ISSUES FACED BY ORGANIZATIONS OF PAKISTAN IN USING IT
(INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
1. Roohan Aziz 1
Graduate Research Student
Computer Science
Mohammad Ali Jinnah University
Karachi, Pakistan
03472236703
roohanaziz@yahoo.com
2. Manoj Kumar 2
Assistant Professor
Department of computer Science
Mohammad Ali Jinnah University
Karachi, Pakistan
111-878787 X327
m_kumar@jinnah.edu
ABSTRACT
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the issues faced by organizations of
Pakistan in using IT (Information Technology).
Research Methodology
We develop a model that will highlight the factors and issues that are affecting the
organizations of Pakistan to not to use IT for their business processes.
Findings
Our research is preliminary focused on organizations that are facing issues in
implementing IT on their business processes.
Research limitations/implications:
Our research is mainly focused on the organizations of Pakistan that are facing
problems in using IT for their business processes.
Originality/Value:
The paper describes the problems that are faced by organizations of Pakistan to
implement and use IT on their business processes for the enhancement of their
business.
KEYWORDS
Organization, Business, Information Technology, Issues, Problems, Factors,
Pakistan.
1. INTRODUCTION
The use of IT (Information Technology) is increasing gradually in the organizations
of Pakistan. In the beginning the organizations of Pakistan was slow in implementing IT
(Information Technology) in their business processes but now it is increasing rapidly across
all over Pakistan. But still there are so many issues which are faced by the organizations of
Pakistan in applying IT technology on their infrastructure. These issues are the major cause
of the downfall of organizations of Pakistan. If these issues are clearly identified for
organizations then it may help in increasing the development of Pakistan with respect to
organization level. Organizations that are spread over a wide area and are globally
dispersed may find advantages in organizing along geographic lines so that all the business
activities performed in a region are managed together. In a large organization simple
physical separation of departments makes centralized coordination more difficult which
become impossible to resolve [11]. The structured problem solving is important
methodology in improve the organization performance. When an organization is very small
and face-to-face communication is frequent, formal structure may be unnecessary, but in a
larger organization decisions have to be made about the delegation of various tasks. We
are providing a basic model for the pointed issues faced by the organizations of Pakistan.
2. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
IT (Information Technology) is spreading day by day in all over the world. The
basic goal of technology is to simplify manual task and to reduce time in our daily routine.
A lot of new fields has been created in the IT field to facilitate the users for providing them
support in their fields. The major invention of IT is Internet which came to Pakistan in
about 1995which has fully upgraded the telecommunication infrastructure.
IT is widely used in all organizations for different tasks. IT industry is now responsible for
monitoring all the IT issues in Pakistan [1]. Organizational change can take many forms.
It may involve a change in a company's structure, strategy, policies, procedures,
technology, or culture. The change may be planned years in advance or may be forced on
an organization because of a shift in the environment. Organizational change can be radical
and swiftly alter the way an organization operates [18].
It technology providing automation in manufacturing organizations to facilitate mass
production to meet the demands of customers [10]. Now IT has become the necessity for
every manufacturing industry. It is becoming critical to many manufacturing organizations
that want to be a world-class manufacturer as IT often provides a manufacturing based
advantage [2]. In organizational sector of Pakistan, Packages Ltd. was the first
organization, which started the use of IT in 1957 [3]. After that many other organizations
in Pakistan started the use of IT to increase their production and business process. Now-adays the use of IT in organizations and industries is very common across Pakistan [4]. The
key tangible benefits of implementing ERP on organization systems are: inventory
management, productivity improvement and cash management. Similarly, key non tangible
benefits of implementing ERP on organizations are: reduction in different operating and
maintenance costs, improved business processes, process standardization and information
visibility. Besides these other business performance impact on organization are: enhanced
regulatory compliance, more accurate MIS, increased institutional accountability, and
reduced work load in different departments [14].
ERP Systems are the most integrated information systems that cut across various
organizations as well as various functional areas. It has been observed that ERP systems
prove to be a failure either in the design or its implementation. A number of reasons
contribute in the success or failure of an ERP systems. Success or failure of ERP system
can be estimated on the basis of impact of ERP on that organization [13]. The use of
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is initiating a new way for organizations
which is an integrated software system comprised of different modules for different
departments and functional areas of organizations to access a central database. ERP is
considered as the central nervous system of an organization [5]. There are a lot of ERP
available in the market to automate business process across the enterprise such as SAP,
Oracle and Salesforce etc. have become common in use [6]. Though the organizations of
Pakistan have achieved significant growth in IT but still there are many issues which are
challenging the wide area of organizations. So the IT level of Pakistani organizations is not
meeting the status of the world. The factors and issues affecting the proper implementation
of IT in the organizations are numerous. This research paper is highlighting the major
issues in the implementation of IT in organizations of Pakistan.
