Volume-1 Issue-1 Jan-June 2009

Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

Vol-1 Issue-1 Issue January -June 2009

Paradigm Shift in Information System

Message from the Editorin-Chief’s Desk

It’s my privilege to welcome you all for the very first debut edition of “Global Journal of Enterprise Information system”, which will known for it’s acronym GJEIS with a theme dedicated to this volume itself “Paradigm shift in Information system”.

I always uses to remember the saying that “When the things get tough the tough get going”. Information Systems has been documented as the "enabler" of business in the 21st century. The speedy augmentation of IT within America, India and other parts of the world promise success for companies that expand operations worldwide. This might not have been the case a few years back but is unquestionably true of the present. As a teacher(s) of Information Systems we hear students inquire, "Why the course materials are so quickly outdated?” We tell them that teaching Enterprise Information Informati Systems is like teaching the Big Bang theory 60 seconds rather a one minute after the event. The future is still being formed. Technology is always on the rise and change is endemic in enterprise system managements. You need to be on top of ongoing changes. ew forum for exchange of information on all aspects of Information We are presenting you with a new journal called GJEIS. Our aspiration is to generate a new system. Future scope of the GJEIS is open to your suggestions. I would like to encourage you to submit original research notes note as well as opinions, technical reports, and short communicationsns in the general area of EIS. The journal is sponsored by KARAMs an NGO and we are going to keep you informed on oncoming events organized by the society, give you inside stories on the development strategies and directions, as well as introduce troduce our staff to you.

I, therefore, respectfully ask that you consider preparing a submission for our Journal. Because submissions are peer-reviewed, reviewed, I recommend that you allow me a preliminary review of your topic (send to: gjeis.ejournal@gmail.com before you spend an extensive amount of time on something that may not fit well. That said, however, we are especially interested in having our membership broadly represented on the pages of our publication so I tend to be flexible when GJEIS members send us submissions.

I wish to see GJEIS develop into an information based journal with the balance changing toward research communication rather than remain a bulletin. The success of this enterprise depends on your response. I would appreciate your feedback.

Dr. Subodh Kesharwani Editor-In-Chief Chief [GJEIS] gjeis.ejournal@gmail.com http://www.ejournal.co.in/gjeis

http://subodh.academician.co.in © KARAMS 2009 www.karamsociety.org www.ejournal.co.in/gjeis www.ejournal.co.in/gjeis

Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

January 2009-June June 2009

David L. Olson

University of Nebraska Nebraska-Lincoln

dolso1@unlnotes. unl.edu

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

January 2009-June June 2009

Introduction

ABSTRACT

•Enterprise information systems (EIS) have developed over the last few decades into a dominant management information systems tool. This paper reviews that development in light of research, discussing identification of new issues. Past cases and surveys have provided a picture of what has occurred within this dynamic industry.

Future potential for expansion of market participants is expected to lead to a quite different environment than has existed in the past. The role of globalization in the form of supply chain linkages as well as international development of country-specific systems are expected to be issues growing in importance. Three issues among many others in the field are discussed discussed. First, risk management will become even more important than it has been. Second, the role of upgrade in the evolution of EIS use creates new opportuntities/decision dilemmas.

Third, the development of open source system development has already had an impact, and is expected to become even more important.

KEYWORDS

•Enterprise Enterprise information systems •open open source • upgrades, •surveys, •research

Enterprise information systems (EIS) have become a dominant means for large organizations to obtain integrated support for managerial decision making.

The evolution of these systems is quite interesting, evolving from accounting and inventory control systems to the mammoth integrated systems of today, capable of supporting cross-organizational cross linkages.

From the perspective of operations management, EIS came from enterprise resource planning (ERP), which in turn came from materials resource planning (MRP), as outlined in the following list: MRP-I: Material requirements planning with the motive to control inventory i.e. raw materials planning etc.

MRP-II: Manufacturing resource planning supplemented with production scheduling activities. The concept of MRP II was to look after shop floor and distribution management activities.

ERP: Enterprise nterprise resource planning has a broader role and is not confined to one department but has an integrated perspective.

ERP-II: ERP-IIII has more emphasis on planning of capital or managing money surpluses.

A less operations-focused focused view sees ERP arising from the integration of accounting systems and other functional activities in manufacturing (to include MRP and other aspects of inventory management), evolving to EIS with the addition of customer relationship management and supply chain support as integral parts of the software. per will provide a brief overview This paper of the time-line line of ERP/EIS development. It will then give a view of academic research. The results of some of this research on the implementation of ERP/EIS will then be given, followed by a risk management perspective of EIS. Some research issues in EIS are reviewed, to include upgrades and open source systems.

Development of ERP

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System In the early 1970s, business computing relied upon centralized mainframe computer systems. These systems proved their value by providing a systematic way to measure what businesses did financially.

The reports these systems delivered could be used for analysis of variance with budgets and plans, and served as a place to archive business data.

Computing provided a way to keep records much more accurately, and on a massively larger scale than was possible through manual means. But from st our perspective at the beginning of the 21 century, that level of computer support was primitive.

Business computing systems were initially applied to those functions that were easiest to automate, and that called for the greatest levels of consistency and accuracy. Payroll and accounting functions were an obvious initial application.

Computers can be programmed to generate accurate paychecks, considering tax and overtime regulations of any degree of complexity. They also can implement accounting systems for tax, cost, and other purposes; because these functional applications tend to have precise rules that cover almost every case, so that computers can be entrusted to automatically and rapidly take care of everything related to these functions.

1960s The focus of manufacturing systems in this era was on Inventory Control. Software packages were designed to handle inventory based on traditional inventory concepts.

1970s MRP systems emerged in this era. This system translated the Master Schedule built for the end items into time-phased net requirements for the sub-assemblies, components, and raw materials planning and procurement. There were many other functional systems developed for other applications, and firms hired large IT staffs to write code. SAP began research to develop their integrated accounting-oriented system.

1980s The concept of MRP I evolved which was an extension of MRP to shop floor and distribution management activities. Industry was so successful at generating independent applications that they found many overlapping data files, leading to potential conflicts.

1990s The term MRP I was extended to come in a new form known as ERP, which covered areas like engineering, finance, human resources, and project management as a whole. ERP systems flourished as large organizations saw the benefits of integrated systems. Toward the end of the decade concerns over Y2K issues increased the acquisition of ERP systems, to the point of near saturation of the large organization market.

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2000s The market for original systems was nearly saturated by Y2K fears, leading to decline in demand late in 1999. ERP firms moved to rebuild new markets by developing industryspecific versions, by developing Web-accessible systems, and focusing on supply chain and CRM applications. ERP-II originated with the motive to emphasize on the planning of money investment in an optimal manner. As larger markets were near saturation, greater marketing efforts to support small business enterprises developed.

Internationally, country specific software arose. Especially in Europe, open system work on ERP software became a viable competitor.

Prior to 2000, ERP systems catered to very large firms, who could afford the rather high costs of purchasing ERP systems. Even focusing on a selected few modules would typically cost firms $5 million and up for software. After 2000, demand dropped, in part because firms were often concerned with Y2K issues prior to 2000, which motivated many ERP system acquisitions. Demand noticeably dropped off after 2000 came and went.

Vendors reacted in a number of ways. First, the market consolidated, with Oracle purchasing PeopleSoft (who had earlier acquired JD Edwards).

Microsoft acquired a number of smaller ERP software products, consolidating them into Microsoft Dynamics, which caters to a smaller priced market, thus serving a needed gap in ERP coverage for small businesses. Notably, SAP advertises that they can serve small business too. But it appears that they are more valuable in the large scale enterprise market. There in addition are many other systems, to include open sourced systems (at least for acquisition) like Compiere in France.

Many countries, such as China, India, and others have thriving markets for ERP systems designed specifically for local conditions, although SAP and Oracle have customers all over the globe.

The operations focus on MRP, of course, overlooks the important role of accounting information systems, which after all was the basis of the SAP system. Since the focus is on integration, this doesn’t matter in the least.

ERP is an industry term for the broad set of activities supported by multi-module application software that help an association in the important parts of its business, including product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers, customer service, and

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System tracking orders. ERP can also include application modules for the finance and human resources aspects of a business. Characteristically, an ERP system uses or is integrated with a relational database system. The deployment of an ERP system can involve considerable business process analysis, employee retraining, and new work procedures.

ERP integrated the old isolated computer systems in Finance, Human Resource, Manufacturing and Warehousing, and replaces them with a single unified software program organized into software modules. Finance, Manufacturing and Inventory all still get their own software, except that now the software is linked together so that someone in finance can look into the warehouse software to see if an order has been shipped. Most vendors' ERP software is flexible enough that you can install some modules without buying the whole package. Many companies, for example, will immediately install an ERP finance or HR module and leave the rest of the system for later.

Enterprise resource planning systems arose from a variety of origins. SAP developed their product around supporting the function of manufacturing, integrating that with financial and accounting functions. Other vendors developed from other sources. For instance, PeopleSoft began by developing a respected human resources software product, which they expanded to include a slate of other modules. Prior to entry into the ERP market directly, Oracle was the leading database software vendor.

Research As with any developing field, industry proceeds without the need for academic theory. The historical developments in this field are driven by the market, but in an economy molded to a great extent by vendor marketing. Thus the academic research has focused on the basic research tools of case study reports and surveys. Recent case studies include MRP integration within ERP (Berchet and Habchi, 2005), international system implementation (Chen et al., 2008), and many on supply chain impact of EIS (Bose et al., 2008; Dai, 2008; Tarantilis et al., 2008).

There are many case studies (Olson, 2004), to include famous reviews of problems with Hershey’s ERP in 1999, when they rushed their installation project to add Y2K compliant features, and led to near catastrophic operational performance sending truckloads of candy to full warehouses, and leaving

January 2009-June 2009

warehouses with low inventories empty after implementing their ERP. There also is the case of FoxMeyer Drug, which implemented systems in the 1990s and went bankrupt, followed by the success of McKesson Drug, who purchased the bankrupt assets and successfully installed a similar ERP system. As with all case research, each provides an interesting glimpse of what happened in one set of circumstances. But while there are lessons to be learned from each case, it is very difficult to generalize, as each case involves so many variable factors.

The next type of research involves surveys of system users. There have been many surveys, but one stream of survey research inaugurated at Indiana University (Mabert et al., 2000; 2003a; 2003b) has taken off and has been replicated in Sweden and South Korea. The results of this stream of research are reported here. This same group has more recently examined EIS features (Watts et al., 2008). Among the many other surveys are studies are Chang (2006) and Boucher et al.

(2007). Recent studies of implementation success include Li et al. (2008) and Ifinedo and Nahar (2009).

Ultimately, academic theorists like to think that they can develop a unified body of knowledge that provides a framework to understand everything about the topic that is being studied. This has worked to at least some degree in the physical sciences. But it is much harder to do in those fields of study involving human behavior. Management information systems as an academic field definitely involves human behavior. Thus I do not expect there will ever be a satisfactory unified theory of enterprise information systems. Such theoretical development has taken centuries in the physical sciences. Technology developments happen too fast for development of comprehensive theories.

Yet, academics continue to try. I will skip references to avoid argument.

Motivations for ERP The motivations for ERP/EIS adoption were examined by three studies using the same format.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Mabert et al. (2000) surveyed over 400 Midwestern U.S. manufacturing organizations about ERP adoption. Olhager and Selldin (2003) replicated that study with 190 manufacturing firms in Sweden.

Katerattanakul et al. (2006) again replicated the survey, this time in Korea. These studies reported the following ratings with respect to motivation for implementing ERP (see Table 1): Table 1: Reasons for Implementing ERP

Reason Replace legacy systems Simplify and standardize systems Improve interactions w/suppliers & customers Gain strategic advantage Link to global activities Solve the Y2K problem Pressure to keep up with competitors Ease of upgrading systems Restructure organization

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ERP have led vendors to modify their products to be more open, although work continues to be needed in this direction (and seems to be proceeding). Linking to global activities was slightly positive in the U.S. survey, more negative in the Swedish study, and relatively higher in the Korean study.

Three other potential reasons received low ratings in both studies. Pressure to keep up with competitors received neutral support in the U.S. study. Ease of upgrading systems is a technical reason that received neutral support both in the U.S. and in Sweden. Restructuring the organization was rated lower.

U.S. 4.06

Sweden 4.11

Korea 3.42

3.85

3.67

3.88

ERP Proposal Evaluation

3.55

3.16

3.45

3.46

3.18

3.63

3.17 3.08

2.85 2.48

3.54 NA

The three studies we have been tracking asked subjects about expected installation time (Table 2) and expected installation cost (Table 3). These firms for the most part anticipated that the adopted system would serve their organizations over seven years.

The time that they expected their EIS installation projects to last was reported as in Table 2:

2.99

2.48

2.94

Table 2: Expected EIS Project Installation Time Requirements

2.91

2.96

3.55

2.58

2.70

3.33

Installation Time 12 months or less 13 to 24 months 25 to 36 months 37 to 48 months Over 48 months

Rating scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important) Extracted from Mabert et al. (2000), Olhager and Selldin (2003), Katerattanakul et al. (2006) Initially, fear of Y2K was a major concern. The Swedish survey was later than the U.S., and that might explain the lower rating for this item in the Swedish study. The later Korean study did not ask about this dated issue. The U.S. response was actually neutral (only slightly higher than 3), but Y2K clearly was a factor in ERP adoption in the mid- to late-1990s. However, more important reasons were always present. In the first two studies, replacing legacy systems received a high positive response.

The desire to simplify and standardize systems was the second highest rating in the first two studies, and the highest rating in the later Korean study.

There were two other reasons that received relatively high ratings in the U.S. (a bit lower in Sweden). These were to improve interactions with suppliers and customers, which is one way to gain strategic advantage. The supply chain aspects of

U.S.

Sweden

34%

38%

49%

45%

49%

40%

11%

8%

7%

6%

4%

2%

2%

1%

3%

Korea

Extracted from Mabert et al. (2000), Olhager and Selldin (2003), Katerattanakul et al. (2006).

The reported times are very similar.

Obviously, the scope of the EIS project would be a major factor in this time expectation. Projects implemented in less than one year would have to be relatively small in scope (implementation of one or only a few modules, for instance). But a general trend is indicated, given the different times of the surveys.

There clearly is a shift to shorter implementation times.

Gartner Group consistently reports that IS/IT projects significantly exceed their time (and cost) estimates. Thus, while almost half of the surveyed firms reported expected implementation expense to

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System be less than $5 million, we consider that figure to still be representative of the minimum scope required.

However, recent trends on the part of vendors to reduce implementation time probably have reduced EIS installation cost. Mabert et al. also investigated the proportion of total costs by EIS component, with results given in Table 3.

of measuring EIS penetration by market. The survey included questions about the criteria considered for information systems selection, as well as criteria for supplier selection. The criteria reportedly used are given in Table 5, in order of ranking.

Table 3: EIS Installation Project Cost Proportions

Information Systems Selection Criteria (n=2401) 1: Fit with business procedures 2: Flexibility 3: Cost 4: User friendliness

Installation Cost Proportion Software Consulting Hardware Implementation team Training Other

U.S. 30% 24% 18% 14% 11% 3%

Sweden 24% 30% 19% 12% 14% 1%

Extracted from Mabert et al. (2000), Olhager and Selldin (2003).

In the U.S., vendors seem to take the biggest chunk of the average implementation. Consultants also take a big portion. These proportions are reversed in Sweden The internal implementation team accounts for an additional 14 percent (12 percent in Sweden). These proportions are roughly reversed in Sweden with training.

The expectations of return on their investment varied widely (as must be expected) as given in Table 4.

Table 4: Expected ROI from EIS Projects

Expected US Sweden ROI 30.5% 54.4% <15% 36.4% 30.4% 16% to 25% 29.2% 15.2% >25% Source: Katerattanakul et al. (2006)

Table 5: Criteria Considered for IT and EIS Supplier Selection

5: Scalability 6: Support

EIS Supplier Selection Criteria (n=2623) 1: Product functionality 2: Product quality 3: Implementation speed 4: Interface with other systems 5: Price 6: Market leadership 7: Corporate image 8: International orientation

Based on Van Everdingen et al. (2000)

Fit with business procedures was selected among the three most important criteria by about one-half of the respondents, and was listed as the single most important criterion by over one-third. While EIS vendors have devoted a great deal of effort to making their packages match existing business processes, the importance of this criterion is based upon the high cost and bother of configuring and implementing EIS systems. Selection of a vendor involved less variance among criteria. Product functionality and quality were the criteria most often reported to be important.

Korea 59.6% 15.8% 24.6%

From these numbers, it appears that manufacturers in Sweden expect a bit less return than did those in the U.S. (much of which might be explained by economic timing). Korean expectations are much more variable. Since the motivations for adopting EIS in some cases was either competitive or viewed as forced for other reasons, some firms expect low payoff from their EIS systems. However, roughly as many adopters expect clearly significant returns on their investment.

Van Everdingen et al. (2000) conducted a survey of European firms in mid-1998 with the intent

Information systems (IS) projects involve relatively higher levels of uncertainty than most other types of projects. EIS implementations tend to be on the large end of the IS project spectrum. There are many options for implementation of an EIS: 1. Adoption of a full EIS package from a single vendor source 2. Single EIS vendor source with internally developed modifications 3. Best-of-breed: adoption of modules from different vendor sources 4. Modules from vendor sources with internal modifications

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System 5. In-house development 6. In-house development supplemented by some vendor products 7. Application service providers (ASP)

Barring item 7 on the above list, ASP, the easiest method is to adopt a system provided by a single vendor, without modifications (number 1 above).

But this isn’t necessarily the least expensive option, nor will it necessarily provide the greatest benefits to the firm. The reason to use the best-of-breed approach (number 3 above), using modules from different vendors, is that the functionality obtained from specific modules may be greater in one area for one vendor, but better in another module area (with respect to the needs of the specific adopting organization) from another vendor. EIS systems could be developed in-house (number 5 above).

This is not recommended. If this method were adopted, a great deal of IS/IT project management effort would be necessary. As implied by variants numbered 2, 4, and 6, blends of each of these forms of EIS implementation have been applied as well.

Finally, EIS could be outsourced (number 7 above), through application service providers. This can result in the lowest cost method of installation. As discussed later in this chapter, that may involve a lot of convenience at the cost of a lot of control.

Mabert et al. surveyed the strategic approach adopted in their sample of manufacturing firms who had implemented ERP systems. ASP implementation was not surveyed. Katerattanakul et al. replicated the study in Korea, reporting only four of these options. Relative use in percentage was given as in Table 6: Table 6: Relative Use of ERP Implementation Strategies

Strategy Single ERP package with modifications Single ERP package Vendor packages with modifications Best-of-breed In-house plus specialized

Percentage US 50

Percentage Korea 43

40 5 4 1

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packages Total in-house 0.5 16 system Source: Extracted from Mabert et al. (2000), Katerattanakul et al. (2006) In the US, the dominant strategy in this sector (manufacturing) was to rely upon a single developer, with a large number of firms supplementing the system for internal needs. The concept of best-ofbreed was not widely applied. Few firms developed their own ERP system. One reason for this reliance upon vendor plans for the most part is that it is much easier to control installation by following implementation procedures developed and tested by the vendors. The Korean study saw much greater use of best-of-breed approaches, mixing software from different vendors.

There also was much greater use of in-house systems. The difference can be attributed to local conditions.

Implementation Execution of EIS systems can be accomplished a number of different ways. The extremes are the “big-bang” deployment, where on one magic day, the old system is unplugged and the new system turned on-line. Markus et al. (2000) cited use of this strategy by Quantum Corp. which shut down their operations worldwide for eight days to switch systems. This risky approach was motivated by that company’s specific circumstances.

The other extreme is phased rollout, with components of the system brought on-line serially, and operated and observed prior to moving on to implementation of the next phase. Markus et al. cited BICC Cables, which adopted a lengthy process of consensus building in their global operation. The selected EIS system was implemented one step at a time, as BICC Cables wanted no more than three software versions in operation at any one time (old being replaced, new being installed, future version being tested at headquarters). This resulted in an environment with technology changes as often as every 12 months.

Mabert et al. surveyed manufacturing users of EIS for implementation, and found results as shown in Table 7:

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Table 7: Implementation Strategies Adopted

Strategy

Time Sweden 14 mos.

U.S.

Sweden

41%

42%

23 mos.

23%

20%

by

Time U.S. 15 mos.

30 mos.

22 mos.

20 mos.

17%

17%

by

17 mos.

25 mos.

16 mos.

17%

20%

Big Bang Phased rollout site Phased rollout module Mini bang Phased rollout module site

big by &

2%

Source: Mabert et al. (2000) , Olhager and Selldin (2003)

1.

Find potential failure points or risks.

2.

Analyze the potential failure points to determine the damage they might do.

3.

Assess the probability of the failure occurring.

4.

Based on the first three factors, prioritize the risks.

5.

Mitigate the risks through whatever action is necessary.

One example of risk analysis was provided by Olson (2007), in the context of evaluation of alternative means of acquiring an ERP. That model was a multiple criteria analysis considering criteria such as system reliability, cost, security, and service level (among other factors).

Consideration of financial analysis as well as cost categories were considered.

The Korean study (Katerattanakul et al., 2006) reported over 72 percent of the firms they surveyed utilized a form of the big bang approach. The big bang approach is a dangerous approach for general IS/IT projects, but often makes sense in the context of EIS, especially smaller systems. The alternatives are to roll out a system, or to do a pilot study (here labeled mini big bang). Rolling out a system makes sense for larger firms where geographic dispersion is present, or in conglomerates with diverse functional groups. The data indicates that phased rollouts are often used, sometimes by both module and site. The pilot approach is less reliable in EIS contexts than it is for general IS/IT projects, because scalability is so often a problem in EIS implementations. The pilot test may work quite well, but the server system may be overwhelmed when the full computational load is applied.

ERP Upgrades

ERP Risk Management

The cost of EIS/ERP upgrades is high (Montgomery, 2004). Swanton (2004) cited the cost of each upgrade including: 50% of the original software license fee and 20% of the original implementation cost per user, which means over 6 million dollars for a 5,000-user system. Typically, each EIS/ERP upgrade requires eight to nine months of effort with a team the equivalent of one full-time employee per 35 business users. The EIS/ERP-adopting organization does not have to develop and re-write the EIS/ERP system itself but rather it replaces (or upgrades) the old version with a readily available new version from the EIS/ERP vendor. However, a lack of experience may cause the costs and length of the upgrade project to

Managing risk on an EIS project is crucial to its success. What is a risk? Simply defined, a risk is a potential failure point. There are thousands, maybe even millions of potential failure points on an EIS project, in the form of untested technology (and untested staff), political landmines, and even nature's fury. So, how do you keep the failures at bay? While various risk management books and methodologies offer variations on a theme, there are generally five steps to managing risk.

Five steps to managing risk:

EIS/ERP upgrades are mainly intended to take advantage of new technologies and business strategies to ensure that the organization keeps up with the latest business development trends.

Therefore, the decision to upgrade EIS/ERP is usually not driven by code deterioration or anticipated reduction in maintenance costs alone, but by different purposes. According to an AMR study (Swanton, 2004), 55% of upgrades were voluntary business improvements triggered by the need for new functionality, expansion or consolidation of systems; 24% of upgrades were triggered by technology stack changes; 15% of upgrades were forced by de-support of the running version of software to avoid vendor support termination (Craig, 1999); and 6% of upgrades were triggered by bug fixes or statutory changes.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System approach or even exceed those of the original EIS/ERP implementation effort. Collins (1999) listed some general benefits for organizations from EIS/ERP upgrades: •

Eligibility for Help Desk Support: Most of EIS/ERP software vendors stop providing technical support 12 to 18 months after the next version becomes available. Therefore, keeping upgrade with the pace of EIS/ERP vendors will guarantee the support for the system from the vendors

•

Solutions for Outstanding “Bugs” or Design Weaknesses: It is impossible to guarantee spotless and error-free EIS/ERP systems after the implementations even though vendors will conduct many different testing processes to eliminate the happenings of errors in the system before the leasing time. “The majority of software bugs are resolved and delivered either fix-by-fix, or all-at-once as part of the next release version of the EIS/ERP package.” In this case, upgrades will be beneficial to the organizations in problem solving.

•

New, Expanded, or Improved Features: EIS/ERP software provides organizations the knowledge and strength (i.e. best practices) from the vendors. EIS/ERP upgrades provide organizations future enhancement from the vendors to give the organizations better opportunities to catch up the current business development, improve their processes and build more efficient business models with new functions, new features and new processing styles provided in the upgraded EIS/ERP versions.

Olson and Zhao (2007) used an in-depth semistructured interview technique to examine the success factors in EIS/ERP upgrade. Companies who reported that their organization’s EIS/ERP upgrade was completed the previous year (some were finishing up their upgrade project) were included. 15 IT managers were interviewed. A wide variety of industries were represented in the responses. These upgrade projects took between 2.5 months (a local system, with no customization) to 11 months (a more complex organizational structure with heavy training requirements).

Customization may be needed by organizations, but will incur a cost in time (and thus money). The assessment phase was often quite short, ranging

January 2009-June 2009

from two weeks to month typically, although larger organizations took longer because of the need to obtain corporate approval. Planning and action phases were relatively consistent.

We would conclude that upgrade projects involve lower levels of risk and uncertainty (and thus variance) than initial installations because the organization is very familiar with what the system should do. The renewal phase (putting the system on-line) was very short, typically less than two weeks. With proper project management, overnight or over a weekend was possible.

The reasons for upgrade included eleven cases where some new functionality was desired (to include things like supporting Web access). There were five cases among the fifteen where the vendor had announced discontinuance of service. Two cases cited the desire to obtain better vendor support. Another case cited the need to fix a bug in the existing system, and another to integrate modules.

There were far fewer problems involved in upgrade projects than are typically reported in initial EIS/ERP installations. This is to be expected, due to the experience gained with the system by the organization. Customization was a problem in two cases, one where customization was needed to provide adequate service (case B), and another (case C) where customization to implement a CRM add-on led to dropping this additional desired functionality.

A problematic consultant was a problem in case E. There also were problems with a TMS add-on in case J, and needed links to delivery vendors was a problem overcome in case O. Scalability was initially a problem in case A, but was resolved by the vendor. Some repeated testing was reported in one case, and the difficulty of dealing with massive retraining reported in another. Thus a variety of different problems can be expected in EIS/ERP upgrade projects, but for the most part these challenges are easier to overcome than is the case in initial implementation projects.

1. EIS/ERP upgrade projects are easier to control than initial installation projects, because organizations have gained experience (often the hard way) and the organizational users have a better idea of what to expect.

2. Vendor marketing drives many upgrades.

Beatty and Williams argue that this is due to vendor product improvement, which we admit undoubtedly plays a role. Vendor greed might

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System also be a factor.

Therefore, organizations should consider alternatives such as application service providers, based upon a sound business case analysis.

3. Upgrade phases are important to consider, with some factors being more important in one phase than they are in others.

and lack of resources to maintain the system. To attack this niche market of EIS in the small to medium-sized business sector, vendors has developed transformed EISs by adopting the most advanced information technologies available. The most available business models of EIS include software as a service (SaaS), open source software (OSS) and service oriented architecture (SOA).

Open Source ERP Web services provide a convenient way to access existing internal and external information resources.

They use a number of technologies to build programming solutions for specific messaging and application integration problems (Brenner and Unmehopa, 2007).

However, building a new information system is in some ways like building a new house. Web services may be analogous to cement and bricks. Blueprint and engineering knowledge are more important. SOA gives the picture of what can be done with Web services. SOA exploits the business potential of Web services, which can lead to a type of convergence by enabling organizations to access better methods at lower cost through technology.

SOA is a strategy based on turning applications and information sources which reside in different organizations, different systems and different execution environments into “services” that can be accessed with a common interface regardless of the location or technical makeup of the function or piece of data. The common interface must be agreed upon within the environment of systems that can access or invoke that service. A service within SOA either provides information or facilitates a change to business data from one valid and consistent state to another one. Services are invoked through defined communication protocols.

The pivotal part of SOA is how communication between different data formats can be accomplished. Web Services, which is independent of operational environment, allow this communication.

The goal of EIS is to integrate and consolidate all the old departments across an organization into a one system that can meet and serve each department’s unique needs and tasks.

Therefore, every aspect of an organization’s business process needs to have a unified application interface, which provides high competitiveness in the market. Enterprises have invested heavily on EIS acquisition while small businesses or entrepreneurs often could not see an affordability of it mainly due to its high upfront prices

SaaS offers EIS as a service that clients can access via the Internet. Smaller companies are spared the expenses associated with software installation, maintenance and upgrades. Mango Network, an Irving, Texas, software and services company is a channel of providing software and services for small and midsize wholesale and retail distributors. It combines the pure open-source business model and SaaS. Compiere which is a pure open-source company provides products and Mango sells them through SaaS. Mango charges annual fees based on a customer’s revenue, rather than monthly fees based on the number of users.

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) defines SOA as: A paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains. It provides a uniform means to offer, discover, interact with and use capabilities to produce desired effects consistent with measurable preconditions and expectations.

SOA driven EIS is not only beneficial to enterprises as many believe but also to SMBs. OSS EISs allowed small and medium sized businesses’ access to EIS. The benefits of applying OSS are as follows (Serrano and Sarriegi, 2006): •

Increased adaptability: Since EIS is not plug and play, implementation processes are necessary to match the company’s business processes and local regulations. Having full access to the EIS source code is beneficial.

•

Decreased reliance on a single supplier: Proprietary EISs highly depend on the services from vendors and distributors. Upgrading and maintain service can be obtained from single source.

•

Reduced costs: Proprietary EIS licenses are expensive. OSS EISs’ average implementation costs are at between one-six and one-third of the costs for typical proprietary EISs.

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The most common business model of OSS is based on a simple idea – free for use, modification, resale and fee for services including implementation. Most EIS-related open-source software uses the Web for delivery of free software. There is at least one product (OpenMFG) allowing users to participate in software development, but with software vendor filtering. Open filtering models have not appeared to date.

Among the many open-source EIS, Compiere has most often been appeared in many research articles and business reports. Compiere recorded more than 1.2 million downloads of its software and has more than 100 partners in 25 countries (Ferguson, 2008). They don’t sell software but sell services – security and support. They do not allow just anyone to contribute code – the majority of code contributors are trained partners who understand company’s business model. The EIS software OpenMFG allows community members including customers and partners to get the source code and extend and enhance it. The company, then, bring the enhancements into the product (Ferguson, 2008).

accepted before the technology moves on to something entirely different than we recognize now.

Among the many issues of importance in EIS, this paper discusses three. First, there are many risks inherent in EIS. This is important, because enterprise information systems are crucial to the organizations operating them, and also because they usually come with very expensive price tags. Second, the evolution of the market has led to upgrades, presenting using organizations with dilemmas as vendors constantly improve their systems, offering their clients better service while discontinuing support to older versions. Clients need to evaluate the economics of these opportunities almost constantly. The third issue introduced was the presence of open source ERP/EIS product development. This emerging area of development offers many opportunities, as well as creating new problems to be solved.

The area of enterprise information systems is clearly critically important, as well as dynamic.

Keeping on top of developments will be mandatory for organizational success in the future.

References •

Conclusions EIS has been an evolutionary field, as new and improved systems continue to be developed. The focus on integrating the multitude of independent applications found in large organizations met a very real need in the 1990s, almost to the point of market saturation given the large price tags associated with st 1990s systems. New industry focus in the 21 Century include greater attention to small-tomedium-sized enterprises, country-specific software, more open systems to support supply chain operations, more mobile access, and open systems.

Research in the academic domain is evolving. Initial research by necessity involves focus on cases, glimpses of experience in specific circumstances, which are valuable initial research identifiers of issues in EIS, but do not provide a generalizable theory.

The academic literature abounds in case studies of many aspects of EIS. There also are many surveys. We have focused on three related studies, because they focus on the use of EIS in a consistent manner. However, many other good survey studies have been reported. In the future, it may be that something like a unified theory of EIS will arise. Given the dynamic nature of the business, however, this author doubts that an accurate, generalizable unified theory will ever be

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Bose, I., Pal., R. & Ye, A. (2008). ‘ERP and SCM systems integration: The case of a valve manufacturer in China’, Information & Management Vol. 45, pp. 233-241.

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Chen, R.-S., Sun, C.-M., Helms, M.M. & Jih, W.-J. (2008).

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Serrano, N. & Sarriegi, J.M. (2006). ‘Open Open Source Software ERPs: A New Alternative for an Old Need’’, IEEE Software May/June, pp. 94-97.

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1243.

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Volume-1 1 Issue-1 Issue January 2009-June June 2009 Phase-II: II: Empirical Article

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Evolution of and Research in Enterprise Information Systems

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

January 2009-June June 2009

Dr. Abha Chandra abhachandra09@rediffmail.com

Deapartment of Statistics, Meerut

Vinita Sharma Department of Computer Science, New Delhi Institute of Management, New Delhi

vinita.sharma@ndimdelhi.org

Dr. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

ponguru@cs.cmu.edu

Dr. Subodh Kesharwani School of Management Studies Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi

skesharwani@ignou.ac.in

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

ABSTRACT

•Privacy preserved e-society consists of three intangible factors firstly applications, which have data to share with authorized clients; secondly clients who wants data that contains in the applications and finally the privacy control factor which is required to maintain records about the purposes. In a world of virtually countless database capability, security breaches have the possibility to liberate millions of records into the hands of hackers or mischief’s. People now a day are more concerned about their personal information, which is supposed to be leaked out from the organizations to which they are trading online. There are many global and indigenous organizations, which conducts trading with Indian group through Internet. The significant point to be noted with respect to these organizations is to make their personal and financial information totally secure so that no unauthorized person or organization should acquire their data to mistreat over the Internet. An empirical study is conducted to evaluate the existence and format of privacy policies of diverse organizations with relevance to India in conducting online business through their websites. The endeavor of this paper is to throw more light on the study, methodology, modus operandi and its results.

KEYWORDS 1.

January 2009-June June 2009

Commerce offers the prospect to abridge commerce through supplier rationalization, transaction competence and contract fulfillment. E-Commerce Commerce means integration which is a key division of any integration plan involves balancing the natural al desire to maximize the use of existing system resources with the need to provide a robust and compelling sales system. An e-commerce e system should robust into a company’s company IT environment.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) can be elucidate as the reassignment nment of an organizations' entire non-core non but critical business process/function to an exterior vendor who uses an IT-based based service delivery and facilitates an organization to contemplate on its core competencies, develop efficiency, reduce cost and progress progr shareholders' value. As much as achievable, it is platformplatform neutral to sustain the technology our customers use, including .NET and J2EE. The E--commerce also balances the utilization of real-time time and batch-mode batch data transfers from ERP and back-end systems ms to the e-commerce. e ERP is the biggest integration and new-fangled new application software, which is a key enabler of business, process transformation and IT automation. [11].

1.2. What is Privacy Policy Privacy is defined as a state or condition of limited access to a person [12]. Privacy Policy describes the practices and policies followed by E-Commerce Commerce [13]. Privacy Policy represents the way of collecting ollecting data, what is the purpose of utilization of data, whether the enterprise provides access to the data, who are the data recipients (beyond the enterprise), how long the data will be retained, and who will be informed in what cases.[5]. cases.

In simple words, Privacy Policy is the document which is supposed to be attached or linked with the website while collecting the personal or non-personal personal or both the information of the user of that site at that juncture. The major points point that a privacy policy generally has may be listed down as follows• Presence of Privacy Seal in the document.

• Type of data that is collected from the user.

• How the data is collected from the user i.e. using sources of the website, the data is collected.

• Use of the data collected.

• Use of cookies.

• Data collected is shared with the third parties or not.

• Use of web beacons or links of third parties on the website.

• Security techniques used to make the user’s user data secure.

• Children’s privacy.

• P3P Reference File and Privacy Policy.

Policy

•E-commerce commerce •BPO • Privacy Policy • World Wide Web • Cookies •Data •B2B •B2C

INTRODUCTION 1.1. E-Commerce E-commerce commerce facilitates businesses to espouse new Internet technology and in particular to ascertain their own E-commerce presence on the World Wide Web. E E-

1.3 What we are going to study In this paper, we will first study the privacy policies of different Indian B2B, B2C and BPO companies, which are members of NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies), the Indian chamber of

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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2. Methodology To precede this research work, we collected the list of Indian E-Commerce Organisation’s websites from NASSCOM [4]. This long list of websites was then checked whether they included privacy policies or not and what privacy protections were offered to the customers in those privacy policies. After that the present policies were analysed with respect to their format, content and characteristics on the basis of a self-made questionnaire.

[1]

The analysis shows that the organisations providing B2B services have posted maximum number of privacy policies on their websites.

b2b/b2c 8

b2 4

3. Analysis In this section, we analyse that how many privacy policies exist among the list of websites of the organisations given

by NASSCOM. Only 94% websites are accessible out of the list of organisations and out of them only 37% have privacy policy. Amongst these organisations •

72% are of B2B type

•

5% are of BPO

•

4% are of B2C type

•

7% organisations provide both B2B and B2C services

•

6% organisations provide both B2B and BPO services

•

6% organisations provide both BPO and B2C services. (Tables 1 and 2)

b2b 76%

Sample Size Percentage

3.1. Existence of Privacy Policies Only about 37% organisations have posted privacy policies on their websites. Table 3 provides the information of existence of the privacy policies. Also, 5% websites’ URL out of the total list was inaccessible. (Table 3).

