Symposium on Applications and the Internet, IEEE Computer Society, Mike Papazoglou and Katsuyuki Yamazaki (Eds), pp. 362-365, 2005.
Web Services as a tool for Information Systems Effectiveness Rim Faiz, Sami Mahfoudhi, Khaled Mellouli LARODEC, IHEC de Carthage, 2016 Carthage –Présidence, Tunisia
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
systems effectiveness. Then in section 3 we will demonstrate how IT managers could use Web services to align IT with organizational components then assuring its effectiveness.
Abstract Web Services provide a platform for application integration across the net. It’s an important set of standards for application integration. Thus integrating different applications help aligning different component of information systems in organizations, Web services are then an important tool to improve the Information Technology effectiveness and payback in organizations by adapting the new application implemented to current information system instead of rebuilding a new one.
2. Information Technology Alignment a key Factor for Information Systems Effectiveness Previous research presented as the Organizational Alignment Framework (Mann and Rohatgi 1998) shows the importance of the alignment and the synchronization of different components of an organization for the purpose of high business performance. The framework demonstrates that an organization is made up of many components including its culture, structure, technology, etc. The organizational alignment framework presented two level of environment that influence how components inside the organization are aligned. The macroenvironment: “represents those entities which influence the organization as a whole over the long run. For example, a turbulent industry may influence the organization to change its strategy or structure.” (Mann and Rohatgi, 1998).
1. Introduction The Information Technology (IT) industry is representing a global $1.4 trillion marketplace, when implementing new IT used to be viewed as an automatic positive impact on business performance, the question now is how to measure the IT effectiveness or its real impact on organizations? How the managers could justify new IT implementation in term of return on investment? Especially in developing countries where organizations face a real lack of funds problem and where IT is supposed to be a major tool of development. The problem of IT payback and effectiveness is becoming more and more important as the IT industry expands. The objective of our research is to show the role that could be played by technology itself to assure IT effectiveness by using Web Services technology. Our research is based on the Organizational Alignment framework (Mann and Rohatgi 1998) which states the importance of IT alignment with the other organizational components for the purpose of realizing high performance. In the next section, we will demonstrate how IT alignment could be an important factor for information
© 2005 IEEE
The microenvironment: “influences the individuals and groups within the organization on a sustained basis (ex: individual customers and vendors)”. The micro and macro-environment influence: “Therefore the external environment of an organization has a big influence on different components of an organization at the macro level, such as its structure and strategy, as well as, departmental and individual
362
components (work groups, jobs, tools) at the microlevel.”
the times unwillingness to use the technology or simply a misuse. This resistance is usually caused by the non alignment of IT with many organizational components such a computer illiteracy of the IT users who will fail to understand the system then they will resist using it afraid of losing their jobs (Mahfoudhi and Mann 2004). Another example is the design of system and especially the user interface which is usually too complicated. Also, the system could be wrongly chosen or built then it’s not aligned with the organization needs. Another possible situation is when the new IT component is not integrated with the old system. Therefore managers inside these organizations will face one of two choices, either to influence or educate the users to start reacting with the technology and they can wait to get no results especially in case of user’s computer illiteracy, or to simply rebuild the systems which will cause more expenses with a usually limited budget situation and with no guaranty of positive response. Usually the IT managers make a lot of effort on how to succeed in getting the user involvement in building or simply using IT to assure its payback, in our research we will try to show how the technology itself could help in this issue without the rebuilding option. Instead of rebuilding the information systems, alternative that every body is trying to avoid, the managers do have another solution in technology itself by simply adapting the systems to the users which will align IT with the organization environment. Web services as a new technology is the perfect tool so far that we could use in this purpose.
