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Maximizing ROI in Information SystemsInvestment Decisions: 

Babatunde Adelabu

CRUDi  Implementation  for  TelecommunicationOrganizations 

Dissertation presented  as  partial  requirementfor obtaining the Master’s degree in InformationManagement  

 

 

i  

NOVA Information Management School 

Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão de Informação 

Universidade Nova de Lisboa 

 

MAXIMIZING ROI IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS INVESTMENT 

DECISIONS  

by 

Babatunde Adelabu 

 

 

 

 

 

Dissertation  presented  as  partial  requirement  for  obtaining  the Master’s  degree  in  Information Management, with a specialization in Information Systems and Technologies Management 

 

 

 

Co‐Advisor:Vitor Santos  Co‐Advisor: Jorge Pereira 

 

 

 

 

  June, 2017

ii

ABSTRACT

This article set sights on aligning Business with Information Systems. The continuous alignment of

business and IT in a rapidly changing environment is a grand challenge for today's enterprises. It has

been a cause for concern by organizations or by managers who recognize the importance and benefits

that this alignment brings to organizations. The information systems should be seen as a blend of

people, processes and technology structured in order to be capable of achieving the business goals.

This article will present the ways which companies can make maximum returns on investment into

Information systems, assessing the comparative importance of each information system to business,

with a focused study on the Telecommunication industry. The main contributions of this work are the

CRUDi framework as a tool to improve alignment between business and IS strategies and the CRUDi

survey and its results qualifying the Telecommunication industry’s opinion regarding the relative

importance of processes and investments.

Keywords: CRUDi; framework; Information Systems; investment; management;

iii

SUBMISSION RESULTS FROM THIS THESIS

REFERENCE: Adelabu, B., Pereira, J., & Santos, V. (2017). Business and IS Alignment: Maximizing Return

On Investment in information Systems Investment Decisions. In CENTERIS - International Conference

on ENTERprise Information Systems (p. 6). Barcelona: Elsevier B.V.

iv

INDEX

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Background ............................................................................................................ 1

1.2 Motivation ............................................................................................................. 1

1.3 Objectives .............................................................................................................. 2

2 Literature Review ......................................................................................................... 3

2.1 The Problems of Business/IS Alignment ................................................................ 3

2.2 Telecommunication Industry................................................................................. 4

2.3 Business/IS Alignment in Telecommunication Industry ........................................ 4

2.4 Business/IS Alignment Approaches (Models) ....................................................... 5

2.5 IT Investments and Maximizing Return of Investments........................................ 6

2.6 CRUDi Framework Approach ................................................................................. 7

3 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 9

4 Using CRUDi In Telecommunication Industry ............................................................ 11

4.1 Telecommunication’s Main Process (APQC) ....................................................... 11

4.2 CRUDi Matrix ....................................................................................................... 11

4.3 Calibrate .............................................................................................................. 13

5 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 18

6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 19

6.1 Synthesis of the developed work ........................................................................ 19

6.2 Limitations and future work ................................................................................ 19

7 References .................................................................................................................. 20

Annex ............................................................................................................................... 24

Annex 1 - Telecommunications Process Classification Framework ........................... 24

Annex 2 – Nominalized impact values ........................................................................ 26

Annex 3 – Calibration calculations ............................................................................. 27

Annex 4 – Survey answers .......................................................................................... 28

v

Table of figures

Figure 1: Research Model by Jorfi and Jorfi (2011) .................................................................... 3

Figure 2: Aggregate decision framework (Scheepers & Scheepers, 2008) ................................ 7

Figure 3: CRUDI Framework (Pereira et al., 2014) ..................................................................... 8

Figure 4: CRUDi cube (Pereira et al. 2012). .............................................................................. 10

Figure 5: Information Systems and their dependencies .......................................................... 14

Figure 6: Information Systems and their dependencies and values ........................................ 15

Figure 7: Information Systems and Interfaces ......................................................................... 16

1

1 INTRODUCTION

Information System (IS) / Business alignment is a preferred condition in which the relationship between

business and Information systems is improved to take full advantage of the business value of IS.

Information Systems have grown over the last two decades in many sectors and industries which have a

great impact on our lives, and are affecting many areas of decision-making and organizational

development. For the administration of any current business the predominant question is not whether

IS will be important to your business, but more precisely what do we have to do so we can profit from

the change that is being brought by the technology (EU, 2010). Technology is advancing many parts of

businesses and it produces several new business opportunities. Over the years information systems have

experienced unprecedented levels of change (Alaceva & Rusu, 2014) . This technology is not only

influencing the way in which we conduct business but it is also changing the way in which we conduct

our lives. Given that information technology and businesses are inseparable (Gates, 1999), Information

Technology helps a company to gain competitive advantage, operational excellence, improved decision

making, new products, services, and business models (Laudon & Laudon, 2003). Business-Information

System alignment has been proven to help organizations in a variety of ways, such as, by maximizing the

return on IS investment (Avison, Jones, Powell, & Wilson, 2004; Pereira; Martins; Gonçalves; Santos,

2014; Pereira, Martins, Santos, & Gonçalves, 2014).

1.1 BACKGROUND There could be difficulty for organizations which implement information systems and want to achieve a

high return on investment (ROI) (Pereira et al., 2014). The existence of alignment may enable a firm to

optimize IS investments and to achieve harmony with the business plans and strategies. This, in turn,

usually leads to increased profitability and competitive advantage (Avison et al., 2004). For better

decisions and investment priorities the CRUDi (C=Create, R=Read, U=Update, D=Delete, the “i” stands for

importance) framework will be applied in order to provide key indicators (Pereira et al.,2012). The CRUDi

framework offers a technique and a set of tools to deal with the comparative importance between the

categorization of the enterprise activities and the available Information System (Pereira et al., 2014). The

CRUDi framework is an expansion of the CRUD matrix, built based on each industry processes and

business entities (Lunsford & Collins, 2008; Moody, 1998; Pereira et al., 2014). With the CRUDi we will be

able to determine what is important to Telecommunication industries thereby helping to determine the

best investment decisions in IS.

