International Journal of Information Technology and Management (3 papers in press)

• Managed Testing: Designing a Tool for Dealing with Service Providers Project Risks in Software Testing
  by Harry Bouwman, Sebastiaan Tiemens 
  Abstract: Managed Testing, which is a new concept in the world of system and software engineering, is fundamentally different from the traditional testing concept in terms of the allocation of project risks. While this is in favour of the customers involved, service providers offering testing services demand insight in the re-allocation of project risks. A risk assessment can provide insight into the impact of these risks. In this paper we discuss the change in the re-allocation of project risks, based on literature review, and provide insight into how a service provider can manage the change in risk allocation while making the transition from traditional testing to Managed Testing. Therefore a risk assessment tool is designed. The tool is intended to support service providers in assessing the project risks involved in contracting a certain software test project for a customer.
  Keywords: managed testing; risk allocation; resource/result-based testing; variable price contracting; services bundling; outsourcing; off-shoring
   
• An Exploratory Study of the SCM Practices and IT Usage: An emerging market context
  by Amar Singh, Rakesh Narain, Ramesh Yadav 
  Abstract: Supply chain management has become a critical source of sustainable advantage. Connectivity with all the partners and ability to communicate rapidly and accurately along the supply chain with customers and suppliers, using information technology tools, is essential. This paper reports the findings of a postal survey carried out in 54 Indian manufacturing organizations to ascertain the impact of information technology on supply chain management practices. The findings indicate that the use of electronic means of communication, such as e-markets, electronic data interchange, and extranets will increase along with e-mails. The use of supply chain planning and control tools and techniques such as APS, VMI, CPFR etc. are in their infancy stage. The organizations intend to invest heavily in information technology to encourage adoption of e-business. Large organizations are ahead of the small and medium enterprises in the usage of information technology in different functional areas.
  Keywords: Supply Chain Management (SCM); Information Technology (IT); Electronic-commerce (e-commerce); Outsourcing; and Survey.
   
• An approach to achieve IT Agility by Combining SOA with ITSM
  by Saïd IZZA, Rabah IMACHE 
  Abstract: Today, service-orientation is considered as a compelling technique for developing agile software systems that best align with business. It is also considered as an important approach for information technology (IT) service management, especially for service delivery and support. However, there is still some confusions and misunderstanding between people as sometimes they are referring to ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) services and sometimes to SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) services. So, the combination of both SOA and ITSM approaches arises. This paper deals with this combination and it provides some principles, policies and models that guide and explain the connections that may exist between the two worlds. Specifically, it provides a service model and governance, which cover the multitude necessary activities for specifying and managing how services are defined and supported within large enterprises.
  Keywords: Service, ITSM, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) , SOA, service governance, service model, service catalogue, quality of service, SLA (Service Level Agreement), agility.