A framework for developing Web information systems ...

Information & Management 38 (2001) 385±408

A framework for developing Web information systems plans: illustration with Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. Somendra Panta,*, Hyun Taek Simb, Cheng Hsuc a

School Of Business, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699-3750, USA b SDS Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea c Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA Received 9 September 1999; accepted 10 January 2000

Abstract Internet technology holds many promises for enterprise information integration. Web information systems are applications that facilitate intra- and inter-®rm processes and integration of myriad enterprise information systems. However, these applications require sound planning to really tap into the unique promises of the Internet and the Web technologies and add value to the enterprise. Heavy machinery industry, typi®ed by Samsung Heavy Industries presents a good case in point. Static conventional home pages do not facilitate a manufacturer's needs of information management in its core production and business functions. Instead, dynamic Web client capabilities must be connected with real-time enterprise databases in a cohesive plan to enhance integration of business processes. Planning of Web information systems needs a proactive review of the capabilities of the Internet technology to serve the particular needs of a ®rm and its customers. In this paper we describe the application of a generic Web information systems (WIS) planning framework to the construction equipment division of Samsung Heavy Industries of Korea to enhance its core business. The framework is rooted in economic principles that are shown to be the drivers of modern WIS. Further, the framework is applied to the task of developing a strategic plan of WIS for the marketing and service activities of the construction equipment division of the ®rm. The planning process is shown to cover most of the systems development life cycle from high level information goal setting to design of Internet-based new order managing and service part requisition sub-systems. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Web information systems; Value chain; Re-engineering; Strategic information systems planning; Information economics

1. Introduction Web information systems are computer applications that leverage intra- and inter-®rm process and systems integration. Considering the growth and strategic importance of e-business, while it is important for organizations to carefully plan for and architect *

Corresponding author. Tel.: ‡1-315-268-7728; fax: ‡1-315-268-3810. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Pant).

e-business systems, none of the existing information systems planning models are adequate for the task. A few years ago, the Construction Equipment Division of Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) launched a business process redesign project with the objective of improving business processes using the available information technology. Although the initial project did not focus on Internet and the Web technologies, the company subsequently moved to refocus the project by incorporating these new technologies. We collaborated with Samsung in this project to develop

0378-7206/01/$ ± see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 2 0 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 7 8 - 1

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a Web information systems (WIS) plan for the Construction Equipment Division of SHI. When the collaboration started, we were involved in developing a framework and a methodology for planning WIS. The underlying motivation for our research was that the existing information systems planning frameworks and methodologies were considered highly inadequate and out-of-date even for planning non-Web-based information systems of the 1990s. While employing those frameworks and methodologies for the task of WIS planning, additional problems surface because WIS have certain characteristics that are quite different from traditional information systems. For example, ubiquity, open architecture, and scalability of the Web platform allows these systems to be highly integrated within an enterprise, across an extended enterprise, as well as provide an opportunity to enterprise customers to interact with the system in unique and powerful ways. SHI became one of the cases where we employed our framework and the WIS planning methodology to generate systems plans. Both, the planning framework and the plan developed for SHI are described in this paper. In Section 2 we review the existing information systems planning methodologies and discuss why they are inadequate for planning WIS. In Section 3 we discuss the theoretical and the conceptual background of our planning framework that establishes its suitability as a method for planning WIS vis-aÁ-vis other frameworks and methodologies. In Section 4 we describe our planning framework. In Section 5 we discuss the SHI process re-design project while in Section 6 the actual plan derived by using our methodology is described. We conclude the paper in Section 7 with a discussion of the ®ndings of our study and its implications for research and practice. 2. Review of information systems planning methodologies Over the past few years, role of information systems in organizations has undergone a sea change. While information systems in 1960s and 1970s were used as tools for data processing, in the 1980s their role evolved to that of systems that supported managers' needs to take better decisions. The 1990s saw the role

of information systems change to ``strategic'', i.e. systems that support business goals of organizations and help to create competitive advantage. This phenomenon of information systems as agents of organizational competitive advantage received a big boost in the second half of the 1990s when Web-based information systems started enabling the current rage of ecommerce and e-business. One classi®cation of the evolution of information systems is found in Applegate [1], who classi®es information systems into four eras, namely, Mainframe, Minicomputer, Distributed, and the Ubiquitous era. Ward [43] has also classi®ed information systems as Data Processing Era (1960s), Management Information Systems Era (1970s and 1980s) and the Strategic Information Systems Era (1990s and beyond). The strategic information systems planning (SISP) literature is a response to the broadening of the old scope. [3,4,30,34,35,43]. This literature addresses IS planning issues of the eras up to the distributed era of information systems, but does not discuss the issues pertinent to IS planning in the current ubiquitous era which relies predominantly on WIS. The SISP literature also classi®es IS planning methodologies into impact and alignment methodologies [42]. Impact methodologies focus on the potential impact of information technology on organizational tasks and processes and use this as the basis to identify opportunities for deploying information systems. Alignment methodologies, on the other hand, focus on aligning the information systems plans and priorities with organizational strategy and business goals. Value chain analysis helps in identifying key valueadding processes that could be made more effective using information technology. As a planning methodology value chain analysis is too abstract as it neither provide speci®c guidelines for designing an information architecture nor does it provide guidelines for systems development and implementation. Moreover, over the past years, there has been a shift in the ®rms from thinking about value chains to value hubs. The earlier value chain perspective is being replaced by a ``hub-centric'' model that is followed by e-marketplaces. Reasons for this shift in thinking are: the competitive pressures to respond to a direct selling and customization strategy initiated by companies like Dell, and the maturation of the Internet and related

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technologies that enable such hubs. Consequently, the applicability of the original value chain model for WIS planning is limited. Popular alignment methodologies include critical success factors, business systems planning (BSP) from IBM, strategic systems planing, information engineering and method/1. Critical success factors [38] methodology focuses on identifying key information needs of senior executives and building information systems around those key needs. Here too, the emphasis on senior management's information requirements is based on the earlier organizational control model where the role of information was to enable better decision making. However, the role of information in modern organizations is not merely for decision making but for coordination and control of ¯ow of goods and services, and in a few cases, information is marketed as a good itself. This reduces the usefulness of this methodology for WIS planning. BSP combines top-down planning with bottom-up implementation and focuses on a ®rm's business processes to derive data needs and classes. Similarly, strategic systems planning methodology stresses functional area analysis to identify the data architecture which is then used to design information systems. Information engineering provides techniques for building enterprise, data, and process methodologies. These methodologies are combined to form a comprehensive knowledge base that is used to create and maintain information systems. Experience of organizations suggest that these methodologies tend to be too detailed, time consuming, and expensive [31]. The roots of these methodologies can be traced to systems development practices of the 1980s. Since then new paradigms such as component based development have come into use. These paradigms place lesser emphasis on building applications from scratch and stress a factory approach of assembling pre-packaged components to create application systems. Hence, organizations often ®nd methodologies such as BSP too rigid and unsuitable for the short development cycle times that prevail in WIS applications development. Moreover, WIS planning requires addressing how diverse systems and platforms will be integrated to meet organizational requirements. The alignment methodologies fail to explicitly address such integration issues because they are from an era when organizations

