Identifying processes that support COTS-Based

Systems in Developing Countries

Douglas Kunda and Laurence Brooks
Department of Computer Science, University of York, England
douglas@cs.york.ac.uk
Abstract
Although there have been many advances in the information technology (IT) field,
developing countries (DCs) have not yet fully benefited because of some of the
specific problems experienced by these countries. Examples include a lack of
systems infrastructure and resources to invest in IT. COTS-Based Systems (CBS)
offers a number of benefits that the developing countries can tap into such as
reducing development and maintenance costs and improving reuse across projects.
CBS success depends on successful selection of COTS software to fit
requirements. Although a number of initiatives have been proposed to deal with the
COTS evaluation problems, they do not adequately address the non-technical
issues or "soft" factor. The paper presents the research study to identify processes
that support CBS in developing countries, for example it proposes a method of
applying social-technical approach for COTS software selection.
Keywords
COTS-Based Systems, developing countries, COTS software evaluation, social-
technical evaluation criteria.

1 INTRODUCTION
The diffusion of computer technology in developing countries is at an embryonic
stage and does not impinge upon overwhelming majority of the people (Corr,
1995). A range of factors, including various infrastructural, financial, political and
cultural aspects have acted against the effective development and exploitation of
information technology. Redressing this situation will require significant
resources and a willingness to tackle the long-term underlying causes of the
problem rather than offering short-term solutions to symptoms.
Organisations in developing countries are turning to COTS-Based Systems
because modern information systems are becoming increasingly expensive to
build and maintain. These components are typically bought from third-party
vendors and integrated into a system (Vigder, 1996). Alternatively an application
that satisfies most of the system requirements could be purchased, and then
extended, tailored for local requirements. In both cases neither is the source code
for these components available to the system developer nor do the system
developer control specification, release schedule and evolution of the components.
Building systems from Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) also known as COTS-
Based Systems development is focused on improving the technologies and
practices used for assembling previously existing components (COTS and other
non-developmental items) into large software systems, and migrating existing
systems toward CBS approaches (Carnegie, 1998)(Clements, 1995). CBS can
potentially be used to reduce software development and maintenance costs, and
reducing software development time by bringing the system to markets as early as
possible (Clements, 1995)(Haines, 1997). CBS also improves reuse across
programs and promotes a competitive component marketplace. CBS therefore has
a higher potential to benefit developing countries compared to other systems
development methods.
Software systems do not exist in isolation they are used in social and
organisational contexts. Experience and many studies show that the major cause
of most software failures is the people rather than technical issues (Curtis, Krasner
and Iscoel, 1988)(Le Quesne, 1988). For example poor training may result in
people not co-operating with the information system leading to failure and project
abandonment (Avison, 1995).
CBS success depends on successful selection of COTS software to fit
requirements. The current approaches and proposed frameworks for COTS
software selection do not adequately deal with these human, social and
organisational issues. For example the SEI Technology Delta framework (Brown
1996), Off-The-Shelf Option (Kontio, 1995), and Procurement Oriented
Requirements Engineering (Maiden, 1998) do not adequately deal with political,
social and economic factors (Powell, 1997)(Carnegie, 1998). This research aims
at investigating a method of applying social-technical approach for COTS
software selection.

2 MOTIVATION FOR RESEARCH

There are a number of reasons for interest in identifying processes that support
CBS in developing countries and these include problems of developing software
systems in DCs, potential benefits of CBS and experience of developing countries
with CBS.
2.1 Problems of developing software systems in DCs
Developed nations have used IT to help them change the way they do business so
as to give them a strategic advantage in their operations (e.g. the use of ATMs in
banks to improve customer service). However the investment returns in DCs have
fallen short of the potential due problems unique to them. (Bogod, 1979)
(Bhatnagar, 1992) attribute these to skilled human resources deficiency, economic
constraints, systems infrastructure deficiency and applications problems.
Solving these problems will require significant resources and government policies
to tackle the underlying causes of the problem. Therefore the motivation for this
research is not to solve these problems, rather it is to observe why and how
COTS-based systems development can provide support for organisations in DCs
to reduce costs related with software systems development and procurements.
2.2 Potential benefits of CBS
CBS can potentially be used to reduce software development costs, assemble
systems rapidly, and reduce the spiraling maintenance burden associated with
support and upgrade of large systems (Clements, 1995)(Haines, 1997). Other
potential benefits of building systems from COTS include cost benefit
obsolescence management, improving reuse across programs and promoting
competitive marketplace enabling system integrators a wide range of choices.
In addition to the increasing availability of components applicable to certain
domains, understanding of the issues and technologies required to expand CBS
practice is also growing, although significant work remains. Various new
technical developments and products, including CORBA COM, DCOM, and
related capabilities and changes in acquisition and business practices has further
stimulated the move to CBS.
2.3 Experience of developing countries with CBS
Developing countries are getting more and more familiar with COTS-based
systems as the quality and variety of COTS products increase in the commercial
marketplace. This means that the amount of existing software in these
organisations that can be reused in new systems increases and this encourages
CBS. Experience of developing countries in CBS also means that COTS-Based
Systems can easily be adapted to their local needs and minimal training for
customers (users) thus making substantial cost savings. Therefore COTS based
systems leads to increased customer acceptance and systems ownership.

