Findings: The Fundamental Risk Factors Detected in Omani Government Organisations

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Within each of the three risk categorisations (of human resource deficiency, organisational inefficiencies, and the immaturity of the IT business culture), the expert discussion group identified more specific risk factors. These are discussed below.

Human Resource Deficiency

Limited Expertise

IT expertise in Oman is in the hands of expatriates who mainly come from the Indian subcontinent. In the majority of cases, the professional level of these specialists is below international average level, as they have limited IT background and experience on arrival. The investigation by Heeks (1999), which focused attention on the skills of the Indian subcontinent, refers to its skills base as being focused at the "coding" level rather than at higher levels of analysis, design and organisational requirements (Heeks, 1999, p.9). In Oman it has been observed that these expatriates are contracted to work in the public or private sectors for one to two years: they are trained and gain some expertise, then leave to better paying jobs in western countries (typically in the U.S. or UK). This situation has also been detected in other developing countries (Khan, 1991) and the worldwide shortage of IT professionals is intensifying this problem. The local IT professionals, however, do not change jobs as frequently: therefore any expertise that they develop remains as a resource for country. Unfortunately, the Omani IT professionals are in a minority, therefore, most specialists leave and take their expertise with them. This leaves the government department in a dilemma. It is generally understood that adding new staff as a substitute to departing team members makes matters worse due to the learning and induction time required (Brooks, 1995; Flowers, 1996). While it is true that acquiring IT and IS specialists is very expensive, it is also recognised that in a young IT culture, there is no other way to stimulate development than to use imported talent and then to develop plans and train local people.

A separate consideration that reflects the issue of "limited expertise" is that the expatriate IT professionals, even when they have the technical skills, lack relevant expertise since they are unaware of the Omani environment: its terminology and the problems and needs of the management and users. Coming from different cultures, they usually have difficulty understanding the social and organisational intricacies and norms and cultures of Omani government organisations. The issue of the developer's knowledge of the country's language and culture has also been observed by Moynihan (1997). However, in his analysis of two popular risk taxonomies (Barki et al., 1993; Carr, 1993) this factor is simply not present.

Currently the local universities and other higher educational institutions in Oman are not producing enough analysts, designers, programmers, etc. Expansion is a function of perceived needs, financial investment, and the availability of skilled teachers. The shortage of skilled and experienced analysts and designers, and their cost of employment is becoming a serious administrative problem. Importing these professionals on a temporary basis means that artificially high salaries must be paid. We believe that while this problem is not unique to Oman it is of particular concern given the rate at which new IT installations are happening.

Most of the government organisations have a small IT department that is understaffed, and depends heavily on support from local companies. Many, if not all, have relied on local IT vendors for the implementations of IT with minimum intervention from the organisation's own IT personnel. For that reason IT staff have been kept at a minimum with minimum resources in most of the government organisations. Interestingly enough, although government organisations are usually large in size, these findings agree with those of Edwards et al. (1997) in the context of small to medium commercial enterprises in UK. Furthermore, due to the high dependence of local companies on an expatriate IT workforce and the high turnover rate of staff, public sector organisations are in a dilemma about how to build and maintain expertise and effective customer-client relationships.

Non-Technical IT Management

Omani IT managers in the government mainly come from non-technical disciplines. Due to the scarcity of qualified and well-trained professionals, personnel who are largely untrained have obtained key positions. However, it is fair to say that this situation is slowly changing, as the number of Omani graduates that possess higher degrees and professional training in IT is increasing. The scarcity of IT expertise forces government departments to rely on external consultants as outlined above and, in the majority of cases, this means inviting somebody from abroad. As a result, this leaves government organisations open to potential manipulation by external consultants and suppliers. Moreover, as Arunkumar (1999) has explained: this problem can result in a loss of opportunity to both the IT companies (which manifests itself as lost business at the right time), as well as to the government departments (in terms of lack of progress in implementing new and appropriate solutions).

Poor Training

The funding available for training for both the users and the IT staff is low in most government departments. When setting up project requirement, very little attention is paid to the training side: this complicates the technical support process. On the other hand, trainers working in IT training institutes in Oman often lack the practical experience of working in a modern industrial environment. When somebody wants good training the only choice is to go abroad.

