=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1844/10000096
|storemode=property
|title=Decision Making in Information Technologies Governance of Companies
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1844/10000096.pdf
|volume=Vol-1844
|authors=Yaroslava Samchynska,Maksym Vinnyk
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/icteri/SamchynskaV17
}}
==Decision Making in Information Technologies Governance of Companies==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1844/10000096.pdf
Decision Making in Information Technologies
Governance of Companies
Yaroslava Samchynska, Maksym Vinnyk
Kherson State University, 27, 40 Rokiv Zhovtnya St., Kherson 73000, Ukraine
fedorova@ksu.ks.ua vinnik@ksu.ks.ua
Abstract. The article deals with archetypes of information technologies
governance, defined as rights and boundaries of responsibility of certain officials
or internal departments in conditions of information communication environment
of companies. It is offered to add traditional classification of archetypes of IT
governance by archetype “Democracy”, which is characterized in accordance of
a right to form input data relative to IT-decisions to users – company’s customers.
The use of the archetype allows better promotion of new products, and in time-
reacting to customer’s requirements to improve product quality and information
services. The matrix of IT responsibility, preparation of which is aimed at
standardizing of decision-making processes in IT companies, is presented.
Drawing matrix of IT responsibility with the help of function performance of
familiarization of managers at various levels with IT governance basics will
facilitate coordination of their actions. Matrix is proposed to form at the annual
planning of IT business processes.
Keywords: IT governance, archetype, business process, information
technologies, IT Matrix.
Key Terms. Information communication technology, management, process.
1 Introduction
Managers and business owners realize that risk reduction during the decision-making
essentially depends on the amount and accuracy of information about the object of
management, and business processes in which these decisions should be standardized
and integrated into corresponding information model.
Therefore, decisions systematization and standardization in information technology
(IT) governance are adopted in order to increase the efficiency of business process faces
an important task of management companies that requires detailed study.
The article includes such sections, as research description of effective IT governance
and traditional forming of IT Governance Matrix (2), our vision of IT Matrix as
informational model for decision-making in IT activity of the companies (3),
conclusions and perspectives (4).
2 Analysis of Recent Research and Publications
The study of information technologies in companies’ management is devoted the works
of foreign and native scientists: P. Weill [1, 2], J. Ross [1], M. Broadbent [2, 3], A.
Brown and G. Grant [3], G. Walker [4], W. Van Grembergen and S.De Haes [5], O.
Spivakovsky et al. [6] and others.
The analysis of scientific sources showed that the IT governance focused on the
management and use of information technologies to achieve corporate objectives to
increase efficiency. Effective resource management is focused on timely processing of
growing volumes of information, operational data exchange between internal
departments and external data exchange with customers and partners.
IT Governance, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) outlines the extensive set of
management procedures that are intended to support businesses in achieving value for
money and quality in IT operations. These procedures are supplier independent and
have been developed to provide guidance across the breadth of IT infrastructure. ITIL
is a framework of best practice approaches intended to facilitate the delivery of IT
services high quality [8].
ITIL is now being adopted and used across the world as the defacto standard for best
practice in the provision of IT Service. Although the ITIL covers a number of areas, its
main focus is on IT Service Management [9].
We agree with US scientists P. Weill, J. Ross, M. Broadbent, O. Spivakovsky who
understand IT governance as a business process associated with the recognition of
rights in decision-making and limits of responsibility to encourage the desired behavior
by the use of information technologies [1, 2, 6].
Effective IT governance should be focused on solving three main issues:
1. What decisions should be adopted to ensure the effective management and use of
IT?
2. Who should make these decisions?
3. How will decisions be implemented, and how will monitoring of implementation
be conducted?
Information model for the decision of the first and second questions is provided by
the traditional IT Governance Matrix (Table 1), offered by P. Weill, J. Ross, M.
Broadbent [1, 2, 3], its elements require the further detail research.
The purpose of the traditional IT Governance Matrix is a model-pattern illustration
of the allocation of responsibility in the information technologies governance, which
balances the mechanism of rights establishment and decision-making for the company,
consisting of many departments [1, 6].