We prepared a Questionnaire which helped us to analyse different Privacy Policies of different domains [1]. There are 36 different questions related to the following topicsa) Existence of Privacy Policy in an E-Commerce web site. b) Type of the web sites. c) Personal and non-personal information taken from the web sites from the customers. d) Data sharing and selling to the third party. e) Options/Choices given by the web sites to the customers related to their personal information. f) Security g) Cookies h) Children under the age of 13 years i) P3P Reference File, P3P Privacy Policy

b2c/bp 1

bpo 5

2.1. Data A list of 1094 different E-Commerce companies, containing their website addresses (URLs), was collected from NASSCOM. Out of these organisations, 785 are of B2B type, 43 of B2C type and 53 are of BPO. Also there are 80 companies which provide B2B & B2C services both, 65 companies which provide B2B & BPO services both and 6 companies which provide B2C & BPO services both to the corresponding organisations.

b2b/bpo 6%

Presence of Privacy Ploicies Blan 6%

Domains have Privacy Policy 37%

Domains do not have Privacy Policy 57%

3.2. Shortcomings of Privacy Policies posted on websites Amongst all, we found that 6% organisations (12 pairs) have either same copy of policies or same formats of the policies. (See Table 4).

It is observed that in case of about 7% websites of the organisations, there is an inactive link for privacy policy on their home page (See Table 5).

Out of all, 4 organisations have very long Privacy Policies (See Table 7) whereas 6% privacy policies are exceptionally small and most of them do not include minimum number of points which are required to make a privacy policy (See Table 6). eFunds International Private Limited has two different types of privacy policies: Data Privacy and Internet Privacy. (See Table 7) The website of “Sella Synergy India Ltd,” has Non-English privacy policy, hence, not understandable by the most of the people. (See Table 8)

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Privacy Policy of Hewlett Packard Consumer Support Delivery (A Div. of Global e-Business Op. P Ltd) seems to be one of the perfect policies which includes moderate number of points and easy to understand. (Table 8) Web site of “Juno Online Services Development Pvt. Ltd.” is very lengthy. The statements in the policy should be written in a manner so that the user can grasp the theme quickly. (Table 8).

3.3 Privacy Statements’’ Analysis In this section we analysed different types of statements and points that privacy policies include generally. Some points give positive and some negative feeling to the user towards the safety of their personal information.

First of all we analysed that there is no differentiation of the Personally Identifiable Information (Name, Address, email id etc) and Non Personal Identifying Information (IP address) in almost all the privacy policies which makes the user confused as many users are not aware of the technical terms like IP address, cookies etc.

The presence of Privacy Seal in privacy policy makes the users more certain for the safety of their personal information but we found that only 5% organisations’ policies have privacy seal in it (Table 9).

As mentioned earlier, cookies play an important role in loosing the privacy of the user. It is better if the user is told the function of cookies and what personal information can be disclosed through it in the privacy policy posted on the website. We analysed that 67% Privacy Policies declare (only) that the organisations’ websites place a cookie to track the users. Most of the privacy policies indicate the presence of cookies to the user, without explaining what specific personal information may be disclosed through them. (Table 10).

Almost every business website has “Career” section in it through which it is collecting Resume from the users.

Hence, they should also post privacy policy as the resume gives personal and non-personal information of the user.

But we analysed that only 7% such Privacy Policies mention that their website collects Resume and also gives reasons for collection. (Table 11).

We also observed this fact that about 19% such organisations collect Personal Information from the users which even do not have privacy policy posted on their website. So, it is much sure that the personal information of the user is unsafe in the database of such organisations (Table 12).

Privacy Policies of 66% domains declare that they disclose personal information to the third parties (See Table 13). The user is unaware of those third parties in most of the cases and is unable to access their privacy policies which makes him / her feel more unsafe.

Privacy Policies of 22% domains declare that they provide security to the personal data of the users, out of which 7% provide security “During Transmission” (e.g. using SSL) and 97% provide security to the personal data “After

Collection” (See Table 14). When the user finds such statements in any privacy policy, he / she may feel relaxed.

One more point of relaxation for the user is that few privacy policies have mentioned that their websites do not collect personal information from the children under 13 years of age without their parent's approval. But only 21% such privacy policies exist which do not register/market/sell products to the children under 13 years of age (Table 15).

4

Discussion

This paper has shown that only 37% of the organisations have posted their privacy policies on their web sites.

However, as privacy policies are becoming increasingly expected on commercial web sites around the world, Indian organisations are beginning to post those [2]. Also, the organisations which had privacy policies posted did not express completely the necessary information for the customers.

5.

Summary

The authentic implementation of e-Commerce these days is moreover dissimilar from its real-life counterpart, and for the most part it’s a “Web page” with listing of items and prices. The social facet such as personalization, collaboration, security, interactivity, etc. is lacking. We for that reason argue to come together the solution with a social place, where customers who participate in should get foolproof security. The study shows that 67% websites have cookies which may be one of the main reasons of loosing customer’s privacy. Secondly, around 66% websites disclose personal information of the users to Third Parties which may or may not have their own privacy policies and is to be counted as one of the reasons for the same.

This study also finds that no Universal Standard format for a Privacy Policy has been designed and declared yet.

Some policies are too small whereas some of them are too large and difficult to understand by the customer.

We came to know that few organisations have privacy policies, but the content written in those policies does not prove them as privacy policies. Actually, it is a document which is not concerned with the personal information of the customers at all. These policies need modifications.

There should be an Authority to monitor and control the proper format and points included in the privacy policy so that no such privacy policies will be made by the organisations in future.

There is no general privacy law in India (1998). [10]. India does not have any data protection law equivalent to that in the UK and there have been recent cases of information being leaked from call centers to criminals who have then blackmailed the companies involved. The Data Security Council of India (DSCI) is being set up by Indian IT industry group NASSCOM (June 2007).[8] NASSCOM Information Technology Action Plan said [7] that a

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System 7.

Stephanie; India to Adopt Data Privacy Rules. http://www.cio.com/article/29666/India_to_Adopt_Dat a_Privacy_Rules.

8. India to set up data privacy watchdog; Tom Young, Computing 08 Jun 2007 http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2191739/indi a-gets-privacy-watchdog 9. Data Protection Laws in India; Naavi May 24, 2002. http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial/edit_25may_02_1.ht ml 10. Privacy And Human Rights An International Survey of Privacy Laws and Practice http://www.gilc.org/privacy/survey/surveyak.html#Indi a 11. Kesharwani, S. Principles of Management and Information Systems, MCS-052, Block-2 Unit-2 Enterprise Information System pp 46-74, School of Computer and Information Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India 12. H. Li, D.; Hung, P.C.K. Algorithms for automated negotiations and their applications in information privacy, Proc. IEEE International Conference on eCommerce Technology, 6-9 July 2004, pp. 255 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 262.

National Policy on Information Security, Privacy and Data Protection Act for handling of computerised data shall be framed by the Government within six months. However, a recent study tells that more than 40 countries around the world have passed, or are preparing to pass, laws that protect the privacy and integrity of personal consumer data. India is not however one amongst them. Some time back, NASSCOM did take some initiatives to push through a drafting exercise but it appears that the exercise has not been pursued further [9].

6. Limitations There are few limitations of this research which may be discussed as: There is no standard format of privacy policy. Some policies are too small whereas some of them are too large and difficult to understand. At least few standard points should be made mandatory in a privacy policy that a website should include.

How will we come to know that the user is more than 13 years of age? Suppose a kid enters his age 18 and registers / buys things himself on the site then how can this procedure be stopped i.e. inserting wrong age?

How can we check that the companies are implementing their privacy policies? If they are not implementing the policies after displaying on the net then how can we make them implement?

7. Future work

13. World Internet Secure Key, Privacy Policy, WISeKey S.A, E-Commerce PKI CA Privacy Policy - Version 1.0, 1 July 2001, pp. 1-7 9.

Appendix Table 1: Percentage of The Type of Domain of the Web sites

Significance of privacy seal is still an unclear point in general. Further studies can be done to check the awareness and to get suggestions of people from different backgrounds on this topic. Further work may be done to make a standard format of Privacy Policy which should be universal.

8. Reference 1. Adkinson F. William And Et Al. Privacy Online: A Report On The Information Practices And Policies Of Commercial Websites.

2. Kumaraguru, P. And Cranor, L. Privacy In India: Attitudes And Awareness. In Proceedings Of The 2005 Workshop On Privacy Enhancing Technologies (Pet 2005), 30 May - 1june 2005, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

3. Kumaraguru, P. Indian Call Center & BPO Organizations: Privacy Policy Analysis.

4. NASSCOM, List of registered companies http://companysearch.nasscom.org/registered_cos.as p?alpha=A 5. G. Karjoth and M. Schunter. A Privacy Policy Model for Enterprises. In 15th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop (CSFW) pages 271-281. IEEE Computer Society, 2002.

6. NASSCOM Information Technology Action Plan. http://www.nasscom.in/upload/38370/action_plan_1.p df.

Percentage

Number

b2b

71.755 %

785/1094

b2c

3.930 %

43/1094

bpo

4.844 %

53/1094

b2b & b2c

7.312%

80/1094

b2b & bpo

5.94%

65/1094

b2c & bpo

0.548 %

6/1094

other / blank

5.667 %

62/1094

Table 2 : Percentage of Domains that are accessible or not Percentage

Number

URL accessible

94.332 %

1032/1094

URL not accessible

04.570 %

50/1094

Blank (URL not in the record)

01.096 %

12/1094

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

/india Table 3 : Percentage of Domains that have Privacy Policy Percentage

Number

Domains have Privacy Policy

37.111 %

406/1094

Domains do not have Privacy Policy

57.221 %

626/1094

Blank (not in the record/ not accessible)

5.667 %

62/1094

10

11

www.saplabs. co.in

Siemens Public Communication Networks Pvt Ltd

www.Siemens .com

Siemens Shared Services India Pvt Ltd

www.Siemens .com

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

www.tcs.com

Tata Infotech Ltd.

www.tatainfot ech.com

UBICS Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.ubics.co m

UBS Service Centre (India) Pvt Ltd

www.ubs.com

Table 4 : Same Policy Holders Pair No. 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Company

URL of website

Remarks

Accenture Services Pvt Ltd

www.accentur e.com

Policy is same

A G Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.agtechnologies.c om

GE Infrastructure-India Technology Center (A Div of GE India Exports P Ltd)

www.ge.com

GE Medical Systems (India) Pvt Ltd

www.gehealth care.com

Hewlett Packard Consumer Support Delivery (A Div. of Global e-Business Op. P Ltd

www.hp.com

same

SAP Labs India Pvt Ltd

12

url is same for both organisatio ns, so same policies Policy is same

Policy is same

Policy is same Table 5 : List of Organisations having Links for Privacy Policies but do not have any policy

Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt Ltd

www.hpindia. com

IBM Daksh Business Process Services Pvt Ltd

www.daksh.c om

IBM India Pvt Ltd

www.ibm.com /in

Keane India Ltd

www.keane.c om

Keane Worldzen India Pvt Ltd

www.keanew orldzen.com

NetEdge Computing Global Services Pvt Ltd

www.netedge computing.co m

Network Programs (India) Ltd

www.network programs.com

Philips Electronics India Ltd

www.philips.c om

Philips Software Centre Pvt. Ltd.

www.bangalor e.philips.com

Infosys Technologies Ltd.

www.infosys.c om

Progeon Ltd

www.progeon. com

SAP India Pvt. Ltd.

www.sap.com

S.No

Policy is same

Policy is same

Policy is same

Policy format is same

Company

URL

1

Amrut Software Pvt Ltd

www.amruts.com

Inactive link for policy

2

Bebo Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.bebotechnolo gies.com

Inactive link for policy

3

CG-Smith Software Pvt Ltd

www.cg-smith.com

Inactive link for policy

4

City Info Services Pvt Ltd

www.cityinfoservic es.com

Policy under construction

5

CommVault Systems (India) Pvt Ltd

www.commvault.co m

Inactive link for policy

6

Compare Infobase Pvt Ltd

www.infobase.co.in

Inactive link for policy

7

Damco Solutions (P) Ltd

www.damcogroup. com

Inactive link for policy

8

Datamatics Ltd.

www.datamatics.co m

Inactive link for policy

9

Dewsoft Solution Pvt Ltd

www.dewsoftindia. com

Inactive link for policy

10

eMR Technology Ventures Pvt Ltd

www.emrtechventu res.com

Inactive link for policy

11

Exceed Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.exceedintl.co m

Inactive link for policy

12

Gurukulonline Learning Solutions (P) Ltd

www.gurukulonline. co.in

Inactive link for policy

13

HCL Technologies BPO Services Ltd

www.hclbpo.com

Inactive link for policy

14

Infozech Software Ltd.

www.infozech.com

Inactive link for policy

Policy is same

Policy is same

Remarks

Policy is

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System 15

Integrated Software Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd

www.issglobal.com

Inactive link for policy

4

16

Intellicom Contact Centers (A Div. of Jindal Transworld Pvt Ltd)

www.intellicomcent ers.com

nothing is written in the policy

5

Citibank N.A.

www.citibank.co.in

6

Citigroup Information Technology Operations and Solutions Ltd

www.citigroup.com

i-Strat Software Pvt Ltd

www.istratindia.com

Inactive link for policy

7

www.comat.com

18

IT Elite Systems Pvt. Ltd.

www.itelitesystems .com

Inactive link for policy

Comat Technologies (P) Ltd.

8

Contact Singapore

19

IT Microsystems (India) Ltd

www.itmicrosystem s.com

Inactive link for policy

www.contactsingapore.o rg.sg

9

Corbus (India) Private Limited

www.corbus.com

Kanbay Software (India) Pvt Ltd

www.kanbay.com

Inactive link for policy

10

Cordiant Technologies (P) Limited

www.cordiant.com

SEEC Technologies Asia Pvt Ltd

www.seecasia.com

Inactive link for policy

11

Edurite Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.edurite.com

Smart Chip Limited

www.smartchiponli ne.com

Inactive link for policy

12

e-Zest Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

www.e-zest.net

13

FCG Software Services (India) Pvt Ltd

14

Four Soft Limited

17

20

21

22

23

smart Data Enterprises (India) Ltd

www.smartdatainc. net

Inactive link for policy

24

Software Technology Parks Of India

www.stpi.in

Inactive link for policy

25

Source Quest AP Consulting Pvt Ltd

www.sqapc.com

Inactive link for policy

26

STAG Software Pvt Ltd

www.stagsoftware. com

Inactive link for policy

27

Texcity Software Parks Ltd

www.rcsindia.com

Inactive link for policy

28

TRRS Imaging Ltd

www.indecommglo bal.com

Inactive link for policy

Company

URL

1

Apollo Health Street Pvt Ltd

www.apollohealthstreet. com

www.careerlauncher.co m

www.fcg.co.in

www.four-soft.com

15

HCL Technologies Ltd

16

Hexaware Technologies Limited

17

Lehman Brothers Services India Pvt Ltd

www.lehman.com

18

Liqwid Krystal India Pvt Ltd

www.liqwidkrystal.com

www.hcl.in www.hexaware.com

19

neoIT.Com Pvt Ltd

www.neoIT.com

20

Niteo Technologies (P) Ltd

www.niteo.com

21

S7 Software Solutions Pvt Ltd

www.s7solutions.com

22

Winfoware Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.winfoware.com

23

Zensar Technologies Limited

Table 6 : List of the Organisations having very small Privacy Policies S.No.

Career Launcher India Ltd

www.zensar.com

Table 7 : List of the Organisations having very long Privacy Policies

2

Bechtel India Pvt. Ltd.

www.bechtel.com

3

Capital One Services (India) Pvt Ltd

www.capitalone.com

S.No.

Company

1

eBay India Pvt Ltd

URL www.eBay.in

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System 2

3

eFunds International Private Limited

www.efunds.com

GE Consumer & Industrial India Innovation Center (A Div. of GE India Exports)

www.geconsumerandi ndustrial.com

Percentage

Number

5.418%

22/406

Display a Privacy Seal

Table 10: Percentage of Domains that Post Disclosures about the Domainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Use or Non-Use of Cookies 4

VeriSign India Pvt Ltd

www.verisign.com

Table 8 : Different Policies than others S.No.

Company

URL

Remarks

1

First Indian Corporation Pvt Ltd

www.firstindia ncorp.com

different from others

2

Ford Business Service Center Private limited

www.ford.com

includes different points

Percentage

Number

Domain has Third Party Links

38.916%

158/406

Say that Domain uses Cookies

66.748%

271/406

Say that Domain does not use Cookies

31.773%

129/406

THIRD PARTIES may place cookies/ Web Beacons on the domain

9.359%

38/406

Table 11: Percentage of Domains that collect Resume 3

Hewlett Packard Consumer Support Delivery (A Div. of Global e-Business Op. P Ltd

www.hp.com

Percentage

Number

Domains collect Resumes

40.127%

439/1094

perfect policy

4

Juno Online Services Development Pvt Ltd

www.juno.com

lengthy policy

5

SCA Technologies India Pvt Ltd

www.scatech.com

not a privacy policy

Domains do not collect Resume

27.056%

296/1094

Domains do not have Privacy Policy but collect Resume

28.274%

177/626

Domains have Privacy Policy, which collects Resumes, accepts that website contains Resume and give reasons for collecting Resumes

6.896%

28/406

Table 12: Percentage of Domains that collect Personal Information (IPs) 6

7

8

Sella Synergy India Ltd

www.sella.it

SNS Technologies Pvt Ltd

www.snstech.c om

TPI Advisory Services India Pvt Ltd

www.tpi.net

non english policy

not a privacy policy

not a privacy policy

Table 9 : Percentage of All Domains that Display a Privacy Seal

Percentage

Number

Collect Personal Information

45.703%

500/1094

Collect Personal Identifying Information (only e mail)

35.923%

393/1094

Collect Personal Identifying Information other than e-mail

35.557%

389/1094

Collect Non-Identifying Information

25.045%

274/1094

Does not collect PersonalIdentifying Information

21.115%

231/1094

Domains do not have Privacy Policy but collect Personal Information

18.53%

116/626

Table 13: Of those Domains with a Privacy Policy, Percentage Privacy disclosure to Third Parties

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

Domain discloses personal information it collects to the third party

Percentage

Number

65.517%

266/406

Privacy Policy has option OPT IN

1.47%

6/406

Privacy Policy has option OPT OUT

3.488%

14/406

Privacy Policy has option of CHOICE

22.660%

92/406

Privacy Policy has NO option

38.916%

158/406

January 2009-June June 2009

Table 14: Percentage of those Domains that have Privacy Policy and provide Security Percentage

Number

Provide Security

22.120%

242/406

Provide Security during Transmission

07.404%

81/242

Provide Security after collection

96.694%

234/242

Provide Security in both the stages

31.818%

77/242

Table 15: Percentage of Privacy Policies that include something about Children under 13 years of age Percentage

Number

Says that domains do not collect information from the children under 13 years without their parent's approval

21.182%

86/406

Says that domains do not register/market/sell products to the children under 13 years of age

17.487%

71/406

Volume-1 Issue-1 January 2009-June 2009 Phase-II: Empirical Article

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Psychoanalysis of Privacy Policies of E E-Commerce & BPO Websites in Indian circumstances

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

Jashwini Narayana School of Management & Public Administration Faculty of Business & Economics, University of the South Pacific, Private Bag, Suva, FIJI

jashwini3@yahoo.com narayan_ja@usp.ac.fj

Anshu Mala Fiji Trades & Investment Board, Suva, Fij

Rajiv Naidu

PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article Clicking Away: Fijiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ICT Industry

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ABSTRACT

computers, ters, the internet and so forth mark our success or failure. The ability to communicate has not only been revamped, it has been revolutionised.

The ADB report regards Information Communication Technology (ICT) as a powerful integrative tool for the widely dispersed, thus this sector is considerably, an important market for almost all countries but what works for the developed countries 3 may not be workable for developing nations .

Effectively then, in any national ICT strategy, such policies must be closely linked to domestic policies in order to create a favourable environment for the development and the deployment of ICT. ICT does hold great promises for the developing economies in Asia and the Pacific - promises of: better educated workforce, empowerment of citizens, decentralisation of information, greater accessibility and communication, increased potential for research and development, and stronger integration with the global economy. However, government’s government need to recognise the potential of ICT and subsequently subs enact appropriate policies and regulations to encourage its widespread adoption in order to exploit the maximum benefit of these different and diverse technologies.

In the contemporary geopolitical map, there remains significant disparity in terms of technology distribution. While some countries are world leaders, others lag far behind.

•ICT and the Internet are correctly said to significantly contribute towards an increasingly globalised world. In Fiji, quite a number of researchers have investigated into/around this ICT industry but predominantly focused either on education or tourism needs. The objectives and strategies for the ICT industry has been formulated at a national and policy level, but what is being done in implementing these polices by the relevant agencies, is an aspect to further delve into. Since the ICT industry is at its infancy, the overall progress of this industry until now will be noteworthy for further policy implications. This country and industry specific research findings suggest that Fiji has just but passed the infancy stage thus, remains very young in terms of ICT development.

KEYWORDS

Nonetheless, the good news is that ICT has penetrated the Asia Pacific region and is growing rapidly. So much so that by the end of 2001, the region had the highestt growth than any region in the world, a fifty-fold fold increase over 1995. Whilst small island states such as those in the Pacific region seek to increase their development and their standing in the global community, they are increasing plagued with a myriad of other problems when attempting to harness ICT progression such as the general lack of enforcement of intellectual property rights, the lack of infrastructure for ee commerce, insufficient communications infrastructure to connect rural areas and to connect connec to international gateways and so forth.

•Fiji •ICT ICT Industry •Pacific Pacific Island nation •ICT •E-commerce commerce

Literature review

The fast-paced paced evolution of computing technologies such as the world wide web and internet based interfaces have brought businesses and countries together like never before. Quintessentially, we are living in an era of technology where mobile phones,

A number of authors have directed their attention to ICT related activities in the Pacific. In our perusal of current local literature, we noted that current work particularly dealt with education or tourism related matters. For instance, McMaster et al. and nd Doorne have talked around tourism 21, 7 opportunities . Robbins and Williams et al. have

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37, 47

looked into educational opportunities . Chand et al. examined the impact of ICT on rural development 5 in the Solomons . We next, give brief outlines of the work of writers who have researched around the ICT industry in Fiji and/or South Pacific.

Williams’ research showed that the state of libraries, archives and museums has not improved in 46 the past five years . Libraries and archives do have a role in education. She furthered that on the contrary, the library situation in Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Solomons have worsened due to poor government financial support which makes purchase of ICT equipment unattainable.

In their research on the economic impact of internet usage in promoting small-scale budget tourist accommodation businesses in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, McMaster et al. reported that most locals have limited knowledge/exposure to ICT compared to expatriate owners who have higher skill and 21 experience levels . They concluded that if given proper design and promotion, internet can be an effective marketing tool for tourism for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the South Pacific.

Doorne, from his research on community integrated tourism development in the South Pacific stated that communities should be actively involved in the management and control of their resources and to facilitate community integration, basic computer training and resource management 7 practices are required .

Another evaluative research on computer science curriculum in secondary schools in Fiji by William et al. highlighted that IT education needs improvement hence the need for a curriculum update, review and change. They believe that this is imperative now and even more so in the future given 47 the rapid development in technology .

Minges and Gray concluded that a more liberalised telecom environment with lower prices for ICT services will provide better quality and more 24 innovation . They stressed that Fiji compares well in terms of knowledge and affordability given the relatively high literacy and school enrolment and flat rate local call pricing for dial-up Internet access.

However, they argued that Fiji does less well in infrastructure, usage and quality.

Rahiman and Naz argued that public awareness of e-governance is critical - there is a need to gauge public perception and to increase 35 awareness . They also raised the issue of community involvement in dialogue and decision making.

Mistry and Rodrigues contended that ICTs and the right to information strategies should be developed in a coordinated fashion to open up channels of communication between Pacific Island 25 governments and their disparate populations .They furthered that the more recent ICTs such as computers are not yet widely entrenched throughout the Pacific, hence could be effectively coupled with older ICTs, such as radios.

Thus far, very few studies have been carried out on a wider industry level for ICT development in Fiji, since it is still at developmental and/or experimental stages. Fiji has also realised, albeit late, the importance of this sector. To this end, the respective ICT stakeholders are putting in their best efforts to further develop this sector. Their efforts seek to give the sector a much more national role rather than the niche role it currently has. The objectives and strategies for the ICT industry have been formulated at a national and policy level in Fiji’s Strategic Development Plan (SDP) 2007-2011, but what is being done in implementing these polices by the relevant agencies, is an aspect to further delve into. The overall progress of this industry until now will be noteworthy for further policy implications. As it is, the current regime in Fiji is tapping into the potential niche industries like ICT industry in addition to the ‘cash cow’ industries of Fiji. It is of no surprise that the ICT industry in Fiji is ‘green’ in a sense that it has just but passed the infancy stage. This research will help to advance understanding into the current status of ICT developments in Fiji. It is our hope that, our study will open up some directions for future research – to factor a holistic and intrinsic discourse into the said topic. Secondly, it is in our premise that this area remains largely ‘under-researched’ locally, hence one of the aims of this paper is to contribute to the current body of limited literature. Further usefulness of the study lies in its timeliness, given that Fiji has started working towards ICT development (though in a sluggish fashion), and the process is still very much in the making.

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2007. There may have been further developments or up-dates after this date.

Research methods

The making of the ICT sector

The study used multiple qualitative research methods to collect data. Inductive strategy was followed which commenced with data collection, went onto data analysis and finally helped in the formation of generalisations. In doing so, reliance was placed on both the primary and secondary sources, which were interviews with primary document survey and secondary document survey, respectively.

Fiji has slowly begun to realise that an increased use of ICT is vital for socio-economic development. Appendix 1 gives details on Fiji – country report. Stakeholders in Fiji clearly understand that ICT can contribute towards productivity improvements, especially in the public sector. The state has ensured that specific strategies and actions are contained in the National Strategic Development Plan to address this.

Statistically, the communication sector reported an increase in its contribution to Fiji’s GDP from 2.7 per cent of GDP in 1989 to 3.6 per cent by 2005; expectation remains around 3.5 per cent until 2008 43 . Overall, while access to traditional ICT like radio and television is all time high, there is a rise in Internet usage.

Research was mainly conducted by semistructured interviews. Questions asked were in an open-ended manner. We acknowledge that certain information might have been withheld during the interviews due to security and confidentiality matters.

The topics selected for interviews evolved around: how Fiji commenced with ICT projects; what we are doing now; what Fiji plans to do in the immediate future and much later; what are the approved structure/agency fully involved in the project and what are the possible hindrance, solutions and opportunities in this sector. The aim of the interviews was to extract information from interviewees about the process, their experiences, opinions and commitments towards the practicality of the process.

These topics allowed for the fulfilment of the reason for this study. The institutional reports, departmental documents, reports and submission targets, institution/ministerial correspondences, those that were made available wherever possible were examined on the ICT sector development in Fiji for actual intentions and effectiveness of ICT programs. Additionally, cabinet decisions, ministerial speeches and other related meaningful reports were sought to view the direction and commitment of the government towards the emerging sector. The secondary sources included journal articles, conference proceedings, newspapers and the internet. Both the published as well as the unpublished sources were referred to. Newspapers were merely used to track down more reliable information.

Data gathering from all relevant sources mentioned in references ceased at the end of June

The need for ICT development in Fiji is apparent. From a country perspective, it is important for Fiji to be at par with other nations. In so doing, it must engage in such developments. “ICT development could be thought of as a measure of the development of a culture in the scope of 14 Globalisation” . Fiji is a developing country and over the last 30 years or so, many businesses and academic institutions have been established.

Furthermore, a greater portion of the populace is now focused on education. The combination of these factors has been the driving force behind ICT developments in Fiji.

Fundamentally, with globalisation came improvement in ICT and its subsequent benefits.

An example of such a benefit is Quest, a regional call centre of the ANZ Banking Group based in Fiji. It provides state of art facilities and customer services to users of specific banking products and has become one of the premier employers of the country. In turn, it has attracted investment and recognition to the country as a whole. Fiji holds optimistic views on the development of the ICT industry, as a development tool for its economic growth. Government showed the earliest initiative towards ICT by establishing an ITC (Information Technology and Computing Services) department. Progress on further development has been slow and even stagnant at times but the year 1995 witnessed the introduction of Internet in Fiji

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System which brought about many developments later.

Major developments started with the connection to the Southern Cross Fiber Optic undersea cable. The Southern Cross Cable - a link to the world was 6 somewhat a milestone in the history of Fiji’s ICT .

In February 2002, the Cabinet SubCommittee on Investment (CSI) decided on the compilation of the ICT policy statement of specific strategies and actions to ensure the development of the sector. In June 2002, a two-day national ICT strategy workshop was held. Later in January 2003, new members were appointed to the Information Technology Advisory Council (ITAC), after which the Ministry organised a workshop on the theme “Creating Information Economy for Fiji” with the objective of an early draft on the ICT Development Policy. Then in July 2003 an assessment of the Telecommunications, Post and Information Technology Sector was carried out by the World Bank Group. Issues raised in this assessment report are similar to those raised in the Strategic Development Plan (SDP) 2003-2005.

How did ICT development in Fiji take-off?

There are many ways to answer this question. For starters, Fiji has a good strategic location, that is, it is the hub of the South Pacific. Fiji is somewhat the center of all trade in the Pacific. We also house the regional university in the Pacific (one of only two in the world). And many in Fiji are literate. Furthermore, there has been a marked increase in computer competency amongst the populace since the last decade. Unfortunately, while taking into account the fact that Fiji is a developing nation, there really has not been leaps and bounds progress in ICT sector in the past decade. A factor could be the sheer costs involved in exploiting such technology. For instance, “Fiji’s mobile phone charges are among the highest 27 in the world with the industry being monopolised” .

Given this, for a country like Fiji which has a low wage rate and struggling labour market, this cost structure can be described as non-conducive for ICT development in general.

a. b. c. d. e.

January 2009-June 2009 e-Filing of income tax Company office search/registration Drivers license Births, death & marriage registrations Immigration

These were particularly record keeping systems - systems which keep track of birth/death/marriage details and the immigration system which records flight details and passenger information and so forth. Keeping records in physical files is not practical any longer considering the volume of data that is involved with such applications, in view of the fact that data storage is just but one aspect. For efficient work practices, the stored data must allow easy retrieval and that too, with minimum delays. Also, the data needs to be updated with back-up for future use. Such factors gave rise to ITC development. Moreso, there is a move from the government to be citizen centric, that is, the plan is to take service to the citizens instead of asking citizens to make an effort to come to the service providers hence making things easier, convenient as well as cheaper for the public. There is, however, a process to all this. The process of ICT development commences with the identification of a need and the cost savings associated with ICT projects. Following the determination of the scope of the project, a blueprint is formulated. A team is then created to conduct a business analysis of the projects before the commencement of any development or design. At the macro level, though, there are many operational models suggested by various organisations, many of which involve a “lifecycle” approach. ICT development as a whole is a continuous process with new technologies and processes being developed. The trend remains the same with most technologies that are implemented.

The current Fiji Government is tapping into the potential niche industries like ICT industry in addition to the ‘cash cow’ industries of Fiji. To this end, much is owed to Fiji’s connectivity to the Southern Cross Cable securing its chances to be promoted and marketed as an ICT destination ICT development commenced with the abroad. Fiji boasts of a strong national ICT plan that automation of manual tasks - tasks which were time is to unfold over the next 10 years. But, the consuming and prone to errors. The actual process liberalisation of the telecommunications sector must started with the advent of Analogue Voice come sooner to allow for continuous development if Technologies with manual switch (board) operators. such a plan is to materialise in the desired fashion.

These electronic processes later became digitised, Further, government (in collaboration with other thus developing the local ITC even further. providers) needs to establish new units or Specifically, the National ICT Development Policy restructure other services to monitor and support the identified the following applications as priorities: non-formal sector.

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Figure 1: The stakeholders and their roles in ICT sector development in Fiji

FIRCA

ICT Enterprises

Products &

Educational

Labour

Institutes

Local/National Network

ICT Sector Growth and Development

FINTEL

International Network

Funding & Policy Implementation

Policy Formulation

Ministry of Planning

Telecom Fiji

Incentives

Marketing & Promotion

Ministry of Commerce

FTIB

Source: Narayan, Mala, & Naidu developed for this paper

The relevant ICT industry stakeholders as illustrated in Figure 1 have a crucial role to play. The arrows in the diagram represent the role of major stakeholders to the development of the ICT sector in Fiji. There are many factors that determine ICT development. The controlling agency in Fiji is the government. The Ministry of Information gives specific licenses for ICT related technologies. The Ministry ry of Commerce, Business Development & Investment (MCBDI) is responsible for the e ecommerce program to inform, provide advice and to assist Fiji’ss Private Sector businesses to adopt e ecommerce and increase competitiveness. ICT funding comes from the Ministry ry of Finance. This Ministry is responsible for setting developmental standards. ICT in turn looks after the IT infrastructure across government departments and ministries, and is responsible for local IT capacity building.

January 2009-June June 2009

successful experiences and knowledgebase.

Normally, the Head Units/Offices Offices based overseas implement new technology first, upon success, same is then transferred to their other branches in smaller countries. The model does become country specific to some extent as it depends on internal as well as factors outside our state..

ICT processes are ongoing and evolving. In particular, Fiji is trying to follow the e-citizen citizen paradigm set by Singapore. It is engaging experts from China and Singapore to aid with the e-government plan - putting our services online. There is in place a National ICT Development Policy with the theme “e-Fiji, empowering our people”.. The document’s document policy aims to encourage, facilitate, and support development and growth of the ICT industry. While the policy is theoretical, the practical success is realised ed via an ICT Development Implementing Agency to ensure the implementation of the action plan leading to e-Fiji. Effectively, the concept entails two networks, intranet and extranet physically separated for security reasons. The intranet carries information n concerned with national confidentiality and the governmental internal office automation, as such is not for public consumption. Whereas, extranet faces public directly, providing various ee government services to the public. Figure 2 illustrates this concept.

Figure 2. IT platform – intranet vs extranet

Source: Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations, 2004: 18

There are universal standards and bodies that govern aspects of ICT. Fiji (and the Pacific) has been adopting standards and technologies of the more developed countries, gaining from their

The remaining key players are Data3 - a Microsoft Partner residing in Australia, Fiji International Telecommunications Limited (FINTEL), PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article

Clicking Away: Fiji’s ICT Industry

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH – TELECOM FIJI, CONNECT, TRANTEL, VODAFONE) UNWIRED, KIDANET, DIGICEL, Investors, private IT sectors and private sectors undertaking back office operations. Players outside Fiji are Australian Government, Japanese Government (Financial Aid), Cisco (initiatives for education), Australia and New Zealand ISPs/Telecoms. It is, as a matter of fact, the government’s shares in strategic players and the oversight in early monopolistic licensing that has led to the loss or delay of developments in the ICT industry. A key strategic player, ATH has very heavily and is continuing to invest in the much needed infrastructure to enhance growth of ICT industry in Fiji.

Nonetheless, some progress is evident and cannot go unnoticed. The success of ICT programs is one such relevant factor when noting progress.

The outcome of the projects or programs indicates how well the project had been implemented with respect to accomplishing set goals. Success, to a great extent is measured through cost savings.

Basically, work processes should become more efficient, secure and reliable. Micro-business efficiency assessment involves fast, timely service (quick turnaround time associated with delivery of services to customers), cost cutting, sales output, customer acceptance, network traffic, increased profit, decreased cost of doing e-business, staff survey, customer survey and improved quality of life.

It is also measured by the point of sale machines at supermarkets, resultant being better shopping experience for customers. Further, e-banking is making it easier to pay bills online and to access associated services online. Lack of awareness or lower usage rate in this area could be due to lack of education or a feeling of insecurity when using machines. Fiji’s border control at the airports is also more efficient and secure. Exchange of information between departments within companies has become easier. So much so that we are now moving towards consolidating data so that it can be used as the single point of truth instead of having bits and pieces sitting with different departments.

The favourable macro – environment created generates more investment from abroad, increases economic growth and further enhances communication technologies. But this is still a new concept since full implementation is in process. The installation of the Southern Cross cable has

January 2009-June 2009

introduced high speed and broadband Internet connection.

Schools are now introducing computing at lower secondary school levels. A number of ministries have information based websites.

Introduction of mobile devices such as blackberry and mobile GPS systems has reached our shores.

Citizens enjoy access to satellite television with Fiji TV and Pacific Broadcasting Services (PBS). Fiji has direct communication with the outside world with video conferencing and such. National ICT department is creating lots of improvements in the technological sector. Government is now thinking of implementing e-voting system. Essentially, while ICT in Fiji is still in its development phase, all these developments were unheard of, some years ago in Fiji. Fiji’s ICT industry is definitely developing in the area of hardware suppliers and technical support services. It was the realisation of government that led to the set up of an ICT Park that instigated the importance ICT played in today’s IT world and the benefits developing countries could foresee from IT parks.

Essentially, effective 1 January 2006 for a period of 7 years until 31 December 2012, approved new and existing ICT industries including Software Development and Call Centers will be provided the following tax incentive in the event of significant increase in capacity and the number of employees: • 80% Income Tax exemption for business employing more than 101 employees • 60% Income Tax exemption for business employing 60 - 100 employees • 40% Income Tax exemption for business employing 10 - 59 employees Further, the importation of computer equipment and accessories (hardware) will be exempted from fiscal and excise duty in an attempt to make these items more affordable and to facilitate growth in IT business and education in this discipline. Software attracts a low levy of 3 per cent.

