Introduction

This essay is about challenges that are being faced by public sector organizations while implementing information systems. In the end of essay, recommendations have also been given which can be used by public sector organizations for effectively implementing information systems. During the development of competitive global market, the organizations have to face pressures for making their operational and strategic processes more efficient and effective. Organizations particularly public organizations can use information system in order to increase their competitiveness. Information system involves group of elements through which organizations can get better information and can use this information for the purpose of decision making. So, different companies have selected to implement this group of elements in to their operations (Davies, 2009). Most of the companies have taken the decision of implementing information system for improving the effectiveness of business. There is a significant role of information systems in the administration of business. In e-business operations, integration within enterprise and strategic success of business can easily be done through information system (Hevner et al, 2004). In addition to this, information system is one of the significant functions of management which is needed for key decision making. This has a direct impact on performance of organization (Murthy, 2006).

Main Body

The information technology has a significant effect on companies from the last thirty years. They serve as a source of giving competitive advantage, so taken as an important factor in strategy of organization. With the help of information systems, the transaction costs have been reduced and organizations have become capable of developing closer links with their clients. Information systems help in creating new opportunities for companies. In the current generation of information systems in public sector, there is a need of delivering electronic services to the clients and also within the public companies for making more of transactions with government from electronic channels like Internet (Lucey, 2005). Within public organizations, management focus on implementing new IT concepts for making the capabilities of organizations advanced like ‘New Electronic Customer Focused Government’ and ‘Virtual Public Companies’ etc (Gargeya & Brady, 2005).

Despite the growth of computer based systems in public sector, the public organizations have to face a significant issue of implementing these systems. There is still underutilization of different Information Systems in public sector organizations and they are not completely utilized in order to generate productivity. The design, planning, growth as well as implementation of information systems in public sector are done in a challenging way. The public sector organizations have to face the burden of unchanging rules of procurement, hiring, rewards and the employees have to work in an un-flexible environment. Although, there is lesser pressure of competitors in market, but they have to face political pressure. Due to these factors, the implementation of information systems becomes so difficult and challenging for public sector organizations. The organizations have to implement information systems effectively for harnessing the abilities of specific information system and to integrate them with strategy of company. Through continuous improvement of information system implementation, the organization can improve its efficiency and effectiveness (Kroenke, 2007).

Challenges

• Implementation of Information Systems

On public sector organizations there are continuous internal and external pressures which affect the need for changes within the infrastructure of information systems. So, the company should take the challenge for implementation of new information systems or accepting whatever the results which may make the development of information system limited. There is a need of continuous growth of business sector for the survival of companies. Public Sector Company should adapt to changes in industry and must diversify for meeting the changing demands of customers. This depicts that there would also be change in needs of information systems and they have to use the power of technology for meeting the needs of firm (Senn, 1990). Due to the development of information systems, the organizations always hope for consistent implementation of information systems and it is also expected by citizens that government services will not interrupt in it. However, there are some factors due to which the public sector firms have to face challenges during implementation of information systems (Maguire, 2002).

During implementation of information systems one of the key challenges faced by companies are human issues relevant to interpersonal capabilities of persons. These are linked with the project and this issue arises at the planning stage. Zhou & Yao (2009) recommended that processes of an organization are highly affected by human issues. The companies have to pay high attention on human problems while implementing information systems. In only some companies’ management has experience of running such a difficult project as implementation of information system is to be done on large scale. Many public sector firms hire external contractors for managing the process of implementation. There is a need of some senior executives’ involvement during implementation of information systems to ensure that business and information technology have been effectively integrated (Kumar, 2007).

Brouwer (2008) found that poor skills of users are also a major challenge faced during implementation of information system. META Group (2004) did a research and found that almost 75% of companies have identified that lack of awareness of users is a challenging factor for organizations. In addition to this, it has also been found that 66% of companies have lack of awareness of executives. So, this also has a similar effect. It has been stated by Lebedev (2010) that when users have lack of necessary skills and expertise, then this is considered to be a major challenge for management to implement information system. Turbit (2005) found that when public sector organizations implement advanced information technology then there is also a need of upgrading the skills of employees who have to use that technology.

did a study and found that the main challenge faced by companies while implementing information system is resistance to change. He explained that resistance is because of reluctances showed by users to learn advanced techniques. There is a significant role of employees as Waema (2009) suggested that employees’ skills are very important to implement information system in an effective way. Most of the projects of information system fail because of increasing issues of high costs and wrong use of information system. The public sector organizations do not have that much investment for implementing high cost information system. Even through more effort the implementation of information system can be made effective. The employees working in public sector firms usually have not that skills and expertise, so they show resistance to adapting advanced technology. In addition to this, huge cost is also required. So, public sector firms have to face various challenges while implementing evaluation systems (Kyalo, 2007).