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created their own information systems and crossplatform integration was not a primary need. In Table 1 we summarize salient features of these planning methodologies and identify their shortcoming when applied to the context of WIS planning. A few authors have advanced some frameworks in the recent years that speci®cally address the issues related to WIS. For example, the industry framework for e-commerce of Kalakota and Whinston [27] identi®es the signi®cance of technologies in e-commerce. The hierarchical framework of e-commerce by Zwass [45] offers an e-commerce architecture with three meta levels of infrastructure, services, and products. While the Kalakota and Whinston framework supports e-commerce technology planning, the Zwass model focuses on supporting a ®rm's understanding of e-commerce environments. Raghunathan and Madey [37] have developed a ®rm-level framework for e-commerce from an information systems perspective. The focus of their model is on aligning e-commerce information systems to business and information systems strategies. None of these frameworks focus adequately on the question that we think is seminal to WIS planning, i.e. the role of the Internet technologies as agents of enterprise integration. Another framework that we studied is from Gnaho and Larcher [14]. Their approach is focussed more on Web site engineering and does not address the issue of WIS at the level of systems planning. Similarly, Powell [36] addresses the issue of Web site engineering and do not focus on WIS planning. For a WIS to be successful, the planning framework needs to look beyond traditional organizational boundaries and address the visions of extended and information-integrated enterprises. The question of IS planning is important to ®rms, as borne out by the fact that survey after survey, how to align information strategy with corporate strategy has remained the number one concern of managers. In a survey of 213 CEOs, Kearney [28] reported that IT related issues top the CEO agenda, ahead of issues such as product quality, quality staff, and customer orientation. At the same time, in seminar after seminar, how to explore new information technology to create new business opportunities has also become a serious question corporate leaders and chief executive of®cers ask [19]. Many studies have attempted to respond to the former, using a traditional perspective

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Table 1 Information systems planning frameworks Salient features

Inadequacy for WIS planning

Value chain analysis

A form of business activity analysis. Helps in devising information systems which increase profit. Concentrates on value-adding business activities Used for identifying key information needs of an organization and its managers

Does not define a systems architecture. Has limited applicability for e-business planning Does not define a systems architecture. Is outdated. Ignores value-adding aspects of information systems. Has limited applicability for e-business planning All four methodologies, BSP, SSP, IE, and Method/1 suffer from the following disadvantages: outdated. Focussed on internal data processing needs of firms. Focussed on building proprietary information systems. Fail to address systems integration issues

Critical success factors BSP

Combines top-down planning with bottom-up implementation. Focuses on business processes. Data needs and data classes are derived from business processes

Strategic systems planing

A business functional model is defined by analyzing major functional areas of a business. Data architecture is derived from the business function model. The data architecture is used to identify new systems and their implementation schedules Provides techniques for building enterprise, data, and process models. These models are combined to form a comprehensive knowledge base that is used to create and maintain information systems A layered approach: top layer is methodology, middle layer is techniques supporting methodology and the bottom layer has tools supporting techniques. Techniques supported: DFD, matrix analysis, functional decomposition, focus groups and Delphi studies. Supported by CASE tool FOUNDATION

Information engineering Method/1

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Framework

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that business strategy pushes information strategy; but very few addressed the latter issue of using information technology to create new business opportunities since it requires a radically different perspective. The new perspective recognizes new information technology as a driver pushing business opportunities and visions and, hence, the strategy. This ``push'' view calls for a prescriptive reference model for strategic planning that is based on the promises of the new capabilities of the Internet technologies. Details of our planning framework are the subject of the next section. 3. Conceptual background for WIS planning framework In this section we discuss conceptual background for our WIS planning framework. Additionally, we make a case for the superiority of this framework for WIS planning vis-aÁ-vis other frameworks discussed in Section 2. As discussed in the previous section, starting around 1993, since the Internet as World Wide Web became exceedingly popular, a new concept in information systems has emerged, that of WIS. These WIS basically entail employing the Internet technology and the capabilities of a Web browser to create systems for enabling enterprise applications. This use of the Webbased applications to manage information is a substantial improvement over traditional information systems and conventional uses of the Web technologies. This is so because Web technologies being ubiquitous and highly scaleable, Web-based applications have the potential to substantially expand the scope and the opportunities of an enterprise [11,13,15,25,32,37, 41,44,45]. In a survey of the 100 companies in the use of information technology, a third of the 100 respondents say they use the Internet in 10±25% of their business critical applications [8]. This is an impressive ®gure for the use of the Internet as a platform for developing business applications. It has also been suggested that WIS have the potential to cause a fundamental change in an organization's business strategy, with an accompanying change in business processes [44]. Hence, since the WIS have the potential to integrate diverse information systems and re-engineer business processes in an organization, these systems can be a potent strategic weapon for the

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organization. The key in planning WIS is to combine the unique promises of the Internet technology with traditional information strategies and use them to pursue enterprise objectives in an integrated and enlarged information space by removing constraints imposed by diverse computing platforms, networks, and applications. This concept has been discussed by a number of authors, especially in practitioners' forums [6,25,29]. Some other authors have discussed how the Internet and the Web technologies can be employed in certain speci®c areas like manufacturing [16,18]. 3.1. Theoretical foundations Theoretical underpinnings of our planning framework come from a few economic theories that deal with the role of information and information systems in a ®rm's products, services, and processes. Transaction cost theory explains the economics of information and information systems. The originator of this theory, Ronald Coase argued that contrary to assumptions that transactions through exchange mechanisms are homogeneous, real-life transactions are more complex and involve transaction costs [40]. A key concept in production is the ®rm, which is an economic institution that transforms factors of production into consumer goods and services. The ®rm operates within a market, but it is also a negation of the market in the sense that it replaces the market coordination with coordination through explicit command and control. How an economy operates and which activities are organized through markets and which activities are organized through ®rms, depends upon various transaction costs involved. Markets reduce transaction costs as people dealing through market mechanisms neither need to negotiate and enforce individual contracts nor do they need to acquire and process information about alternatives. Generally, the less organized the market, the higher the transaction costs. The second theoretical underpinning for our framework comes from the economic concept of network effects. This effect explains how the value of a product or service increases as the number of users of the product or the service increase. Metcalf stated this law as ``the usefulness, or utility, of a network equals the square of the number of users'' [11,40]. For example, the more the number of people who use a software, a

