Information System Policy

Needs About Information Systems

• Adequation to the organization.
  The information system must be adapted to the organization of the firm: hierarchy, responsibility level, organizational processes and topology.
  
• Adequation to the business.
  The information system must be adapted to the business of the firm: activities, specificities and functional processes.
  
• Operating costs.
  Costs coming from the set-up of the system, as the deployment, the management of the change including education and maintaining.
  
• Costs to set-up.
  Costs to the set-up of the system from the availability of the specifications. We consider these costs as an investment.
  
• Delays to set-up.
  Delays between the availability of the specifications and the set-up of the system.
  
• Integrating to what is existing.
  Integrating of the production of the project into the existing information system. It exists a technical and a functional integration - consolidation of services and data exchanges, at the level of the end-user desktop, etc.
  
• Customization.
  Need of customization for the firm to take into account particular profiles, usage or culture.
  
• Operating flexibility.
  Need to operate the system in a different way of the one of its set-up to ease and to minimize the operating burden.
  
• Usage for the employee.
  Need of ergonomics and respect of habits of the user to ease and to minimize his work burden.
  

Here are the criteria to select an information system according the business lines:

An information system is above all a working tool for operational employees - 33%.

Since the willing of information system planning is often present, the capacity to integrate it fully into the environment - other information systems, end-user desktop, operating - is the second macro-criterion - 29% -, which is logical.

The third criterion, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), is used to evaluate if the investment is attractive by computing a return on investment - 26%. It is usually in fact the payback!

Externalization

There are however numerous large industrial companies that look like integrators due to their out-sourcing policy. Their business is thus the master of the know how and of the information.

The business line of IT services companies is very concentrated: the two first would have as much weight as all the other actors without the twenty first ones! With a same offer at the same cost, the firms choose the brands that make feel secure. Few of them are however using truly offshore services.

IT Equipment

Vertical software

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Hardware and Technical Software

There are now three families of languages to develop an information system: the Fourth Generation Languages (4GL) - 43% -, Java - 26% - and the traditional C / C++ reserved to specialists - 23%.

The entering of the free software - Linux, MySql, Apache, Php, etc. - stays weak and is almost limited to side applications as Intranet / Internet servers. This can be explained by the lack of confidence for free software that belongs to anyone but also to nobody.

Project Management

Process of the Project Management

• Methodology - Incrementing through batches.
  Instead of choosing a marathon project, we cut it in several human-sized batches, what allows reframing the perimeter through a loop back.
  
• Methodology - Traditional.
  After two formal specification stages - a functional one and a technical one -, there is a sole stage to realize it while the Work Prime Organizer (WPO) is blind until the delivery.
  
• Set-up - Switching.
  Stopping of the old system, unloading of data, loading them into the new system and starting up the one.
  
• Set-up - Parallel running.
  Operating the old and the new systems in parallel. The use of the old one is decreasing while the use of the new one is increasing on the time window.
  
• Set-up - Incremental.
  Same principle to the parallel running one except that the progressing axis of the incremental one is the data volume while the progressing axis of this is related to functions or to topology of sites.
  
• Use of a prototype.
  A prototype of the application - graphical user interfaces and reporting - is shown to the users to have an open-minded criticism.
  

Project Indicators

• The perfect duration of the project spreads from 6 months to 18 months.
  The project is sliced at worst. The reason is coming from the lack of visibility of the environment that could introduce a change in the needs. On another hand, the small projects are much more mastered.
  
• The payback must be less than one year.
  It was strongly upper in the past.
  
• The global budget of the IT department is proportional to the turnover.
  20% to 25% of this budget is dedicated to new projects on average.
  

Analysis of the Causes of Failure

Failure of Suppliers

One supplier of six would be judged more over not serious enough according to the actors.

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Failure of Projects

• The project is imposed to the Work Prime Organizer (WPO) - 45%.
  Either by the Board, which can introduce an issue to the change management - 14% -, or by the Work Prime Contractor (WPC) who decides instead of its place, which results by a bad functional adequation - 31%.
  
• Too optimistic about the economical reality - 21%.
  About the delays - 9% - and about the return on investment - 12%.
  
• Too optimistic about the capacities of the actors - 15%.
  About the competencies - 4% -, the project management - 6% -, the design - 6%.
  
• A technical reason - 13%.
  While integrating - 2% -, about the reliability - 7% - and the performance - 5%.