The need for process improvement is an important target that does affect as well the government processes.
Specifically in the public sector there are specific challenges to face .New technology approaches within
government processes such as cloud services are necessary to address these challenges. Following the
current discussion of „cloudification“of business processes all processes are considered similar in regards
to their usability within the cloud. The truth is, that neither all processes have the same usability for cloud
services not do they have the same importance for a specific company.
The most comprehensive process within a company is the corporate value chain. In this article one key
proposition is to use the corporate value chain as the fundamental structuring backbone for all business
process analysis and improvement activities. It is a pre-requisite to identify the core elements of the value
chain that are essential for the individual company’s business and the root cause for any company success.
In this paper we propose to use the company-specific value-creation for the “cloud-affinity” and the
“cloud-usability” of a business process in public sector considering the specific challenges of addressing
processes in cloud services. Therefor it is necessary to formalize the way the processes with its
interdependencies are documented in context of their company-specific value chain (as part of the various
deployment- and governance alternatives (e.g. security, compliance, quality, adaptability)). Moreover, it is
essential in the public sector to describe in detail the environmental / external restrictions of processes..
With the use of this proposed methodology it becomes relatively easy to identify cloud-suitable processes
within the public sector and thus optimize the public companies value generation tightly focused with the
use of this new technology.
This benchmark is the result of the collaboration between Burstorm and Rice University and uses a high degree of automation. The scope of the first benchmark is seven suppliers across three continents with a total of 96 different instance types. The benchmark was executed every day, for at least 15 days. The results are normalized to a monthly pricing model to establish the price-performance metrics.
The Federal government today is in the midst of a revolution. The revolution is challenging the norms of government by introducing new ways of serving the people. New models for creating services and delivering information; new policies and procedures that are redefining federal acquisition and what it means to be a federal system integrator. This revolution also lacks the physical and tangible artifacts of the past. Its ephemeral nature, global expanse and economic impact all combine in a tidal wave of change. This revolution is called cloud computing.
Since announcing its “Cloud First” policy in 2010, the Federal government has correctly identified cloud computing as a way to reduce costs and improve the use of existing assets, and has accordingly prioritized its adoption. It has also taken judicious steps to protect Federal networks from nefarious cyber-attacks and promote the dissemination of best practices for cybersecurity. The Federal government has also embraced mobility as a means to conduct work from any location. But until now, the implementation of these initiatives has been fragmented and lacked coordination across Federal agencies. This paper offers a framework for integrating these programs in a way that enables the Federal government to realize the economic, technological, and mission-effectiveness benefits of cloud services while simultaneously meeting current Federal cybersecurity
requirements. It advocates shifting from a compliance-based cybersecurity paradigm to
one that is risk-based and focusing on how to most effectively secure their implementation of cloud services.
Cloud Computing is an information technology gold rush. Everything from social media and smart phones to streaming video and additive games come from the cloud. This revolution has also driven many to wonder how they can retool themselves to take advantage of this massive shift. Many in IT see the technology as an opportunity to accelerate their careers but in their attempt to navigate their cloud computing future, the question of what type of training, vendor-neutral or vendor-specific, is right for them
Behavioral Aspects of IT Employees towards Problems and Prospects of Activity...Dr. Amarjeet Singh
Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a new variant in cost
management practices emerged in 1980’s, which caters to the
needs of organizations in effective control and monitoring cost
and better management of profitability. The success of ABC
duly depends on articulation of implementation of ABC and
the outcome of Activity Based Cost and Management
(ABCM). Though employees experience a positive outcome, it
is beyond doubt that they can support the ABC rather
resisting the same. The main objective of this paper is to
examine the perception of IT companies’ employees’ towards
implementation of Activity-Based Costing(ABC). A normative
list of benefits concerning the ability of ABC systems to
redirect the behavior of individuals was abstracted from the
interviews opinion and compared to the perceived benefits
gathered from interviews with firm employees. This will
permit IT Companies and provides relevant information that
will enable them to make better decisions with regard to
measure the successful implementation of ABC in IT
Companies.
Services have rapidly become a central topic of both concern and interest in research and business. Both the public and the private sector are facing increasing demand, cost, and quality challenges in their attempts to deliver services effectively and efficiently. The changing structure of the population, growing competition and mobility through globalisation, and new opportunities for services’ digitalisation are among the factors forcing us to re-knit the web of services needed for enabling a sustainable operation environment for companies, providing citizens with adequate conditions for good quality of life, and protecting our environment from overload caused by human activity.
This collection of highlights of VTT’s service research illustrates the versatility of service research. Service research has become a theme under which synthesis of traditionally separate research domains thrives. These range from industrial manufacturing to safety and security, from information and communication technologies to the building sector, and from media studies to public-sector innovations. Service research brings researchers from many disciplines together to discuss innovation, design, development, and adoption of services in diverse domains, enabled by emerging technological breakthroughs.
Towards a Theoretical Model for Human Resource Management Information Systems...IOSRJBM
This study carries out a critical review of literature on human resource management information system, government policy and organization performance. The motivation for carrying out this literature review is presented and the point of contention is the application of human resource management information system, government policy and organizational performance. The objectives of carrying out this literature review include; to conceptualize the adoption of human resource management Information systems (HRMIS) and organization performance, to analyze the evolution of human resource information system (HRMIS) concept, to identify the theories upon which human resource information system (HRMIS) and organization performance are anchored upon, to critically review the empirical studies and identify the inherent gaps and to identify the factors that influences the adoption of HRMIS .The study reviews the origin of adoption of human resource management Information systems from both academic and management perspective. Factors influencing the adoption of human resource management systems, theoretical framework of human resource management systems whereby four theories namely diffusion theory, social capital theory, behavioral theory and resource based view theory have been discussed. An empirical review was done on thematic issues, methodology, data collection and data analysis. Various studies have been reviewed and analyzed to identify knowledge gaps. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations made based on the literature reviewed. A conceptual frame work alongside measures is proposed for studying human resource management information system, government policy and organizational performance and methodology for the study is also proposed.
This benchmark is the result of the collaboration between Burstorm and Rice University and uses a high degree of automation. The scope of the first benchmark is seven suppliers across three continents with a total of 96 different instance types. The benchmark was executed every day, for at least 15 days. The results are normalized to a monthly pricing model to establish the price-performance metrics.
The Federal government today is in the midst of a revolution. The revolution is challenging the norms of government by introducing new ways of serving the people. New models for creating services and delivering information; new policies and procedures that are redefining federal acquisition and what it means to be a federal system integrator. This revolution also lacks the physical and tangible artifacts of the past. Its ephemeral nature, global expanse and economic impact all combine in a tidal wave of change. This revolution is called cloud computing.
