SYSTEM
INTEGRATION IN A CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY
Jiri
Vorisek, Jan Pour
The
Department of Information Technologies
The
Prague University of Economics
W.
Churchilla 4
130
67 Prague 3
e_mail: vorisek@vse.cz, pour@vse.cz
Published: February 1997
Annotation: This paper is considering
the global trends in economical and information environment and their influence
on strategic management of IS/IT and on the systems integration. The Systems
Integration is here understood as a model of the management of development and
work of complex information system in conditions of highly heterogeneous
products and services of IS/IT. Actual
trends lead to creating alliances of specialised subjects and to a competitive
environment of a new quality - competition of alliances - with strong support of
co-operation inside the alliances. This
move will have a strong impact on the character of information systems and on
their management, and that will happen mainly on the strategic level ( it will
strongly influence the principal of creating information strategy ).
Key words: co-operative society,
systems integration, information strategy, IS/IT architecture, application
software, management of information system
1.
Introduction
We live in an
exciting era of information age, in which new communication possibilities and
continuously expanding range of information systems and information
technologies (IS/IT) are changing us and our society. Computers became one of
the most favourite toys of our children, information technology allows us to
call our partner from a walk in a park to another continent, electronic
business is changing our customer’s customs as well as business companies
organisations and its logistic chains. This way we could continue.... . One of
the major society changes, to which we would like to put attention to in this
paper, is the expansion of co-operation of economical subjects and the change
of character of this co-operation. The changes are so significant that we can
talk about a co-operative society.
This paper is
not aimed at giving a new method, a technic or a tool to solve current
problems, but it is an experiment to look into the future. Economical and
social time is perpetually accelerating against astronomical time, and the
future is closer to us now than it was ten or even fifty years ago. The look to
the future is rising many questions:
·
what character the economical
environment of co-operative society will have ?
·
which role will the information
technology play in it ?
·
through which changes will the current
information technology have to go ?
·
how will the Systems Integration at
the beginning of a new millennium look like ? Will it be a leftover cliché or a
commercial fetch or a necessity of informatics
and maybe not only of it ?
·
which services will be required from
the systems integrator and who will be
able to perform it in the future ?
·
will the systems integration be rather
(well) paid service, or knowledge and ability of the most qualified or a way how to carry out the power ?
·
shouldn’t we already start to
reinterpret today’s approach to the management of information systems, so that
we are prepared to respect movements in society and the revolution in
information technology in a reasonable time ?
2.
New quality of competition - a co-operative society
The trend of
development in the society is from the “classic unstructured” competition to
the new quality competition, the
competition of alliances, where is strongly supported the feature co-operation.
The range of co-operations is increasing not only in local, but mainly in a
global rate.
For example in the area of information technology and
information services in the last few years many significant co-operative
alliances have risen:
·
co-operation of SAP and Microsoft
companies for interconnection of products OIS of Microsoft and R/3 of SAP.
·
co-operation of Digital and Netscape
companies aimed at the transfer of the Netscape company products ( mainly of
the Netscape Navigator Browser ) into
the Unix of Digital and into the joint marketing and sale.
·
co-operation of Oracle and SUN
companies on the development of network computer called JavaStation.
·
co-operation of TV company NBC and
Microsoft company for providing information services of a new quality. Both
companies brought in their strong abilities: Microsoft - communication software
and database software management, NBC - its TV programme and wide archive of
political and geographical information. Together they are then offering
information on politicians, events and countries which the spectator of NBC TV
programmes requires.
Alliances of
smaller subjects are also created and they are aimed at specific services for
the customers. In Czech Republic for example in 1996 Alliance of Czech
airlines, Congress Centre, chain of hotels City Hotels Group and Garant company was created for providing
services for congresses and banquets preparation. Alliance is aimed at offering
complex services when organising congresses and conferences.