It is noted that companies operating in manufacturing and industrial sectors of Pakistan are
having well established IT departments. In these companies higher management staff is
working but the use of IT has been very slow because of the various problems [7]. In the
literature many problems which are normally faced by the companies while implementing
any new technology have been identified by many researchers [8] [9] [15] [16] [17].
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Our research is action research and qualitative in nature. We have developed a
model which will identify the major issues and problems faced by organizations of Pakistan
in using IT on their business. This model will help the organizations of Pakistan to increase
their potential to apply IT in their business. There is no exact data available about this
research. Hence, primary data about issues is collected from different organizations survey
research and reports.
4. ISSUES FACED BY ORGANIZATIONS OF PAKISTAN
There are so many issues which are faced by the organizations of Pakistan in using
IT for their business processes. These issues have become the major problems of the
downfall of the industries of Pakistan by which the economy is decreasing gradually. Most
of these issues are faced by mid-level organizations of Pakistan because large organizations
are able to compete the status of the world easily. The most important and most common
issues are given below according to our model of research paper.
4.1 SATISFACTION LEVEL OF OWNERS WITH THEIR BUSINESS
The most common issue of implementing IT in organizations of Pakistan is the
satisfaction of owners with their business. The targets and goals of the businesses are
limited and restricted according to the economic and social conditions of Pakistan. The
change in technology and initializing new technology in an organization is often becomes
the cause of the failure of the business so the higher management always take precautions
and hesitate in taking any strategic decisions in the improvement of business process.
Although modern software applications such as ERP, MDBMS and Big data etc. are
available in higher prices but still are very difficult to implement in an organization.
4.2 INSECURITY WITH RESPECT TO COMPETITORS
The other common issue regarding the implementation of IT is the insecurity of
information of organization from other organizations specially which are competitors. In
Pakistan the most reliable IT solution providers sometime leak the confidential information
of organizations and so this issue has major impacts in organizations. The reason is that
most of the organizations do not have IT departments inside their organizations and the
third party applications are not considered as the reliable source. In the same way the
competitors are in search of the weak points of repute organizations to compete them so
most of the organizations of Pakistan keep them in a safe side and stay away from third
party applications. This restrict the organizations of Pakistan to switch their technology
and use new IT infrastructure.
4.3 INSECURITY WITH RESPECT TO GOVERNMENT POLICIES
The government of Pakistan is restricting the environment for organizations to grow
in many ways such as by increasing taxes, duties, penalties and liabilities etc. This becomes
a major issue for the organizations in increasing their business. The organizations are using
techniques and tricks for hiding their actual information of revenue and sales from
government which are illegal in all over the world but is widely used in Pakistan. The
reason of this illegal act is claimed to government by many organizations that it is due to
lack of support of government. This act of hiding actual sales from sales tax departments
and actual income from income tax departments is almost used by all organizations of
Pakistan. Almost all small scale organizations are using dummy records of information for
showing to taxation departments and these departments are also using different levels of
corruptions in performing this task in the form of bribes and gifts. This is the main reason
that organizations of Pakistan are feeling hesitation in using new technologies.
4.4 LITERACY RATE OF EMPLOYEES
One of the issue is that most of the employees of the organizations Pakistan have
low literacy rate so they feel discomfort in using IT (Information Technology) which is
applied in organizations. The education system of Pakistan is also the major cause of
reducing the literacy rate. The social and economic conditions of people also affect the
education of people which allows them to work in different fields in place of education.
Most of the employees in organizations of Pakistan are from rural areas where very limited
education institutes are available which causes in reduction of literacy rate. Almost all the
IT applications are operated using screens and panels which have many options to perform
according to the task of that department so it is necessary to be well educated to use these
technical user interfaces to perform the desired tasks.
4.5 USE OF QUALITY INFRASTRUCTURE OF IT
The organizations of Pakistan are not able to compete the status of the world in
using updated IT infrastructure. The availability of latest technology and its cost is the
major issue in this factor. The organizations are satisfied in using low quality technologies
which results in reducing the performance of organizations. This issue impacts on other
organizations to stay away from technology which may provide risks to that organizations.
