prototype.The final result indicates that business process re-engineering has the capability to simplify a fairly complex manual and paper-based processes, resulting in a better, more efficient e-catalogue distribution system.