Abstract

Abstract

Abstract
Over the past few decades, information systems and technologies have taken on a wide variety of roles within organizations, ranging from operational support to the strategic support of the company. Therefore, there have been significant changes in the motives for their adoption that are vital to understand to guarantee that investment is properly managed. With the purpose of identifying and characterizing the motivations currently behind the adoption of information technologies in large Portuguese companies, which systems the companies have been implementing, in which systems they intend to invest in short-term, and what is the current role of information technology within the organization, we carried out a study with the participation of several chief information officers. The findings of this study reveal that the reasons for adoption and the role that information systems and technologies play is evolving in Portuguese companies and that the adoption of certain types of systems like Enterprise Resource Planning systems is now consolidated, whereas the adoption of other systems like Business Intelligence systems should increase significantly in the near future. Copyright © 2009, IGI Global.

Abstract

Abstract
Outsourcing has become a major component of information technology strategy in many companies around the world. From the early 1990s to the present, the reality of sourcing has varied significantly, an example being the services that companies typically choose to transfer to external providers, which are now different from those of one or two decades ago. This paper discusses the results of a survey conducted to determine the current outsourcing status of information systems services in large Portuguese organisations, by identifying the services that companies keep inside their boundaries and services that companies outsource to vendors. It also presents a comparison of the results from this study with results from studies developed in other countries. These findings should be useful both for researchers, who can use it to study the outsourcing and information systems function evolution, and for practitioners, mainly vendors, who may use it to build up its offer in agreement with the buyers' needs and wishes. Copyright © 2009, Inderscience Publishers.

Abstract
The activities and skills of the information systems manager evolved extraordinarily in the last half century, from the technician who managed an operational function with a limited importance to the organization, to the position chief information officer, now responsible for a department on which depends the overall success of the organization. This study provides some empirical insight on the chief information officer profession in Portugal. We conducted a survey directed to the chief information officers of Portuguese largest organizations to investigate how they spend their time and to evaluate which are the most important skills for the role they play on the organization. We also compare the results obtained with other studies to try to unveil which differences exist in the activities performed by Portuguese chief information officers and chief information officers from other countries. This study can also be viewed as a guideline for the development and training of existing chief information officers as well as for hiring new managers for this position with the right skills, to assure the right management of information systems.