ITIL ADOPTION MODEL BASED ON UTAUT -...

European, Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems 2012 (EMCIS2012) June 7-8, Munich, Germany

Ahmad et al 361 ITIL Adoption Model based on UTAUT

ITIL ADOPTION MODEL BASED ON UTAUT

Norita Ahmad. PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Business and Management, American University of Sharjah, UAE

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Azza Al Hilali, Engineering Systems Management (ESM) School of Engineering, American University of Sharjah, UAE

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Faten Qutaifan, Engineering Systems Management (ESM) School of Engineering, American University of Sharjah, UAE

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Noha Tarek Amer, Engineering Systems Management (ESM) School of Engineering, American University of Sharjah, UAE

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Abstract

As organizations implement Information Technology and Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to enhance the Information Technology (IT) governance they either study critical success factors, or take consultants advice on best practices for maximum probability of succeeding with the organizational culture change. Meanwhile, the adoption of such change is not widely discussed due to the lack of adoption models that address governance frameworks. This paper proposes the use of the technology adoption model UTAUT as an adoption model of IT governance frameworks, specifically ITIL. In order for the model to specifically cater to ITIL adoption, it was supported by critical success factors of ITIL implementation. These critical success factors are proposed to have a direct impact on constructs that define the adoption. The proposed model was then implemented by applying it to a case study of a company where the ITIL implementation project failed. As a result to analyzing the case study in light of the adoption model, a road map to successful implementation of ITIL is proposed.

Keywords:Information Technology Infrastructure Library, ITIL, ITIL Success Factors, ITIL Adoption, UTAUT, implementation road map

1. INTRODUCTION

As managements recognize that the role of Information Technology (IT) is essential to the core business, their demand increases for a governance model or a quality improvement framework such as Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM) or Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Two problems lie in adopting conventional quality models; first they are basically designed for products not services, secondly, they are very general in scope. These two issues were addressed by researchers and governmental bodies resulting in the development of governance frameworks targeting IT such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), Information technology and Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT). Among the three stated IT governance models, ITIL proved best adherence to Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) (Iden & Langeland 2010).

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Implementing ITIL however has proven challenging and dependent on various critical factors each of which might compromise the implementation project in all. This statement might seem generic and pessimistic; however, many papers conclude very similar sets of critical success factors (CFS) which imply that each of them have equal contribution weight to the success of ITIL implementation. Based on this, it was found that a large number of the CSFs are not technology-based, that is, they don't depend on the vendor or application selected to aid in implementing ITIL. On the contrary, most of the CSF relate to user acceptance of the framework. To aid in reducing the friction of implementing ITIL, a methodology needs to be employed that considers both human and technological factors.

The limited research found on ITIL implementation concentrates on describing success factors and best implementation practices. On the other hand, adoption models such as Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) are proposed for adopting new technologies but not frameworks. This paper aims to link the CSFs to the UTAUT model in order to enhance the implementation and adoption process of ITIL. Furthermore, the proposed model is applied to a case study highlighting the main lessons learnt. At the end, a road map for implementing ITIL is proposed.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

ITIL as stated by the ITIL on its official website is a documentation of process-based best practices that when implemented successfully improves quality of IT services. ITIL provides guidance to a number of generic managerial objectives; align IT with business; reduce IT cost and increase efficiency (Marquis 2006). To summarise, researchers concluded two major reasons explaining the move towards implementing ITIL one being the increased focus on customer service (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011),(Pollard 2009), (Pedersen et al. 2010), (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005), (Shang & Lin 2010). Another reason stated is the increased interest in effective and transparent IT governance (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005). Being a quality improvement framework, ITIL is similar to other quality frameworks in the aspect that it “reorganizes work, not staff” (Marquis 2006). Hence, reduction in IT operational cost will not be a short-term achievement. ITIL implementation is not spelled out in documentations, leaving managers wondering, what is the best practice to implement ITIL. (Marquis 2006) For that, consultants, vendors, and deep training are essential. Another unappealing trait of ITIL is the resistance it receives by staff due to poor change management. A study even showed that an organization opted against ITIL after assessing their ability to implement it; the reason stated was “Not enough of the organization would participate”. (Marquis 2006) To overcome, or at least reduce ITIL implementation limitations and setbacks, researchers studied critical success factors (CSF), and how users perceive IT frameworks.