Since announcing its “Cloud First” policy in 2010, the Federal government has correctly identified cloud computing as a way to reduce costs and improve the use of existing assets, and has accordingly prioritized its adoption. It has also taken judicious steps to protect Federal networks from nefarious cyber-attacks and promote the dissemination of best practices for cybersecurity. The Federal government has also embraced mobility as a means to conduct work from any location. But until now, the implementation of these initiatives has been fragmented and lacked coordination across Federal agencies. This paper offers a framework for integrating these programs in a way that enables the Federal government to realize the economic, technological, and mission-effectiveness benefits of cloud services while simultaneously meeting current Federal cybersecurity
requirements. It advocates shifting from a compliance-based cybersecurity paradigm to
one that is risk-based and focusing on how to most effectively secure their implementation of cloud services.
Cloud Computing is an information technology gold rush. Everything from social media and smart phones to streaming video and additive games come from the cloud. This revolution has also driven many to wonder how they can retool themselves to take advantage of this massive shift. Many in IT see the technology as an opportunity to accelerate their careers but in their attempt to navigate their cloud computing future, the question of what type of training, vendor-neutral or vendor-specific, is right for them
Behavioral Aspects of IT Employees towards Problems and Prospects of Activity...Dr. Amarjeet Singh
Activity Based Costing (ABC) is a new variant in cost
management practices emerged in 1980’s, which caters to the
needs of organizations in effective control and monitoring cost
and better management of profitability. The success of ABC
duly depends on articulation of implementation of ABC and
the outcome of Activity Based Cost and Management
(ABCM). Though employees experience a positive outcome, it
is beyond doubt that they can support the ABC rather
resisting the same. The main objective of this paper is to
examine the perception of IT companies’ employees’ towards
implementation of Activity-Based Costing(ABC). A normative
list of benefits concerning the ability of ABC systems to
redirect the behavior of individuals was abstracted from the
interviews opinion and compared to the perceived benefits
gathered from interviews with firm employees. This will
permit IT Companies and provides relevant information that
will enable them to make better decisions with regard to
measure the successful implementation of ABC in IT
Companies.
Services have rapidly become a central topic of both concern and interest in research and business. Both the public and the private sector are facing increasing demand, cost, and quality challenges in their attempts to deliver services effectively and efficiently. The changing structure of the population, growing competition and mobility through globalisation, and new opportunities for services’ digitalisation are among the factors forcing us to re-knit the web of services needed for enabling a sustainable operation environment for companies, providing citizens with adequate conditions for good quality of life, and protecting our environment from overload caused by human activity.
This collection of highlights of VTT’s service research illustrates the versatility of service research. Service research has become a theme under which synthesis of traditionally separate research domains thrives. These range from industrial manufacturing to safety and security, from information and communication technologies to the building sector, and from media studies to public-sector innovations. Service research brings researchers from many disciplines together to discuss innovation, design, development, and adoption of services in diverse domains, enabled by emerging technological breakthroughs.
Towards a Theoretical Model for Human Resource Management Information Systems...IOSRJBM
This study carries out a critical review of literature on human resource management information system, government policy and organization performance. The motivation for carrying out this literature review is presented and the point of contention is the application of human resource management information system, government policy and organizational performance. The objectives of carrying out this literature review include; to conceptualize the adoption of human resource management Information systems (HRMIS) and organization performance, to analyze the evolution of human resource information system (HRMIS) concept, to identify the theories upon which human resource information system (HRMIS) and organization performance are anchored upon, to critically review the empirical studies and identify the inherent gaps and to identify the factors that influences the adoption of HRMIS .The study reviews the origin of adoption of human resource management Information systems from both academic and management perspective. Factors influencing the adoption of human resource management systems, theoretical framework of human resource management systems whereby four theories namely diffusion theory, social capital theory, behavioral theory and resource based view theory have been discussed. An empirical review was done on thematic issues, methodology, data collection and data analysis. Various studies have been reviewed and analyzed to identify knowledge gaps. Conclusions were drawn and recommendations made based on the literature reviewed. A conceptual frame work alongside measures is proposed for studying human resource management information system, government policy and organizational performance and methodology for the study is also proposed.
This paper had as approach a study about the use of IT resources in three different small, medium and large transport companies of the city of Pau dos Ferros - RN. The collected data allowed the knowledge of the main technological resources used in the internal structure of each company and their influence on the internal decision-making processes. When analyzing the resources used by the organizations, a certain similarity was identified in the types and a difference in the Information Systems used. The enterprises,named here as A, B and C, use thesoftwares SYSPDV, SoftCom and CissPoder, respectively. It was also identified that the small enterprise A does not use all the functionalities of the Information System employed, while the large enterprises B and C explore all the capacities of the IS in the company internal structure.
International Journal of Computational Engineering Research(IJCER) is an intentional online Journal in English monthly publishing journal. This Journal publish original research work that contributes significantly to further the scientific knowledge in engineering and Technology.
Towards a Framework of Influence Factors for Value Co-Creation in Service Sys...Peter Hottum
Presented at the International Conference on Exploring Service Science 1.5 in Porto (Portugal), Feb 5th 2015.
According to modern service science theory, value is jointly generated by several partners forming a service system. In this work, we focus on a simple two-party system consisting of a service provider and its customer. The value created by this service system hinges on the contribution of both parties.
That is, it also depends on the collaboration of the customer, which is a key characteristic of services in traditional definitions. Providers, however, lack knowledge on how to identify and measure the influence factors for value cocreation, such as customer contribution. Being aware of customer contribution, providers could design and manage value propositions purposefully. In this work, we provide a first version of a framework of influence factors for value co-creation in service systems, which may serve providers as a guideline for identifying different types of customer contribution.
Present study aims to investigate the influence of ICTs dimensions (Information Technology (IT),
Management Information System (MIS), Office automation (OA), Intranet and Internet) on workforce
productivity for a group of industrial organizations in Alexandria - Egypt. The population of the study was
managers and staff members working in different areas related to ICTs in the selected industrial
organizations at various managerial levels. Descriptive-statistical combined research study was conducted.
The selection of the participating industrial organization done using simple random sampling technique.
Data collection done using questionnaires. In order to check the validity of the study instrument expert
comments were used and the reliability of the questions calculated as 79% using Cronbach’s Alpha
coefficient. The analysis of instrument data done using single variable t-test, Friedman and variance
analysis. The study findings revealed that the specified dimensions of ICTs positively affect workforce
productivity of industrial organizations in Alexandria - Egypt.
Cloud computing and Innovation in ManufacturingInfosys
The Cloud has the power to change the way products are made, by accelerating the development lifecycle, enabling seamless collaboration and creating a smooth and agile supply chain. This paper discusses how Cloud computing - representing a paradigm shift for manufacturers who strive for a smarter IT organization and business processes - provides an answer.