The very high cost of the professional training, and very high possibility that the trained staff will leave the government organisation or company with a better offer as soon as the training is complete, put organisations in dilemma. Yet there is no other choice for government organisations but to train their specialists as much as possible if they want to improve the quality of their IT professionals. Putting in place a national strategy to produce IT-competent workers and IT professionals is both a necessity and an investment for the future of the country. As Heeks (1999, p.11) states: "The best governments also work with providers-including private trainers-to target the analytical and managerial skills that the developing world so crucially lacks" and in the same paper he cites Ireland's success in metamorphosing from "...poor rural backwater to Celtic Cyber-Tiger" with half the population going into tertiary education where considerable emphasis is placed on IT courses.

Organisational Inefficiencies

Lack of IT Technical Awareness

Low awareness exists among higher management of the strengths and weaknesses of IT and the role that it can play. Top management usually has either a naïve view that IT can solve management problems and improve inefficiencies, or is unaware of what IT can accomplish in terms of improving the decision making process. Other authors have also cited the risk of low IT awareness (Carr et al., 1993; Barki et al., 1993; McBride, 1997; Moynihan, 1997). The use of computers in government is much less than at commercial companies as explained earlier. This is accompanied by low IT literacy within the potential user community. For example, the Internet has been accessible in gulf countries (including Oman) for only a few years and the level of Internet penetration is still very low. Whereas in modern industrial countries, computer and Internet connections are as common in many houses as a telephone or TV. Table 3 shows the Internet growth in the Gulf region.

Table 3: Internet Growth in the Gulf Region Including Oman[1].

Country

TLD

1995

1996

1997

Growth

Bahrain

.bh

0

142

841

592%

Iran

.ir

18

271

285

105%

Iraq

.iq

0

0

0

na

Kuwait

.kw

220

1,233

2,920

237%

Oman

.om

0

0

5

na

Qatar

.qa

0

0

21

na

Saudi arabia

.sa

2

27

57

211%

Uae

.ae

0

365

1802

494%

Yemen

.ye

0

0

2

na

Gulf Totals

 

240

2038

5933

291%

World Totals

 

4,852,000

9,472,000

16,146,000

170%

% In Gulf Region

 

0.005%

0.022%

0.037%

 

[1]From the Communications of the ACM, 41(3), 1998, pp. 19-25.

Bureaucratic Decision-Making Process

The decision-making process within the government is either highly bureaucratic, or depends on a "one-man show". Decisions are made top down with very little planning, consultation, and evaluation of alternatives. In fact some IT projects approval depends on how loyal, or close, the IT directors are to the top management. This lack of collective decision making is highlighted in the absence of the role of IS steering committees in Omani government organisations.

The tendering and procurement process for IT systems is the same as that used for other government projects and contracts. It does not take into account any of the special risks that impact an IT system alone. This has the impact of hindering the complete analyses of the specific issues and risks that surround IT projects, and lead to increased costs, since IT suppliers may well increase cost to protect themselves from the many unforeseen risks in the projects. Top management see a software development contract as something that is well framed, the objectives are well defined, the deliverables are well defined and so on. Nobody wants to hear about failure. This factor is a common characteristic of government projects (Flowers, 1996) and similarly reported by other researchers (Keil et al., 1998). Senior management demands that they want solutions and they don't want to hear about problems. They don't appreciate that the software is an intangible commodity although it is the most tradable commodity.

Lack of Unified IT Strategy

The Omani government does not have a unified IT strategy at the national level. There is no single government agency that is responsible for setting up guidelines and standards for IT acquisition at the national level. Each Omani government organisation acquires IT differently, and many times the acquisition process will vary within the same organisation from project to project. This leads to redundancies and incompatibilities of information systems among government organisations, and hinders or complicates government systems interconnections and data sharing. Compounding this problem, very few Omani government departments have an IT architecture at the organisational level. Without the proper IT architecture, it is hard to set out plans for IT strategies.