1.2 MOTIVATION The problem of gaining high ROI in technological investments exists for almost all industries but it is more

critical for organizations with high technological dependence (Nolle, 2009). Getting a high ROI is more

important to technologically based organizations like Telecommunications or insurance companies than

a company based on Agriculture (Surka, 2013). If a business is in alignment with IS the organization will

be able to achieve high efficiency, offer services with better quality, avoid inefficient issues and avoid

unnecessary high costs(Avison et al., 2004; Buytendijk, Hatch, & Oestreich, 2009; Issa-Salwe, Ahmed,

Aloufi, & Kabir, 2010).

Finding a better way to align these technological issues is still a challenge. But in the last two decades

several proposals exist about how to achieve this approach and an example includes the strategy

proposed by Luftman (2000). More recently CRUDi framework proposal by Pereira et al (2012) has proven

to be an alternative that has the ability to consider the static relationship and dynamic relationships

between the systems and how they influence each other. CRUDi could be helpful in this, in trying to

understand which relationship is more important than others.

2

The CRUDi framework has been applied to one bank(Pereira et al., 2014) and one insurance

company(Pereira, Santos, et al., 2014), combining two case studies. The choice of this industry

(Telecommunication) was due to the reality that IS represents a vital and strategic part of the success of

the companies that fit into the referred industry (Surka, 2013). The previous work and the survey, about

the importance qualification of IS, permitted the confirmation of the difficulties of those companies in

reaching decisions about IS investments and in the definition of their priorities. Those are enough

motivations to believe that this work is a helpful and vital role concerning alternatives to solve those

problems (Pereira, Martins, Gonçalves, Santos, 2014; Pereira et al., 2014; Pereira, 2012).

Alignment may enable a firm to maximize the executed IS investments and to achieve harmony with the

business strategies and plans. This, in turn, usually leads to increased profitability and competitive

advantage (J. Henderson, Venkatraman, & Oldach, 1996). In addition, we also consider that alignment

can be a strategic key point to achieve a higher business ROI (Byrd, Lewis, & Bryan, 2006; Scheepers &

Scheepers, 2008; Tam, 1998)

As referred in section 1, the alignment of IS with the business goals of an organization is a current topic

of great importance. This aim of this study was to analyze the current problems and the main difficulties

encountered by IS managers and business managers, featuring different players and how they relate.

Measuring the importance of a particular application or IS for the different business units of the company

is normally a very difficult task (Scheepers and Scheepers 2008). This research intends to expand on the

already proposed CRUDi framework and tools to better support the decision and make it faster, helping

managers in their daily activity and in IS strategic planning, aligned with the business strategy. By taking

this into consideration, there are questions that CIOs (Chief Information Officers) have to answer which

cause many discussions with business managers(Pereira et al., 2014). These set of questions were drawn

in order to formally detail the identified problems and needs:

1. What is the relative importance of each system or application to the company’s business?

2. What should be the system or application with the biggest budget allocation?

3. What projects are to be executed considering the budget? (Limitations)

1.3 OBJECTIVES The main objective of this study was to find out if the use of CRUDi would help Telecommunication

companies to take the right decisions in IS investments. The use of an adequate framework to improve

the decision process regarding investments in IS is very relevant, allowing for faster and better decision

making regarding the project candidates and the available investment capacity(Pereira et al., 2014).

Applying the CRUDi framework to the Telecommunication industry will also help to further the validity

of the framework. To do this the researcher studied:

• The Telecommunication industry

• IT-Business alignment problem with a special focus in CRUDi approach

• A theoretical framework approach to apply CRUDi to Telecommunication industry – an example

is the APQC (American Productivity and Quality Center) process classification framework (PCF)

Telecommunications list

• A model that could be used by the Telecommunication companies.

3

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section, we will summarize a review of the main literature and present the problems of achieving

business/IS alignment and the factors of success, the telecommunications sector, Business/IS alignment

in Telecoms sector, fundamentals regarding the alignment of IS and their importance, maximizing return

on investments, and finally the CRUDi framework.

2.1 THE PROBLEMS OF BUSINESS/IS ALIGNMENT In this section we will talk about the challenges and also, factors of achieving Business/IS alignment.

Alaceva and Rusu (2015), talk about 19 barriers in achieving Business/IT alignment focusing on the social

dimension. Social dimension means the interaction between IT staffs and Business related staff. “There

are still many organizations that face difficulties in achieving business/IT alignment. Prior research has

focused on the positive impact of alignment on overall business performance, while the barriers in

achieving business/IT alignment were largely unexplored” (Alaceva & Rusu, 2015). The key discoveries

revealed that when there is low understanding of a colleague’s environment; poor communication;

unclear specifications; and lack of mutual commitment and support it hinders the realization of alignment

between business and IT domains on the social dimension.

In an effort to verify certain factors that affect alignment Jorfi and Jorfi (2011), put forward a model that

contained three elements, IT flexibility (i.e. Software modularity, Hardware compatibility, Network

connectivity, IT skills adaptableness); IT capability; communication effectiveness (Skill Motivation

Knowledge) as having a direct relationship with IT/Business Alignment. This relationship is moderated by

a fourth factor strategic information systems planning (SISP).

Figure 1: Research Model by Jorfi and Jorfi (2011)

Due to the importance of Business/IS alignment, Teo & Ang (1999) examined the critical success factors

(CSF) to achieve this alignment. “Critical success factors are defined as the handful of key areas where an

organization must perform well on a consistent basis to achieve its mission” (L. P. Gates, 2010). The

alignment factors are important for SISP to be merged with Business plans. The factors range from, top

4

management’s commitment and knowledge of IT to IS departments response to user needs. These

factors are twelve in number (Teo & Ang, 1999)

2.2 TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY The Telecommunications industry covers a wide range of areas including cabling, wireless, switching,

transmission, fiber optics etc. The telecommunications industry touches almost all technology related

arears (Plunkett Research, 2016). Telecommunications is a huge industry, encompassing companies that

produce hardware, produce software, and deliver services. Many years ago the telecommunications

industry was of total monopoly, with users and subscribers subject to whatever prices and standards

were given to them (Hui, 2012) by the telecom company. With new companies entering this sector

Majumdar et al. (2007) investigated the reasons of investment done by sitting monopolistic companies

and new entrants being the reason for the investments they discovered that older telecom organizations

who are in business already continued to invest in technologies such as broadband and fiber optics to

stay ahead of new entrants. Paleologos and Polemis (2013) investigated the propelling force for

investments to be directly related to regulations set by countries for telecom companies.