ADOPTION OF CLOUD-BASED SERVICES BY SMEs IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: DEVELOPMENT...Amos Wachanga
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face numerous challenges in identification, setting up
and making use of Information Technology (IT) as an enabler for business. Cloud computing
could solve this problem by offering ready, low cost of entry IT solutions. Adoption of cloud
computing among the SMEs in developing countries is however low due to a number of
barriers as identified by previous studies. Over the years, research on adoption on innovation
and technology has unveiled a number of theories on adoption which range from Individual
level theories to Organizational level theories and even Market level theories. This study
reviews the various theories, opting to use an organization level theory so that focus on the
SME is emphasized. Analysis of literature renders this study to be based on the Technology-
Organization-Environment (TOE) framework proposed by DePietro et al. (1990). This study
reviews the current adoption levels of cloud computing and proposes a TOE based model for
adoption of cloud-based services by SMEs in developing countries. The study employed
literature review to determine the factors that are applicable for a model on adoption of cloud
computing in the developing countries. Further, the study conducted a survey through a
questionnaire to collect quantitative data to assist in determination of the most applicable
model. Convenience sampling was employed due to the study’s constraints on time and budget.
The study findings revealed that there is low adoption of cloud computing for business
applications by SMEs in Nairobi County, hence confirms the need for the adoption model.
Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) six components were extracted for the proposed
model which include Relative Advantage, Accessibility, Organization Readiness and Size,
Vendor Readiness, Regulations and Trading Partner Pressure, each with attributes required to
ensure successful adoption of cloud computing. The model was validated through statistical
analysis which confirms a largely reasonable level of fit for the indices and construct validity
conducted through convergent and discriminant validity methods. Further, the model was
subjected to experts’ analysis who concluded that the model is simple, applicable and fitting.
The study finally proposes practical recommendations to governments and policy makers,
educational institutions, software vendors and SMEs based on the model. Further research
areas include subjecting the model to larger sample sizes to confirm its validity and the
preparation of an implementation guideline.
Keywords: Cloud computing, Small and medium enterprises, ICT Adoption, Nairobi Kenya
This paper had as approach a study about the use of IT resources in three different small, medium and large transport companies of the city of Pau dos Ferros - RN. The collected data allowed the knowledge of the main technological resources used in the internal structure of each company and their influence on the internal decision-making processes. When analyzing the resources used by the organizations, a certain similarity was identified in the types and a difference in the Information Systems used. The enterprises,named here as A, B and C, use thesoftwares SYSPDV, SoftCom and CissPoder, respectively. It was also identified that the small enterprise A does not use all the functionalities of the Information System employed, while the large enterprises B and C explore all the capacities of the IS in the company internal structure.
International Journal of Computational Engineering Research(IJCER) is an intentional online Journal in English monthly publishing journal. This Journal publish original research work that contributes significantly to further the scientific knowledge in engineering and Technology.
Towards a Framework of Influence Factors for Value Co-Creation in Service Sys...Peter Hottum
Presented at the International Conference on Exploring Service Science 1.5 in Porto (Portugal), Feb 5th 2015.
According to modern service science theory, value is jointly generated by several partners forming a service system. In this work, we focus on a simple two-party system consisting of a service provider and its customer. The value created by this service system hinges on the contribution of both parties.
That is, it also depends on the collaboration of the customer, which is a key characteristic of services in traditional definitions. Providers, however, lack knowledge on how to identify and measure the influence factors for value cocreation, such as customer contribution. Being aware of customer contribution, providers could design and manage value propositions purposefully. In this work, we provide a first version of a framework of influence factors for value co-creation in service systems, which may serve providers as a guideline for identifying different types of customer contribution.
Present study aims to investigate the influence of ICTs dimensions (Information Technology (IT),
Management Information System (MIS), Office automation (OA), Intranet and Internet) on workforce
productivity for a group of industrial organizations in Alexandria - Egypt. The population of the study was
managers and staff members working in different areas related to ICTs in the selected industrial
organizations at various managerial levels. Descriptive-statistical combined research study was conducted.
The selection of the participating industrial organization done using simple random sampling technique.
Data collection done using questionnaires. In order to check the validity of the study instrument expert
comments were used and the reliability of the questions calculated as 79% using Cronbach’s Alpha
coefficient. The analysis of instrument data done using single variable t-test, Friedman and variance
analysis. The study findings revealed that the specified dimensions of ICTs positively affect workforce
productivity of industrial organizations in Alexandria - Egypt.
Cloud computing and Innovation in ManufacturingInfosys
The Cloud has the power to change the way products are made, by accelerating the development lifecycle, enabling seamless collaboration and creating a smooth and agile supply chain. This paper discusses how Cloud computing - representing a paradigm shift for manufacturers who strive for a smarter IT organization and business processes - provides an answer.
ADOPTION OF CLOUD-BASED SERVICES BY SMEs IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: DEVELOPMENT...Amos Wachanga
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face numerous challenges in identification, setting up
and making use of Information Technology (IT) as an enabler for business. Cloud computing
could solve this problem by offering ready, low cost of entry IT solutions. Adoption of cloud
computing among the SMEs in developing countries is however low due to a number of
barriers as identified by previous studies. Over the years, research on adoption on innovation
and technology has unveiled a number of theories on adoption which range from Individual
level theories to Organizational level theories and even Market level theories. This study
reviews the various theories, opting to use an organization level theory so that focus on the
SME is emphasized. Analysis of literature renders this study to be based on the Technology-
Organization-Environment (TOE) framework proposed by DePietro et al. (1990). This study
reviews the current adoption levels of cloud computing and proposes a TOE based model for
adoption of cloud-based services by SMEs in developing countries. The study employed
literature review to determine the factors that are applicable for a model on adoption of cloud
computing in the developing countries. Further, the study conducted a survey through a
questionnaire to collect quantitative data to assist in determination of the most applicable
model. Convenience sampling was employed due to the study’s constraints on time and budget.
The study findings revealed that there is low adoption of cloud computing for business
applications by SMEs in Nairobi County, hence confirms the need for the adoption model.
Using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) six components were extracted for the proposed
model which include Relative Advantage, Accessibility, Organization Readiness and Size,
Vendor Readiness, Regulations and Trading Partner Pressure, each with attributes required to
ensure successful adoption of cloud computing. The model was validated through statistical
analysis which confirms a largely reasonable level of fit for the indices and construct validity
conducted through convergent and discriminant validity methods. Further, the model was
subjected to experts’ analysis who concluded that the model is simple, applicable and fitting.
The study finally proposes practical recommendations to governments and policy makers,
educational institutions, software vendors and SMEs based on the model. Further research
areas include subjecting the model to larger sample sizes to confirm its validity and the
preparation of an implementation guideline.
Keywords: Cloud computing, Small and medium enterprises, ICT Adoption, Nairobi Kenya
ICC has set out five recommendations to modernize the regulatory and competition framework that would provide protection for consumers while fostering competition, investment and innovation.
