A Users’ Perspective of the Critical Success Factors Applicable to Information Centers

Information centers (IC) are an important part of an organization; their function is to assure effective use of end-user computing technologies. With the growing role of ICs, and increasing competition for resources, comes the question of how best to manage and justify their existence. As the number and sophistication of users increase, their impact on IC performance increases, and IC management cannot ignore the user’s perspective of what is important. This study identifies the users’ perspective on what factors are critical to IC success through a questionnaire completed by 174 users. Twenty six critical success factors (CSF) are identified from the literature. These CSFs are factor analyzed to identify four composite CSFs: Type/Quality of IC Services; Expectations (what users can expect of the IC and what is expected of the users); IC Environment, and Commitment (organization’s and users’) to the IC. Type/Quality of IC Services and Expectations have a direct effect on IC success with the former having the greatest impact. Other factors have an indirect effect. A comparison of the users’ and IC manager’s perspectives highlight several similarities and differences. There is agreement on the specific issues but their overall perspectives differ.