DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective

Charles Ikerionwu; David Edgar

doi:doi:10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

| Peer-Reviewed

DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective

Charles Ikerionwu, David Edgar

Published in Software Engineering (Volume 4, Issue 5)

Received: 26 September 2016 Accepted: 2 November 2016 Published: 27 December 2016

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

Competition is rife within BPO-IT service providers as outsourcing clients opt for providers’ that will add significant value to their operations. Thus, providers perceive DevOps as one way of improving the quality of clients’ services through in-house development of reliable software. Research findings indicate that DevOps involves internal reorganisation that could provide the best possible option to combine people, process and software development tools. The approach has been widely applied in software development companies purposely for continuous delivery of reliable software, and to add value to client’s services within provider’s domain. This paper presents the findings from a multi case study of DevOps implementation in BPO-IT service provider organisations. The findings suggest the inclusion of DevOps as an element of strategic IT planning to improve competitiveness by reducing costs and quality of services. The developed DevOps framework proposes a team of coordinating teams working together to improving client and providers’ performances combining IT management, software development and processing teams respectively. To illustrate the concept of the framework, a flowchart depicting a stepwise role of each team is developed, allowing for implementation of agility and flexibility into the process and continuous software delivery, reduced time of service delivery, and improved quality of services.

Published in	Software Engineering (Volume 4, Issue 5)
DOI	10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
Page(s)	65-74
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2016. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Devops, Software, IT Management, BPO-IT