Common character
of all alliances is bringing the strong aspects and sources of companies, which
other companies don’t have, into the alliance. The ability, of each partner to
compete, is strongly strengthened by mutual co-operation. The co-operation growth
and alliances creation depends on a number of economical, technological and social
reasons:
·
communication and information
infrastructure is creating new and highly supportive environment for the
development of new, intensive and highly effective forms of co-operations - for
example virtual teams,
·
the level of skills of both,
population and individual economical subjects is rising, not only in the area
of information technology but also in other areas. A necessary condition for
co-operations is created along with it. It has always been a rule, that the
ability to cooperate had appeared more with the clever and qualified people,
than with the others,
·
the development of new products and
services needs speed, finance and other sources to such extend that it is
forcing the creation of extensive co-operations of heterogeneous specialised
subjects,
·
logistic chains are already today
significantly exceeding the borders of one company by its integration
(information industry, automobile
industry, aviation) and interfering into constantly expanding spectrum of economical
subjects. This interconnection of subjects within the logistic chain was
supported among others by the development of EDI standards,
·
if EDI used to be mainly a subject of
big firms, today there is a fast development of EDI applications in middle and
small companies - it is and it will be for them the condition of co-operation.
A specific area
of co-operations in global world is the co-operation of universities and
research teams. There isn’t anymore the national and cultural barrier for
co-operation of the research teams on universities. As well as the development
of Internet, the co-operation among universities is a source for the
co-operations in economics. It is not significant for co-operation of these
teams whether they are based in one location or speak the same language.
An order is not
the motive for creating a co-operation. The main motive of co-operation is the
common vision of the future.
Creation of
strategic alliances and co-operative teams is not the only character of
co-operative society. Another character is the growth of the importance of outsourcing. Modern firms have already left
ineffective strategies of wide
diversification of their products and activities, they are trying to
concentrate on relatively close areas of activities, in which they have the
best conditions for competition. They are trying to move the rest of activities
outside the company. The key question now is, how to find the most suitable
provider for the required services.
The third
feature of co-operative society is the constant searching for the most suitable
suppliers of products and services. The only supplier of a product or a
service, who is capable of satisfying the demands of customers in a certain
period, has a chance of having a profitable deal.
3.
The co-operative society - its demands and consequences
As we are
standing at the beginning of a co-operative society, it is bringing up a
logical questions, what demands will be put by this society on individuals and
economical subjects in the future and what other consequences we can expect.
We are
convinced, that the first condition for success of individuals and economical
subjects is constant adoption of new knowledge created by others and creation
of own knowledge. Suggestive in this trend are for example publications by
Drucker [Drucker, 1993] [Drucker, 1994]
and Donovan [Donovan, 1994], or the development of firms like Microsoft,
SAP or Netscape.
The second
condition is a maximal flexibility.
As it seems, alliances won’t stay long. They will be terminated, if the common
vision shows to be insufficiently supportive, when the mission of alliance will
be fulfilled. At the same time, many new alliances will be rising. One of the
key questions of the strategic management of a company will be when to create
alliance, with whom, for what purpose and under what conditions.
High flexibility
will also be required from individuals. Economical environment will develop in
a faster rate, many areas of business and professions will be terminated, and
new ones will be created. Transfer of workers from one area of business to
another will not be a question of ten
or more years as it was with the transfusion of cultivators into the industry
and industry workers into the services. We will have to be prepared for
changing our profession several times during our productive age. Our education
will have to respond with it, and we will not finish educating ourselves at the
end of high school or university, but we will study the whole live - for
example university of the third age aimed to pensioners. Education will than become the major need of
an individual.
The third
condition of successful interconnection into the co-operative society is to
inform others about the knowledge, abilities and sources, which I have and
which I offer. If the vision of Bill
Gates is true [Gates,1995], then in the
future we will not be choosing a bank, a doctor, a lawyer or a library mainly
by its close location , but by the level and price of services that is offered,
then the key question of success of service providers will be a suitable way of
offering and providing the service. Fast development of WWW technologies shows,
which direction we should follow.
WWW servers
solve technological aspects of the subject, but they don’t solve the question
“how to choose the best product or the most suitable provider of the service”.