2.3 BUSINESS/IS ALIGNMENT IN TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY In the telecommunications industry the model of delivering “good enough” facilities and locking

customers into subscriptions is under pressure(MCE, 2015) – telecom companies ought to now draw

customer segments through appropriate and distinctive value propositions. Simultaneously, operating

costs have to be gotten under control and many telecoms are planning effective improvements

(Investopedia, 2015). Either of these pressures on its own requires change that telecommunication

people are not used to. Achieving both (i.e. attracting new customers and controlling operating costs)

requires major Leadership changes and proper alignment procedures.

Chivandi et al (2014) explored the relationship between business strategy and Information Systems

strategy in oder to find strategic alignment methods that Telecommunication companies in Zimbabwe

can apply to achieve competitive advantage. They observed the four telecommunication companies in

Zimbabwe and their results were classified into three perspectives: The business- IT scope perspective,

business-IT competence perspective, and business-IT governance perspective. In the business-IT scope

perspective which comprises the scope of the business (core business of the firm, products and services)

and the scope of IT (information application and technologies), it was discovered that the IT scope does

not support the business scope. From the perspective of business-IT competencies, the authors found

that the IT competencies were not consistent with the competencies of the business to gain competitive

advantage over their competitors. From the perspective of business-IT governance where business

governance is a wide framework of systems and rules by which a firm is directed. IT governance can be

defined as IT management being able to control the design and application of IT strategy to guarantee

the merging of business and IT through frameworks like COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and

Related Technologies) and ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) (ITGI, 2008) but the

research showed that the companies did not employ any IT guidance framework which can assist them

to establish an IT governance program in their organizations and ensure consistency.

Organizations who are highly technologically dependent like Telecom companies want to achieve

harmony and one way to achieve that is by developing an Enterprise Architecture (Malta & Sousa, 2010).

Enterprise Architecture (EA) and IT controlling are the recommendations of Feher and Kristof (2014) to

achieve alignment of business and Information Systems. Enterprise Architecture is a practice that tries to

describe and control an organization's structure, processes, systems and technology in an integrated way

(Lankhorst, 2013). Feher and Kristof defined IT controlling as a control of IT related operations and its

5

aim is to guarantee efficiency of IT operations along with providing and compliance to deadlines in

information processing. The authors recommended putting EA into IT controlling as a complementary

management practice and by doing so business facing services become transparent, business unit costs

can be optimized through automation of tasks and the organization can achieve the desired alignment

between IT and business processes.

2.4 BUSINESS/IS ALIGNMENT APPROACHES (MODELS) Several methods were put forward to deal with the alignment question from modeling to measurement.

One of the first models was Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) proposed by Henderson and Venkatraman

(1991, 1993). The strategic alignment model (SAM) views alignment as a dynamic match among four

domains – business strategy, IS strategy, organizational infrastructure and processes, and IS

infrastructure and processes. The strategic alignment between business and IS is very significant and is a

constant process centered on change and on the need for adaptation.

In the late 1980s, Lederer and Sethi (1988) proposed the ISSP model, based on a top-down approach. The

ISSP and IT alignment process associated with the overall business strategy of an organization is generally

viewed as a top issue for the administration and are dominated in the IT literature by a rational top-down

approach. The method used in ISSP typically begins by clarifying the business strategy and ends with the

definition of an appropriate IT project design plan to implement it (Lederer and Sethi 1996).

The Luftman, (2000) model added 12 components that defined the alignment between business and IT

to the SAM model. The 12 components are categorized into four areas that contain themes such as

business goals, distinctive competencies, business governance, administrative structure, processes, skills,

technology goals, systemic skills, IT governance, IT architecture, IT processes and IT skills.

Singh and Woo (2009) introduced the three goals frame- work (strategic, assigned and interpreted) for

business–IT alignment. They contributed to a multi-disciplinary perspective of business–IT alignment by

advancing a goal-oriented framework that bridges MIS, requirements engineering (RE) and strategic

management literature.

A considerable number of IT/Business Alignment models have been suggested to help organizations in

achieving, and maintaining alignment as seen in Table 1. These models concentrate on various

components (i.e. views/features of alignment) and give emphasis to several points of view of the

alignment (i.e. how alignment is perceived by practitioners).

Table 1: Sample of research on conceptual alignment and models (Tan & Gallupe, 2006).

Author Year Model Issues addressed

Lederer and Sethi 1988 ISSP(Information Systems Strategic Planning)

ISSP. Top-down

Henderson and Sifonis 1988 ISSP Top-down

Henderson and Venketraman

1991 SAM The SAM. Acknowledges influence of the involvement of top executives on the quality of strategic choice

MacDonald 1991 Extends SAM Takes into account both internal and external factors

Cash, McFarlan, and McKenney

1992 Extends ISSP Top management involvement

Kovacevic and Majluf 1993 Extends ISSP Six stages

6

Lederer and Salmela 1996 Extends ISSP Anderson consulting ‘Method/1’

Zviran 2002 ISSPSS(information systems strategic planning support system) Study

Description of ISSPSS and implementation

Henderson, Venkataraman, and Choikim

2004 Extends SAM Views alignment as a ‘process of continuous adaption and change’

Moura, Sauvé, and Bartolini 2007 BDIM Methodology: Business-driven Information management

Singh and Woo 2009 3 G framework Framework: Business–IT alignment

Chan et al (2006) proposed a theoretical model that took into account 5 enablers; shared domain

knowledge, IS success, planning sophistication, organizational size, environmental uncertainty. These five

enablers were proven to aid alignment which in turn results to organizational success. Charoensuk et al

(2014) further expanded on this model by examining the model and set a constraint one part at a time,

they found that “organization size” moderated two paths: the relationship between “planning

sophistication” and “environmental uncertainty”; and the relationship between “environmental

uncertainty” and “Business-IT Alignment”.

The ability of organization to keep up with incessant and sudden change is an important quality of

modern enterprises and will become a requirement for survival (Dove, 1999). Applied business processes

and information systems have to be always improved. In order to deal with this major challenge of

continuous alignment of business and IT in a changing environment, Hinkelmann et al (2016) proposed

an approach which uses model-based engineering. Also, a metamodeling approach for next generation

information systems is proposed, which builds on the knowledge engineering for business process

management (Karagiannis & Woitsch, 2010).

2.5 IT INVESTMENTS AND MAXIMIZING RETURN OF INVESTMENTS Lederer and Mendelow (1989) noted that if IT investment is intended to support the firm's goals,

objectives and activities, efficiently and effectively, coordination of IS and business strategy is essential.

