Mid Sweden University

The study focused on problems, drivers and priorities for information architecture and management of electronic information, especially records, in the Swedish financial sector. In the theoretical framework it is stressed that in order to develop effective e-services in any type of organisation it is necessary to not only to focus on business and technological infrastructure, but also to develop efficient forms of information infrastructure and information architecture, in which the management and access of electronic records forms an essential part. Further it is asserted, in accordance with the records continuum model, that in order to efficiently be able to access and manage electronic records in any organisation or organisations, electronic recordkeeping requires a pro-active and continuous iterative approach. Sixteen semi-structured interviews with five Swedish banks and one insurance company show that in recent years managing and accessing electronic records have become important strategic and economic factors, which is more now than before considered to be an essential part the enterprise information architecture and information infrastructure. One important driver for developing electronic recordkeeping is the increased need to be able to access customer records from any part of the organisation, nationally and internationally. Today, however, electronic records are sometimes scattered in different processes and systems with different structure and technology, a problem that these organisations now are beginning to solve in different kinds of development projects dealing with information architecture and digital archives.

The background to the present study is supplied by two studies of a large Swedish public organisation. A strong hierarchy, which maintains a traditional view of functional departments as being the owners of IT products, creates stovepipes and silos, not only within the systems but also within the organisation, which tends to obstruct crossfunctional projects and the ability to ascertain general needs and requirements. The present study considers the integration of business and IT processes, focusing on the development process and the purchaser-contractor relations. The purpose is to find success factors, good examples and areas of improvement from private companies relating to the problems from the studied public organisation. Sixteen interviews with five Swedish banks and one insurance company appeared to suggest that the problems highlighted in previous studies, e.g. stovepipe systems and departments, were not recognised as significant problems within any of the interviewed organisations. In general, the development processes were considered well-oiled with little friction between departments, system owners, purchasers and contractors. In almost all interviews, it was considered that the integration of customer, information and IT was more cohesive than previously. The findings from the interviews have been categorised into nine factors or areas. Three general business environment factors - the history of organisational change and mergers, the overall economic situation and the strong customer focus - seem to have broken the functional mind-sets and sharpened and focused the organisations into a collaborative culture. Furthermore, a great deal of hard work appears to have been centered upon three factors relating to processes and the management of projects: the development processes are generally very well defined and well known internally, projects are smaller with modules and releases, and there is an open discussion about stovepiped departments and general requirements. Lastly, there are three areas of improvement: The role and competencies of the purchaser, the infrastructure and the need for an enterprise architecture, and the document interface including the use of RUP and UML.

This paper focuses upon the how the information and IT strategies and processes have to integrate with the e-service processes. A model consisting of three parts: IT strategy, information resources strategy part and customer/e-services strategy is presented. It is stressed that in order to develop cost effective and efficient e-services this "trinity approach" is needed. The development of new information and communication technologies and of new organisational forms reinforces that information management, here exemplified with electronic records management, and must be an integrated part of the development of e-services in any organisation. The customer strategies point the organisation in a direction where there is a need for a tighter integration between IT and customer-close activities, putting focus on the processes. Further, the role of IT is to provide an infrastructure; a platform upon which services and processes can be based. Based on the concept of a platform and modules, systems development projects can be made smaller and manageable. The trinity relation, and the order of dependencies, can also be found in the Balanced Scorecard, adding the perspectives of processes, finance and measurement. The cause-effects of the Balanced Scorecard show that IT can take a proactive role supporting processes and customer relations and, in the end, show financial rewards.