The problem is, that there still doesn’t exist a standard group of parameters
for many products and most of services, which would well describe a product or
a service for the purpose of selection. A suitable example of standardisation
of characteristics describing a product
is the sale of electronics and cars. A personal car can have folowing
characteristics: the engine volume, break system, inside fittings, maximum
speed, consumption, price of the car, price of interior parts, insurance, etc..
The service, which characteristics are well standardised is for example a hotel
accommodation. With the both mentioned examples we can already today imagine a
program, which will choose, based on our requirements from the WWW pages of
providers of a product or a service, the most suitable type of car and its
salesman or the most suitable hotel for our vacation.
If the
development will be heading the indicated way, the co-operative society has a
chance to fulfil the idea of A. Smithe about “the capitalism without friction”.
With this term A. Smith marked a situation, when buyers will have exhaustive
information about the offered commodities and their prices. The quality and
price of a product and a service will then become the inexorable sieve for the
lagging behind and unreliable producers and service providers, because their up
to date protection - the distance of
other providers from the customer and the uninformed customer - will come to an
end. On the Internet there will probably be an approachable experiences of
other customers with a certain product or a service.
Another expected
consequence of co-operative society will interfere into the social area.
Communication possibilities, the changes in areas of business and expanding
forms of virtual organisations and virtual teams will lead to depopulation of
cities. One of the major means of a city, as a labour concentrator, will
disappear. [Gates, 1995]
Massive
investments by state into the communication infrastructure will continue in
developed countries. A state, which will allow its communication infrastructure
to age, will not be noticed by investors, because bad communication
infrastructure will block co-operations and trade as well.
Consequences of above
mentioned changes will have to also appear in legislation area. It will be
necessary to modify the copyright law to support new forms of granting licences
for intellectual property ( distante
usage knowledge and information databases, publications, films, paintings....).
Global electronic trade will create pressure on standardisation of business and
other types of law in different countries.
Changes will
also continue on universities. Co-operation of universities will be
strengthened in pedagogical process. Even big universities won’t have experts
for all areas of business. For that reason a circulation of professors and
common interchange of teaching materials will follow.
4.
Co-operative society - a new quality of information systems
As we tried to
show - information technology and its applications have strong influence onmovements in society. These movements will necessarily reflect back in a
totally new demands on informatics. We are now standing in front of a question
“ what changes will information technology have to go through”.
4.1 IS/IT Open architecture
For co-operating
subjects will be more and more important to find a relevant level of
interconnection of their information systems. Even with a tight relation of
IS/IT of co-operating partners, a private character of a major part of
information system and its high security will have to be kept. We suppose, that
it will have to be a higher level of information links than it is now in the
area of classic EDI or electronic trade. It is for example an information
support of co-operation in the development of new products, the development of
marketing activities, production plans co-ordination etc..
This
consideration is bringing us to an idea of “information system open
architectures” and not only technologically but also at application side.
Information systems of co-operating partners will connect at the beginning of
co-operation and disconnect at the end. That way a time limited integration of
different information systems of different firms will be carried out. The term
„open architecture“ is always relative and doesn’t mean access to anything and
anyhow. It is determined by the tightness of co-operative links. Opportunities
of access to individual subjects is different by intensity, meaning and a scale
of co-operation of co-operating subjects. Especially the definition and
tracking of such “open zones” is, by our opinion, one of the key problems of
the architecture design of new information systems. This problem is, except
common technological questions of operational security, projected also into the
organisational and economical aspects of operating information system (for
example who will be responsible for individual data and application sources,
how will be the share of costs of individual subjects solved etc..).
Information
system open architectures will be outlined
with the ability to co-operate with
its environment, that means accepting offered services and sources
and together , which is even more important, provide own services and
sources. We would like to point out the term services. It doesn’t mean only to
make ( for example with the help of WWW) own information accessible to
partners. Stated implementation should be understood as providing or sharing
applications (application modules and data), for example when implementing technology for production, planning and
tracking continuance of an order, preparation of marketing strategy, proposal
documents etc.. Indicated forms of co-operation based on information technology already exist. Internet has
created for them a world-wide space.