CHALLENGES FOR PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANISATIONS IN CLOUD ADOPTION: A CASE STUDY OF...ijmpict
This research explores critical aspects of procurement of ICT cloud services for South Australian public sector organisations with the case of South Australia Police (SAPOL) for evaluation. SAPOL as one of the state government agencies at the time is initiating this transition to the cloud environment. This exploratory research takes place when this public sector agency is doing its due diligence to ensure a successful implementation. In this study the researcher started off with surfacing the challenges in this journey for a public sector organisation before the actual journey commenced. SAPOL being a public sector organisation operates differently from private enterprises and has certain constraints and limitations that pose additional challenges for the organisation to transition towards the cloud. Interview with the CIO of the organisation responsible for the cloud migration initiative was organised. After detailed literature review, an interview questionnaire was prepared in accordance with the subject of interest. The information gathered in the interviews was recorded for detailed analysis. This paper contains a detailed report on the information analysed highlighting fourteen important challenges faced by the organisation in this cloud migration journey.
Using Machine Learning embedded in Organizational Responsibility Model, added to the ten characteristics of the CIO Master and the twelve competencies of the workforce can help lead the Digital Transformation of the traditional public organizations to the Exponential.
Data-Driven Simulation-Enhanced optimization of Service operationsSudhendu Rai
This paper describes a systematic six-step data-driven simulation-based methodology for optimizing people-based service systems on a large distributed scale that exhibit high variety and variability. The methodology is exemplified
through its application within the printing services industry where it has been successfully deployed by Xerox Corporation across small, mid-sized and large print shops generating over $250 million in profits across the customer value chain. Each
step of the methodology consisting of innovative concepts co-development and testing in partnership with customers, development of software and hardware tools to implement the innovative concepts, establishment of work-process and practices for customer-engagement and service implementation, creation of training and infrastructure for large scale deployment, integration of the innovative offering within the framework of existing corporate offerings and lastly the monitoring and deployment of the financial and operational metrics for estimating the return-on investment and the continual renewal of the offering are described in detail.
Despite the large investments in the field of e-Government (e-Gov) around the world, little is known about the impact such investment. This is due to the lack of guidance evaluation, absence of appropriate tools to
measure the impact of e-Gov on the private sector, as well as the lack of effective management to resolve or eliminate the barriers to e-Gov services that led to the failure or delay of many projects. This paper is primarily concerned in determining the impact of e-Gov services on the private sector. A combination of Modified Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), DeLone and McLean's of IS success will be utilized as a research model and e-Gov Economics Project (eGEP) framework to measure “Efficiency, Democracy
& Effectiveness impact” for G2B services. The research result will help e-Gov decision makers to recognize the critical factors that are responsible for G2B success, specifically factors they need to pay attention to gain the highest return on their technology investment, hence enabling them to measure the impact for e-Gov on the private sector. The paper has also demonstrated the usefulness of Structural
Equation Modeling (SEM) in analysis of small data sets and in exploratory research.
Challenges for Managing Complex Application Portfolios: A Case Study of South...IJMIT JOURNAL
This research explores the challenges in management and the root cause for complex application portfolios in the public sector. It takes Australian public sector organisations with the case of South Australia Police (SAPOL) for evaluation it being one of the significant and mission critical state government agencies. The exploratory research surfaces some of the key challenges using interview as primary data collection source, along with archive records, documentation, and direct observation as secondary sources. This paper reports on the information analysed surfacing eight key issues. It highlights that the organic growth of the technology portfolios, with mission criticality has resulted in many quick fixes which are not aligned with long term enterprise architectural stability. Integration of different mismatched technologies, along with the pressure from the business to always keep the lights on, does not provide the opportunity for the portfolios to be rationalised in an ongoing way. Other issues and the areas for further study are explored at the end.
CHALLENGES FOR MANAGING COMPLEX APPLICATION PORTFOLIOS: A CASE STUDY OF SOUTH...IJMIT JOURNAL
This research explores the challenges in management and the root cause for complex application portfolios
in the public sector. It takes Australian public sector organisations with the case of South Australia Police
(SAPOL) for evaluation it being one of the significant and mission critical state government agencies. The
exploratory research surfaces some of the key challenges using interview as primary data collection
source, along with archive records, documentation, and direct observation as secondary sources. This
paper reports on the information analysed surfacing eight key issues. It highlights that the organic growth
of the technology portfolios, with mission criticality has resulted in many quick fixes which are not aligned
with long term enterprise architectural stability. Integration of different mismatched technologies, along
with the pressure from the business to always keep the lights on, does not provide the opportunity for the
portfolios to be rationalised in an ongoing way. Other issues and the areas for further study are explored
at the end.
Simulation in the supply chain context a survey Sergio Terzia,.docxbudabrooks46239
Simulation in the supply chain context: a survey
Sergio Terzia,*, Sergio Cavalierib a Politecnico di Milano, Department of Economics, Industrial and Management Engineering, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milan, Italy b Department of Industrial Engineering, Universita` di Bergamo, Viale Marconi 5, 24044 Dalmine, Italy Received 29 January 2003; accepted 13 June 2003
Abstract
The increased level of competitiveness in all industrial sectors, exacerbated in the last years by the globalisation of the economies and by the sharp fall of the final demands, are pushing enterprises to strive for a further optimisation of their organisational processes, and in particular to pursue new forms of collaboration and partnership with their direct logistics counterparts. As a result, at a company level there is a progressive shift towards an external perspective with the design and implementation of new management strategies, which are generally named with the term of supply chain management (SCM). However, despite the flourish of several IT solutions in this context, there are still evident hurdles to overcome, mainly due to the major complexity of the problems to be tackled in a logistics network and to the conflicts resulting from local objectives versus network strategies. Among the techniques supporting a multi-decisional context, as a supply chain (SC) is, simulation can undoubtedly play an important role, above all for its main property to provide what-if analysis and to evaluate quantitatively benefits and issues deriving from operating in a co-operative environment rather than playing a pure transaction role with the upstream/downstream tiers. The paper provides a comprehensive review made on more than 80 articles, with the main purpose of ascertaining which general objectives simulation is generally called to solve, which paradigms and simulation tools are more suitable, and deriving useful prescriptions both for practitioners and researchers on its applicability in decision-making processes within the supply chain context. # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Parallel and distributed simulation; Supply chain management; High level architecture; Survey 1. Introduction Modern industrial enterprises operate in a rapidly changing world, stressed by even more global competition, managing world-wide procurement and unforeseeable markets, supervising geographically distributed production plants, striving for the provision of outstanding products and high quality customer service. More than in the past, companies which are not able to revise periodically their strategies and, accordingly, to modify their organisational processes seriously risk to be pulled out from the competitive edge. In the 1990s, companies have made huge efforts for streamlining their internal business processes, identifying and enhancing the core activities pertaining to the product value chain, and invested massively in new intra-company information and communicat.