2. Critical Success Factors for implementation of ITIL

A literature review is conducted to identify critical factors for successful implementation of ITIL. The first paper used is a meta-analysis of previous studies on critical success factors (CSF) (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).Two of the papers reviewed were multi-case studies of organizations that have implemented ITIL where the authors interviewed ITIL stakeholders in studied organizations (Pollard 2009), (Pedersen et al. 2010), (Tan et al. 2009). Another paper used to identify CSFs was based on results of a questionnaire completed by itSMF National Conference delegates (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005). The final paper studied was also a multi-case study where authors interviewed ITIL projects stakeholders. However, the findings of this paper present barriers instead of success factors-



to successfully implement ITIL (Shang & Lin 2010). Hence we will negate these factors to their positive counterpoints to use them as CSFs.

Management Support

Top management support is essential for successful implementation of any initiatives that might alter the organizational culture. Hence, as the case is with all quality improvement frameworks, the study conducted by (Tan et al. 2009) shows that ITIL requires management involvement. Management support and commitment play two important roles. First it endorses policy and enforces compliance to following newly implemented standard processes. The other essential role management support plays is guaranteed funding needed for consultancy, tools, and training (Pollard 2009). As top management put their weight behind an initiative they trigger communication between stakeholders (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).

ITIL Awareness and Training

General training of ITIL fundamentals allows stakeholders to effectively communicate about ITIL processes (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011). Training and awareness reduced employee resistance (Pollard 2009) and increased cooperation and adoption of new processes (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).

Interdepartmental Collaboration

Interdepartmental collaboration is identified as a CSF by two papers (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011), (Pollard 2009), the authors explain that this specific CSF is needed to maximize knowledge sharing and communication that is essential for ITIL adoption. Collaboration will make modifying cross-functional process smoother, hence, minimizing the risk of project implementation from running overtime.

Process Priority

From analysis of four organizations of different sizes, sectors and at disperse locations; authors of (Pollard 2009) concluded that accurate process definition has priority over tool selection. Relating to Business Process Reengineering (BPR), defining process accurately is fundamental as it might eliminate the need to go through a reengineer initiative (Laguna & Marklund, 2005).

Tool Selection

Tool selection is critical for ITIL implementation. That is, the IT department should make sure they pick the right tool that fits its’ requirements to avoid ending up with an underutilized tool (Pollard 2009). The same study presents a case where proper tool selection allowed for easier configuration of the processes. In addition, tool selection is identified as critical by (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011) because of its influence on perceived usefulness (PU).

Change Management

Alongside management support and appointment of skilled project champion CSFs, change management practices (acknowledgement of organizational readiness, quick wins and marketing campaign of ITIL framework, etc) proved to be a result definer for several cases (Pedersen et al. 2010), (Shang & Lin 2010). Proper change management execution is critical in situations where big bang (revolutionary) implementation strategy is adopted. Change management sits in the middle tying two CSFs together: training and staff awareness facilitate smooth change within an organization, (Pollard 2009), which in turn influences users’ perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEU) (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).



Customer Orientation

In the reviewed literature, three different perspectives were found in relation to customer. Two papers suggest that setting customer-oriented metrics is a key to successful ITIL implementation (Pollard 2009), (Shang & Lin 2010). The other paper that identified customer focus as a CSF stressed on the need to keep customer/user best interest in consideration before implementing ITIL (Pedersen et al. 2010). The final perspective in customer-orientation might seem to contradict with the previous paper. Authors of this paper believe that as long as IT-customer interaction occurs after problems occur, then, ITIL efforts are classified as firefighting rather than proactive (Shang & Lin 2010).

Use of Consultants & Consultant selection

Throughout ITIL implementation, consultants’ role might go from strictly being trainers to IT/project managers or going all the way to being process owners (Pollard 2009). The involvement level of consultants’ is decided by the implementation strategy. Knowledge transfer to permanent staff becomes critical once implementation is completed.

