Strategic Information Systems in Arab Organizations

Abstract

Organizations are increasingly dependent on information systems, and they invest dearly on systems to integrate disparate business functions, automate business processes, and support operations in order to sustain business and survive in a competition-intensive business environment. However, such systems have in many occasions failed fully or partially. The lack of “fit-to purpose” seems to be the common factor among most of the failed cases. This suggests that such systems are not selected, implemented, configured, or supported based on a proper analysis and understanding of the organization structure and hierarchy, business functions, business processes, and business environment. Evidently, the majority of organizations tend to emphasize system specifications that match their operational and tactical requirements, with little attention given to strategic requirements, culminating in issues with strategic planning and decision making. This chapter uses a survey and simple model based on the characteristics and competitiveness indicators of strategic information systems (SIS) to examine the impact of such systems on the business performance in 16 medium to large Arab organizations. The study concludes with an emphasis of the importance of SIS to help organizations achieve excellence and competitive advantage and realize business objectives and goals.