Net impact implementation application development life-cycle management in ba...CSITiaesprime
Digital transformation in the banking sector creates a lot of demand for application development, either new development or application enhancement. Continuous demand for reimagining, revamping, and running applications reliably needs to be supported by collaboration tools. Several big banks in Indonesia use Atlassian products, including Jira, Confluence, Bamboo, Bitbucket, and Crowd, to support strategic company projects. We need to measure the net impact of application development life-cycle management (ADLM) as a collaboration tool. Using the deLone and McLean model, process questionnaire data from banks in Indonesia that use ADLM. Processing data using structural equation modeling (SEM), multiple variables are analyzed statistically to establish, estimate, and test the causation model. The conclusions highlight that system quality strongly affected only User Satisfaction (p=0.049 and β=0.39). Information quality strongly affected use (p=0.001 and β=0.84) and strongly affected user satisfaction (p=0.169 and β=0.28). Service quality strongly affected only use (p=0.127 and β=0.31). Conclusion research verifies the information system's achievement approach described by DeLone and McLean. Importantly, it was discovered that system usability and quality were key indicators of ADLM success. To fulfill their objective, ADLM must be developed in a way that is simple to use, adaptable, and functional.
Agile adoption challenges in insurance: a systematic literature and expert re...CSITiaesprime
The drawback of agile is struggled to function in large businesses like banks, insurance companies, and government agencies, which are frequently associated with cumbersome processes. Traditional software development techniques were cumbersome and pay more attention to standardization and industry, this leads to high costs and prolonged costs. The insurance company does not embrace change and agility may find themselves distracted and lose customers to agile competitors who are more relevant and customer-centric. Thus, to investigate the challenges and to recognize the prospect of agile adoption in insurance industry, a systematic literature review (SLR) in this study was organized and validated by expert review from professional with expertise in agile. The project performance domain from project management body of knowledge (PMBOK) was applied to align the challenges and the solution. Academicians and practitioners can acquire the perception and knowledge in having exceeded understanding about the challenge and solution of agile adoption from the results.
Cloud computing technology for egovernment architectureijfcstjournal
The evolution of
cloud computing
has had a significant
effect on our lives and it has brought many benefits.
Cloud computing is a style of computing which is formed from the aggregation and development of
technologies such as grid computing distributed computing, parallel computing and service
-
oriented
archit
ecture
and it
s exciting for governments and private companies, and it has eager them to take
advantage of this technology. Because in this model no needed to additional costs for equipment and
resources to respond to the request of customers, however in t
erms of demand and workload, company
lease and take possession of the required resources, such as servers and virtual sources. In this pa
per, we
studied how to use cloud computing in e
-
government and tried to identify the benefits of the cloud to use in
th
e e
-
government and offer proposals to overcome its shortcomings, encourage and partnership of
governments and people to use this economical
, green
and new technology.
MEASURING TECHNOLOGICAL, ORGANIZATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS INFLUENCING...csandit
The main objective of this research is to identify the factors influencing the intentions to adopt
the public computing by the private sector firms. In this research the researcher examined the
ten factors influencing the cloud computing adoption using a proposed integrated model which
incorporates aspects of the Technology, Organization and Environment factors such as
Complexity, Compatibility, Security Concerns, Trialability, Cost Saving, Top Management
Support, Prior IT Experience, Organizational Readiness, Competitive Pressure and External
Support. In order to test influencing factors a survey was conducted and one hundred and
twenty two valid responses were received from IT decision makers from forty firms in different
industries. The results revealed that the Compatibility, Cost Saving, Trialability and External
Support are the main influential factors in the adoption intentions of public cloud computing.
Future research could be built on this study by developing different model for each industry
because each industry has unique characteristics that can influence the adoption of the
technological innovations.
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AN APPROACH FOR A BUSINESS-DRIVEN CLOUDCOMPLIANCE ANALYSIS COVERING PUBLIC SECTOR PROCESS IMPROVEMENT REQUIREMENTS
1. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
DOI : 10.5121/ijmpict.2013.4301 1
AN APPROACH FOR A BUSINESS-DRIVEN CLOUD-
COMPLIANCE ANALYSIS COVERING PUBLIC SECTOR
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT REQUIREMENTS
Sachar Paulus1
and Ute Riemann2
1
Department of Economics, Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences, Brandenburg,
Germany
2
SAP Deutschland AG & Co KG, Walldorf, Germany
ABSTRACT
The need for process improvement is an important target that does affect as well the government processes.
Specifically in the public sector there are specific challenges to face .New technology approaches within
government processes such as cloud services are necessary to address these challenges. Following the
current discussion of „cloudification“of business processes all processes are considered similar in regards
to their usability within the cloud. The truth is, that neither all processes have the same usability for cloud
services not do they have the same importance for a specific company.
The most comprehensive process within a company is the corporate value chain. In this article one key
proposition is to use the corporate value chain as the fundamental structuring backbone for all business
process analysis and improvement activities. It is a pre-requisite to identify the core elements of the value
chain that are essential for the individual company’s business and the root cause for any company success.
In this paper we propose to use the company-specific value-creation for the “cloud-affinity” and the
“cloud-usability” of a business process in public sector considering the specific challenges of addressing
processes in cloud services. Therefor it is necessary to formalize the way the processes with its
interdependencies are documented in context of their company-specific value chain (as part of the various
deployment- and governance alternatives (e.g. security, compliance, quality, adaptability)). Moreover, it is
essential in the public sector to describe in detail the environmental / external restrictions of processes..
With the use of this proposed methodology it becomes relatively easy to identify cloud-suitable processes
within the public sector and thus optimize the public companies value generation tightly focused with the
use of this new technology.
KEYWORDS
Cloud Services, Business Processes, Value Chain, Compliance, Public Sector.
1. INTRODUCTION
Doing more with less. Delivering better service. Improving collaboration with other agencies. In a
nutshell, this is what public services drive today. There is also a constant pressure to do more
with less; driving productivity improvements in the public sector is a key success factor for
2. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
2
modern e-government. While there are severe challenges, technological developments, including
the use of cloud services provide opportunities for innovation that were not previously available.
Innovation in a public sector context can be defined as the creation and implementation of new
processes, products, services and methods of delivery which result in significant improvements in
the efficiency, effectiveness or quality of outcomes. Innovation is driven by a number of factors,
of short, medium and long term range. In the public service the driving imperative for
innovation is the need to respond effectively to new and changing government and community
expectations in an increasingly complex environment. The benefits of innovation are diverse. It
is widely recognized that innovation is crucial to enhanced economic performance, social welfare
and environmental sustainability. Innovations can also „improve organizational efficiency;
provide higher quality and more timely services to citizens; reduce business transaction costs; and
provide new methods of operation. Innovation can enable better performance and drive new
directions“[6] .
An innovative activity in the public sector in this sense can be considered in various ways. The
three most common ways are:
• Guiding-driven policies
The role the public sector is to provide target-driven advices to assist the decision making in
relation to public services
• Service-oriented policies to support the public services community efficientöy and effectively
• Innovative processes to improve productivity in public services with the overall target of cost
reduction
Having these challenges and major changes in mind the need of new processes, structures and
system support in public services become obvious. The modernization in regards to a people-
centric organization is right at the beginning to emerge. In addition the cost factor drives the
enhancement of operational efficiency even further. Recently, cloud computing has captured
significant attention in the public sector due to new system functionalities and a stustainable and
trustworthy operating model.
