The use of Information System is pretty new for the organizational setups. The very first viable information system was designed in 1950s. Since the imperative development of the very first information system, they have started to gain a pivotal position for the smooth running of organizational operational procedures. Gradually the computer systems became widespread within the organization and grew more sophisticated due to increased needs of users and advancing technologies (Gaye & Fitzegerald, 2005).
The current business world is right in to the middle of the modern innovations and technologies which are transforming the business processes rigorously. A total new e-business culture is emerging with its considerate implications on the every-day course of action in the modern era. This can be seen in the realm of business by observing how workforce behave with the super fast internet connections to use email and data collection and information gathering, using portable computing machines with wifi enabled connectivity, cellular phone connections that provide the facilities of GPRS and 3G, use of hybrid handheld devices that deliver optimal use of the connectivity and computing power to an intensified mobile global working class of people. Figure 1 depicts that during 80's till early this millennium investments made by the private businesses in the realm of information technology (hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment) has gone up from 19% to more than 35% of all domestic private business investment. (Kenneth & Jane, 2006). With the help of following figure a graphical representation of investment in IT and investment in total business can better be expressed.
Figure 1. Based on data in U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Tables 5.2 and 5.8, 2004.
FACTORS THAT CAUSES INFORMATION SYSTEMS FAILURE
A significant body of literature has developed over the last three decades dealing with management issues in information systems (IS). A series of studies and published articles have periodically identified and ranked key issues, with Society for Information System the first to uncover the key issues faced by its members in 1980. (Johnston & Muganda, 2007).
Many studies have been carried out that concluded and described the major causes of the failure of and information systems project. Mostly the identified factors were of the same nature but they had different priorities which were linked with the project itself and as well as the organization. Furthermore, there exists a close and strong functional relationship between the project and organization which can finally determined the success or failure of the system (Qassim, 2009).
Dr Paul Dorsey of Dulcian, Incorporation holds in his Article of "Top ten reasons why systems project fail" that "The Information systems projects frequently fail. Depending upon which academic study you read, the failure rate of large projects is reported as being between 50%-80%. Because of the natural human tendency to hide bad news, the real statistic may be even higher. This is a catastrophe. As an industry we are failing at our jobs. In particular, business process reengineering (BPR) projects have an even higher failure rate because of their expanded scope. Hiring a large, established consulting company is no guarantee of success; neither is buying packaged software and implementing it." (Dorsey, 2005).
Developing Information System Project is same as building construction. As in the case of constructing a building the first step an architect takes is that, he draws a detailed architecture plan on the paper. Then the next job is to build a model and make blue prints. At every step proper testing and inspection is taken. Likewise in the Information System Projects if the task of writing a code is not started in three months, it is felt something must be wrong, which is a wrong perception. Can't we make judgment that heading towards ending the project without a proper project can be the base of the total collapse? For example, if a PM asks the configuration management team to start producing the manuals of the information system before stabilizing the user interface (Dorsey, 2005).
To Dr Paul Dorsey "The sad fact is that software projects fail because we do not recognize that good engineering principles should be applied to software projects just as they are to building office buildings. We try to defend ourselves by saying that software construction is different." (Dorsey, 2005).
In an electronic report Awatif Amin Qassim a specialist in the Information Technology Systems holds that "IT Strategic Planning was the top issue, and in all the subsequent System Information Management studies this issue has never been rated lower than ten. IT Strategic Planning has been rated as number four in the SIM Study in 2004. IT and Business alignment has been ranked as number one issue in 2003 and 2004 SIM Studies" (Johnston & Muganda, 2007). According to Dorsey, Top management plays an important and critical role in the triumph or collapse of any Information System project. An IS Project can collapse if the total commitment from higher management is not shown during and at any stage of the project life cycle.. Awatif Amin Qasim Says in her report that "One of the researches listed risk factors ranking wise. ComputerWeekly.com joined forces with Oxford University to carry out a research into the state of IT project management in the United Kingdom. The research was led by Sauer, fellow for information management at Templeton College, and sponsored by the French Thornton partnership. The aim of the research was to help Information technology and business executives create realistic expectations for Information technology projects and improve the performance of project management, besides developing the skills required for project management. The most common risk factors ranking wise were one of the outcomes of the research (Qassim, 2009)."
