TY - JOUR A1 - Kobus, Jörn A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Enabling digitization by implementing Lean IT BT - Lessons learned JF - The TQM Journal N2 - Purpose With the rise of digitization, IT organizations are challenged to provide efficient service delivery and offer innovative digital solutions while maintaining a constant resource capacity. To address this challenge, some IT organizations have adopted Lean Management (LM). Although LM is a standard production mode in manufacturing, it is less familiar to IT organizations. The purpose of this paper is to identify 12 lessons learned from companies who implemented LM in their IT organization (Lean IT) to free up their IT resource capacity from existing day-to-day operations so they could use it to enable their digitization strategy. Design/methodology/approach A case study of two major international companies from different industries. Data were collected from 25 structured interviews. Findings The lessons learned provide insights into how these companies implemented Lean IT, the potential outcomes they aimed for, what they did to achieve those outcomes, how they facilitated the implementation of Lean IT, and restrictions they encountered during the implementation. Research limitations/implications The findings are based on a limited range of IT organizations. Practical implications The lessons learned inform those implementing Lean IT because they explain how companies have implemented Lean IT to facilitate digitization and the benefits and pitfalls they encountered. A comparison of Lean IT and Lean Production shows that LM is transferable to IT organizations if domain specific requirements are respected. Originality/value This paper reports the unique experience of companies implementing Lean IT, which can inform other companies in a similar situation. KW - Digitization KW - IT management KW - IT organization KW - Lean management KW - Unternehmen KW - Informationstechnik KW - Lean Management KW - Digitalisierung Y1 - 2018 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-02-2018-0026 VL - 30 IS - 6 SP - 764 EP - 778 PB - Emerald insight ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Adding experts’ perceptions to complement existing research on information systems backsourcing JF - International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management N2 - This paper extends the existing literature on information systems (IS) backsourcing by the perception of practitioners. For this purpose, we conducted a series of qualitative, semistructured interviews with IS sourcing experts. The interview questions focused on the participants’ perceptions and experiences with the topic, on identifying reasons for and against IS backsourcing, and on revealing relevant trends pertinent to IS backsourcing. We then compared those findings with two previously conducted comprehensive literature reviews on academic and practitioner literature on IS backsourcing. By following this approach, we contribute to the existing research by verifying previous findings, for example, the most important reasons why companies decide in favor of IS backsourcing. Additionally, we were able to enhance previous contributions as we highlight the significance of differentiating between the scope of IS backsourcing by looking at the underlying services which are potentially backsourced. Further, we identified the importance of managers’ personal preferences as an additional reason for IS backsourcing, for example, based on personal experiences or a perceived need for change. Based on our findings, we created a comprehensive overview of all aspects connected to the IS backsourcing process and derived opportunities for further research to contribute to the IS backsourcing research agenda. KW - backsourcing KW - insourcing KW - back in-house KW - information systems KW - expert interviews KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - Umfrage Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.12821/ijispm060402 SN - 2182-7788 VL - 6 IS - 4 SP - 17 EP - 35 PB - SciKA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kobus, Jörn A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Strode, Diane T1 - Lean Management in IT Organizations BT - A Ranking-type Delphi Study of Implementation Success Factors JF - Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application (JITTA) N2 - Lean management (LM) is well established in manufacturing organizations, and LM adoption in service organizations has recently increased. However, we lack research that focuses on the success of lean management implementations in IT organizations (lean IT). This paper contributes to knowledge of the success factors of lean IT implementation and the relative importance of each factor based on the insights of field experts. The experts identified, agreed on, and ranked 12 implementation success factors for lean IT in a Delphi study using the best/worst scaling technique. The most important factors were leadership involvement, change culture and work ethic, employee involvement, and performance management. Factors of intermediate importance were implementation facilitation, training and education, clear vision and direction, long-term focus, communication, and a holistic approach. Least important factors were existing skills, organizational changes/standardization, and financial resources. This paper contributes a more nuanced understanding of the relative importance of lean IT success factors, proposes relationships between them, and comprehensively explains how to use the rigorous best/worst scaling method in a traditional ranking-type Delphi study. KW - Lean Management KW - Informationstechnik KW - Lean Management KW - Information technology Y1 - 2018 UR - https://aisel.aisnet.org/jitta/vol19/iss1/4/ SN - 1532-3416 VL - 19 IS - 1 SP - 55 EP - 85 PB - Association for Information Systems (AIS) ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Do researchers investigate what practitioners deem relevant? BT - Gaps between research and practice in the field of information systems backsourcing T2 - Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (IEEE CBI 2018): Vienna, Austria, 11-14 July N2 - There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Backsourcing KW - Anwendung KW - Literaturbericht KW - Information systems KW - Backsourcing KW - Practical applicability Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI.2018.00014 SP - 40 EP - 49 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Könning, Michael A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Multisourcing on the Rise: Results from an Analysis of more than 1,000 IT Outsourcing Deals in the ASG Region T2 - Tagungsband Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2018 (MKWI 2018): data driven X - turning data into value, Leuphana Unversität Lüneburg, 6.