Table 1. IT Governance Matrix (Input - who forms the input data; Decision - who makes the
final decision), [1,2, 3]
Solutions Business
IT IT
Archetype IT principles IT architecture applications
Infrastructure Investments
needs
Input Decision Input Decision Input Decision Input Decision Input Decision
Business
Monarchy
ІТ Monarchy
Feudal
Federal
Duopoly
Anarchy
One or more official persons are responsible for the approval of each of the five
types of key decisions in IT Governance. It is possible the division of responsibilities
to regional offices, branches, geographically distant from one another, or key business
processes of companies (production, research and development, sales, delivery,
accounting, personnel accounting, marketing, etc.). As a rule the majority of people
participate at the preparatory phase, preceding the making decision in the process of
forming necessary information for final approval.
IT governance involves determining who will be responsible for selecting input data
and who will take part in decision-making of each type.
The presented IT Governance Matrix (Table 1) contains representation of two
components of decision making - incoming data forming (marked Input) and who will
make decision (Decision).
The purpose of this article is to establish the basic types of decisions that more
fully reflect the problem of IT governance, and to review and supplement the categories
used in traditional IT governance matrix to improve the performance of companies.
3 Our Vision of IT Matrix for IT Governance
Researches of IT governance of companies are conducted by scientists. They found the
indication of high performance of IT governance is a large percentage of managers who
hold leadership positions and can accurately describe the governance of IT in your
company [1, 2, 3, 7]. The fact that managers of big companies are not familiar with IT
governance principles, increases problems of companies’ management.
We offer Matrix of IT responsibility, complementing the classical IT Matrix and
establishing responsibility for the decisions and monitoring their performance by
introducing new categories in matrix:
- who implements the decisions (marked Implem);
- who advises and supports the implementation of the decisions (marked Advise);
- who controls the implementation (marked Control) (Table 2).
The implementation of the proposed sub processes of IT governance reflects the
variety of decisions made using information technologies in practice and they improve
the company’s efficiency.
IT responsibility Matrix advisable to make during the annual planning of business
processes using information technology.
The employees who will be responsible for key aspects of IT governance, such as
formation of IT principles, IT architecture, IT infrastructure needs of business
applications and IT investments should be identified. According to the authors’ point
of view, Matrix of IT responsibilities should serve as reference, informing managers of
different levels with the basics of IT governance. Putting together of the matrix and
bring to the attention of certain employees will contribute to the consistency of their
actions on the use of information technologies.
Each archetype corresponds to certain officials and companies’ organizational units,
which are involved in such sub-processes of IT governance as forming the input data,
decision-making, implementation of IT decisions and control (Fig. 1).
Each of represented archetypes has advantages and disadvantages in terms of IT
efficiency. In particular, there is the high motivation of decision-making under the
influence of the archetype "Business Monarchy" However, the professional
opportunities of top management or company’s owners don’t allow considering all the
requirements for IT investments, and the participation in making many other highly
specialized decisions in the field of modern information technologies. There are some
problems impeding the efficiency of IT governance process if leaders try to participate
in a large number of decisions.
Carefully designed IT principles promote transparent decision-making process that
determines the behavior of staff; it corresponds to top management vision and it creates
conditions for greater display of creative potential.
Because of fact that the use of information technologies can increase the level of
standardization and integration of business processes, the role of IT professionals and
business executives is becoming more closely linked.
The IT decision-making has joint character. If business leaders shift the
responsibility for the success of IT use on IT professionals, as it happens when you
select the archetype "IT Monarchy", such control is often inefficient and brings
financial losses [1, 7, 13].
Successful firms are different because they don’t only accept good IT solutions, but
they build IT decision-making process more effectively. Successful firms involve in
decision-making process qualified employees of the company, it meets the democratic
archetype of management, such as a "Federal structure" or "Duopoly."