Byrd et al (2006) researched the effect of alignment on IT investments and found out that the real value

of strategic alignment is in using the firms IT investment to its maximum. The firm can increase profits

without investing more in IT but by better aligning IT and business strategies.

Sheepers and Sheepers (2008) wrote a paper that describes a decision framework for considering

investments in information technologies that impact multiple business processes in the organization. The

decision framework can support managers to analyze the overall business value returns arising from the

‘ripple effect’ of an IT investment on core and ancillary business processes (Ferrel, 2005). The proposed

decision framework suggests that managers should carefully consider which core and secondary business

processes should be targeted to achieve a vertical (which relates primarily to the range of core

organizational processes) ripple effect. Managers should also anticipate what horizontal (this spreads as

the technology use continues) ripple effect the implementation of the technology could have over time

on all these processes. By carefully planning and anticipating along both these dimensions, investment

return time lags may be reduced, and opportunities to derive business value could be increased. Figure

2 depicts the decision framework (Scheepers & Scheepers, 2008).

7

Figure 2: Aggregate decision framework (Scheepers & Scheepers, 2008)

2.6 CRUDI FRAMEWORK APPROACH CRUD is a technique used to model data and processes, and how they interact with creating, reading,

updating and deleting of the respective data and processes (Khan & Hoque, 2012). The CRUDi framework,

which was proposed by Preira et al (2012) on the other hand aims on creating a new methodology and

supporting tools to characterize the relative importance of each IS within the organizations. This

characterization will take into consideration the importance of each system and application within the

organization, including the interdependencies between systems. The analysis of these interdependencies

is central to the evaluation of investment priorities in line with business priorities, working as a constantly

updated tool with dynamic information that evolves according to business strategy in the ongoing

company (Pereira et al., 2012). To this set of methodology and support tools we call the CRUDi framework

(Figure 3) and it is implemented in six steps, namely:

1. Importance Survey – to collect the relative importance of each process to each business manager

within the organization;

2. CRUD Matrix – built based in each industry processes and business entities; 3. CRUDI Matrix (A) – built

by combining the results from the two previous steps;

4. Calculate Dependencies – recalculation of each pair process/entity importance, based in dependencies

and distances;

5. CRUDI Matrix (B) – based in step 4, translating processes to the corresponding Information Systems

that support them;

6. Impact on ROI – simulation of ROI impact based in the CRUDI Matrix (B), for each Information System

investment, generating KPI’s information to evaluation.

8

These six steps will be explained in more detail in the next section.

Figure 3: CRUDI Framework (Pereira et al., 2014)

9

3 METHODOLOGY

The methodology used was the design science which was used by Pereira (2014). The choice is because

majority of the articles mentioned in Section 2 used this methodology and its suitable for this research.

Hevner et al. (2004) stated that, the design-science methodology is built on the engineering area and

assumes itself as a problem-solving concept that works towards creating innovations that define the

ideas, practices, technical capabilities, and products by way of analysis, design, implementation,

management, and use of information systems. The IT artifacts resulting from the application of the

design-science methodology are commonly known as constructs, models, methods and, implemented

and prototype systems thus representing ‘concrete prescriptions’ that affect the IT researchers’ ability to

understand and analyze the use of IS inside organizations (Nunamaker, Chen, & Purdin, 1990).

In order to use the design-science methodology, Pereira et al. (2012) made numerous interviews and

workshops to gather information, develop and build theories. This added significant facts to the

knowledge base for the authors, with the aim of defining a new framework composed by new methods

and tools, allowing the solution of the identified problem and restrictions (Hevner, March, Park, & Ram,

2004). From those discussions with different CIOs and business managers in various organizations,

several needs and viewpoints were registered linking the decision process in investments, mainly

regarding risk and importance of each IS to the organization. This was made according to Finkelstein

(2011), who recommends to consider several perspectives when collecting business knowledge and

experience from managers.

Pereira et al (2014), stated that from the workshops and discussions taken with CIOs, business managers

and practitioners, they voiced the need to map all the business processes and information entities in a

matrix form, like a CRUD matrix. This way, organizations can map all the IS needs and their level of

coverage over processes, identifying the gaps that motivate future improvement and investments.

Additionally, the need for a new qualification variable or dimension regarding the relative importance of

each business process to organizations was identified. This additional variable is the essence of the CRUDi

cube which is part of the new proposed artifact named the CRUDi framework. In order to build the CRUDi

cube, we need to map the business processes and business entities specific to the organization or

industry (APQC processes definition for the Telecommunication industry), adding their relative

importance based on a survey directed to business managers and board members (APQC and IBM 2010).

The CRUDi framework provides a method and a set of tools to address the relative importance

classification of the enterprise activities and the available IS. The adoption of the proposed framework

implies facing some difficulties. The first difficulty will be the definition of the CRUDi cube to the first level

of abstraction with business managers in organizations, thus adding the relative importance of each

business process with each business entity. To achieve this goal, the relative importance of each business

process from the organization’s business managers and CEOs must be gathered. We would have the

typical list from each business sector with the business processes characterization, as referred by APQC,

as a starting point (APQC, 2010). The adoption of the APQC (APQC & IBM, 2010) list was validated with

the interviewed managers and considered a good practice. The second difficulty, which is more complex

than the first, will be to repeat the previous procedure iteratively, obtaining the same information but

now with a greater level of detail going into each sub-process. When the previous two objectives are

achieved, we can then obtain the clusters of entity-process pairs necessary for the classification of IS and

enterprise applications. At this point, it will be possible to evaluate the existing indicators and correlate

the relative importance of each IS with each sub-system. With this new data complemented by the

creation of new indicators for decision support (scoring model), IS managers and business managers can

10

now have a consistent and coherent view on the relative importance of each investment in IS to achieve

the business objectives. The CRUDi framework (Figure 2) was be implemented in six steps (Pereira et al.

2012):

(1) CRUDi survey – has three parts. One (A) to introduce and explain its purpose with no questions, one

(B) with the overall framework and the initial set of questions to validate the existence of a problem, and

a final one (C) with the questions regarding relative importance qualification for business processes,

based on the APQC list (second level) for the selected industry. This survey was proposed in Pereira et al.

(2012).