Implementation Strategy and Design

Two implementation strategies were discussed in (Pedersen et al. 2010) incremental and revolutionary, the first is implementing ITIL processes one at a time, and the other describes implementing ITIL as a project of several major concurrent activities. Authors of this paper relate the choice of implementation strategy to initiation trigger; either genuine business needs identified by the IT body or an opportunity to document systematic practice within the IT body (here, the decision making is autocratic as it comes from outside the IT body). The paper concludes by suggesting contingency approach to ITIL implementation where a proper assessment of IT needs is carried out in order to define ITIL implementation goals. Looking at the same implementation strategies from a different view, paper (Pollard 2009) first related the strategy choice to sector type; public and private. However, the author eventually concluded that principles of good project management are to be adhered regardless of the sector, and of the ITIL implementation strategy choice. The same is stressed on project management skills as argued by (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011) as it directly impacts perceived usefulness (PU).

Project Champion

Out of 108 of itSMF conference questionnaire respondents, 77 strongly agree and 29 agree that in addition to having senior management commitment, assigning a project champion to advocate and promote ITIL is critical to the success of ITIL initiative implementation (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005).

Ability of IT staff to adapt to change

Out of 108 of itSMF conference questionnaire respondents, 65 strongly agree and 37 agree that ability of IT staff to accept change is critical to the success of ITIL initiative implementation (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005).

Quality of IT staff allocated for ITIL

Out of 108 respondents to the questionnaire distributed at the itSMF conference, 65 strongly agreed and 37 agreed that competency of ITIL staff association with implementing ITIL is a CSF (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005). If ITIL training positively impacts communication and collaboration on ITIL processes (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011), it can be drawn that competent knowledge in ITIL is critical to smoother implementation. Further proof is some organizations’ preference to hire external consultants with longer firsthand experience.



Monitoring and Evaluation of ITIL Implementation

IT staff feedback on implementation performance ultimately effects attitude toward use attitude towards use (ATU) (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).

The table below summarizes the conducted comparison between eight different research papers in terms of reported critical success factors:

Identified Critical Success Factor

Paper (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011)

Paper (Pollard 2009)

Paper (Pedersen et al. 2010)

Paper (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005)

Paper (Shang & Lin 2010)

Paper (Iden & Langeland 2010)

Paper (Tan et al. 2009)

Paper (Cater-steel 2006)

1 Management Support

X X X X X X X

2 ITIL Training, Awareness and Knowledge management

X X X X X X X

3 Interdepartmental Collaboration

X X X

4 Process Priority

X X

5 Tool Selection X X X

6 Change Management

X X X X X

7 Customer Orientation

X X X X

8 Use of Consultants & Consultant selection

X

9 Implementation Strategy and Design

X X X X X

10 Project Champion

X X X

11 Ability of IT staff to adapt to change

X



Identified Critical Success Factor

Paper (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011)

Paper (Pollard 2009)

Paper (Pedersen et al. 2010)

Paper (Cater-steel & gee Tan 2005)

Paper (Shang & Lin 2010)

Paper (Iden & Langeland 2010)

Paper (Tan et al. 2009)

Paper (Cater-steel 2006)

1 Management Support

X X X X X X X

2 ITIL Training, Awareness and Knowledge management

X X X X X X X

3 Interdepartmental Collaboration

X X X

4 Process Priority

X X

12 Quality of IT staff allocated for ITIL

X X

13 Monitoring and evaluation of ITIL Implementation

X X

14 Realization plan

X X X

Table 1. Identified CSF for successful ITIL implementation

In Table 2, the 14 identified CSFs for implementing ITIL are grouped into seven key classes of factors. The 7 key CSFs were originally proposed by (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011) as the main CSF relevant to ITIL implementation after conducting a qualitative meta-analysis of available ITIL research. These factors were then used as input influencing the TAM adoption model used by the paper which is explained in section 2.3. In this paper, the 14 identifies factors are mapped to the seven key factors in order to have a comprehensive and detailed list of CSFs.