The environment of a developing nation includes socio-economic issues at both the macro and micro levels that must be addressed when implementing IT (King, et al., 1994). Normative policies of the government (macroenvironment) and regulatory agencies (microenvironment) along with market conditions (macroenvironment) and consumer behavior (microenvironment) are important factors that organizations in developing nations must be cognizant of during alignment efforts that involve IT. These organizational components need to be working in a synchronized fashion so that the whole organization can move in the same direction. High performance is often prevented because one or more components are working at cross-purposes. Therefore before new implementation can occur IT should be aligned with other organizational components in order to be effective. Thus, our research will invoke as a major concern when transferring IT into an organization, especially in a developing nation, aligning it with all different organizational components to ensure that the technology chosen effectively supports the other components. This issue has important ramifications for the governments of developing nations. If the government of a developing nation wants to improve the ability of a domestic firm to successfully align IT to the other organizational components, then it is important for the nation to understand how the environment impacts IT choices that a firm makes. Then the environment of an organization includes socio-economic issues at both the macro and micro levels that must be addressed when implementing IT (King, et al., 1994). Most importantly, technology transfer must produce real success rather than the appearance of success but failure as the reality (Mahfoudhi and Mann 2004). Several authors have identified misalignments as a problem when IT is implemented in developing nations (Yahya, 1993; Nidumolu, et al. 1996; Mockler, et al., 1999) but none have examined risk from an alignment perspective. The risk is nothing but a complete usefulness of the technology then a payback failure. One of the most common misalignments of technology inside organization is the non adaptation of one or more IT component with users who fail to positively react with new systems due to many cultural and socio-economic factors. Therefore it’s very common to find a major user resistance inside organizations to different IT component when they are not aligned with socio-economic and especially cultural environment. One of the major aspects of this resistance is the non adaptation of the user interfaces to the users themselves which causes most of
© 2005 IEEE
3. Web Services as a tool for Information Technology Alignment Web services are internet-based applications that can seamlessly communicate with one another, an important set of standards for application integration. Interactions between different applications can follow a single set of standards that removes any difficulties and limitations that may occur from trying to get different technologies talking to each other. The term Web services describes a standardized way of integrating web-based applications using the XML (Extensible Markup Language), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web services description language) and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) open standards, over an Internet protocol backbone. XML is used to tag the data, SOAP is used to transfer the data, WSDL is used for describing the services available and UDDI is used for listing what services are available.
363
Unlike traditional client/server models, such as Web server/ Web page system, Web services do not provide the user with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). Web services instead share business logic, data and processes through a programmatic interface across a network. Developers can then add the web service to a GUI (such as a web page or an executable program) to offer specific functionality to users. At its core, Web services technology is quite simple; it is designed to move XML documents between service processes using standard Internet protocols. This simplicity helps Web services achieve the primary goal of interoperability. Therefore these capabilities sound a good tool to align the different component of IT in organizations. In fact Web services as a tool for application integration works by extracting information from the different applications and presenting them to the clients independently from the applications in another user interface that could be added, therefore if an application does not fit the users, a manager could use Web services to provide new interfaces for the information systems already in use, that could be simple and understandable for non-technical users in case of computer illiteracy. If an application is not integrated to the information system already in use the IT manager could also use Web services to integrate the new IT component to the system. In the other hand if the information systems installed is not totally adapted to the need of the organization like is wrongly chosen or built, we could build a new user interface without rebuilding the different applications by keeping only the useful functions without confusing the users keeping the other functions for a future use (cf. Figure 1).
Figure 1: Web Services and IT alignment
5. Conclusion The development of this issue could be in using this technology to simplify the use of IT to non technical users then this will probably help in getting the user involvement then rising the effectiveness of IT in organizations. In fact web services could be used to provide a new user interface to the same applications already in use and integrating their use in one. If an application is facing a user resistance then web services could simplify the presentation of this application to the users in the way that feet the cultural environment inside the organization. The only challenge then will be in the analysis and design effort that should be made.
6. References [1] King, J. L., et al. ’Institutional Factors in Information Technology Innovation’. Information Systems Research, 1994, 5(2), 139-169. [2] Mahfoudhi, Sami and Mann, J. E. ‘ Challenges Facing IT Payback in Developing Countries’ European & Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, 2527 July 2004, Tunis, Tunisia [3] Mann, J. and Rohatgi, M. ’A Framework for Assessing Organizational Alignment and Its Applicability to IS Function’. National Conference of the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences National Conference Proceedings. 1988.
© 2005 IEEE
364
[4] Maria Trombly ‘Web Services’ Computer World September 24 2001th. [5] Mockler, R. J., Dologite, D. G., Chen, Yu and Fang, M.Q. ’Information Technology Diffusion in Developing Countries: A Study of China’. Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 1999, 2(4), 23-40.
Administration Support: The Governates Project in Egypt’. MIS Quarterly, 1996. June, 197-224. [7] Yahya, A. H. ’On the Problems of Information Technology Management in Developing Nations’ Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Personnel Research. 1993.
[6] Nidumolu, S. R., Goodman, S. E., Vogel, D. R. and Danowitz, A. K. ‘Information Technology for Local
© 2005 IEEE
365
