INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND
ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE
By Ignatius Ibanga
Writer,
Blogger/Development Worker
Today’s organizations face
increasingly complex and critical task situations. Some of those situations, if
not handled properly, can endanger organizational survival. It is imperative
for the management to ensure that inevitable do not happen or that the impact
of critical situations be minimized, hence this article which is aimed at
appraising the relevance of information technology to organisational
development.
Information
technology (IT) has significantly affected many organizations. The dramatic
growth of the Internet and telecommunications technologies offers various
benefits to organizations. For instance it allows many supporting operations to
be outsourced to other clients and vendors within the industry with expertise
and comparative advantage.
Some IT products
such as the Internet, Intranet, voice mail, e-mail, voice and video
conferencing, groupware, Web services, and knowledge management can help
organizations to provide faster, more efficient, and more complete services to
the customers with a view to good return on investment.
Information Technology “is a general term that
describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate process, store,
communicate, and/or disseminate information” William Sawyar (2005). Other
researcher named Shelly et al (2004) say that IT includes hardware, software,
databases, networks and other related components which are used to build
information systems. As a need IT progressed along with socio-economic
development in developing countries. In a very short time IT becomes the back
bone in modern industrial society and the major contributor to the progress of
both developing and developed countries (Vasudevan, 2003; Long and Long 1999).
Through declining cost, both in hardware and
software, IT has spread very rapidly now into all industries all over the
world. European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences
-Issue 16 (2009).
Before discussing
whether information technology contributes to organizational performance, let me
attempt a conceptual clarification of organizational performance. Although many
scholars have tried to provide a clear definition of performance, there is
still no universal definition. In general, organizational performance refers to
how well an organization is doing relative to a predetermined set of standards
within limited resource.
According to Wheelen and Hunger (2000) the
organization performance is an accumulated end result of organizational process
and activity. These are measured by organization’s working and activity. The
organizational management manages the organizational performance, control and
customer value, as it impact reputation of organization. Commonly
organizational work measures include organization effectiveness,
productivity/efficiency and industry ranking (Wetherbe et.al.1999).
Efficiency is defined as “minimum utilization of
resources and getting maximum output” and effectiveness is “how well job gets
done” (Robbin and Coulter, 2003).
For example, let
us say, the company "Sliverbird Group." might define their
performance in terms of quick response time, improve customer service, reduce
error, improve data control, reduce paperwork, reduce manpower in terms of
percentage as a goal for this year. If we want to see the role of IT in
organizational performance for this company, we need to investigate how IT contributes
to these performance indicators.
In Nigeria and other part of the world, the financial
sector is the major user of IT. It was among the first to introduce electronic
data processing in its operations, through check handling, bookkeeping credit
analysis and ATMs.
The computers usage in banking sector first
started in the early 1950s. Bank of America was the first user of computer in
banking sector. Automated Teller Machine (ATM). The use of ATM (Don Wetzel
developed it in 1973) was greatest achievement of online and real time
automation by the commercial banks. ATM was first installed at commercial bank
in New York.
Nigeria in 2000 launched a project called ‘Vision
202020’ aimed at making Nigeria among the 20th biggest economy in
the world by the year 2020. Seven years from now, Nigerians will have
opportunity to evaluate the project and justify its huge investment over the
years.
Technically speaking can we sincerely acclaim to
have chat a pathway for the realization of Nigeria’s Vision 202020 objectives,
vision and mission statement when we consider the low utilization of computer
and IT in various government ministries, department and agencies?
Organisational performance is a key to the
dreams of vision 202020 and the urgent we integrate IT into all spheres of
Nigeria’s economy, especially the civil service, the better it would be for the
economy. Although reports from relevant
sectors and government departments has it that our economy is steadily on the
rise, experts and analyst believed that it would double its present ratio if
the IT sector was given its desired place in all sector of the economy.
I should confess that I have not done extensive research to
explore how IT contributes to organizational performance. However I have looked
at the IT enabled activities of some industry such as the banking sector, the
telecom sector, oil and gas sector, and 2010 Baldrige Winners to explore the
role of IT in organizational performance. For those who are not familiar with
Baldrige award, let me give a brief hints on the award. The U.S. government
established the Baldrige Award in 1987 to promote awareness of quality
excellence; to recognize quality achievements of U.S. companies, and to
publicize successful quality strategies. The dual goals of the Baldrige
criteria are to improve value to customers, which results in marketplace
success, and to improve overall financial and company performance to meet the
needs of shareholders, owners, and other stakeholders.
From the submission
so far, it is imperative to assert that Information Technology contributes to
Organizational Performance. An effective IT system and various IT-related
products can provide the infrastructure to facilitate information flow between
processes; between people inside and outside of an organization; help
organizations to automate more processes; provide more flexibility and several
other benefits which can be closed to link to organizational performance. In
summary IT can act as an enabler to improve organizational performance.
It is obvious the amount of resource organizations in Nigeria would save
if they were to allow IT a place in their businesses, the speed at which they
would solve problems, respond to clients needs and handle routine daily
operation would definitely treble the overall corporate result. The budget
presentation few days earlier by President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria revealed
that recurrent expenditure in Nigeria is still very high to the detriment of
capital expenditure which ideally is the area they citizenry desires more
budget line and investment. The scenario would have been the reverse if
government ministries, departments and agencies had redefine their operational
methodology and make IT and indispensable part of the internal working
environment.