Ten year tax holidays are also available to companies operating in the temporary studio city zone. To date, government has signed off three studio city zones in Suva for Tele-Business Park to be set up within the zone. These are Kalabo Tax Free Zone (TFZ), ATH and University of the South Pacific (USP). More to this, the 2007 revised Budget makes available incentives to investors in Kalabo area whereby: the ICT business location must be in the kalabo ICT Economic Free Zone, employ more

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January 2009-June 2009

Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

Househ olds

Population

Provided Access

Percentage

1,671

73,168

415,582

950

56.83

Division

Villages

Household s

Population

Provided Access

Central

400

14,295

82,979

250

Eastern

274

6,936

37,02

189

Norther n

428

17,835

109,465

213

Wester n

569

34,103

186,114

298

Table 1, Rural telecommunications November 2003

Source: Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations, 2004: 37

Figure 3. Sector statistics General

Radio

Interne…

Fixed…

800,000

600,000

Populat…

400,000

A reality check on this industry in Fiji says that, it has not reached the level of success it should have compared to the amount of resources employed for its success. A look at the time and money spent on the resources signals that Fiji is still way behind than most of the developing countries around the world. Development is occurring but is rather slow and not at the speed at which most countries have developed. For one, Fiji is said to have the highest mobile rates in the world. But this is improving, given the recent entry of a competitor – Digicel. Comparatively, Tonga and Samoa have better mobile services than Fiji. While Vodafone Fiji proudly announces that it has attained about 25 per cent of the population as mobile users, they are silent on the fact that they do not have the capabilities to handle that much traffic. Second is the broadband connection in Fiji - the amount of money the public spends for the ISP services is way too high compared to the level of service provided by these sectors. The speed is too slow. The entire nation does not have the range to accommodate the signal. This results in signals being so weak that they advertise it as high speed internet yet it can be compared with dial up. It has been slow but is picking up pace. Progress is largely due to the growing need for access to information and communication using Internet. Undoubtedly, while the demand for ICT skills remains high, the problem is that of retention of highly skilled professionals.

Awareness remains a knotty area. Generally, whatever developments and innovations eventuate in Fiji, are only known by people who are actually working in the industry. It cannot be denied that a proportion of Fiji’s population do not get proper education. Because of this, they are also seriously computer illiterate. Many don’t have access to

Villages

200,000

It is true that the general public or majority of the population have no idea what ICT is and what it can do for us. This is due to the lack of information provided concerning ICT and also the level of education in this field. Also the way this industry is being handled in Fiji is not up to the standards it 27 should have been .

internet. Still many do not have computers at home.

With respect to education and training, computer literacy at pre-tertiary level is rather low, especially in rural areas due to very limited access to computers.

Table 1 and Figure 3 illustrate these statistically.

0

than hundred workers and where 60% of sales is exported. This speaks well on the commitment of current regime towards ICT development. BUT, overall, we are still way behind in terms of development. The good news is that it doesn’t seem that far away. We have made some progress despite the common constraints.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

January 2009-June 2009 provisions of the Posts Telecommunications Decree 1989.

Source: Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations, 2004: 34

With the progress to-date, what have been witnessed overall are: the introduction of networked systems, serious computerisation of public and private services and higher speed Internet access.

But progress is very much hindered by political upheavals and lack of resources in terms of both finance and labour. Skilled workers continue to leave for greener pastures. The monopoly status enjoyed by the ISP further hinders ICT growth. Now, given that competition is lacking, service providers enjoy profits at the expense of the public who have no choice but to accept services at higher prices, that is those who can afford such services. Lack of education as mentioned prior also hinders growth.

Computer literacy has only increased recently but there still exists a vast gap. Funding is yet another of the bigger issues. Fiji as it is, as a nation is stringent on all expenses. Given the December 5 coup, assistance from some donors is also not forthcoming which aggravates resource availability. Other hinderances include problems associated with deregulation of the market, IT staff salary and poor public awareness on automated systems and services.

Even so, all is not at odds. Fiji did come up with the following objectives specific to 23 telecommunications : • • •

•

and

communities such as schools, villages, government, public and private sector are required. Fiji Institute of Technology and the USP do offer various IT related training, yet, this is still insufficient compared to the demand for IT professionals. To fill this training gap, there are also a number of private sector firms which provide training but there is a need to establish quality of such training. Further, there are other technical institutes which provide specialised training in IT/IS and also run specific programs as per client specifications. Opportunities are many and do exist for and in this industry.

There will definitely be a huge demand for IT graduates in the years to come given the ICT projects lined up for the coming years. They might even command their desired salary. This will somewhat curtail IT ‘brain-drain’ as IT experts experience job satisfaction. Job opportunities created in this industry will lead to positive rippling effects on the economy - economic growth. Should international companies be willing to outsource part of their projects to Fiji, this will bring in revenue to the country instead of Fiji having to outsource most of its ICT projects as has been the case in the past years. With appropriate funding and skilled personnel, ICT can be developed in both public and private sectors in Fiji. New technologies should be explored to improve on the current ICT standards.

Key findings

There is consensus between the interviewees on the ‘age of ICT sector’ in Fiji. All agree that, Fiji has progressed though in a slow To consolidate and amend the law relating fashion (due to mentioned constraints). Fiji has just to posts and telecommunications. but passed the infancy stage and remains ‘green’, it To abolish the exclusive privilege of is yet to achieve much more. There is also government regarding telecommunications. agreement on the major constraints of high costs Constitute a new regulator, given the monopoly status of Telecom, lack of public Telecommunications Authority of Fiji (TAF), awareness on the importance of this sector, difficulty providing for its operation, amends and in retaining highly qualified personnel, financial consolidation of the law relating to constraints (this is no surprise given the tight country telecommunications and radiobudget Fiji is employing at present), political communication. developments which affect donor country aids to Fiji, Transfer to TAF most of the functions at training schemes and costs of latest ICT mediums present conferred on the Minister as which are generally not that affordable to many regulator and repeals and re-enacts with especially in the rural areas. That being said, Fiji is minor modifications as to language relevant still at the forefront of ICT development when compared to her regional neighbours and this is PhasePhase-II: Empirical Article

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System mainly due to the double blessings of being at a centrally ideal location and also having the Southern Cross cable and relatively good infrastructure at its disposal.

Conclusion & recommendations This research in particular focussed on the progress in Fiji’s ICT industry until now. The preceding commentary indicates that Fiji has passed the infancy stage but remains very young in terms of general ICT development. Market is neither adequately deregulated nor completely efficient.

However, the picture may vary within next seven to ten years if progress is kept at a steady flow and there are no disruptions, particularly socio-political disorder such as the coups Fiji has befallen. These unfortunate events set back technological development by a decade or more, based on its severity. Fiji’s ICT sector still has a long way to go and there is a lot of catching up to do. The good news is that, like the previous government, the current regime is also showing its commitment towards this sector. So while we are behind many countries, we can still progress. However, the current constraints need to be handled effectively.

The government objectives on telecommunications are encouraging and signals towards further deregulation. In light of the constraints and the current status of Fiji, it is recommended that a private-public partnership be developed between the government and the private sector. Government through FTIB gives a number of incentives to the existing and the very new in this sector. Conditions included in these incentives can be: companies to assist in general ICT public awareness in anyway they can. As good corporate citizen companies can be asked to run promotional programs in areas where ICT holds little understanding. Companies can also donate computers to schools and institutions as part of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes.

For companies that show interest in this respect, state can identify a number of schools particularly in the rural areas that need computers, in such a way that all schools at a certain point in time are equipped. There are certain large multinational companies as well as some NGOs and diplomatic corps which have been actively carrying this out and

January 2009-June 2009

it is indeed a positive contribution towards the general development of the ICT industry.

Secondly, since highly qualified people have been leaving Fiji for greener pastures in droves, new students can be given scholarships to study IT in various educational institutes in Fiji after which they be bonded for a number of years and be requested to serve in rural schools with understudies. Still on the educational institutes – such institutes should work together with the Education Ministry and Labour Ministry to identify which degree programs lead to bloated graduates with poor employment prospects and those that Fiji really requires.

Together, they can act to balance out student intake in such courses. For instance, there are often complains of excess graduates in the education degree who remain unemployed after graduating. At the same time, there are chronic shortages of IT personnel in different levels and sectors of the industry. The education degree can also be upgraded to incorporate IT knowledge. Fiji can also explore how it can best maximise from the dot com phenomenon as has been done by the government of Tuvalu which holds exclusive rights to the domain TV and this has been leased by them to various companies who pay millions of dollars a year to administer and sublease the domain. This is an example of how a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) in the region has exploited a niche area in this very dynamic and young industry.

Third, companies which now go online should run one-off awareness programs throughout Fiji as part of their CSR programmes. It is one thing to come up with an e-location which gives the general public some idea on a company’s scope of work, it is entirely another issue whereby the users actually know how to use the e-site. Many types of interface should be made available online and the experience to the visitor must be maximised. Some companies, such as Fiji Water, Pure Fiji, Vodafone Fiji, etc… have invested a lot of time and money to ensure that their respective sites do this. It does not make sense to have an e-site where customers still have to visit the company premises for more information, to request and to fill out a number of forms. Instructions should also be simple for clear understanding. It is also noted that the senior citizens are not that comfortable while ‘talking on or to machines’, they are more at ease with human contact. But this is not something confined to only senior citizens of the region, it also afflicts many who

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System fall in the Generation X category. It might be a little too ambitious but for Fiji to become e-Fiji, it should also take this group into account whereby, certain educational institutions can offer crash courses on the very basics of computers/use of internet only for this group. Once again, due to cost constraints on the state, this may require private, public and educational institute partnership. In this way the different parties share costs, resources and in turn also benefit from each other. Government can assist in terms of incentives offered to such institutes and the private sector while such sectors assist the government in moving the ICT sector forward.

What this will quintessentially attain over a sustained period is a highly versatile and technologically competent populace, where there is empowerment through knowledge and education via the mediums of the ICT industry. A succinct advantage of this would be holistically harmonious environment in which business and the state can mutually thrive. Another recommendation is that there is a need for more drive and investment in the ICT sector from all stakeholders in order to transform the current niche form status to one which can be a nationally realised sector – accessible to those who seek it. This could be facilitated via ICT parks (which is being advanced by the state and the private sector), tax concessions and incentives to companies which venture into this industry with strong CSR programmes aimed at expanding the sector.

Essentially, Fiji still has a fair way to go insofar as its fledgling ICT industry is concerned. It is important that ongoing research on similar topics be conducted to contribute to its progress. Such continual research will keep creating better understanding and enhance new knowledge as well as reflect on policies as Fiji gains maturity in ICT. Organisati on

Producti on Compute rs

Admin.

Comput ers

Internet Comput ers

Comput ers 3+ Years old

Broken Comput ers

USP

1200

500

1000

300

20

Fiji TV

3

49

34

31

1

Archives

0

5

1

5

1

Museum

6

6

1

4

0

January 2009-June 2009

research. Given that the sector of ICT is very much in the making, in seven to ten years time, the stance will be much different from its earlier state of affairs.

Second, a comparative study can be undertaken between island nations. This will help uncover the approaches taken by different islands and help reveal complexities, similarities, differences etc…

The scope of this kind of research may be too broad but can be narrowed down to observe specific elements such as the role of government in developing the sector.

Acknowledgement Sincere acknowledgement is accorded to the following for their contribution towards the completion of this paper: •

•

•

Faculty of Business & Economics Research Committee of University of the South Pacific for funding.

All interviewees namely, Rajneil Raj – a Systems Analyst/Applications Architect at ITC Services – government; Ushneesh Yadav – a Research Assistant (Ministry of Reconciliation) at the Parliament of Fiji, Sandeep Chand - a Network Administrator at the Parliament of Fiji; Rishan Goundar – a Network and Computer Engineer with Exceed Pasifika; Ronal Nair – a Lecturer in Computing at APTECH and Ashneel Kamal Narayan - a Technical Manager at Kris Myer (Fiji) Limited. In addition to this list, one of the interviewees (Government employee) requested for anonymity. His wish is respected but we do acknowledge his contribution as well. The interviewees provided valuable information particularly in a pragmatic sense – what Fiji did, what it is doing in actuality compared to what it proposed towards the ‘making of the ICT sector’.

Research Assistant – Rajiv Naidu who later joined as a co-author of this paper. We thank him for his complete and timely efforts towards collection of relevant data via internet and interviews.

Appendix 1. Fiji∗: Country Report __________________________________________

First, a similar analysis can be undertaken after The survey was completed by four organisations: The University of the South Pacific, Fiji Television, Fiji Museum, and The National Archives of Fiji. seven or ten years to note progress – periodic Phase--II: Empirical Article Phase ∗

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

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Pages A. COUNTRY INFORMATION

Population: 775,000

B. ICT EQUIPMENT Access to Internet Services

Connectivity

Three of the four respondents to the survey - USP, Fiji Television, and the Fiji Museum - have a home page on the Internet

Staff Usage Internet

of

USP, Fiji Television, and the Fiji Museum have more than 75% of their staff using e-mail in their work. USP also has more than 75% of staff using the internet. For Fiji Television and the Museum between 26% and 50% access the internet.

Listserve, Usenet, Online Ordering, and Web Publishing are never used. The one exception is the University which has less than 10% of staff using these facilities

Internet Applications

USP: Websites are used for staff and student research. List servers are only used for specific staff and student groups.

Fiji Television: Mostly news and current-affairs related sites.

Access to the internet is less than 25% of the population at all access points. The exception is the office environment which is between 25 and 50% of the population

Telephone, Fax, e-mail, and WWW are used by all of the organisations greater than once a day. Audio-conferencing, video-conferencing, and VSAT terminals are used greater than once a day by the University but used only occasionally by the other organisations. PEACESAT are never used. The University and the Fiji Museum use low speed data connections greater than once a day while the other organisations do not use them at all. The University also uses a high speed data connection greater than once a day. No organisations use LEOS satellites

Staff Training

Computers

C: E-GOVERNANCE

Organis ation

Total staff

Staff Confident with ICT and Computers

Staff Recently Trained

Staff Learning Computer Skills on Job

ICT Equipment and Services

No figures have been supplied.

E-Governance Applications

The Internet is used to provide a list of government agencies, national statistics, national events, regional events, and for the counting of election votes. The Museum also uses public access kiosks and allows ordering online

Government Initiatives

A seminar on E-Governance has been organized by the Ministry of Information in Suva

Government Websites

www.fiji.gov.fj is a government website offering general information

USP

800

750

60

10

ICT PolicyUSP

Fiji TV

65

65

0

65

Access The National to Archives of Fiji advise that training of public officials takes Government place and that ICT is reinforced through training institutes Services and universities

Archive s

19

10

3

3

Museum

22

17

0

15

Government Access

has a fully implemented ICT policy, but respondents did not know if central Government had one.

The following departments use faxes, e-mail, and the internet: Administrative, Economic Development, Education, Electoral, Foreign Affairs, Museums, and Police.

All other departments use faxes and e-mail

Legislation Inhibitors

Fiji has some Copyright law in place The cost of Internet Services, slow connections, a lack of digitised government information, equipment costs, and the ownership of Telecom services have been cited as major inhibiting factors in the development of egovernance Other factors identified include a lack of political and staff awareness of the opportunities presented by egovernance

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Barriers

The cost of equipment, ISPs, bandwidth, and the cost of domestic and international telecommunication have been cited as major barriers constraining the use of ICT in the organisations Other barriers identified include a reliable power supply, access to telephone networks, a lack of online resource material, and staff understanding as to the value of ICT

Development Plans

USP has a strategic IT development plan in place Fiji Television is planning to upgrade the company's ISP connection to a "dedicated link"' of 28.8 kbps The National Archives of Fiji have made a request to Government for funding for the automation of the national archives The Museum plans to link all computers to the internet instead of just the one (as is the current situation)

Barriers

The cost of equipment, the quality of internet connections, ISPs, an international telecommunications have been cited as major developing internet services.

Other barriers identified include the reliability of power supply, international calls, and bandwidth issues.

D: INTERNET INFRASTRUCTUR E

ISPs

Internet Service Fiji (Telecom Fiji). This has 3500 customers and was started in 1996

Typical Costs∗

Development Plans

Deregulation has been mooted as the monopoly situation in Fiji p role in the development of the internet.

E: TELECOMMUNI C- ATIONS

Telecom Fiji is a private sector monopoly, although the Government a shareholding stake in the Company.

F: BUDGETS

There is no centralised budget for ICT.

ISP

G: OTHER SURVEYS Fiji Dollars

United Dollars

States

Surveys

Development Initiatives

Usage-based

Minimum monthly cost

Unlimited access

F$78.75 15 hours

for

US$34.65 for 15 hours

F$123.75 25 hours

for

US$54.45 for 25 hours

F$55.00 per month (Suva Only)

US$24.20 per month (Suva Only) 54).

Sharing Information Issues/Commen t

Source: Zwimpfer Communications Ltd (2002: 51References •

Schools Hospitals

&

•

∗

Currency Conversions as at 16 August 2001

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ICT and Trade Development in the Pacific Islands Region: UNESCAP, Regional Summary, Nov. (2001) IT Policies in Asia and the Pacific: Theory, Practice and Way Forward, Address by G.H.P.B. Van Der Linden, VicePresident, Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development, Asian Development Bank To Development Gateway Forum 2005, Beijing, “Information Technology and Collaborative Development”, 17 Sept. (2005) Journal of Educational Administration 41 (2): 158-170 (2003) King, S., McMenemy, D. and Poulter, A., Effectiveness of ICT training for public library staff in the UK: Staff views, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=1558113 Kokkonen, P. and Anja, T., The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation 8 (1): 44-52(9) (2007) Lan, Y. and Unhelkar, B., Global enterprise transitions: Managing the process, US, UK: Idea Group Publishing (2005) Martey, A., ICT in Distance Education in Ghana. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=861479, Library Hi Tech News, 21(5): 16-18 (2004) McKenzie, D.J., Youth, ICT Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations, ICTs and Development, (2004) Mcmaster, J., Kato, M. and Khan, N., Economic impact of ecommerce on small tourism enterprises, Prepared for the ICT capacity building at USP project, Mar. (2004) Minges and Gray, Bula internet: Fiji ICT case study, International telecommunication (2004) Ministry of Information, Communications and Media Relations, Subregional symposium on ICT for development in Pacific Islands Developing Countries, Suva, 6-9 Dec. (2004) Mistry and Rodrigues, E-Governance in the Pacific Islands: Entrenching Good Governance & Sustainable Development by Promoting ICT Strategies Based on The Right to Information,

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IIDS Conference on Governance and Development, 1-3 Dec., Suva: University of the South Pacific (2005) Naidu and Jansen, Pacific Island Countries (No Date stated) Nair, R., Lecturer in Computing, Suva: APTECH, Personal Communication, 20 June (2007) Narayan, A.K., Technical Manager, Kris Myer (Fiji) Limited, Personal Communication, 14 June (2007) OECD, Annex 1B, OECD definition of the ICT sector, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/49/44/35930616.pdf, (2006, revised 2007) Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Forum Information and Communications Technologies Ministers Meeting, Summary Outcomes (2006) Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Pacific Plan Background Papers, (2005) Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, The Pacific Plan, For Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Integration (2005) Peansupap, V. and Walker, D., Factors affecting ICT diffusion: A case study of three large Australian construction contractors, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=1465091 Peansupap, V. and Walker, D.H.T., http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=1563216 Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management 13 (4): 364-379 (2006) Rahiman & Naz, Digital Divide Within Society: An Account of Poverty, Community and E-Governance in Fiji (2005) Raj, R., Systems Analyst/Applications Architect, ITC Services – Government, Personal Communication, 19 June (2007) Robbins, C., Educational multimedia for the South Pacific: Research Report for the ICT capacity building at USP project entitled “ Maximising the benefits of ICT/Multimedia in the South Pacific: Cultural pedagogy and usability factors,” Prepared for ICT capacity building at USP, Aug. (2004) Sarshar, M. and Isikdag, U., A survey of ICT use in the Turkish construction industry, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=845834, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management 11 (4): 238-247 2004) Shiels, H., McIvor, R. and O'Reilly, D., Understanding the implications of ICT adoption: insights from SMEs, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=852241 Logistics Information Management 16 (5): 312-326 (2003) Siriwongworawat, S., Use of ICT in Thai libraries: An overview, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=862435 Electronic Library and Information Systems 37 (1):38-43 (2003) Spacey, R., Goulding, A. and Murray, I., ICT and change in UK public libraries: does training matter? http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=859071 Library Management 24 (1/2): 61-69 (2003) Strategic Development Plan (2003-2005) Strategic Development Plan (2007-2011) Teltscher, S., Asian Forum on ICT Policies and e-Strategies, “Session 2: Globalization and WTO: ICT, Trade and Competitiveness”, DRAFT, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development The Electronic Library 24 (2): 265-276 (2006) Wainwright, D., Green, G., Mitchell, E. and Yarrow, D., Towards a framework for benchmarking ICT practice, competence and performance in small firms, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=1465048 Performance Measurement and Metrics 6 (1): 39-52 (2005) Williams, E., Digital community services: Pacific libraries and archives: Future prospects and responsibilities, A report, Sept.

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Yuen, A.H.K., Law, N. and Wong, K.C., ICT implementation and school leadership: Case studies of ICT integration in teaching and learning, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?con tentType=Article&contentId=839261 Zwimpfer Communications Ltd, Internet Infrastructure and e eGovernance in Pacific Islands Countries, A Survey on the Development and Use of the Internet (2002)

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PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper The Potential of E-Commerce in the Insurance Industry: The Road Ahead

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

January 2009-June 2009

financial compensation if an insured risk occurs and causes damage. Even when no loss occurs, insurance provides peace of mind, a service of considerable, if unquantifiable, value. A detailed discussion on the development role of insurance can be found in Outreville (1990)1. As a financial sector, insurance is a major investor. The insurance sector covers long and short-term risk activities. It comprises three basic activities: life insurance includes common life insurance and life reinsurance with/without a saving component. non-life insurance37 comprises insurance and reinsurance of nonlife insurance business, e.g. accident, fire, health, property, motor, marine, aviation, transport, pecuniary loss and liability insurance. Pension funding37 includes the provision of retirement incomes, but non-contributory schemes where the funding is largely derived from public sources.

Reinsurance activities are included in one of the three sections, according to the kind of risk reinsured, e-Business W@tch (2002)2. The insurance sector is one of the most important service sectors regarding its basic function for the whole economy and society. Modern, highly industrialized and technology-driven economies are threatened by higher risks than ever; and individuals need to protect themselves against private risks as well as saving individually for their retirement. Insurance companies also play an important role as investors and shareholders. The insurance industry has been undergoing dramatic changes for a number of years. Significant movements toward deregulation in financial services, along with advances in telecommunications and computer technology are forcing significant changes upon the industry and making it far more competitive. If one were to enumerate the most significant technological innovations that the industry has faced in recent years, two in particular stand out , Garven (1998)3: The emergence of capital market alternatives to traditional reinsurance products, and The growing importance of computer networks such as the Internet in the marketing and distribution of insurance products. The result is the industry is becoming more competitive. The emerging role of electronic commerce (e-commerce) is particularly important and interesting to study.

A developed and functioning insurance sector is a fundamental condition for economic success. The objective of insurance is to provide financial stability to individuals, organizations and businesses. As a risk pooling and transfer mechanism, insurance allows the insured to mitigate pure risks (i.e. risks that involve only the possibilities of loss or no loss). Examples of such risks are fires, flooding, ill health and unintentional damage to a third party. Insurance helps business to stay open and individuals to continue their work or education by providing

Over4 the last decade the world has seen a meteoric rise in e-commerce, which can be defined as the sharing of business information, maintaining of business relationships, and conducting of business transactions by means of telecommunications networks. Several5 distinct categories of e-commerce have emerged. Although business-toconsumer e-commerce has received the most attention in the press, it is much less prevalent than business-tobusiness e-commerce. An increasing number of associated transactions and processes that support both selling and purchasing activities on the Internet can be also included in the definition of e-commerce. Although6 projections vary, many analysts predict that e-commerce will continue to grow unabated. Forrester Research projects that global ecommerce will reach $6.9 trillion in 2004; Gartner Group estimates that B2B e-commerce alone will skyrocket to $7.3

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Indeed7, in spite of the dismal plight of the dot-coms of the late 90s, everything from real estate sales to education has moved online. Yet not all industries have experienced the same level of success in transitioning from the traditional retail approaches to the less clear-cut online models.

Several areas within the financial services industry, such as banking and investments, have had a significant amount of success adapting to cyberspace. The insurance industry, on the other hand, has been lagging in its adoption of ecommerce. Although it is recognized that e-insurance has the potential to become a multibillion dollar industry, it is difficult to see how this will occur without some fundamental changes to the way e-insurance is being implemented. The current reality is that few available einsurance offerings provide any real value and that less than 1% of all insurance sales are actually

transacted online.

being

The growing importance of ecommerce represents a watershed event for insurance markets and institutions, as it does for most industries. By lowering information costs, e-commerce will enable insurers to classify, underwrite, and price risk as well as settle claims more accurately and efficiently. Overall, the Internet will significantly enhance the efficiency of insurance markets and institutions and benefit consumers by lowering transaction and information costs E-commerce is potentially applicable to marketing and sales as well as R&D with respect to insurance value chain. On the other hand, as far as insurance products concern, auto (motor) insurance, marine and aviation, life insurance and fire insurance were highly perceived to suitable to e- commerce (sale online).

There is no exception for insurance business that is currently experiencing a transformation with technology, an industry where electronic commerce will play a significant role (Grace 1998)8. In the past most insurance companies in other countries have employed the Internet to distribute information only, without offering the capability of online transactions. Trading electronically offers a number of advantages to companies. To take advantage of the opportunities created by e-commerce, companies implement websites that operate at a high level of e-c commerce. Moore’s ecommerce escalator (Moore 2000)9 classifies websites into seven levels: website for corporate information, website for product/service information, customer support via Web, credit card order processing, web access to order information, purchase order processing and web-based marketplaces. Moore's classification identifies the different e-commerce capabilities that a website has. It is acknowledged that websites can be basic, including only company information or more advanced with functionality for generating market sales. A Web site can concentrate on one or more functions such as providing information and enabling transactions.

The level of e-commerce to which a website is operating at has been measured as the number of different features in each category that the site contains. The research

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distinguishes between twenty-six different features. These consist of seven corporate information features, five product / service information features, six customer support features, two online order processing features, four web access to order information features and two web-based marketplaces features.

A summary of e-commerce benefits and advantages are listed below, Turban and King (2003)10: • Can increase sales and decrease sale costs • A small firm’s promotional message out to potential customers in every country in the world.

• Reach narrow market segments that are geographically scattered • The Web is particularly useful in creating virtual communities for specific types of products or services • A business can reduce the costs of handling sales inquiries, providing price quotes, and determining product availability by using electronic commerce in its sales support and order-taking processes • Increases sales opportunities for seller, it also increases purchasing opportunities for the buyers • Businesses can identify new suppliers and business partners • Increases the speed and accuracy with which businesses can exchange information, which reduces costs on both sides of transactions • Provides buyers with a wide range of choices than traditional commerce • Provides buyers with an easy way to customize the level of detail in the information they obtain about a prospective purchase and they can instantly access to detail information on the Web without waiting for days • Electronic payments of tax refund, public retirement, and welfare support cost less to issue and arrive securely and quickly when transmitted over the Internet • Electronic payments can be easier to audit and monitor than payments made by check, providing protection against fraud and theft losses • Electronic commerce enables people to work form home As pointed out by Turban, the limitations of e-commerce are both technical and non-technical:: Technical limitations: these include problems pertaining to security, reliability, telecommunications, software, integration of Internet and e-commerce software with existing databases, and incompatibility of e-commerce software with certain operating systems and components.

The most sustained problem is the security issue as the specter of hackers snatching and stealing information is always the main obsession to customers. Yet, with the emergence of new technology over time, these limitations are reduced or otherwise their impact overcomes by suitable planning.

NonNon-technical limitations: the main problem in this respect is the cost of developing e-commerce at home,

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System which might be very high and mistakes due to inexperience might result in delays. Furthermore, security and privacy are important issues when it comes to customer-business relationships. In fact the e-commerce industry has had very hard time trying to convince customers that on-line transactions are as secure as any other business transactions. Another issue lies in finding ways of persuading customers to do business with machines, as some customers like to touch items, such as clothes and to be sure of the reliability of the product they are buying.

One of the big differences between technical and nontechnical limitations is that technical limitations can be solved (most of the time) by spending enough money whereas non-technical limitations are things that are more difficult to change since they involve things that cannot be changed easily- like people’s attitude, lack or trust, resistance to change, faceless transactions, etc

Certain industries, such as travel, banking, and retail, have embraced the emerging technologies that make electronic commerce possible. Some firms have gone as far as completely revamping their business processes. The insurance industry has made real progress in implementing some of the technologies of e-commerce, but the industry has been slow to adopt others. This is because insurers must carefully select which applications to implement, weighing the costs and benefits. Some applications of ecommerce used in other industries do not easily fit the business of insurance. Many others, however, present insurers with interesting possibilities (ISO (1997)13.

Insurance companies offering proper services through Internet, can be classified into the following categories (SwissRe (2000)14, and Dasgupta and Sengupta (200215: •

Web Sites: Almost every insurance company has homepage providing information about the company and products. However, these homepages are little more than passive online versions of the company’s brochures.

•

Product Portals: Portals are sites that provide a collection of links to sites of interest.

•

PointPoint-ofof -Sale Portals: Unlike most other commodities, the sale of insurance products is initiated by the sellers.

Certain sits exploit this approach by offering insurance products while selling insurable goods such as cars or while providing information on health or college education.

•

Intermediate Brokers: Brokers are intermediate sites that do not sell insur-ance products directly but assist clients in matching their requirements with the policies offered by insurance companies.

•

Reverse Auction: In this case, the client is usually an organization interested in group insurance. The client announces its requirements and selects the best offer made by an insurance company.

•

Aggregators1: Aggregators are sites that compare quotes from different insurance companies. The service is often supplemented with general information on products as well.

E-commerce Barriers and concerns concerns for Insurers (Hann (1999)11: • • • • • • • • • • • •

Top obstacles for the insurance industry: Resistance to change Threat of agent/broker disintermediation Lack of technology/regulatory hindrances Threat of insurance company disintermediation Lack of industry vendor solutions Top e–commerce concerns: Costs/impacts of moving off legacy systems Impact of legacy channel investments Lack of skilled information technology personnel Lack of e-business strategy Lack of enterprise technology architecture

It is widely recognized that e-commerce will enable insurers to significantly lower costs, realize business process efficiencies, improve customer service and brand loyalty, and enable insurers to better position themselves competitively. However, insurers cite as top obstacles factors such as resistance to change, threat of agent/broker/company disintermediation, lack of technology infrastructure, regulatory hindrances, and lack of industry vendor solutions. An earlier study by Booz, Allen & Hamilton reports similar findings, and also notes that the insurance industry’s sluggish Internet pace can also be attributed to industry concern about unleashing price competition, channel conflict with agents, and the commoditization of insurance products (BAH (1998)12.

The Current State of Online Insurance 16

Adoption of EE-Commerce to Insurance

The majority of the data available on insurance websites relates to the US. These data are analyzed and their implication for European markets considered. It is possible to identify five stages in the introduction and development of the use of new information technology in insurance markets:

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at this time, the volume of insurance products sold via the Internet is relatively low. Business models for insurance E-commerce can be categorized with the classic “build/buy/borrow” model of business marketing strategy (Conning & Conning, 2000) classification: • Company site (build) • Contract/referral generator • Sales initiation • True online sales • Online sales of specific products • Supermarket/mall (buy) • Carrier leads • Agent referral • Online agency • Relationship-based (borrow) • Portals, banners • Event triggered links

1. Traditional insurers focus only on distribution and manufacturing. They do not consider Web-based distribution and manufacturing in their future development. Probably only a few companies do not at least pay minimal attention to how Web based systems might be used more broadly.

2. E-insurers start up with the focus on distribution. These new start ups are essentially Web-based independent intermediaries and make it easier for the consumer to compare prices between insurers that do not own the intermediary. Levels of complexity vary, but at its simplest, price comparisons only can be made, and in other cases the new company can manage the actual sale of the insurance product. Only simple products are sold through this mechanism.

3.

Traditional insurers improve their Web-based capabilities. A common additional service is providing information about insurance and assisting consumers in assessing their insurance needs. This is the basic reaction to the arrival of new technologies. A wait and see approach has been adopted by a majority of traditional insurers as they evaluate the implication of e-commerce.

4. Online distribution capabilities are adopted more widely.

Traditional insurers increasingly offer the capability to sell their own products online. Intermediaries increase the number of insurers whose products they include on their “shelf space” and they extend the range of products sold. At the same time, the manufacturing process is streamlined as e-enabled facilities are established to provide policies at minimum cost.

5. Competition between traditional and e-insurers becomes more intense. This is particularly true for the Internet distribution side. The provision of third-party products is necessary for companies to remain e-competitive if their only value proposition is lower cost at point of sale. This favors the separation of distribution and manufacture. The best companies should be able to increase their revenues by selling their products through all independent channels (traditional and Webbased), rather than rely on an exclusive distribution channel. In addition, those manufacturers that have e-enabled their business process, extracting maximum cost efficiency and benefits from economies of scale, should be in a position to offer the best cost based value proposition. At this stage, there is probably no company that can deliver substantial value-added advice to rival that of the advisor over the Web. E-insurers have empowered the consumer, acting as the catalyst that has forced traditional incumbents to fight back. In addition, many have now established business models for insurance e-commerce and are viewing e-commerce proactively as a means of increasing distribution and reducing costs. However,

References 1.

Outreville, JF, (1990), the Economic Significance Of Insurance Markets In Developing Countries,40 Journal Of Risk And Insurance, 57 (3).

2. E-Business W@Tch, (2002), 的CT & E-Business in the Insurance and Pension Funding Services Sector,40 The European E-Business Market Watch, Sector Report, (http://www.empirica.biz/empirica/themen/ebusiness/ documents/no05 .pdf).

3.

Garven, James R., (2000), The Role of Electronic Commerce In Financial Services Integration,40 North American Actuarial Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3, Pp. 64-70.

4. Zwass, V. (1996). Electronic Commerce: Structures and Issues. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1(1), 3-23.

5.

Schneider, G. (2003). Electronic Commerce - Fourth Annual Edition. Course Technology. Boston, MA.

6.

Philips, T. (2002). Experts say Web will transform industry.

Advanced Manufacturing. http://www.advancedmanufacturing.com/prediction s.htm

7.

Garven, J. R. (1998). Electronic Commerce in the Insurance Industry: Business Perspectives. Working Paper Series Number 98-3. Center for Risk Management & Insurance Research. Georgia State University. http://rmictr.gsu.edu

8.

Grace, M.F., Klein, R.W. and Straub D., “E-Commerce in the Insurance Industry: Issues and Opportunities”, In Se-Com: Secure Electronic Commerce. San Francisco, CA: Montgomery Research Inc., 306-310, 1998.

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9.

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Moore, G. Living on the fault line: managing for shareholder value in the age of the Internet. New York : Harper Business, 2000.

10. Turban, E. And King, D., (2003), Introduction to ECommerce,41Prentice Hall, USA. 11.

Hann, L. W., (1999), stepping Forward Gingerly,41 Best’s Review, Meta Group: Survey of U.S. Insurance Market.

12.

BAH, (1998), tomorrow’s Distribution Blueprint— Tailored To Fit, Insights, Booz- Allen & Hamilton Financial & Health Services Group, Volume 3, Issue 3. (http://www.bah.com/viewpoints/insights/health_bl ueprint.html).

13.

ISO, (1997), Electronic Commerce in Property/Casualty Insurance: Strategic Advantage or Economic Imperative,41 Insurance Services Office

14.

SwissRe, (2000), The Impact of E-Business on the Insurance Industry: Pressure To Adapt – Chance To Reinvent,41 Sigma Series No. 5, Zurich.

15. Dasgupta, Prithviraj and Sengupta, Kasturi, (2002), ECommerce In The Indian Insurance Industry: Prospects and Future,41 Journal of Electronic Commerce Research 2 (1-2), Pp. 43-60.

16.

http://rmictr.gsu.edu/Papers/EC_GR_Final.pdf

Volume-1 Issue-1 January 2009-June 2009 PhasePhase-III: Theme Base Paper

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Dr. Subodh Kesharwani skesharwani@ignou.ac.in

Assistant Professor,, SOMS, IGNOU

Dr. Naveen Kumar Assistant Professor, School of Computer & Information Science, IGNOU

naveenkumar@ignou.ac.in

Sudhansh Sharma Asst. Professor, Deptt of I.T., Vishveshwarya School of Business Management (VSBM)

sudhansh74@rediffmail.com

Durgansh Sharma Asst. Professor, Deptt of I.T., Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida (JIM-Noida)

dsharma@jimnoida.ac.in

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ABSTRACT

•Narrowing the gap between cutting-edge technology and its applications, as well as identifying the missing links for applying technology will be the ongoing challenge. The rudimentary scope, goals, and objectives of the community have not changed radically the challenges of technology, because the present juncture is superior than prior to State-of-the-art new-fangled technology like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) System has undergone an approximately puzzling transformation, corresponding to the evolution of information technology. Within generation, information technology has transformed the everyday tasks of the workforce— computer use has infiltrated almost ubiquitously. Interoperability operates two dimensions: organizational dimensions and time dimensions. Here & now interoperability across organization boundaries with its diverse communication devices is ultimately achieved through ERP system software. The ERP is one significant approach to accomplish more with less. It is an established move toward to creating tangible savings from greater speed, abridged processing, eliminating redundant effort procedures, and better accountability in programs and services. This paper addresses the important role for ensuring system interoperability in an ERP system centric coalition environment. The endeavor of this paper is to identify problem and suggest a solution, recommend formulation of interoperability as a solution and thrash out implications The paper makes an effort to recommend that interoperability is a real-valued element that applies to an ample range of relationships among ERP system processing entities. The paper also in brief documents the state-of the-practice in information systems and technologies, as well as the developing role of information technology (IT) Thus the final motive of the paper is to present the key business issues concerning interoperability connection with ERP Systems standards with a sight to developing sustainable solutions beneficial to all the organizations.

KEYWORDS

• Interoperability, • ERP systems, • Future • Directions, • Information • Technology, • Integration

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Introduction: In today’s multifaceted environment, global companies are trying to envisage and more effectively respond to fluctuating market demands and changes in the supply chain (Joe 2005).

Assimilation of ERP system applications is imperative for enterprises in striving to overcome market and variability. ERPs system that is a subset of Information technology fulfills and rectifies the major task in this respect. ERP system software represents a sizeable percentage of the budget spending for companies and is rapidly developing into a valuable strategic asset. The ERP system has acknowledging the ever-increasing magnitude of systems and software interoperability to facilitate business process/government service development and the amalgamation of systems and business processes. Interoperability is one of the major themes of research and development in information technology for the architecture, engineering, construction, and facilities management industries.

