Abstract:

Organizations are increasingly dependent on Information systems, and they invest dearly on systems to integrate disparate business functions, automate business processes and support operations, in order to sustain business and survive in a competition-intensive business environment (Loundon and Loundon, 2014). However, such systems have in many occasions failed fully or partially to realize the sought business gains, for a variety of reasons that are either of technical or business nature, or people-related (Reference).

Investigations of such failures have led to a general belief that although things could go wrong in any stage of the system life-cycle, including the selection, implementation and support stages, it is evident that the lack of ‘fit-to purpose’ seems to be the common factor among most of the failed cases (Reference). This suggests that systems are not selected, implemented, configured or supported based on a proper analysis and understanding of the organization profile that may include; organization structure and hierarchy, business functions, business processes and business environment (Refrence).

Evidently, majority of organizations tend to emphasize system specifications that match their operational and tactical requirements and with little attention given to strategic requirements, culminating in issues with strategic planning and decision-making (Reference).

This study uses a survey and simple model based on SIS characteristics and competitiveness indicators, to examine the impact of SIS on business  performance in 16 medium to large organizations in different Arab regions and from a industry sectors including; Oil & Gas, Utility, Health, Banking, and Manufacturing.

The study concludes with an emphasis of the importance of SIS to help organizations achieve excellence and competitive advantage and ensures alignment to business strategy and focus on realizing business objectives and goals.