Certainly the use of cloud services are an option to consider – however the use of cloud services
shall be analysed in a comprehensive way making sure that any compliance issues are identified
in advance to proactively consider them. Such a comprehensive analysis regarding the security
requirements using cloud services need to cover various dimensions – this is not new. However,
most of the currently available analysis frameworks consider system-related, organizational and
competency dimensions, and consequently the security requirements are addressed with the
„classical“, available instruments (e.g. ISO 2700x) accompanied by the burning of a high
investment. This paper proposes to go a step further and to address context-independent cloud-
based business processes based on the assumption that all involved parties (especially the cloud
service provider) need to accept the fact to consider the maximal risk level and consequently to
investigate all potentially possible measures.
“The time frames in which the public sector is required to respond are tending to shorten to meet
government imperatives, and citizen and stakeholder demands” [6]. At the same time government
is looking for, and citizens are demanding, a more holistic or citizen-focused approach to service
delivery.
3. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
3
There are commonalities, differences and synergies between private and public sector innovation.
„Some aspects of public sector innovation are comparable with, indeed might be almost identical
to, aspects of private sector innovation (examples include business process improvements and
many aspects of information and communication technologies)“ [6]. However, there are other
aspects of public sector innovation, particularly those associated with policy innovation, for
which governments must bear responsibilities that greatly outweigh those borne by the private
sector (examples are national security, counterterrorism and pandemic preparedness).
There is a tremendeous pressure on public services to further improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of their processes. With the new orientation towards a user-centric service model it
is part of their overall strategy and key target[6]. Besides the industry and the specific value chain
the cost of compliance leads to the conclusion that the analysis of cloud compliance need to start
at the stage of process definition. There are various papers available to analyse the cloud-related
value chain. However, these papers consider adjusting the organization towards the cloud-
specifics. In other words: the technology of cloud is the key driver to define the corporate value
chain.
This paper considers all relevant security criteria alongside the process lifecycle and formulates
the process-security management requirements derived from each singe lifecycle phase. We
outline the benefit of this approach to formulate, address and meet the relevant security-
requirements in an efficient way. In addition, this approach meets the requirements of the Plan-
Do-Check-Act-methodology and is fully integrated in a business-motivated evaluation of cloud-
affine business processes based considering the corporate value chain. More specifically, we
propose to concentrate the effort on the evaluation and choice of cloud-ready business processes
(or business process elements), since the „affinity“ of business processes for the cloud can be
derived from the strategic importance for the value / efficiency creation of the organization and
the operational (and compliance) risks that the business process is carrying. A technical basis for
this approach is to formalize End-to-End processes of organizations, together with non-functional
properties and their impact in different deployment models and governance alternatives. This
approach allows to provably choosing those business processes that are specifically suited for
cloud usage; the investment into this early compliance activity easily pay back through the
avoidance of the implementation of too risky or not enough value-creating business processes in
the cloud.
The paper will demonstrate this in the light of public sector business improvement. Cost-cutting,
citizen and service quality-orientation, electronic government, and other reform concepts have
called for business process improvements of public sector processes . Processes covering
eGovernment-related topics have specific challenges to process innovation but as well to
accomplish process compliance. The industry of public sector / public sectors organizations in
health care, education and social services requires a special understanding on the processes and
data that are processed.
We propose
• keeping the corporate value chain as the basis for the appliance of cloud services to get the right
selection and added value from the use of cloud. Only if the uniqueness of a corporate value
4. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
4
chain is supported by cloud and not changed due to cloud technology the value-add of cloud is
given.
• questioning the use of cloud is not an IT question but a joint business and IT question that shall
be answered jointly based on a comprehensive assessment result.
• asking and answering the cloud compliance questions not in or after the cloud services have
been implemented to run the processes but during the phase of process definition and process
identification. The later the relevant questions are answered and appropriate decisions have been
made the more impact has the management of any process compliance.
The benefit of the proposed methodology will be demonstrated using examples from the public
sector processes. With this approach we believe that the use of cloud services can support each
company "uniquely qualification in their markets". We will demonstrate the use and value of our
approach with a concrete example of a value chain and on detailed level based on purchasing
processes.
2. IDENTIFICATION OF A COMPANY-SPECIFIC VALUE CHAIN
In the analysis of the generic value chain in public sector it becomes obvious that thos processes
are the key value driving processes that are essential to deliver the required services to the users –
in other words: thos processes are key, that have a visible interface to the outside. . The case is
that those processes are of special relevance that to deliver a significant portion of the companies
value, that are focused on the fulfilment of the customers’ needs and consequently create a
perceivable customer benefit. The specification of a company’s value chain is different for each
industry, business model, organization and strategic goals.
Nevertheless the core and supporting processes and the resulting End-to-End processes and
overall value chains have shown process standards and process patterns that are almost industry-
independent.
A process is a chain of activities tailored to the provisioning of dedicated services. A process is
characterized by a services input, service output, a cycle time, handling time and the use of
resources ([3] p. 6). The process is an element of a process landscape to gain transparency of the
cost driver and the interfaces to other processes.
The starting point to identify the performance indicators are key to a particular company should
be the value chain of each company. To assess continuous business process improvement from a
process point of view it is necessary to identify the company-specific value-chain. In 1985
Michael Porter described the ways in which a company could organize its activities in order to
achieve competitive advantage by making it hard for others to copy [5]. The example of a typical
value chain given by Porter included allexternal-facing processes, and in addition their supporting
ones. He suggested that „once the value chain had been identified, costs could be assigned to the
activities to be able to achieve a cost advantage by reducing the cost of individual value chain
activities, or by re-configuring the value chain.“[8]. Based on the corporate strategy, the market
development as well as the evolving customer preferences we need to give those business
processes prominence that are essential for the delivery of goods and services to the customers
and/or stakeholders.
5. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
5
The additional step towards the building of a value chain that goes beyond the classical concept
of Porter is to segment the value chain in regards to a value-based value chain driven by process
value that will be added to the core business of each company and thus strongly linked to the
P&L positions. The cost positions and their proportions within selected companies / segments
will help to set the right focus and do give an indicator of the importance and value of the area for
the business and thus for the significance of the process and its KPIs. Why bother on this value-
based segmentation? As said above, it provides the focused context for all work on an efficient
and focused value chain management. But most importantly the highest value add is to provide
clear definitions, boundaries and dependencies on the most important processes of a company. In
a one-step approach the scope is tailored to a manageable but as well most important scope at the
same time to let every discussion and activity relate to the core values of a company.
Figure 1: Value drivers to identify the corporate value chain
We will only consider the core processes alongside the value chain on a more detailed level as
cloud usability has these processes and the potential change of its deployment is of significant
impact and importance. These processes are unique in their design and their value performance.
They formulate the unique selling proposition of each company and immediate effect on the
operating results and the business excellence.
Especially those processes that do cover more than one business area are important as they are a
typical candidate for optimization and thus to simplify integration with the use of cloud services.