To (Kenneth & Jane, 2006) out of the major problems, an issue with very high significance is that the management of the organization today seeks return on the investment, they are making in the IS Project. And such return should be a meaningful return. Use of information technology for the purpose of designing, producing, delivering, and maintaining new products is one thing while It's another thing to make money doing it. Management always has question in the mind that when, how and how much would be the return and whether the information system is going to contribute in the overall reputation of the organization or not?
To (Erik, Thomas, Varun, Robert, Jay F. Nunamaker, & Andrew, 2005) many organizations are of the view that the quality information is significant to their success; however, not many of them have not made their opinion firm about this hypothesis. The critical factors affecting the data quality in AIS and the attempts to develop the theory of data quality and work alignment are really the issue of concerns. It investigates whether there are any differences between the expectations of importance of those identified critical factors and the perceived performance of them, as well as tests whether there is a significant difference between stockholder groups in their perception of importance of factors' impact upon data quality.
Information systems were designed and developed so that sole business functions can be served in a better way such as marketing, finance, or operations. Or the IS Projects were supposed to provide support to a specific group of decision makers (such as middle managers). The drastic element associated with such development was that managers had not been able to acquire meaningful information centrally well in time to make decisions. Developing such a system which can serve both the groups at the same time was really a challenge (Kenneth & Jane, 2006). One of the issues which this case highlights is how damaging a long time delay can be to the success of an Executive Information System. If the implementation takes too long then enthusiasm dies and there is a greater chance that there will be a turnover of staff. The speed in delivering a prototype is critical to its success as it helps the executives to understand what an EIS is, how it can assist them and what benefits it will bring. (WENDY & MICHAEL, 1997).
To (Kenneth & Jane, 2006) training people in connection with using the existing information systems, and learning the changes incorporated in the newer version of the systems or totally a new system can turn out to be a major problem in the failure of the Information System.
Major reasons for the failure of the Information System might include, Top management support, sound methodology, Solid technical leadership by someone who has successfully completed a similar project, Cost of the project, quality of the project, risk involved in the project, planning the project before development of information system, extensive data modeling, Technical Leadership that has not any experience in development of such information systems, number of developers may not be less than forty to so that the speed of coding may not be slow, data migration phase may consume thirty percent of the total project duration, not skipping the testing phase if the project is already delayed, and Change in information system procedure. (Dorsey, 2005)
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Going through the literature given above it is concluded that Information Systems Fails because of the following reasons:-
Investments in Information Systems by the management of the organization.
Integration of Information Systems and Organizational view about the information system.
Management and Employee's Training about information systems.
Issue of Organizational Change.
Top management support and sound methodology
Solid technical leadership by someone who has successfully completed a similar project,
Cost, quality, and risk involved in the project,
Planning the project before development of information system and extensive data modeling,
Technical Leadership that has not any experience in development of such information systems,
Number of developers may not be less than forty to so that the speed of coding may not be slow,
Data migration phase may consume thirty percent of the total project duration,
Change in information system procedure.
In order to ensure system success, there are several factors to keep in mind:
Before introducing any new information systems or making any change in the current information system the managers must look into and need to detect suspiciously the organizational changes that are required to make people work. Managers must keep the change management plan so that they can easily deal with different organizational workgroups as well as the vendors and business partners for the purpose of adding value. They must also give due consideration to the policies and procedures for sharing data with other organizations, including specifications i.e. type, format, level of precision, and security of the data to be exchanged must be well defined (Kenneth & Jane, 2006). In the long run an incomplete system that doesn't meet the requirement of the users can cause the failure of the system so complete and a system developed after making user requirement analysis must be delivered. There must be an audit of each and every deliverable of the project and due consideration must be given to accuracy and correctness. Top management support for the project must be monitored carefully. It should be assured that managers are well aware of the progress being made by the team. Correct technical lead must be secured for the project. If an insist on keeping the costs low and hurrying up the project completion is the motive, then the quality will be low or the risk of failure will be high no matter how well the project is managed.