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network, a standard, a game, a book, or a Web site, the more valuable it becomes, and, in turn, more new users it attracts. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that more the number of people, machines, and networks that interact with one another through a WIS, the higher will be its value. In general, a higher value will be achieved by WIS that create linkages with business partners, suppliers, and customers. Information is an agent of coordination and control and along with material and other resource ¯ows, information ¯ows must also be handled effectively in any organization. Organization structures, distribution channels and supply chains are traditionally optimized to simultaneously handle both resource ¯ows and information ¯ows. For example, distribution outlets are designed for delivery of both product information and the physical product being sold. Economists contend that there are some fundamental ways in which information differs from other organizational resources and those differences form the basis of some of the emerging WIS models [12,40]. Separation of the informational component of a business provides opportunities to turn information into a product or service. Information can be sold for pro®t or given away for free (in lieu of some other bene®t) and the economics of such business models are very attractive due to some unique characteristics of information products like nearly zero marginal cost to reproduce and distribute information. In summary, the economics of WIS suggest that the information management needs of ®rms should be shaped by business needs to integrate processes, exchange information in a timely manner, and create positive network effects. From the above economic arguments we derive some guiding principles for setting WIS goals. Three basic principles are recognized for effecting a Web of competitive advantages through an enterprise WIS. The three principles are: the extended enterprise principle, the customer information services principle and the information integration principle [20±22]. We now elaborate on these principles. 3.2. Extended enterprise principle This principle corroborates with the positive in¯uence of network effect possible by WIS. The principle states that an integrated enterprise derives its strength

and advantage from connecting its external as well as internal constituencies and WIS are the agents of such integration. The supply chain for manufacturers and retailers, the network of health care entities, and the myriad Internet presence providers are all prime examples of extended enterprises. An extranet, conceptually, is the intranet of an extended enterprise. To be sure, every enterprise seeks to promote linkages to customers, ®nanciers, suppliers, dealers, and other partners of the business. The new corporate culture permits bold WIS visions that embrace extended enterprise as the norm [20]. Based upon our research in enterprise information integration, we identify three basic ways to plan for extended enterprise information systems, namely: (a) connecting sequential processes, (b) integrating parallel processes, and (c) creating global processes. The sequential expansion of a business enterprise entails using information systems to connect organizational processes with their counterparts in the extended enterprise. For example, consider the concept of electronic data interchange (EDI) used to automate interorganizational work¯ow for the ordering±receiving and billing±paying processes. This idea can be expanded to include other sequential processes within an extended enterprise. For example, extended supply chain integration where retailers' forecasting is fed into manufacturers' production scheduling is a good example of extending traditional organizational boundaries with the help of the Web and the Internet technologies [5,7,16,23]. Integrating parallel processes among constituent organizations entails using IS/IT to carry out enterprise tasks concurrently. Examples include sharing patient medical information and services among all medical service providers (hospitals, laboratories, and doctors' of®ces) in a health maintenance organization. A just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing systems is another example of an extended enterprise that relies on concurrency of manufacturing and procurement processes. In fact, looked from the perspective of modern IS/IT, JIT is really the production and inventory planning system for the extended enterprise that comprises the principal manufacturer and their contractors. The third approach, creating new global processes for the extended enterprise, combines these sequential and parallel expansions of organizational processes

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with new feedback loops. These feedback loops complete a functional cycle for the extended enterprise; just like the complete functional cycles that exist within an organization. For example, in the case of supply chain integration, the feedback loop can be employed to provide manufacturer's production information back to the retailer's marketing function, thereby allowing retailers to market their products more ef®ciently. It may, however, be pointed out that the concept of an extended enterprise is recursive in nature, i.e. an extended enterprise itself becomes a bounded enterprise and can and perhaps ought to be extended further (e.g. to customer's customers and to supplier's suppliers). This cascading nature of extended enterprises is a good match with the philosophy and practice of the Internet and the Web technologies that are ubiquitous and highly scalable.

banking services to include additional customer information needs which may be as far reaching as customized access to Internet service providers (ISPs) or as mundane as shareware for family education, ®nance, and investment. Another example of successful use of the Web for customer service is by the computer maker Dell. Through its popular and highly interactive Web site (www.dell.com), Dell not only allows its customers to customize their orders, but also offers free advice on purchase of equipment that would meet the customer requirements. Dell also creates intranet sites for its large customers, which are used to simplify their procurement and support processes. In this context, this principle also provides a critical justi®cation for pursuing the extended enterprise.

3.3. Customer information services principle

This principle for developing WIS derives its economic argument from the capacity of IS/IT to substantially reduce organizational transaction costs. The Web is recognized for its universal user interface, its hypertext architecture, and its ability to connect to diverse repositories of information on multiple platforms. Behind those popular features of the Web lie the powerful Internet technologies. These technologies are based on open and cross-platform standards like TCP/IP, Java, CORBA and XML. Hence it is important that WIS be recognized for their role as integrated enterprise information system [2,5,15]. For instance, an intranet can and should do more than merely connecting enterprise users to Web pages, e-mail, and the like; it should also connect the users to enterprise databases, production planning and control functions, and other operating systems of the enterprise. Therefore, the de®ning elements of WIS extend beyond static and interactive Web pages, even beyond real-time connection of home pages to isolated databases. True strategic opportunities for WIS reside in the integration (through Internet technologies) of myriad databases and other information repositories that permeate the Web-enabled extended enterprise. This integration has traditionally hinged on enterprise integration technologies like the client±server and databases. Internet and the Web technologies leverage these traditional technologies in unique and powerful ways. Also, since the Web and the Internet are

This principle has its basis in the economics of positive effects of network effects and special characteristics of information goods. It is concerned with developing systems that are oriented towards a ®rm's customers. Besides economic advantages, such systems can also be a source of competitive advantage to many ®rms as customer service is of a major strategic importance to most organizations [26]. One common motivation behind WIS is to add value to customers. All Web page developers know that one must offer some extra attractions to the Web surfers lest no one comes to their party. An electronic commerce site is usually expected to promote some free information services before it can promote its own money-making products. For example, on-line brokerage ®rms offer plenty of market analysis and portfolio management advice free of cost to its customers as well as potential customers. In this sense, successful Web sites are planned as if they were contracted by the customer. This customer perspective is precisely one principle a WIS needs to follow. It calls for developing systems, sub-systems, and functions catered to customers' own needs (in their own businesses) which might have little to do with the enterprise's indigenous operations. The notion of customers as enterprise users promises to further broaden the WIS vision. An example is Web-based banking. Banking systems catering to customers could extend the horizon of traditional