3 RESEARCH PROPOSAL
CBS success depends on successful evaluation and selection of COTS software
components to fit customer requirements. COTS selection is a process of
determining "fitness for use" of previously developed components that are being
applied in a new system context (Haines, 1997). Component selection is also a
process for selecting components when a marketplace of competing products
exists.
Successful selection of COTS software to fit requirements is still a problem
because of a number of reasons (Oberndorf, 1997)(Maiden, 1998). These include
the following:
1. Lack of well defined process - Most organisations are under pressure to
perform and therefore do not use a well-defined repeatable process (Kontio,
1996). Therefore COTS selection process is implemented in an ad hoc
manner.
2. Evaluation criteria - There are problems associated with the definition of the
evaluation criteria. Sometimes the evaluators tend to focus on technical
capabilities at the expense of the non-technical or "soft" factors such as the
human and business issues (Powell, 1997).
3. "Black box" nature of COTS components - Lack of access to the COTS
internals makes it difficult to understand COTS components and therefore
makes evaluation hard (Oberndorf, 1997). Sometimes even the supporting
documentation for these components is incomplete or wrong.
4. Rapid changes in market place - COTS evaluation is hard because of rapid
changes of COTS components in the market place (Oberndorf, 1997). For
example a new release of the COTS component may have a feature which is
not available in the component that is currently being evaluated.
Therefore the central research question can be framed as:
What processes for the evaluation and selection of COTS software
components provide support for CBS, in developing countries?
In order to address the problem of COTS evaluation in DCs, the best practices
from more developed countries will be elicited, compared with relevant literature
and then adapted for developing countries. Therefore the immediate objectives
that arise from the central research question are:
• To elicit and analyse current CBS practices of organisations from developed
countries (UK) and developing countries (Zambia).
• To identify processes and factors that support COTS software component
selection in CBS from a developed country (the UK).
• To explore how social-technical approaches can be used in COTS software
components evaluation and adapted to developing countries.
• To develop a theoretical framework showing how social-technical approach to
COTS software evaluation can support CBS in developing countries.