Table 2. IT responsibility Matrix: Input – forms the input data; Decision - takes decisions and responsibility; Implem - implements the decisions; Advise
- advises and supports the implementation of the decisions; Control - who controls the implementation (author’s design)
Decision
Business
IT principles IT architecture IT Infrastructure IT Investments
applications needs
Decision
Decision
Decision
Decision
Decision
Implem
Implem
Implem
Implem
Implem
Control
Control
Control
Control
Control
Advise
Advise
Advise
Advise
Advise
Archetype
Input
Input
Input
Input
Input
Business
Monarchy
ІТ Monarchy
Feudal
Federal
Duopoly
Anarchy
Responsible officials or organizational
Archetype departments involved in IT decision-
making
Business Only top managers or owners of the
Monarchy company make decisions
Only IT-experts (specialists) make
ІТ Empire decisions in information technologies
Each business unit of company
Feudal (department, branch) makes independent
decisions
Top managers or owners of company
Business units of company (departments,
Federal branches)
IT-experts (specialists of IT Department)
Top managers or owners of company
Duopoly
IT-experts (specialists of IT Department)
Decisions in IT are made separately,
Anarchy individually or in small associations
Fig. 1. Archetypes of decision making in IT Governance
Involvement of specialists, the use of information technologies at various levels of
company and different points of view determines the most important strategic of IT
uses and gets the better results for company.
At the archetype "Anarchy" decisions are made and implemented individually in
small groups without clearly established control and responsible, making subordinate
to a single corporate center, may be typical for the beginning or end of the company’s
activity. Usually, this model of IT governance is temporary and should be transformed
into a more manageable archetype, otherwise the company will not be able to ensure
the integrity of IT architecture, continuity and quality of IT services.
Recently, significant influence in decision-making of companies with IT
infrastructure and software applications is exerted by their customers or users of
services. Companies, which are involved in online sales, computer games constantly
collect and analyze the wishes of the clients. For instance, the company Wargaming.net
is one of the largest global publishers and developers of massively multiplayer of online
computer games and associated services for a variety of platforms, is testing new
versions of games using own customers – players, collecting negative reviews to further
improvement of software online games.
This strategy gives the companies a significant competitive advantage because it
allows saving costs in software development and marketing, and it allows responding
to high demands of customers concerning the quality of software and information
services, and it acts as advertisement and attracts a great number of new active
customers. In other words, this is a version of interactive feedback of customers.
Therefore, we propose to add to the traditional classification of IT governance by
the archetype "Democracy". This archetype of IT governance could be characterized
by giving rights on forming the input data and consulting for some IT decisions to users
– customers of company.
The final decision-making, the implementation and control traditionally is under
such archetypes as “Business Monarchy”, “IT Monarchy”, “Feudal”, “Federal
structure” or “Duopoly”. That is concentration of responsibility for decision-making
within the company. The proposed name of the archetype - "Democracy" conforms to
the stylistics of political archetypes imposed by reputable scientists in IT field, because
as a political regime democracy in state governance means power of people, and the
archetype "Democracy" symbolizes a significant impact of clients and users of
companies’ IT activity.
As an example, we drew up the matrix of IT responsibility for Ukrtelecom Joint
Stock Company. Ukrtelecom is one of the largest companies in Ukraine, which
provides a full range of telecommunication services in all regions of the country. For
this company IT governance is one of the key business processes, because Ukrtelecom
JSC created the highest-capacity of national data trunk network in Ukraine on the basis
of modern technology which allows providing customers with modern
telecommunication services in almost all residential areas of Ukraine.
Ukrtelecom JSC is the leader of the fixed high-speed Internet access market and is
dominant in the fixed telephony market [12].
Ukrtelecom provides all kinds of advanced telecommunication services throughout
Ukraine, namely:
international, long-distance and local telephony;
data transfer and VPN construction services;
Internet services, including Ukrtelecom Internet service, high-speed Internet
access for the fixed telephony subscribers;
permanent IP-connection via dedicated line;
hardware and virtual hosting;
rent of non-switched dedicated telecom channels;
video-conference communication;
wire communication;
telegraphy;
mobile services (TriMob operator) [12].