Necessity of
open applications and provisional integration of information systems will bring global changes to IS/IT
architecture. Classical triangle or pyramid of information system architecture
will have to change. Here we leave the question “how” opened.
4.2
Individualisation of IS tasks
Information
systems open architecture and subjects heterogeneity are leading us to another
idea, which we expressed by the trend towards individualisation of tasks in
information systems. Mr. Prof. Lundberg has already highlighted this phenomenon
on a conference BCS in Edinburg in 1995.
Current level of
information systems implementation can be characterised as:
·
most information systems are based on
wide principal represented by highly integrated application packages, for which
not only expanding functionality is characteristic, but as well rising demands
on computer system sources and implementation time,
·
the heterogeneous character of
applications is also significant. Information system is composed by specialised
software components based on different technology, for example TPS (Transaction
Processing System), MIS (Manager Information System), EIS (Executive
Information System), DSS (Decision Support System), OIS (Office Information
System), Workflow etc.,
·
new technology (Intranet, some office
applications) is heading towards creating uniform user interface,
·
application software packages are
integrated tools for optimisation of business processes with the possibility to
customise individual modules of the package based on the results of the
optimisation,
·
modern IS support integration of
various technology to work with data (RDMS, OLAP, hypertext, picture, sound,
video) with their operational usage based on the user requirements.
At present we
have two trends going against each other - on one side there are big, highly
integrated software packages with high level of generality and range of use,
which gradually create de facto standards in this area ( SAP R/3, BPCS, Baan,
Oracle Financials). These systems will, despite of all mentioned positive
movements, with higher or lower level of difficulty adapt to special needs of
user. With a certain exaggeration we can say, that standard software packages
are more forming a “standard user” than
adapting itself to the individual user requirements.
On the other
side, there is a trend towards higher individualisation, unique applications of
information systems and not only among individual economical subject, but also
inside them. This trend is, by our opinion, influenced by following factors:
·
at each information system besides
standard applications there is growing importance of so called strategic
applications, which are specialised functions of IS, which defer IS of one
subject from IS of competition and should support and help a firm to gain a
competitive advantage on the market (Donovan, 1994),
·
the qualification level of users in
the area of IT is rapidly increasing and along with it a level and heterogeneity
of ideas and demands on the functions of IS.
·
IT suppliers offer expanding range of
tools for own users application implementation,
·
users activity and their interest in
strengthening their own independence on wide and often not clearly organised
application packages proves also increasing market with office applications,
relatively simple EIS products and other technological tools for end users,
·
basic economical subjects management
principle is being projected into the management of information systems, that
means supporting decisions and competence on the lowest levels and simplify
complicated and not clearly organised
management mechanism. This is leading towards the necessity of extension
of environment for readjustment of IS applications for individual users,
·
if the qualification level of IT users
(the second dot ) is increasing, as well the other way information technology
with its included know how is helping the user to raise his expertise ( in
economics, production technologies etc.). This is a moment which will lead
towards specialised user demands and the need of higher specialisation of their
tasks.
The above
presented factors will bring us to a conclusion, that application level of
information systems will return back from wide applications with a lot of
parameters to specialised, interconnected applications. We can expect, that
similarly, as it has happened with hardware, company IS will be composed from
joint co-operating software components supplied by different producers.
We suppose, that
specialised applications will have additional flexibility also in using
external data sources and services. We believe that it will also allow even
easier co-operation with external subjects as we mentioned in previous
paragraph.
And one last
note at the end - we see such development of applications as a new chance for
Czech software houses ...
5.
Systems Integration in co-operative society
Previous
paragraphs should have prepared base for our final reflections, which we
believe have, in this article as well as in the whole direction of our
conference, the key role. That means we should be looking for the answers to
the question, how the systems integration and the systems integrators will be
developing in the next period. It is obvious, that we cannot give a definite
recommendations or conclusions, because the probability level of estimating the
IT development is always very low.