CSFs Key Classes Identified CSFs

1 Top management support Management Support

2 Change management and organizational culture Change Management

Ability of IT Staff to Adapt to Change

3 Monitoring and evaluation Monitoring And Evaluation of ITIL Implementation



4 Communication and cooperation Interdepartmental Collaboration

Realization Plan

5 Project management and governance Project Champion

Customer Orientation

6 Training and competence of involved stakeholder in ITIL project

ITIL Training, Awareness & Knowledge Management

Quality of IT Staff Allocated tor ITIL

7 ITIL process implementation and applied technology

Implementation Strategy and Design

Process Priority

Tool Selection

Use Of Consultants & Consultant Selection

Table 2. Classification of identified CSFs

As can be noted from table 2, and as was suspected, only two classes mapped one-to-one to the identified CSFs; Top management support and Monitoring and Evaluation. The remaining 5 key factors are expanded into more specific and differentiated factors. Organization Culture along with conventional Change Management include the ability of individual members in an organization to accept and then adapt to change. Communication and Cooperation factor is achieved by interdepartmental collaboration and further supported by means of Benefits Realization Plans. Project Management and governance suggest two critical factors to be considered; assigning a project champion and following customer-oriented strategy when defining implantation scope of ITIL. As for the training factor, two CSFs are involved for a successful implementation first the ITIL knowledge which covers the flow if ITIL knowledge throughout the project (starting from stakeholders acquiring appropriate training, to spreading awareness among staff through workshops to gaining first-hand knowledge from completed implementation phases). The second part is quality of IT staff allocated to ITIL initiative. Lastly, the factor of ITIL Process Implementation and Applied Technology is constructed of four CSF: Implementation Strategy and Design, Process Priority, Tool Selection and finally, the Use of Consultants and Consultant Selection, each of which were discussed above.

3. Adoption of ITIL

In fact few studies were conducted to determine the success factors that affect the implementation of ITIL; even fewer researchers studied the adoption of ITIL. (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011) is one of the very few studies which examined the effect of critical success factors of implementing ITIL on the adoption factors represented by the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study had synthesized seven key success factors for Implementing ITIL including: (1) top management support, (2) communication and cooperation, (3) training and competence of involved stakeholder in ITIL project, (4) change management and organizational culture, (5) project management and governance, (6) ITIL process



implementation and applied technology, (7) monitoring and evaluation. The study had used Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to study the adoption of ITIL. TAM was developed by Davis in (Davis 1989) and (Davis et al. 1989) and it simply posits that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are major determinants for a user’s intention to use a technology. Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab (2011) did not only examine the critical success factors and their effect on adoption drivers but it also explored the relationship between the critical success factors themselves. The study concluded that in terms of critical success factors, top management support has an impact on communication and cooperation, change project and governance, monitoring and evaluation, change management, organizational culture, as well as an indirect influence on IT staffs’ acceptance. The study also reported that training and competence of involved stakeholders influence change management and organizational culture. In addition, the study found out that project management and governance is affected by communication and cooperation and it has an impact on ITIL process implementation and applied technology and also monitoring and evaluation. On the other hand, (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011) indicated that in terms of adoption factors, perceived ease of use is affected by training and competence of involved stakeholders and Change management and organizational culture. Besides, perceived usefulness is impacted by competence of involved stakeholders, top management support, Project management and governance and also Change management and organizational culture. Moreover, (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011) reported that Monitoring and evaluation has an impact on Attitude towards Use as depicted in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: ITIL Adoption Model Based on TAM

Despite being the most widely applied technology adoption model, TAM has some limitations and according to (Lee et al. n.d.) the most common criticism of TAM is the lack of actionable guidance or interventions to practitioners. Therefore this paper will use a revised version of TAM, which considers a unified view of user acceptance, to study the adoption of ITIL. The adoption model of choice is the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model developed in (Venkatesh et al. 2003). The UTAUT model is a result of synthesizing and reviewing eight different technology acceptance models and it presents a unified view of user acceptance which has four main constructs: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions (Venkatesh et al. 2003). Also, the study in (Venkatesh et al. 2003) had compared the synthesized UTAUT model to all of



the individual models which were used in developing this model and the results of the empirical studies showed that UTAUT did better than any of the models in explaining the variance in user acceptance.

Also, the UTAUT model considers four moderators for the key relationships: age, gender, experience and voluntariness of use (Venkatesh et al. 2003) as depicted in figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology

This paper will review the critical success factors (CSFs) for implementation of ITIL in the literature review and use the synthesized CSFs to qualitatively study their effect on the constructs of the UTAUT adoption model in terms of ITIL adoption.

The relationship between the critical success factors and the UTAUT model is proposed in the below table:

UTAUTs Constructs definition Affected By CSFs

Performance expectancy

The degree to which an individual believes that using the system will help him or her to attain gains in job performance.

communication and cooperation project management and governance change management and organizational culture

Effort expectancy The degree of ease associated with the use of the system.

change management and organizational culture training and competence of involved stakeholder in ITIL project ITIL process implementation and applied technology

Social influence The degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he or she should use the new system

top management support monitoring and evaluation



Facilitating conditions

The degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system

top management support training and competence of involved stakeholder in ITIL project ITIL process implementation and applied technology

Table 3. Relationship between critical success factors and UTAUT model

The proposed model is depicted in the figure 3 below:

The following will illustrate how each of the implementation CSFs are linked to the adoption constructs.

