GLOBAL IT

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IS596IT in Emerging Countries

• Olayele Adelakun (Ph.D)
• Assistant Professor CTI
•  
• Office Room 735 CTI 7th Floor
• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Email yele_at_cs.depaul.edu
• Web http//facweb.cs.depaul.edu/yele

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Agenda

• Expectation?
• Course Overview
• Areas of Interest
• Lecture Notes

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Expectations?

• Reasons to study IT in Emerging Country
• What would you like to get out of this course.

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Agenda

• Expectations?
• Course Overview
• Areas of Interest
• Lecture Notes

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Course Overview

• Objective
• Topics
• Course Materials
• Assignments

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Objectives

• A better understanding of the IT challenges
  facing organizations in emerging countries
• A better understanding of issues involved in
  building a success global software team.
• Students will have a practical exposure to the
  reality of information technology (IT) in an
  emerging/-developing country (Brazil).
• A visit to Rio

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Topics

• Information Technology Impact on Transnational
  Firms
• Global Software Teams
• Crossing Borders
• Assessment of Global Software Teams
• Problems of Global Software Teams
• Solutions to the Global Software Teams Problems
• Telecommunications Infrastructure
• Development Methodology
• Architecture and Task Allocation
• Building the Dispersed Team through Trust,
  Communication, and Personal Bridges
• Specialized Management Techniques
• Offshore IT Outsourcing

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Course Materials

• Case studies
• HBS Cases
• Submarino.com The Challenges of B2C Commerce in
  Latin America. Case 801-350
• PSA The worlds Port of Call. Case 802-003
• Other supporting documents
• Readiness for the Networked World A guide for
  Developing Countries by Center for International
  Development at Harvard University.

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Grading
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Group Assignment

• About 3-5 Students per group
• Analyze one category of the readiness guide.
• No single category may be selected by two groups
• Deliverables include
• Group contribution to the class web site
• Presentation of readiness for ICT (only one
  category per group)

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Question
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Agenda

• Expectations?
• Course Overview
• Areas of Interest
• Lecture Notes

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Reference Discipline

• Political Science
• Economics
• Law
• Management
• International business
• Human computer Interface
• Cross cultural studies
• Law
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Telecommunications
• Computer Science

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Globalization

• A definition
• As increased permeability of traditional
  boundaries such as nations, time and space
  (Parker, 1998)

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GLOBAL IT ISSUES

• Issues of Interest
• To what extent does the growing power of
  information technology enable globalization?
• To what extent does increased globalization
  create demand and markets for ever more refined
  information technology?
• Do the new technologies enable firms to consider
  new markets and new activities?
• Do the desires of firms for international
  activities create demand for new technologies?
• Are uses for information technology in a global
  setting merely the logical extension of domestic
  information technologies?
• Does operating internationally create new areas
  of decision making such as the structure for
  direct foreign investment
• (Iyer, 1988)?

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IT in Emerging Countries

• Area of Interest
• National or Country level
• Multinational firms (IT vendors and non-IT
  vendors)
• Local vs. global issues
• Groups and teams
• Individual

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IT Issues in Emerging Countries

• Global IS Issues
• At the National level
• Social and cultural issues at the country level
• Economics
• Technology sophistication at the country level
• IT policy and legal issues

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IT Issues in Emerging Countries

• Global IS Issues
• At the organizational level
• Issues involving matching global IS strategy with
  global business strategy
• Issues on the technical platform for Global IS
  applications
• Issues involved in International data sharing
• Issues of global IS projects

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IT Issues in Emerging Countries

• Global IS Issues
• At the group level level
• Global software teams co-ordination
• Global project management
• Distance and time differences
• Cultural issues

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IT Issues in Emerging Countries

• Complexity in Understanding Global IS
• Global IS is an extremely broad topic.
• There are numerous potential stakeholders.
• Global IS can be addressed from the perspectives
  of
• (1) national governments,
• (2) economic regions (e.g. EU),
• (3) multinational and domestic firms,
• (4) firms building vs. using IS technology,
• (5) IS (or other) departments within firms,
• (6) labor markets within countries, and
• (7) consumers.
• (8) different business processes across boarders

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IT Issues in Emerging Countries

• Based on detailed interviews with IS executives
  charged with managing international IS, Ives and
  Jarvenpaa (1991) outline four aspects of global
  IS
• Matching global IS strategy to global business
  strategy
• Issues involving the technical platform for
  global IS applications
• Issues involved in international sharing of data
  and
• Issues of IS projects spanning cultures.

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IT Issues in Emerging Countries

• Other ways to study IT in Emerging Countries
• The impact of information on people of different
  cultures
• The differences in information sought and used by
  people of different cultures (and the strategies
  and approaches to decision making and other task
  performance by people of different cultures) and
  
• The mechanisms for developing information systems
  to be developed and/or used by people of
  different cultures.
• For example to what extent do design
  methodologies used in France, Germany, Japan, or
  India account for specific cultural values,
• Can lessons learned in these countries enrich
  design methodologies used in Canada or the U.S.?
• Diffusion of IS in developing countries

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Agenda

• Expectations?
• Course Overview
• Areas of Interest
• Lecture Notes

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Forces Driving IT in Emerging Countries
• Demand for new global consumer
• New global business customer
• Global outsourcing
• Global product RD
• Internal development
• Individual development

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Transnational Corporations
• The traditional organizational form is changing
  to one that is both integrated and more similar
  to a network organizational structure. This new
  form is labeled transnational corporation.
• Globally efficient
• Strong locally
• Big and small at the same time
• IT is central to the success of its operations
• IT is part of the corporate strategy

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Global demand
• The global customer
• Demand for global services and products (hotel,
  airline, etc.)
• Global sourcing and integration of the supply
  chain
• Products are being assembled from multiple
  sources and information systems are used to
  coordinate the logistics
• Global product RD and shorter product cycle
• Global design (e.g. ford CAD)
• Harmonization and standardization of report
  requirements
• Account
• Global strategy
• Economy of Scale

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Implication of Globalization on IS department
• IS department need to be global as well
• Integrated Network in which global systems
  maintenance and development efforts are
  increasingly shared across boarders
• This means that responsibilities are shared
  globally.

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Implication of Globalization for the IS function
• The Integrated Network IS Organization
• Development of global applications that support
  global processes rather than local or regional
  processes.
• A shift away from geographical or national
  boundaries
• Decentralized
• IS unit operates independently

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Globalization and Information Systems
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Globalization and Information Systems

• Characteristics of Integrated Networks
• Common global architecture
• Powerful telecommunication backbone
• Uniform global systems with flexible modules
  tailored to address systems worldwide
• A culture of shared management
• A culture of shared application building
• A culture of shared innovation

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Characteristics of Integrated Networks
• Global IT strategy driven by senior executives
• Financial, operations support
• Standardization
• Architecture, telecom, application, hardware,
  development process, quality standards etc.
• To ease communication between units and partners
• Ease of data transfer
• Ease of application reuse

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Center for Global Applications
• Is a development center that unifies all
  development work for one or more global
  application systems
• The center are responsible multiple releases of
  the global applications
• The center own the global system
• End-to-end responsibility from requirement and
  enhancement requests through pilot testing and
  global roll-out.

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Globalization and Information Systems

• Center for Global Applications
• CGA Problems
• Conflict with local or country manager
• Business case must be convincing
• Flexibility
• Budgets source
• Creation of a liaison role with the local
  operation
• 360 view.

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Globalization and Information Systems
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Agenda

• Expectations?
• Course Overview
• Areas of Interest
• Lecture Notes