To allow a comprehensive company-wide process-analysis we need to consider the supporting
processes („Enablers“) to a certain extend – however we will not consider them in detail in our
paper. Exemplarily we will use the purchasing processes to describe our approach in a practical
example.
6. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
6
3. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR
The most crucial process in public sectors includes administrative processes, customer service
and HR and payroll.
Figure 2: Key Processes in public sector
For the public sector it is the same as for all other industries: Inputs are the triggers for a process;
they may be tangible (e.g. a letter from a customer) or intangible (e.g. a need to develop a new
service). The output in public sector is mainly taken by the service a person provides it. In other
words: the outputs are mainly intangible and closely related to the process performance as well as
to the limitations given e.g. by legal constraints. The constraints as well as the perceived level of
service needs are the boundaries to be considered when it comes to process optimization as theses
constraints need to be considered within the continuous improvement and consistently monitored
to be included in the process models.
For this paper we will focus on the generic record to document process that can be applied across
the overall public sector. The need to retain records for quality assurance and accountability
purposes demands that generic processes be put in place for electronic document and records
management. These processes must essentially capture, classify, store, retrieve and use
information in collaborative framework (such as case files) followed by their archival and
disposal.
The herewith proposed enhancement regarding the usability of cloud services relating to the
continuity, the consistency and the governance of business processes while using cloud services.
Answering such questions is an important lever for the identification of the inherent costs,
potentials and risks and serves as an element to support the decision whether and how to use
cloud services for dedicated processes, for the identification of the most appropriate processes
and the required establishment of process governance. They should cover topics such as:
• Difficulty in handling increased program and budget demands with scarce resources,
• Department of taxation faces declining revenue streams,
• Agency leadership face concerns over accountability,
• Administrations have too much paperwork and documentation or
• Infrastructure managers have reduced ability to maintain assets and facilities.
7. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
7
The – sometimes expensive- services provided by the public sector are provided with the help of
and operational framework consisting of processes and systems in the light of the legal
constraints.[7]
While taking advantage of the cloud services we may be able to get support from the generic
cloud effects – however we have to consider the costly development of the services and its
changes to manage issues and requirements. These issues are not confined to the public sector:
the IT systems are necessary to control, administer and enhance the business processes,
constrained by regulation – independent from their technical realization. “Thus process
compliance is a major topic for business processes in this environment.. Failure to comply is no
option at all – this is an even higher restriction as within other businesses”[10].
Therefore we need to have a stable framework to dynamically capture all requirements while
allowing the improvement of processes.
4. PROCESS IDENTIFICATION TO PROTECT THE VALUE CHAIN
The process identification activity answers the question which business processes of a corporate
unit are essential to fulfil the customers and/or other stakeholders’ needs based on the business
model, the market and the corporate strategy of a company.
The expected optimization with the shift of business processes into the cloud will only bring a
positive impact once the profit-relation of the respective („What is the operational effect of the
process?“) the cost intensity and the fraud indication („What may happen when the process is
shifted to the cloud”) is evaluated.
End-to end processes for multi-industry value chains such as public sector needs to combining
horizontal and industry specific solutions:
• Collaborate better to enhance interagency information and resource sharing
• Adapt better for increased transparency and shifting resource needs
• Decide better by monitoring performance for informed actions for mission success
• Operate better to improve fiscal conditions through a holistic government view
Prior to the use of cloud services and the correlation to the corporate value chain it is important to
define meaningful and measurable indicators to allow a careful examination. These indicators
need to be as industry-independent as possible to allow on one hand side an application to mostly
any industry, market- and competitive situation but on the other hand side need to be as specific
as necessary to allow a process appraisal in regards to their cloud service usability.
Following we will consider the following areas of indicators:
1. Result relevance: The importance of a process within the value chain of a company and its
value for the operating results in its current status.
2. Cost relevance: It is necessary to check how cost intensive the current process is and which
implications will change due to a „cloudification“.
8. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
8
3. Security relevance: The dimension covers he assumption of possible frauds due to the use of
the process. The indicator can be expressed e.g. in „number of interfaces to 3rd party
systems“ or „indication in regards to sensitive data“. This will give an indication in regards to
the potential use of cloud services
Overall, it is necessary to consider End-to-End processes that do cover the whole company (e.g.
from customer order to the delivery of goods and/or services). The analysis of sub-processes does
not allow identifying fundamental process optimization potentials and process risks. Especially in
functional-structured organizations this might lead to misleading assumptions and results,
because one single process covers only one single organizational unit with no indication how the
overall process works. To get a profound analysis and a sustainable business case it is essential to
have an end-to-end focus to analyse the change of the overall process landscape and the corporate
risk of a company from a process perspective.
5. COMPLIANCE ANALYSIS
We propose that the costs of compliance are related to process but as well to the fact that public
sectors have to face different challenges. The challenges in compliance in public sector can be
differentiated in three categories (see SAP Thought Leadership, p 5ff):
• Fragmented organization: The disconnection of the organizational units might hinder to
implement harmonized, seamlessly linked and/or aligned policies to have the same
understanding of risk measurement and the support of regulatory mandates.. Organizational
fragmentation is typical within the public sector e confines of its own enterprise and across the
extended enterprise.
• Fragemented systems: The information about governing principles and policies, risk
measurement, and compliance are still supported in isolated IT systems with no link to each
other Local process optimization and implementation of point solutions can further isolate
information within systems, resulting in a lack of information integrity and a limited view of
enterprise risk.
• Fragmentation due to the local tax regulations: Policies and risks are generally defined and
measured at the local level, without proper consideration of their impact on the global,
multinational, national, or regional mandates with which an agency must also comply.
In a nutshell: the most significant cloud computing opportunities for the public sector may arise at
the multi-agency or all-of-government levels. Around the world, public sector information
management is clearly dominated by a “silo” model that sees most government organizations
operating largely stand-alone information systems.
If we comprise the thoughts we need to analyse the following topics within the public sector in
regards to the use of cloud services:
• How do we run centralized IT services to support multiple departments and agencies?
• How can we better manage IT resources to respond rapidly to business needs?
• How do we control costs through predictable resource allocation?
9. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2013
9
• How can we provide more consistent and measurable service levels?
• How can we take advantage of outsourcing to reduce expenses?
• How can we reduce server sprawl and increase our efficiency and utilization?
6. PROCESS IDENTIFICATION AND LINK TO BENEFIT FROM THE FEATURES OF
CLOUD SERVICES
For the identification of the specific value chain we need to first outline the difference of private
and public sector and then focus on End-to-End processes. The public sector consists currently of
fragmented organizational structures operated by the government. The public sector value chain
covers
• Human Capital Management
• Procurement for Public Sector
• Public Sector Accounting
• Social Services and Social Security
• Grants Management
• Tax and Revenue Management
• Organization Management & Support
It needs to be considered that it is not sufficient to analyse the process within the corporate
boundaries but to identify the fraud indicators within the company and outside the company to
understand the issues that needs to be captured due to the link of processes in the companies
outside environment.