Performance expectancy

Performance expectancy is the degree to which an individual believes that the new system is helping him/her in performing the tasks in an easy and efficient way (Venkatesh et al. 2003). According to (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab, 2011), performance expectancy is affected by project management and governance, communication and cooperation, and change management and organizational culture.

It goes without saying that project management is essential for a successful implementation of IT projects (Keil et al. 2003). According to (Cooke-Davies 2002), project management is one of the ‘real’ success factors of a project. Applying proper tools and techniques of project management would help employees realize the benefits of the new system (Atkinson 1999), thus, increase the perceived usefulness of ITIL.

UTAUT

Figure 3 Proposed ITIL Adoption Model Based on UTAUT



Besides, according to (Pollard 2009), incremental implementation of ITIL would help employees experience the benefits of the system over a shorter period of time.

Communication and cooperation is a critical success factor. ERP, like all IT projects, have communication and cooperation in the 6th rank of the list of its critical success factors for project implementation (Pollard 2009). Communication is important between management and employees to make them realize the usefulness of ITIL (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).

Finally change management and organizational culture counts towards performance expectancy of the employee. The organization is better off representing ITIL as a project rather than a usual business (Cater-steel 2006). This means that ITIL implementation should go through a business case representing benefits, risks, costs and schedule, a solution development and a service design for continuous improvement (Cater-steel 2006). The highlighted benefits of ITIL in the business case shall be aligned with the employees’ interests. Alignment of ITIL benefits with the employees’ interests shall help them better realize the benefits of the execution of their daily duties through ITIL (Cater-Steel & McBride 2007).

Effort Expectancy

According to (Venkatesh et al. 2003), effort expectancy is defined as the degree to which an individual believes the new system is easy to use. According to the proposed model, effort expectancy is affected by three main factors; training and competence of stakeholders, change management and organizational culture, ITIL process implementation and tool selection.

Implementing ITIL is like many other projects implies major organizational change and therefore faces the challenge of overcoming the obstacle of organizational culture acceptance (Grewal & of Canberra.

School of Information Sciences & Engineering 2006). Therefore Change management is quite essential for facilitating the acceptance of ITIL implementation by the employees. In fact training of stakeholders is part of proper change management process. Training and awareness of stakeholders is also ranked as the second most important factor after top management support to gain the interest of stakeholders (Pollard 2009). Training does not only help employees to cope with the new system, in addition, it provides them with a sense of involvement throughout the implementation journey (Pollard 2009). In other words, training will help employees learn what ITIL means, how it will impact their jobs and consequently affecting their idea of how easy is it to use/ follow ITIL processes and standards.

ITIL process implementation and tool selection, like other success factors is critical for a proper implementation of ITIL. Proper tool selection criteria will ensure that the selected tool for implementing ITIL is user friendly and therefore users will not view the system as hard to use. Also, it is important to study the current IT critical processes and conduct a gap analysis between their current status and the desired ITIL adherence status. This will eventually result in a simplified focused process which is easy to perform thus requiring less effort (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011).

Social Influence

Social Influence as defined in (Venkatesh et al. 2003) is the degree to which an individual perceives that important others believe he or she should use the new system. According to the model proposed in this paper Social Influence is affected by two of the synthesized critical success factors namely top management support and monitoring and evaluation.

Usually, top management controls the communication activities in Information Technology/ Information System (IT/IS) projects (Bueno Salvador 2008). Consequently top management support will show



evidence that the project is important, thus gaining employees’ commitment in a hope for leaving a good impression at the management side. In addition, if the project succeeds the employees would want the top management to acknowledge their efforts while incase the project fails or was delayed they don’t want to be blamed for not being cooperative.

Likewise, when the employees become aware that their feedback will be solicited for the evaluation and monitoring process to review the implementation performance of ITIL and determine whether or not it is achieving the business goals (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011); the employees will feel more obliged to cooperate and support the implementation of the project.

