| In today's turbulent business environment, providing information technology (IT) solutions that meet specific operational requirements is a major challenge for information system (IS) providers. To be more competitive, companies are placing greater emphasis on lowering costs, improving quality, and reducing product cycle-time. Internal IS solution providers are realizing they are not immune to these competitive pressures.;Many different approaches are being used to guide improvement in the development, integration, and deployment of IS services and capabilities. An emerging framework, the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW-CMM), is gaining momentum throughout industry.;The purpose of this study is to investigate whether or not information system managers believe selecting a structured process improvement approach for improving software development activities will increase their company's competitive profile. The research strategy for conducting this study is based on integrating and synthesizing a descriptive case study design as well as an experimental design.;The subject of this study is a major telecommunications company's IT organization. A statistically significant sample of management employees engaged in developing and deploying software applications were surveyed and the results analyzed. |