Merely defined, interoperability is the ability of two or more ERP systems assets (hardware devices, communications devices, or software components) to straightforwardly or robotically collaborates and, in the business sense, expands to embrace the propensity of two or more business processes, or services, to without difficulty or automatically convene. It is apparent that the capability to interoperate is the input to reducing ERP systems integration costs and inefficiencies, increasing business quickness, and enabling the acceptance of new and emerging technologies. ERP system will step forward the interoperability of business registers all the way through to accomplish this, semantic technologies will be used to capture the dissimilar business. Based on this replica of data and processes, communication and collaboration of business registers will be considerably enhanced.

ERP system not only addresses cross-border, multinational issues of collaboration, but also targets at national level, inter domain interoperability, e.g., between business registers and academic institutions.

Curtain Raiser to Interoperability: Interoperability is the ability for information to flow from one computer application to the subsequent throughout the lifecycle of a project—relies on the development and use of common information structures (Froese 2003). Interoperability may be seen as “the aptitude

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System for a system or a product to effort with other systems or products without extraordinary endeavor of the part of the customer” (Interop 2005).

Interoperability refers to the aptitude of two or more systems (computers, communication devices, networks, software) and additional information technology components) to interrelate with one another and substitute data according to a prescribed method in order to accomplish routine results. The term ‘interoperability’ includes numerous aspects: to a network operator, it can connote the skill to inter-operate with other networks and endow with flawless services to users; to a content provider or service provider, it can mean the capacity to be able to run an application or service on any suitable platform; and, to the consumer, it can mean the aptitude ideally to get hold of the pertinent hardware device “and embark on to consume and recompense for services, without having preceding knowledge about which services would be consumed, in a straightforward mode”. All of these types of interoperability are advantageous.

Alternatively, in wide-ranging terms interoperability describes the potential of two or more hardware devices or two or more software routines to work in partnership. Distinctively in connection with software, interoperability describes a feature of the software in the identical manner that like alleviate of use, security, and trustworthiness. Since interoperability becomes a significance of increasing magnitude for information technology products, the term ‘Interoperability’ is extensively used in IT product descriptions. Thus in general term Interoperability means how to bend UNIX-type operating systems to work with Microsoft's operating system.

systems by agreeing on standards for presenting, collecting, exchanging, processing, and transporting data.

Alternative definitions of interoperability: From technological viewpoint, interoperability concerns the aptitude of two or more ICT assets (hardware devices, communications devices or software components) to effortlessly or mechanically collaborates. On the other hand, business and government also necessitate interoperability of processes, so that business processes or administrative services can link up straightforwardly all the way through computing/communications processes. In general the accumulated definition of interoperability framework had been split into three portions as mentioned in the figure below: Organisational – organizing business processes and internal organization structures for enhanced exchange of data.

Semantic – ensuring that transported data shares the same meaning for linkup systems and Technical – linking up computer

In the broader framework, interoperability can be defined or viewed from numerous different perspectives. A few of them are outlined underneath:

T

S E M A N T I C

E C H N I C A

INTEROPERABILITY

ORGANIZATIONAL

Fig-1 Interoperability Framework

EU Software Copyright Directive defines interoperability between computing components generally to mean “the capability to exchange information and mutually to use the information which has been exchanged”. This does not mean that each component must perform in the same way, or enclose all of the same functionality.

Rather, interoperability means that the components, which may fluctuate in functionality, can share information and use that information to function in the manner in which they were designed to.

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UK e-GIF (e-Government Interoperability Framework) model focuses on four facets: interconnectivity, data integration, access, and content management.

ICT industry from the standpoint of the, interoperability can be conceptualized as a means of connecting two or more “end-points” with a “chain”, where a “chain” means an exchange of data using data and communications standards. Under this definition the endeavor of interoperability is to characterize “chains” so that software/computers can interrelate and interoperate on demand. A common set have standardized, widely adopted “chains” enable connections and interoperability speedily at minimum cost. Instantaneously as the edges of a jigsaw puzzle classify how a puzzle piece connects with other puzzle pieces, the goal of interoperability to define the “chains” or the puzzle edges so that software/hardware/business processes can interconnect and interoperate on demand. In designing ICT components and utilizing the “chains” that connect the components, the designers endeavor to keep components from being too dependent on one another so they can be used to interconnect with other hardware/software components. This means that interoperability is not motionless; rather it is a frequently evolving state of affairs driven by rapid changes in technology and customer requirements.

Meaning: The term interoperability means many things to many people. In nearly all cases, interoperability means that two systems (or system components) collaborate in some way; interoperability requires more than one system (or system components). For some users, these systems are types of geospatial systems at the same time as to others these systems can be any type of information system, even those that are not computerized. There are those who spotlight on interoperability across hardware platforms, operating systems, and programming languages. In this case, interoperability is defined as an attribute of the system with respect to feasible implementation choices. Thus its interpret that users can desire from

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a multiplicity of implementations with reverence to hardware, operating systems, or programming languages because the system is based on wellknown specifications that provide interoperability. In this way, users can judge interoperability on as numerous axes as required and not be misinterpreted.

Types of Interoperability: The enlargement in the utilization of the Internet brings strengthen in the number of interconnections among information systems as well as other businesses. Each of these interconnections must be vigilantly prearranged to guarantee interoperability (Steven 2002).

Conversely, the sheer number of interconnections and the resulting complexity threaten to overwhelm the aptitude of the standards community or industry to endow with the necessary specifications.

Application Interoperability: The prerequisite to application interoperability is mainly often experienced at the level of interoperability between desktop software applications, but it can also be a necessity in today's distributed systems built on enterprise application foundations. For this category of interoperability, the focus will necessitate to be on the development environment (such as Visual Studio), application frameworks (such as .NET or J2EE), and on programming and scripting languages (such as C++ and Java as well as Visual Basic and JavaScript). Mission requirements, current installed infrastructure, and future development plans will engage in recreation roles in deciding which methods to be employed to accomplish application interoperability. The ERP system vendors must make decisions about the major appropriate ingredient interoperability to sustain, decide on a primary target method and fabricate to that, and consequently insert support for secondary targets.

Web Services Interoperability: The term services interoperability refers not only to web services but also to all service oriented architectures. The Web Services Interoperability Organization states, that "Interoperable must be suitable to accomplish being implemented in a neutral mode on multiple operating systems and in multiple programming languages…" when referring to Web service technologies. Web services are based on nonspecific protocols for the interoperable exchange of messages all the way through their interfaces.

Semantic Interoperability: The potential to hold the promise of at least one more form of PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System semantic interoperability, may consider be the concluding dimension in the interoperability landscape. At this height of interoperability the point of discussion is to understand what the interoperable is and what it means in an application context. Explore the benefits and approaches to adding semantic interoperability to its products. Semantic technologies are still experimental and evolving, but there is much promise concerning how they can benefit users.

Integration Interoperability The ability to integrate components from all parts of an enterprise requires as many of the dimensions of interoperability to be supported as promising.

All the types of interoperability listed and previously defined will help out to support integration interoperability. The capability to comprehend trends regarding enterprise application frameworks and how integrated system technology fits into all layers of an enterprise technology load up is the key to recognize how integration interoperability will occur. If we look at the types of interoperability discussed, we can define them as dealing with data, data management, data access, and applications, which correspond to the conventional layers in an enterprise technology stack. Vendors whose offerings fit into these layers will be providing the technology required to comprehend integration interoperability.

Scope of Interoperability at different levels: Interoperability extends from business to business, including the ICT Industry (as an end-user of technology); other industries such as the financial, automotive, chemical, etc. industries; as well as academic institution. It includes private sector technology exercise by the prime, which includes technology use by the governmental agencies and entities as well as the foremost. It follows that the interoperability is not instantaneously a countryspecific or national concern, but is comprehensive in scope. The international perspective, which the ERP System compatible industry has done much to accentuate, has led key policy and decision-makers to comprehend that there is a requirement for interoperability mutually inside and stuck between public administrations and with enterprises. The interoperability in association with ERP Systems provides companies and IT organizations with an assortment of flexibility. There is no need to make a decision on just one technology while rejecting all

others. Using ERP systems can intertwine their environments into one solitary, smooth fabric.

Interoperability options can be established at all levels of ERP systems software at the people, information, and procedure levels as well as in the application platform, together with expansion tools, system management, and support of open technology standards. The following conversation provides a glance at the interoperability options at each integration level of ERP system software; Application Platform, Information Integration, Public Integration, Process Integration, Knowledge Management, Business Intelligence & Master Data Management

People

Public Integration

Information Procedure

People Information

Application Platform

Procedure

Knowledge Management Information Integration Business intelligence Process Integration

Fig2: ERP Systems software and Interoperability ERP System Implementation in an Enterprise: ERP System’s high-level functional and process modeling, software portfolio management and program management, data management at the higher levels, and platform strategy (technologies, vendors, standards, and so forth) (Betz 2003). ERP software broadly manages the needs of a principal enterprise resource area: money, productive capital, people, stock of goods, or information. Vendors such as Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP build sophisticated, process-centric solutions, on complex information structures implemented in relational databases, for the business organizations that manage the enterprise resource. ERP modules are designed to reflect a particular way of doing business (Cardoso, Bostrom & Sheth 2004). An ERP system is an integrated solution, sharing a centralized database, with all ‘users’…. human

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Resources/Payroll/Benefits, E-procurement, Accounting, Budgets, etc…. being served by the same database from end to end one point of entry.

Data have to only be entered or updated once, reducing errors, time and labour for reports, analysis, and planning and program management.

Eventually, time and resources are shifted to innovating, problem solving and direct service to customers rather than inputting, processing, organizing, verifying and related “busy work” that burns through time and money (ERPN 2001). ERP system can integrate much of their operation by replacing financial, HR, and manufacturing systems with an integrated system endow with by one of several large software vendors. All applications will share the same data model, the same databases, and the same interfaces. Reporting across functions or divisions becomes possible. This move toward has worked for many companies. But ERP is more a comeback within reach of a technology, and there are signs that the next generation of ERP systems will take lead of the new-fangled technology mechanisms such as standard application servers.

These new ERP systems will be more freely coupled, and therefore, more amenable to change, and more likely to accomplish.

Interoperability Vs ERP System: Interoperability Layer as a basic technical level for data, process and service integration across national and technological borders (Ludger Et Al 2004). The requirement for component (or application) interoperability is mainly often experienced at the level of interoperability between desktop software applications, but it can also be a requirement in today's distributed systems built on enterprise application foundations (Buehler 2005).

Relationship between information system (IS) and the rest of the IT infrastructure, means compatibility and interoperability with major enterprise systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer resource management (CRM), enterprise application integration (EAI), work management systems, decision support systems, and others (ESRI 2003).

Benefits of interoperability in ERP system Integration: Connectivity and interoperation among computers, surrounded by entities (governments, businesses, citizens, and individuals), and among software components can augment the plasticity and suppleness of ERP systems, thus reducing administrative and software costs for the enterprise.

They may also diminish the time desirable to execute software.

Interoperability can, for example, assist in the delivery of the services based on life events, and facilitate the business sector interact electronically with administrations, reducing administrative costs burden and encouraging SMEs to “go digital”.

Interoperability supports the Single Market and its associated “four freedoms of interest group of people, capital, goods and services”.

Interoperability Challenges in an ERP System: In view of the fact that the, Enterprise Applications development suffered from a lack of accessible technological solutions for organizing business processes. To pact with this substance, software engineers worked in the direction of developing software in the areas of Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS). During the last two decades, many sophisticated systems were also developed to endow with common ground for enterprise application development.

These Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) are widely used nowadays in the design of Modern Information Systems (IS) and facilitate organization to replace their existing information system with a single integrated system (Kesharwani 2005). In the last few years, nonetheless, the focus has shifted from the development of software systems to the assimilation between them, in other words dealing with the problem of interoperability. The need for interoperability is the substantial interest in the subject of interoperability across organization boundaries. ERP System facilitates in narrowing the gap between cutting-edge technologies and the several dissimilar aspects to this. Thus Technical standards are being developed all the way throughout open processes, and their implementation is being motivated by the pressure software companies are under to congregate their customers’ requirements for standards adherence.

Standards and interoperability work paramount when processes are insecurely attached. The problems of interoperability are not exceptional to government. The interoperability problems of integrating disparate databases, distributed networks, e-procurement solutions, B2B data exchanges, enterprise application incorporation, portal integration, B2C (consumer/citizen) solutions, mobile communications, and others all subsist in

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System private industry as well as the public sector. In wideranging, there is a widespread need across all industries for research, new technologies, and enhanced standards to address interoperability.

Different business domains, companies and applications programs need to inter-operate but the complexity of the system increase exponentially as depict in figure 1(a).

Each IT surface should support multiple business contexts while occulting domain specific details. We need system interfaces that are robust, flexible and discoverable and encourage connectivity between systems without breaking the entire system. There is a need of consistent semantics and abstraction models, which drives various types of implementation and a common way to model and describe the business and methods for the automation of business processes.

We have to overcome the loosely coupled, event based application abstraction for any business context.

In today’s environment the scenario reflects enterprise and embedded controller domain are loosely coupled using different programming models.

Conventional Enterprise computing consists of following operations:

Fig3 (a)

Fig3 (b)

The figure 3 (a) shows that there are two horizontal different sets of applications connecting and interacting with each other however the application lacks the interoperability. As a solutions fig (b) shows how the layer of standards b/w these set of applications solve the problems of interoperability.

Standardization is the best solution to achieve interoperability, where standards are transparent (Is typically considered to be a high-quality attribute of a system as it shields the user from the system's complexity). To the users and the layer of standards is available between the different business domains, companies and applications programs as shown in fig3 (b).

As per current business integration definition rightly mention for managing following points: Scalability Heterogeneity Flexibility

Accounting and financial Production activities Corporate communication etc.

Conventional Operational activities consist of the following: • • • •

Information Interoperability

o o o

• • •

SCADA Gateways Controller fieldbus device Device controllers

Traditional operations required to bind the above two are ERP, CRM, MES, Database operations etc.

To solve the aforesaid problem one solution complies of “closed loop methods” which are emerging in the enterprises having same “Sense

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System and Respond” paradigm. It enables unified view of enterprise and operational processes through common programming abstraction and shared or interoperable infrastructure. This integrated business automation contains “Sense and Respond” Business objects which is divided into Physical and Virtual “Sensors and Actuators” that make the system workout.

Model

ENTERPRISE DOMAIN

Business

•

Business domain o Enterprise Domain o Operational Domain Operations Domain o Operational Domain o Controller Domain o Device Domain

The above categorization describes that Operational domain is common to both the business and operations domain. Now to synchronize all of them we need a choreography domain which provides an integration framework for the operations domain to connect with the business domain via establishing appropriate programming and event system model, define base information schema, extends runtime environment like event bus, event correlation, and filtering etc. The basis for linking the operations and business domains are: •

• •

•

Automatio n[with virtual and actual sensors and actuators]

OPERATIONAL DOMAIN

CHOREOGRAPHY DOMAIN

Control

DEVICE DOMAIN

•

Integrate

Integrated

CONTROLLER DOMAIN

There is a need of Choreography domain for solving interoperability problem as total business is divided into following categories:

Manage

Monitor

ERP system levels and Interoperability standards: There are typically three levels of ERP software packages, people, procedure and information level, however as required we propose an additional level of ERP systems which is “Interoperability” level which is clearly explained in the following figure under the contemporary head.

Conventional Level

It supports highly heterogeneous asynchronous event driven distributed applications.

Defines a programming model that spans both domains effectively.

Enables efficient links between multiple event buses.

Provides a homogeneous closed loop control system-view across the enterprise using leverage optimization techniques and control theory across the enterprise.

Contemporary Level

Fig4: ERP Systems Level

Standards at people level: The main ERP vendors employ proprietary fourth generation interpretive languages as the core development tools within their ERP applications like Oracle, People Soft and SAP, which uses the development Language as PL SQL, People Code and ABAP correspondingly. Java 2 Platform,

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is a programming platform for developing and running distributed multi-tier architecture applications with Java, based largely on modular components running on an application server.

Standards at procedure level: Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a trouble-free, has very elastic text format. It is used as a frequent data format at all levels of web services architectures. It uses tags, which define the data to be exchanged. It is constructive for hierarchical structuring of data. Another standard at this level is Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL), provides a language for the formal specification of business processes and business interaction protocols.

Standards at information level: Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) gives access to a tabular data source using the Java programming language.

It provides connectivity to a wide array of SQL databases and other data sources, such as spreadsheets or flat files. Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), is a database programming interface from Microsoft; it provides a common language for Windows applications to access databases on a network. Active Data Objects (ADO), is a Microsoft database interface that is the Microsoft standard for data access, provides an interface to OLE DB. Active Data Objects .Net (ADO.Net): This is a data-access element of Microsoftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s .NET framework.

Object Linking and Embedding/ Database (OLE/DB): This is a low-level Application Program Interface (API) from Microsoft for accessing both relational and non-relational data. OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO): This is an extension to OLE DB that enables users to access multidimensional databases in addition to relational databases.

Standards at Interoperability level: These interoperability standards will hand out as the source for connecting ERP systems to external systems with a focus on using commercial best practices and vendor-neutral standards. The state-of-the-art goal of using ERP systems as components of a generally service-oriented design relies on the establishment of a standards-based move toward the interoperability. Simple Object Access Protocol

(SOAP) provides HTTP/SML based remote procedure call capability for XML Web Services.

It is used for exchanging structured and typed information between peers in a decentralized, distributed environment. Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) is used for publishing and discovery of web services. UDDI provides a searchable registry of XML Web Services and their associated URLs and WSDL pages. The goal is to augment interoperability and speed adoption for web services. Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is a XML based interface description language to describe XML Web Services and how to use them. WSDL describes the syntax and location of web services.

Web Services Security Core (WSS_Core) provides mechanisms to send a security token as part of a message to ensure message integrity and message confidentiality.

Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP): WSRP is a specification, which defines how to leverage SOAP-based Web services that generate mark-up fragments within a portal application. Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 defines a Port let API that provides means for aggregating several content sources and applications front ends. It also addresses how the security and personalization is handled. Java Metadata Interface (JMI): The Java Metadata Interface specification addresses the need for a pure Java metadata framework API that supports the creation, storage, retrieval, and interchange of metadata.

Planning

Design

Procurement

Project

Estimati ng

Specs Sketchin g

Construction

CAD

Business Process Client

Acquisition

Contract Mgmt

Demolition

Facility Man age ment Project Man age ment Project Collaboratio n

Rendering

CRM

Operation

Scheduling

ERP ERP

Project Tracking

Accounting

HR

Purchasing

& Billing

Fig5: Separate entities of automation within an organization

Advantage of Interoperability Standards: These standards provided for the optimal deployment, PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System lowest cost and maximum compatibility in your environment. Interoperability standards maximize business value in a mixed-vendor atmosphere however; it is suggest that the open standards are the most effective way to address the challenges of the mixed vendor environment that exist in most organizations. These standards can enable the following advantages: Hierarchy synchronization: the dynamic exchange of structure information between ERP system and external systems ensuring that all parts of your organization are operating with standardized metadata.

Data synchronization: the dynamic exchange of data between ERP system and external systems, eliminating manual intervention in synchronizing and integrating data.

Security synchronization: ensure controls across your organization. The security synchronization ensures that your process is consistent by providing a framework for processing user authentication and authorization based on your global standards.

Process Automation: It can eliminate the need for manual intervention in executing processes such as: o Hierarchy maintenance o Data movement / synchronization o Security synchronization o Rollover and restatements Interoperability SWOT analysis: Enterprise integration doesn’t happen unsurprisingly. It needs to be premeditated. Yet the planning cannot be accurate, as business processes and facilitating technologies will revolutionize, creating different needs and different potential solutions. The following four analysis, strength, weakness, opportunity & threats can make the picture more accurate. The Strengths of the ERP system with flavours of Interoperability is to achieve interoperation, bridge better communication between ERP system vendors & the users, gaining feedback from “real users/customers”, Openness to new-fangled ideas on all sides, thus the whole concept of achieving systems integration through interoperability. Though this amalgamation had some benefits but still its lacks from certain weaknesses such as; commercial confidentiality can inhibit interoperability, lack of generalization to other parts, project time-frame too short, potential for interoperability was over

January 2009-June 2009

ambitious during the lifecycle of the project, toolbash needed to establish multi-way interoperability, uncertainty regarding interpretation of specifications.

There are certain threats attached with this weakness and if these pitfalls are not seriously undertaken it can put the system on the deathbeds, such as: analysis of business processes, technical development, implementation, testing & staff developments lacks support, lack of resource to take work forward, lack of understanding and a failure of some experts in Interoperability in name, but in practice systems bought from one vendor may not fully implement from one vendor may not fully implement, Progress made may not be continued after pilots. To come out from this weaknesses there are creation opportunities like; Vendor products could be ‘kite-marked’ to indicate compliant system, continue to develop good relationships with ERP vendors & users, senior management to examine issues relating to take interoperability forward and to make interoperability a reality.

Fig6: Swot Analysis

Conclusion: Interoperability is not only a problem concerning software and technologies. It is also a problem that concerns knowledge and business references that must be shared in order to achieve interoperability (Chen and Doumeingts 2003).

Hence it has been pointed out that organizations must be able to contact each other using agreed protocols, share a common language, agree on goals and tasks, and have people assigned to PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System complete these tasks in order to achieve interoperability (Mak and Ramprasad 2001).

Interoperability is a multifaceted system aspect whose value is superlatively described on a scale. A conceptual model to analyze an index of interoperability exists in a primitive form. The magnitude of interoperability demands additional research.

ERP system in concert with Interoperability reflect on themselves trusted partners and innovators that facilitate IT organizations to condense their total cost of ownership, facilitate expansion, and convey added value to their enterprises. Sharing this fantasy and an enthusiasm to act in response to customer demands creates an adaptive business environment in which IT promotes growth for the entire enterprise.

Information & communication technology in a guidance with interoperability recommitted to maintaining open standards and remaining in the same technology campground. Continuing to investigate ways of building cooperation will facilitate enterprises to meet the toughening real-world requirements they mug at present. ERPs systems delivers an integration and application platform designed to be effusive interoperable. As ERP systems are data-centric, and therefore, they are more focused on information management and data integration. This type of system is also domaindependent. Business templates are provided to be used in specific functional and market sectors. ERP systems are very suitable for a departmental, organizational, and cross-organizational scope operating on a national or international scale, where there is a good fit between desired organizational processes and those embedded in ERP applications.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Froese T (2003) Future directions for IFC-based interoperability, ITcon Vol. 8, Special Issue IFC Product models for the AEC arena , pg. 231-246, http://www.itcon.org/2003/17 INTEROP (2005) Interop Network of Excellence IST – 508011 Presentation of the Project. http://interopnoe.org/INTEROP/presentation Last accessed 200511-02 Joe Bellini (2005), “ Enterprise Interoperability Hub Connecting Manufacturing Applications to Enterprise Business Systems”, Brooks Software, Chelmsford, MA 01824 www.brookssoftware.com Kesharwani S (2005), “ERP for Banking Industry” A journal of Management & Change, pp 109-115, Vol-9, No.2 Kurt Buehler ( 2005) “How Vendor Use of IT Standards and Mainstream Capability Helps Users Communicate and Interoperate”, GIS Technology Designed for User Benefit, ESRI White Paper, ESRI 380 New York St., Redlands, CA 92373-8100, USA www.esri.com Ludger Et Al (2004) “Business Register Interoperability throughout Europe the BRITE Project” BRITE consortium.

Mak K-T. and Ramaprasad A. (2001) An Interpretation of the Changing IS/IT-Standard Game, Circa 2001.

Knowledge, Technology & Policy (14) pp. 20-30.

Steven R. Ray (2002) “Interoperability Standards in the Semantic Web”, Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, Vol. 2 Õ 65

Volume-1 Issue-1 January 2009-June 2009 Phase-III: Theme Base Paper

References: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Betz C (2003) “Enterprise Resource Planning For Information Technology” EAI. Cardoso J., Bostrom R. & Sheth A. (2004) “Workflow Management Systems and ERP Systems: Differences, Commonalities, and Applications” Information Technology and Management, Kluwer, Academic Publishers Netherlands.

Chen D. and Doumeingts G. (2003) European initiatives to develop interoperability of enterprise applications — basic concepts, framework and roadmap. Annual Reviews in Control (27) pp. 153–162 ERPN (2001), The continuing saga of ERP value and result”, Vol. 1, Issue 4, Enterprise resource planning Newsletter, State of IOWA ESRI White Paper, (2003) “ Spatial Data Standards and GIS Interoperability” ESRI 380 New York St., Redlands, CA 92373-8100, USA www.esri.com

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January 2009-June 2009

Dr. Asit Bandyopadhayay ,

Assistant Professor, Jaypee Business School JIIT University, Noida, U.P.

asitb.76@gmail.com

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper A STRUCTURE FOR CLASSIFYING PRIVATE INFORMATION IN A B2C E-COMMERCE TRANSACTION

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

ABSTRACT

•A comprehensive literature review on private information in a B2C e-commerce internet transaction from three key perspectives of customers, businesses as well government and industry is presented in this paper. The literature review examines how customers perceive their private information, how businesses understand and provide solutions to protect the private information and how the government’s legislation and industry’s regulation describe the private information. Significant gaps in identifying private information among the three key perspectives are discussed. A framework is proposed for identifying private information in a B2C e-commerce Internet transaction by integrating the three key perspectives. The framework could be used by customers and businesses to identify private information in a consistent way. This paper is concluded by introducing possible future research issues..

KEYWORDS

•Private information •e-commerce •Privacy policy •Cryptography •P3PI •Identified information •Related identifiable Information •General identifiable information

INTRODUCTION In a business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (ecommerce) environment, Internet transactions are conducted between businesses and customers. Ecommerce advances exchange of a large amount of information among its participants [Mao01]. The dramatic development of internet technology requires private communications to be protected over the “open network” [WS96]. Privacy on the internet has been defined on the basis that “only the sender and intended receiver should be able to understand the contents of the transmitted message” [KR03]. The definition of privacy in the ecommerce context has been given as “information that is private or sensitive should not be disclosed to unauthorized individuals, entities, or computer software process” [TK03]. So far as the concept of privacy is concerned, there are different definitions in the literature.

An early definition of privacy is “the right to be let alone” [WB90]. Another common definition is the “claim of individuals, groups and institutions to determine for themselves, when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated to others” [Wes67]. A more recent definition of privacy is “the subject (owner) of information can control” the information [AA03]. The last definition of privacy is used in this study.

The literature review presented in the following section examines how customers perceive their private information, how businesses understand and provide solutions to protect the private information and how the government’s legislation and industry’s self-regulation define the private information. The review, however, reveals significant gaps of identification of private information among the three key perspectives. A framework for identifying private information in a B2C ecommerce transaction by integrating the three key perspectives is proposed.

THREE KEY PERSPECTIVES A. Customer’s Perspective From this perspective privacy has become a problem for online customers, since “the Internet has become a transmission line and repository for privacy information” [Law98]. In the e-commerce environment, there is often a “one-way mirror effect”, that is, businesses ask customers to provide personal information, but customers have negligible knowledge about how their information will be used [CRA99].There is, however, still a lack of standards for privacy security in the online environment [AA03]. By taking the limitations and risks of current Internet technologies into account, there is often “confusion and mistrust” from customers in the e-commerce environment [CRA99].

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Previous studies have reported the importance of understanding customer privacy concerns and found various factors that influence their concerns. A Roy Morgan [RM01] survey shows that the majority of participant customers claimed their privacy to be important[HW05]. The customers’ privacy concerns are surveyed in-depth by Ackerman, Cranor and Reagle [ACR99] and Cranor, Reagle and Ackerman [CRA99], who examined a range of e-commerce scenarios of the participant customers’ preferences about privacy. In both studies, a number of factors were identified as influencing customer privacy concerns. Recent studies by Arami et al.

[ATPM04] and Bellman et al. [BJKL04] found that customer attitudes about privacy depended on a number of demographic factors such as gender, knowledge, and experience. The Office of the Victorian Privacy Commissioner [OVPC02] supports these findings and further reported other key influencing factors such as level of education and awareness of privacy legislation, age, nationality and ethnic background. Research findings also suggest that customers could have problems in the understanding of several terms associated with “personal information” or “privacy”. For example, a survey by Roy Morgan [RM01] in Australia found that respondent customers tended to use inconsistent and unclear definitions of the term personal information. When asked to define the term, the most common responses were: address (private/business), phone number (private/business), name and income details [RM01]. The health case notes, customer service information and personal opinions, which are defined by the legislation as personal information, were not mentioned by customers [RM01]. Moreover, a survey by the Office of the Victorian Privacy Commissioner [OVPC02] reports a study in the USA that found that customers meant different things when they talked about privacy. The survey found that for some Americans, privacy means anonymity, while for others it means cofidentiality [OVPC02].

B. Business’s Perspective An understanding of customers’ privacy concerns has become crucial for learning how to best collect and use individual customer’s personal information [CBSL02]. The identification of private information requires the ecommerce businesses to provide solutions to secure each customer’s private information.

Technology Solutions: Privacy in an online transaction is usually provided by encryption [Bhi96]. There are a number of existing mechanisms to secure transactions based on cryptography, including SSL (Secure Socket Layer) / TLS (Transport Layer Security), IPsec (Internet Protocol Security) and VPN (Virtual Private Network).

Although IPsec offers a global security to all applications, the complexity of IPsec comes from the requirements of an IPsec stack to be installed [ARH04]. Similarly, due to the dynamic and distributed nature of VPN, a sophisticated system is required [ARH04]. In contrast, SSL is “widely deployed and its embedded base will cause it to supersede any other session-layer protocols” [Bhi96].

Thus, SSL and TLS protocol have been widely

January 2009-June 2009

implemented and is now regarded as the “de facto standard” for providing secure e-commerce transactions over the internet [Cho02] [SBEW01].

Although SSL/TLS encrypts potentially strong security, all information including which do not need to be secured, is protected to the same level [DJ99]. Thus, this approach has introduced significant performance constraints to the use of SSL/TLS. In addition, with SSL/TLS encryption, it is still possible to learn the IP address of the client and server machines and the length of data being exchanged [Gri04]. On the other hand, even though SSL/TLS support strong encryption during the online transaction, it could not guarantee the privacy of the information, because when the encrypted information arrive at the server, they are all decrypted, which leaves the messages in plaintext [Cho02]. The privacy issue of database has also drawn the attention of the media. For example, NineMsn [Nine05] reports that a worldwide incident in 2005 “appears to be the largest yet involving financial data in a series of security breaches affecting consumer data at the databases of major financial institutions”. These findings indicated that the privacy of the online transaction and ecommerce database could not be ensured solely by using encrypted transaction technologies like SSL/TLS [Bel05].

Privacy Policies and Technologies: Privacy policies specify the conditions based on which business can exchange and legitimately use customer personal information [KFPSSD04]. Each privacy policy, however, differs greatly because of the lack of standardization across different industries and organizations [AEHSBJ04].

Privacy technologies that address customer’s privacy concerns are introduced to facilitate the applications of privacy policies [Ack00]. The Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) is one of the privacy technologies which allow Web sites to convey their privacy policies in a computer-readable format [Cra03]. Another common technology, the Lucent Personal Web Assistant (LPWA), provides a pseudonym proxy for logging in to Web sites, “giving customers consistent access to registration based systems without revealing potentially sensitive personal information” [Hoc00]. LPWA’s proxy-based design, however, tends to limit the server’s performance and decreases the overall reliability [Hoc00]. Fortunately, since P3P presents the privacy policy in a way that customers find easier to understand, its use could lead to other privacy improvements [Cra03]. For example, it could reduce the amount of information collected or secondary uses of that information [Cra03] [Ack00].

A number of research studies [Gho02] [Hoc02] [KS02] have demonstrated that P3P is not without problems. They found that the P3P is not backed up by privacy technologies that could enforce the promises in the ecommerce business. Moreover, the vocabulary of P3P technology used to convey information practice disclosures remains quite complex [Hoc00]. As a consequence, there could be “misinterpretations and confusions” in the use of P3P [Hoc00] [Fis01]. Moreover, Fischer-Hübner [Fis01] argues that P3P in practice could push or even force customers to give up their privacy. In

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System addition, Anton et al. [AEHSBJ04] argue that P3P could force customers’ choices and concerns into defined privacy categories, further limiting their options.

Improvement of the privacy policies and technologies, thus, tends to reply on the better understanding customer privacy concerns.

C. Government and Industry’s Perspective Although the introduction of privacy legislations would provide a degree of security for customers and encourage confidence in e-commerce business, the impact of the legislations requires businesses to undergo a “cultural change” [Mar02]. They require and possibly force the ecommerce business to change the way they understand and protect customer personal information.

Government Legislation: There is an established legislation in Australia that requires, as a matter of law, businesses to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 that covers public sector and Privacy Amendment Act 2001 that covers a large part of the private sector [Mar02], when customers’ personal information is handled. The ten National Privacy Principles (NPPs) define the key obligations in respect to customer personal information [Als03]. The 1980 OECD Guidelines is one of examples of the internationalization of customer privacy protection [BJKL04]. The scope of international e-commerce and the nature of web technologies enable international cooperation to become a key aspect of the online protection of private information [APC03]. Greenleaf [Gre01] argues that the definition of personal information in the legislation could be problematic and may result in a severe effect on the applicability of the NPPs. The study revealed that it is not clear whether the email addresses or IP addresses constitute personal information [Gre01].

This argument is supported by Dixon [Dix01], who argues that the definition of “personal information is too broad” and “does not provide guidelines for privacy protection”. In contrast, the Australian Privacy Foundation [APF04] found that the definition of personal information to be limited.

They argue that it is not clear if the legislation would cover, for example, “video images that have not been indexed by reference to individuals” [APF04]. In many countries, legislation could not keep up with the development of technologies, leaving serious gaps in protections [Ban99].

Thus, from the legislation perspective, there are either broad or limited definitions of the customer personal information, leaving the definitions of private information unclear to the customers and businesses.

Industry Self-Regulations: The privacy seal program is one of the industry’s self-regulation approaches to protect customer private information. A privacy seal on the website can be accessed by customers to receive visual confirmation of the website’s compliance with the privacy seal program’s standards [KM02]. Such programs aim to make customers more comfortable with online transactions and to ensure e-commerce websites keep their privacy promises [SKR02]. Thus, online privacy seals could create extra trust for the online customers [KSL04].

The three major privacy seal programs include, namely,

TRUSTe, CPA WebTrust and BBBOnline. Privacy seal programs could complement privacy policies, because customers often trust third party protection organization rather than relying on the full privacy policy [AK02].

Privacy seal programs have been used as “an alternative approach adopted by many e-commerce businesses in the absence of comprehensive privacy regulations” [RBE03].

Nevertheless, there could be problems with the design and effect of the privacy seal programs. They require an assessment of “fair information practice” on the ecommerce business. Such “fair information practice”, however, could vary from industry to industry. The level of trust towards an e-commerce business could vary from one culture [Fuk95] to another. Demographical factors [CR04] also contribute to this variation. Another problem with privacy seals programs was noticed that they do not ensure real commitment to privacy protection, but only a compliance of website’s privacy statements with the assessment criteria of privacy seal programs [AK02] [MD03] [Moo05].However the question remains, whether the criteria adopted by the privacy seal programs meet the customer privacy expectations or not.

A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK Issues of private information in B2C e-commerce introduce many challenges. A number of recent studies have surveyed the customer privacy issues [CR04] [CP04], technical solutions [CP02] [AGK03] [Gol03] [Lin05] [Sty05] and regulatory approaches [Fis01] [Pay04].

Discussions in previous sections, however, imply that there are potential problems in each of the three key perspectives: •

It appears from the surveys that the concepts of “personal information” or “privacy” may not be fully understood by customers. Without comprehensively understanding private information from customer’s perspective, validity of the surveys would be limited.

•

The P3P specification makes number of assumptions about how customers perceive privacy [RC99]. Privacy policy creation and customer privacy concerns are often found inconsistent with each other [EA04]. Unlike the heavy SSL/TLS “encrypts everything approach”, there is an opportunity to apply the XML encryption technology to partially encrypt selected elements to be secured [Gee03] in order to minimize performance penalties [Men03].

•

The nature of legislation constrains its specific definition of private information. As a result, businesses and customers may find it complex to follow the legislation. In addition, so far, customers could only passively accept the website’s privacy policy or recognize the online seal programs [CP04]. This situation, however, contradicts the requirements of privacy, which

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System claims control information.

over

customer’s

private

The literature review further demonstrates that there are significant gaps in the identification of private information from the perspectives of customers, business as well government and industry. The three key perspectives might have not adopted a consistent identification of private information (or its related concepts). Without a consistent understanding of the concept, however, any protection approaches of private information tends to be compromised. Early steps in the construction of a suitable framework for identifying private information in a B2C ecommerce online transaction are proposed below.

Firstly, a data element from the business and customer perspective is classified into categories of private information. The data element could be single customer information value (for example, customer names). Private information in different categories represents different priorities to protect. The classification is based on the philosophy that “not all personal information is equal” [Ber00]. Criteria used in the classification are mainly based on the concept of “inference problem” [FJ02] and “level of linkability to its data subject” [KS02]. The classification incorporates a number of definitions of “personal (identifiable) information” [GS01] [Gre01] [Gol03] [RBE03] [Lin05] “private information” [GS01]; “privacy” [ATPM04] [CP02] [Gho02] [Fis01]; “aggregate or statistical information” [Fis01] [GS01]. There are three categories of private information in the framework, namely, Identified Information (II), Related Identifiable Information (RII) and General Identifiable Information (GII). Other data not falling into any of these categories has no private considerations and may be excluded.

•

The Identified Information is considered as unique and identified for a customer. Examples include Social Security Number (SSN), credit card number and so on. Information classified at this level is very important to be protected, because they always act like “keys” to the many external databases, for instance, the bank databases held by the financial institutes [Ber00].