Most of the organizations of Pakistan are using average quality products in their IT
infrastructures which causes them to use depreciated technology which is not be updated
on timely basis.
4.6 COOPERATION OF EMPLOYEES
The employees of organizations of Pakistan are working in a fully non cooperative
environment due to their social life issues and so they do not provide dedication to their
tasks. The implementation of technologies in organizations require dedicated employees
which are able to work late and give overtime in the implementation tasks of new
technologies. Most of the organizations have unions of employees which not only reduce
the performance of organizations but also sometime becomes dangerous to higher level
management. So it is too difficult to control the behaviors of employees with other
employees and management. Employees within the functional divisions of an organization
tend to perform a specialized set of tasks. This leads to operational efficiencies within that
group inside the organization. However it could also lead to a lack of communication
between the functional groups within an organization, making the organization slow and
inflexible in the performance [12].
4.7 HIGHER COSTS OF INFRASTRUCTURE OF IT
The other issue is of the low cost and budget of the organizations of Pakistan which
restrict them to not to use higher budgets in new technology. In all over the world about
20% of the profit of that organization is used in technology and each organizations have its
own RND (Research aNd Development) department but in Pakistan there is no such thing
the organizations. Most of the organizations of Pakistan running their business without IT
departments so there is almost impossible to create the RND department. The profit is
considered as the 100% profit to the owner which is always not satisfied in the investment
of his profit in the technology. The latest technologies require updated versions which is
quite expensive for low budget organizations.
4.8 RISKS OF SWITCHING TECHNOLOGY
The new technologies are updated on yearly basis which results in difficulties in its
implementations. Most of the organizations take strategic decisions to use technologies for
long terms. Normally organizations changes their technologies to updated versions after
more than five years because the switching of technology is often become a bigger cause
of failure for the organization. In switching new technology the whole business processes
are changed or most of the times stop because of new technology implementation. In
organizations of Pakistan the most of the daily routine business processes are dependent
on other processes which becomes quite difficult to stop them for few days whereas in most
of the cases in implementation of new technology the time is delayed to months or years.
4.9 UNAWARENESS OF HIGHER MANAGEMENT FOR IT
The higher managements of most of the organizations of Pakistan is unaware about
latest technologies and new upgrades which becomes the cause of lack of implementation
of new technology. The criteria used in overall world in updating new technology is to
make a separate department which is known as research and development department. This
department gives latest technical update reports to higher management which is required
for the betterment of business. But in Pakistan all tasks are done by few managers which
are not familiar with latest technology which causes the organizations to manage by people
who have not updated information. In a large organization, the IT organization may also
be charged with strategic planning to ensure that all IT initiatives support business goals.
IT organizational structures vary and can be centralized or decentralized depending upon
the needs of the company. In a large enterprise, the IT organization is typically managed
by a Chief Information Officer (CIO). Smaller IT organizations might report up to an IT
director operations manager.
5. CONCLUSIONS
From the above discussion, we conclude that Pakistan is one of the newly
developed countries which is in the development phase with respect to IT (Information
Technology) and there are so many changes occurring in the organizations of Pakistan due
to IT (Information Technology). But there are still so many issues which are faced by the
organizations of Pakistan in using IT. To improve the performance of an organization by
successfully solving problems that is causing dissatisfaction for internal or external
customers. It is necessary to ensure that problem solvers do not jump to solutions directly
before they have analyzed the causes of the problems. It is to provide a process that can be
used by project management teams to maximize the contribution from each individual
employee. To implement solutions to problems that eliminate the problems through
prevention processes in this way issues can be simplified in a sequential manner. The above
discussion has shown that the nine problems are found to be the top most problems which
are faced by organizations of Pakistan. Though the higher level management of
organizations of Pakistan is now aware of IT infrastructures for their business requirements
and are ready for investments but still there exist lot of problems and gaps for strategic
planning IT technology. As a result these plans do not work properly when IT departments
implements IT solutions to provide support for various projects, so leaving the chance for
failure of many projects. The higher level management must realize the importance of IT
departments in making strategic decisions. They should involve IT managers and CIOs in
strategic decision making. The organizations and people in Pakistan are learning fast to use
IT (Information Technology) but still there is a need for the government to act more quickly
with new plans to overcome all existing barriers. The government IT policy makers must
revise some IT plans and implement them to compete in the world which is changing at an
unprecedented pace. The government must also consult IT experts in launching new IT
policies.
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