Barriers in IS/IT Implementation
In my own perspective if we talk about barrier it is the one that blocks something of its purpose or goal. For this assignment I will discuss what could be the possible barriers in implementing Information System and Information Technology in our adopted company.
We all know that in this era, computers are very essential and so as technological advancement. And as what I have said on my previous assignments IS and IT are very essential for every company’s growth. IS/IT are like brains of the company that without it an organization could not function well. Implementation of IS/IT should be a main concern of every organization specially the large ones in order achieve success. But in every action taken there comes its barriers. So I’ll discuss what would be the possible barriers on GH Office Depot as well as Davao Light and Power Company which are the companies I have adopted.
Here are some Articles I found on the net talking about barriers and problem in IS/IT Implementation
Information system planning often only plans system implementation
Enterprises make large investments to implement all kinds of resource planning, human resource, accounting, customer, logistics, manufacturing, and other information systems. The objective of many of our business change projects is information system implementation that converts existing business operations and data. When you ask anyone involved what they are doing they answer “implementing a new system” or what is their objective they answer “to get he system into operation”. Management consultants have methodologies to implement information systems. The information system implementation objective prevents the needed benefit from business change.
System implementation converts existing business problems to the new system
Is system implementation the proper objective? Does system implementation make existing business problems converted to the new system easier or harder to solve? What is the benefit of system implementation? System specification, acquisition, development, implementation, and operation are all costs and provide no benefit, per se. So we are always implementing costs with no attention to developing benefits.
We make high cost capital investments and then fail to manage the capital in operation to manage costs and the benefits and return from the utilization on the capital. Benefits from new information systems tend to be incidental in completing some work faster, gaining more accurate information, etc, rather than planning and implementing real business change and the benefits possible.
http://businesschangeforum.com/archives/43/
The Information Technology Problem
Enterprise information systems include a wide variety of systems that are laid over the business
Since the business is not organized, different management structures must by laid over the business to manage the enterprise. Information systems are another set of overlaid structures that process and report the system structure, plus overlaid organization, business process, account, administrative, cost, quality, performance, and other structures, instead of directly managing the business.
Enterprise information systems include material control, production control and manufacturing resource planning systems, supply chain and customer relationship management systems, cost and quality management, operational management information, and other systems that support revenue result management. Capital result management systems include human resource management, financial management, general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, asset management, IT architecture management, inventory, purchasing, strategic planning, executive information, and other administration systems. Investment result management systems include investment analysis and planning, project management, portfolio management, shareholder management, etc. Each system is laid over the business, rather that being utilized as a solution by the business to produce the managed revenue, capital, or investment results.
Overlaid information systems define the enterprise with different entities that must be integrated
Each of the systems defines the enterprise with different information entities creating a large information cross-referencing and integration problem. Systems manage such enterprise entities as department, center, station, responsibility, unit, function, process, object, activity, etc, instead of specific business results. The enterprise is left with a large problem to sort out the information, integrate like information, and relate information to the business. The problem is addressed to some degree by implementing an enterprise application architecture from a single vendor. Most enterprises still must make additional investments in information integration and data reconciliation systems for performance management, management and executive reporting, and strategic enterprise management. Even with all this such actual business data as result value and quality, performance costs and effectiveness, capital worth and utilization, investment utilization and return, etc cannot be captured and processed.
Business process re-engineering often creates a gap between information systems and the business
Business process re-engineering tended to create a gap between business processing and information processing. Instead of integrating the processing, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems were overlaid on the business process. The selling point was that best practices incorporated in the ERP system would automatically solve the problem. But this proved difficult to do in practice, since best practices need to integrate all the solutions utilized in the complete business.
Enterprises have difficulty defining business requirements for information systems
Since the business is not managed, it is difficult for the enterprise to identify how to gain specific benefit from information systems. Most enterprise information systems are sold by vendors who promise many benefits. Few enterprises really understand how to gain from the system. Enterprise system implementation is a large undertaking. Invariably, system implementation is restricted to putting the system into operation as a monolithic structure laid over the existing business. Even if the objective of system acquisition was business improvement, the objective usually gets redefined to “implement the system”. The enterprise is left on its own to make changes to gain benefits from the system.
