Support EI & EC Solution Take-up

Information technology is today not only a support function to make intra- or inter-organizational processes more efficient but also an enabler for many business and non-commercial activities. IT, developing towards Future Internet systems, enables also SMEs to participate in global activities as part of supply chains, collaborative networks or business ecosystems. 

It is often challenging to achieve the expected benefits of IT take-up. The utilization of IT tools in SMEs and also in larger enterprises has several challenges and barriers. The technical implementation of software in an organization does not automatically create the business benefits; also organizational actions are needed. Especially SMEs suffer of unfinished IT projects, unrealized savings, delays and exceeding the take-up costs. The EC & EI context, an inter-organizational environment, even increases the challenges of ICT take-up because of mutual dependencies. 

The development of IT towards Future Internet Enterprise Systems [FInES], with software offered as services and utilities, is expected to remove some difficulties of IT utilization.  FInES are expected to offer more flexible configuration, scalability and openness and decrease technical barriers. For utility-like services the technical implementation should not require high resources, but the services should be invoked “on a fly”.  On the other hand, organizational aspects need to be taken into account also in remote service take-up.

In COIN, the main prerequisites affecting the success of IT implementation in an organization have been identified as:

• the service / solution usability (including easy adoption)
• the service / solution take-up / implementation process in the organization (also affecting the solution fit)
• the maturity of the end user enterprise and the network for collaboration and IT usage.

COIN aims to strengthen these aspects by reviewing and assessing usability, developing implementation/ take-up process and guidelines and methods to analyze EC & EI maturity. 

By M24 the following results have been achieved:

• Usability assessment definition in EC & EI context; an assessment tool with 7 dimensions
• Initial Reference Implementation scenario, with 7 take-up phases,  to guide and support the take-up of EC & EI solutions.
• EC & EI maturity model, first structure and contents of process areas and criteria.