3.4. Information integration principle

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powerful information integration technologies, they can be used to combine information and work ¯ows, processes, and databases of an enterprise. Hence, redesigning the core business processes of an enterprise is a logical outcome of deploying Web-based systems. This thinking is in line with the writings of authors who recommended business process redesign and re-engineering of organizations while deploying modern IT [9,17,39]. In conclusion, our framework is based on economic principles that are acknowledged to be the basis of e-commerce and e-business activities, which themselves rely on the capabilities of Web-based information systems. Consequently, this framework is better positioned to address WIS planning issues than other frameworks described in Section 2. Next we describe our planning framework that is based upon the foregoing thinking. 4. The WIS planning framework The above three principles of WIS indicate a proactive approach to harnessing the promises of the Internet technology and driving SISP. In order to realize the full bene®ts of the Internet and Web technologies, organizations have been advised to consider a radically different view of information systems strategy; that in the area of information-intensive businesses, information technology has the potential to expand the (business) scope and opportunities, and hence lead to changes in the business strategy [32,41]. As such, a ®rm's strategy that is based on a clear understanding of the capabilities of the technology and its promises has the potential of bringing about radical changes or even paradigm shifts in businesses [11]. As described earlier, this is a ``push'' view of information technology strategy (i.e. new information technology pushes the scope of the business and its strategy) as opposed to the traditional ``pull'' view (i.e. business strategy pulls or de®nes information technology goals). The premise of our planning framework is that Web-based systems should be driven by this ``push'' view of information technology, which will substantially enhance their effectiveness and ef®ciency. This requires that strategic planning methodology for WIS be grounded in a thorough understanding of the

capabilities of the Internet and the Web technologies and their promise for effecting paradigm shifts for businesses. Our WIS planning methodology is based upon the above ``push'' view of the technology strategy and is comprised of the followings: (1) a reference model for proactive information goal setting (this reference model with its categories and sub-categories is described in Table 2), (2) an analysis of the impact of these goals on business processes, and (3) a review of requirements for Internet technology and information resources which will be employed to implement the WIS plan. This framework is implemented in practice via a detailed ®ve-stage methodology. The framework and the methodology are reviewed in Table 3. The ®ve stages are: (a) Identifying strategic WIS goals Ð nine categories of a reference model is used for generating IS goals as a starting point for WIS planning. (b) Identifying business processes in the organization Ð a technique like value chain analysis is used to chart business processes in an organization and to study linkages between those processes. (c) Redesigning business processes and prioritizing them Ð a few matrices are used to specify linkages between processes, to study the impact of goals on processes and to prioritize them. Process descriptions are written. (d) Technology requirement analysis Ð Internet technology is classi®ed into varying degrees of sophistication and processes are mapped onto the technology requirements. (e) Structured systems analysis and design based on redesigned processes Ð a structured systems analysis method like data ¯ow diagramming is combined with process descriptions and technology requirements analysis to analyze WIS. For details of the methodology, please see [33]. Starting with high level IS goals, the methodology guides a complete design of WISs. The ®ve stages of the methodology are indicative of the steps that any organization will need to take so as to implement a WIS, which makes use of the maximum capabilities of the Internet and the Web technologies. The WIS design also relies heavily on re-de®ning and re-engineering the business processes of the enterprise. In the next section we discuss the background to SHI process re-engineering project. This methodology, thus, ends up deriving WIS from the higher level goals, which themselves are rooted in the three principles of the reference model.

Table 2 Reference model categories Description

Sub-categories of IT goal

Examples

Management of external environments

The focus of IS applications under this category is on direct external applications of IT as a strategic weapon to gain competitive advantage IS under this category is oriented towards improving the production function of an enterprise, thereby enhancing its productivity (measured through cost and quality). IT is focused upon creating linkages across an enterprise to connect product, production, and part cycles, to connect information and material flows as well as administrative and production functions IS in this category is used for enterprise integration and modeling. IT is employed to expand the scope of enterprise from the traditional view into both extended enterprises and information enterprises

Providing information services to customers. Turning information services into products. Monitoring the market and customer behaviors Applying information technology to internal processes. Creating forward and feedback linkages for all cycles. Connecting administration systems with production systems

Citibank's ATM, Federal Express's Web-based package tracking system, Wells Fargo Bank's Internet-based on-line banking, American Airlines Sabre system, Yahoo! CIM, CAD, CAM, CATSCAN/MRI, Web-based virtual classrooms, Intranets, total quality management (TQM)

Thinking extended enterprise. Expanding to information enterprises. Evaluating IT on micro-economic basis

EDI, JIT, Extranet, Virtual Corporation such as Auto-by-Tel

Maximization of the internal networking of processes and resources

Transformation into three-dimensional enterprise

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Category of IT goal

393

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Table 3 A five-stage methodology for WIS planning Objective

Sub-stage

Objective

1

IS goal setting

±

2

Business process analysis

±

3

Business process redesign

3.1 3.2

Specify process linkages Study the impact of IS goals on business processes

3.3

Process description

3.4

Prioritization of processes

4

Technology requirement analysis

±

Determining appropriate level of Internet technology for each process

5

WIS design

±

Using DFD for designing WIS applications

Description In this stage a reference model is used for generating IS goals for the target organization for WIS planning. Nine categories of this reference model are used as the starting point for generating those goals Value chain analysis is used to chart business processes in an organization and to study linkages between those processes A matrix is used to specify linkages between business processes Another matrix is used to study the impact of IS goals from stage 1 onto business processes. Four types of impacts (create, modify, use-as-is and delete) are considered Business processes are categorized as `to-be' and `as-is' processes. `To-be' processes are described A matrix is used to prioritize the business processes obtained from the preceding stage with respect to IS goals from stage 1. This prioritization helps in setting up WIS planning milestones and allocation of resources Internet technology is classified into five categories of increasing capability, namely, non-Web-based, static Web pages, interactive Web pages, Web±database connectivity and Internet for enterprise integration. Each process is mapped onto the appropriate Internet capability that the process will utilize Technology requirement analysis, along with process description, is used in drawing data flow diagrams for designing WIS applications

