How the seminal work of Delone and Mclean (DeLone & McLean, 1992, 2003) paved the way for measuring IS success.

The model is question can be one of great importance even in 2020 despite the fact that it was originally created in 1992. This is because many organisations are still struggling to gain an understanding of how to use many of the key cornerstones it speaks of any digital disruption pulls them into the age of analytics, data and how this can impact business. There is no such thing is a non-digital company in 2020 and this is one of many models that fills the gap. The primary aims of the model are to; 

 

•           To help organizations express the value they get from IT

•           Increase user satisfaction of customers and staff

•           Increase intention to use IT

 

The model helps firms map out what benefits could be gained from an investment into IT. It is a model that offers 3 cornerstones to help get the best out of an investment. The model states that if the overall net benefits are positive then the firm should go ahead with the investment. 

 

Information Quality

There are three primary cornerstones of the framework. The first of these is information quality. This refers to the e-commerce content issue. According to the writers for an organisation needs to produce content that is personalized, complete, relevant, easy to understand, and secure. It should encourage customers to want to make purchases with the firm. A huge part of this is social media and branding. For example, if we take an old sporting company like Adidas the challenge for them is to make their products seem more exciting and interesting their competitors like Nike and Reebok. This is despite the fact they all sell the same things. To do this they often put footballers and other sports people in their adds in the hope that people will want to be like their sporting hero’s. They use catchy music and lots of colour to appear as an exciting brand that people would be proud to wear. Nike and Adidas have done this better than any other sports brands and this is why they are so successful. The quality of information they produce makes them stand out. 

 

Without understanding the importance of information quality, many of the these firms marketing goals would be very expensive mistakes. 

 

 

System Quality

The second major key cornerstone of the framework is system quality. This measures what characteristic an e-commerce site should have. These include reliability, adaptability, availability, usability and response-time. As mentioned in my answer for question 3 of this exam, Primark’s website lacks basic functionality and usability such as the ability to buy products online and to make an account. This lack of usability could easily force customers to go elsewhere and cause the company to lose customers. 

 

E-commerce solutions also need to be easily available and adaptable. Companies who are not available on every platform risk getting forgotten. For example, in the early days of video games, Nintendo insisted on putting it games of cartilages rather than CD’s like their competitor Sony. The increased capabilities of Cds made games on them more capable of complicated graphics meant that ambition game designers  stopped making games for Nintendo meaning the company lost a lot of money. Nintendo’s long standing refusal to use CD resulted is a huhe loss in market share. Companies need to adapt to new technology and websites need to be available on both websites and applications. People want instant access to use apps and not have to go to the effort to type an a web address in a browser. Companies who only have a website are at a disadvantage to those who also offer well designed app.

 

Websites also need to be useable above all else. If for example, Canvas kept crashing and could not handle the number of students UCC has, the University would quickly change provider. If users are using a service they expect it to work above all else. Even if they find something they want, if user don’t trust the website to work they will go elsewhere. 

 

Companies need to understand that their service needs to be easy to use. 

 

 

Service Quality

Finally service quality which is the overall support delivered by the service provider. This is about figuring out how digital technologies can help a company go far and beyond their competitors to provide a quality service to their customers. My assignment for this class spoke about the hotel chain Accord and their struggle to compete with new digital companies such as Air Bnb. Accord needed to figure out what it could offer that Air Bnb could not. The case study talks about how Accord planned to use their connections with other travel related companies such as airlines, cruise lines and travel agents and show customers that booking a holiday was a lot more than booking a room. They making to make it seamless, so that one could in theory book their entire holiday on their website. 

 

Companies like Ryaniair are trying to do this with users able to book a car, hotel room and more after booking a flight on their website. Air bnb have also tried offering a more adaptable and flexible service by making it easy for users to find interesting things to do in the city they are staying as well as encouraging people was rent rooms on the service to provide extra services like city tours and free cooking classes. 

 

 

Conclusion

The model goes on to explain that the three of these cornerstones combined done well should lead to increased customer satisfaction and intention to use. Naturally if both of these increase, an IT investment would have net benefits which is the whole point of any IT investment or any investment for that matter. 

 

Even companies who are tech savvy need this model to try and understand why they need an IT investment. Once the investment has been made they need to figure out how to get the most out of it and create a strategy to make the investment worthwhile. Failing to get said investments right can reduce confidence in the company with employees, customers and shareholders. The information companies put out needs to put the company in a positive light. When users are using a firms systems such as apps and applciations they need to provide a service that is easy to use and does what it promises to do and has the ability to grow and change when needed. Finally companies need to use digital technology to stand out from their competition and maintain and grow their market share. 

 

The model discussed is very relevant to helping the company in terms of branding, profit making, market explanation and even innovation when one considers how companies need to constantly adapt to remain relevant and stay at the top of the tree.