•

The Related Identifiable Information could be used in combinations to identify a customer.

Examples are customers’ (first and last) names, (business and home) addresses, (business and home) phone numbers and so on. Although in certain contexts, any of the RII information could uniquely identify a person, the combinations of two or more of them would increase the chance of the identification.

•

The General Identifiable Information can be used to identify a customer by using a combination of II and RII. For example, the combinations of II (birthday) and other RII (postal code) would be used to increase the chance of identifying a particular person [GS01].

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Secondly, in a B2C ecommerce environment, a customer could input the private level (for example, medium or high) associated with the data element via a web browser, while business could specify the level in their business privacy policy. The privacy levels will then be determined by an algorithm to determine the customer and business expectations of private level for a given data element.

Thirdly, we are in the process of proposing an algorithm and the value obtained from that algorithm is to determine the extent of the gap between actual (business) and expected (customer) levels of privacy. After obtaining both the value from customer and business perspective, an offset could be obtained. If the offset falls on the balance line, it represents a match between the customers and business for the level of privacy of a certain data element.

When an offset falls above the balance line, business places a higher level of privacy over the customer concerns. The main problem occurs, however, when the offset falls below the balance line. The “unsatisfactory gaps areas” represents the gaps where business did not match the customers concerns for a given data element.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH The framework presented tries to identify the privacy factors involved in assessing the privacy levels of data element that can be seen in a typical B2C e-commerce transaction. The combination solutions of the three key perspectives remain the future direction of private information protection [CP02] [Gol03]. The gaps in private information identified by the proposed framework could minimize possible inconsistency problems that happen in the combination approach. Future research would include more detailed criteria for the classification of private information. The algorithm would also be complemented with detailed guidelines. As pointed out by Linn [Lin05], Stytz [Sty05] and Rezgui et al. [RBE03], the goal of future privacy protection would focus on presenting private information in a form that remains protected under customer’s control. Thus, the application of the framework would aim to provide guidelines for the customers to better understand their private information in the B2C ecommerce context. In addition, guidelines from the framework could complement the design of privacy technologies, for example, P3P. Future research is needed on how to integrate the framework guidelines with the XML Encryption design, which encrypts partial private information to increase the overall performance. Whether the framework is a suitable tool to be used for guiding the development of privacy policy by business needs to be empirically established.

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Sona Srivastava Email

Institute

Parminder Narula Institute

Email

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ABSTRACT

•Globalization presents both business and technology challenges. Companies find there is no silver bullet when responding to the increased complexity of the key performance resulting from globalization. In order to keep pace with the globalization public sector enterprises also adopted ERP which led to the implementation of SAP in PSUs. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a mission-critical component of any globalization strategy. The information made available through ERP is key to providing visibility to Key Performance. Enterprise Resource Planning systems are the new solution to business systems.

These systems provide comprehensive business functionality in an integrated fashion using a stateof-the-art IT architecture. This trend towards enterprise systems in large and mid-sized organizations has a significant impact on IS careers paths. Enterprise systems essentially change fundamental business work processes thus implying that the system that supports these processes, design and development of these systems, also change, which resulted in numerous systems .The ERP system was hence installed in PSU like BHEL. This paper identifies opportunities for incorporating the ERP body of knowledge into an IS program in BHEL. . This is an exploratory research paper that tries to identify the effectiveness of ERP deployment BHEL. We therefore in PSU with special reference to BHEL conclude that profitable growth is the key consideration in corporate globalization efforts.

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Introduction: point source of information that can be ERP is a one-point used within an enterprise for various business functions like manufacturing, supply chain management, financials, projects, human resources and customer relationship management.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide company computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores. stores An ERP system has a service-oriented oriented architecture with modular hardware and software units or "services" that communicate on a local area network. network The modular design allows a business to add or reconfigure modules (perhaps from different vendors) while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed. Companies that automate and streamline workflows across multiple sites (including suppliers, partners, and manufacturing sites) produced 66% more improvement in reducing total time from order to delivery, according to Aberdeen's 2007 study of the role of ERP in globalization. alization. Those companies that coordinate and collaborate between multiple sites, operating as a vertically integrated organization, have achieved more than a 10% gain in global market share.

The majority of companies studied (79%) view global markets as a growth opportunity, but of those companies, half are also feeling pressures to reduce costs. Of those seeking to reduce costs either directly or by providing the necessary flexibility to ship from more cost effective locations, 74% are also seeking growth growt opportunities.

Overview of ERP Solutions

KEYWORDS

•CRM • Supply Chain •Back office systems • Core system •Customization •Configuration •BHEL •PSU

Some organizations — typically those with sufficient inin house IT skills to integrate multiple software products — choose to implement only portions of an ERP system and develop an external interface to other ERP or stand-alone alone systems for their other application needs.

For example, one may choose to use human resource management system from one vendor, and the financial systems from another, and perform the integration between the systems themselves.

This is common to retailers, where even a mid-sized mid retailer will have a discrete Point-of-Sale Point (POS) product and financials application, then a series of specialized applications to handle business requirements such as warehouse management, staff rostering, merchandising and logistics. Ideally, ERP delivers deli a single database that contains all data for the software modules, which would include: • Manufacturing • Supply chain management

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Financials Project management Human resources Customer relationship management

ERP systems saw a large boost in sales in the 1990s as companies faced the Y2K problem in their legacy systems.

Many companies took this opportunity to replace their legacy information systems with ERP systems. This rapid growth in sales was followed by a slump in 1999, at which time most companies had already implemented their Y2K solution.

ERPs are often incorrectly called back office systems indicating that customer and the general public are not directly involved. This is contrasted with front office systems like customer relationship management (CRM) systems that deal directly with the customers, or the ebusiness systems such as eCommerce, eGovernment, eTelecom, and eFinance, or supplier relationship management (SRM) systems.

ERPs are cross-functional and enterprise wide. All functional departments that are involved in operations or production are integrated in one system. In addition to manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, and information technology, this would include accounting, human resources, marketing and strategic management.

ERP II means open ERP architecture of components. The older, monolithic ERP systems became component oriented EAS — Enterprise Application Suite is a new name for formerly developed ERP systems which include (almost) all segments of business, using ordinary Internet browsers as thin clients. Best practices are incorporated into most ERP vendor's software packages. When implementing an ERP system, organizations can choose between customizing the software or modifying their business processes to the "best practice" function delivered in the "out-of-the-box" version of the software.

Prior to ERP, software was developed to fit the processes of an individual business. Due to the complexities of most ERP systems and the negative consequences of a failed ERP implementation, most vendors have included "Best Practices" into their software. These "Best Practices" are what the Vendor deems as the most efficient way to carry out a particular business process in an Integrated Enterprise-Wide system. A study conducted by Lugwigshafen University of Applied Science surveyed 192 companies and concluded that companies which implemented industry best practices decreased missioncritical project tasks such as configuration, documentation, testing and training. In addition, the use of best practices reduced over risk by 71% when compared to other software implementations.

The use of best practices can make complying with requirements such as IFRS, Sarbanes-Oxley or Basel II easier.

They can also help where the process is a commodity such as

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electronic funds transfer. This is because the procedure of capturing and reporting legislative or commodity content can be readily codified within the ERP software, and then replicated with confidence across multiple businesses that have the same business requirement.

Businesses have a wide scope of applications and processes throughout their functional units; producing ERP software systems that are typically complex and usually impose significant changes on staff work practices.

Implementing ERP software is typically too complex for "inhouse" skill, so it is desirable and highly advised to hire outside consultants who are professionally trained to implement these systems. This is typically the most cost effective way. There are three types of services that may be employed for - Consulting, Customization, Support. The length of time to implement an ERP system depends on the size of the business, the number of modules, the extent of customization, the scope of the change and the willingness of the customer to take ownership for the project. ERP systems are modular, so they don't all need be implemented at once. It can be divided into various stages, or phase-ins.

The typical project is about 14 months and requires around 150 consultants. A small project (e.g., a company of less than 100 staff) may be planned and delivered within 3-9 months; however, a large, multi-site or multi-country implementation may take years The length of the implementations is closely tied to the amount of customization desired.

To implement ERP systems, companies often seek the help of an ERP vendor or of third-party consulting companies.

These firms typically provide three areas of professional services: consulting, customization and support. The client organisation may also employ independent program management, business analysis, change management and UAT specialists to ensure their business requirements remain a priority during implementation.

Data migration is one of the most important activities in determining the success of an ERP implementation. Since many decisions must be made before migration, a significant amount of planning must occur. Unfortunately, data migration is the last activity before the production phase of an ERP implementation, and therefore receives minimal attention due to time constraints. The following are steps of a data migration strategy that can help with the success of an ERP implementation: • Identifying the data to be migrated • Determining the timing of data migration • Generating the data templates • Freezing the tools for data migration • Deciding on migration related setups • Deciding on data archiving Process preparation ERP vendors have designed their systems around standard business processes, based upon best business practices.

Different vendor(s) have different types of processes but

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Neglecting to map current business processes prior to starting ERP implementation is a main reason for failure of ERP projects. It is therefore crucial that organizations perform a thorough business process analysis before selecting an ERP vendor and setting off on the implementation track. This analysis should map out all present operational processes, enabling selection of an ERP vendor whose standard modules are most closely aligned with the established organization.

Redesign can then be implemented to achieve further process congruence. Research indicates that the risk of business process mismatch is decreased by: • linking each current organizational process to the organization's strategy; • analyzing the effectiveness of each process in light of its current related business capability; • Understanding the automated solutions currently implemented.

ERP implementation is considerably more difficult (and politically charged) in organizations structured into nearly independent business units, each responsible for their own profit and loss, because they will each have different processes, business rules, data semantics, authorization hierarchies and decision centers. Solutions include requirements coordination negotiated by local change management professionals or, if this is not possible, federated implementation using loosely integrated instances (e.g. linked via Master Data Management) specifically configured and/or customized to meet local needs.

A disadvantage usually attributed to ERP is that business process redesign to fit the standardized ERP modules can lead to a loss of competitive advantage. While documented cases exist where this has indeed materialized, other cases show that following thorough process preparation ERP systems can actually increase sustainable competitive advantage.

Configuration Configuring an ERP system is largely a matter of balancing the way you want the system to work with the way the system lets you work. Begin by deciding which modules to install, then adjust the system using configuration tables to achieve the best possible fit in working with your company’s processes.

Modules — Most systems are modular simply for the flexibility of implementing some functions but not others. Some common modules, such as finance and accounting are adopted by nearly all companies implementing enterprise systems; others however such as human resource management are not needed by some companies and therefore not adopted. A service company for example will not likely need a module for manufacturing. Other times companies will not adopt a module because they already have their own proprietary system they believe to be superior. Generally speaking the greater number of modules selected, the greater the integration benefits, but also the increase in costs, risks and changes involved.

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Configuration Tables – A configuration table enables a company to tailor a particular aspect of the system to the way it chooses to do business. For example, an organization can select the type of inventory accounting – FIFO or LIFO – it will employ or whether it wants to recognize revenue by geographical unit, product line, or distribution channel.

So what happens when the options the system allows just aren’t good enough? At this point a company has two choices, both of which are not ideal. It can re-write some of the enterprise system’s code, or it can continue to use an existing system and build interfaces between it and the new enterprise system. Both options will add time and cost to the implementation process.

Additionally they can dilute the system’s integration benefits. The more customized the system becomes the less possible seamless communication becomes between suppliers and customers.

Consulting services Many organizations did not have sufficient internal skills to implement an ERP project. This resulted in many organizations offering consulting services for ERP implementation. Typically, a consulting team was responsible for the entire ERP implementation including planning, training, testing, implementation, and delivery of any customized modules. Examples of customization includes additional product training; creation of process triggers and workflow; specialist advice to improve how the ERP is used in the business; system optimization; and assistance writing reports, complex data extracts or implementing Business Intelligence.

"Core system" Customization vs Configuration Increasingly, ERP vendors have tried to reduce the need for customization by providing built-in "configuration" tools to address most customers' needs for changing how the out-of-the-box core system works.

Key differences between customization and configuration include: • Customization is always optional, whereas some degree of configuration (e.g. setting up cost/profit centre structures, organizational trees, purchase approval rules, etc.) may be needed before the software will work at all.

• Configuration is available to all customers, whereas customization allows individual customer to implement proprietary "marketbeating" processes.

• Configuration changes tend to be recorded as entries in vendor-supplied data tables, whereas customization usually requires some element of programming and/or changes to table structures or views.

• The effect of configuration changes on the performance of the system is relatively predictable and is largely the responsibility of the ERP vendor. The effect of customization is

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• Configuration changes are almost always guaranteed to survive upgrades to new software versions. Some customizations (e.g. code that uses pre-defined "hooks" that are called before/after displaying data screens) will survive upgrades, though they will still need to be retested. More extensive customizations (e.g. those involving changes to fundamental data structures) will be overwritten during upgrades and must be re-implemented manually.

By this analysis, customizing an ERP package can be unexpectedly expensive and complicated, and tends to delay delivery of the obvious benefits of an integrated system. Nevertheless, customizing an ERP suite gives the scope to implement secret recipes for excellence in specific areas while ensuring that industry best practices are achieved in less sensitive areas.

Extension In this context "Extension" refers to ways that the delivered ERP environment can be extended with thirdparty programs. It is technically easy to expose most ERP transactions to outside programs, e.g.

• Scenarios to do with archiving, reporting and republishing (these easiest to achieve, because they mainly address static data); • Transactional data capture scenarios, e.g. using scanners, tills or RFIDs, are relatively easy (because they touch existing data); ....however because ERP applications typically contain sophisticated rules that control how master data can be created or changed, some scenarios are very difficult to implement.

Maintenance and support services Maintenance and support services involve monitoring and managing an operational ERP system. This function is often provided in-house using members of the IT department, or may be provided by a specialist external consulting and services company.

Advantages In the absence of an ERP system, a large manufacturer may find itself with many software applications that cannot communicate or interface effectively with one another.

Tasks that need to interface with one another may involve: • Integration among different functional areas to ensure proper communication, productivity and efficiency • Design engineering (how to best make the product) • Order tracking, from acceptance through fulfillment • The revenue cycle, from invoice through cash receipt • Managing inter-dependencies of complex processes bill of materials

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Tracking the three-way match between purchase orders (what was ordered), inventory receipts (what arrived), and costing (what the vendor invoiced) The accounting for all of these tasks: tracking the revenue, cost and profit at a granular level.

ERP Systems centralize the data in one place.

This eliminates the problem of synchronizing changes and can reduce the risk of loss of sensitive data by consolidating multiple permissions and security models into a single structure.

Some security features are included within an ERP system to protect against both outsider crime, such as industrial espionage, and insider crime, such as embezzlement. A data-tampering scenario, for example, might involve a disgruntled employee intentionally modifying prices to below-the-breakeven point in order to attempt to interfere with the company's profit or other sabotage. ERP systems typically provide functionality for implementing internal controls to prevent actions of this kind. ERP vendors are also moving toward better integration with other kinds of information security tools.

Disadvantages Problems with ERP systems are mainly due to inadequate investment in ongoing training for the involved IT personnel - including those implementing and testing changes - as well as a lack of corporate policy protecting the integrity of the data in the ERP systems and the ways in which it is used.

• Customization of the ERP software is limited.

• Re-engineering of business processes to fit the "industry standard" prescribed by the ERP system may lead to a loss of competitive advantage.

• ERP systems can be very expensive (This has led to a new category of "ERP light" solutions) • ERPs are often seen as too rigid and too difficult to adapt to the specific workflow and business process of some companies—this is cited as one of the main causes of their failure.

• Many of the integrated links need high accuracy in other applications to work effectively. A company can achieve minimum standards, then over time "dirty data" will reduce the reliability of some applications.

• Once a system is established, switching costs are very high for any one of the partners (reducing flexibility and strategic control at the corporate level).

• The blurring of company boundaries can cause problems in accountability, lines of responsibility, and employee morale.

• Resistance in sharing sensitive internal information between departments can reduce the effectiveness of the software.

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Some large organizations may have multiple departments with separate, independent resources, missions, chains-of-command, etc, and consolidation into a single enterprise may yield limited benefits.

The system may be too complex measured against the actual needs of the customers.

ERP Systems centralize the data in one place.

This can increase the risk of loss of sensitive information in the event of a security breach.

MRP vs. ERP — manufacturing management systems have evolved in stages over the past 30 years from a simple means of calculating materials requirements to the automation of an entire enterprise. Around 1980, overfrequent changes in sales forecasts, entailing continual readjustments in production, as well as inflexible fixed system parameters, led MRP (Material Requirement Planning) to evolve into a new concept : Manufacturing Resource Planning (or MRP3) and finally the generic concept Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) BHEL’s IT prowess sets example for PSU sector The company began its IT sojourn at a time when most other private players where still deliberating on whether to take the IT path or not and today boasts of an IT infrastructure that comprises of a Wide Area Network (WAN), usage of CAD/CAM tools in the designing process and a full fledged ERP system to be rolled out in the months to come.

BHEL with a product offering comprising of 180 products and offering systems and services catering to the needs of core sectors such as power, transmission, transportation including railways, defence, telecommunication, oil etc was established in Bhopal more than 40 years ago and is considered to be one of the first players in the electrical industry in the country. The company exports its products to more than 50 countries and registered a turnover of Rs 6347.8 crore in the fiscal year 2000-01.

The beginning of IT Soon after commencement of operations, BHEL realised the power of IT when in 1960 it underwent a massive technology transfer from countries such as USSR, USA and UK. Though the technology at this stage was still rudimentary, almost all units of BHEL underwent a complete makeover. This makeover covered practically every area of operations from design and documentation to manufacturing. As part of this transfer, the company also acquired all related computer programmes allowing it to rewrite codes to suit the Indiaspecific working conditions.

IT in everyday operations.

Over the years, the IT tools in the company have been gradually upgraded in accordance with the requirements of the company and in tune with the technology scenario.

Each of the company’s manufacturing units have a strong

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functional computerised system base supported by an appropriate IT infrastructure. The company, which was earlier using mainframe computers, has now replaced them with high-end servers and front-end PCs, which are used extensively across the organisation.

In addition to the above systems, being an engineering organisation, the company has been using PDMS, AutoCAD, CAM and other Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools. These tools, Jain points out, are acquired from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) only.

The usage of these tools he says have helped in a faster rollout of products and have helped to ensure greater accuracy of the same.

In an effort to tackle the perennial problem of hacking and intrusion attempts, the company has well defined principles for the protection of its infrastructure and data.

The company ensures that norms for computer security are defined and adhered to. All the Internet gateways are protected with firewalls, proxy server and intrusion detection systems. BHEL is presently using firewalls from Checkpoint. Anti-virus software provided on all nodes, desktops and servers are updated regularly. At present, the driving force for IT security in the company is the IT Act, e-commerce activities which encompass authentication, integrity, non-repudiation and confidentiality and lastly service availability.

Currently all manufacturing units of the company have a core team of IT professionals who are responsible for the IT infrastructure in their concerned unit. Each of the major operations in the units such as material management and finance also have their own systems professionals. At the corporate level, overall policy coordination is done by the Corporate Information Technology Group. At present, the company has over 1000 IT professionals working for them. In order to meet the business challenges of the future, some of the newer areas that are being considered for absorption into the IT infrastructure include the enterprise-wide computing systems, collaborative and concurrent engineering, simulation modelling and video conferencing.

BHEL unit launches ERP module Connectivity and BHEL on WAN With a huge set up comprising of 14 manufacturing units, 3 distinct business groups (catering to the power industry and international operations), 4 regional power centres, over 100 project sites, 8 service centres and 14 regional offices, one of the main problems faced by the company was connectivity. In an effort to tackle this problem head-on, the company developed and connected all its offices through a wide area corporate data network called ‘BHELNET’.

To connect its various facilities, the company adopted various modes of communication. These included leased lines from VSNL, ISDN, PSTN dial-up and pointto-point leased lines and VSATs. Backed by these means, BHELNET supports applications such as e-mail, file transfer, Intranet applications, Web publishing, business applications and engineering of information applications.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System At present all manufacturing units, service divisions and some important projects are connected over BHELNET. Together this number 27, with more expected to be connected soon. In addition to BHELNET, each of the major units of the company have their campus-wide backbone network supported by Local Area Network (LAN) for inter office and department connectivity for systems integration. From the mid 1990s, the company started introducing high speed LANs in various units, which include Gigabit and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) LAN. B2B On the Business to Business (B2B) front, BHEL has already initiated steps to facilitate B2B transactions between their manufacturers units and suppliers. This includes the ‘Ancillary Development Department’ of Trichy unit of BHEL, which has developed a system to carry out e-commerce activities. The various e-commerce systems that can be carried out leveraging this systems are purchase order, supply materials, completion accounting, work in progress (WIP) analysis, bill processing, material accounting and excise duty.

As a by-product of this system, a number of standard subqueries are developed for retrieving data from the online Oracle database. Data that is required to be sent to subcontractors are transferred through e-mail attachments. The subcontractors can send requests for clarifications or assistance through the Web. Initiatives have also been taken up for development of the company level market place for e-procurement and e-sales. At the unit level, the e-commerce framework has been developed for acquirement of spares of specific products such as pulverizes valves, pumps and traction equipment.

ERP & Its Future Scope in BHEL One of the most recent initiatives of the company has been the initiation of ERP implementation. “In order to keep pace with the new economy, the integration of business processes has become a necessity. To this end we decided to adopt a proven ERP package that would cover all our manufacturing units and business sectors.”

Accordingly, after evaluating a couple of packages, BHEL zeroed in from SAP, mySAP.com with Pricewaterhouse Coopers as the implementation partner. The company implemented the systems on a pilot basis for identified products. As part of this plan, the rollout of the pilot site i.e. the valves plant at the Trichy plant has been going on in full steam and is expected to be complete by the end of the month.

The ERP solution is expected to be cover modules such as financial accounting (FI), treasury management, control, project systems, sales and distribution, logistics, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), materials management, production planning, quality management and plant maintenance. The servers to be used for the ERP system will include development server, ITS Server, integration (quality and testing) server, workplace server, business warehouse server, knowledge warehouse server, CRM server, network for PCs and servers. Along

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with ERP adaptation in the manufacturing units, plans have also been chalked out for the implementation of CRM in the business sectors at Delhi.

The company has also embarked on a 100 percent IT literacy plan. It has drafted schemes aimed at imparting education at both the local and corporate levels. At the officer level, the IT literacy rate currently stands at 90 percent.

It was found that, “unlike other organisations, there was no resistance from the employees in using IT tools. In fact, the employees have displayed considerable interest in familiarising themselves with the same.” The reason behind this is that the company is primarily a learning organisation.

The other factor being that a large number of machines in the company are computer controlled so the familiarity with IT tools is high. The company has also introduced a capsule computer education in all its training programmes for its professionals. As part of its effort to further the cause of IT literacy, the company is also offering soft loans to employees to buy PCs. Benefits The Company has to date invested crores of rupees into building up its IT infrastructure. But have there been any tangible benefits of the same? “In today’s e-economy, IT plays an important role since each and everything is required in a digitised format. This holds more importance than ever in our case as it operates in the international market. One of the most visible benefits of our IT initiatives has been the better management of our working capital. The other benefits have been an improvement of operational efficiencies, such as production cycle reduction, inventory reduction, better product design and reduction in wastage of material, performance monitoring, customer care and after sales service.”

With an aim to become the leading Indian Engineering Enterprise providing quality products, systems & services in the fields of energy, transportation, industry, infrastructure and other potential areas, the company has well-equipped facilities to carry out research. Some important research facilities are: • Material Sciences Laboratory.

• Turbo-machinery Laboratory.

• Test facilities for clean coal technology.

• Ultra High Voltage Laboratory.

• Centre for Electric Transportation (with UNDP assistance).

• Welding Research Institute (with UNDP assistance).

• Ceramic Technological Institute (with UNDP assistance).

• Pollution Control Research Institute (with UNDP assistance).

• Fuel Evaluation Test Facility- (BHEL-USAID joint project)

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• • • • • • • •

Findings and conclusion: Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), hailed as one of the Navaratnas by the Government of India is all set to emerge as a global giant. Endowed with distinctive Competence in technology absorption, product development and manufacturing technology, the Company continues to play a vibrant role in the Indian power plant equipment market Even after the liberalization and opening up of the economy. BHEL supplied sets now account for 67,000 MW or 65% of the, country's installed power generating capacity. With 14 manufacturing units and an annual production capacity of over 4000 MW for power plant equipment, the Company ranks among the most important power equipment manufacturers in the world.

ERP (SAP-HR) inaugurated in BHEL Bhopal unit In a simple programmed was held at IFX conference hall in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, (BHEL), Bhopal unit ERP (SAP-HR) was inaugurated by RK Singh, Executive Director, BHEL, Bhopal. Inaugurating the momentous occasion of GO-LIVE of Systems, Application and Products - HR System, Singh said that this implementation is a matter of pride for our Corporation as this is one of the major HR Initiatives with a company-wide coverage. He said that the growth BHEL is registering today is because of the intensive strength and work culture of the employees of the company. Appreciating implementation of SAP – HR, he said that many of the issues related to organization can be resolved successfully with this kind of tool.

RSV Prasad said that in today’s times HR is looking at itself not only as a Service Function but is aggressively trying to be a strategic partner in business. Due to growing complexities of business scenarios it is absolutely essential that all the resources are put to most optimum use. Winning organizations execute its core business functions economically than their competitors. He said that introduction of this system will help in taking quick decisions and strengthen HR Functions in the Company.

The system will improve the business processes, provide agility and speed in the operations to deliver high quality service and thereby enhance customer satisfaction. The Tiruchirappalli complex of. BHEL, comprising the High Pressure Boiler Plant and the Seamless Steel Tube Plant at Tiruchirappalli, the Boiler Auxiliaries Plant at Ranipet and the Industrial Valves Plant at Goindwal has been expanding its product and technology profiles over the last three decades. Set up initially with technology support from Skoda Exports, Czechoslovakia, the plant updated the technology for its various products in the 1970's with a series of collaborations with leading equipment manufacturers in USA, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. The boiler unit ratings have been steadily increased from 60 MW to 110 MW, 210 MW, 500 MW. BHEL Tiruchi has entered into technical collaboration with

January 2009-June 2009

a Leading Company in Germany to design, manufacture and supply higher capacity sub/super Critical oncethrough boilers of range 660 MW and above. Orders for a total of 583 boilers have so far been bagged by the Company of which 525 boilers have already been Commissioned.SNR Softech Limited provides SAP ABAP/4 support to BHEL. In the following areas: * Programming using ABAP/4. * Batch Data Communication. * SAP Script. * Logical Databases, ABAP Dictionary and ABAP Objects. * SAP Query * Info type Development * Customer Enhancements - User exits, BADI * HR Form Editor * Development of Classical and Interactive Reports (ALV, List Report) * Smart forms, ABAP Query BHEL unit implements ERP package Bangalore, Dec. 22 THE electronics division of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) here has successfully implemented ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software package integrating its core functions.

The ERP software has been sourced from SAP, Germany.

The implementation of the ERP package, as per its Strategic Plan 2007, will be taken up in a phased manner in other units of BHEL leading to an integration of their business processes, with its attendant benefits.

Implemented by a team of BHEL engineers with consultancy from Wipro in a record time of about six months, BHEL expects this package to deliver significant returns over the coming years, resulting in enhanced efficiency in execution of projects and improved services.

By enabling the transfer of uniform and accurate information between various departments and functions as well as with customers and vendors, BHEL is looking ahead after this implementation to lead to an effective integration of the business processes. Improved data availability and monitoring are also expected to facilitate quicker decision making process and finally result in improvement of various business results and enhanced customer satisfaction.

The electronics division is an ISO 9001, 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified unit and is one of the major manufacturing divisions.

It manufactures modern automation systems for power plants and industries at its facilities at Bangalore.

It has diversified into other high technology areas like semi-conductor devices, solar photovoltaic’s, telecommunication and defense.

HYDERABAD, Dec. 31 ,2002 BHEL Ramachandrapuram unit has put into operational mode its enterprise resource planning (ERP) module in its gas turbine section. It was formally launched on

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Tuesday by the Executive Director, Mr A.N. Jagadeeswaran, and representatives of the IBM. BHEL had initiated work on a pilot ERP project named `PROGRESS' for its gas turbine manufacturing operations in April 2002. The ERP software was sourced from SAPIndia, while IBM Business Consulting Services provided the necessary guidance for the implementation. The ERP implementation is expected to lead to improved delivery times, cost control and inventory management apart from providing means to reduce dependence endence of human inputs, according to a BHEL release.

Conclusion: In order to achieve the above objectives BHEL has intelligently adopted ERP in all the spheres of its operations. It assures us that Public sector units can also become a mile stone for other sectors by taking the best use of Information System. This has redefined edefined working with all the functional groups performing in an integrated manner utilizing a common project and company database.

Websites: • www.snrsoftech.com • www.twocircles.net http://researchlibrary.mbtmag.com • • www.expresscomputeronline.com om • www.bhel.com • http://www.blonnet.com • www.aberdeen.com Bibliography: • Stephen Harwood: Erp the Implementation Cycle Jacobs, F. Robert (Author), • Whybark, David Clay (Author),, Author Why Erp? a Primer on SAP Implementation India year book 2009

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Arun Bakshi Assistant Professor (IT), Gitarattan International Business School, Rohini, Delhi,

arun_bakshi@rediffmail.com

Rajesh S Pyngavil Assistant Professor(HR & OB), Gitarattan International Business School, Rohini, Delhi

rajeshspyngavil@gmail.com

Ratul C kalita Lecturer & System Analyst, Gitarattan International Business School, Rohini, Delhi

ratulkalita364@gmail.com

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK

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ABSTRACT

•Knowledge is power and a powerful weapon in this information age. We can’t just think to be unaware of our world. Simply, because to survive better in the environment you must be aware of the tangible as well as intangible aspects of the world around you. The scientific world of today’s space era, where we are not just focusing on the planet we are living in, but trying to explore more and more horizons by means of launching our space shuttles for discovering new planets where life can be found. It is always good to manage what we have in our reach first then to go for more.

Management of knowledge is a multidisciplinary field where we have to cater for the need of understanding the different aspects of knowledge, characteristics and types of knowledge and their application areas to be studied and understood first.

KEYWORDS Introduction

•Knowledge Management •Information •Management •Knowledge •People • Value •Data •Storage

The focus of the management is taken in both perspectives that is short term as well as long term. The role of management is to form a strategic approach to set visions, mission, objectives and then to make arrangements to achieve objectives and visions and an mission.

Management is not concerned only for the internal activities of the organization but it goes beyond such internal processes also like industry and the general environment. The main focus is on issues related to environmental studies and industry industr study, assessment of current and future competitors, estimation of core competencies, strategic control and the effective allocation of organizational resources.

There are two approaches for management in general that are Industrial Organization Approach Approac and another is Sociological Approach.

The Industrial Organization Approach: This • approach is based on economic theory which deals with issues like competitive rivalry, resource allocation, economies of scale. This approach to management assumes rationality, rationali self interested behavior, profit maximization.

• The Sociological Approach: This approach deals primarily with human interactions. It assumes rationality, satisfying behavior, profit sub-optimality.

Management theories can also be divided into two sets. One is the set that concentrates mainly on efficiency and another is the set that concentrates mainly on effectiveness.

Efficiency is about doing things the right way. It involves eliminating waste and optimizing processes. Effectiveness is about doing the right things.

A good management style is a blend of both efficiency and effectiveness. There is no point in acting efficiently if what you are doing will not have the desired effect.

Knowledge Management – Meaning and Definitions Knowledge is defined ed by the Oxford English Dictionary as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or (iii) ( awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Philosophical debates in general start with Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified true belief". There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, nor any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories.

Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject

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resources. It can be applied to individual as well to the organizations. KM is viewed as an increasingly important discipline that promotes promot the creation, sharing, and leveraging of the organization’s organization knowledge.

Knowledge Management is the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee's comprehension in a specific fic area of interest.

Knowledge management is “an “ audit of intellectual assets that highlights unique sources, critical functions and potential bottlenecks which would otherwise hinder the knowledge flow to the point of use”, use It protects intellectual assets ts from decay, seeks opportunities to enhance decisions, services and products through adding intelligence, increasing value and providing flexibility.

Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association ation and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate.

Knowledge in People

(Source: http://www.cse.ust.hk/~dekai/600G_2005Q3/notes/KM_Slides_Ch 600G_2005Q3/notes/KM_Slides_Ch 02.pdf, last accessed on 15 May, 2009)

Information is data with context and relevance .In contrast, data can include millions of useless garbage bits, which are nothing more than uninterruptible zeros and ones.

Information involves volves manipulation of raw data and often information can be used to obtain a more meaningful indication of trends or patterns. The managing of knowledge through systematic sharing is assuming a larger role in organizations around the world, including those involved in development assistance.

Human brain is the mysterious store house of knowledge and that is what we call tacit knowledge. The professionals working in organizations are the examples of this kind of knowledge where the considerable knowledge is their inside the magic box we call brain. br This tacit knowledge is the reason which is making firms to companies to find our new ways to retain this knowledge which may be lost as and when the employee is leaving the organizations.

The other type of people knowledge is among the groups of people ople because of their interpersonal and/or professional relationships. After working for a considerable period of time individuals are well aware of each others strengths, weaknesses, professional knowledge, working style and some aspects which can or can not be taken for granted. Thus a group is a shareware of knowledge. It gives emphasis to the statement that union is strength. The interest groups using on line as well as off line communication techniques are preserving knowledge treasure among groups.

Types of Knowledge

(Source: http://www.cse.ust.hk/~dekai/600G_2005Q3/notes/KM_Slides_Ch 02.pdf, last accessed on 15 May, 2009)

Knowledge Management – An Overview Knowledge Management (KM) may simply be defined as doing what is needed to get the most out of knowledge

• Communicating Knowledge: Knowledge Symbolic representations can be used to indicate meaning and can be thought of as a dynamic process. Hence the transfer of the symbolic representation can be viewed as one ascription process whereby knowledge can c be transferred.

• Situated knowledge:: is knowledge specific to a particular situation. Situational knowledge is often embedded in language, culture, or traditions.

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•

Partial Knowledge: A discipline called epistemology focuses on partial knowledge. In most realistic cases, it is not possible to have an exhaustive understanding of an information domain, so then we have to live with the fact that our knowledge is always not complete, that is, partial. Most real problems have to be solved by taking advantage of a partial understanding of the problem context and problem data.

Scientific Knowledge: Scientific Method has made a significant contribution to our understanding of knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

• Process of Knowledge Management Knowledge management process is about acquisition, creation, packaging, and application or reuse of knowledge. Some examples of each of these types of knowledge management process are Knowledge acquisition: finding existing knowledge, understanding requirements, searching among multiple sources.

Knowledge creation: research activities, creative processes in advertising, writing books or articles, making movies, etc.

Packaging: publishing, editing, design work.

Applying or using existing knowledge: auditing, medical diagnosis; Reuse of knowledge for a new purpose: leveraging knowledge product development processes, software development.

Knowledge in Organizational Entities: The organizational bodies are also a source of knowledge.

Such bodies can be classified in three different categories.

The first one is organizational units i.e the part of the organization. The second one is as an entire organization and the third one is as interorganizational relationships viz the relationship between an organization and its customers or suppliers.

As the organization is an integrated structure made up of independent as well as interdependent individual units e.g a department say marketing or sales. The knowledge is stored partially in the relationships among unit members.

In nut shell the organizational unit is an interface that is representing a official grouping of individuals, who are working together not because of the common interests but because of the organizational structuring.

As the time passes the individuals of the unit get new roles in the organization and sometimes they are shifted to other units also. In this process the new members take

their place and inherit some knowledge developed by their predecessors. This knowledge may be the outcome of practices, relationships and the system generated knowledge in that unit.

In fact specific domain knowledge is likely to be related to the specific organizational unit. The organizations are also interested to store some specific knowledge which is contextually w.r.t to a particular domain area.

The values, practices, norms and culture within organization and across its organizational units, contain that knowledge which is not specifically stored within the mind of any one individual. The reaction to a situation or environmental events depend not only one the knowledge stored in individuals and organizational units but also in the overall organizational knowledge that has been developed through ups and down experiences over time.

Finally vital knowledge is also stored in interorganizational relationships. The organizations makes and do the best to maintain the relationships with customers and suppliers on the basis of experience they acquire on knowledge embedded in those relationships.

The loyal customers who are using the product of the company and trustworthy suppliers who are supplying the raw material for those products often have considerable knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of such products.

Advantages of Knowledge Based Systems • Ease of modification • Consistency of answers • 24/7 accessibility • Preservation of expertise • Solution of problems involving incomplete data • Explanation of solution, especially for sharing/internalization • Wide distribution of rare expertise, especially for direction Disadvantages of Knowledge Based Systems • • • • •

Answers may not always be correct Limits not always recognized Lack of common sense Restricted scalability systems often become too complex

Issues and Challenges With technology ever at a gallop, and business cycles getting shorter all the time, it will be the intangible assets, in particular, knowledge that will add value.

Knowledge has been identified as the most critical factor of production in the post-industrial economy. Successful organizations will be those that can assimilate new ideas and translate those ideas into actions faster than their competitors. Knowledge management is how organizations extract values from their intellectual assets.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System Biggest challenge is that of changing the culture from “knowledge is power to “knowledge sharing is power”.

There are some other obstacles also • Introversion: afraid to learn from outsiders or expose internal operations to customers.

• Too focused on detailed process : rather than the big picture and the most chaotic process of knowledge creation • Treating it as one-off project or quick –win : KM is a commitment to the long-term: the organization’s future prosperity.

• Individual disciplines and ‘turf wars’- KM goes beyond the remit of any single function or discipline. All functions must collaborate.

• Organizational recognition and reward systems usually do not sufficiently recognize knowledge contributions.

They are linked to traditional financial measures.