4 LITERATURE REVIEW
4.1 COTS-Based systems
CBS focuses on building large software systems by integrating previously existing
software components (Haines, 1997). By enhancing the flexibility and
maintainability of systems, this approach can potentially be used to reduce
software development costs, assemble systems rapidly, and reduce the spiralling
maintenance burden associated with the support and upgrade of large systems. At
the foundation of this approach is the assumption that certain parts of large
software systems reappear with sufficient regularity that common parts should be
written once, rather than many times, and that common systems should be
assembled through reuse rather than rewritten over and over.
In CBS (Haines, 1997), the notion of building a system by writing code has been
replaced with building a system by assembling and integrating existing software
components. In contrast to traditional development, where system integration is
often the tail end of an implementation effort, component integration is the
centrepiece of the approach; thus, implementation has given way to integration as
the focus of system construction. Because of this, a key consideration in the
decision whether to acquire, reuse, or build the components is whether they can be
integrated or not.
In CBS, an organisation's software development process and philosophy may need
to change (Haines, 1997). System integration can no longer be at the end of the
implementation phase, but must be planned early and be continually managed
throughout the development process. It is also recommended that as trade-offs are
being made among components during the development process, the rationale
used in making the trade off decisions should be recorded and then evaluated in
the final product (Brown, 1996). Many of the problems encountered when
integrating COTS components cannot be determined before integration begins.
Thus, estimating development schedules and resource requirements is extremely
difficult (Vigder, 1996). Developing component-based systems (Haines, 1997) is
becoming feasible due to the following:
• the increase in the quality and variety of COTS products;
• economic pressures to reduce system development and maintenance costs;
• the emergence of component integration technology such as Object Request
Broker; and
• the increasing amount of existing software in organisations that can be reused
in new systems.
4.2 COTS software selection
COTS software selection also known as component qualification is a process of
determining "fitness for use" of previously-developed components that are being
applied in a new system context (Haines, 1997). Component qualification is also a
process for selecting components when a marketplace of competing products
exists. Qualification of a component can also extend to include qualification of the
development process used to create and maintain it (for example, ensuring
algorithms have been validated, and that rigorous code inspection has taken
place). This is most obvious in safety-critical applications, but can also reduce
some of the attraction of using pre-existing components.
There are three phases of COTS software selection: criteria definition, alternatives
identification and evaluation (Kontio, 1996). The evaluation criteria definition
process essentially decomposes the requirements for the COTS into a hierarchical
criteria set and each branch in this hierarchy ends in an evaluation attribute. The
criteria include component functionality (what services are provided), other
aspects of a component's interface (such as the use of standards) and quality
aspects that are more difficult to isolate, such as component reliability,
predictability, and usability. The alternative identification involves the search and
screening for COTS candidate components that should be included for detailed
evaluation. In the evaluation phase the properties of the candidate components are
identified and assessed according to the evaluation criteria.
While there are several efforts focusing on component qualification, there is little
agreement on which quality attributes or measures of a component are critical to
its use in a COTS-Based system. A useful work includes Software Engineering
Institute (SEI) delta technology framework that helps evaluate new software
technology (Brown, 1996) and PORE, a template based method to support
requirements acquisition for COTS product selection (Maiden, 1998). Another
technique Off-The-Shelf Option (OTSO) addresses the complexity of component
selection and provides a decision framework that supports multi-variable
component selection analysis (Kontio, 1996). Other approaches, such as the one
by Boloix and Robilland (Boloix, 1995) focus on assessing the software product,
process and their impact on the organisation. These evaluation approaches
typically involve a combination of paper-based studies of the components,
discussion with other users of those components, and hands-on benchmarking and
prototyping.
However, the non-technical factors or "soft" issues are not adequately addressed
by these approaches. An appropriate COTS software evaluation framework should
be simple to use and address the political and economic factors that often separate
a winning technology from other contenders (Carnegie, 1998)(Powell 1997).
5 PROPOSED APPROACH AND PRELIMINARY RESULTS
The research process consists of five main stages literature review, elicit current
CBS practices, identify factors that support COTS selection, develop COTS
selection framework and validate framework as illustrated in the Figure 1 below.
In literature review phase, literature and papers on building systems from COTS
software components, requirements engineering, IT capabilities in developing
countries and other relevant topics will be reviewed. The purpose of this stage is
to identify problems associated with building systems from COTS software
components, to establish a sound background in software engineering and produce
a theoretical framework for future study. Literature review will be an ongoing task
throughout the period of this research.

Elicit current Develop COTS Validate

CBS practices selection framework
framework

Literature Identify factors that

Review support COTS
selection framework

Figure 1: Research Process

5.1 Eliciting current CBS practices

5.1.1 Goal and objectives
The overall goal of the case study was to elicit and synthesise current practices
and potential benefits of CBS in a developing country (Zambia). The outcome of
this study would be to document and validate understanding of the current
situation, problems (and solutions) people have experienced in relation to CBS.
The following are immediate objective of the study:
• obtain a thorough understanding of the CBS development process;
• identify current practices for building systems using COTS software;
• review current benefits, costs and risks associated with COTS software reuse;
and
• learn what kinds of problems (and solutions) people have experienced from
the past in relation to building systems from COTS software.
5.1.2 Data collection method
There are several data collection methods such as documentary evidence,
questionnaires, interviews, diaries and observation studies. Data was collected
through the administration of self-completion questionnaires to a sample of
organisations. This method has been adopted because questionnaire provides wide
access to geographically dispersed samples at low cost i.e. large population can be
surveyed relatively cheaply (Frankfort-Nachmias, 1996). In addition questionnaire
provides a high degree of anonymity. This is especially important when sensitive
issues are involved.
The main arguments against using mail questionnaires is that it does not offer the
researchers the opportunity to probe for additional information or to clarify
answers and researchers cannot control the respondent's environment.
Questionnaires also require simple, easily understood questions and instructions.
The final disadvantage of a mail questionnaire - and perhaps the most serious
problem - is that it is often difficult to obtain an adequate response rate (Frankfort-
Nachmias, 1996).
The questionnaire was based on literature review conducted in the first three
months and discussion with faculty members and other research students within
the Department of Computer Science. After piloting the questionnaire was
modified to incorporate comments and then administered to the sample companies
in Zambia and the UK. The questionnaire was organised under three main themes,
the overview of development process; requirements engineering phase and
approaches to CBS. The sources of data are personnel within institutions
responsible for specifying, procuring and developing software systems. Zambia
institutions were obtained by purposively sampling from the National Directory
for those that were familiar with CBS. The list of UK organisations was acquired
from Kompass database and systematic sampled to reduce the sample to 1000.