Information system implementation consultants usually employ a methodology to implement systems over the existing business
Most implementation consultants employ a methodology that allows them to implement systems with staff that do not need to understand the enterprise business. The emphasis is on “doing what the customer wants” and satisfying “user requirements”, which is difficult to argue against. The administrative department is defined as the user, rather than result users, who use the system to produce results or face the customer. Usually, the main requirement of the administrative department is “no change”. These users often benefit from existing methods, and cannot visualize advanced ways to utilize systems to benefit other users. To minimize problems and delays in implementation, methodologies convert existing practices and utilities convert existing data. Utilization to achieve benefit is “up to the users” meaning result users. Training covers system operation rather than using the system for business benefit.
Information systems are managed by Information Technology that does not take responsibility for business benefit
Many enterprises view system business performance as a responsibility of Information Technology. But, IT will take responsibility only for the internal operational performance of the system as it is set up. Problems exist because neither IT, nor anyone else, was ever made responsible for the business benefit provided by the system. Enterprises often try to solve the lack-of-business-benefit problem with new more-complicated systems, rather than solving the IT and business problems and improving the utilization of existing systems.
Most information system implementations are cost projects that provide marginal benefit
Most enterprise system implementations are “cost projects”. Implementation itself provides little benefit to the real users and limited return on the investment. Enterprise performance problems are converted to the new system, in effect casting the problems in concrete, making change much more difficult, and escalating the cost of future performance improvement. IT investments are lumped, rather than defining and implementing the specific business, human, facility, and management solutions that must be utilized by the business to provide the return. The business that utilizes IT is not defined to enable measurement of the value added to the business by IT investments.
http://businesschangeforum.com/archives/133
In my own opinion the most common or the primary barrier of implementing IS/IT is still human being itself. Why? Because in implementing IS/IT we are talking about system or machines to make work easier but then if we look on organizations in the past there are only people to do all the work. My point is technology can never replace people because there are still things that computers cannot do that humans can. Human have the sense of judgment and critical analysis that not all computers can. That is why I think people are a barrier in IS/IT implementation.
In GH Office Depot, there are still some works done manually because they have not yet fully developed their systems. Still human works manually but with the help of computer and machines off course same as DLPC.
Another barrier in implementing IS/IT is on financial or budget matters. An obvious issue that is I think common to every company. Money drives every business because businesses are for the purpose of having profit. An organization could definitely not implement IS/IT without the right budget. The budget could be used for purchasing such machines and other stuffs. Money is very important for every organization; it is involved in many different transactions in an organization. So budgeting is important to implement new technologies.
“The problem is the lack of a framework to plan and manage costs and benefits of business change
The fundamental problem is the inability to plan and manage business change. This is because the business itself is not organized or managed. The output results of value produced by the business that provide the benefits of change and the capital solutions that incur the costs to produce the results are not defined and managed as sets. Without an organized business there is limited understanding of the actual business and difficulty in analyzing information system implementation related to the business.”
http://businesschangeforum.com/archives/43/
In the case of DLPC, they don’t have much of this problem because they never make any decision or plan without a budget. They point out that they have a 5-year plan budget for their company so they would not fail in whatever they will have to do. Same as GH, budgeting is always essential for every transaction in a company.
Workforce - In an organization, the work force or the staff and employee are important too. They are the one to operate the system and other machineries. If a company doesn’t have good and efficient employees then there would be a problem in the implementation of IS/IT. Looking for effective and efficient employees is not easy because an organization should choose those who could manipulate well their systems and computer.
In the case of the companies we had adopted, both do not have a problem in the workforce, for they have their HR department to deal with it. In DLPC, they had experienced having 150 lost of jobs during 1991 because of deadlock and this caused some problems in the company.
Another barrier in implementing IS/IT is the security. As I’ve said a while ago implementing IS/IT in an organization has a big role in the company and implementing such comes with the problem of security. Every system in an organization definitely contains private data and such should have good security. Good database security is needed for such problems.
In the GH and DLPC both have good security measures for their system. They have passwords control and other stuff to secure their data and information.
I guess that is all I could say for now.. Hehe This post is still subject for editing.
gAbEe Ü
0 comments:
Post a Comment