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Stage

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5. The Samsung Heavy Industries Project SHI is a fully owned subsidiary of the Samsung Group and leads its industrial machinery business sector. The company operates the following divisions: shipbuilding and plant, industrial systems and machinery and construction equipment. Prior to the recent ®nancial crises in Asia, SHI recorded a total of 13 400 employees and annual sales of over $3.8 billion; almost half of it coming from their overseas branches. SHI has a network of 10 branch of®ces and ®ve subsidiaries in 12 countries. Construction Equipment Division of SHI is Korea's leading manufacturer of construction equipment such as excavators, loaders, dozers, hydraulic cranes, forklifts. The total number of models available exceeds 100. The company also produces cranes for use in steep and narrow terrain with a lifting capacity of 30 t. SHI produces three models of concrete pumper cars with concrete output capacities between 53 and 100 cubic meters. SHI produces the latest parts and components for heavy construction equipment in its own facilities. Some products such as cylinders, motors, valves, and pumps are exported. Furthermore, SHI sells a considerable number of the 12 000 transmissions manufactured annually to domestic and international customers. The company launched a business process re-engineering project in 1996. In their initial effort, SHI used value chain analysis as a tool for process analysis. The corporate value chain for SHI is shown in Fig. 1. This value chain has three primary and six secondary activities. The primary activities are: material processes, customer processes and customer service

Fig. 1. Corporate value chain for SHI.

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processes. Material process corresponds with inbound logistics, operations and outbound logistics activities, respectively, of a traditional value chain. customer processes describe marketing and sales activities of a typical value chain and customer service processes correspond with service activities of a value chain. The six secondary activities are organization and infrastructure, human resources, administration, evaluation processes, development processes and planning processes. The extent of SHI is its network of corporate headquarters in Seoul, Korea, two other headquarters in Europe and North America, plants in Korea and UK and branch of®ces in China, Singapore, and Australia. Besides, the company has a network of a few hundred dealers world-wide. In the next section we discuss how the WIS framework and methodology discussed in this paper were employed to derive a WIS plan for SHI. 6. The Samsung Heavy Industries case Since improving customer service is a major issue facing SHI, focus of this study was on customer and customer service processes of the ®rm. Customer service is not only con®ned to meeting customer orders for new machinery expeditiously, but also extends to providing customers with service parts with a minimum of delay. Selling service parts for existing machinery is both a lucrative business and a core competence issue with heavy machinery industry ®rms. Caterpillar delivers parts to its customers anywhere in the world on a next day basis while SHI is currently behind that benchmark. A broader aspect of customer service involves the use of the Internet and the Web technologies to reduce the product cycle time itself. An interesting case in point is the test-bed created as a part of the InfoTest project, which focussed on reducing the product cycle time for an earth moving manufacturer to 5 days [24]. In subsequent sections we detail the WIS plan for marketing and sales and service activities of the value operations at SHI. The ®ve stages of the plan correspond with the ®ve stages of the methodology described in Table 1, namely setting WIS goals, analysis of processes, business process redesign,

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technology requirement analysis, and the design of the Web-based information system. 6.1. Stage 1: WIS goals for SHI The objective here is to derive a set of WIS goals for the ®rm. We con®ne ourselves to a subset of all the goals that SHI would pursue as a part of their WIS strategy. Categories of information goals in the reference model of Hsu [21,22] are used to derive these goals for SHI. The ®rst major category of WIS goals under the planning framework is managing external environment. This category is further broken down into three sub-categories. The speci®c WIS goals determined for the ®rm under each of the sub-categories are: Provide information services to customers: 1. Provide information to customers about orders. 2. Fill customer orders for service parts. 3. Provide information to customers about new products. 4. Provide information to customers about product modification. 5. Provide geological information to customers. 6. Provide project management tool to customers. 7. Create custom intranet for customer's project. Turn information services into products: 1. Sell geological data to customers. 2. Provide project management services. 3. Provide intranet consulting. Monitor the market and customer behaviors: 1. Collect performance data about equipment sold; individual as well as fleet. 2. Collect customers' feedback on sale and service. 3. Consolidate customer information into a customer database for both service and marketing. 6.2. Stage 2: analysis of processes The total number of processes comprising the corporate value chain of SHI is around 150. Out of these 150 processes, 17 correspond directly to `marketing and sales' and `service' categories of a generic value chain. Table 4 details these processes and their purpose in the status quo business.

6.3. Stage 3: business process redesign 6.3.1. Specification of process linkages An important aspect of value chain analysis is to discover and highlight linkages between organizational processes. These linkages may even extend beyond conventional organizational boundaries. For example, linkages may exist between a supplier's value chain and a ®rm's value chain. Information technology helps organizations focus on these linkages between processes and jointly optimize them. EDI and JIT inventory management systems are examples of IT enabled exploitation of process linkage. Exploiting such linkages helps a ®rm gain competitive advantage through inventory and labor cost reduction. Similarly, concurrent engineering relies on exploiting linkages between different manufacturing processes, which, in turn, enables ®rms to carry out tasks in parallel and thereby reduce cycle times. As mentioned earlier, the actual value chain of SHI is comprised of over 150 processes. Numerous linkages exist between customer processes and manufacturing processes. We captured these linkages between these processes in the matrix of Fig. 2. Only a portion of the matrix is show here for brevity (a complete matrix is reported in [33]). 6.3.2. Impact of goals on processes An important constituent of this stage, which is concerned with process redesign, is the matrix that speci®es the impact of IS goals on processes. This impact can be any of the following: a goal creates (C) some processes (processes need to be created to meet those goals), modi®es (M) some process (delete or change them) or use (U) them as they are. In the SHI case this impact matrix obtained is shown in Fig. 3. Only a part of the large matrix is shown for brevity (a complete matrix is reported in [33]). In sum, in the case of SHI, IS goals impact processes by necessitating creation of ®ve new processes, modifying eight and using the rest 11 as they are. A description of these new and modi®ed processes is given in the next section. 6.3.3. Process descriptions Five processes that need to be created and eight processes that need to be modi®ed are described in Table 5. Purpose of this description is to understand

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397

Table 4 Marketing and sales and service processes for SHI Processes 1.0 Customer processes 1.1 Manage orders 1.1.1 Receive order inquiry

1.1.2 Bid orders 1.1.3 Book orders 1.1.4 Confirm delivery 1.2 Verify availability 1.2.1 Review inventory plan 1.2.2 Decide alternatives 1.2.3 Propose allocation rules 1.3 Prepare daily schedule 1.3.1 Schedule shipping 1.3.2 Schedule manufacturing 1.4 Track orders 1.4.1 Monitor orders processed 1.4.2 Follow sales delivered 2.0 Customer service processes 2.1 Manage service part