2)CRUD matrix – built based on each industry processes and business entities (Lunsford & Collins, 2008;

Moody, 1998; Veryard, 1996). C = Create, R = Read, U = Update and D = Delete.

(3) CRUDi cube (A) – built by combining the results from the two previous steps (1+2). Figure 3 rep-

resents the two dimensions (business processes and information entities) of the CRUD matrix, added by

the third dimension of ‘importance’, creating the CRUDi cube.

Figure 4: CRUDi cube (Pereira et al. 2012).

(4) Calculate dependencies – recalculation of each pair process/entity importance, based on

dependencies and distances. This is an important step to adjust the dependencies of some processes and

entities in some others, which may cause ‘invisible’ impacts and increase their importance considerably

(Pereira et al., 2012). This step may alter the value of relative importance of each pair process/entity

based on the dependencies that it may have/cause on others;

(5) CRUDi cube (B) – based on Step 4, translating processes to the corresponding IS that support them.

(6) Impact on ROI – simulation of ROI impact based on the CRUDi cube (B), for each IS investment,

generating KPI information for evaluation. It’s expected the relation between business processes and

their support applications, with each having their KPIs to observe performance, will be noticed in this

step. It is easily understandable that a specific lower level component (infrastructure, application or even

sub-process) can cause enormous impact on several others above (Pereira et al., 2012).

11

4 Using CRUDi In Telecommunication Industry

4.1 TELECOMMUNICATION’S MAIN PROCESS (APQC) The APQC Process Classification Framework (PCF) serves as a high-level, industry-neutral enterprise

process model that allows organizations to see their business processes from a cross-industry viewpoint.

In oder to view and understand this processes for Telecommunication industry a high level examination

of the processes will be done, particularly the first and second level. The first level processes are defined

as a Category denoted by whole numbers while the second level is defined as a Process Group denoted

by one decimal numbering. This list is attached in Annex 1 extracted from Telecommunications Process

Classification Framework (APQC & IBM, 2008).

4.2 CRUDI MATRIX Based on the table developed in the sub-section above a CRUD Matrix will be developed by crossing the

processes (first and second level) against the Informational entities. Whereas the Informational Entity is

defined as to any person, place, thing or business aspect. The 13th process is merged with the 1st process,

this is because the sub-processes involve planning for how the service delivery as related to the

technological infrastructure will be achieved.

Table 2: CRUD Matrix – Process X Informational Entities

Plan

nin

g

Pro

du

cts &

Services

Techn

olo

gy

Reso

urce

Sales & M

arketing

Sup

plier

Raw

Materials

Cu

stom

er Ord

er

Cu

stom

er

Cu

stom

er Service

Emp

loyee

Emp

loyee Train

ing

Payro

ll

IT Po

rtfolio

Bu

dget

Cu

stom

er Invo

ice

Acco

un

ts

Assets &

Facilities

Regu

lation

s/Co

mp

liance

Investo

rs

Kn

ow

ledge B

ase

Pro

cess Rep

osito

ry

Pro

cesse

s

1. 1.1 C

1.2 C

1.3 CU

1.4 U

1.5 C

1.6 C

1.7 C

1.8 C

13 13.1 CRU

13.2 CU U

13.3 R

13.4 R

13.5 RU

13.6 U C U

2. 2.1 C CU

2.2 CU

2.3 CRU R

2.4 CRU U

3 3.1 R C U

3.2 RU U CRU

3.3 C R C C

3.4 CR CD CRU

4. 4.1 RU CR C U C

Planning

Products

and Services

Sales and Marketing

12

Plan

nin

g

Pro

du

cts &

Services

Techn

olo

gy

Reso

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Sales & M

arketing

Sup

plier

Raw

Materials

Cu

stom

er Ord

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stom

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Cu

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Emp

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Emp

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ll

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rtfolio

Bu

dget

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Assets &

Facilities

Regu

lation

s/Co

mp

liance

Investo

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Kn

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ledge B

ase

Pro

cess Rep

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4.2 C C

4.3 CU R

4.4 RU U CRU

C CRU

C

4.5 RU

4.6 RU

4.7 RU

4.8 U

4.9 RU

5. 5.1 CU

5.2 CR CRU

5.3 U RU

5.4 R CRU

6. 6.1 CRU

CU

6.2 CRU

6.3 CRU

6.4 U CU

6.5 RU

6.6 RU

6.7 RU RU

6.8

6.9 U

7. 7.1 CU C

7.2 U CRU

7.3 U C

7.4 U

7.5 RU U C

7.6 RU U

7.7 C U

7.8 C U

8. 8.1 C C

8.2 U C U

8.3 RU

U

8.4 U RUD

8.5 C

8.6 U

8.7 U

Service Delivery

Customer

Service

Human

Resources

Information

Technology

Finance

13

Plan

nin

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Pro

du

cts &

Services

Techn

olo

gy

Reso

urce

Sales & M

arketing

Sup

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Materials

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8.8 R

8.9 R U

8.10 U U U

8.11 RU

8.12 R

9. 9.1 CU

9.2 U

9.3 U

9.4 D

9.5 U

10 10.1 C

10.2 R

10.3 U

10.4 R

10.5 U

10.6 U

11 11.1 CRU

11.2 U R

11.3 RU R

11.4 R

11.5 R

12 12.1 C

12.2 U

12.3 C

12.4 U

4.3 CALIBRATE To achieve calibration, a definition for the influence and dependencies between the Information Systems

must be defined. This interdependency can be determined by creating a diagram represented in figure 5

which can be likened to a Neural Network where all nodes, or in our case Information Systems are

connected together in unison to solve a specific problem or process series of processes (Gupta & Singh,

2011).

Property

Environmental

Health and Safety

External

Relationships

Knowledge

Management

14

Figure 5: Information Systems and their dependencies

The importance of each information System is improved by its influence on other systems. Therefore, a

system on which other systems hinge on to operate entirely or partially, is a system which, besides its

own importance (in this work referred to as "intrinsic") has an additional importance (in this work

referred to as "calibrated"). On the other hand, a system that has dependence on other systems to

operate, either being a strong or weak dependence, is a system with a calibrated importance value lower

than its intrinsic importance. The reason for calibration is because, when a system is important to the

other systems it means that its importance grows.

In Figure 6 the values on the Information Systems represent the intrinsic values. These values represent

the importance assigned by people who I interviewed in surveys conducted. The interface importance

was also determined through the same process.