• Evaluation of Information System

Most of the organizations a large amount of investment is spent on information technology (Seddon, 2001). After implementation of information system, it is also significant for companies to evaluate the results. Evaluation is not a simple task and there are different ways of evaluating information systems. Public sector organizations feel much difficulty in evaluating the information systems implemented by them. In most of the researches, the evaluation system is mostly taken as a quantitative process which helps in measuring the cost/benefit of implemented information systems. There is an interpretative approach which considers information systems as social systems in which information technology is embedded (Lebedev, 2010).

The need of evaluating the functionality of information systems has evolved from the significance of information technology for improving the effectiveness of activities in an organization. The public sector organizations face challenge of evaluation of information systems. They do not become successful in evaluating the information system being implemented within organization. The main goal of evaluation of information system is to upgrade and particularly improve the quality of maintenance. The evaluation process of information system shows the process to assess that to what extent information system has achieved its objectives. The procedure of evaluation involves synthesizing and identifying collected personal scores with the aim to form usual opinion regarding functionality of evaluated information system (Kumar, 2007).

It has been shown by research that the value brought by information systems is not straightforward. The need for doing investment in technology is mainly because of need for change within an organization. There is a need of significant time for evaluation of information systems. The expected advantages are usually not always so clear. While some of the advantages may easily be evaluated which the cause-effect relationship linked to innovative systems to be determined. There are many advantages which are indirect as well as intangible, so difficult to evaluate.

It is suggested by some of the major outcomes that all solutions are not fitted in one-size for the purpose of evaluation in public sector organizations. If public sector organizations copy the process of evaluation done by other firms then it will not give satisfactory results. It is ineffective to focus completely on one aspect like finance. The historical trend is to concentrate on different kinds of data for presenting an evaluation of new information system, specifically quantitative measurements. This usually results in situations in which public sector firms successfully implements information systems but the systems remain underutilized. So, it is very important to evaluate information systems effectively in order to bring further changes in systems if required (Lucey, 2005).

Recommendations

In this competitive business world, it has become very important for public sector organizations to focus much on information systems. The information systems must be implemented in an effective way in order to reduce any type of risks associated with it. The public sector organizations should keep specific financial budget for information systems implementation. The management of organization should set appropriate weights to those factors through which risk of project can be seen easily. For setting the weights of factors organizations can make questionnaire at the start of project and disseminate it to stakeholders of project. The results of questionnaire must be evaluated and then organization can take decision regarding implementation of projects that whether or not to implements. The evaluation of project must be done before implementation to check feasibility of projects. The organizations can identify the risky factors and projects can be adjusted in accordance with results of questionnaire (Turbit, 2005).

There is a need of adopting concentrated and holistic approach to understand the advantages which is brought by information systems. This shows that public sector organizations should understand the institutional and societal contexts within which information system is introduced. There is also need of implementing appropriate ways for measuring the effect of technology. The public sector organizations usually have to face pressure for demonstrating the appropriateness of investment in advanced technologies and bring advantages to both company as well as society. From the last some years the use of information systems and technologies has been increased in effort of improving their operations. Evaluations of information systems are very important to ensure that the expected advantages have been gained from investment or not (Hevner et al, 2004).

The public sector firms can use various approaches for evaluating the information systems being implemented in organizations. One of the effective approaches is goal-based evaluation. It considers evaluation as a quantitative process for measuring the costs and benefits. In accordance with Patton (1990) goal based evaluation is a process of calculating the extent to which a project has gained clear and particular objectives. It has been claimed by Good et al (1986) that evaluations must be measurable and all the requirements must be met.

Another approach which can be used by public sector organizations is interpretative approach. The information systems are viewed as social systems in which information technology are embedded. The objective of this approach is to get a deep understanding of the concept which is to be evaluated and to increase motivation (Murthy, 2006).

Conclusion

Information technology is crucial for many organizations whether they are public or private sector organizations. In order to get success in this field there is a need of effective implementation of information systems. The nature of strategic change must be understood by each company, which can be given by success and failure factors model. The public sector organizations face many challenges regarding implementation as well as evaluation of information systems. They can use various methods to remove these challenges.

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