2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.1.6

Process service part request Receive service part Ship service part Control service part inventory Return wrong service part Transform manufacturing part to service part

Scenario: An inquiry is received through phone/ FAX from a customer, dealer, or a branch about a new product, or for changing or canceling an existing order. This order is entered on an order sheet and the order is evaluated in terms of the price that needs to be quoted for the product and the product's delivery date. Product is checked for availability and the delivery date promised to the customer updates the manufacturing schedule

These processes provide linkage between customer and manufacturing processes mentioned in the above scenario These processes are used to analyze the gap between planned and actual order fulfillment, review alternatives to customer change requests, check product delivery status, and deal with customer claims after delivery of the product Main processes comprising after sale service are concerned with providing service part to customers on time. It might happen that at a given time there is a demand for a service part which is not available but can be taken out of an existing new machinery without disturbing any schedules. The last process deals with such a change of part status

these processes fully. This stage also helps in the task of designing WIS applications. 6.3.4. Prioritization of processes In this stage we prioritize business processes of the preceding stages with reference to IS goals of stage 1. This prioritization helps in setting up WIS implementation milestones and allocation of resources. A value on a scale of 1±10 is assigned to IS goals of stage 1 according to their impact on business objectives as judged by the top decision maker; 1 denoting that the particular IS goal has the least priority for the ®rm while 10 denotes highest priority. A generic

table that describes this process is shown in Fig. 4. In the ®gure these values are denoted by v…1† v…n†. A weighting coef®cient on a scale of 0±4 is used to denote the relevance of a process in attaining an IS goal: 0 denoting little relevance, 4 denoting maximum relevance. In the ®gure these weighting coef®cients are denoted by w…1; 1†; w…2; 1†; w…m; n†. These weights are based upon the relevance of a particular process in realizing a particular goal. For example, w…1; 1† denotes the relevance of the process 1 in meeting IS goal 1 on a scale of 0±4. Summations of total process weights (column 2) decide process priorities.

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Fig. 2. Process linkages matrix.

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399

Fig. 2. ( Continued ).

This mapping helps in prioritizing the existing business processes in terms of their adequacy in meeting the IS goals in the light of business objectives, as well as creating new processes. The matrix is employed towards mapping IS goals to organizational processes. Value that goes in the cell at left (in a column next to the process name), is the summation of the products of the

weighting coef®cient of a process with respect to an IS goal and the value of the IS goal over all IS goals obtained in stage 1 above. This value represents the aggregate priority of a process in the WIS planning. The resulting matrix for SHI is shown in Fig. 5. Some of the processes here will be new processes which need to be created under the re-engineered system.

Fig. 3. Impact matrix (M: modify, U: use as-is).

400

Table 5 Process descriptions Modified/created

Old process description

New process description

Receive order inquiry

Modified

Order inquiry is received through an interactive Web page. Customers and dealers use their PIN and order # to inquire about the status of their order

Confirm delivery

Modified

Process service part request

Modified

Receive service part

Modified

Inquiry about orders is received from customers and dealers. Domestic customers use phone/fax to inquire about order status while dealers use the existing VAN After verifying availability of the product ordered by the customer/dealer, contract specifying the price, terms and conditions of delivery and delivery date are advised to the customer/dealer by fax or letter As in respect of an order for new equipment, domestic customers use phone/fax and dealers use VAN to request a service part This process receives the service part from the material process. As the process works now, it the service part after being received in the warehouse, is manually entered in the warehouse database before being shipped to the customer/dealer

Ship service part

Modified

Right now the part is shipped after it is received in the warehouse and entered in their database

Control service part inventory Return wrong service part

Modified

This process controls the warehouse operations

Modified

The way in which this process works right now is that a customer returns a wrong or a defective service part to the company and the process comes into effect after the service part has been received. The process returns the service part to the inventory

Transform from manufacturing part to service part

Modified

This process handles parts that were originally made for new equipment but cannot be used there. Instead those parts are used as service parts requested by customers. The process links to material processes

After verifying availability of the product ordered by the customer/dealer, contract specifying the price, terms and conditions of delivery and delivery date are advised to the customer/dealer by a dynamic Web page and/or secured e-mail This process too will be enabled through an interactive Web page. Customers and dealers will use their PIN number to access the SHIs order entry system and place their orders on-line In the modified process the manufacturing, warehouse and customer order databases will be integrated. Manufacturing will shift the service part to the warehouse, which will automatically update their database, the part will be shipped to the customer and the customer advised of the shipment by a dynamic Web page and/or secured e-mail. The order status will be integrated with a Web page that the customer/dealer will be able to access using their PIN and order # In the modified process, shipping will take place without any additional delay. The process of intimating customers/dealers about details of shipment will also be modified as above The modification will integrate warehouse database with manufacturing and order databases The modified process will work similar to the ordering process. Customers will be able to use a Web page to fill in their complain about a defective part. The Web page will also help as an on-line help to customers. If customer's problems cannot be resolved by offering help to them and the customer must return the part, then this process will automatically link to process service part request process Ð customers request to return the part will automatically become their request for a replacement part. This will reduce the time to service customers and will also make it easier for them to get a replacement The modified process will call for integration of manufacturing, service part and warehouse databases

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Process

New

±

Provide geological data

New

±

Provide project mgmt tool

New

±

Create intranet for customer project

New

±

Obtain feedback from customers

New

±

This process is used to provide information to customers about the company's existing, forthcoming and modified products. Non-Web-based counterpart of this process is to print catalogs and newsletters and mail them to customers and potential customers Since the products of the company are used mainly in construction (earth moving) activities, the company might consider providing geological data to its customers, either free of charge, or for a fee. This can be accomplished through either general Web pages or through Web pages created specifically for a customer This process focuses on providing some project management tool(s) to SHI customers to enable them to better manage their projects. Such a tool can either be distributed for free through the firm's Web site or can even be sold as a separate product The purpose of this process is to provide something useful to customers Ð an intranet to manage their project and at the same time reduce transaction costs for SHI by enabling their interaction with customers and their project through the Internet After connecting its customers and dealers through the Internet and the World Wide Web, SHI can conveniently collect feedback from customers and dealers about their products and service

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Provide product information

401

402

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Fig. 4. Prioritization matrix (generic).