Role of IT in Knowledge Management Information technology (IT) has made it easier to acquire, store, or disseminate knowledge than ever before, many organizations are employing IT to facilitate sharing and integration of knowledge. There are two basic approaches to KM for which IT can provide support: codification and personalization. With the codification approach, more explicit and structured knowledge is codified and stored in knowledge bases. The main role of IT here is to help people share knowledge through common storage so as to achieve economic reuse of knowledge. An example of such IT tools is electronic knowledge repositories. With the personalization approach, more tacit and unstructured knowledge is shared largely through direct personal communication. The main role of IT here is to help people locate each other and communicate so as to achieve complex knowledge transfer. Examples of such IT tools are knowledge expert directories and video-conferencing tools. Both these KM approaches are fundamental to understanding the role of IT in KM. If properly used IT can accelerate knowledge-sharing capabilities in both time and space dimensions. Locality, timing, and relevancy factors determine the expediency and the strength of IT's role in KM initiatives. On the other hand, due to the difficulty of incorporating most of human behavior aspects in technology, IT cannot fully put into operation many of KM's humanistic features. Therefore, IT cannot be considered the magic bullet that makes a KM initiative a complete success. Hence, IT has to be part of a balanced and integrated set of components. Too much emphasis on technology without incorporating the other critical elements could easily result in a failed system.

Furthermore, codifying knowledge with the power of the existing IT and without the support from socio-cultural inputs, will result in de-contextualization, i.e. ''knowledge dilution''. IT must be accompanied by social networks such as communities of practice and other human interventions to create the requisite synergistic effects.

The growing importance of knowledge as a critical business resource has compelled executives to examine the knowledge underlying their businesses, giving rise to knowledge management (KM) initiatives.

Given that advances in information technology (IT) have made it easier to acquire, store, or disseminate knowledge than ever before, many organizations are employing IT to facilitate sharing and integration of knowledge. But considering the complexity of KM initiatives and the variety of IT solutions available on the market, executives must often confront the challenging task of deciding what type of IT solutions to deploy in support of their KM initiatives. This paper aims to shed light on the IT-KM match by investigating the role of IT in successful KM initiatives.

There are two basic approaches to KM for which IT can provide support: codification and personalization (Hansen et al. 1999). With the codification approach, more explicit and structured knowledge is codified and stored in knowledge bases. The main role of IT here is to help people share knowledge through common storage so as to achieve economic reuse of knowledge.

An example of such IT tools is electronic knowledge repositories. With the personalization approach, more tacit and unstructured knowledge is shared largely through direct personal communication. The main role of IT here is to help people locate each other and communicate so as to achieve complex knowledge transfer. Examples of such IT tools are knowledge expert directories and video-conferencing tools. Both these KM approaches are fundamental to understanding the role of IT in KM. Conclusion Knowledge management is not managing or organizing books or journals, searching the Internet for clients or arranging the circulation of materials. However, each of the activities can in some way be part of the knowledge management spectrum and process. Knowledge management is about enhancing the use of organizational knowledge through sound practices of knowledge management and organizational learning.

Thus knowledge management is a combination of information management, communication and human resources. Good knowledge centers will put as much emphasis on connecting people with people -'know-who' - as they do on connecting people with information and document collections. They will be concerned with 'active' not 'archive' knowledge, so need to be fully up to speed with what is happening in the organization including current priorities and work in progress - 'who is doing what now'.

References •

Yates-Mercer, Y & Bawden, D. (2002), “Managing the Paradox: The Valuation of Knowledge and Knowledge Management”, Journal of Information Science, 28(1), Pp19-29.

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•

•

•

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•

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Srivastava, K. (2006), “Knowledge Knowledge management and higher education”. University News, Pp 44 44- 47.

Gupta, D. (2005), Collecting and sharing knowledge, Network Magazine,, Retrieved August29, 09http://www.networkmagazineindia.com/200502/cover story09.shtml Binwal, J. C. (2001), “Knowledge Knowledge management management” IASLIC Bulletin, 46(2), Pp 65-78 Matheson, N.W. & Cooper, J. A. D. (1982), “Academic information in the academic health sciences center: roles for the library in information management management”, Journal of Medical Education, Pp49- 57 Tiwana, A. (2000). “The The knowledge management toolkit: Practical techniques for buildin building a knowledge management system”, Prentice Hall K M Cluster (2007), “Mental Model” Retrieved August 29, 2007 from http://www.kmcluster.com/mental_model.htm Pluskowski, B. (2002, June). “Dynamic Dynamic Knowledge Systems”,, Retrieved August 29, 2007 fromhttp://www.imaginatik.com/site/pdfs/WP maginatik.com/site/pdfs/WP-0602 Malhotra, Y. (1998). Knowledge management, knowledge organizations & knowledge workers: A view from the front lines.. Retrieved August 29, 2007 from http://www.brint.com/interview/maeil.htm Mahapartra,Tapas & Khandelwal wal Shalini, “Knowledge Management, Design and Implementation Implementation”, ICFAI University Press.

Fernandez Irma Becerra, Gonzalez Avelino & Sabherwal Rajiv, “Knowledge Knowledge Management, Challenges, Solutions, and Technologies Technologies”, Pearson education.

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A Comparative Study of ISO 9001, CMMI and Six Sigma with reference to Software Process Quality

Ekta Agrawal Faculty, Pioneer Institute of Professional studies, Indore

ektaa.agrawal@gmail.com

Preeti Jain Faculty, Pioneer Institute of Professional studies, Indore

Email

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISO 9001, CMMI AND SIX SIGMA WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE PROCESS QUALITY

Dr. V. K. Jain Director MCA, Pioneer Institute of Professional studies, Indore

drvkjain72@gmail.com

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Introduction

ABSTRACT

•Software quality is difficult to define because there is no single comprehensive and complete standard definition of its lexicon. The quality of software is difficult to accomplish as there is no definite way and not explicit necessities of each and every customer. The quality of any software is the measure of effectiveness and customer satisfaction.

In present era, all software companies have a face up to make quality software within projected time and cost. The quality of software can be measured in terms of distinct phases of software development life cycle and after analyzing the each factor in term of parameters like cost/benefit analysis, reliability, customer satisfaction and many more more. The better source of providing the quality may be a scale through which we can give quality to software but before proceeding standards a testing of software through different types is also an important task.

The quality of software can be provided through various ways likei. ii. iii.

By Testing

By Inspection By standard The software testing is an integral part of each phase in SDLC to accomplish the quality.

The testing is deployed to understand the requirements and to generate better quality code.

Testing is overwhelming process for maintain the quality of the software, instead of using it inspection of code is time economy process has been decide on. The software quality through inspection can not be increased as this is not an effective to eradicate all bugs. The labor cost requisite is more in testing so it is more expensive.

Today various organizations are adopting a variety of international standards for providing high quality software to their customers. These standards define process framework for a number of processes used in software development like li designing coding testing etc.

Various major factors are defined to provide the quality but in this paper we are mainly concentrated on quality through standards.

In the next section of the paper we will define the quality of software, various international standards and their comparative study.

A Quality Software

KEYWORDS

•Software •Quality •ISO 9001 • CMMI •Six Sigma •Software Process Quality

Software quality ensures the correctness, performance and scalability according to the specification. A high quality software system can be achieved by providing quality in its i development processes. The quality of software is a measure of various parameters which are as follows: Customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction from software is very essential to provide quality which may be in terms of user friendliness, completion ion of requirements.

Cost benefit analysis:: - The degree to which software accomplish the benefits according to the spend cost.

Bug free: - The degree to which a software can work in user environment correctly.

Key Attributes: - The degree to which software e complete the non functional requirements such as reliability, accuracy, portability etc.

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISO 9001, CMMI AND SIX SIGMA WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE PROCESS QUALITY

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Process Quality: - During development process at each phase the quality of software should be measured.

These are some requirements which are needed for quality software. Every software needs some specific set of requirements which can be fulfilled according to that software process can be implemented. The quality of software varies according to the needs so at the time of planning, it should be well defined so that according to that needs the development of software can be completed.

Common problems to attain the quality- To maintain quality of software is more difficult than to develop software. Quality software should fulfill all the requirements to satisfy customer needs within estimated time and cost. There are some common problems which reduces the quality of software Poor definition of requirements - Incomplete.

Unclear and frequently changed requirements are accountable for lack of quality.

Poor Performance of system analyst- The lack of expertise of analyst is responsible for the degradation of quality because of wrong estimation of time and cost.

Poor Testing- Quality can be achieved if testing is made at all phases of the software development process extensively.

Poor Documentation- Lack of practices of documentation tends to reduce quality of software because it makes difficult to maintain and modify the software.

Since these are some common problems, quality software can not be developed so there are certain standards which track planned and systematic approach to make quality software.

Various standards Standards are needed to ensure certain attributes which makes the quality of software. The standards play an important role for any software evaluation.

A standard provides a medium that defines or represents the magnitude of a unit to helpA level through which allowable tolerances or constraints for categories of items,

A degree or level of required excellence or attainment* These international standards provide a process framework for the various processes of software development like coding designing and testing.

In this paper we will explain the effectiveness of following standards in software development.

ISO 9000 CMMI Six Sigma

ISO 9000 Standard: ISO 9000 is a generic standard which provides a set of guidelines for the development process. It is not fully concentrate on product so it can be applied any kind of industries. It can be applied to manufacturing industries, service industries and also software industries. Since it is wide range standard so it is commonly used, easy used and cost effective. As quality consists of various parameters, ISO 9000 mainly focuses on customer satisfaction, data analysis and on continual improvement. ISO 9000 is a series of three standards ISO 9001 - It is the quality assurance standard that applied to software engineering.

ISO 9002 – It is the quality standard applies to manufacturing industries like steel or car manufacturing industries.

ISO 9003 –It is the quality standard applies to the organizations involved only in installation and testing of the products.

Execution of ISO 9000 affects the entire organization right from the first state. If practice with total devotion, it results in 'intellectual evolution' to an environment of continuous improvement. The process of implementing ISO 9000 depends on various factors likeThe complexity of existing program, • The volume of organization, and • The density of process. * ISO 9001 •

quality

CMMI Standards - To advance the quality of software processes SEI (Software Engineering Institute) has developed a process maturity framework called Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). This process model is an amalgamation of content of multiple streams consequently its integration. Development of any software as well as quality software requires process, people and technology to satisfy product cost, schedule and quality.

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISO 9001, CMMI AND SIX SIGMA WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE PROCESS QUALITY

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CMM Level

Key Process Area

Focus

Level 5 (Optimizing)

Continuous Process Improvement

Defect prevention Technology change management Process change management

of opportunities for defects to happen, where a defect is any variation from the desired target value.

Comparison of ISO, CMMI and Six Sigma Criterion

ISO 9000

CMMI Six Sigma

Level 4 (Managed)

Quantitative Management

Level 3 (Defined)

Definition of processes

Level 2 (Repeatable)

Basic project management

Quantitative process management Software quality management Organization process focus Organization process definition

Training program Integrated software management

Requirement management

Developed By

ISO

SEI

Motorola

Focus

Product

Process

Product process

Certification

External Agency

External Agency

Internal Control

Function

Defined Methodology

Defined Processes

Defined Values

Applicability

All types of industries

System Engineering

All industries

Approach

Quality Assurance Approach

Process improvement approach

DMAIC DMADV approach

Technique Used

Qualitative Techniques

Quantitative Techniques

Statistical Techniques

Working

Reviews Entire quality management system

Reviews Overall process improvement

Reviews Only specific project/process

Limitation

Lacking in guidance to improve quality

Lacking in improvement through measurement

Lack certified Authority

Position in quality hierarchy

Primary level

Middle level

High level

Table – 1: Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a suite of

Products used for process improvement.

• Models • Appraisal Methods • Training Courses CMMI provides the direction for valuable and competent improvement across multiple process restraint in the organization. It works on all elements of an organization to better development in each and every segment of organization.

Six SigmaSix sigma is named as sigma because it is used to deviate the value from standard values to improve the defects. Six sigma methodology is customer driven, quality management and quality improvement method which also measure the quality of process and product.

This methodology is based on understanding of customer requirement and customer satisfaction.

The Six sigma is based on statistical concepts to improve the quality of business processes. The value of six sigma is used to measure the quality of product and processes. The sigma rating is calculated from the number of defects and number

and

Table – 2: Comparison of ISO, CMMI and Six Sigma

In the previous section we have concentrated on brief introduction of all the three standards, in this section we will focus on comparative study of these three standards.

Developed By: ISO 9001: 2000 standards is originated by ISO (international organization for standardization). ISO is a well known organization which provides

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISO 9001, CMMI AND SIX SIGMA WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE PROCESS QUALITY

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&

of

Global Journal of Enterprise Information System certificates to various type of organization for quality achievement.

CMMI standard is originated by SEI (Software Engineering Institute) for the assessing the quality of software engineering processes.

SIX Sigma methodologies are developed by Mikel J.Harry of Motorola to improve the quality by reducing defects.

Focus: ISO 9001: 2000 standards are focused on the quality of product to make customer satisfaction.

CMMI standards focused on the different processes of system development. Six sigma focused on product and as well as on process.

Certification: ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI certification is approved by external authority. ISO and SEI are the certification authority to give the certificates of ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI respectively.

Six sigma has no certifying body and therefore no organization can be termed as six sigma organization.

Function-Working process of ISO is based on defined methodology. The CMMI standards functions on defining processes to develop software which works on customer satisfaction on the basis of schedule, cost and quality of product. Six sigma functioning is based on values to minimize the defects.

In ISO& CMMI standard the quality is not dependent on business goals; in six sigma technique qualities is dependent on business goals.

Applicability ISO 9001-2000 and Six sigma is applicable in all types of industries while CMMI works on system engineering.

Approach ISO 9001-2000 approach is for quality assurance to improve quality of products, CMMI has process improvement approach and Six sigma has DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and

January 2009-June 2009 Control) & DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify) approach.

Technique 9000: 2000 standard is most common and economic quality standard so every organization can achieve it easily. CMMI standard works on quantitative technique while six sigma use statistical technique. The statistical definition of Six Sigma is 3.4 defects or failures per million opportunities.

Working ISO reviews the entire quality management system; CMMI reviews the all processes of the organization, whereas six sigma focuses on specific projects and is designed to drill down into the process using analytical and statistical tools.

Limitation ISO 9001:2000 basically works on whatever you have, you have to show that, but it do not concentrate on further improvement where quality is lacking so limitation of ISO 9001:2000 is in the guidance to improve quality CMMI works only on achieving maturity levels instead of quality improvement so organizations even reaching the maturity level are not fully satisfied because People using the new processes in most cases feel the improvement, while Management expects measurable contribution to a companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business objectives. Six sigma has no certification authority which can be used in any organization to named as a six sigma organization.

Position in quality hierarchy ISO 9001:2000 has a position of primary level to assure quality as ISO 9001:2000 is equivalent to level 3 of CMMI; CMMI is middle level of achieving the quality because it goes beyond the quality assurance to approve the quality while six sigma is lies on high level as it is termed as world class performance.

Conclusion

The goal of software development organization is to improve the quality of software by defining and designing software processes which meets the PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISO 9001, CMMI AND SIX SIGMA WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE PROCESS QUALITY

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customer’s requirements. The quality journey starts with the getting of ISO 9001:2000 .The ISO certified organizations can start implementing the process improvements defined in level 3 of SEI CMMI. After achieving this, they can implement the level 4 and 5 process improvement mprovement by using quantitative techniques. Finally, the quality is assured through six sigma by concentration on specific projects by working on particular software development process.

In this paper, we have studied all these three standardss according to various parameters and also make their comparative study on various criteria.

References: •

•

• •

Dr. A. Basu , “Software Software Process Quality: From ISO 9000, CMMI to Six sigma sigma” in Computer Society of India, Jan 2009, pp 13 1318 “The Role of CMMI in Facilitating itating Program Performance in Large Scale Systems Systems” CMMI Technology Conference and User Group November 13-16, 16, 2006Hyatt http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi http:// seir.sei.cmu.edu

Volume-1 Issue-1 January 2009-June June 2009 PhasePhase-III: III: Theme Base Paper

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ISO 9001, CMMI AND SIX SIGMA WITH REFERENCE TO SOFTWARE PROCESS QUALITY

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January 2009-June June 2009

Rajendra Kumar Vidya College of Engineering, Meerut

rajendra04@gmail.com

Saurabh Sharma Vidya College of Engineering, Meerut

sam7sai@gmail.com

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper PARADIGM SHIFT IN FINGERPRINT GERPRINT RECOGNITION ON PRESSURE VARIATION AND IMPACT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM IN CRIME IME REDUCTION

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ABSTRACT

•Fingerprint identification from a random offline fingerprint image has become a very actively studied field in biometric systems. systems This paper investigates the possibility to prepare a framework of applying the latent fingerprint obtained from a crime scene to be shared in a central data base.

These fingerprints may be extremely useful to reduce the crimes from a country. In this approach each citizen is supposed to put his/her fingerprint in an organization during entry. This fingerprint will be matched to the central database for checking whether the fingerprint of that citizen matched with any finger print taken from a crime scene. The information system of an organization thus will be able to reveal the suspicious citizens causing to be investigated for further action. The quality of the fingerprint images greatly affects the performance of the minutiae extraction. The photo graph taken from different distances, uneven surface, different finger pressure, dust particles pose problems during recognition process. Improper finger pressure and uneven surface are the major cause to produce breaks in curves in a fingerprint.. In order to improve the performance of the system, many researchers have been made efforts on the image enhancement algorithms. Most of the fingerprint recognition algorithms are based on minutia matching features. Therefore, minutiae extraction is one of the important steps in fingerprint verification algorithms. In this paper we present an algorithm to fill the broken curves on a fingerprint due to low finger pressure and uneven surface. surface Our proposed approach eliminates false minutiae that connect broken curves in fingerprint.

KEYWORDS

•Biometrics •Minutiae •Ridge •Furrows • FRR •FAR •m_connectivity •m_margin

January 2009-June June 2009

1. Introduction The term “biometrics” [1] is commonly used today to refer to the authentication of a person by analyzing the physical characteristics (like fingerprints) or behavior characteristics.

Fingerprint matching is one of the widely used biometric techniques in automatic personal identification tification or verification, because of its robustness and its justified implementation cost.

When we talk about the performance of biometric systems high FRR (false rejection rate) and low FAR (false acceptance rate) are our major concerns. False Rejection Rejectio Rate and False Acceptance Rate are complementary in determining how severe a biometric device is in allowing access to individuals. In general, biometric devices commonly include features to allow for sensitivity settings or variable threshold.

2. Background The fingerprints obtained from the crime scenes are of very bad quality because these are left unintentionally. Such fingerprints are called latent fingerprints. Poor quality fingerprint images lead to missing and spurious minutiae that degrade the performance of fingerprint matching system. The importance of image processing concepts cannot be ruled out to make a biometric method robust.

However, the performance of a minutiae extraction algorithm relies heavily on the quality of the input fingerprint images. Some special treatment is done to reveal such fingerprints. The most obvious structural characteristic of a fingerprint is the pattern of interleaved ridges and branches that often run in parallel. Other important features called minutiae (the end d point and branching point) refer to ridge discontinuities. The minutiae are characteristic features of fingerprints that conclude their uniqueness. These are some special points in the fingerprint responsible for identification. In general, they are termed ed as ridge endings and ridge bifurcation.. Most frequently the minutiae types can be separated by terminations, where a ridgeline ends, and bifurcations, where a ridge bifurcates forming a branch. The minutiae can be used in fingerprint matching since they represent unique details of the ridge flow ow and are considered as a proof of identity. However, shown by

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intensive researches on fingerprint recognition, their ridges and burrows do not distinguish fingerprints, but by Minutia, which are some abnormal points on the ridges.

3. Why we do not fingerprint images

get

good

quality

Several factors determine the quality of a offline fingerprint image [5]: skin conditions (e.g. dryness, wetness, dirtiness, temporary or permanent cuts and bruises), user cooperation, uneven surface, etc. Some of these factors cannot be avoided and some of them vary along the time.

Practically, the quality of a fingerprint image depends on the clearness of separated ridges by valleys and the uniformity of the separation.

Although the change in physical conditions such as temperature and pressure might influence a fingerprint image in different ways, the humidity and oily finger dominate the overall quality of the fingerprint [2]. Dry skin tends to cause inconsistent contact of the finger ridges over the surface at crime scene, causing broken ridges and many white pixels replacing ridge structure (see Fig. 1 (c)). Opposing to the valleys on the oily skin tend to fill up with moisture, causing them to appear black in the image similar to ridge structure.

Figure 1. (b) Neutral Image

Figure 1. (c) Dry Image Neutral Fingerprint Image: Generally, such image has no special properties such as presence of oil and dryness. There is no need of preprocessing steps in case of online image.

Dry Fingerprint Image: The ridges are rough locally and there are many broken curves in the ridges.

Figure 1. (a) Oily Image Oily Fingerprint Image: Although the separation of ridges and valleys is clear in an oily fingerprint image, but some portion of valleys are filled up causing them to appear dark or neighboring ridges stand close to each other in many regions. The oily fingerprint tends ridges to be very thick.

4. Our Proposed Model In order to reduce crimes, our proposed model collects the latent fingerprints from the crime scenes captured by a high quality camera. The digitized fingerprints are stored in a central database, which are accessed zone wise. When a citizen enters in an organization, he has to put his

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper PARADIGM SHIFT IN FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION ON PRESSURE VARIATION AND IMPACT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM IN CRIME REDUCTION

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System fingers on scanner connected to an information system shared by a zonal database of fingerprints. If the fingerprints of the citizen are matched to any latent fingerprint stored in existing database then that hat citizen is suspicious and he/she is supposed to be interrogated by the police. There are maximum chances that such person may be criminal. Our proposed model is Shown by figure 2.

When the feature extraction is performed using the operations binarization and thinning, the triangles, bridges, spurs, opposing minutiae, ladders are some of the structures leading to invalid minutiae detection. Gray level based feature extraction methods such as the ridge base approach are proposed by Maio and Maltoni [4] can eliminate many of the sources of error that are caused by binarization and thinning g operations.

Latent fingerprint from crime scene

Zone 4 Digital Fingerprint

Zone 3 Org. Info.

Sys.

Central Database of offline fingerprints Zone 2

Figure 3. Extraction of invalid minutiae due to presence of dust particles or cut on finger

6. Extractions of valid and invalid minutiae Zone 1

Report Figure 2. Our proposed model

5. Manipulations with fingerprint image The performance of a fingerprint image image-matching system depends greatly on the quality of the input fingerprint images [1]. Acquisition of good quality images is very important (especially in case of latent fingerprints), but due to some environmental factors or userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body condition, dition, a significant percentage of acquired images are of unacceptable quality for a computerized identification system in practice [2].

The poor quality images produce many spurious minutiae and many genuine minutiae may be ignored. Therefore an image enhancement hancement algorithm is necessary to increase the performance of the minutiae extraction algorithm.

The basic reason behind false minutiae is the presence of dust particles, oily fingers, dry fingers, and cut on finger. Dry finger may fail to produce a complete line/curve up to the actual end points. As a result the break points create false (invalid) minutiae as seen in figure 4(a). These false minutiae significantly affect the accuracy of matching ching if they are simply regarded as genuine minutia. Therefore some algorithms of removing false minutia are crucial to keep the fingerprint verification system efficient.

7. Manipulation minutiae

to

eliminate

invalid

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper PARADIGM SHIFT IN FINGERPRINT GERPRINT RECOGNITION ON PRESSURE VARIATION AND IMPACT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM IN CRIME IME REDUCTION

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Before minutiae marking two operations fingerprint image Binarization and thinning respectively are performed.

•

Fingerprint

Image

Binarization

-

Fingerprint image binarization is the process to transform the 8-bit Gray level fingerprint image to a 1-bit (binary) image with 0-value for ridges and 1-value for furrows. After this operation, ridges in the fingerprint are tinted with black color while the furrows are white.

•

Thinning - This turns a binary image to a one pixel wide skeleton image. Thinning operation is must to extract minutiae by determining end points in right way.

Figure 4. (b) Thinned image after m_connectivity 8. Experiments and results

•

m_connectivity – This operation is used to refine the skeleton. This is very important manipulation with thinned fingerprint image to achieve high FRR.

•

m_margin – We propose the new manipulation m_margin with m_connected thinned fingerprint image to make matching system more robust.

This manipulation increases length of curves by adding white pixel at each end. Although the minutiae marking positions are diverted one pixel far away from the actual position, but as a final result FRR is improved due to elimination of some false (invalid) minutiae as shown in figure 4(b). It filters out all the valid end points.

We used a database of 1000 fingerprints of 50 different persons at different pressures. At low pressure we got fingerprints with false minutiae due to discontinuation of curves. To eliminate this kind of false minutiae we manipulated the finger print images by increasing the length of each curve having at lest three pixels as shown in figure 4(b). This way the rate of successful matching is increased by 10% we performed.

The fingerprint images obtained at minimum and maximum pressure are shown in figure 5(a) and (b) respectively.

Figure 4 (a) Thinned image with false minutiae (Blue),

(a)

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper PARADIGM SHIFT IN FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION ON PRESSURE VARIATION AND IMPACT OF INFORMATION SYSTEM IN CRIME REDUCTION

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Image Quality Degradation Degradatio On Minutiae- And Ridge-Based Based Automatic Fingerprint Recognition” Recognition [6] Sharath Pankanti Salil Prabhakary Prabhakar Anil K. Jain, “On the Individuality of Fingerprints”, Fingerprints 2002 [7] Asker M. Bazen, Martijn van Otterlo, Sabih H. Gerez, Mannes Poel , “A A Reinforcement Learning Agent for Minutiae Extraction from Fingerprints”, Fingerprints 2004

(b) Figure 5. Fingerprint image at (a) minimum pressure (b) maximum pressure

During the experiments we have seen that if the finger pressure difference between the images of the same finger was ± 10% we got 98% result for true matching.

9. Concluding remarks With the help of our proposed model, the crimes can be reduced by observing the suspicious persons. For this purpose we will have to use a robust fingerprint matching system, which is shared centrally. The performance of fingerprint identification system relies critically on the image quality. Hence, good quality images make the system performance more robust. However, it is very difficult to obtain good quality fingerprint images from the crime ime scenes. To overcome this problem, the image enhancement/manipulation steps are applied. But, most of the enhancement algorithms are applied equally to images without considering the image characteristics.

Volume-1 1 Issue-1 Issue January 2009-June June 2009 Phase-III: Theme Based Base Paper

References [1] Stefano Bistarell, Francesco Santini, and Anna Vaccarelli, “An An Asymmetric Fingerprint Matching Algorithm for Java Card™” [2] Eun-Kyung Yun, Jin-Hyuk Hyuk Hong, and Sung Sung-Bae Cho, “Adaptive Adaptive Enhancing of Fingerprint Image with Image Characteristics Analysis” [3] Sharat Chikkerur, Venu Govindaraju, Sharath Pankanti, Ruud Bolle, Nalini Ratha, “Novel Novel Approaches for Minutiae Verification in Fingerprint Images Images”, Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV/MOTION (WACV/MOTION’05) 0-7695-2271-8/05 [4] D. Maio and D. Maltoni. Direct gray scale minutia detection in fingerprints”, Transactions on PAMI PAMI, 19(1), 1997.

[5] J. Fierrez-Aguilar, L.-M. Mu.noz-Serrano, Serrano, F. Alonso AlonsoFernandez and J. Ortega-Garcia, “ On The Effects Of

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SUBHASH WADHWA Professor, IIT, Delhi Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, Delhi, India

swadhwa@mech.iitd.ernet.in

AJAY SINGHOLI Senior Lecturer, Department of Mechanical & Automation Engineering, Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Delhi Delhi-6, India

ajay.igit@gmail.com

ANUJ PRAKASH Research scholar, Mechanical Engineering,Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, Delhi, India

anujpra@gmail.com

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper Simulation Modeling of Control Strategies in Flexible Manufacturing System

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1.

ABSTRACT

•A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is designed to combine high productivity and production flexibility. But the controlling of an FMS requires high skills. Furthermore, the decisions at this stage have to be made very carefully in order to ensure that the manufacturing system will successfully satisfy the demands of an ever-changing market market.

Discrete-event simulation has been widely used to control such complex system. On the other hand, simulation is more and more used for decision making and evaluate control strategies. In this paper, we propose a logic simulation model which corresponds to the modeling of the computer control system system.

This paper also describes the various control strategies in an FMS. In the last some of the useful simulation techniques along with some simulation packages have been addressed at the end of the paper and these techniques/software will be useful for the modeling and decision making of FMS..

KEYWORDS

•Flexible manufacturing system •Control Strategy, •Simulation •Simulation Packages

January 2009-June June 2009

Introduction

The globalization of the market, increasing demands of the customized products and rapidly changing needs of customers, are forcing the manufacturers for searching such a manufacturing system, which fulfill the demand of the market within due dates and it should be available on lower cost. Thus, they can survive in the market among the various competitors of global market. They require a manufacturing anufacturing system, which is having the flexibility to make the customized product with medium volume. Therefore, they are fascinated to the flexible manufacturing system (FMS), which is a compromise between job shop manufacturing system and batch manufacturing turing system. Flexible manufacturing system is the system, which is equipped with the several computer-controlled controlled machines, having the facility of automatic changing of tools and parts. The machines are interconnected by Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs), pallets and several storage buffers. These components are connected and governed by computer using the local area network. The exquisiteness of this system is that it gleaned the ideas both from the flow shop and batch shop manufacturing system. The major literature has the several definitions of the flexible manufacturing system which is given by the many a researchers like Carlson (1989), Upton (1994), Wadhwa and Aggarwal (2000) Wadhwa et al. (2005) etc.

Wadhwa and Rao (2000) have defined the flexibility as the ability to deal with change by judiciously providing and exploiting controllable options dynamically. Due to this flexibility, some decision--making problems have occurred in the system. Therefore to run the system efficiently, the judicious combination combinat of flexibility and information technology (IT) based integration and automation (Wadhwa et al. 1997). Due to the inherent complexity of the system and evolution of new techniques and tools, the controlling of an FMS is a very difficult task for the managers agers (Wadhwa et. al., 2008).

Simulation is a very effective technique for understanding the behavior of systems that are too complex to be studied analytically and it also help in making decisions for controlling the system according to the market activities. ies. Some of the applications have concentrated on production technology, machinery and equipments, marketing, selling, production or on general management enhanced with different additional real life tasks (Haapasalo and Hyvonen, 2001).

Keeping in mind all the above issues, the present paper discusses the simulation modeling and various simulation packages to select various controlling strategies of an FMS. In an FMS, the selection of part as well as machine is a decision making strategy and it is also called alled as controlling strategy which affect the performance of the system. In the real world FMS, to

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System make the decision for such selection in the dynamic manner is feasible only by using any simulation packages.

Thus, in the present research, various simulation packages along with sequencing and dispatching strategy have been discussed.

The remainder of the present paper has been organized in the following manner: the prominent literature has been reviewed in section 2. Section 3 delineates the description of an FMS. The controlling strategies of an FMS have been illustrated in the section 4. Section 5 described the need of simulation and various paradigms of simulation for modeling of an FMS. Finally, the conclusions are reported in the section 6.

2. Literature Survey A literature review was carried out to identify the previous research efforts and directions related to our focal area i.e.

FMS and its controlling action by using the simulation.

Several literatures have been found on the various flexibilities in the flexible manufacturing system. According to Sethi and Sethi (1990), there are eleven flexibilities are existed in the system. To work with these all the flexibilities, a very efficient decision support system is required and effectively handling of all the flexibility is more tedious and difficult task. Therefore, Browne et.al.

(1984) have comprehended it in only eight types, which are known as: machine flexibility, process flexibility, routing flexibility, operation flexibility, product flexibility, volume flexibility, expansion flexibility and production flexibility. Among all these, the routing flexibility is one possible manifestation of manufacturing flexibility at the shop floor. Sinha and Wei (1992) have developed the measure for routing flexibility based on the average number of alternative routes available for processing each part in the manufacturing system. In the late 1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Caprihan and Wadhwa (1997) have presented a framework based on a Taguchi experimental design for studying the impact of varying levels of routing flexibility. A precious study has been done by Chan (2001) to give an idea about the effect of routing flexibility on an FMS. Another definition of the routing flexibility has been given

by Barad et al. (2003), according to this the routing flexibility is the capability of processing a part through varying routes. Mohammed and Wadhwa (2005) have also explained the effectiveness of the routing flexibility in the partial flexible manufacturing system.

The controlling action in any manufacturing system is having increasing importance. In the flexible manufacturing system, the real time part priority control and routing machine priority are the two control actions, which are studied under the alternative control strategies (Wadhwa and Browne, 1990; Caprihan and Wadhwa, 1997), Wadhwa and Bhagwat, 1998) etc). Elmaraghy (1982) has tested different sequencing rule for a system and they have concluded that the SPT (Shortest Processing Time) yields the highest production rate and also

January 2009-June 2009

reduces average flow time as compared to the others.

Blackstone et al. (1984) have also given the similar results about the performance of SPT. Choi and Malstrom (1988) have given a new thought about the combination of rules and they have also shown that the combination of SPT and MINQ (minimum queue at buffer) is dominated over all the other sets of rules. The sequencing and routing problem for an FMS with periodic demand has been discussed by Hutchison et al. (1991). The authors have utilized the SPT and MWTQ (minimum waiting time in queue) combination and the results shows the great reduce in make span. For the machine selection, the most of the previous researchers have employed the MINQ and MWTQ. Karsiti et al. 1992 and Waikar et al. 1995 have shown that in most of the FMS systems, the combination of SPT/MINQ performs better. In another study, Shmilovici and Maimon 1992, have also appreciate the MINQ as dispatching rule. Akturk and Ozkan (2001) have proposed a multistage algorithm to solve the scheduling problem in FMS by considering the interrelated sub problems of processing time control, tool allocation and machining conditions optimization. The main objective was to minimize total production cost consisting of tooling, operational and tardiness costs. Buitenhek et al. (2002) have stated that the control mechanism in FMS specifies which part to process next at a machine upon the competition of the current operation. Chan (2003) has studied the effect of dispatching and routing decisions on the performance of an FMS with the impact of buffer capacities. In all the above mentioned researches, they have worked on very few dispatching and sequencing rules and simultaneously there is no consideration of any type of flexibility. Park (2005) believes that simulation is very useful for decision making, pointing out scheduling errors, controlling and even for creating manufacturing strategies.

Simulation modeling can result in experiential learning in very short duration of time. The simulation models are inherently interesting to both practitioners and learners; and therefore they prove to be more effective in business environments. Even with its few limitations, simulation is an excellent tool for the analysis of complex systems and validation of the new systems (Chan et al. 2007).

Bhaskaran (1998) has also studied the impacts of various factors that amplify the dynamics and stability of a manufacturing system using simulation. With the aim of understanding the effect of flexibility on the performance of system, Garavelli (2003) used simulation to evaluate the performance of a system under three degrees of flexibility: total flexibility, no flexibility and limited flexibility.

Thus, with the support of the above reviewed literature, it can be concluded that the simulation is an important technique for analyzing the complex system as FMS. By using this, we can also make the appropriate decision for performance improvement.

3. Flexible Manufacturing System The term flexible manufacturing system, or FMS, refers to a set of computer numerically controlled (CNC)

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System machine tools and supporting workstations that are connected by an automated material handling system and are controlled by a central computer. FMS technologies represents an evolutionary step beyond transfer lines and offer one means by which manufacturing can address the growing customer demands for quick delivery of customized products. The preceding definition includes the key elements of FMS: (1) automatically reprogram able machines, (2) automated tool delivery and changing (3) automated material handling both for transferring parts between machines and for loading/unloading parts at machines, and (4) coordinated control. Many part types can be simultaneously loaded on to the system because machines have the tooling and processing information to work on any part. Thus, parts can arrive at individual machines in any sequence. By reading a code on the part or following supervisory instructions, the part type can be identified (or verified) and the proper processing sequence can be retrieved from the machinesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; computer memory.

The system may include as many as 20 machines. Small systems of one or two machines are normally referred to as a flexible cell. The generic framework of FMS has been depicted in figure 1.

FMSs are expensive to implement but yield significant savings. Equipment utilization normally runs at most at 30 percent in conventional systems but may be at 85 percent or higher in an FMS. The main inconvenience with such complex system is to control according to demand and availability. The vast number of routine decisions, part and machine selection, and possible system states make the system very complex. The difficulty of achieving dynamic control of complex system has led to the use of simulation control modeling.

Computer Control Room

Tools

Conveyor Machine

Machine

Pallet Raw Material s

Finished goods

Load

Unload

Figure 1. Generic Framework of Flexible Manufacturing System

4. Control Modeling in FMS Tang et al. [2] consider two kinds of decision strategies for FMS control: pre release (sequencing rule) and post release (dispatching rule) decision. These strategies deal with the allocation of parts to the resources and routing the parts while the system is in operation in a flexible way in order to yield better system performance.

The sequencing and dispatching rules are illustrated as below: 4.1 Sequencing Rules: To make decision about the part selection, two sequencing rules are considered. (a) Shortest Processing Time (SPT): It illustrates the minimum processing time of the coming up jobs within a queue in an input buffer. This time should be calculated for each machine individually. The job, which is having shortest processing time, is selected for the processing.

( )

SPT = miniâ&#x2C6;&#x2C6;SJ Pij q

(1) th Here, Pij = Process time of the operation of i job, i = Job index, SJq = Set of jobs in a queue (b) Shortest Remaining Processing Time (SRPT): For the selection of job for the next operation, the consideration is given to the job which is having minimum remaining processing time. It can be expressed mathematically as follows:

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   ∑ P SRPT = min i∈SJ  j ∈ SR ij    i

(2) th Here, Pij = Process time of the operation of i job, i = Job index, SJi = Set of jobs in a queue, SRi = set of remaining operation of job i (c) Maximum Balanced Processing Time (MBPT): It is another rule for selection of jobs for processing.

