TY - CHAP A1 - Kobus, Jörn A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Lean Management of IT Organizations BT - a Perspective of IT Slack Theory T2 - Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2016), Dublin, N2 - Lean Management has been successfully implemented in production organizations since several decades. The study at hand investigates the implementation of Lean Management to IT organizations (Lean IT). The study offers three contributions: First, it explains on a conceptual level how Lean Management can be transferred from production to IT organizations (philosophy, principles, tools). Second, it provides a theoretical perspective on why Lean IT can be beneficial for IT organizations (IT Slack theory). Third, it provides insights to the stated research questions (three benefits and three propositions) from an initial case study of an internal IT service provider for a large international insurance company (> US$25 Billion revenue; >20,000 employees; active in >120 countries) and lays out the research methodology and potential focus areas for further studies. KW - Lean Management KW - Lean IT KW - IT Slack theory KW - Implementation KW - Application development and maintenance KW - Lean Management KW - Informationstechnik Y1 - 2016 UR - https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/ManagingIS/Presentations/1/ SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Bary, Benedikt von T1 - IT-Backsourcing JF - Das Wirtschaftsstudium : wisu N2 - The importance of information systems (IS) for companies has grown rapidly over the recent years. For example, companies from various industries are focusing their efforts to digitize business models, to adopt agile forms of collaboration, and to leverage automation of routine tasks. This forces companies to review their IS sourcing strategies and to potentially consider alternatives for current outsourcing contracts. One potential option could be to backsource IS services currently performed by external vendors. Based on empirical observations, previous academics defined it as the repatriation of all assets, activities, and skills needed to perform IS services back in-house, which had been outsourced previously to one or multiple vendors. The distinctive characteristic of backsourcing is the change in ownership back to the mother organization. This distinguishes the term backsourcing from similar terms, e.g., backshoring, reshoring, or relocating, which rather focus on the change in location of the service delivery. At the initial sourcing decision, the strategy to outsource an IS service was considered most promising. However, certain developments both inside the company, but also on a broader industry level may lead to a re-evaluation of the situation and thus to an adjustment of the original sourcing strategy. Over the last years, there has been a strong increase in cloud-based services and a shift towards the deployment of standardized, almost “industrialized” applications as services. Before, large companies leveraged their size in realizing economies of scale within their sourcing volumes. The raise of cloud computing as well as standardization of service delivery decreased those benefits and led towards a decline in large outsourcing contracts across a variety of services and a growth of multi-sourcing of individual IS services from the respective “best-in-breed” vendors for shorter time periods. Besides sourcing the best vendor for each service, companies that implement multi-sourcing strategies additionally aim for cost benefits due to an increased competition between vendors, and an increase in agility and adaptability. At the same time, a move towards multi-sourcing strategies with shorter contract durations leads to an increase in so-called “second generation sourcing decisions”, namely whether to continue outsourcing a respective service or to bring the service back in-house. Given the developments within the IS environment, this research projects aims at understanding why IS services are backsourced and which factors influence a company’s decision to backsource an IS service. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - IT-Backsourcing KW - Information systems KW - Outsourcing KW - Rückverlagerung KW - Auslagerung Y1 - 2019 IS - 6 SP - 702 EP - 706 PB - Lange ; Mohr CY - Düsseldorf ; Tübingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Kobus, Jörn T1 - Lean IT BT - Lean Management in IT-Organisationen JF - WISU - Das Wirtschaftsstudium KW - Informationstechnik KW - Lean Management Y1 - 2017 IS - 1 SP - 87 EP - 92 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Current state of IS offshoring research BT - A descriptive meta-analysis T2 - Mäkiö, Juho; Betz, Stefanie; Stephan, Rolf (Eds.): Offshoring of software development. Methods and tools for risk management. Karlsruhe: Universitätsverlag Karlsruhe N2 - This paper empirically examines the current state of the IS offshoring phenomenon in Germany regarding project characteristics and success patterns. Relying on a sample of 304 projects conducted at various industry sectors and companies, results show that IS offshoring primarily occurs in sectors Telecommunications and IT at large corporations. Cost reduction is the main reason for going offshore and offshore projects are executed as part of a larger program at companies. Noticeably, most projects are delivered from