-9. März 2018 N2 - Information technology outsourcing (ITO) has long been recognized for its numerous potential advantages such as lowering costs, accessing external skills, and improving efficiency, flexibility, and quality. However, it also exposes client companies to various risks, including vendor lock-in, poor agility, or insufficient vendor expertisein individual domains, especially inincreasingly dynamic market environments. Consequently, companies increasingly implement multisourcing by composing a “best of breed” set of vendors for their various IT services. In this paper,we use a dataset of 1,016 ITO deals closed with Austrian, Swiss, and German client companies between 2006 and 2017 to analyze the development of the ITO market in general and multisourcing in particular. Our results show decreasing services run rates, shorter contract lengths, an increasing number of concurrent service providers per client,and a distribution of the total number of contracts to a larger set of vendors, all pointing towards an increasing popularity of multisourcing. KW - Multisourcing KW - IT-Outsourcing KW - Sourcing strategy KW - Outsourcing KW - Strategie Y1 - 2018 UR - http://mkwi2018.leuphana.de/programm/tagungsband/ IS - Band V SP - 1813 EP - 1824 PB - Leuphana, Universität Lüneburg CY - Lüneburg ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Do Researchers Investigate what Practitioners Deem Relevant? Gaps Between Research and Practice in the Field of Information Systems Backsourcing T2 - 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) N2 - There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing. KW - business data processing KW - globalisation KW - information systems KW - outsourcing Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI.2018.00014 SP - 40 EP - 49 PB - IEEE ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kopper, Andreas A1 - Furstenau, Daniel A1 - Zimmermann, Stephan A1 - Rentrop, Christopher A1 - Rothe, Hannes A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus T1 - Business-managed IT: A conceptual framework and empirical illustration T2 - 26. European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2018), Protsmouth, UK N2 - Research on Shadow IT is facing a conceptual dilemma in cases where previously “covert” systems developed by business entities (individual users, business workgroups, or business units) are integrated in the organizational IT management. These systems become visible, are therefore not “in the shadows” anymore, and subsequently do not fit to existing definitions of Shadow IT. Practice shows that some information systems share characteristics of Shadow IT, but are created openly in alignment with the IT department. This paper therefore proposes the term “Business- managed IT” to describe “overt” information systems developed or managed by business entities. We distinguish Business- managed IT from Shadow IT by illustrating case vignettes. Accordingly, our contribution is to suggest a concept and its delineation against other concepts. In this way, IS researchers interested in IT originated from or maintained by business entities can construct theories with a wider scope of application that are at the same time more specific to practical problems. In addition, value-laden terminology is complemented by a vocabulary that values potentially innovative developments by business entities more adequately. From a practical point of view, the distinction can be used to discuss the distribution of task responsibilities for information systems. KW - Business-managed IT KW - IT Governance. KW - Shadow IT Y1 - 2018 UR - https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2018_rp/77/ ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kopper, Andreas A1 - Fürstenau, Daniel A1 - Zimmermann, Stephan A1 - Klotz, Stefan A1 - Rentrop, Christopher A1 - Rothe, Hannes A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus T1 - Shadow IT and Business-Managed IT: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Illustration JF - International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance (IJITBAG) N2 - Research on Shadow IT is facing a conceptual dilemma in cases where previously “covert” systems developed by business entities are integrated in the organizational IT management. These systems become visible, are thus not “in the shadows” anymore, and subsequently do not fit to existing definitions of Shadow IT. Practice shows that some information systems share characteristics of Shadow IT but are created openly in alignment with the IT organization. This paper proposes the term “Business-managed IT” to describe “overt” information systems developed or managed by business entities and distinguishes it from Shadow IT by illustrating case vignettes. Accordingly,our contribution is to suggest a concept and its delineation against other concepts. In this way, IS researchers interested in IT originated from or maintained by business entities can construct theories with a wider scope of application that are at the same time more specific to practical problems. In addition, the terminology allows to value potentially innovative developments by business entities more adequately. KW - Alignment KW - Business-managed IT KW - IT governance KW - Shadow IT KW - Unternehmen KW - Informationstechnik KW - Datensicherung KW - Organizational IT management Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4018/IJITBAG.2018070104 VL - 9 IS - 2 SP - 53 EP - 71 PB - IGI Global ER -