Facilitating Conditions Facilitating conditions as defined in (Venkatesh et al. 2003) is the degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to support use of the system. According to the proposed model in this paper, this construct is influenced by three of the synthesized critical success factors in (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011). The critical success factors of interest are top management support, training and competence of involved stakeholder in ITIL and TIL process implementation and applied technology. As a matter of fact, the reason why the aforementioned critical success factors may have an effect on the construct, i.e. facilitating conditions, is that they actually makeup this construct. In other words, the above mentioned critical success factors resemble the technical and organizational aspects of the work environment that if they were made available will help eliminating barriers to use the system. If top management commitment is present it would result in granting a project the required funding for resources, consultants, employee training and acquiring required technology (Sarvenaz Mehravani & Haghighinasab 2011). The presence of these critical success factors turns the environment into one that fosters a sense of urgency among the employees to be part of the wheel which is pushing the project forward.

3. Case Study: ITIL implementation at a developing stock exchange.

This case study examines the experience of ITIL implementation at a developing stock exchange in an attempt to identify the factors that drive success of ITIL implementation and highlight the pitfalls which could impede the adoption of this framework.

4. How ITIL Implementation Was Initiated

The stock exchange of interest is fairly young; it was established about 11 years ago. From the conception of the idea to the launching date in 2000, one year passed during which the exchange was set up and ad-hoc processes emerged and evolved based on the constantly changing business needs; there was no formal planning for business processes in general and for the IT processes in particular. Consequently, none of the processes reached maturity level; scoring low on efficiency and service quality. At first, the lack of properly planned and defined processes had no significant impact on the performance of the daily activities, but not until the year 2004 when the stock market had experienced a strong economic growth. During the boom period, which started in 2004 and had stretched throughout the year 2005, the stock market became active. There was a large number of trading activities with large trading volumes which added an extra load on the trading system and increased the network traffic. This rapid increase in the



number of active traders and their trading activities rendered the trading engine inoperative and caused the network to experience some technical glitches during the critical trading hours. Interrupting a trading session is considered disastrous for a stock market as a split of a second can mean a loss of invaluable trades and therefore a downtime during trading hours is deemed extremely costly. Unfortunately, the disruption of the trading service doesn’t only translate to monetary losses but it can easily shake the investors’ confidence in the reliability of the exchange as well.

When the trading session was suspended due to the technical problems, everybody on the IT team was literally running around trying to resolve the issue. No one had a clear idea of where to start from or how to tackle the problem as no defined procedures were available. This major event caused a fuss which made its way to the press specially that some investors panicked over losing deals while brokers complained about losing connection to the trading system. The whole situation was a big mess; top management was dissatisfied while investors and trading members were frustrated. The helpdesk was showered with phone calls and even office phones and personal mobile phones of the IT team didn’t stop ringing. This all had added up to the lack of defined processes and aggravated the pressure placed on the IT personnel which made it even harder for them to solve the problem in a timely manner. Eventually, the issue was resolved but after that top management started posing questions as in what had caused the issue? Why did it take so long to solve the problem? Was it a temporary fix or a permanent solution? Will the same issue ever occur again? The operational manager who happened to be the IT manager as well was facing so many questions that he had answers to none.

The Information Technology Section was listed under the Market Operations Department and consisted of five units namely the Trading & Clearing, Settlement & Depository System unit, Maintenance & Development Unit, Technical support unit, System Support unit and Network & Security unit. The heads of the five aforementioned units report directly to the head of the Market Operations Department.

The operational manager got an advice from his assistant manager who used to be the Chief Information officer (CIO) of HSBC bank which at that time had already implemented ITIL. The operations assistant manager had advised the operational manager to implement ITIL as it will fix the current situation and will improve future performance. The former CIO of HSBC promised the operational manager that ITIL will help increase the efficiency, minimize the downtime, cut the operational cost and improve the service quality. The operational manager acted upon this recommendation and appointed one of IT team members to be responsible for the implementation of ITIL in the exchange. This was how the ITIL initiative started at this exchange.

5. The Implementation Journey

The employee who was nominated to lead the ITIL implementation didn’t initially know what ITIL is and had no clue what it does and how can it be deployed therefore he contacted a consultancy company to help with the implementation of ITIL in the exchange.

