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Strategic information systems contribute to enhance managerial understanding in terms of organisational development and business success. In particular, they assist in making timely business decisions and formulating feasible strategic plans. In practice, a strategic information system consists of several modules performing different functions such as strategic prerequisites, strategic directions and so forth. The integration of these modules to form a unified system is an essential task for achieving an efficient as well as effective strategic information system. In today’s business environment, where there are a great variety of standards in various computer systems that make the linking of modules to enable bi‐directional electronic data interchange difficult and costly. This paper attempts to introduce a model which embraces a neutral format approach to realise the efficient and reliable information flow among various modules of a strategic information system. Furthermore, the proposed guidelines for implementing such a system using the neutral format generalisation technique are also covered.

The strategic management literature emphasizes the concept of business intelligence (BI) as an essential competitive tool. Yet the sustainability of the firms’ competitive advantage provided by BI capability is not well researched. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for successful BI deployment and empirically examines the association between BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage. Taking the telecommunications industry in Malaysia as a case example, the research particularly focuses on the influencing perceptions held by telecommunications decision makers and executives on factors that impact successful BI deployment. The research further investigates the relationship between successful BI deployment and sustainable competitive advantage of the telecommunications organizations. Another important aim of this study is to determine the effect of moderating factors such as organization culture, business strategy, and use of BI tools on BI deployment and the sustainability of firm’s competitive advantage.

This research uses combination of resource-based theory and diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory to examine BI success and its relationship with firm’s sustainability. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and a two-phase sequential mixed method consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches are employed. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. The chapter presents a qualitative field study to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. The study includes a survey study with sample of business analysts and decision makers in telecommunications firms and is analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that some internal resources of the organizations such as BI governance and the perceptions of BI’s characteristics influence the successful deployment of BI. Organizations that practice good BI governance with strong moral and financial support from upper management have an opportunity to realize the dream of having successful BI initiatives in place. The scope of BI governance includes providing sufficient support and commitment in BI funding and implementation, laying out proper BI infrastructure and staffing and establishing a corporate-wide policy and procedures regarding BI. The perceptions about the characteristics of BI such as its relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, and observability are also significant in ensuring BI success. The most important results of this study indicated that with BI successfully deployed, executives would use the knowledge provided for their necessary actions in sustaining the organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of economics, social, and environmental issues.

This study contributes significantly to the existing literature that will assist future BI researchers especially in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, the model will help practitioners to consider the resources that they are likely to consider when deploying BI. Finally, the applications of this study can be extended through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Involvement in the effective design and use of computer‐based information systems is essential for the manager of the 1990s. To be most effective, systems must be designed for the requirements of the manager‐user. Too often there is a communication gap between managers who are too busy, uninterested or unwilling to become directly involved, on the one hand, and on the other, the consultant who is more usually engrossed in the special nature of the system. The author aims to provide an up‐to‐date and integrated treatment of organisation and management, as well as to emphasise the utilisation of management information systems to improve the art of managing.

Since 1973–74, the beginning of the so‐called resources crunch, there has been an increased emphasis upon the role of the procurement function in strategic corporate planning and management. The role of procurement has begun significant change in a number of companies, yet remains in basically an operational mode in others. However, strategic management has often been “borne” out of situational crises imposed by changing environmental factors, rather than as a result of recognition of the strategic potential which management has. In essence, changes often come through reaction to problems, rather than through positive recognition and implementation of strategic management as an initiative itself. This has been particularly true of procurement.

The purpose of this study is to propose a measuring system based on the information flow to carry out a more precise assessment of strategic plans.

An action research method is used with system dynamics. The indicators obtained from the strategic plans were assessed through information records.

The output of this study is a dynamic model which is produced by the workflows and processes in which decision-makers can apply experiments. By this means, it can be used as a measuring system based on information flows produced within the organization.