We will still
specify the Systems Integration as a development management model and the
implementation of information system with these characteristics:
·
Systems Integration will be more and
more problem of interdisciplinarity (including technology, economics,
sociology, psychology, law,...),
·
Systems Integration will be more and
more projected into all areas of company management - it will include
information strategy interconnection with other company strategies: marketing,
production, finance etc., with the aim of optimal meeting of companies global
strategy,
·
Systems Integration will cross borders
of one subject and will start information systems integration of competitive
partners. The level of information system, its approachability, flexibility and
IS management level will be significant factors of partner selection of newly
created alliances. In this context new problems will arise, as for example, how
big share will individual subjects have on system integration in an alliance (
standards, products...), how firmly or loose create rules for co-operation, how
to manage corporate projects etc..,
The organisation
of Systems Integration and the role of
system integrator will also change:
·
the Systems Integration will be more
and more established on tight co-operation between customer, products
suppliers, services providers and consultants,
·
the role of system integrator will ,
by our opinion, accomplish any of presented subjects, which will have for the
given task the best abilities ( mainly well qualified team of specialists).
Each variant has its advantages and insufficiencies and its selection will
always depend on the current situation and certain structure of partners,
·
systems integrator, will not be
delivering one big application software package with responding technology and
basic services but he will be able to choose from offered hundreds up to
thousands applications (the building stones of IS) the ones, which will be the
most suitable for the company and he will be able to interconnect them.
Simultaneously he will have available his own or external development
capacities for creation and maintenance of specialised applications,
·
systems integrator will be able to
analyse approachable information sources based on a special needs of customer,
which size and volume is reaching huge dimensions. Based on an analysis he will
determine and make accessible such
sources, which will be necessary or advantageous for a customer at that time,
·
he will have available methods and
tools for development and IS/IT operating. Growing importance will have methods
and tools of IS/IT management, and that is for all levels of management, that
means strategic, tactic and
operational. The information strategy will remain as a basic tool on strategic
level, but its conception will be changing in terms of the above mentioned
reflections.
5.2
Systems Integration - information strategy
at the end of 90’s
For the name of
the last paragraph of our paper we have chosen already traditional subtitle of
the conference. It is not only a play on words, but it is trying to punctuate
the significance of the whole information system concept implementation, which
is, in this environment of increasing rate of economical and technology changes
and expanding offer of hardware and software products, gaining a growing necessity. We understand
this part also as a return to practical recommendations for information systems
management of today.
Information
strategies implementation and the way of use in information systems management
in our conception consists of the following main principles:
Objectives and methods of implementation:
·
the primary objective of information
strategy is creation of information system development plan for a period of
approx. two or three years from the view of all crucial IS/IT dimensions
(processing, functional, data, organisational, economical, personal, hardware,
software and technological - Metodika MDIS [Vorisek, 1997] a their links,
·
information strategy must be
formulated, so that it can represent effective base for decisions taking on the
level of strategic company management and also on the level of informatics
company management. Information strategy is than main principal of keeping
permanent continuity and company informatics management consistence,
·
information strategy formulates the
final level of IS/IT of a certain period and the method of transformation from
current level to the aimed one,
·
information strategy document must
respect maximal understanding and exploitation for decision taking. From this
view the document is structured into three major parts:
1. managers summary - contains project of next step and main precautions in IS/IT and definition
of individual informatics projects ( directed at content, costs, time
consumption)
2. basic text - contains the main conclusions from analysis and
proposals of IS/IT development by the above determined dimensions (processes,
functions,...)
3. supplement part - contains
analytical principals for formulating conclusions within the summary and basic text, which has mainly
a table format.
Usability:
·
information strategy is the principal
for processing the demanded documents for systems integration, or documents of
other selective proceedings,
·
information strategy is the source of
assigning individual projects and the tool of their management and joint
co-operation
·
information strategy defines cross
connections among IS/IT projects and other projects of company development
(projects ISO 9000, company reengineering, qualification development project,
...)
·
..... (external and internal) of
individual projects, case studies and other documentation should be lead
(organisational, economical and time schedule way ) to precise usage of already
processed materials within the information strategy ( that is one of today’s
biggest problems of information strategy application),
·
information strategy should be updated
approx. once a year
·
information strategy should be the
principal for information system development control (of its content, time
schedule, costs and effects, level of technology).