During that time period, the year of 2005, ITIL-V2 was around and ITIL-V3 wasn’t planned yet. The ITIL implementation coordinator along with the consultancy company planned for the implementation of ITIL. As part of plan, the consultancy recommended sending the employees for ITIL training courses. The IT team was assigned to a three day crash course training for ITIL. Afterwards, they were asked to take the ITIL certification exam. Unfortunately, the IT team didn’t take the training seriously and as a result the majority wasn’t able to pass the exam and some of them required extra training sessions by the consultancy company. The reason why the IT team took the training lightly was because they were not part of the decision of implementing ITIL. The IT team wasn’t informed of the pursued goals of ITIL



implementation. In addition, no clear or defined roles were given to IT team thus none of the team members was aware of his/her responsibilities.

As the implementation plan progressed, the appointed ITIL implementation coordinator and consultancy team reached to a stage where the IT processes needed to be tailored to have them adhere to ITIL-V2 standards. That is when the implementation team realized that no clearly defined processes exist and no documentation was available on any of the processes. Consequently, the project coordinator decided to start a reengineering initiative with the help of the internal IT quality officer in which they made two major mistakes. The first mistake was that they have not sorted out all the available processes nor did they prioritize their need for reengineering. Instead they went ahead reengineering every possible process. Moreover, people who work on these processes were not involved during the reengineering phase and this was the second mistake. The reengineering initiative took a lot of time and effort and as result the ITIL implementation was delayed.

6. ITIL Tool Selection

After the bases of the ITIL implementation was laid down, i.e. processes were defined and tailored to comply with the ITIL-V2 standards. It was the time for actual implementation, however the defined processes according to ITIL are somehow complex and time consuming to be implemented without an underlying system to streamline the processes. Thus, the company decided to purchase a service desk tool that has ITIL compliant processes. The company chose two of the available suppliers in the market namely: HP and CA to evaluate their service desk management tools. Like all other processes there were no defined procedures for tool or supplier selection in the company. The team who was nominated to recommend one tool consisted of two people who couldn’t reach consensus so they had to go back to the IT manager to help break the tie. The IT manager recommended HP for its reputation.

7. ITIL tool Implementation

At the point of implementing the ITIL compliant service desk tool, vendor related issues surfaced. The main problem with HP was that their technical team lacked the skills required to customize the new version of the tool which is to be implemented at the exchange. The HP technical team couldn’t tailor the system to fit the processes as required by the exchange. This forced the exchange to redesign most of the processes so that it can be implemented by the tool. The changes started as minimal and then started to build up till it reached a stage were the processes became complex and almost entirely changed. At that point, the exchange got into a conflict with the HP which resulted in suspending the ITIL implementation for an entire year. The need for documenting and implementing standardized processes persisted, forcing the exchange to resume ITIL implementation however, limited to Incident management, Problem management and Change management.

8. ITIL Adoption

After the HP Open view was rolled out, implementing only limited processes, it was not welcomed by IT employees and the other business employees. Users initially refused to use the system and it took a lot of patience and planning to make them utilize the system for posting their requests. At some point, the ITIL implementation coordinator requested all IT staff to deny any request that doesn’t get through the defined processes. The IT members themselves didn’t follow the newly imposed procedures, for example, firewalls and anti-virus software would be updated and network switches would be upgraded without following the proper change management process. The IT manager had to discuss such cases during the IT team’s weekly meetings and had to ask the responsible people for justification on why changes were made without following the defined procedures. Consequently, the IT team had finally started to follow



the new procedures as no one wants to answer to the manager. Besides, the software customization was poorly tested and most of the bugs appeared during actual usage of the system which discouraged users to continue using the system as experiencing bugs had them view it as unreliable. Moreover, the changes that were applied to processes in order to implement them using the system rendered the processes flow to be too long and complex for users to follow. In addition to the process complexity introduced by the system inability to map the processes as is, the user experience of HP Open view can be described as poor because the system was complex and not user friendly.

At the end, it took the company a total of five years to implement few selected processes of ITIL. One of the reasons is the poor way the ITIL implementation was handled as the company doesn’t have any project management strategies nor follows any project management methodologies.