15

Figure 6: Information Systems and their dependencies and values

In order to collect the value of importance for each interface, a scale between 0 and 5 was considered to

qualify the importance of each interface between information systems, based on the influence and

dependence between them:

0- No influence.

1- Little influence (only some secondary functions from B require information from A).

2- Average Influence (most secondary functions from B require A).

3- Great Influence (some primary functions from B require information from A).

4- Critical Influence (most functions from B require information from A).

5- Total Dependence (B only works if A works).

The relative importance value "Intrinsic" for each IS applies at the initial time (t = 0).

According to Figure 7, “IS.X” labels the information system importance “X” and “IT.Y” identifies the

importance for interface number “Y”. Every information system will be affected and influenced by its

inputs from interfaces that will reduce its final value (calibrated) for importance (in t=1). The maximum

impact from all interfaces (inputs) in each information system can reduce its “intrinsic” value of relative

importance by 80% (Pereira, 2014) . This way, every information system can keep a calibrated lasting

importance value even if it has a low intrinsic importance and a great dependence from other information

systems. Similarly, each information system will affect others with its outputs (interfaces) but without

maximum limits. To calculate the impacts due to interfaces between different IS and to calibrate the

values of relative importance for each IS in t = 1, we will recalculate and calibrate the relative importance

value of each IS as below

16

Figure 7: Information Systems and Interfaces

Planning = IS.1 – 0.8 x IS.1 x (IS.10 x IT.15) / (1 x 5) + IS.1 x IT.1 + IS.1 x IT.3 + IS.1 x IT.16

Therefore, Planning = 3.25 – 0.8 x 3.25 x (4.25 x 0.4) / (5) + 3.25 x 0.45 + 3.25 x 0.35+ 3.25 x 0.2 = 5.62

Products = IS.2 – 0.8 x IS.2 x ( IS.1 x IT.1) / (1 x 5) + IS.2 x IT.2 + IS.2 x IT.14

Products = 3.5 – 0.8 x 3.5 x (3.25 x 0.45) / (5) + 3.5 x 0.35 + 3.5 x 0.35 = 5.14

Sales and Marketing = IS.3 – 0.8 x IS.3 x (IS.2 x IT.2 + IS.4 x IT.17) / (2 x 5) + IS.3 x IT.4 + IS.3 x IT.5

Sales and Marketing = 3.25 -0.8 x 3.25 x (3.5 x 0.35 + 4.0 x 0.45) / (2 x 5) + 3.25 x 0.35 + 3.25 x 0.35 = 4.74

All values of the interface influence (IT.Y) have been normalized by dividing by 10. The nominalized values

and the calculations for other information systems can be found in Annex 2 and 3

The table below shows the calibrated values of relative importance for each IS from the highest value to

the lowest.

Table 3: IS (calibrated) Importance for the Telecommunications Industry

Information System Importance Calibrated Importance

Information

Technology 4.75 9.14

Customer Service 4 6.15

Human Resources 4.5 6

Planning 3.25 5.62

17

Products and Services 3.5 5.14

Service Delivery 4.25 5.06

Sales and Marketing 3.25 4.74

Property 3.25 4.2

Finance and Accounts 3.75 3.94

Knowledge

Management 3.5 3.02

This table will be discussed in the following section.

18

5 Discussion

Using the methodology defined in section 3 this section contains analysis and discussion of the Chapter

4 contents.

With the aim of getting the best results, the survey (part A, B, and C) was presented to experts from three

major telecommunications companies in Portugal for them to fill out. From the results of the part B

survey we determined that (100% of all respondents) IT and IS investments are crucial to the business

development and growth of the company. We can also conclude (100%) that the investments in IT and

IS set the company to a competitive advantage to their competitors. Finally, we can also draw a

conclusion that to some extent (75%) IT plays a role in the definition of business strategy.

The third survey (Part C), following (Igbaria & Tan, 1997) a 5-point Likert scale was used to describe the

importance values. The key conclusions identified for the sub-processes were

• 7.7 Deliver and support information technology services – average 4.5

• 5.2 Plan and manage customer service operations – 4.25

• 7.5 Develop and maintain information technology solutions – 4.25

The complete table of the survey results is in Annex 4.

With the analyses of these results it can be infers that delivering and supporting information technology,

which per the APQC list is a support process gives the notion that a telecommunications company should

have a very durable management process for IT infrastructure and its delivery. The most important

management process is customer service management. These top performers can easily be understood

because it’s a Telecommunications industry whose backbone is technology and the customers they

provide products or services for.

If we take into consideration the main processes, the operating and supporting processes of the APQC

list of telecommunications industry (APQC & IBM, 2008), we can note that the top four processes from

the survey answers are

• 7.0 Manage Information Technology – average importance 4.75

• 6.0 Develop and Manage Human Capital – average importance 4.5

• 4.0 Deliver Products and Services – average importance 4.25

• 5.0 Manage Customer Service – average importance 4

The importance values assigned to the Information Systems in Figure 5 were also gotten through

discussions with IT professionals and based on our calculations in the calibration section we can conclude

once again that Information Technology has a very high influence on all other systems in a

telecommunications organization. Once again Customer service is the next in line for systems with high

influence on others.

19

6 CONCLUSION

6.1 SYNTHESIS OF THE DEVELOPED WORK The alignment between business and Information systems has increased in popularity. Organizations

don’t just want to implement technology they want to implement it in a way that brings high return on

investments for them. They want an implementation of technology to be in synergy with the business.

As technology is becoming very important also the IS which will bring about capable management is also

becoming important.

Implementing the right IS or investing in the right IS becomes a very significant question. This thesis uses

the CRUDi framework which is a combination of the CRUD matrix and an additional dimension, “I” for

importance. CRUDi gives organizations a way to identify a viable framework for investments decisions

and if implemented can be used to identify the system in a telecommunication company which

resources/investments can be assigned to. This work has proven that CRUDi can be used to identify

information technology as the system to have a high ROI in the Telecommunications industry.

From the discussion (section 5) it is very clear that Telecommunication companies that invest in their

Information Technology and Customer Service will be able to maximize their ROI.

6.2 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK As a major limitation to validating the framework, getting more people to fill out the surveys was a major

challenge especially getting those in higher positions like the CIO’s or CEO’s.