A portion of the detailed prioritization matrix constructed for SHI is shown in Fig. 5 (a complete matrix is reported in [33]). In the ®gure, the `manage order' process is involved in meeting three goals, provide information about orders, provide information about new products and provide information about product modi®cation. Values assigned to these three goals (from the preceding section) are 4, 8, and 7 respectively. Weights of the process to the goals are 2, 4, and 3 respectively. Hence the process weight turns out to be 4  2 ‡ 8  4‡ 7  3 ˆ 61. Processes that emerge in the top three after completing this stage are: follow sales delivered, manage order, and monitor orders processed. 6.4. Design of Web information systems The design of particular WIS applications for customer and customer service processes of SHI was developed by using data ¯ow diagrams. The data ¯ow diagram shown in Fig. 6 depicts the redesigned `manage orders' sub-process of the customer processes. Other diagrams are similar in nature and are omitted for the sake of brevity. 6.5. The resulting WIS plan The WIS planning framework has been applied in full in the above process, from generating new

information goals down to structured information systems analysis. The plan generated 12 goals for the WIS, analyzed their impact on business processes (Fig. 3), and produced a corresponding WIS information requirement model (the DFD of Fig. 6). For the ensuing design tasks, a new WIS is developed to facilitate the new ``manage order'' process according to the model. The customer is a user of the WIS. The following scenario shows a part of this notion of an extended enterprise through the WIS. S/he uses the client software provided by the SHI. The potential customer is presented with the product catalog (D1) on the Web. The potential customer can assemble the machinery that he desires by selecting different parts. S/he is guided by a Java applet that SHI provides to con®gure the order correctly. For instance, the customer will ®ll in the city/country where the machinery is required to be delivered as well as the date by which the machinery is required. This information is fed to the bidding process along with a system-generated customer ID number. Based on the customer input, a price and delivery date for the requested product is generated and presented to the customer through a dynamically generated Web page. If the customer accepts the offer, an order is generated which sends an invoice to the customer through a dynamic Web page and/or secured e-mail. The customer has the option of paying on-line through the secured server of SHI or through an on-line bank. After the payment is con®rmed, the order is

403

Fig. 5. Prioritization matrix for SHI.

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404

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Fig. 6. Data flow diagram (manage orders).

released, and the shipment # is returned to the customer. At the same time the customer order is entered in the database of the local dealer for the customer. A similar scenario can be developed for a sister process of ``manage after sales service'' where the customer interacts with technical support engineers. This plan focuses attention on the following issues for a Web-enabled ``manage order'' process: 1. Need to not only provide product catalog on-line, but also make the catalog itself interactive, thereby providing customers an option to configure the machinery they require. This can be done through Java applets. Furthermore, customer information services related to machinery and on-line help (such as diagnosis, service requests, and fleet comparison) for after sales services are strongly recommended. All these applications require an integration of multiple databases as well as connection of databases with active Web pages. Issues related to WIS performance will have to be looked into concerning the bandwidth, number of servers, and the optimization of Java applets.

2. Order database (D2) shown in the DFD (Fig. 6) is a big and active database that needs to be completely integrated with the Web pages. In SHI, this is an Oracle database, running on UNIX machines. Oracle Web server is a possible solution for connecting this database to the WIS. Linking this database to after sales services and other enterprise databases using CORBA/Java middleware is recommended. 3. One major concern in the above implementation is the security of data exchanged over the public Internet. Security of data is ensured in part by advising the customers of the results of bidding of orders through a secured server. Invoice generated for them is also on a secured server or communicated to them through secured e-mail and so is the payment process. In case SHI decides to opt for payment through an on-line bank, additional processes will need to be created to obtain the bank's authentication. All of the above results are obtained from the application of the planning framework. Although it utilized the value chain analysis, the framework

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additionally generated information goals that were unavailable previously, and helped the analysts arrive at the appropriate systems analysis and design outcomes. All of these are uniquely integrated in the new approach and are squarely required for the development of a strategic WIS. Thus the new framework has, therefore, contributed added crucial new results to SHIs business re-engineering project over and above its previous accomplishments (which uses value chain analysis alone). The new planning framework was applied to a project that was already approved, and it was successful in generating new planning perspectives. In this study we focused our attention only on the management of external environment category of goals as SHI at the time of the study was interested in using the Internet technologies to enhance the customer and customer service processes. The other two categories of the IT goals of our framework maximization of internal networking of processes and resources and transforming into three-dimensional enterprise (please see Table 2) are also relevant to SHI and the possibilities of deploying Internet technologies for these important tasks was discussed with the Samsung consultant. For example, IS under the category framework maximization of internal networking of processes and resources is oriented towards improving the production function of an enterprise, thereby enhancing its productivity (measured through cost and quality). IT is focused upon creating linkages across an enterprise to connect product, production, and part cycles, to connect information and material ¯ows as well as administrative and production functions. SHI could use goals under this category to develop WIS applications that would link outputs of the customer processes to their manufacturing and accounting processes. This would entail creating Web interfaces between customer processes and the internal ERP systems. Similarly, IS under the category transforming into three-dimensional enterprise in our framework is concerned with creating Web-linkages between the processes of a ®rm to those of its external partners. A useful application of the WIS under this category would be for SHI to create a Web-based supply chain with its various suppliers. Such an application would entail Web-enabling the supply chain management applications like demand planning, demand execution,

405

and exception handling between SHI and its suppliers. If the internal ERP systems of SHI are also Webenabled then the ef®ciency of the Web-based supply chain will be further enhanced as the outputs of supply chain management activities will directly feed into the internal production systems of the ®rm. 7. Findings and conclusions Major ®ndings of this study are that Internet technology has signi®cant promise for impacting a heavy machinery manufacturer's core business processes. This promise goes way beyond creating and employing some Web pages, instead entire applications for a manufacturing enterprise can be built using the Internet and the Web technologies. Such WIS have some unique characteristics and traditional SISP methodologies alone are insuf®cient for planning new WIS. A new framework based upon the capabilities of the Internet technologies is employed towards developing WIS plans that help a ®rm maximize its return on the new technologies. The resulting plan developed for SHI is shown to have the potential for enhancing the customer order processing for the ®rm. A particularly signi®cant contribution of the new planning methodology is the `impact matrix' of Fig. 3. This matrix shows how the goals set for the SHI WIS will affect the business processes of the ®rm. Based on our analysis, we have recommended that SHI will bene®t from creating ®ve new processes and modifying eight of the existing processes. Detailed process speci®cations have been written for these 13 processes. Data ¯ow diagram for `manage orders' of Fig. 6 describes and details some of the requirement of the Internet technology for SHI. Additionally, the ``push'' view of developing IT plans is shown to have imparted an additional strategic perspective to the plan. In the SHI case, a plan with approved business redesign project was already in place using traditional strategic planning methods. The new planning framework is demonstrated to have been able to open up new possibilities for the project and produce new goals that SHI deems promising and signi®cant. The study has further demonstrated the usefulness of the reference model of Hsu as a tool for information goal setting; 10 additional goals generated for SHI demonstrates how the impetus for