6.1. Identification of fraud indicators
The focus is on the process related fraud indicators within the public sector. The identification of
the process-related fraud indicators shall be therefore driven from the process-typology of the tax
and revenue process. As an example the process optimization levers shall be taken to identify the
fraud indicators that need to be leveraged. After having identified the fraud indicators the
probability of the process step and the fraud level need to be estimated to rate the risk that is
available for the corporation. These values (together with the fraud indicators) outline the risk of
applying cloud services for a dedicated process within a public service institution.
7. EXAMPLE TO APPLY THE CONCEPT AND APPROACH
Following we will outline how the approach and framework is applied to a dedicated process and
what the benefits are. Due to complexity reasons we pick up one typical process within the public
sector: procurement.
To get the most out of the purchasing functions, the public sector need to gain a consolidated
view of the purchasing spent, get efficient purchasing processes and set up a streamlined
purchasing organization.
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Purchasing is an important lever for the public sector innovation because the spending is quite
large and the impact – especially in regards to process efficiency – is quite substantial. The
benefits can be summarized as:
• better use of available budget and potential to reduce tax
• increase of transparency – especially of what has been spend
• compliance issues with regulations (e.g. higher degree of assurance that all purchasing across
the organization is aligned with the tender regulations)
Even though the realization of innovations is simpler in the purchasing area compared to other
areas within the public sector there are specific compliance issues to face. The security concerns
can be summarized is:
• Compliance requirements to rely on the agreed procedures of purchasing
• Control of budget (across multiple layers of authority)
• Political objectives need to be considered when streamlining any process, procedure and
procurement laws. These regulation frameworks are binding even though they are a constrain
for the ability of the public sector to move into a more innovative way of purchasing
Therefore it is essential within the public sector to establish binding rules for all stakeholder
participation using the cloud services e.g. formal channels for customers or agencies participating
in any purchasing process. All participants in a cloud-service-based network need provide
transparency and stick to a defendable process – no matter with which software this process is
enabled.
8. APPLICATION OF THE APPROACH
The main master data are the tax payer data, tax, additional tax information and current tax
situation. For processing the current challenge is that a lot of system interfaces / system breaks up
to manual processing are in place. For the future the flexibility of various information channels
are a must as well as one view towards the tax payer.
Tax and revenue departments must also address ever changing regulatory and tax law changes,
and educate taxpayers about the impact of these changes. By creating automated workflows, any
new system will enable the users to respond to taxpayer inquiries quickly and knowledgeably
based on current information. Tax authorities gain greater visibility across revenue collecting
activities and are better able to combat fraud and meet compliance mandates. Armed with
complete information, civic leaders can estimate the impact of new taxes and fees and analyse the
efficacy of new legislation as well as simplify debt disbursement management. By connecting
fundamental business processes, tax authorities are able to provide accurate and clear
representations of audit selection data and instigate predictive analytics to automatically identify
taxpayer payment and filing irregularities. Integrating advanced data analytics can improve audit
selection results and maximize revenue recovery efforts as well.
Here is an example how the security/compliance relevance could be quantified. We have
explicitly chosen an example with a normalized value for the potential risk indicators. Whereas 1
indicates a very low level of damage/probability, 5 represents the maximal value of a very high
level of damage/probability. The indicators we have chosen are very simple ones, yet they can
11. International Journal of Managing Public Sector Information and Communication Technologies (IJMPICT)
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easily be understood. E.g. „Interfaces“ is an indicator of how probable a hacker attack might be,
whereas „roles“ indicates low likely internal fraud through access misconfiguration may be.
Table 1. Simplified risk indicators for the Order-to-Cash End-to-End process.
Process Step
Indicator
Speci-fication Selection Negotiation Order Fulfillment Payment
Interfaces 1 5 5 3 2 4
Business
relevance
1 1 1 4 5 3
Compliance
requirements
2 4 5 1 3 2
Roles 1 2 2 3 2 2
Asset valuation 1 2 2 2 4 5
Depending on the business model, the process, although the process steps are identical, might
need us to adjust the indicators (or the weighting of their use, an option we will not discuss
further in this paper) to reflect the impact of the business model choice (e.g. Push or Pull in
Supply).
8.1. Security indicators and threats
The next step is to identify those processes and process steps that are subject to impact by the use
of cloud services. This will address the security and compliance related indicators adequately. We
propose to introduce a decision tree as a process reference. Such a decision tree allows us to
identify those pieces of information that of major relevance in view of security and compliance
requirements by breaking down the business process into sub-aspects that are specific for security
and compliance, in the example in figure 3 given below called „GRC“ (that stands for
Governance, Risk and Compliance).
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Figure 3: Decision tree for GRC activities
If we now apply this tool to the Order-to-Cash process, the security indicators are identified by
comparing the conditions for information processing of the „classical“ in-house service delivery
and a cloud-based service delivery. To be able to do this, e.g. SAP-transactions used in-house
must be mapped against corresponding cloud-based services that promise to fulfil the same
process step. In table 2, we give an example for such a mapping, with corresponding attributes
and resulting risks, for one transaction / cloud service.
Table 2. Risk indicators in comparison for in-house and cloud-based delivery - an example.
SAP transaction
ME21N
(create order)
Corresponding cloud
service
Resulting risk of moving
to the cloud
Interfaces 2 5 SIGNIFICANTLY
HIGHER
Business relevance 3 3 NO ADDITIONAL
RISK
Compliance requirements 3 3 NO ADDITIONAL
RISK
Roles 4 3 LOWER
Asset valuation 2 2 NO ADDITIONAL
RISK
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9. CONCLUSIONS
We have shown in this paper how to choose Public Sector business process elements that are
suitable to be transferred to the cloud. To achieve this, we have elaborated a value-chain driven
approach to attribute specific process elements with benefits and risks. It is especially important
to look at the end-to-end process chains to capture the full value proposition, even if they cross
organizational borders - something that is typical for Public Sector processes. For the individual
valuation of the process steps we have given examples, further work is needed to fully understand
which aspects are invariant and which aspects need to be investigated in a real organizational
context.
REFERENCES
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Prozesskostenmanagement, 2. Aufl., München, 1998, S. 3 – 28
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[5] Michael Porter: Competitive Advantage, Free Press, New York 1985
[6] Commonwealth of Australia (2009), Innovation in Public Services. Enabling Better Performance,
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[7] Governatori, Dr Guido (2008): Business Process Compliance, Queensland Research Laboratory,
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Authors
Sachar Paulus is Professor for Information Systems and Security Management at Brandenburg
University of Applied Sciences since 2009. Prior to this, he was active in the IT and Security
industry, and among others, Chief Security Officer of SAP. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics.
Ute Riemann is Principal Business Consultant with a focus on value-chain orientation at SAP
since 2012. Prior to this, she was active in numerous positions related to process architecture. She
has an MBA and diplomas in Computer Science and Business Administration.