4. APPLYING THE PROPOSED UTAUT ADOPTION MODEL TO THE CASE STUDY

1. Effort Expectancy

For an attempt to relate the above to the case study presented, the related success factors were not properly implemented. First, training was not mandatory by management. In addition, the goals of the training were not communicated properly resulting in many employees not taking it seriously. Second, the company didn’t spend enough effort in understanding its culture. This can be done through phased implementation. Finally, the developing stock exchange organization didn’t implement the right methodology for tool and vendor selection which resulted in a one year delay trying to customize the tool.

2. Performance expectancy

In regards to the case study presented above, the three corresponding critical success factors were missing. There was no proper project management involved in the ITIL implementation. The absence of project management highly contributes to the failure of projects (Keil et al. 2003). In addition, the management neither communicated nor chased feedback from employees throughout the implementation process of ITIL. Finally, the management didn’t account for the stable organizational culture and attempted to implement ITIL as part of the business not as a project. This resulted in the employees looking at it as an extra work load. Therefore, handling ITIL as a project may help the employees realize the benefits of it (Cater-steel 2006).

3. Social Influence

With reference to the case study of ITIL implementation at the developing stock exchange, matching critical success factors were missing which contributed to the employees’ lack of interest to adopt the implementation of the ITIL framework. Top management didn’t communicate the need for ITIL to the employees nor did it ask for the employees’ feedback during the process. Consequently, the employees didn’t feel the urge to commit to the project. It is worth noting that the employees started changing their behavior towards adopting ITIL in their relevant tasks only after the management started questioning them on their lack of adhering to the new processes.

4. Facilitating Conditions

Referring back to the ITIL implementation in the developed stock exchange, although management had approved the purchasing of an ITIL compliant tool, hired a consultant to guide the implementation process and provided the required training for the employees, the acceptance of ITIL was not as high as it is expected to be according to the adoption model. The reason behind that is the absence of other critical



factors that affect other adoption constructs. The management only provided financial support to the project but not the required organizational empowerment. As discussed earlier, the lack of properly defined change management procedures, project management methodologies and effective communication had played a role in poor adoption of ITIL in the exchange.

5. PROPOSED ROADMAP FOR ITIL IMPLEMENTATION

After presenting critical success factors for ITIL implementation and examining their effect on the determinants of user’s willingness to adopt the governance framework, this paper proposes a comprehensive road map for a successful implantation and adoption of the ITIL framework. Figure 4 depicts the proposed ITIL road map.

The implementation starts by obtaining both management and employee commitment. First, the management commitment will give importance to the project which will eventually help in getting employees commitment. Moreover, employees will get committed to get noticed by management. In addition, management commitment shall facilitate the implementation of ITIL by providing the needed support like funding, resources, and required training.

After that, the organization shall spend enough time and effort in selecting the appropriate consultancy company. The consultant is required to provide the needed expertise for a smooth ITIL implementation. Next, the organization and the consulting company shall work hand in hand to identify and select the

Figure 4 ITIL Implementation Road Map



main IT processes to be changed to adhere to ITIL standards. In parallel to that, the culture of the organization along with the roles of the people needs to be understood to prepare for a smooth change management process.

Subsequently, the IT employees will be involved in requirements gathering in an attempt to make comprehensive ITIL re-engineered processes. Then, a project management methodology should be followed and a proper implementation plan following quick wins strategy. After that, the selected processes should be re-engineered to adhere to ITIL standards. This activity will require involvement from management, employees and the consultancy company. To further smooth the implementation of ITIL processes, a proper tool shall be selected from the proper vendor. Next, the transition plan and training activities should be designed to support change management and equip both the culture and the employees’ skills for the new processes. At the end, the organization shall roll out the new processes incrementally with detailed monitoring for proper observation and continuous improvement.

6. Conclusion

In this paper, ITIL synthesized critical success factors were identified from a comprehensive literature review in an attempt to link it to technology adoption model, namely UTAUT. The proposed model advances the existing literature by improving the process of ITIL implementation and adoption. The model was verified by proper studying of the literature and linking it to a case study of a company that suffered from implementing ITIL.

Following the proposed work, several tracks exist for future work. First, the proposed model can be verified using empirical studies. Another track could be to further enhance the practicality of the road map. This can be achieved by applying it to a real life scenario(s).



Acknowledgment We wish to express our sincere gratitude to, Ms. Doa Qutaifan for the continuous emotional support. Also, we owe our deepest gratitude to Mr. Khaled Al Taber and Mr. Mohammed Haddad for their kind cooperation and for sharing their valuable experience with us.

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