In future work the final step of KPI (key performance indicator) simulation in the CRUDi framework (figure

3) could be tested and validated. This study should be repeated in the same industry in a few years to

see if anything has changed. This research needs to be performed on other sectors like Pharmaceutical

and Aviation. More work can also be performed to cover the limitations listed above.

20

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24

ANNEX

ANNEX 1 - TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROCESS CLASSIFICATION FRAMEWORK 1. Develop Vision and Strategy 1.1 Define the business concept and long-term vision

1.2 Develop business strategy

1.3 Manage strategic initiatives

1.4 Perform strategic planning

1.5 Perform strategic management

1.6 Develop business

1.7 Manage enterprise architecture

1.8 Manage group enterprise 2. Develop and Manage Products and Services

2.1 Manage product and service portfolio

2.2 Develop products and services

2.3 Service capability delivery

2.4 Resource capability delivery 3. Market and Sell Products and Services

3.1 Understand markets, customers and capabilities

3.2 Develop marketing strategy

3.3 Develop sales strategy

3.4 Market and manage offer 4. Deliver Products and Services

4.1 Plan for and acquire necessary resources (Supply Chain Planning)

4.2 Procure materials and services

4.3 Produce/Manufacture/Deliver product

4.4 Deliver service to customer

4.5 Manage logistics and warehousing

4.6 Manage service, support operation and readiness

4.7 Manage resource, support operation and readiness

4.8 Develop and manage supply chain

4.9 Manage supplier/partner relationship 5. Manage Customer Service

5.1 Develop customer care/customer service strategy

5.2 Plan and manage customer service operations

5.3 Assure service

5.4 Measure and evaluate customer service operations

6. Develop and Manage Human Capital

6.1 Develop and manage human resources (HR) planning, policies, and strategies

6.2 Recruit, source, and select employees

6.3 Develop and counsel employees

6.4 Reward and retain employees

6.5 Re-deploy and retire employees

6.6 Manage employee information

6.7 Manage employee and labor relations

6.8 Manage occupational health and safety

6.9 Perform workforce administration 7. Manage Information Technology

7.1 Manage the business of information technology

7.2 Develop and manage IT customer relationships

7.3 Manage business resiliency and risk

7.4 Manage enterprise information

7.5 Develop and maintain information technology solutions

7.6 Deploy information technology solutions

7.7 Deliver and support information technology services

7.8 Manage IT knowledge

8. Manage Financial Resources

8.1 Perform planning and management accounting

8.2 Perform revenue accounting

8.3 Perform general accounting and reporting

25

8.4 Manage fixed asset project accounting

8.5 Process payroll

8.6 Process accounts payable and expense reimbursements

8.7 Manage treasury operations

8.8 Manage internal controls

8.9 Manage taxes

8.10 Perform financial management

8.11 Manage assets

8.12 Manage procurement

9 Acquire, Construct, and Manage Property

9.1 Design and construct/acquire non-productive assets

9.2 Maintain non-productive assets

9.3 Obtain, install and plan maintenance for productive assets

9.4 Dispose of productive and non-productive assets

9.5 Manage physical risk

10 Manage Environmental Health and Safety (EHS)

10.1 Determine health, safety, and environment impacts

10.2 Develop and execute health, safety, and environmental program

10.3 Train and educate employees

10.4 Monitor and manage health, safety, and environmental management program

10.5 Ensure compliance with regulations

10.6 Manage remediation efforts

11 Manage External Relationships

11.1 Build investor relationships

11.2 Manage government and industry relationships

11.3 Manage relations with board of directors

11.4 Manage legal and ethical issues

11.5 Manage public relations program

12 Manage Knowledge, Improvement, and Change

12.1 Create and manage organizational performance strategy

12.2 Benchmark performance

12.3 Develop enterprise-wide knowledge management (KM) capability

12.4 Manage change

13 Manage and Plan Network

13.1 Perform strategy and logical planning

13.2 Plan network structure

13.3 Carry out operational planning

13.4 Plan and monitor of projects

13.5 Carry out network testing and buildup

13.6 Perform start-up network operation

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ANNEX 2 – NOMINALIZED IMPACT VALUES

IT From IS To IS Value (Impact) Nominalized

IT.1 Planning Products 4.5 0.45

IT.2 Products Sales and Marketing 3.5 0.35

IT.3 Planning Information Technology 3.5 0.35

IT.4 Sales and Marketing Customer Service 3.5 0.35

IT.5 Customer Service Information Technology 3.5 0.35

IT.6 Information Technology Customer Service 4.5 0.45

IT.7 Information Technology Service Delivery 3.5 0.35

IT.8 Finance and Accounts Information Technology 2 0.2

IT.9 Information Technology Knowledge Management 3 0.3

IT.10 Property Finance and Accounts 2.5 0.25

IT.11 Property Knowledge Management 1.5 0.15

IT.12 Human Resources Finance and Accounts 2.5 0.25

IT.13 Human Resources Service Delivery 2.5 0.25

IT.14 Products Service Delivery 3.5 0.35

IT.15 Service Delivery Planning 4 0.4

IT.16 Planning Knowledge Management 2 0.2

IT.17 Customer Service Sales and Marketing 4.5 0.45

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ANNEX 3 – CALIBRATION CALCULATIONS Planning

3.25 – 0.8 x 3.25 x (4.25 x 0.4) / (5) + 3.25 x 0.45 + 3.25 x 0.35+ 3.25 x 0.2 = 5.61

Products

3.5 – 0.8 x 3.5 x (3.25 x 0.45) / (5) + 3.5 x 0.35 + 3.5 x 0.35

3.5 – 0.8 x 3.5 x 1.46 / (5) + 3.5 x 0.35 + 3.5 x 0.35

3.5 – 0.82 + 1.23 +1.23 = 5.14

Sales and marketing

3.25 -0.8 x 3.25 x ( 3.5 x 0.35 + 4.0 x 0.45 ) / (2 x 5) + 3.25 x 0.35 + 3.25 x 0.35 = 4.74

Customer service

4.0 – 0.8 x 4.0 x (3.25 x 0.35+ 4.75 x 0.45) / (10) + 4.0 x 0.45 + 4.0 x 0.35 = 6.15

Information Technology

4.75 – 0.8 x 4.75 x (4.0 x 0.35 + 3.25 x 0.35 + 3.75 x 0.2) / (15) + 4.75 x 0.45 + 4.75 x 0.3 + 4.75 x 0.35 =