Time of implementation :
·
information strategy is prepared, with
the relation to the speed of economical environment changes, within a time
period of 2 - 3 years, with once a year update,
·
implementation time of the first
version of information strategy shouldn’t exceed 3 months ( otherwise it
couldn’t respond fast enough to the environment and technology changes),
·
a year’s update should take about one
month
Developers:
·
company management - information
strategy is a part of company strategic management with the stress on
economical, organisational, personnel aspects of informatics,
·
employers of informatics company
department management,
·
external consultants - will bring into
the development of information strategy impartial views and experience with
creating similar strategic materials
IST Conceptual model:
IS/IT strategic
management and creation of its main output - information strategies are rather
demanding activities, which need a team of highly qualified people with different
specialisation. For the following reading to be more comprehensive, we will
present on the following schemes conceptual model of creating information
strategy. Figure 1 is the general model of information strategy creation. It is
clear from this model, that IST creation is composed from three main groups of
activities:
1. description and valuation of current IS/IT level
2. objective IS/IT level definition
3. proposition of possible ways of transformation of the present level
to the final level.
Description and
valuation of present level features strong and weak aspect of current IS/IT,
determines the starting point on the way to the new objective and also makes
possible to estimate the costs of transformation.
Eight key
materials are used for the definition of the objective:
1. IS/IT competition valuation (if competition has differently oriented
IS, or is investing significantly different amounts to the IS/IT, then we
should at least think about it)
2. valuation of IS/IT level of major business partners ( it shows the possibilities of business
partner and company IS/IT integration for more effective joint co-operation),
3. valuation of application software and services available on the
market ( it gives information about which building stones we can use for our
IS/IT development , and if we use them, how we have to adapt),
4. IT/IS trends valuation ( when I decide my own direction of
development, it is convenient to know, which direction the creators of
components, methods and tools of future
information system are heading),
5. the results of SWOT analysis ( indicate, which strong company
aspects should be further supported and which aspects should be eliminated),
6. company objectives and their priorities ( they predetermine
objectives and priorities of IS/IT),
7. the BPR results ( from the description of business processes it is
possible to derive their optimal information technology support),
8. user requirements ( they concentrate together the user’s current
knowledge and experience),
The IS/IT objective is
determined in two levels. The first level is IS/IT global architecture, which
determines the whole structure, its major building components and joint
relations of these components. The second level develops the global
architecture from eight partial views and their joint relations. The views are
following:
1. functional and process architecture,
2. data architecture
3. technology architecture
4. software architecture
5. hardware architecture
6. organisational and legislative aspects
7. personnel, social and ethical aspects
8. economical aspects
Suggested ways of current IS/IT level transformation to the future level defines individual informatics projects ( the IS/IT operations ).
The second
concept, which is a part of information strategy conceptual model, is a concept
which explains each procedure starting at the company objectives up to the
individual informatics projects design
- see Figure 2. From the SWOT factors, company objectives, IS/IT trends
analysis, IS/IT company level analysis, IS/IT competition level analysis and
IS/IT major business partners level analysis,
we first derive the company vision of IS/IT and then the IS/IT company
objectives. The IS/IT requirements will be derived from all above mentioned
sources. The IS/IT requirements will be extended by the first gross BPR phase
results. At the same time more SWOT factors, objectives etc.. can point at one
common IS requirement and conversely one SWOT factor, one objective etc. can
point at several heterogeneous requirements. After collecting all the IS/IT
requirements, the information system final level function will be then derived.
Functions, which are still not covered by the current information system, will
be implemented by individual projects. The projects priorities are derived the
same way.
6.
Conclusion
Authors are
convinced, that the present development of economical environment is heading
towards the co-operative society. Co-operative society will put new demands on
economical subjects as well as on information systems and information
technology , which will support business processes and the accomplishment of
company objectives. The changes will refer to
information system strategic management, the conception of system
integration and the services of system integrator. Some of the expected changes
were characterised in this paper. The development in next two or three years
will show if the mentioned visions will be fulfilled or if the development will
go a different direction.
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