IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM: SOCIOTECHNICAL IMPACTS. José Devair Gonçales - Leads S/A - São Bernardo do Campo City – SP/BR
[email protected] Antonio José Balloni - CenPRA/MCT – Campinas – SP/BR –
[email protected]
Abstract. this work presents the sociothecnical aspects regarding the resistances against the implantation of an Integrated Information System (IIS). The main factor presented is related to the human being factor i.e., the worker resistance to the implantation of an information system: when the technology is against their own conveniences the workers do not follow the CEO/CFO/CIO procedures and decision making involving the organization: an politic and technical aspects are then took into consideration. Key-words: Information system implantation, sociothecnical, resistance, integrated system, information technology. RESUMO. este trabalho apresenta os aspectos sociotécnicos com relação às resistência contra a implantação de um Sistema Integrado de Gestão (SIG). O fator principal apresentado é relacionado ao "fator humano", ou seja, a resistência do usuário contra a Implantação de um SIG: quando a tecnologia implantada for contra as conveniências dos usuários estes não seguem os procedimentos e tomadas de decisão organizacional dos CEO/CFO/CIO. Neste caso, aspectos técnicos e políticos são levados em consideração. Palavras chaves: Implantação de um sistema de informação, sistemas sóciotécnicos, resistências, sistemas integrado de gestão, tecnologia de informação I. INTRODUCTION. The Implementation of an Integrated Information System (IIS) not always bring the expected results. As in a global economy an CEO needs to make decisions in real time, then a constant flow and access of information from anywhere and anytime is needed. Therefore, it is impossible to neglect the importance of an implantation of an information system in the process of Business Management and the use of computer technology with a good organizational and database infrastructure.
There are several predefined prerequisites to be followed for the implantation of an information system and, yet, many implantation of an information system are not achieving the desired success. Why? Which factors affect this success? Before going in depth in the subject, the Table I presents some experimental results observed during the implantation of several information system in our organization.
Table I. Implantation of an Integrated Information Systems and Sociotechnical Concerns Observed. INFORMATION SYSTEM IMPLANTATION Industrial Automation MRP-II (Manufacturing Resource Planning) – refers to the manufacturing automation process ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) – refers to the interdependence of the information. Information System and Organization are mutually interdependent CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – refers to the customer relationship.
SOCIOTECHCNICAL CONCERNS OBSERVED Reduction of labor. Syndicate Problems. The efficiency of the production and the problems with the managerial evaluation of the factory Transparency in the administration of the intermediary management. Inefficiency of the operation showed up
Empiric process eliminated. Incomes don't happen at random i.e., they don't depend on the personal quality: depend on the quality of the information BPM (Business Process Management) Manager connected online with the numbers – refers to activities performed by businesses of the business operations i.e., there is not to optimize and adapt their processes, any personal interference of the intermediary manager
We can see from this Table I that the main factor for the failure in the implantation of an information system is the “human being factor” i.e., the user/employee resistance against the implantation of an information system: the technology is against their own conveniences and this user/employee (from any functional area) do not follow the “number for work” generated by the implantation of an Integrated Information System, and tries to work with their own and/or convenient “work numbers”. Table I shows these sociotechnical concerns.
To emphasize the argument “work number” in the last paragraph, lets mention an American Philosopher. In his book “Por que mentimos – Os Fundamentos Biológicos e Psicológicos da mentira” (Why we Lie? The biological and psychological fundamentals), ref. [01] this philosopher defends the theory that human being are programmed to deceive i.e., human being when facing a hard reality or simply a reality that doesn’t fits in his ego, he seeks to mask the truth for the preservation of his own comfort: his “work numbers” are the accurate ones! And we believe that here is the essence of the organizational sociotechnical behavior.
II. WHY DO COMPANIES IMPLEMENT NA INTEGRATED INFORMATION SYSTEM? We could go on discussing this topic for hours, talking about the times before the use of computers up to the present time trying to justify and answering the question. But, briefly we could say that it is widely recognized that information systems knowledge is essential for managers because most organizations need information systems to survive and prosper, ref. [02]. Information systems can help companies extend their reach to faraway locations, offer new products and services, reshape jobs and work flows, and perhaps profoundly change the way they conduct business. What matters for this work is that the Information Systems have evolved over time and has been improved with the creation of the new management processes and mainly with the evolution of the technology. Example are: the increasingly data storage capacity, the capability for processing vast amount of data and most important, the generation of information in real time: where, how and for what you need!. In short, [03] over time, information systems have come to play a larger role in the life of organizations. Early systems brought about largely technical changes that were relatively easy to accomplish. Later systems affected managerial control and behavior and subsequently "core" institutional activities. Today information systems extend far beyond the boundaries of the firm to encompass vendors, customers, and even competitors. All these, together, collaborates to increase the sociotechnical concerns we are discussing about, see Table I. Finally, these advances in the Integrated Information System (IIS) has increased the interdependence between organizations and information systems. To mention, in Table I we have the experimental observation about “...Transparency in the administration of the intermediary management. Inefficiency of the operation showed up ...” People use information system to help their organization to be more productive and profitable, to help their firm gain competitive advantage, to reach more customers, partners or even competitors or to improve service to the customers their organization serves, ref. [03]. This holds true for all types of organizations, and, today, there is a growing interdependence between organizational business strategy, rules, and procedures and the