According to it, the job, which is having maximum remaining or balanced processing time, will be selected for the processing of next operation. It is articulated by the following mathematical expression:

Where

WT = ∑i∈SJ Pij q

Where, WTk = Waiting time at machine k th Ni = Number of jobs in queue at i alternative machine th Nj = Number of jobs in queue at j alternative machine To model the control strategies of FMS, we have considered a logical flow model of the control data (i.e., transmission of missions and transmission of reports).

This logical flow goes through the model associated with the physical flow of the jobs processing in the workshop.

Each job is modeled by an entity called a physical entity, and for each physical entity there is a corresponding logical entity. The logical flow has been shown in figure 2.

Start

MBPT = max

 P  i∈SJ q  ∑ j∈SR i ij 

(3) th Where :Pij = Processing time of the operation of i job, i = Job index SJq = Set of jobs in a queue, th SRi = Set of remaining operations of i jobs in a queue at an input buffer

Part Information Machine Information

k∈SMa

MQMWT = min

k∈SM

a

(WTk )

if N = N i j (5)

Load/Unload Information

Simulation Modeling of Control Strategies (Sequencing/Dispatching Rules) Strategy Evaluation

Are all the strategies evaluated?

NO

YES

(N k )

(4) Where, k= Machine index, SMa = Set of alternative machines for a operation th Nk = Number of jobs in the queue at the buffer of k machine (b) Minimum Queue with Minimum Waiting Time (MQMWT): In this machine selection scheme, the job decides about the machine on the basis of the minimum length of queue and minimum waiting time in a queue at the buffer of all alternative machines. The expression in the mathematical form is given below:

Pallet Information

Set the Performance Measures of the Flexible Manufacturing System

4.2 Dispatching Rules: The decision about the machine selection is influenced by the dispatching rules. In the present study, two dispatching rules are taken into the consideration. (a) Minimum Queue at the buffer (MINQ): It is a machine selection scheme for the next operation.

The job selects the machine which is having the minimum number of parts or minimum length of queue at its buffer among all the alternative machines. The mathematical formulation can be given as:

MINQ = min

Collect the System Information

Select the best combination of sequencing/dispatching rules Stop Figure 2. Logical Framework of Simulation Modeling of Control Strategies

5. Simulation of Flexible Manufacturing System Simulation is an operating model of real system which is a numerical technique for conducting experiments with various models and describes the behavior of the complex system over extended period of time. A

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System simulation model consists of elements of the system to be modeled and its detail can be used for any improvement.

The propose models of manufacturing and service domain analyze by the simulate of the future performance of the system to understand complex relationship, effect of change in any constraint and identify opportunities to improvement The real utility of simulation lies in comparing such alternatives before implementation.

Hence, this will analyze the system in its “as-is” configuration and under a myriad of possible “to-be” alternatives. The output analysis helps us to validate and verify the model leading to constructive conclusions. The results compiled by carrying out simulation for various combinations of logic and by changing some input parameters, can accelerate to achieve desired configuration and result.

5.1 Simulation Packages The considerable increase in the use of simulation to design and optimize flexible manufacturing systems has been seen since last decades (Hollocks 1992). Initial review of simulation work indicates that many real life cases were modeled using high level programming languages such as FORTRAN and Pascal, Turbo C etc.

Some researchers also used general purpose simulation languages such as SIMAN, GPSS, GASP, SIMSCRIPT, SLAM, and SIMULA (Kochhar 1989). Survey reveals that during the last three decades, commercial software packages are available for high end simulation of manufacturing systems; these packages are easy to learn and require less experience and almost negligible programming effort. Examples of these packages include Rockwell Software’s ARENA (Based on SIMAN), WITNESS, Pro-MODEL,SIMUL8, SIMFACTORY II, FlexSIM, and AutoMOD. Simulation packages can efficiently predict the behavior of a complex system. Flexible Manufacturing System is considered one of the most complex manufacturing systems, therefore the simulation software must include following features (Law and Kelton (1991)).

1.

Generating random numbers from the uniform probability distribution.

2.

Generating random values from a specified probability distribution.

3.

Determining the next event and passing control to the appropriate block of code.

4.

Adding records to, or deleting records from, a list.

5.

Collecting and analyzing data.

6.

Reporting conditions.

the

results

and

1.

General Purpose Simulation Languages-A simulation package which is used for different systems with different characteristics. Law and Haider (1989) state that some of these languages are having certain special features for flexible manufacturing such as workstation control, material handling modules etc.

2. Data-Driven Simulators- Law and Haider (1989) define a data-driven simulator as a computer package that allows the modeler to model systems with little or no programming.

6. Conclusion: This paper describes how simulation can be used in the improvement of decision making and controlling of flexible manufacturing systems. The generalized simulation techniques for flexible manufacturing system have been presented. Simulation can lead to considerable improvements in manufacturing system. It can support the decisions making in complex system like FMS. A generic framework of simulation modeling has also been shown to guide the practitioners to simulate the control strategies of FMS. Finally, the modeling of the various control strategies of the flexible manufacturing system parameters is demonstrated.

These simulation techniques can extensively be used for the other decision making problems of FMS. References •

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detecting

error •

5.2 Classification of Simulation Software Usually, there are large variety of features and characteristics associated with simulation packages.

Some packages require coding effort, while some require little or no programming effort. Following is the general classification of simulation software (Hlupic and Paul 1993);

•

•

Akturk, M. S., Ozkan, S., (2001) “Integrated Scheduling and Tool Management in FMS”, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 9, No. 12, pp. 2709-2722.

Barad, M., Sapir, D.E., (2003) “Flexibility in Logistic Systems—Modeling and Performance Evaluation”, Int. Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 85, pp. 155–170 Bhaskaran S., (1998), “Simulation Analysis of a Manufacturing Supply Chain, Decision Sciences, Vol. 29, pp. 633-657.

Blackstone, J.H., Phillips, D.T., Hogg, G.L., (1984) “A State of Art Survey of Dispatching Rules for Manufacturing Job Shop Operations”, Int. J. of Production Research, Vol. 20, No.1, pp. 27-45 Browne, J.,Dubois, D., Rathmill,K., Sethi,S.P., Stecke, K. E., (1984) “Classification of Flexible Manufacturing Systems”, The FMS Magazine, 114.

Buitenhek, B., Baynat, B., Dallery,Y, .(2002) “Production Capacity of Flexible Manufacturing Systems with Fixed Production Ratios”, I. J. of Flexible Manufacturing System, Vol. 14, pp. 203-222.

Carlsson, B., (1989) “Flexibility and the Theory of the Firm,” International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 7, pp. 179–203.

Chan F.T.S., Wadhwa S., Bibhushan, (2007), “Inventory performance of some supply chain inventory policies under impulse demands”, International Journal of Production Research, Manuscript ID: TPRS-2007-IJPR0111.

Chan, F. T. S., (2001) “The Effects of Routing Flexibility on a Flexible Manufacturing System”, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing System, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 431-445.

Chan, F. T. S., (2003) “Effects of Dispatching and Routing Decisions on the Performance of a Flexible Manufacturing

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Systems”,, International Journal Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 21, pp. 328-338 Choi, R. H., Malstrom, E. M., (1988) “Evaluation of Traditional Work Scheduling Rules in a Flexible Manufacturing System with a Physical Simulator Simulator”, J. of Mfg Systems, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 33-45.

Elmaraghy, H.A., (1982) “Simulation Simulation and Graphical Animation of Advanced Manufacturing Systems Systems”, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 53 53-63.

Garavelli A.C., (2003), “Flexibility Flexibility configurations for the supply chain management”,, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 85, pp. 141-153 Haapasalo H. and Hyvonen J., (2001), “Simulating Simulating Business and Operations Management – A Learning Environment for the Electronics Industry”,, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 73, pp. 261-272.

Hlupic, V. and Paul, R. J., (1996), “A A Methodological Approach to Manufacturing Simulation Software Selection Selection”, Comp. Integrated Manuf Systems, vol. 9 (1): pp 49 - 55.

Hollocks, B., (1992), “A Well-Kept Kept Secret?: Simulation in Manufacturing Industry Review”, OR Insight Insight. vol. 5, pp 12 17.

Hutchinson, J., Leong, K., Synder, D., Ward, P.(1991) “Scheduling Scheduling Approaches for Random Job Shops Fl Flexible Manufacturing Systems”,, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 29, No.5,pp. 1053-1067.

Karsiti, M.N., Cruz,B.J. Jr. Mulligan, J. H. Jr.(1992) “Simulation Simulation Studies of Multilevel Dynamic Job Shop Scheduling Using Heuristic Dispatching Rules Rules”, J. of Mfg. Systems, Vol. 11,No. 5 pp. 346-358.

Computer Simulation of Kochhar, A. K. (1989), “Computer Manufacturing Systems - 3 Decades of Progress Progress”, In the Proceedings of the 3rd European Simulation Congress, Editors: D. Murray-Smith, Smith, J. Stephenson, R. N. Zobe Zobel, San Diego, the Society for Computer Simulation. pp 3 - 9.

Law, A. M. and Haider, S. W., (1989), “Simulation in Manufacturing - Selecting Simulation software for Manufacturing Applications: Practical Guidelines & Software Survey”, Industrial Engineering, vol. 31, pp 33 - 56.

Law, A. M. and Kelton, W. D., (1991), “Simulation Simulation Modeling and Analysis”, Singapore: McGraw-Hill, Hill, Inc. International Editions.

Performance Analysis Mohammed, A., Wadhwa, S., (2005) “Performance of Partial Flexible Manufacturing System”,, Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Vol., No.1, pp. 9 9-19.

Park S. C., (2005), “A A methodology for creating a virtual model for a flexible manufacturing system system”, Computers in Industry, Vol. 56, pp. 734-746 Sethi, A. K, Sethi, S. P., (1990) “Flexibility in n Manufacturing: A Survey.” The International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems, Vo. 2, pp. 289-328.

328.

Shmilovici, A., Maimon, O. Z., (1992) “Heuristics for Dynamic Selection and Routing of Parts in an FMS FMS”, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Vol.11, No.4, pp.285 pp.285-296 Sinha, D., Wei, J.C., (1992) “Stochastic Stochastic Analysis of Flexible Process Choices,” European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 60, pp.183-199 Tang, Y, L, (1995), “A A framework for part type selection and scheduling in FMS environments”, Int. t. Journal of Computer Integrated Mfg., Vol.8, No. 2, pp.101-115 Upton, D., (1994). “The The Management of Manufacturing Flexibility”,, California Management Review, Vol.36, No.2, pp.72-89 Wadhwa, S. and J. Browne (1989) Modeling FMS with Petri Nets. International nal Journal of flexible Manufacturing Systems. 1. 255-280.

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Wadhwa, S., Aggarwal A. (2000) “Synergism of Flexibility, Integration and Automation in Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Systems”, Studies in Informatics and Control, April. gwat, R., (1998) “Judicious Increase in Wadhwa, S., Bhagwat, Flexibility and Decision Automation in Semi-Computerized Semi Flexible Manufacturing (SCFM) Systems,” Systems, Studies in Informatics and Control, Vol.2, No.8.

Wadhwa, S., Caprihan, R., Kumar, S., (1997) “Modelling of Hysteresis based ased Control Strategy for Flexible System operating Under periodic Status Monitoring policy”, policy Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol.32, No.3, pp.

557-574.

Wadhwa, S., Ducq, Y., Ali, M., Prakash, A., (2008), “Performance Performance Analysis of a Flexible Manufacturing Manufactu System under Planning and Control Strategies”, Strategies Studies in Informatics and Control, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 51-65 51 Wadhwa, S., Rao, K. S. (2000) “Flexibility: An Emerging Meta-Competence Competence for Managing High Technology”, Technology International Journal of Technology Management, Man Vol. 19, No. 7/8.

Wadhwa, S., Rao, K. S., Chan, F. T. S., (2005) “Flexibility-Enabled Lead-Time Time Reduction in Flexible System”,, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 43, No.15, pp. 3131-3163.

3163.

Waiker, A.M., Sarkar B.R., Lal, A.M., (1995) (1995 “A Comparative Study of Some Priority Dispatching Rules under Various Shop Load”,, Production Planning and Control, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 301--310

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PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper Contemporary Research Issues in Business-IT Alignment

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1.0 Introduction The existing research literature reveals that strategic alignment is imperative for the business organizations to survive and compete in the market. Yet achieving alignment continues to be a major concern for the business executives. Strategic alignment boosts the IT effectiveness (Porter, 1987; Galliers, 1991; Ciborra, 1997), leading to business profitability (Luftman, 1996). Therefore, alignment has been a major concern for the academicians, practitioners, business consultants and research organizations since 1990’s. Such an effort has been highlighted by a recent study conducted by Society for Information Management (SIM). The study has identified alignment as the first management concern among all groups surveyed for the Top 10 concerns that included 300 senior IT managers (Trainor, 2003). Galliers and Newell (2003) call it a central tenant of much of the theory and practice of Information System (IS) strategy.

Further the importance of alignment has been reinforced by several industrial surveys that reveal executives’ perceptions of alignment (Head, 2000; Kennedy, 2000; Weil, 2001). Therefore, the managers and practitioners have been continuously making efforts to identify and device new strategies for achieving alignment between Business and IT. The research in the area is primarily conceptual and lacks practical considerations (Campbell, Kay and Avison, 2005). There is little agreement on ‘how to achieve alignment’ and ‘how it should be researched’ but there are many studies on ‘how to practice alignment’. Luftman (1996), Hsaio and Omerod (1998) and Burn (1997) provide some practical aspects of implementation of alignment through enablers and inhibitors of alignment.

However, the literature provides little guidance on how to achieve alignment between Business and IT strategies. Also, the judgment and the impact of misalignment on the organization have been difficult to diagnose (Luftman, 1996). Therefore, the prime focus here are achieving alignment and doing research on it.

This paper reviews the definition and the common perception of alignment along with major research issues.

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2.0 Definition of alignment Strategic alignment has many pseudonyms. It has been referred to as “Coordination” (Lederer and Mendelow, 1986),”Harmony” (Woolfe, 1993; Luftman, 1996), “fit” (Porter, 1996), “Linkage” (Reich and Benbasat, 1996), “bridge” (Ciborra, 1997), “fusion” (Smaczny, 2001). However, the common theme of all these studies has been integration of strategies relating to Information Technology (IT) and Business. There is still indefiniteness in the definition of alignment such as Tallon et al. (1998) defined alignment as “the alignment of Information systems strategy to the business strategy” and Reich and Benbasat (2000, p.82) as “the degree to which the information technology mission, objectives and plans support and are supported by the business mission, objectives and plans”. Therefore, in research literature it is difficult to find an unequivocal definition of alignment.

Strategic Alignment in present context is concerned with the correspondence and compatibility of IT and the business strategy within an organization (Chang 2006; Henderson & Venkatraman, 1999) persistently appears in practice (Mieritz 2004,Stepanek 2002) and academic media reports (Allnoch 1997; Ball & Adams 2003) and is a key concern of the Top and general management (Eid, Trueman & Ahmed 2002; Laosethakul & Boulton, 2007).

The next section discusses various contemporary research issues in the strategic Business and IT alignment.

3.0 Research Issues: The important research issues are: 3.1Issue 1:”Whether 1: Whether IT alignment is an issue in its own right? “ There is debate on the issue that whether alignment of Information System (IS/IT) is an issue in its own right. Some researchers such as Smaczny (2001) emphasize that the IS is so pervasive in business that it cannot be separated from the business strategy, and therefore the issue of alignment does not arise.

However, the IT management is actually a problem of aligning the business and IT infrastructure (Reich and Benbasat, 1996) and identifying opportunities to utilize IT for competitive advantage (Ives and

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Learmonth, 1984, Wiseman, 1985) and/or analyzing internal processes and patterns of data dispersion throughout the organization (Brancheau and Wetherbe, 1986; Godhue et al., 1992).

Having understood the IT alignment as an issue the next important issue is their role of IT and its alignment in providing the competitive advantage, which is the next research issue.

3.2 Issue 2: “Are Are IT and IT alignment sources of sustainable competitive advantage?”. advantage? .

It is ridiculous to look for IT alignment when it is not clearly known whether IT is a source of competitive advantage or not. Traditionally there is a common notion that IT and IT alignment are sources of competitive advantage. IT can add to the economic value to a firm by either by reducing costs or differentiating its products and services (Bakos and Treacy, 1986; McFarlan, 1984; Wiseman, 1988).

However, adding value to a firm either by reducing costs or increasing revenues is not the same as the IT being a source of sustainable competitive advantage. For example, Walmart adopted its purchase and distribution system and K-mart also developed similar system (Steven, 1992). Thus, the Walmart had a temporary and not sustainable competitive advantage (Barney, 1994).The same idea has been supported by a large number of researchers such as Cecil and Goldstein,1990;and Galliers, 1991.

On contrary several studies point toward falling productivity and rising IT expenditure referred to as “productivity paradox” in the research literatre.

Loveman (1994) suggests that the IT investment produces negligible benefits. The same idea has been supported by Bakos (1998), Brynjolfsson (1993),Venkatraman (1997), Avison et al.(1999a), Papp (2001). However, the “productivity paradox” has been condemned by Dejager (1995) and Rayner(1995). According to them IT has been found to increase productivity by improving customer satisfaction, quality of product, service and convenience in many organizations.

Lederer and Mendelow(1989) suggest that alignment increases the likelihood of developing a system more critical to the organization and obtaining support of the Top management. As the IT assumes greater role in developing corporate strategy, alignment will facilitate a more competitive and profitable organization (Galliers, 1993). Economic performance is also enhanced by better fitting between external positioning and

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System internal arrangements (Ciborra, 1997). Through greater alignment of strategy and infrastructure, organizations achieve more synergy, better plan development, increase profitability and efficiency (Avison, 2004). Therefore, alignment in the organizations allows application of IT as a means to leverage their core competencies, skills and technology scope, resulting in improved efficiency (Papp, 1999).

Further, many researchers argue that the insufficient payoffs are due to low level of strategic alignment while others suggest that alignment may not be the solution to the low IT returns in all cases. For example in case of the organizations competing globally strategic alignment can limit the flexibility and aligning IS and business strategy may force the organizations to follow a particular path from which it cannot escape. If a company values flexibility but is facing the environmental flexibility, the strategic alignment is not the best solution. While strategic alignment can contribute towards pay-offs but may limit organizational flexibility and responsiveness to the external conditions.

Hence, contribution of IT in providing competitive advantage has been noticed but do the existing models/frameworks sufficient in achieving alignment?

3.3 Issue 3: “ Do the existing models and frameworks sufficient for achieving alignment?” alignment?

A number of models and frameworks have been proposed to help the business managers to better understand alignment and in the continuous search for the significant opportunities for gaining benefits from IT. The application of these try to apply the concepts of strategic fit between resources and opportunities, external and internal environments within an organization, generic strategies of low cost versus differentiation versus focus; and strategic goals, strategies and tactics that make the strategic process rigid (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993).

The alignment will have a positive impact if specifically and meticulously planned, followed and implemented (Hamel and Prahalad, 1990). On the contrary strategic planning may create hindrance to the creative thinking and misguide organizations who adopt it unreservedly (Mintzburg, 1987). Therefore, none of the models provide a way to implement alignment in a practical manner and hence the alignment process is a serious exercise that must be carried out with great care and caution.

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Hence, models and frameworks are nt sufficient in providing alignment. Then next pertinent question is practicing alignment, which is te next research issue.

3.4 Issue 4 : How to practice alignment?

The notion adopted by many of the researchers is strategizing IT and Business plan in an appropriate way (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1999; Avison et al., 2004). Therefore, there is dominantly an emphasis on structured, systematic and somewhat stable strategy in the research literature despite the fact that there is uncertainty, dynamism and articulation of the strategic intent is difficult (Ciborra, 1997). Real life strategizing is ‘messy’ and human thinking and actions rarely follow strict modular approach (Avison et al. , 1999a,b).

In practicing alignment the following sub-issues are quite important: (a)”Whether the IT strategy can meet the challenge of dynamism of business strategy(if it exists)?”

The business processes are often emergent, serendipitous and continuously changing. The IT strategy must also be dynamic accordingly. The IT tries to define the applications with strong element of stability, predictability, systematic and structured manner which is contradictory to the dynamic business strategy having dynamism, agility and ability to capture diverse, fluid and informal characteristic. On the other hand in the opinion of the IT professional strategy is functional, quantifiable and has an element of certainty.

Therefore, not only business processes but the IT process engineering is quite important. (b) “Are the Business processes in the organization are well structured as per the technology upgrades?

Will only aligning of IT be important in future?”.

Business processes are seldom structured with the possibilities of new technologies in mind, and therefore the full potential of technology is actually not fully tapped (Giaglis, 1999). Even worse, some of the researchers argue that most of the organizations have actually never designed their business processes at all and rather they have evolved over time (Hansen, 1994). Due to their adhoc evolution, they are not suitable for streamlining, cost-effectiveness and appropriately aligned to the business objectives, goals and strategy. Most of the studies in research literature focus on aligning IT. However, there is a need to make efforts in Business engineering that involves process based organization design, IS development and execution.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System (c) “Is management in full control? Can the information infrastructure be aligned as per the management insights?”

The management is in full control is a hypothetical notion. Involvement of all the people in the strategic alignment planning and implementation, culture building are quite important (Aggarwal et al. 2005) for practicing alignment.

Practicing alignment is questionable if it is not possible to measure IT and its alignment which is the next research issue.

3.5 Issue 5 : “ Is it possible to measure IT and IT alignment?”.. alignment?

The measurement of alignment persists as a research issue whose solution is not very clear or obvious.

Most of the benefits related to IT and IT alignment are so intangible and implicit that it is almost impossible to measure the impact of IT alignment through the conventional approach primarily based on financial measures. These measures study the firm performance on the basis of firm output, measured using value added by the organization, and total sales; business results, assessed using return-onassets (ROA), and return-on-equity (ROE) measures of financial performance; and intermediate performance, assessed using labour productivity and administrative productivity (Rai et al., 1997). These measures do not address the benefits imparted through IT such as higher customer satisfaction, product innovation and providing business opportunities which would have been un-imaginable without IT. According to Ciborra (1997) management through knowledge and understanding of alignment can classify their strategy in terms of linear boxes and strategies. But in real world it is practically not possible for them to measure these relationships and apply alignment maps.

In research literature there are two approaches have been predominantly followed with the first approach focusing on process of achieving alignment and other on how the firms have aligned there IS’s with organizational strategy. For example, Atkins (1994) adopted three different models to measure strategy and assess alignment (McFarlan 1984; Ansoff, 1965 and Miles and Snow, 1978).

The most comprehensive attempt in this area has been given by Chan et al. (1997) via empirical investigation based on development of four survey instruments to measure each construct of business

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strategy, IS strategy, IS effectiveness and Business performance.

Here, Venkatraman’s (1989) STROBE instrument has been adopted together with STORIS instrument development by Chan to assess IS strategy. Both instruments were used to check the strategic fit.

Measures are required that align everyone every functionality within the organization with the key goals of the organization, to achieve strategic alignment, but there is no clear idea about what these measures might be (Labovitz and Rosanky, 1997).

Even if it is assumed that the measurement of alignment is possible, it is important to find if it is a final or continuous process which is the next research issue.

3.6 .Issue 6: “Whether Whether strategic alignment should be treated as an outcome or as a dynamic process?” process?

The former view had been dominant in the past (Weill and Broadbent, 1998, Earl, 1989) and the need to maintain alignment was rarely acknowledged. But, more recent studies support the dynamic alignment (Labovitz and Rosansky, 1997; Venkatraman, 2000).

However Smaczny (2001) argue that there are no studies focusing on how organizations actually achieve alignment or alignment is the right way of looking at the issue. Most of the researchers have adopted a clinched approach of adopting alignment and developed theories based on it and overlooked the question that alignment is an outdated notion. Most of the models developed adopt mechanistic and planning oriented management approaches to the business objectives. Therefore, Smaczny recommends developing Business and IT strategies simultaneously and implementing them simultaneously.

If the processes are dynamic than they are applicable homogeneously or not is the next research issue.

3.7 Issue 7: “Are Are the firms homogeneous with respect to the strategic processes?” processes?

The early work on strategic processes essentially viewed the firms as homogeneous. However, the recent research focuses on competencies and capabilities. This is particularly a more realistic thought as the resources are heterogeneously distributed in the firms and they are differently able

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System to utilize them. Tallon et al. (2000) suggest that the strategic alignment is the most important issue in the opinion of the IT executives and they have very different goals for IT. The environment in which IT operates is the key factor in determining payoffs.

They have examined the executive’s perceptions of the Business value of IT. Based on the different corporate goals the firms can be classified into four focus types – unfocused, operations focus, market focus and dual focus. These differently focused firms use different techniques for analyzing the impacts of IT. The focused firms are better able to realize the Business value of IT and make greater use of IT investment evaluation. In unfocussed firms do not have clear goals for IT and executives are indifferent to it. Here, IT is viewed as an expanse, so management delays IT related purchase decisions and after its purchase mis-manages the IT investments. In the operations focused organizations, the aim is achieving operational effectiveness of IT. In market focused firms, IT is useful in enhancing the strategic positioning by creating or improving value propositions for the customers. The dual-focus firms use IT to improve operational effectiveness and market position by improving market reach and new market creation. In the research authors have assessed strategic alignment using a single dimension: extent to which Business strategy supports the IT strategy. The results of the study show that the dual focus firms are able to realize highest pay-offs from IT investments, followed by market-focus, operations-focus and finally unfocused firms.

Executives with more focused goals for IT perceive higher extent of alignment resulting in realization of higher Business value of IT. Although it has been established that the firms are heterogeneous with respect to the strategic processes but performance implications are still questionable, which is the next research issue.

3.8 Issue 8 : “What What are performance implications implications of alignment ? Whether alignment affects performance for all or some of the business strategies?” strategies?

Shifting from firm focus, Sabherwal and Chan (2001) using Miles and Snow’s (1978) typography showed that the alignment improves business performance.

Prospectors should develop market information system and strategic decision support systems rather than the operational support system. Moreover, imitating competitor’s systems is less advantageous

January 2009-June 2009

to a business than expected, unless there are strong similarities in the firms’ business strategies. There is a significant correlation between alignment and performance for Prospectors and Analyzers but not the Defenders. Hence, the managers within Defenders should not emphasize alignment.

Having categorized the firms into Prospectors, Analyzers and Defenders it is important to know the handling of the alignment by these types of firms, which is the next research issue.

3.9Issue 9 : “How How Prospectors, Analyzers and Defenders differentially tackle the alignment problem?” problem?

Hirschheim and Sabherwal (2001) identified three problems in tackling alignment namely paradoxical decisions, excessive transformations and uncertain turnaround. They are due to sequential attention to goals, knowledge gaps, and division of user responsibilities and underestimation of the extent of problem. Defenders have ‘utility’ profile for IS usage, achieved through low cost delivery though outsourcing. Analyzers will look for alliances, most likely through strategic sourcing. Prospectors will have infusion profile involving alignment through business leadership. Here, IS is in-sourced. The suggestion of the authors is employment of knowledge and process integration, process planning involving multiple perspectives and transitional figures or powerful external forces can aid the IS alignment endeavour.

The next research issue is to determine the Critical Success Factors in the form of enablers and inhibitors.

3.10 Issue 10 : “ What are the processes enabling and Inhibiting alignment?” alignment?

Neo, 1988; King et al., 1989; Luftman, 1996 and Kanungo and Chouthoy, 1999 have contributed to the understanding of the processes that may enable or inhibit alignment. The important enablers include Executive’s support, Close relationship between IT and non-IT people, IT department prioritizes the workload well and sharing of IT resources. The inhibitors include IT department prioritizes the workload poorly, power & politics within the Firm, IT department does not meet its commitments.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System After establishing the Critical Success Factors the next important issue is determining the focus of alignment.

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Tallon and Kraemer (2003) examine alignment at process level rather than the Firm level. They tried to establish relationship between executive’s perception and reality. They used the notation of IT shortfall (When IT fails to support business strategy) and Strategy shortfall (When strategy fails to use IT). There results indicate that the alignment is highest in production, operations and customer relations and lowest in sales and marketing. They suggest that the benefits in terms of IT pay-offs through strategic alignments are realizable only up to a certain critical level. The authors feel that more research is required to analyze the unit of analysis.

4.0 Conclusion: The discussion of the important research issues has shown that there is a clear need for further research into the Strategic alignment area. The paper provides an overview of the business and IT alignment and highlights the gaps in the research.

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5.0 References: •

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Aggarwal, H., Goyal, D.P. and Bansal, P.K. (2005), “A Conceptual Model of the Challenges in Successful Information Technology to Businesses: A Human Centered Approach”, Indian Management Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No.1,pp. 53-72.

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Ansoff, H.I. (1965) Planning and Control Systems: A Framework for Analysis, Boston,Harvard Business School,MA. • Atkins, M. (1994), “IT and IS Perspectives of Business Strategy”, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 3, No.2, pp. 123-125.

Avison, D., Jones, J. Powell, P. and Wilson, D. (2004) “Using and validating the strategic alignment model”, Journal of Startegic Information Systems, Vol.13,pp. 223-246.

Avison, D.E., Cuthbertson, C and Powell, P. (1999a) “The paradox of information systems: Strategic val- ue and low status”, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 8, No. 4,pp. 419-445.

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Brancheau, J.C. and Wetherbe,J.C. (1986) “Information Architectures: Methods and Practice”, Information Processing and Management, Vol. 22, No.1,pp. 443-453 Brynjofsson, E. (1993), “The Productivity Paradox of Information Technology”, Communications of ACM, 36(12), 67-77.

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3.11Issue 11 : “What What is the focus of alignment?” alignment?

Hussain et al. (2002) argued that different researchers have focused on different parts of the Henderson and Venkatraman (1989) model, either process or content. They include achieving alignment through social element (involved people) and intellectual element (Methods and techniques).

Reviewing a large number of articles relating to fit the authors have concluded that there is little consensus regarding the factors involved. They conclude that there is a need to research into processes associated with alignment.

After knowing the focus of alignment, the unit of analysis in alignment research is quite important.

3.12Issue 12 : “What What is the unit of analysis in the alignment research?” research?

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Giaglis, G.M. (1999) “Focus issue on Legacy Information Systems and Business process Change: On the Integrated Design and Evaluation of Business Processes” Communications of Association of Information Systems, Vol. 2, No. 5,pp. 1-33.

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• Henderson, J.C. and Venkatraman, N.(1993), “Strategic Alignment: Leveraging Information Technology for Transforming Organizations”, IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 32, No.1, pp. 4-16.

• Hirschheim, R. ; and Sabherwal, R. (2001), “Detours in the path towards strategic IS alignment”, California Management Review, Vol. 44,No. 1,pp. 1-15.

• Hsaio, R. and Ormerod, R. (1998), “A New Perspective on the Dynamics of the IT Enabled Change’, Information Systems Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1,pp. 1-12.

• Hussain, H.; King, M.; and Cragg, P. (2002), “IT alignment in Small Firms”, European Journal of information Systems, Vol.11,pp.108-127.

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• Kennedy, L. (2000), Come Together, Right now, CIO Magazine, http://www.idg.com.au King, W.R., Grover, V. and Hufanagel, E.H. (1989), “Using Information and Information Technology for Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Some Empirical Evidences”, Information and Management, Vol.17, pp. 87-93.

• Labovitz,G. and Rosansky,V. (1997), The Power of alignment, John Wiley & Sons.

• Laosethakul, K and Boulton, W (2007) “Critical success factors e-commerce in Thailand: cultural and infrastructural influences”, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 1-22, [Online] Available at: http://www.ejisdc.org.

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• Lederer, A.L. and Mendelow, A.L. (1986), “Co-ordination of Information System Plans with Business Plans”, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 5-19.

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• Luftman J.D. (1996), Competing Information Age: Practical Applications of the Strategic Alignment Model, New York:.

Oxford University Press

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McFarlan F.W. (1984), “Information Technology Changes the Way You Compete’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 62, No. 3, May-June, pp.98-103..

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Venkatraman, N. (2000) “Five steps to dot-com strategy: How to find your Footing on Web”, Sloan Management Review,Vol. 41, No. 3,pp.15-28.

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Balwant Singh

Lecturer, Deptt. of Commerce, Tilak P.G. College, Auraiya (U.P.)

balwantuday@yahoo.co.in

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper RELEVANCE OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA WITH SPECIAL EM EMPHASIS TO ONLINE MARKETING

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ABSTRACT

•Electronic commerce includes the sending of order over the electronic data interchange (EDI); the use of fax and e-mail mail to facilitate transactions, the use of ATMs, EFTPOS, and smart cards for making payments and obtaining cash and the use of internet and on-line services.

Thus, ecommerce implies conducting business in a market space as compared to the traditional market place.

Conversion consists s of building networks connecting consumers and companies. When network is established between persons within a company, it is called intranets and extranets when it connects a company with its customers and suppliers, and when it establishes a link between betwee users and the outside world of huge array of information,, it is called internet.

Basically there are two e--commerce channels :a)

Commercial channels :

These channels provide information (news, libraries, education, travel, sports), entertainment (fun and games), shopping services, chat rooms and e-mail mail to the subscribers who pay a monthly fee. American online provides services to 14 million subscribers and Microsoft Network have 2.45 million subscribers.

b)

Internet:

KEYWORDS

The internet enhances decentralized decentrali global communication the e development of World Wide Web browser software like the Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer has further enhanced the net usage. Users can surf the internet and experience fully integrated text, graphics, images and nd sound. They can deliver ee mail, exchange opinions, shop and obtain news, art, science and business information. information The internet through is free, the users have to pay a certain amount to be linked to it. Consumers have been purchasing computer software and hardware, books, music, airline tickets, food, wine, clothing and electronic items over the internet so far.

Business Transactions covering numerous products are carried on the internet in much greater volume. Financial transactions such as stock trading, home banking and insurance are also carried over the internet.

•E-commerce •Internet •Online Markeying •Electronic •Website

Introduction Digitalization and connectivity are the two terms underlying this electronic business.

Digitalization consists of conversion of text, data, sound and image into bits that can be delivered from one place to another at an incredible speed.

Conducting online marketing :

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process now costs only $20. G.E. now requires all its partners to join its Trading Process Network that enables G.E. to save $200 millions every year. CISCO, DELL, Intel, Ingram Micro have multibillion-dollar sales volume through their websites leading to a future where nearly all intercorporate business is conducted over the internet.

Businesses can practice online marketing through the following ways:-

a)

Electronic Presence :

Several companies have established their presence on the internet through their websites providing variety of services. Electronic presence on the web can be established in two ways. Firstly, by buying a space on a commercial online service and secondly, by introducing its own website. The former involves renting storage space on the online service's computer or establishing a link from the company's computer to the online service's shopping mail for a certain price. For instance, JC Penney has links to America online, Compuserve and Prodigy.

As against this many companies have created their own websites aided by a professional web design agency. These websites can take two forms : Corporate website : A Company provides through this website information relating to its history, objectives and philosophy, products and services, financial performance and job opportunities. These sites aim at answering questions by e-mail, build customer relation and arouse excitement about the company in the minds of the public. ii)

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b)

Advertising on-line :

Companies can present their on-line ads in three ways. Firstly, they can place classified ads in special sections offered by the major commercial on-line services. Secondly, in certain internet newsgroups that are set up for commercial purposes and thirdly, companies can purchase on-line ads that pop-up while users serfe on-line services or websites. These includes banner ads, pop-up windows, tickers (banners that move across the screen), and roadblocks (full screen ads that users must click through to pass to other screen). Yahoo! has employed 100 Cyberspace Salespersons, who demonstrate how on-line ads can reach people with certain interests or living in specific zip code areas.

Marketing website : c) These websites bears a catalog, shopping tips, promotional features such as coupons, and contests intended to bring prospects and consumers closer to purchasing. A company promotes its website through print and broadcast advertisement and through banner ads on other websites.

Clinique (www.clinique.com) for example, provides information about cosmetics, beauty tips, price, and also offers on-line purchasing.

The pushing force behind the ecommerce juggernaut is business marketing.

Companies like Chevron, Ford, General Electric, Merck and several others have invested millions in procuring web spaces and websites to facilitate corporate purchases.

The result is that the invoice costing $100 to

Forums, Newsgroups, Bulletin Boards and Web Communities : Forums are discussion groups found on commercial on-line services, operating a library, chat room and classified ad directory. America on-line have introduced buddy lists which informs members when friends are on-line for facilitating exchange of messages. It also has 14000 chat rooms.

Newsgroups provides access to posting and reading messages on specific topics such as health, environment, science, technology or sharing views about latest soap opera happenings.

Bulletin board systems are specialized on-line services that center on a PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System specific topic or group. More than 60000 bulletin boards deal with topics such as health, vacations, computer games and real estate. Though, companies can take part in the bulletin boards, but they are not allowed to introduce a commercial tone into these groups.

Web communities are commercially sponsored websites where members share opinions on issues pertaining to common interests. Agriculture on-line is one such community where farmers and other persons can gain knowledge about farm prices, recent farm news and chat room at its website www.agriculture.com.

even dictate the design of the products and look for software agents for offers from different sellers.

The above mentioned facilities to the buyers implies that the exchange process on-line is customer oriented and customer controlled.

Manufacturers are stagnant until the customers invite them to the process. Even after the producers have entered the exchange process, the customers define the rules relating to the informations they seek, the products in which they are interested and the prices they are willing to pay.

Internet - The Indian Scenario :

d)

E-mail and Web Casting : Web casting services like Point Cast (www.pointcast.com) and Infusion (www.ifusion.com) contracts with companies for downloading customized information to recipients PCs. The members or subscribers can specify the news and information they require by paying a monthly fee. Webcasters must, however, recognise the fact that they are not over-loading the subscribers with junk e-mail.

The on-line consumer :As more and more people, besides younger, affluent and better educated make their way into the internet, the cyberspace population has become more mainstream and diversified. While the younger population use internet for entertainment.