The first practical implication is that it can be possible to measure how much of the current workflows matched the strategic goals. Second, it can be possible to measure how much the budget allocated to the strategic plans corresponds to the amount of the total works. Third, it gets ability to managers to provide the opportunity to carry out experiments through the designed model.

As it uses information flows as measuring variable, this study is one of the novel approaches in strategy measurement systems. It also promises high efficiency and effectiveness because the assessment of goals and actions in strategic plans are sources of information which shed a light on the future strategic options to the decision-makers of the organizations.

Information technology often provides a manufacturing‐based competitive advantage. Information technology can assist manufacturing firms in developing their strategic roles. Discusses a continuum of four strategic roles of the contribution of information technology in manufacturing firms. Any enhancement of manufacturing firm’s competitive position tends to take place through systematic movement from one stage to an adjacent one, with the ultimate objective of becoming a world‐class manufacturer. Draws on a strategic alignment model of manufacturing management and information technology, which is defined in terms of four domains of strategic choice, i.e. the structure and infrastructure of manufacturing strategy, and the structure and infrastructure of information technology ‐ each with its own constituent dimensions. Conceptualizes the model in terms of two fundamental characteristics of strategic management: strategic fit (the interrelationships between structural and infrastructural domains) and functional integration (integration between manufacturing and information technology functional domains). Implementation of information technology is through cross‐domain alignment via strategic fit and functional integration. Examines the implementation of MRP (material requirement planning) and JIT (just‐in‐time) in relation to this strategic alignment model.

Prominent figures in the Information Systems (IS) industry have been propagating the need to integrate the information systems plan of a company with its strategic business plan. They have urged the executive level management to take an active part in charting the role of Information Technology (IT) in their organisation's present and future operations. The primary reason for this has been that the cost of data processing and communications has reached a critical level. A multi‐million pound operation cannot be run without executive systems direction and control. Without a common source, planning, implementation and measurement and control between various levels of management will be meaningless. Despite this, the management approach remains largely tactical, expense‐oriented and short‐sighted. Structures for strategic management of information systems and associated facilities have not yet clearly emerged. In an information systems environment, strategy implies plans, policies and commitment to use IT for exploiting business opportunities in order to achieve the corporate goals of an organisation. Because corporate objectives data, financial and budget data, resource usage, together with service and installations inventory data and personnel data already exist in computer‐readable form for large installations, this makes it easier to implement a computer‐based strategic installation management system.

Considers the nature and scope of a competitor in‐formation system (CIS) and the contribution to strategic planning decisions. Investigates the process of operationalizing a CIS as an “intelligence cycle” with discrete organizational activities of identifying needs, collecting, processing, disseminating and using intelligence. Gives a detailed case study of setting up a CIS in a life assurance company, the practical problems met and the solutions adopted. These include the identification of key strategic issues, strategic groupings of competitors, user analysis, and the final collection, evaluation and processing of the data using a hyper‐media software called Guidex. Draws conclusions to guide other system users and designers.

University strategic planning for information systems and management was investigated for four Indonesian higher educational institutions. A combination of the case study approach and a survey of a small sample of academic staff who have used the systems, was undertaken. Staff perceptions of the service from information systems are described, and related to their perceptions of planning for these systems. A number of evaluations of specific information sources and delivery are given in detail. Policy document analysis showed little information systems planning as part of the university strategic planning. Some observations are made about the influence of strategic information system planning upon successful use of a university’s information systems.

The development of web information systems (WISs) requires modelling on various layers of abstraction. Based on an abstract abstraction layer model (ALM) the work in this article approaches the modelling on the highest layer dealing with strategic modelling. Strategic modelling addresses a very general characterisation of WISs in terms of its content, functionality, context, usage and presentation, and pragmatic guidelines for achieving these. The article discusses branding, utilisation space modelling, utilisation portfolio modelling and atmosphere modelling as the major parts of a strategic model. Furthermore, techniques based on linguistic analysis, communication analysis and metaphors make up the informal means to approach WISs in strategic terms.