The gap between operational and informational processing is very high. Most of the systems that are operating in the government organisations are operational in nature, and systems that support management decision-making process are almost non-existent. Local IT departments are still working on the level of "application specific view" with multiple isolated databases and application programs (Boreisha, 1999).

Poor IT Infrastructure

The IT infrastructure is still in its initial stages and the country is in need of an information superhighway. However, the government has not developed the vision for the creation of an information highway, let alone an information superhighway. In many countries telecommunications companies (under some government supervision) are leading the way in pushing out plans for information highways. Where as in Oman, the local telecom provider (owned by the government) does not have coherent plans to set up an information highway. This impacts on local companies, banks, and government agencies that are having difficulties obtaining the required leased lines with the appropriate bandwidths. This factor is a characteristic of other developing countries as reported by Palvia and Palvia (1996) and Heeks (1999). However, in Oman it is further amplified because the country is scarcely populated with pockets of dispersed inhabitants. A powerful IT infrastructure would allow an expansion of computers into shops and households, and provide the environment in which IT literacy and competency can be raised: thus enabling the significant growth of Omani IT professionals. Such strides can be made towards an effective IT infrastructure where a government adopts such a national strategy; example success stories include such disparate countries as Singapore and South Africa (Heeks, 1999).

Immature IT Business Culture

The lack of IT maturity and IT professionals in Oman impacts significantly on practical project planning, implementation and management. The following subsections expand the discussion of these areas.

  • Limited Use of Project

  • Management Approaches

  • Limited Use of Methodologies

The systems analysts and designers working in Oman, in general, do not follow any of the well-known western analysis and design methodologies such as; Jackson systems development, Yourdon, SSADM, and Object Oriented Analysis and Design. They simply utilise various unsound assumptions, beliefs and tricks, developing systems with the help of their personal 'know-how'. Their work is carried out by following a trial-and-error approach. This method continues even after the completion of the project. IS project managers needs to understand that intuition alone may not be sufficient to handle the complex and dynamic interactions characterising a software project environment (Abdel-Hamid & Madnik, 1990).

Poor Project Costing

The estimations for the project cost and time are usually badly judged. No one really knows how to estimate how long a given software project ought to take, how much it should cost and how efficiently it will work. Most managers have low knowledge about project control. This causes frustration and mistrust. Currently project costing does not include the cost of manpower (i.e., the salaries of the IT team) that is involved in the project. Therefore, if the project gets delayed, it is very hard to calculate the cost increase that was a result of this delay. In the West there is a large body of experience in particular application areas which enables managers to make reasonable estimates (Boehm, 1991; Bowers, 1994; Fairley, 1997; Kansala, 1997). Managers in Omani government organisations have either little basis for estimates or they depend totally on whatever is estimated by software companies. These companies in general give more consideration to their own interests than those of the customers.

Unclear User Requirement

Senior management and users in many Omani government organisations can't state what they want the IT system to accomplish. Analysts and designers assume that Omani government organisations can express their requirements in a complete and comprehensive way. Past experiences reveal that the requirements of most of the Omani organisations were not stated fully at the beginning of IT projects. The lack of knowledge about their actual requirements and the specification of these requirements have resulted in many ill-defined IT systems. This is a common factor that has been extensively reported upon by many authors in the context of systems development (Carr et al., 1993; Jones, 1996; Moynihan, 1997; Keil et al., 1998).

Lack of Project Control

As part of the 'accountability' of government-sector projects, invariably it has been found that there is no external consultancy role or an audit role during the implementation of major IT projects in Oman. Consequently, the objectives of the project and means of measure of the achievement of the same become somewhat clouded and hazy with time.

Risk Indifference

Government and businesses perceive risks differently. In businesses risks almost always equate to money, this makes businesses pay more attention to their IT projects to protect them from failure. Working in a government organisation in Oman is considered to be a lifetime job, and it is rare to encounter a person who has been reprimanded or lost his job for doing poorly in a project, or as response to a failed project: IT or otherwise. Perhaps this has to do with the social role the government plays in the society, being the largest employer. This job security leads to complacency and reduces the need for management to be aware of the importance of risk management, which is still very low in the Omani society.