India. Additionally, neither captive offshoring nor offshore outsourcing dominates as a de-livery option. Comparing different project subgroups regarding project success, the results reveal that projects delivered by an internal or partially owned service provider are more successful. Other project characteristics such as a project’s embedded-ness in a larger offshoring program, a project’s size, or a project’s offshoring degree in terms of relatively offshored labor hours show few significant differences. The paper addresses the paucity of empirical research on the current state of the IS offshoring phenomenon in Germany. KW - Informationsmanagement KW - Offshoring KW - Erfolgsfaktor KW - Offshoring KW - Nearshoring KW - Informations systems sourcing KW - Outcome KW - Project success KW - Success factors Y1 - 2007 UR - http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-1/article4.pdf SP - 7 EP - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - IT Backsourcing BT - Insights and Implications From a Global Survey With IT Practitioners JF - International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance N2 - With the growing importance of IT as competitive advantage, companies aim to increase their digital transformation activities. Consequently, companies are also revisiting their existing IT sourcing arrangements. In the article at hand, the authors explore the concept of IT backsourcing by presenting the results from a quantitative online survey with global IT practitioners. The authors confirm that backsourcing is frequently applied in practice, with key reasons being dissatisfaction with service or relationship quality and higher than expected costs. Further, the authors identify IT services with an increased likelihood of being backsourced, e.g., application development or data center, and discuss the effect of a CIO change on the backsourcing decision. In addition, the authors show that there are differences in the perceptions on the antecedents and the results of backsourcing decisions between management and operational level. The authors conclude with practical implications for IT managers based on their findings. KW - Outsourcing KW - Backsourcing KW - Business-IT Alignment KW - CIO Change KW - Digital Transformation KW - Insourcing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4018/IJITBAG.2019070102 VL - 10 IS - 2 PB - IGI Global ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kopper, Andreas A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - From Shadow IT to Business-managed IT: A qualitative comparative analysis to determine configurations for successful management of IT by business entities JF - Information Systems and e-Business Management N2 - Shadow IT describes covert/hidden IT systems that are managed by business entities themselves. Additionally, there are also overt forms in practice, so-called Business-managed IT, which share most of the characteristics of Shadow IT. To better understand this phenomenon, we interviewed 29 executive IT managers about positive and negative cases of Shadow IT and Business-managed IT. By applying qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we derived four conditions that characterize these cases: Aligned, local, simple, and volatile. The results show that there are three sufficient configurations of conditions that lead to a positive outcome; one of them even encompasses Shadow IT. The most important solution indicates that IT systems managed by business entities are viewed as being positive if they are aligned with the IT department and limited to local requirements. This allows to balance local responsiveness to changing requirements and global standardization. In contrast, IT systems that are not aligned and permanent (and either organization-wide or simple) are consistently considered as negative. Our study is the first empirical quantitative–qualitative study to shed light on the success and failure of Shadow IT and Business-managed IT. KW - Informationsmanagement KW - Wirtschaftsinformatik KW - Business-managed IT KW - Shadow IT KW - IT governance KW - Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-020-00472-6 VL - 18 IS - 2 SP - 209 EP - 257 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - IT-Backsourcing BT - Empirische Erkenntnisse und Handlungsempfehlungen für eine erfolgreiche Re-Integration der IT-Serviceerbringung JF - HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik N2 - IT-Backsourcing bezeichnet die Re-Integration vormals outgesourcter IT-Services zurück zum auslagernden Unternehmen. Die vorliegende Studie stellt die Ergebnisse einer Umfrage unter IT-Managern zu Einflussfaktoren von IT-Backsourcing-Entscheidungen vor. Es lässt sich feststellen, dass IT-Backsourcing von Unternehmen in unterschiedlichen Branchen und für eine Vielzahl an unterschiedlichen IT-Services, wie z. B. Applikationsentwicklung oder Infrastruktur-Leistungen, durchgeführt wird. Hauptgründe für die Entscheidung für ein IT-Backsourcing sind mangelnde Qualität, hohe Kosten sowie eine schlechte Beziehung zum IT-Dienstleister. Die Ergebnisse der Umfrage zeigen, dass diejenigen Unternehmen, die sich für ein Backsourcing entschieden haben, nach der Entscheidung insgesamt zufriedener waren als diejenigen, die in einer Outsourcing-Beziehung geblieben sind. Zudem werden verschiedene Handlungsempfehlungen für IT-Manager aufgezeigt. Zur Ausarbeitung einer zukunftsorientieren IT-Sourcing-Strategie empfiehlt es sich, eine service-spezifische Sourcing-Strategie zu verfolgen und entsprechend spezialisierte Dienstleister einzusetzen. Im Falle einer Entscheidung für ein IT-Backsourcing sollten verschiedene Erfolgsfaktoren beachtetet werden, wie z. B. eine frühzeitige Neubesetzung von Schlüsselstellen sowie ein lückenloser Wissenstransfer. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - Backsourcing KW - Insourcing KW - IT-Sourcing KW - Re-Integration KW - IT-Service Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-020-00591-1 VL - 57 IS - 4 SP - 849 EP - 865 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Brosig, Christoph A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Revisiting the Concept of IT Capabilities in the Era of Digitalization T2 - 2020 IEEE 22nd Conference on Business Informatics (CBI 2020): Antwerp, Belgium, 22-24 June 2020, proceedings N2 - In the era of digitalization, companies review how to build competitive advantage drawing on their capabilities. In this context, the paper revisits the concept of IT capabilities. We summarize the “canonical” body of literature to characterize how leading scholars conceptualized and differentiated IT capabilities and then we show how new types of IT capabilities (for example, rising from SMACIT technologies) relate to this. We find that the resource-based view is still leading in how to conceptualize IT capabilities. However, an alternative perspective on IT assets is emerging, looking at it from the angle of digital technologies as stacks. Digital technologies form the foundation for a new technology-driven perspective on IT capabilities. This new view complements the established differentiation of IT capabilities considering IT infrastructure flexibility, IT management, and IT personnel capability. Both perspectives describe the explorative and exploitative nature of IT capabilities. This paper helps scholars and practitioners to clearly distinguish different perspectives of IT capabilities on how to build a competitive advantage from IT today. KW - Digital technologies KW - IT capabilities KW - Resource-based view KW - Informationstechnik KW - Digitalisierung KW - Fähigkeit KW - Kompetenz KW - Ressourcenorientierter Ansatz KW - Wettbewerbsvorteil Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI49978.2020.00017 SP - 84 EP - 93 PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wulf, Frederik A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Cloud Computing Adoption: A Literature Review on What Is New and What We Still Need to Address JF - Communications of the Association for Information Systems N2 - Research on cloud computing (CC) recently emerged congruently with the technology’s importance for organizations at a fast pace. This makes it difficult for practitioners to obtain a consolidated overview of what determines CC adoption based on the numerous papers in this regard. Moreover, for further research in the field to add value, it is necessary to identify what still needs to be addressed. In this vein, we conducted a descriptive review of 39 papers, integrating the results of a previous review on 23 papers from 2014, to compare findings across studies. We identify 44 determinant factors that exhibit consistent directional influence on the dependent meta-variable “CC adoption”, extending previous literature reviews with regard to asset, client, and environmental characteristics. We then critically reviewed the research landscape to identify what is there, and what is not yet covered: Future research should specifically regard the adoption of Infrastructure-, Platform-, and Everything-as-a-Service, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud deployment, investigate vendor, solution, and individual characteristics, analyzing information systems, or the decision-maker. KW - Cloud Computing KW - Literaturbericht Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.04843 SN - 1529-3181 VL - 48 IS - 1 SP - 523 EP - 561 PB - Association for Information Systems, AIS ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wulf, Frederik A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Schön, Maximilian A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Loebbecke, Claudia T1 - Cloud-Computing-Nutzung bei der Continental AG JF - Wirtschaftsinformatik & Management N2 - Dieser Artikel richtet sich an IT-Führungskräfte, die die Nutzung von Cloud Computing (CC) in ihren Unternehmen fördern wollen. Eine Fallstudie des Konzerns Continental AG zeigt, wie Continental CC in großem Maßstab für die Organisation nutzbar machte. Das Unternehmen ging dabei in drei Schritten vor: Nach einer Experimentierphase wurde der Einsatz zunehmend professionalisiert und CC abschließend umfangreich nutzbar gemacht. Hieraus können drei Hand-lungsempfehlungen für Führungskräfte abgeleitet werden: (1) die CC-Strategie nach dem Delivery-Modell differenzieren, (2) in die Integration von Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)- und Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)-Anbietern investieren und (3) den Wissenstransfer innerhalb des Unternehmens fördern, um Veränderungen zu ermöglichen. KW - Cloud Computing KW - Unternehmen Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1365/s35764-021-00342-x SN - 1867-5905 VL - 13 IS - 4 SP - 302 EP - 309 PB - Springer Nature ER -