406

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business process redesign can come from the technology capability itself. The framework developed in our research and as deployed in the case of SHI, adds to IS research and practice. Paucity of validated planning models makes it dif®cult to provide guidelines for practice in an area of vital importance to e-businesses. While a few e-BSP models have been put forth in recent years, each of these models, described in Section 2, has its weaknesses. For example, the industry framework for e-business of Kalakota and Whinston [27] is a broadbased framework that examines the signi®cance of technologies in e-business. The focus of this framework is to explain e-commerce technologies and their capabilities. The framework lacks suf®cient details to serve as a tool for WIS architecture planning. Similarly, the Zwass framework [45] is a general-purpose model focussed on the nature of e-commerce infrastructure, services, and products. This framework also fails to address the concerns and requirements of information systems architecture planners. While the Raghunathan and Madey [37] framework focuses on the information architecture for e-commerce and is useful in aligning e-commerce information systems to business needs, it fails to adequately address how the overall architecture of WIS should be planned and designed. Further, the framework proposed in this research is built on a few economic theories that are enshrined in the three principles of the reference model. Researchers are encouraged to critically evaluate the three principles identi®ed here and in the process re®ne the proposed framework. Another area of future research is to develop the economics of WIS in a more quantitative fashion and come up with criteria and models for ®nancial evaluation and justi®cation of such systems. Considering the fact that signi®cant resources are being invested in creating WIS, such a research could have considerable signi®cance for practitioners. While there are economic arguments for creating WIS that are well integrated internally and with external partners, in practice there are many challenges involved in integrating diverse systems. A number of such problems have been discussed in the Delphi exercise of IT practitioners conducted in the December of 1999 [10]. It will be worthwhile to research the speci®c challenges and problems that

organizations face in integrating their ERP, procurement, customer relationship, supply chain, legacy, and other applications by using a Web interface. Besides being a research contribution, our framework also has signi®cance for practitioners. Firms undertaking the task of WIS architecture planning can use our framework in the manner outlined for SHI. References [1] L.M. Applegate, Managing in an information age: IT challenges and opportunities, Harvard Business School Case Series, Case 9-196-004, 1995. [2] S. Baker, V. Cahill, P. Nixon, Bridging boundaries: CORBA in perspective, IEEE Internet Computing (1997). [3] C.M. Beath, W. Orlikowski, The contradictory structure of systems development methodologies: deconstructing the ISuser relationship in information engineering, Information Systems Research 5 (4), 1994, pp. 350±377. [4] F. Bergeron, C. Buteau, L. Raymond, Identification of strategic information systems opportunities: applying and comparing two methodologies, MIS Quarterly 15 (1), 1991, pp. 89±101. [5] ComputerWorld, Java, CORBA to link up, March 24, 1997, pp. 1, 121. [6] ComputerWorld, Wed to the Web, March 31, 1997, pp. 53± 54. [7] ComputerWorld, Sharing IS secrets, September 23, 1996. [8] ComputerWorld, Premier 100 Ð making dollars and sense out of the Internet, November 16, 1998, pp. 40±42. [9] T.H. Davenport, J.E. Short, The new industrial engineering: information technology and business process redesign, Sloan Management Review 31 (4), 1990, pp. 11±27. [10] Delphi Group, e-active: how leading edge of e-businesses are transforming themselves and their industries, 1999. www.delphigroup.com. [11] L. Downes, M. Chunka, Killer App., Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 1998. [12] P.B. Evans, T.S. Wurster, Strategy and the new economics of information, Harvard Business Review 75 (5), 1997, pp. 71± 82. [13] E. Evans, D. Rogers, Using Java applets and CORBA for multi-user distributed applications, IEEE Internet Computing (1997). [14] C. Gnaho, F. Larcher, A methodological framework for the analysis and design of adaptive Web-based information systems, in: Proceedings of the AMCIS Conference, Milwaukee, 1999, pp. 874±876. [15] R.J. Gulsheko, J.M. Tenenbaum, B. Meltzer, An XML framework for agent-based e-commerce, Communications of the ACM 42 (3), 1999, pp. 106±116. [16] Hameri, Ari-Pekka, J. Nihitila, Distributed new product development project based on Internet and World Wide

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Somendra Pant is the Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems (MIS) at Clarkson University School of Business in Potsdam, NY. Dr. Pant received his PhD in MIS from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY. His research interests are in the area of Web-based information systems and strategic planning for business uses of the Internet. He is also interested in research in the areas of enterprise resources planning (ERP) and enterprise information integration. He has published papers in Computer Networks and ISDN Systems Journal, the International Journal of Operations and Production Management, the Information Resource Management Journal and the Journal of Logistics Information Management. He has also co-authored a book Innovative Planning for Electronic Commerce and Enterprises: a Reference Model published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. In the past, he has held various managerial positions in the banking industry, and has been involved in large-scale computerization of banking. Hyun Taek Sim is a senior consultant at Samsung Data Systems Co., Ltd., Seoul, Korea and has been involved in many business process redesign projects with the Samsung Group of Industries. Dr. Sim was a resident visiting scholar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY in 1996±1997 and was a leader in the SHI business process re-engineering effort at the time of his visit to Rensselaer.

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Cheng Hsu is currently a professor at Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, and a co-founder of Enter Net, Inc. He has written extensively on electronic commerce. His publications include the books of Innovative Planning for Electronic Commerce and Enterprises: a Reference Model and Enterprise Integration and Modeling. He is also the guest editor of the SMC Transactions Part A's Special Issue on Electronic Commerce, July 2000. His research in the

Information Technology field has originated the Two-Stage EntityRelationship model for data and knowledge systems development, the Metadatabase model for enterprise integration, and the Visual Information Universe model for information visualization. His research papers have appeared in a number of scholarly journals published by the IEEE, ACM, SME, TIMS and several other professional societies. Dr. Hsu has been the principal investigator for a number of projects funded by industry and government. He has received research grants from such industrial sponsors as Alcoa, Digital, General Electric, General Motors, IBM, and Samsung, as well as from the National Science Foundation, Army, and New York State.