5.1.3 Data analysis procedures

The data collected were coded and entered in SPSS (Statistical Package for Social
Science) for analysis. Frequency distributions were used to categorise the
demographic data variables. The mean (8 ) were calculated to measure the central
tendency of the variables unlike the mode or median it takes into account all the
values in the distribution, making it sensitive to extreme values. The standard
deviation (S.D.) were calculated to measure variability because it is more stable
from sample to sample and can be used for two or more combined groups.
However the coefficient of variation (CV) were calculated and used as standard to
compare the relative importance of the variables.

( S .D .)100
CV =
X

5.1.4 Preliminary results

The respondents were asked to rate their strength of agreement to some factors
related to building systems from COTS software. The questionnaire consisted of
scaled-response from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Table 1 presents
some of the results from this study with significant factors shown inbold font.
This selection is based on comparing the investigated factor's coefficient of
variation (C.V.). The full report detailing the results of this empirical study is
documented separately (Kunda, 1998) and this paper presents the important
findings and conclusions.
Table 1: Risks associated with COTS-Based system development
Factors Investigated UK Organisations Zambian Organisations
(C.V.) (C.V.)
Lack of guidelines 2.95 1.75
Technical capability 4.58 2.67
Periodic releases of COTS 3.63 3.34
Loss of schedule control 3.13 2.28
Legal implications 2.80 1.90
Product mismatches 3.69 3.54
Side effects 3.46 2.45
Additional tasks 3.51 1.78
Failure to meet requirements 3.96 3.27
Lack of provider support 4.24 2.50
Difficult to select 3.53 2.85

The results indicate that:

1. The most significant benefit of building systems from COTS components is
reducing the software development costs and improving reuse across projects.
This supports the findings already identified in literature (Haines,
1997)(Oberndorf, 1997).
2. The notable problems identified in this study are lack of access to the
technical information and COTS product mismatches (refer to table 1). The
difficult to discover the technical capabilities of COTS components was
expected because of the "black box" nature of COTS components.
3. The lack of adequate trained human resources was identified as the main
obstacle to developing software systems. This is not surprising because it has
been identified in literature on developing countries (Woherem, 1992). What
is surprising is that although literature (Curtis, 1988) indicates the importance
and impact of political and external issues on the success of the information
system it scored lowly in this survey.
4. The most notable technique for requirement acquisition and specification is
observation, prototyping and demonstrations. It was interesting to note that the
techniques advocated by social-technical approaches such as rich pictures and
SSM conceptual models scored very low in this survey.
5. COTS component selection is still a problem especially in developing
countries where donors sometimes impose these on them. For example the
study results indicated that most of the institutions surveyed conduct software
selection in ad hoc manner focussing on technical issues.

