An integrated STOPE framework for e-readiness assessments

e-Readiness assessments, for countries and organizations, are becoming of increasing importance, as they specify the current states from which planning for ICT “information and communication technology” toward supporting sustainable development, should start. This paper is concerned with providing an approach, based on the STOPE “strategy, technology, organization, people, and environment” framework for conducting e-readiness assessments. The approach views the previous literature on e-readiness assessment through the eye of the STOPE domains, providing an integrated framework of the factors that has been taken into account in such assessments. In the mean time, the approach also keeps the light on for adding and integrating other potential factors. In addition, the approach introduces an analytical method for the assessment of the various factors considered, both individually and collectively, according to the STOPE domains. The paper also gives an example illustrating the results that can be obtained from using the approach. Finally, the paper calls for the use of the approach for practical cases to produce, STOPE based, real life e-readiness assessment results according to a standard approach that supports sound relative evaluations and comparisons. Introduction Using ICT and networking the world are becoming of increasing importance for sustainable development, thanks to the many resulting benefits including: saving time and cost, exploring new development opportunities, and paving the way toward building the digital economy and developing the knowledge society (Bakry, 2006). A recent study by the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University defined the term “e-readiness” as the “preparedness for the networked world” (Geoffery, 2002). According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), “e-readiness assessments are meant to guide development efforts by providing benchmarks for comparison and gauging progress (Sergey, 2004). They help diagnosing ICT problems, advocating required ICT changes, and developing sound ICT plans. Although most e-readiness assessment studies were performed at the country level, for different countries, it has been emphasized that the e-readiness of organizations, in a country, is an integral part of the overall e-readiness of that country (Leading Growth Firms Series, 2001 and Dawn, 2002). The trend toward enhancing e-readiness has been emphasized by the UN summit meeting of September 2000, which issued the widely known UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) (UN, 2000). It has also been stressed by the Lisbon European summit, held in March 2000 (EC, 2000), and by the European Community in its drive toward the “knowledge society” (EC web site). In addition two World Summits on the Information Society were initiated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) during the last two years: the first in Geneva, in December 2003; and the second in Tunisia, in November 2005 (World information summit web site). Although many studies have introduced various e-readiness assessments, as mentioned above, these studies were based on different assumptions, and included different factors. This paper is concerned with providing a comprehensive framework, for e-readiness assessments, that integrates the various factors considered in previous studies. For this purpose the paper uses Bakry’s STOPE, “strategy, technology, organization, people, and environment” framework; and in the mean time, it keeps the light on for adding and integrating other potential factors. The STOPE framework has been developed and used for the evaluation of different ICT problems, including e-business and e-government planning (Bakry, 2001 and Bakry, 2004), information security management (Bakry, 2003), and the emerging enterprise resource planning tools (Bakry, 2005). The paper introduces an approach concerned with using STOPE for e-readiness assessments. The approach addresses the integration of e-readiness factors using STOPE, and provides a mathematical model illustrating how STOPE based assessments can be evaluated at different levels of detail. Applying the approach, the paper derives an integrated STOPE framework for e-readiness assessments, and provides an illustrative example showing how assessment results can be evaluated. Finally, the paper calls for using the work in the future, as a standard approach, for practical real-life e-readiness assessment studies, as this would support sound relative evaluations and comparisons. 18th National Computer Conference 2006 © Saudi Computer Society An integrated STOPE framework