References

[1]	Gottesheim, W. (2015, February). Challenges, Benefits and Best Practices of Performance Focused DevOps. In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Large-Scale Testing (pp. 3-3). ACM.
[2]	Ikerionwu, C., Foley, R. and Gray, E. (2014). Improving software quality in the service process industry using agility with software reusable components as software product line: An empirical study of Indian service providers. International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Technology, 7(3), 701-711.
[3]	Singh, S. (2012). IT-BPO combined model shows cracks yet HCL, Infosys and other IT majors believe that's the way to go corporate trends. The Economic Times (Online), Available at: http://search.proquest.com/docview/921642709?accountid=15977. [Retrieved on 22nd March, 2015].
[4]	Rai, A., Keil, M., Hornyak, R., and Wüllenweber, K. (2012). Hybrid relational-contractual governance for business process outsourcing. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29(2), 213-256.
[5]	Fullick, A. (2012). Business Impact Analysis (BIA). Available at: http:// stoneroad.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/business-impact-analysis-bia-there%E2%80%99s-a-difference-between-a-service-and-a-process/. [Retrieved 11th November, 2015].
[6]	Scheer, A. W., and Nüttgens, M. (2000). ARIS architecture and reference models for business process management (pp. 376-389). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
[7]	Kremic, T., Tukel, O. and Rom, W. (2006). Outsourcing decision support: a survey of benefits, risks, and decision factors. Supply Chain Management: An international Journal, 11(6), 467-482.
[8]	Sharma, S. and Coyne, B. (2015). DevOps for Dummies 2nd Edition e-book. 2nd IBM Limited ed. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
[9]	Debois, P. (2009). Agile 2008 Toronto. Just Enough Documented Information. http://www.jedi.be/presentations/agile-infrastructure-agile-2008.pdfRetrieved 12 March 2015.
[10]	Bass, L., Weber, I., and Zhu, L. (2015). DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective. Addison-Wesley Professional.
[11]	Gartner. (2011). The IT Services Scenario:The future of IT services. Available at: http://www.gartner.com/it/content/1894800/1894815/february_28_it_svc_scenario_erocco.pdf?userId=58159340. [Retrieved, December 17, 2015]
[12]	Ghodeswar, B. and Vaidyanathan, J. (2008). Business process outsourcing: an approach to gain access to world-class capabilities. Business Process Management Journal, 14(1), 23-38.
[13]	Roche, J. (2013). Adopting DevOps practices in quality assurance. Communications of the ACM, 56(11), 38-43.
[14]	Mueller, E. (2015). What is a DevOp. [Blog] TheAgileAdmin.com. Available at: http://theagileadmin.com/2010/10/08/whats-a-devop/ [Accessed 20 December. 2015].
[15]	Wochna, J. (2015). Get Mapped: Using Value Stream Mapping to Create a DevOps Adoption Roadmap. [online] UrbanCode. Available at: http://developer.ibm.com/urbancode/docs/get-mapped-using-value-stream-mapping-to-create-a-devops-adoption-roadmap/ [Accessed 20th November. 2015].
[16]	Bang, S. K., Chung, S., Choh, Y., and Dupuis, M. (2013, October). A grounded theory analysis of modern web applications: knowledge, skills, and abilities for DevOps. In Proceedings of the 2nd annual conference on Research in information technology (pp. 61-62). ACM.
[17]	Puppetlabs.com 2014 State of DevOps Report. (2015). [online] Available at: https://puppetlabs.com/sites/default/files/2014-state-of-devops-report.pdf [Accessed 24 Aug. 2015]
[18]	Javalgi, R. R. G., Benoy Joseph, W., Granot, E., and Gross, A. C. (2013). Strategies for sustaining the edge in offshore outsourcing of services: the case of India. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 28(6), 475-486.
[19]	Lacity, M. C., Willcocks, L. P., and Rottman, J. W. (2008). Global outsourcing of back office services: lessons, trends, and enduring challenges. Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal, 1(1), 13-34.
[20]	Olsson, H. H., and Bosch, J. (2014). Post-deployment data collection in software-intensive embedded products. In Continuous Software Engineering (pp. 143-154). Springer International Publishing.
[21]	Babar, Z., Lapouchnian, A., and Yu, E. (2015). Modeling DevOps Deployment Choices Using Process Architecture Design Dimensions. In The Practice of Enterprise Modeling (pp. 322-337). Springer International Publishing.
[22]	Kim, J., Meirosu, C., Papafili, I., Steinert, R., Sharma, S., Westphal, F. and Manzalini, A. (2015, May). Service provider DevOps for large scale modern network services. In Integrated Network Management (IM), 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 1391-1397). IEEE
[23]	Ghanam, Y., Ferreira, J. and Maurer, F. (2012). Emerging issues and challenges in cloud computing- A hybrid approach. Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 5(11), 923-937. doi:10.4236/jsea. 2012. 531107
[24]	Santos, J., Wysk, R. and Torres, J. M. (2014). Improving production with lean thinking. John Wiley & Sons.
[25]	Saxena, K. and Bharadwaj, S. (2009). Managing business processes through outsourcing: a strategic partnering perspective. Business Process Management Journal, 15(5), 687-715.
[26]	Höst M. and Runeson, P. (2007). Checklists for software engineering case study research. First international symposium on empirical software engineering, (pp. 479-481).
[27]	Themistocleous, M., Irani, Z.and Love, P. E. (2004). Evaluating the integration of supply chain information systems: A case study. European Journal of Operational Research, 149 (2), 393-405.
[28]	Yin, R. K. (2011). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). London: Sage Publishing.
[29]	Robson, C. (2002). Real World Research (2nd ed.). Blackwell Publishing. Malden.
[30]	Furco, A. (2003). Issues of definition and program diversity in the study of service-learning. Studying service-learning: Innovations in education research methodology, 13-33.
[31]	Oza, N. (2006). An empirical evaluation of client-vendor relationships in Indian software outsourcing companies (Doctoral dissertation, School of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Hertfordshire).
[32]	Hulley, S. B., Cummings, S. R., Browner, W. S., Grady, D. G., & Newman, T. B. (2013). Designing clinical research. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
[33]	Wilmot, A. (2005). Designing sampling strategies for qualitative social research: With particular reference to the office for national statistics qualitative respondent register. Survey methodology bulletin-office for national statistics, 56, 53.
[34]	Vul, E., Goodman, N., Griffiths, T. L. and Tenenbaum, J. B. (2014). One and done? Optimal decisions from very few samples. Cognitive science, 38(4), 599-637.
[35]	Creswell, J. W. (2002). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
[36]	Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
[37]	Guest, G., MacQueen, K. and Namey, E. (2011). Applied thematic analysis. Los Angeles. Sage Publications.
[38]	Lacity, M. C., and Willcocks, L. P. (2012). Advanced outsourcing practice: Rethinking ito, bpo and cloud services. Palgrave Macmillan
[39]	Fitzgerald, B. and Stol, K. J. (2014, June). Continuous software engineering and beyond: trends and challenges. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Rapid Continuous Software Engineering (pp. 1-9). ACM.
[40]	Feeny, D., Lacity, M. and Willcocks, L. P. (2012). Taking the measure of outsourcing providers. MIT Sloan management review, 46(3).
[41]	Humble, J., and Molesky, J. (2011). Why enterprises must adopt devops to enable continuous delivery. Cutter IT Journal, 24(8), p. 6.
[42]	Lahiri, S., Kedia, B. L. and Mukherjee, D. (2012). The impact of management capability on the resource–performance linkage: Examining indian outsourcing providers. Journal of World Business, 47(1), 145-155.