organization's information systems. Therefore, changes in strategy, rules, and procedures increasingly require changes in hardware, software, databases, and telecommunications: again, all these, together, collaborates to increase the sociotechnical concerns, see Table I. An existing systems can act as a constraint on organizations but, if we do not have any system implanted, then the implantation of one generates the sociothecnical aspects: in a Sociotechnical perspective, the performance of a information system is optimized when both the technology and the organization (peoples, SOP and politic) are mutually adjust to one another until a satisfactory fit is obtained [02]. Often, what the organization would like to do depends on what its systems will permit it to do i.e., today implantation of an information system has a huge processing capability, guaranteeing the control of the organizational process and the proper information coherence. Therefore, points of strategic control (work numbers) are previously programmed and parameterized allowing the accuracy of the information. As an example we could mention the following controls: Raw material “X” is applied in the amount 2X in a production line.. 1. Based on these simple parameters the implantation of an information system controls the information about sourcing (purchasing of products or services from external suppliers), the cost for the finished products etc. 2. Based on the data from the Manufacture like the time of setup for the final production and others information from the operational level, then the information system can present for you the capability of firm production and also informing the manager about the production efficiency. These are some “work numbers” presented by the Integrated Information System Implanted and THESE numbers are not anymore on the control of the workers/users: they are now follower of these work number and not generators: Sociotechnical concerns emerging... . Today, implantation of an information system receives the information directly from its operational level: data are automatically fed from lower level of the organization (such as operational level) to higher levels (such as strategic or managerial level), where the decisions are make: full information system integration inside the organization. The information about production flows automatically, electronically, from the machine or process without the need for a manual data input: again, the user/worker aren’t anymore the carrier of the information for decision making – see table I. The information regarding how many telephone callings were answered in a Call Center - Customer Service (based on a CRM: Customer Relationship Management), at the Call Center of Sales, etc., are obtained directly from the telephony (PBX) and is, again, independent of manual input. This independence in the information registration is what guarantees the high precision in the information: removes the “human being factor” and its intrinsic bottlenecks like occurs in several sectors such as human being attendance in a call center, calls do not answered and even periods of peaks of work (overflow), etc We can also mention about an Information System for Sales and Marketing. In the sales process it is possible through parameter analysis such
as RFM – Recency, Frequency and Money -, generate the information with a high degree of precision informing us about what are the power of purchase from a customer... . Finally, as extensively mentioned (see also Table I), the implementation of an information system the users/employee resistance is the main focus. During the implantation of an information system, for example, a CRM (Table I), was observed a strong rejection by the users from the functional area of Sales and Marketing. Several employees were removed from their position after the CRM implantation. Those professionals were responsible for organization Statistics of Sales and Relationship. Their function was primarily to manually generate a monthly report with the RFM parameters, totalized by region and groups of products. With those information our MKT could do the best relationship (Relationship is for the company the tonic of management). All these works were accomplished manually (a high data base volume) and, once the CRM was implanted, those manual work (high volume of data processing) were replaced by an automated system (CRM). Because of this automatization all decision making would be faster and much more effectiveness: human being are now apart from “ what is going on”: they have to follow number – the work numbers: sociotechnical concern, as observed. Reflections: Thinking about the evolution in the implantation of an information system (the CRM), we get to three important conclusions: •
The CRM is tool for centralized information and points of control: this centralized decision making has been rejected by the staff in the organization – sociotechnical concerns, as observed and showed in Table I;
•
CRM has an automated data input. This avoids the user for having previous analyses and important information from the organization: users will abort the implementation of new system since they feel as having “ no value” for the organization; previously they were used to spread sheet – sociotechnical concern.
•
Predictive Analysis of Information: again the implantation of an information system generates a centralized view of the data and information: before the implantation of an information system the users knew what was on going in the organization. Now? Will they feel as no having more importance for the organization? How do we generate the proper consciousness-raising about in order to guarantee that the are yet very important for and that the quality of their work/knowledgment is, indeed, very important (see table I)?
III - CONCLUSION Information System indeed brings high degree of confidentiality for the information it provides. The businessman may take real time decisions and is secure that these information are not human being corrupted: the is now
centralized and, the users/employee has also a “work number” to be followed. On the other side this generates resistance to the implantation of news information systems and the sociotechnical connected, table I. To minimize the user resistance against a implantation of an information system the CEO or the decision makers of the company must be creative and, at the same time take a executive decision: this was the real situation presented in this work, see Table I. Furthermore, as observed the user always tries to prove that the new system implanted is incomplete i.e., the users tries to continue to work based on their outdated and personal spreadsheet. To solve this problem a decision making from a organizational, politic and technical point of view must be placed in action. Therefore, coming back to the American Philosopher all we have to say is: too much precise information may shock a van people/manager then, the word of order is “let’s work on the numbers”, “work numbers” seems to be much more reasonable. References. [01] – SMITH, David Livingstone - “Por que mentimos – Os Fundamentos Biológicos e Psicológicos da mentira” – Edit. Campus/Elsevier,2005 [02] - BALLONI, Antonio José - “Por que GESITI” – Por que Gestão em Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação” - Ed. KOMEDI, 2006 [03] – LAUDON, Kenneth C. at al – MIS – Managin The Digital Firm, 9thed, Prentice Hall, 2006.