Archetypes and relevant officials and departments involved in the adoption,
implementation, support and control decisions on IT principles at Ukrtelecom are
presented in IT responsibility Matrix (Input – forms the input data; Decision - takes
decisions and responsibility; Implem - implements the decisions; Advise - advises and
supports the implementation of the decision; Control - is informed after the execution
of decision and who controls), Table 3.
Data for compiling IT responsibility Matrix of Ukrtelecom were collected from open
sources: the company's website [11], statistical data of the company [11] business
analytical articles [14-16].
Table 3. IT Principles as a part of IT responsibility Matrix on the example of JSC Ukrtelecom
(author’s design)
Solution
IT principles
Input Decision Implementation Advise Control
Archetype
Business
Monarchy
ІТ Scientific Scientific
Monarchy and and
Technical Technical
Council Council
Feudal
Federal The regional
branch of
Ukrtelecom;
Heads of technical
services of
regional branches;
Directors of the
Center of sales and
service
Duopoly Director of Director of
Ukrtelecom; Ukrtelecom;
Scientific and Scientific
Technical and
Council Technical
Council
Anarchy
Democracy
Table 4 shows the archetypes and the relevant officials and departments involved in
adoption, implementation, maintenance and monitoring decisions to IT architecture of
JSC Ukrtelecom.
Table 4. IT architecture as a part of IT responsibility matrix on the example of JSC Ukrtelecom
(author’s design)
Solution
ІТ architecture
Input Decision Implementation Advise Control
Archetype
Business
Monarchy
ІТ Monarchy Scientific Scientific
and and
Technical Technical
Council Council
Feudal
Federal Scientific and Directors of
Technical telecommunication
Council; regional branches of
Head of Ukrtelecom;
technical Heads of technical
services of services of regional
regional branches;
branches; Director of the
Director of the Center of sales and
Center of service regional
sales and branches
service
Duopoly Scientific and
Technical
Council; Heads
of technical
services of
regional
branches
Anarchy
Democracy
IT Infrastructure of JSC Ukrtelecom, archetypes and key officials and departments
involved in the adoption, implementation, support and control decisions are presented
in Table 5.
Table 5. IT infrastructure as a part of IT responsibility matrix at JSC Ukrtelecom (author’s
design)
Solution ІТ infrastructure
Input Decision Implementation Advise Control
Archetype
Business
Monarchy
ІТ Scientific
Monarchy and
Technical
Council
Heads of
regional
branches
of
technical
services
Feudal
Federal Directors of Heads of regional
telecommunicat branches of
ion regional Uktelecom;
branches; Directors of
Head of telecommunication
technical regional branches;
services of Heads of technical
regional services of regional
branches; branches;
Director of the Director of the
Center of sales Center of sales and
and service service regional
branches.
Duopoly Scientific and Scientific and
Technical Technical
Council Heads Council
of regional Director of
branches of Ukrtelecom
Uktelecom Internal
control
department
Anarchy
Democracy
Table 6 shows the archetypes, key officials and departments involved in the
adoption, implementation, support and control software solutions on the example of
JSC Ukrtelecom.
Table 6. Business applications needs as a part of IT responsibility matrix on the example of JSC
Ukrtelecom (author’s design)
Solution Business applications needs
Input Decision Implementation Advise Control
Archetype
Business
Monarchy
ІТ Monarchy Scientific
and
Technical
Council;
Heads of
technical
services at
regional
branches
Feudal
Federal Directors of Heads of regional
regional branches;
branches; Directors of
Heads of telecommunication
telecommunicati regional branches;
on centers at Director of the
regional Center of sales and
branches; service at regional
Heads of branches
technical
services at
regional
branches;
Director of the
Center of sales
and service
Duopoly Scientific and Scientific and
Technical Technical
Council; Head Council;
of Uktelecom Head of
Ukrtelecom
Anarchy
Democracy
Table 7 presents the main archetypes and officials, departments involved in the
adoption, implementation maintenance and monitoring of IT investment solutions at
JSC Ukrtelecom.