45 percent of the internet users are 40 years and above and use internet for serious matters say banking and insurance. These users look for more informations and sometimes give negative response to messages concerned primarily with selling. The users decide what messages they will receive about products. Internet search engines such as Yahoo!, Infoseek, Excite provide users access to various information sources. The users recieve information about products, their costs, prices, quality and other features without recourse to producers. They can

The Net has virtually become a household name in India. The sudden splurge in the internet front is in a large way owed to the increasing number of private ISP market mushrooming all over the country, offering the cyber voyage for more and more competitive prices. Within a few years internet in India is being viewed as an effective medium for information, entertainment, communication and electronic commerce. As the Internet expands, so will e-commerce and an expansion of internet in the country will not only help India become an important element of the expanding global e-conomy, it will also facilitate its citizens to exploit the advantages of the web enabling experience. Though, the Internet usage in India is far less than countries such as China and Japan, the growth in the recent years has been significant.

The growth of internet users and the percentage of penetration from 1998 to 2007 has been depicted in the table presented below : Internet Usage and Population Statistics :

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Users

1998

Population

%Pe Pe n.

Usage Source

1,094,870,677

0.1%

ITU

1999

2,800,000

1,094,870,677

0.3%

ITU

2000

5,500,000

1,094,870,677

0.5%

ITU

2001

7,000,000

1,094,870,677

0.7%

ITU

2002

16,500,000

1,094,870,677

1.6%

ITU

2003

22,500,000

1,094,870,677

2.1%

ITU

2004

39,200,000

1,094,870,677

3.6%

C.I. Almanac

2005

50,600,000

1,112,225,812

4.5%

C.I. Almanac

2006

40,000,000

1,112,225,812

3.6%

IAMAI

2007

42,000,000

1,129,667,528

3.7%

IWS

Telecommunications Market Report-2008

Source : Internet usage stats and

The Govt. of India is highly responsible for the huge boost to the country's Internet plans. It has taken many landmark decisions that have resulted in the increase in Internet peretration in India. Few of the important decisions relating to e-commerce commerce and Internet are as follows: i)

It has announced the Information Technology Act, 2000 declaring a cyber law regime.

ii)

The ISP policy for the entry of private Internet service providers was announced in November, 1988.

It has also allowed private ISPs to establish international gateways.

Granted permission of Internet access through cable TV. It took up the initiative of setting up the National Internet Backbone.

Complete non-monopolization monopolization of undersea fibre connectivity for ISPs on August 15, 2000.

The DOT has permitted itted interconnectivity of Govt. and closed user group networks. viii) The Govt. permitted the establishment of the Public Tele Info Centres (PTIC) having multimedia capabilities.

The Govt. has allowed 100 percent FDI in business to business e-commerce.

The e Govt. also announced the national long distance service beyond the service area to private operators.

iii) iv) v) vi) vii) viii) ix) x)

xi) Free right of way facility, to access providers to lay optical fibre networks along national highways state highways and other roads.

Role of NASSCOM: NASSCOM also undertork several initiatives stimulate the internet penetration in India in the year, 2000. Some of them are :: i)

It launched the operation bandwidth, which encouraged the govt. to set up a bandwidth committee. As a result of which, the supply supp of bandwidth was considerably increased.

ii) It encouraged the govt. to allow private ISPs to establish their own international gateways.

As a result, seven private ISPs have set up their international gateways in 2000 and the prices of internet reduced by 70 percent. iii)

It also convinced the govt. to allow ISPs to lay under seacabel. NASSCOM is still committed to increase the Internet proliferation in the country. It aims to achieve 2 Mbps of bandwidth for every adult citizen by the year 2005.

E-Commerce in India: In India, the total vdume of e-commerce e transactions was Rs. 450 crores in 1999-2000.

1999 The survey conducted by NASSCOM revealed that e-business business transactions in India are expected to reach Rs. 40000 crore upto 2003-04.

2003

Growth of E-comme commerce (Projections)

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The Nasscom survey revealed that during the year 2000-01 01 though there was huge increase in the e-commerce commerce transactions volume, it did not grow to the expected levels. The business to business was the biggest hit. E-tail tail segment is proj projected to earn only Rs. 50-60 60 crore whereas stock traded on online are projected to have transactions worth Rs. 1200 crore. For e-commerce commerce business volume to pick up, a regulatory framework, improvements is telecom infrastructure and increased PC proliferatio proliferation are highly required. The Govt. of India, with the assistance of NASSCOM and other professional bodies have a major role to play-for e--commerce to reach new heights.

References : 1. Lewis H.G., 'Direct Marketing' Vision Books, New Delhi, 1995, PP-358 2. Chaturvedi Mukesh, 'Direct Marketing' Concepts and Cases, Excel Books, New Delhi, 2000, PP PP-589.

3. Kotler Philip, Marketing Management, Prentice Prentice-Hall India, New Delhi, 2002, PP-706.

4. India Internet Log Book 2000.

5. India Internet Usage Stats and Telecommunications Market Report 2008.

6. E-Business, Volume-III, No-II, II, November, 2002, PP PP-78.

7. Jeffrey F. Rayport, John J. Sviokla, "Managing in the marketspace", Harvard Business Review (November (NovemberDecember, 1994) Page : 74-85; 8. "Making AOL A-O.K., "Business Week (January 11, 1999), Page : 65; MSN and Prodigy Statistics from Jupiter Communications Survey, February, 1998;

Volume-1 Issue-1 January 2009-June June 2009 PhasePhase-III: III: Theme Based Based Paper

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper RELEVANCE OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA WITH SPECIAL EM EMPHASIS TO ONLINE MARKETING

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PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper SOA- THE MIDDLEWARE ARCHITECTURE

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INTRODUCTION From the period of earliest computing units development to the present times, which we call as Information Age, software architectures [2] evolve rapidly to achieve building of sophisticated application structures capable of not only fulfilling basic functionalities expected from each computing systems, but also effecting humans life by providing corporate agility, operational efficiency and innovative improvements that result in utilization of universally shared application functionalities and services. SOA provides this vision to cope with technical complexities faced with EADD (enterprise application development and integration), as well as aligning business needs and providing coarse grained business functionalities.

SOA is an architectural style and a combination of methodologies that aims to achieve interoperability of remotely or locally located homogeneous and heterogeneous applications by utilizing reusable service logic. Service orientation shows variation in adopting technology for implementation, rather than focusing on the technology itself, as SOA considers the description of the problem domain before concentrating on the usage of a specific execution environment.

Although SOA does not a direct implication of a certain technology and has been applied to software development before the invention of Web services, the capable architectures that realize the SOA vision in a more applicable way are built with Web service technologies. Driven by these competent technologies, the enterprise is practicing open standards for communication over network, messaging and description of service interfaces. SOA with Web services[1] are at the present gaining momentum, as with Web services there is fundamental improvement in SOA based application development.

It provides a strong architectural discipline and focus area centered on service creation, modeling and development, formation of process information, and service oriented integration approaches and strategies. Services are the building blocks of SOA and new applications can be constructed through consuming these services and orchestrating them within a business process. Services are reusable units for articulating common business and technology functionalities.

Implementation Requirement: To implement a successful SOA in enterprise requires consideration of various concepts and implementation strategies, which formulate the essential characteristics of service oriented enterprise. A complete SOA implementation reflects on not only the deployment of services, but also the possibility of using them to integrate diverse application logics, and building of composite applications.

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diverge from the initial SOA implementations done with CORBA, COM/DCOM and RMI technologies.

SOA offers an extensive operability area including process flow and service oriented integration, which finally reaches to the development of a unified and single application logic, which may include various services and applications within the enterprise and aims to solve a specific business problem domain and serve widely focused united functionalities.

Service Oriented Architecture: The architecture [2] of software explores the software system infrastructure by describing its components and high level interactions between each of them. These components are abstract modules built as a “unit” with other components. The high level interactions between components are called “connectors”.

Figure 2. Abstract Definition of Software Architecture The concept of SOA emerged in the early 1980s and become a significant architecture in detail, it is important to evaluate the existing software development concepts and related technologies to discover the revolution of SOA so as to not to develop SOA from scratch.

Figure 1. Service Oriented Architecture in Enterprise Upon a successful implementation of SOA, the enterprise gain benefit by reducing development time, utilizing flexible and responsive application structure, and allowing dynamic connectivity of application logics between business partners.

Motivational approach: SOA provide an evolutionary approach to software development, however, it introduce many distinct concepts and methodologies that needs to be defined and explained in order to understand the SOA offerings in an accurate way and build a competent architecture that satisfy the SOA vision. The main issue is to analyze and assess the differences of SOA from past architectural styles, investigate the improvement that SOA has brought to computing environment, and apply this knowledge to service based application development so as to have a satisfactorily SOA. Since SOA is a concept independent from any certain technology and focus on the definition of architectural aspects of the application including service design, processes and modeling, it is likely to observe different variety of SOA implementation in enterprise. Especially, nowadays SOA implementation with Web Services[1] is

Component Oriented Development: A software component is defined as a unit of composition with contractually specified interfaces and explicit context dependencies. A software component can be deployed independently and is subject to composition by third parties. It is a group of objects [3] with has a specified interface, working together to provide an application function, look like the following figure:

Figure 3. Component Oriented Development A component is executed on a component execution environment provided by an application server, such as J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) container, which provides the required functions, such as transaction management and database connections pooling.

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Components may be integrated to create a larger entity, which could be a new component, a component framework, or an entire system. This is called composition.

The combined component acquires shared specifications from the constituent components. This is often called plugand-play integration. Reusable components are good reflection of effective software design.

Many platform vendors have already produced software infrastructures which support component oriented technology like Microsoft .NET, Sun Java EJB etc.With support of XML, Web services[1] and other standards, these technologies can interoperate for building sophisticated software applications.

Distributed Computing: A successful SOA should overcome the difficulties faced with existing middleware technologies [5] by supporting an effective approach to application development and upcoming technologies with consideration of obtainable concepts and technologies. Typically, distributed objects[3] are supported by an Object Request Broker (ORB), which manages the communication and data exchange with potential remote objects. It provides an object[3] oriented distribution platform, location transparency and enable objects to hide their implementation details from clients.

January 2009-June 2009

services[1], also development.

target

loosely-coupled

application

Conclusion: SOA works as a back-bone for component based software development providing sophisticated middle ware architecture as loosely-coupled techniques of software engineering paradigm which support the platform independency and transparency between various components to send and receive message service and connect them together. Now a days various industries introduced SOA implementation in place of their legacy system to make themselves as a big industry through various web services. The components are reused any where in the modules. Thus I say that SOA is very useful for small industries to develop their ERP system in such a way to develop in a right direction to convert all services with middle ware architecture.

Reference 1. James McGovern, Sameer Tyagi, Michael E. Stevens, Sunil Mathew Java Web Services Architecture, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2003 2. L. Bass, P. Clements, R. Kazman Software Architecture in Practice, addision-Wesley, 1997 3. E. Yourdon, L. Constantine Structured Design, Prentice Hall, 1975 4. G. Booch Object Oriented Design with applications, Benjamin-Cummings Publishing, 1990 5. Dirk Slama, Karl Banke, Dirk Krafzig Service Oriented Architecture: Inventory of Distributed Computing Concepts, Prentice Hall PTR, Dec. 10, 2004 6. Object Management Group, Common Object Request Broker Architecture: Core Specification, Version 3.0.3, March 2004 http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/corba_spe c_catalog.htm 7. Boris Lublinsky SOA Design: Meeting in the Middle, August 20, 2004

Figure 4. Object Request Broker CORBA [7] is the most common RPC-based ORB implementation technology. It does not pay specific attention to data or program execution services, as its main aim is to provide an implementation of a proper distributed object framework.

Coupling:

Volume-1 Issue-1 January 2009-June 2009

A significant feature of SOA[5] is to enable a looselycoupled[3] architectural model development in which the services are recombined and repackaged in order to build a new and compound application structure. JMS, Web

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Narendra Kumar Tyagi

Asstt.Professor DCE Gurgaon narendratyagi21@gmail.com

PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper Virtualization of Data Base Layer (VDBL)

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Introduction

ABSTRACT

•In between 1950’s and 1960’s the virtualization came into existence in the computer “time sharing” practices [2]. This emerged due to expansive technology in the distributed environment. Dividing the resources among many users was developed because assigning a computer system to a single user was practically not possible. Executing Programming required a combination of hardware with software to delegate the receiving attention of user from the central processing unit at a particular time (Popell, 1966) [3]. This process can be compared similar to today’s virtualization (in it a layer of abstraction is created to logically assign the use of a computer asset).

Managing resources on server had been most challenging during last few years due to the need for interoperability and flexibility increase and heavy investment in computing hardware. The push for universal acceptance on computing has begun. As a result, managing server resources has become extremely challenging. To adapt the virtualized environments there is a need of the improved deployment, flexibility and relocation of oracle database instances on servers[1] .Virtualization has changed totally the way of running information systems through the permission of flexibility of hardware and software for the industry. Timely expansion of the resources of mostly available servers, rs, the optimal utilization must be enabled without problems. IT infrastructures are needed to improve manageability and ownership cost reductions at all levels. The enterprises will be empowered to adapt rapidly to business demands.

Clearly the database servers ervers will run havoc inside the virtual machines in such environments. This raises the question of improved capabilities of database systems. This paper proposes the concept of transparent relocation of database instances on servers by virtualization of the he Database layer.

Related Work:

KEYWORDS

IBM in 1967 released the IBM\\360 version 67, using virtual memory concepts first time (a method in which disk space is used to expand the RAM size of a machine).

•Virtualisation Virtualisation •DataBase DataBase

In the 1970s, the "virtual machine" came into existence. In it the software with hardware could be brought in a contained environment. The virtual machine is perhaps the first form of virtualization.

In 1980’s and 1990’s s the cleaning work from the patch work client server systems started scrambling.

The IT administrators trators pushed the world to the “universal computing”.. The need for interoperability and flexibility increased work in this direction. Grid computing, “plug-and-play” or “blade” server farms, storage devices[4] attached to network and many more supporting the adaptable technologies made breakthroughs in distributed processing.

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System This changed the way of information system running by the rise of virtualization into new model. Which allowed the software and hardware flexibility; IT industry never seen before. The industry was empowered with systems to adapt the business demands which new opportunities. It will improve a capability in today’s commercial world [5].

Intel released “Vanderpool” technology and AMD’s “Pacifia” technology. These provide hardware native server virtualization functionality. This proceeded more step towards the concept of virtualization with a high-impact practice in the industry.

Difficulties with the Database Servers Database Servers are not fully monitored in all phases regardless of the operating system being used. For DBA, who is responsible to maintain each server, the database servers are bonus, but for the management they may be challenging.

Server

First Layer

For network

Second Layer

For virtualization

Third Layer

For hardware

Server Virtualization An oracle instance lies on a single server with duplicate work and utilizes RAM and CPU resources; this is a problem for the Oracle DBAs in their tight schedule moving databases. There is also a problem of virtualization design which can be defined as: “A number of databases workloads running on a number of database systems residing in virtual machine, to get the best performance in all how should we establish the resources with adjustments to a number of virtual machines”.

January 2009-June 2009

new server; the migration becomes the overhead for the DBAs. Current challenges are the performances (depending on application profiles), though the performances can be limited in particular by simultaneous virtual address translation for many Virtual Machines in few architectures. The unauthorized Operating Systems’ access is difficult to handle from the point of view of real memory. Intel Virtual Technology resolves these problems in the new extensions to IA instruction set ( Intel VT) , and makes easier to increase server utilization in data center ,improving reliability and robustness to virtualized systems by consolidating more and more applications.

The hardware infrastructure is the main virtualization strategy as been discussed; the important and overlooked method is the application virtualization of database, which is some times referred to as service visualization. In a network the end user software is distributed and packaged with application virtualization [6]. This goes with standardized web services initiative creating sensation in the IT sector all over the world.

There is a requirement of virtualized database application layer using common abstraction layer which may communicate in a standard messaging format and may define a protocol. The Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL) is not only capable of invoking requests but also confirming the application’s state and availability of remaining data on all resources (Data Synapse 2005).

The Solution The enterprises can add and remove application servers ensuring computing resources to match the load of the end user. This theme gives birth to virtualization of database.

In any enterprise which is quite large having number of hardware resources and data centers, mostly over allocated to accommodate with processing loads.

This increases the expansiveness and wastefulness of the resources for the enterprises. The ultimate result comes in the form of consumption of time, because as the database is moved from older to PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper Virtualization of Data Base Layer (VDBL)

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a single physical machine, yet remain logically distinct with consistent hardware profiles (Burry & Nelson, 2004) [7].

Application Layer Virtualization Layer

Virtualization Of

Virtualization Layer Hardware Layer

Database Layer

(VDBL)

The author viewed an advanced large tiered (4-tier) system architecture which easily enhanced computing resources at the application server levels at web server.

DBMS run at only one server at single time span.

Databases are removed between servers in the complex parallel architectures like Oracleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Real Application Clusters. This may lead to a wastefulness situation of huge amounts on computer resources due to the balancing problem of server load at the database level.

In data mining and data warehousing systems database virtualization allows the use of multiple instances of a DBMS, or different DBMS platforms in a transparent way regardless of their physical location.

Net Request load balance

Web Request Layer

Cache requests Web Server Layer

Virtualization

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Net Server

of Database Layer Application Server Layer Application Server Database Server Layer

In context to sever virtualization ,to increase the return on investment the efficiency of server hardware should be maximized .Often server virtualization take the place of the manual server consolidation, by combining many physical servers into one logical server. "The idea is to present the illusion of one huge machine that's infinitely powerful, reliable, robust and manageable - whether it's one machine that looks like many, or multiple machines tied together to look like a single system" (Brandel, 2004) [8] .

With the exception of complex parallel architectures such as Oracleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Real Application Clusters, database management systems can generally run on only one server at a time, and databases must be moved between servers manually. This limitation has led to a situation in which huge amounts of computer resources are wasted because of the difficulty of balancing server load at the database level.

The concept of Database Area Network(DAN) has tried to resolve this issue. In it a database switch is used with Storage Area Network allowing databases to move from one server to another server without updating their availability.

Virtualization of DataBase Layer(VDBL) increases the flexibility through the proposed architecture. The database switch having high speed placed between the application layer and database layer enables databases for transparently located again on new servers without applications modifications. The databases servers should be connected to the shared storage so that database files are again mapped on other server.

Data Storage

Linux server runs the DataBase Switch software which communicates with agents loaded on each managed database server to get information in real Figure 1: Virtualization of DataBase Layer(VDBL). time. The DataBase Switch maintains a database performance and availability information. The By the coming of Storage Area Networks (SAN) database applications connect to off-the shelf Cisco technology, it is easy to move disk storage from router, which connects it to the appropriate database server to server, allowing dynamic relocation of disk with the help of Network Address Translation (NAT) storage according to needs. Though SAN is much and Port Address Translation (PAT). The switch successful for storage relocation, even the database automatically controls the application connections layer remains a problem. Server virtualization with database server. For this the databases must enables multiple virtual operating systems to run on be Oracle (8i / 9i) using SAN. PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper Virtualization of Data Base Layer (VDBL)

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The Impact Every database can be identified by the unique Virtual IP address which is not defined on any particular machine on the distributed architecture.

The database switch (using Network Translation) routes these Virtual IP addresses .This allows DBMS instances to move without any effect on application server layer. The database servers have complex load balancing. Enterprises force the end users to accept the unacceptable response times due to lack of knowledge and visibility in database resource utilization requirements; doing so they over allocate database server resources and expend in waste millions and millions every year.

Data Area Network techniques allow for the relocation in runtime of database instances which match server processing capacity to database resource needs. Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL) technique provides seamless connectivity to a virtual database. VDBL requires Data Area Network and SAN to utilize existing database resources providing higher availability and scalability to the applications.

Benefits â&#x20AC;&#x201C; As discussed database versions 8i or 9i and server platforms like Linux, Solaris, the virtualization techniques1. Database access is done in applications without server awareness residing (concept to database virtualization).

2. Virtualization may relocate immediately the database to some other server in case if server fails.

3. Seamless addition of database servers for the upgraded performance without interrupting the service.

4. Immense expenses against hardware , software, and administration are reduced.

5. Return on Investment (ROI) can be affected.

6. This concept helps in controlling all database servers with quick relocation of database instances.

7. Security benefit by virtualization related to disaster recovery is very helpful[5]. The lost server can be restored on a machine with unlike hardware configurations as virtualization layer separates the hardware from the operating system environment.

8. For high availability and disaster recovery backups from several servers to one secondary server backups can be performed with less expense.

Non figurative layers inserted in between hardware and software components may increase the control on these by multiplying computer assets. The Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL) permits the manipulation of the assets logically. Hence this paper will define Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL)s the process of applying a software layer of abstraction in between various computing resources separated logically.

Security is increased in virtualized layer of database because hackers are not familiar with the complexity configuration of the system. This is due to the reason that virtual applications run on multiple servers. This prevents the hackers from determining the physical resource (Lindstrom,2004). According to Yager (2004) [9], the virtual machines emulate hardware systems create confusion for the hackers to crack a system that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exit. With VDBL tools through new infrastructure the demand for increased database capabilities can be get solved easily at a task.

This type of system has much more inherent capability on optimization of the use of resources than alone SAN or DAN. Any element of VDBL can be leveraged completely with virtualization resulting switching costs are lowered to flexibly implement and install more efficiently. The applications can be separated completely from both the applications itself and the hardware. It may check the complications.

Management in Run-time

Database usage patterns using intelligent algorithms are established over time with the virtualization feature. Analyzing the recourse consumption history Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL) prevents a slow down taking actions in problems and bottlenecks. The DBA gets recommendations and visibility for a last decision as VDBL is Decision Support System (DSS) technology. The right level of utilization is established with the combination of instance relocation and optimization of resources.

VDBL drastically saves software/hardware costs.

Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL) may soon be a standard layer of the infrastructure stack (Mitchell, 2005) [10] as virtualization technology costs are decreasing. Hardware manufacturers as IMD, Intel and others have started built-in virtualization functionality in their systems. From all PhasePhase-III: Theme Based Paper

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Products like Oracleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ss Transparent Application Failover (TAF) permits instance relocation to be performed to move to another server [11].It is transparent to the database clients [12] .

Conclusion Using Virtualization of DataBase Layer (VDBL) makes intelligent relocation decisions [13], allow management and DBA to consolidate servers declining costs in software/hardware. The VDBL consists of highly effective performance unchallenged in providing adaptability with boosting growth to the organization by reducing costs as well .IT managers from all kind of enterprises and corporate may soon start following the path of VDBL due to indulging of virtualization in standard form.

There is no match to VDBL effectiveness.

Relocation can be done with th pressing a button, on adding VDBL, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ss too within seconds without breaking sessions of user or losing transactions on database servers. Virtualization is in its beginning stage of development, though many companies are researching in this field.

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[3] Popell, Steven D. (1966). Computer Time Sharing: Sharin Dynamic Information Handling for Business. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, Inc. [4] The process of disk partitioning is the practice that has been used for many years, shows a simple form of virtualization. In this a physical device i.e.hard drive e is logically separated into many devices and then abstracted from the drive-controller drive through a software.

[5] Connor, Deni. (2005). Welch's reaps benefits from server virtualization. Network World Fusion. Retrieved April 15, 2005 from http://www.nwfusion.com.

Broughton, Eric. Periscope: Access to Enterprise Data. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from http://www.tusc.com. http://www.tusc.com [6] Singh, Amit. (2005). An Introduction to Virtualization. Retrieved March 14, 2005 from http://www.kernelthread.com. http://www.kernelthread.com [7] Burry, Christopher M. and Nelson, Craig. (2004). Plan on server virtualization. Computerworld. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from http://www.computerworld.com.

[8] Brandel, Mary. (2004). Wired over server virtualization.

Network World Fusion. Retrieved March 24, 2005 from http://www.nwfusion.com.

[9] Yager, Tom. (2004). The reality of virtual virt servers. Infoworld.

Retrieved April 15, 2005 from http://www.infoworld.com. http://www.infoworld.com [10] Mitchell, Robert L. (2005) Ghosts in the Machine.

Computerworld.

Retrieved April 25, 2005 from http://www.computerworld.com.

[11] This increases efficiency for enterprises that employ mostly very heterogeneous information architectures.

[12] Lindstrom, Pete. (2004). Security That's Virtually There.

Information Security. Retrieved April 20, 2005 from http://infosecuritymag.com.

[13] The industry average of servers per manager is 30-to-1 30 (Connor, 2005).

This is the new technology merging the concepts of DAN and SAN;so it will be much creative to adapt VDBL to get database server consolidation with resource optimization. Usage of storage device can be manipulated with high availability of resources.

On occurrence urrence of a problem, the DBA can perform a rollback quickly and easily to work. The removal/addition is also managed with VDBL tools .Implementing virtualization to database layer provides similar benefits as to implementing DAN which I discussed earlier requires a SAN, including the ability to utilize database resources making availability and scalability to the applications to use.

This is the golden rule for VDBL and other Virtualization products to improve the maximum utilization of existing resources increasing the Return of IT investments.

Volume-1 1 Issue-1 Issue January 2009-June June 2009 Phase-III: Theme Based Base Paper

References [1] Virtualization: The Transformation of Enterprise IT. (2005).

DataSynapse.

Retrieved March 24, 2005 from http://www.datasynapse.com.

[2]Mainly two aspects of computer "time-sharing" sharing" consist. First elaborated in this paper is user-oriented, oriented, while the second is nearly related to "multitasking." Either aspect can be used to illustrate concepts of virtualization

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INNOVATIVE APPROACHES OF AUTOMATED TOOLS IN SOFTWARE TESTING & CURRENT TECHNOLOGY AS COMPARED TO MANUAL TESTING

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1. Introduction Software testing is the process of executing a program with the intention of finding errors in the code. It is the process of exercising or evaluating a system or system component by manual automatic means to verify that it satisfies specified requirements or to identify differences between expected and actual results [4].Software testing should not be a distinct phase in System development but should be applicable throughout the design, development and maintenance phases.’ Software Testing is often used in association with terms verification & validation’ [5].

‘Software testing is the process of executing software in a controlled manner, in order to answer the question: Does the software behave as specified.

One way to ensure system‘s responsibility is to extensively test the system. Let us focuses on objective of software testing.

2. Software Testing Types There are many ways to conduct software testing, but the most common methods rely on the common steps. There are two basic types of methodical testing.

• Non-Execution-based testing:” The module is reviewed by a proper team” • Execution based testing: “The module is run against test cases. See fig (2) 2.1 Non Execution based testing It relies on fault detection strategy. In general, non execution-based code testing is less expensive than execution – based testing (running test cases) can be extremely time consuming.

Reviews lead to detection of faults earlier in the life cycle. [1], [2].

“Non execution based testing is also known as static testing or static program analysis also.

2.2 Execution Based Testing In this type of testing, the modules are run against test cases. Following are the two ways of Systematically constructing test data to test a module (functional) or the system performance (non functional) is unacceptable. [3]

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2.2.1 Black Box Testing Black Box Test design treats the system as a blackbox and manual test cases based. So it is a software testing technique whereby the internal workings of the item being tested are not known by the testers. It is also known as functional testing. Other names for black-box testing include: Specification testing, behavioral testing, data -driven testing, functional testing, and input/output-driven testing 2.2.2 White Box Testing White -box test design allows one to peek inside the box, and it focuses specifically on using internal knowledge of the software to guide the selection of test data.

White-box testing is also known by other names such as Glass-box testing, structural testing, clear box testing, open box testing, Logic-driven testing, and path-oriented testing. [1]

3. Testing Process Stages Component Testing

Unit Testing

Module Testing

Integration Testing

Verification (Process Oriented)

Subsystem Testing

White Box Testing Techniques (Tests that are derived from knowledge of the program’s program s structure and implementatio n

System Testing

User Testing

Acceptanc e Testing

Validation (Product Oriented)

Black Box Testing Techniques (Tests that are derived from the program specification.

Table (2) Software Testing Techniques

3.1 Unit Testing Unit testing is code-oriented testing. Individual components are tested to ensure that they operate correctly. Each component is tested independently, without other system components’ 3.2 Module Testing A module is a collection of dependent components such as an object, class, an abstract data type or some loser collection of procedures and functions. A module encapsulates related components so it can be tested or checked without other system modules.

3.3 SubSub - system Testing This phase involves testing collections of modules, which have been integrated in to sub systems. It is a design-oriented testing and is also known as integration testing.

3.4 System Testing The sub-systems are integrated to make up the entire system. It is also concerned with validating that the system meets its functional and non-functional requirements. [4].

3.5 Acceptance testing This is the final stage in the testing process before the system is accepted for operational use. Acceptance testing may also reveal requirement problems where the system facilities do not really meet the user’s needs [5] “Let us see there are many problems if we test to the above mentioned software testing techniques using manual testing rather automated tools”.

4. Problems with w ith Manual Testing With the manual testing we have to write the code or test cases again and again, that is very time consuming. If we update in one unit then it checks again and repeat the all process. More efforts are required in manual testing. Manual testing is the process of manually testing software for defects. It requires a tester to play the role of an end user, and use most of all features of the application to ensure correct behavior. To ensure completeness of testing,

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System the tester often follows a written test plan that leads them through a set of important test cases. [7] 1. Manual Testing is time consuming.

2. There is nothing new to learn when one tests manually.

3. People tend to neglect running manual tests.

4. None maintains a list of the tests required to be run if they are manual tests.

5. Manual Testing is not reusable.

6. The effort required is the same each time.

7. One cannot reuse a Manual Test.

8. Manual Tests provide limited Visibility and have to be repeated by all Stakeholders.

9. Only the developer testing the code can see the results.

10. Tests have to be repeated by each stakeholder for e.g. Developer, Tech Lead, GM, and Management.

11. Manual Testing ends up being an Integration Test.

12. In a typical manual test it is very difficult to test a single unit.

13. Scripting facilities are not in manual testing.

this effort can be dramatically reduced and the costs related with testing can decrease. [5]

5.3 Benefits of Automation - Consistency of Test Execution - Reducing cycle time of regression test cycle -Data driven testing - Repeatability - Reliability -Reusability of test wares Release 1

Manual Test 10

Auto Test 10

Manual Test Cumulative 10

2 3 4 5

10 10 10 10

0 0 0 0

20 30 40 50

5. Emphasis on Automation Concept Comparative Graph of Manual vs Automated Testing

5.1 What is Test Automation?

Automation

Software Test Automation is the process of automating the steps of manual test cases using an automation tool or utility to shorten the testing life cycle with respect to time. [5]

Automation helps to avoid human errors and also expedite the testing process.

To implement the Test Automation detailed planning and effort is required.

Automation saves time and effort which results in reduction of the Test life cycle. [6] 5.2 Why it is Significant?

There is no doubt automated software testing is an activity whose costs are very high. But suppose, once testing tool has purchased for companies or any organization that will be carry and test to thousands of projects. But in the case of Manual Testing, it is not capable for this kind of activities. Manual testing involves a lot of effort, measured in person per month. Using automated testing, with specific tools,

50 40 30 Time Duration

manual test Auto test manual test cumulative

20 10 0 1

2

3

4

5

Test Case Release

Figure: 1 Comparative Result of Manual Vs Automated Testing

5.4 Innovative approaches of Automated Testing Tools.

Load Runner Win runner Silk Test QTP Rational Rose

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by Hewlett-Packard (since it acquired Mercury Interactive in November 2006) for examining system behavior and performance, while generating actual load. Load Runner can emulate hundreds or thousands of concurrent users to put the application through the rigors of real-life user loads, while collecting information from key infrastructure components (Web servers, database servers etc). The results can then be analyzed in detail, to explore the reasons for particular behavior.

5.4.2 Win Runner It is an automated functional GUI testing tool that allows a user to record and play back UI interactions as test scripts. Win Runner is functional testing software for enterprise IT applications. It captures, verifies and replays user interactions automatically, so you can identify defects and determine whether business processes work as designed. the Software has some Add-Ins. • Windows • C++/C • Visual Basic • PowerBuilder • Forte • Delphi • Smalltalk

QTP uses a scripting language built on top of VBScript to specify the test procedure, and to manipulate the objects and controls of the application under test. [6] Features of QTP: • Ease of use.

• Quick Test Pro is significantly easier for a nontechnical person to adapt to and create working test cases, compared to Win Runner.

5.4.4 Rational Robo (IBM) •

Rose is an operational tool set that uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as its means for facilitating the capture of domain semantics and architecture/design intent.

Various phases and tools used in each phase for software development: •

Automatic Recovery The Recovery Manager provides an easy-to-use wizard that guides you through the process of defining a recovery scenario. But these facilities are not in manual testing. You can specify one or more operations that enable the test run to continue after an exception event occurs. This functionality is especially useful during unattended test runs, when errors or crashes could interrupt the testing process until manual intervention occurs.

5.4.3 Quick Test Professional (QTP) is an automated functional Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing tool that allows the automation of user actions on a web or client based computer application.

It is primarily used for functional regression test automation launched by HP (Mercury QTP).

Rational Machines was founded by Paul Levy and Mike Devlin in 1981 to provide tools to expandthe use of modern software engineering practices, particularly explicit modular architecture and iterative development. Rational was sold for US$ 2.1 billion to IBM on February 20, 2003.Rational Rose is a tool set produced and marketed by Rational Software Corporation (now owned

by IBM

• • • •

Requirement gathering for tool used: used Requisite Pro Designing for tool used: Rational Rose Coding for tool used: used Either manually or by Rational Rose Testing for tool used: used Purifier, Quantifier, Pure Coverage. Rational Robo Maintenance for tool used: used Clear Case and Clear Quest.

Documentation for tool used: used SODA (Software documentation Automation) So there is no doubt with the help of automated tools, testing processes / techniques become much better for software development organization

6. Future Scope of Automated testing tool in the Current Technology Automated testing trends in the industry suggest that software testing in the future will look very different than it does today. Businesses are leading change

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Global Journal of Enterprise Information System and transformation projects and application development is changing to support it; automated testing approaches also covers quickly rather manual based testing to the current information and communication technology includes e.g.

• Web based applications • Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) • Software as a Service • Wireless technologies • Mobile technologies These technologies are growing very fast and giving us quality assurance on the behalf of and good automated testing processes.

7. Conclusion The Conclusion of this research and review paper is analyze to the manual testing drawback in software testing rather more benefits of automated software testing tools. The enlightened of this modern approaches leads to the new Methodologies of software test automation. The destination of software testing is considered to succeed when an error is detached. Effective Conclusions are given below.

Software testing is an art. Most of the testing methods and practices are not very different from 20 years ago. In the current era there are many tools and techniques available to use.

References 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Burnstein, Ilene, Practical Software Testing. Springer Verlag New York Inc., USA, 2003 Beizer, B. Software Testing Techniques. Second Edition,Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Limited,1990 Gill, G. and C. Kemerer. “Cyclomatic Complexity Density and Software Maintenance Productivity”. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, December 1991.

Gerald, D. Everett et al. Software Testing: Testing Across the Entire Software Development Life Cycle. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Publication, New Jersey, 2007.

T. Chow, “Testing Software Design Modeled by of the IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Montreal, Quebec, Mosley, Daniel (2002). Just Enough Software Test Automation..

A. Leitner, I. Ciupa, B. Meyer, and M.Howard.

Reconciling manual and automated testing: The auto test experience. In HICSS 07: Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on USA, 2007. IEEE Computer Society.

Good testing also requires a tester's creativity, experience and intuition, together with proper techniques.

Testing is more than just debugging. Testing is not only used to locate defects and correct them.

It is also used in validation, verification process, and reliability measurement.

Although manual testing is not expensive but is no more effective rather automated testing because automation is a good way to cut down cost and time. Testing efficiency and effectiveness is the criteria for coverage-based testing techniques Complete testing is infeasible. Complexity is the root of the problem. At some point, software testing has to be stopped and product has to be shipped. The stopping time can be decided by the trade-off of time and budget. Or if the reliability estimate of the software product meets requirement.

Testing may not be the most effective method to improve software quality. Alternative methods, such as inspection, and clean-room engineering, may be even better.

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David L. Olson

James & H.K. Stuart Professor in MIS and Professor at the University of Nebraska

dolson3@unl.edu

PhasePhase-XI: XI: Biographical Note of the Luminary in an Area of IS David L. Olson

Global Journal of Enterprise Information System

David L. Olson is the James & H.K. Stuart Professor in MIS and Professor at the University of Nebraska. He received his Ph.D. in Business from the University of Nebraska in 1981.

Professor Olson has published research in over 60 refereed journal articles, primarily on the topic of multiple objective decision decision-making.

He teaches in the management information systems, management science, and operations management areas. He has authored the books Decision ecision Aids for Selection Problems Problems, Introduction to Information Systems Project Management, and Managerial Issues of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems and co--authored the books Decision Support Models and Expert Systems; Introduction to Management Science; Introduction to Simulation and Risk Analysis Analysis; Business Statistics: Quality Information for Decision Analysis Analysis; Statistics, Decision Analysis, and Decision Modeling;; and Multiple Criteria Analysis in Strategic Siting Problems.

Professor Olson has made over 100 presentations at international and national conferences on research topics.

He is a member of the Association for Information Systems, the Decision Sciences Institute, the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, and the Multiple le Criteria Decision Making

January 2009-June June 2009

Society. He has been the chair for the Data Mining mini--track at AMCIS 2004 and AMCIS 2005. He has coordinated the Decision Sciences Institute Dissertation Competition, Innovative Education Competition, chaired the Doctoral Affairs Af Committee, served as nationally elected vice president three times, and as National Program Chair. He was with Texas A&M University from 1981 through 2001, the last two years as Lowry Mays Professor of Business in the Department of Information and Operations Op Management.

He received a Research Fellow Award from the College of Business and Graduate School of Business at Texas A&M University, and held the Business Analysis Faculty Excellence Fellowship for two years. He is a Fellow of the Decision Sciences Scie Institute.

Volume-1 1 Issue-1 Issue January 2009-June June 2009 PhasePhase-XI: XI: Biographical Note of the Luminary in an Area of IS

PhasePhase-XI: XI: Biographical Note of the Luminary in an Area of IS David L. Olson