9.14

Finance and accounts

3.75 – 0.8 x 3.75 x (4.5 x 0.25 + 3.0 x 0.25) / (10) + 3.75 x 0.2 = 3.94

Property

3.0 + 3.0 x 0.25 + 3.0 + 0.15 = 4.2

Knowledge management

3.5 – 0.8 x 3.5 x ( 3.25 x 0.2 + 4.75 x 0.3 + 3.0 x 0.15) / (15) = 3.02

Human Resources

4 + 4 x 0.25 + 4 x 0.25 = 6

Service delivery

4.25 – 0.8 x 4.25 x (3.5 x 0.35 + 3.25 x 0.35 + 4.75 x 0.35 + 4.0 x 0.25) / 20 + 4.25 x 0.4 = 5.06

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ANNEX 4 – SURVEY ANSWERS

Survey Question Average

Is IT/IS investment crucial to business development and growth of the Company? Yes

Is the investment in IT/IS set your company at the competitive edge with

competitors?

Yes

In your view, to what extent does IT play a role in the definition of the Business

strategy?

To some extent

Develop Vision and Strategy 3.25

Develop and Manage Products and Services 3.5

Market and Sell Products and Services 3.25

Deliver Products and Services 4.25

Manage Customer Service 4

Develop and Manage Human Capital 4.5

Manage Information Technology 4.75

Manage Financial Resources 3.75

Acquire, Construct, and Manage Property 3.25

Manage Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) 3.75

Manage External Relationships 3.25

Manage Knowledge, Improvement, and Change 3.5

Manage and Plan Network 3.25

1.1 Define the business concept and long-term vision (10014) 3

1.2 Develop business strategy (10015) 3.25

1.3 Manage strategic initiatives (10016) 3.5

1.4 Perform strategic planning (13293) 3.25

1.5 Perform strategic management (13294) 3.5

1.6 Develop business (13295) 3.75

1.7 Manage enterprise architecture (13296) 3.25

1.8 Manage group enterprise (13297) 3.25

2.1 Manage product and service portfolio (10061) 3.5

2.2 Develop products and services (10062) 3.75

2.3 Service capability delivery (13377) 4.25

2.4 Resource capability delivery (13378) 4.25

3.1 Understand markets, customers and capabilities (10101) 3.75

3.2 Develop marketing strategy (10102) 3.5

3.3 Develop sales strategy (10103) 3.25

3.4 Market and manage offer (13424) 3.25

4.1 Plan for and acquire necessary resources (Supply Chain Planning) (10215) 3.75

4.2 Procure materials and services (10216) 3.25

4.3 Produce/Manufacture/Deliver product (10217) 4

4.4 Deliver service to customer (10218) 4.25

4.5 Manage logistics and warehousing (10219) 3.75

4.6 Manage service, support operation and readiness (13856) 3.75

4.7 Manage resource, support operation and readiness (13857) 3.75

4.8 Develop and manage supply chain (13858) 3.25

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4.9 Manage supplier/partner relationship (13859) 3

5.1 Develop customer care/customer service strategy (10378) 4

5.2 Plan and manage customer service operations (10379) 4.25

5.3 Assure service (13553) 4.25

5.4 Measure and evaluate customer service operations (10380) 3.75

6.1 Develop and manage human resources (HR) planning, policies, and strategies

(10409)

4

6.2 Recruit, source, and select employees (10410) 4

6.3 Develop and counsel employees (10411) 3.75

6.4 Reward and retain employees (10412) 4.25

6.5 Re-deploy and retire employees (10413) 3.25

6.6 Manage employee information (10414) 3

6.7 Manage employee and labor relations (13602) 3.75

6.8 Manage occupational health and safety (13603) 3.75

6.9 Perform workforce administration (13604) 3.5

7.1 Manage the business of information technology (10563) 3.75

7.2 Develop and manage IT customer relationships (10564) 3.75

7.3 Manage business resiliency and risk (11216) 3.5

7.4 Manage enterprise information (10565) 4

7.5 Develop and maintain information technology solutions (10566) 4.25

7.6 Deploy information technology solutions (10567) 4.25

7.7 Deliver and support information technology services (10568) 4.5

7.8 Manage IT knowledge (10569) 3.5

8.1 Perform planning and management accounting (10728) 3

8.2 Perform revenue accounting (10729) 3.25

8.3 Perform general accounting and reporting (10730) 3

8.4 Manage fixed asset project accounting (10731) 3.25

8.5 Process payroll (10732) 4

8.6 Process accounts payable and expense reimbursements (10733) 3.5

8.7 Manage treasury operations (10734) 3.75

8.8 Manage internal controls (10735) 3

8.9 Manage taxes (10736) 3.75

8.10 Perform financial management (13666) 3.5

8.11 Manage assets (13667) 3.5

8.12 Manage procurement (13668) 3.5

9.1 Design and construct/acquire non-productive assets (10937) 3.25

9.2 Maintain non-productive assets (10938) 3.25

9.3 Obtain, install and plan maintenance for productive assets (10939) 3.5

9.4 Dispose of productive and non-productive assets (10940) 3.75

9.5 Manage physical risk (11207) 4

10.1 Determine health, safety, and environment impacts (11180) 4

10.2 Develop and execute health, safety, and environmental program (11181) 3.75

10.3 Train and educate employees (11182) 4

10.4 Monitor and manage health, safety, and environmental management program

(11183)

3.5

30

10.5 Ensure compliance with regulations (11184) 3.75

10.6 Manage remediation efforts (11185) 3.5

11.1 Build investor relationships (11010) 3.5

11.2 Manage government and industry relationships (11011) 3.75

11.3 Manage relations with board of directors (11012) 3.75

11.4 Manage legal and ethical issues (11013) 4

11.5 Manage public relations program (11014) 3.5

12.1 Create and manage organizational performance strategy (11071) 3.75

12.2 Benchmark performance (11072) 3.5

12.3 Develop enterprise-wide knowledge management (KM) capability (11073) 3.5

12.4 Manage change (11074) 3.75

13.1 Perform strategy and logical planning (13734) 3.5

13.2 Plan network structure (13735) 3.25

13.3 Carry out operational planning (13736) 3.5

13.4 Plan and monitor of projects (13737) 4

13.5 Carry out network testing and buildup (13738) 3.25

13.6 Perform start-up network operation (13739) 3.25