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Charles Ikerionwu, David Edgar. (2016). DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective. Software Engineering, 4(5), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Charles Ikerionwu; David Edgar. DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective. Softw. Eng. 2016, 4(5), 65-74. doi: 10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Charles Ikerionwu, David Edgar. DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective. Softw Eng. 2016;4(5):65-74. doi: 10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.se.20160405.11,
  author = {Charles Ikerionwu and David Edgar},
  title = {DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective},
  journal = {Software Engineering},
  volume = {4},
  number = {5},
  pages = {65-74},
  doi = {10.11648/j.se.20160405.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.se.20160405.11},
  abstract = {Competition is rife within BPO-IT service providers as outsourcing clients opt for providers’ that will add significant value to their operations. Thus, providers perceive DevOps as one way of improving the quality of clients’ services through in-house development of reliable software. Research findings indicate that DevOps involves internal reorganisation that could provide the best possible option to combine people, process and software development tools. The approach has been widely applied in software development companies purposely for continuous delivery of reliable software, and to add value to client’s services within provider’s domain. This paper presents the findings from a multi case study of DevOps implementation in BPO-IT service provider organisations. The findings suggest the inclusion of DevOps as an element of strategic IT planning to improve competitiveness by reducing costs and quality of services. The developed DevOps framework proposes a team of coordinating teams working together to improving client and providers’ performances combining IT management, software development and processing teams respectively. To illustrate the concept of the framework, a flowchart depicting a stepwise role of each team is developed, allowing for implementation of agility and flexibility into the process and continuous software delivery, reduced time of service delivery, and improved quality of services.},
 year = {2016}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective
AU  - Charles Ikerionwu
AU  - David Edgar
Y1  - 2016/12/27
PY  - 2016
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
T2  - Software Engineering
JF  - Software Engineering
JO  - Software Engineering
SP  - 65
EP  - 74
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2376-8037
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
AB  - Competition is rife within BPO-IT service providers as outsourcing clients opt for providers’ that will add significant value to their operations. Thus, providers perceive DevOps as one way of improving the quality of clients’ services through in-house development of reliable software. Research findings indicate that DevOps involves internal reorganisation that could provide the best possible option to combine people, process and software development tools. The approach has been widely applied in software development companies purposely for continuous delivery of reliable software, and to add value to client’s services within provider’s domain. This paper presents the findings from a multi case study of DevOps implementation in BPO-IT service provider organisations. The findings suggest the inclusion of DevOps as an element of strategic IT planning to improve competitiveness by reducing costs and quality of services. The developed DevOps framework proposes a team of coordinating teams working together to improving client and providers’ performances combining IT management, software development and processing teams respectively. To illustrate the concept of the framework, a flowchart depicting a stepwise role of each team is developed, allowing for implementation of agility and flexibility into the process and continuous software delivery, reduced time of service delivery, and improved quality of services.
VL  - 4
IS  - 5
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Charles Ikerionwu

Department of Information Management Technology, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria
David Edgar

Glasgow Business School, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Charles Ikerionwu, David Edgar. (2016). DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective. Software Engineering, 4(5), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Charles Ikerionwu; David Edgar. DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective. Softw. Eng. 2016, 4(5), 65-74. doi: 10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Charles Ikerionwu, David Edgar. DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective. Softw Eng. 2016;4(5):65-74. doi: 10.11648/j.se.20160405.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.se.20160405.11,
  author = {Charles Ikerionwu and David Edgar},
  title = {DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective},
  journal = {Software Engineering},
  volume = {4},
  number = {5},
  pages = {65-74},
  doi = {10.11648/j.se.20160405.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.se.20160405.11},
  abstract = {Competition is rife within BPO-IT service providers as outsourcing clients opt for providers’ that will add significant value to their operations. Thus, providers perceive DevOps as one way of improving the quality of clients’ services through in-house development of reliable software. Research findings indicate that DevOps involves internal reorganisation that could provide the best possible option to combine people, process and software development tools. The approach has been widely applied in software development companies purposely for continuous delivery of reliable software, and to add value to client’s services within provider’s domain. This paper presents the findings from a multi case study of DevOps implementation in BPO-IT service provider organisations. The findings suggest the inclusion of DevOps as an element of strategic IT planning to improve competitiveness by reducing costs and quality of services. The developed DevOps framework proposes a team of coordinating teams working together to improving client and providers’ performances combining IT management, software development and processing teams respectively. To illustrate the concept of the framework, a flowchart depicting a stepwise role of each team is developed, allowing for implementation of agility and flexibility into the process and continuous software delivery, reduced time of service delivery, and improved quality of services.},
 year = {2016}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - DevOps: Introducing Agility and Flexibility to BPO-IT Organisations – Service Providers’ Perspective
AU  - Charles Ikerionwu
AU  - David Edgar
Y1  - 2016/12/27
PY  - 2016
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
T2  - Software Engineering
JF  - Software Engineering
JO  - Software Engineering
SP  - 65
EP  - 74
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2376-8037
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.se.20160405.11
AB  - Competition is rife within BPO-IT service providers as outsourcing clients opt for providers’ that will add significant value to their operations. Thus, providers perceive DevOps as one way of improving the quality of clients’ services through in-house development of reliable software. Research findings indicate that DevOps involves internal reorganisation that could provide the best possible option to combine people, process and software development tools. The approach has been widely applied in software development companies purposely for continuous delivery of reliable software, and to add value to client’s services within provider’s domain. This paper presents the findings from a multi case study of DevOps implementation in BPO-IT service provider organisations. The findings suggest the inclusion of DevOps as an element of strategic IT planning to improve competitiveness by reducing costs and quality of services. The developed DevOps framework proposes a team of coordinating teams working together to improving client and providers’ performances combining IT management, software development and processing teams respectively. To illustrate the concept of the framework, a flowchart depicting a stepwise role of each team is developed, allowing for implementation of agility and flexibility into the process and continuous software delivery, reduced time of service delivery, and improved quality of services.
VL  - 4
IS  - 5
ER  -

Copy | Download