Urbanization of Information Systems as a Trigger for enhancing Agility: A State in The Tunisian Firms

Abstract

Nowadays, the information Systems (IS) became one of the main assets of modern corporations, but it faces many problems. Among the most important are low productivity and a large number of failures like obsolescence, heavier, slower and complexity of applications integration. The problem of low productivity of IS was the product of the software crisis, as indicated by the delayed development and implementation of ISs and accumulation which leads to maintenance problems. Requests for new or improved version of the IS have grown faster than the ability of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to develop the existing IS. Some reasons are: the increase in the cost of software development and the IT choices of the CIO. All the above problems are further exacerbated by the growing complexity and size of software products. The IS is obliged to overcome these difficulties and ensure its evolution. To do this, urbanization is a framework that aims to simplify the IS, to improve communication between its components and to ensure its evolution. In an exploratory approach, this study examines the concept of urbanization studying its impact on the IS to ascertain agility. This was done in order to ascertain the evolution of IS and guarantee the agility facing the environment turbulence. The general assertion is that the Urbanized Information Systems (UIS) changes a firm vision because its procure flexibility, reactivity and interoperability of UIS. The originality of this paper is to explore IS urbanization considered as a French framework of Enterprise Architecture (EA), this study is an empirical validation of the agility of UIS.

Keywords Information Systems, Urbanization, Enterprise Architecture (EA), flexibility, Agility