Lack of Collaboration

The lack of collaboration and cooperation between government, business and the academic community in Oman is too great and has led to two things: first the government does not benefit from the IT expertise that is available in the academic community. For instance, when a government organisation needs an assistant in a large IT project, it usually looks to external consultants for help and guidance almost forgetting the local academic expertise. At the same time the Omani academic community concentrates on teaching and publishing papers in international journals, on topics that have little relevance to the Omani IT culture. Second, IT graduates from the local universities are sent out to the market without the proper practical experience. The syllabi for teaching various subjects in IT are not well organised or up to date. They do not fulfil the requirement and expectations of the IT industry and do not reflect the ever demanding and fast changing nature of IT in Oman.

Lack of Public Oversights

Unlike the West where government projects enjoy high level of public interest and oversight (Flowers, 1996), this is not the case in Oman where IT projects enjoy little public scrutiny. This is largely a result of the political system in the country where the public has little involvement in the political life and government spending. As a result, government organisations implement their IT projects without worrying about the public. This sometimes leads to complacency.

Also, IT systems face the risk of becoming technology-led (Flowers, 1996) rather than concentrating on the customer requirement, since there is no fear of competition nor that the customer (the public) will take their business elsewhere.

Reliance on Localised Systems Solutions

Omani government departments use custom-made software more than packaged. This is a common factor to many government organisations as reported by Flowers (1996). It is due to three reasons: the first reason has to do with the special role that government plays in the society (Flowers, 1996), it is sometimes hard to find packaged software that can fulfill their requirements. Generally, the tendency within government organisations is to always project that their systems are unique and no package will even fit even 60% of their requirements. The second reason is the unwillingness to internally take a fresh look at the government's business processes and perhaps try to change them for the better and thereby adopt industry standard practices which are more amenable to be implemented within a package. Therefore, management should appreciate that introducing a new IT system will bring changes to the users' work environment and should prepare the users to accept this change. Top management in government organisations should fully comprehend that deploying of an information system means serious organisational changes. Without these changes even the perfect IT will bring very little improvement. It is an exercise of complex human relationships and teamwork that impact the culture of the organisation (Boreisha, 1999). This means that we are not in the scientific sense dealing with a closed technological system. The fact that IT implementation involves socio-technical issues means that by definition it is an open system. It is not contained, and that itself will generate risks (Sauer, 1993; McBride, 1997).

The third reason is that most of the software packages were available in the English language, whereas Arabic is the official language of Oman. Therefore, it is sometimes hard to find applications that are completely Arabised; even popular packages such as a human resource or finance packages are not. The user interface and software documentation are mainly in the English language, which is not familiar to many users. To implement the software efficiently, there is an acute need to have efficient translation facilities from English to Arabic. However, it is fair to note that this is changing as most major software vendors are now providing extensive multilingual support. Table 4 summarises the factors affecting IT/IS deployment in Oman and identifies those factors that have been discussed in previous literature.

Table 4: A Summary of Risk Factors Observed in Oman.

Category

Factor

Discussed elsewhere

Human resource deficiency

Limited expertise

Khan, 1991; Moynihan, 1997; and Heeks, 1999

 

Non-technical IT management

û

 

Poor training

Jordan, 2000

 

Organisational inefficiencies

Lack of IT technical awareness

Carr et al., 1993; Barki et al., 1993; McBride, 1997; and Moynihan, 1997

 

Bureaucratic decision making

Flowers, 1996; and Keil et al., 1998

 

Lack of unified IT strategy

û

 

Poor IT infrastructure

Palvia & Palvia, 1996; Avgerou, 1996; Heeks, 1999

Immature IT business culture

Limited use of project management approaches

Abdel-Hamid & Madnik, 1990

 

Risk indifference

Carr, 1997; Kontio & Basili, 1997; Boehm & deMarco, 1997

 

Lack of collaboration

û

 

Lack of public oversights

û

 

Reliance on localised systems solutions

Flowers, 1996, p 128



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Advanced Topics in Global Information Management (Vol. 3)
Trust in Knowledge Management and Systems in Organizations
ISBN: 1591402204
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 207

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