Table 7. IT investments as a part of IT responsibility matrix on the example of JSC Ukrtelecom
(author’s design)
Solution IT investments
Input Decision Implementation Advise Control
Archetype
Business Head of
Monarchy Uktelecom;
Members of the
Supervisory
Board;
Chief
Accountant
ІТ
Monarchy
Feudal
Federal Head of Finance Accounting The members
and Economics Department; of supervisory
Department; Financial and board,
Directors of economic Director of
regional department; Ukrtelecom;
branches; Heads of Chief
Heads of regional Accountant;
telecommunicati branches Scientific and
on centers at technical
regional council;
branches; Internal
Heads of Control
technical Department
services of
regional
branches
Duopoly Scientific and
technical
council;
Head of
Financial and
Economic
Department;
Accounting
Department
Anarchy
Democracy
Thus, the creation of matrix of IT responsibility, securing rights and responsibilities
of officials and departments of the company by solution making and monitoring under
selected archetypes will promote the standardization of decision- making process
related to information technologies in companies.
Analysis of archetypes’ use at IT decision making conducted on the example of JSC
Ukrtelecom (Table 8) showed that the archetype “Federal structure” is most often used
at formation of input data and execution of solutions; the archetype "Duopoly" is often
chosen to make solutions and monitor their implementation; the archetype "IT
Monarchy" is used on the stage of consultation and support of decision implementation;
administrative decisions according to the archetype "Anarchy" are not accepted, it
indicates a certain level of orderliness and consistency in the company's IT governance
system; the archetype "Democracy" is also not used by the company in IT making
decisions, which shows the unrealized potential for attracting Ukrtelecom clients to
improve the company's IT services in terms of generating incoming data.
Table 8. Analysis of frequency of archetypes’ use at making solutions in IT governance (at JSC
Ukrtelecom) (author’s design)
Components of Quantity of archetypes’ use of decision making
making solution
process ІТ
Business Democra
Monarch Feudal Federal Duopoly Anarchy
Monarcy cy
y
Input data 1 4
formation
Decision making 1 4
Implementation 5
of solutions
Consulting and 4 1
support of
solution’s
implementation
Control 1 1 3
The involvement of specialists in various activities (managers, IT specialists,
technical specialists, accountants, economists) in decision-making process as to the use
of information technologies is the condition of successful management; it is needed for
modern corporate companies with extensive organizational structure for ensuring of
objectivity, transparency of management.
The definition of archetypes as the rights and limits of liability of certain officials or
organizational units in the formation of information-communication environment of
company will allow making key decisions of using information technologies effectively
and consistently under the strategy, chosen by top managers in company governance.
4 Concluding Remarks and Future Work
We propose the IT responsibility matrix as information model, it forms division of
responsible for informational technologies governance: who forms the input data; who
makes decisions and takes responsibility; who implements the decision; who advises
and supports the implementation of decision; who is informed after decision’s
implementation and those who carries out the control.
Submitted matrix of IT responsibility is convenient visualization tool, which is part
of modeling process of information technologies governance for effective distribution
and control of responsible for types of IT activity of company. Preparation of IT
responsibility matrix is aimed at standardizing of decision-making processes in IT
companies.
Preparation of IT responsibility matrix of JSC Ukrtelecom confirmed that to ensure
effective and objective IT governance at various stages of adoption, implementation of
IT decisions and monitor of their implementation, experts of different profiles and
organizational departments, committees of companies with different activities should
be involved in this process.
Building the matrix of IT responsibility through performance of functions of
managers at various levels with the basics of IT governance will facilitate coordination
of their actions on the use of IT.
It is offered to add classification of IT governance archetypes by the archetype
"Democracy" which is characterized by giving rights on forming the input data for some
IT decisions to users – customers of company. The use of this archetype of information
technologies governance in some aspects of its IT activities, selected by the company,
responding to requirements of customers to improve the product quality and
information services; it serves as means of advertising and attracts new active
customers.
In the future we plan to collect and investigate data for a more detailed analysis of
economic advisability, confirming the approach proposed by the authors on the
formation and use of the IT responsibility matrix in the management of companies.
Some questions and goals of IT Governance cross with IT Infrastructure Library –
approach to IT-infrastructure service management. Interconnection between these
issues will be analyzed in the future research.
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