Determinants of Successful Implementation of Business Information Systems Projects within the Banking Industry in Kenya (A Case of Cheque Truncation System Project)
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Date
2013-08-27
Authors
Ouma, Fredrick Okong' 0
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Abstract
Business information systems, also termed as Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have
emerged as the core of successful information management and an enterprise backbone for many
organizations business success. Organizations have been developing and implementing
computer-based Enterprise resource planning (ERP) at an increasing rate for the last 35 years.
However, evidence indicates that many computer-based ERP's are not as successful as they
should be and many projects may be considered unsuccessful. The objective of this study was to
analyze determinants of successful implementation of MIS projects. The difficulty of ERP
development and implementations has been widely cited in literature. However, research on the
critical factors for the initial and 'O-ngoingERP implementation success is rare and fragmented. In
this research, 'the focus was on the Kenyan Banking industry which is introducing ERPs in their
operations. Factors affecting the system development projects were analyzed. Specifically, a case
on the Cheque Truncation system was applied in analyzing the effects of project team, system
design, users' contribution and system acceptance. A descriptive research design was adopted to
analyze a sample of sixty five (65) respondents comprising of thirty percent (30%) of the target
population, the group that participated in the development of the cheque truncation system. The
data was collected through detailed questionnaires that addressed the study objectives and
analyzed using descriptive statistics. Data software, scientific package for social scientists
(SPSS) was used in data analysis. The findings established that management of the information
system development projects is a factor in the success of the project. It did indicate that the
commitment of top management in the project would go a long way in the successful
implementation of the project. The system design on business process activities, automated
controls and data storage, location, retrieval and recoverability are also critical components to the
success of an information system project. The research further determined that user's
involvement in system development project is ~.'major factor in the successful implementation of
a system development project and that users need to be involved in the development steps of any
new information system. This gives the users an opportunity to interact with the system in the
development stages and they can pick on bugs before it is fully developed and launched for
operations. Research also indicated that system performance as per the requirement analysis
would contribute to the success of the project. On the other hand the involvement of users in the
acceptance testing was highly rated as one of the success factors in the MIS development
projects. Representation of users in test groups was also highlighted as a factor in the success of
the projects. This calls for careful selection of user representation groups. Despite the in depth
coverage of this research and its findings, there still exists a gap that future researchers could
explore. The information system development projects are a new area that has not been largely
studied or addressed in Africa, and specifically Kenya. Owing to the success rate of
development, implementation and adoption of information systems, further research can be
conducted on the determinants of successful implementation of these projects. Further studies
on other variables should attempt to achieve a large sample across a bigger organization in the
country to determine whether the results can be generalized. The current research being a case
study; additional studies can be carried out on a wider scale. This could be through conducting
industry research on information system development across different economic sectors, such as
government parastatals, private and public sector. Further research could also be done in other
aspects that of information system projects such as system re engineering, prototypes and system
engineering.