5.2 Identifying processes and factors that support COTS

component selection
5.2.1 Goal and objectives
The overall goal of this study is to identify best practices from the industry in the
UK regarding evaluation and selection of COTS software components for CBS.
The following are the immediate objective of the case study:
• Identify problems (and solutions) experienced by companies in evaluating
COTS components for CBS and define criteria for judging COTS evaluation
success;
• Elicit techniques and tools for evaluating COTS components and consider in
what ways they promote evaluation success;
• Review the COTS components evaluation criteria used by companies
(whether it includes the social-economic factors) and investigate in what ways
customer participation can contribute to COTS components evaluation
success.
This study will provide an opportunity to learn the best practices from UK
enterprises, validate the literature review and document the best practices from the
UK industries. The outcome of this study would lead to the development of a
validated framework for selecting COTS components for CBS. The framework
would also incorporate the often-neglected non-technical issues.
5.2.2 Research strategy
A multiple case study approach has been used to identify the factors that support
COTS component selection in CBS. A Case study is an empirical inquiry that
investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially
when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not evident (Yin,
1994). The case study is preferred when the investigator cannot manipulate or
control the relevant behavioural events. The argument against the case study
approach is that It provides little for basis for scientific generalisation, how can
you generalise from a single case study it is argued. In addition case studies take
too long and they result in massive, unreadable documents.
5.2.3 Data Collection and analysis
Data collection for this case study relied on face-to-face interviews and
documentation. The advantage with the interview technique is that it focuses
directly on case study topic and provides perceived causal inferences. The major
criticism against interviews is that it expensive and bias from response or poorly
constructed questions.
The grounded theory method is being used to analyse data from this case study. A
grounded theory is one that is inductively derived from the study of the
phenomenon it represents (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). That is, it is discovered,
developed, and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and
analysis of data pertaining to that phenomenon. This involved data preparation,
developing concepts through coding and building causal networks. Data
preparation involves converting field notes into write up notes and transcribing
the tape recordings. Developing concepts was done through coding in Atlas-ti
software and these concepts were further categorised into themes. Atlas-ti is a
software tool for qualitative data analysis and is very efficient at handling both
textual and conceptual analysis. The next stage was to tabulate the results and
build causal models or networks that link variables or factors together.
5.2.4 Preliminary results
A total of nine interviews were conducted in five organisations within the UK.
These organisations were selected on the basis of their experience with CBS and
willingness to participate in the case study. However deliberate effort was made to
ensure wide variety organisations from different sectors are included in the case
study. A number of factors that support COTS software component selections
were elicited from this study. The identified factors relating to the criteria
definition are presented in table 2.

Table 2: Identified social-technical criteria factors affecting COTS

component selection
Compliance issues Product quality Socio-economic Technology
(Functionality) characteristics (non-technical)
• Customer/Organi • Interoperability • Costs in general • Architectural
sations standards • Portability • Licensing styles and
• Functionality • Scalability arrangements frameworks
(domain specific) • Performance • Market trends • Interface
• Dependability • Vendor issues
• Efficiency capability • Multi-user
• Reliability • Vendor support
• Usability reputation • Security

The Socio-economic factors are non-technical factors such as costs, market trends,
vendor capability and reputation. These are the most frequently overlooked
factors that bring in the social dimension in the evaluation criteria.
Costs include direct cost such as the price of the COTS software products and
indirect costs such as cost of adapting and integrating the products, cost of
maintenance or replacement with upgrades, cost of training and support. Vendor
capability factors are performance and capability of the vendor, for example
vendor profile, reputation, period of vendor business, vendor reputation,
references, customer base and track record, certification, stability, available
training and support.

6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Although there are some risks associated with CBS, it has great potential in the
developing countries not only because of potential cost saving but also because
developing countries are very familiar with COTS components, at least in terms
of use and adapting them to local needs. Developing countries should use CBS to
its full potential by integrating COTS components in an engineering manner
rather than simply adapting them.
CBS success depends on successful evaluation and selection of COTS software
components to fit customer requirements. The literature shows that successful
selection of off-the-shelf systems to fit customer requirements remains
problematic (Maiden, 1998). Existing frameworks for COTS evaluation such as
the Delta and OTSO are inadequate because they do not incorporate the social-
economic factors satisfactorily. In addition these frameworks are laborious and
too complex to be adopted for general use.
This research will contribute towards a social-technical approach to CBSD in
developing countries. There are research efforts both in academic and empirical
world relating to CBSD, social-technical approaches and developing countries.
This research will concentrate its efforts where the three research fields intersect
(see Figure 2).

Developing
CBS
Countries

Research
Social- contribution
technical

Figure 2: Research Contribution

This research work will therefore provide an original contribution to knowledge in

its contribution of a social-technical approach for CBS applicable in developing
countries. The contribution will be three-fold:
1. The project will elicit a better understanding of CBS constraints faced by
developing countries.
2. The project will provide a list of techniques and tools that practitioners can
use for COTS software evaluation.
3. The project will provide a framework for social-technical approach to COTS
software evaluation supporting CBS in developing countries. This framework
will:
• Provide guidance for organisation in developing countries regarding the
process of evaluating and selecting COTS software components in CBS.
• Provide techniques, tools and support for COTS software component
evaluation phase of CBS for developing countries. This will contribute to
reducing risks associated with CBS.
• Provide support for a social-technical approach to COTS software
component evaluation process for developing countries.

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