OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND LEVERAGING OF BUSINESS

EFFECTIVENESS IN SMES

A Case Study

Steven Butler, Dotun Adebanjo

Management School, University of Liverpool, Chatham Street, Liverpool, U.K.

Hossam Ismail

Management School, University of Liverpool, Chatham Street, Liverpool, U.K.

Keywords: e-Business, Open Source Software, Small-to-Medium Enterprise (SME).

Abstract: This research investigated the issues that impact on an SME adopting e-Business. It was found that many

barriers may exist for e-Business adoption in an SME. One of which is limited financial resources to

purchase internet technology required for e-Business adoption and development. However, open source

technology has grown in popularity for a number of years, with governments, business firms, military and

educational organisations incorporating open source software. This paper provides an overview on open

source technology which could be adopted for e-Business architecture for the development of e-Business

applications. Furthermore, it provides two action research case studies on SMEs adopting open source

software for the development of e-Business capabilities. It was found the projects were successfully

developed and implemented for each case study company. Although successful, the research team found

that more research is required in open source software for the development of e-Business applications.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the United Kingdom (UK), Small-to-Medium

Enterprise, (SMEs) provides a significant

contribution to the economy. Some authors report

the contributions to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

up to 40 percent (Taylor and Murphy, 2004). The

world economy is changing, with growth in

emerging markets and developing economies

continuing to outstrip that in developed economies,

(Jutla et al, 2002). This has resulted in more pressure

on SMEs to discover ways in which to deliver its

products and services more effectively, and improve

operations activities to remain competitive.

The growth in the internet and e-Business

applications has provided organisations with new

opportunities to offer products and services, share

information with business partners and meet

customer demands. Therefore, e-Business

applications and the internet have the potential to

increase the competitiveness and growth of small

firms, (Paliwoda, 2004). E-Business applications

provide an organisation with the opportunity to

extend business functionality by providing users,

such as employees, suppliers and customers to

access business logic through a browser, or

commonly referred to as ‘business though a

browser’.

E-Business applications and architecture uses a

three-tier client server model, as illustrated below in

figure 1. A three-tier client server model is where

the client is mainly used for display with application

logic and the business rules partitioned on the server,

which is the second tier, and a database server is the

third tier. (Chaffey, 2004).

Figure 1: Three-tier architecture.

Although e-Business can provide so many

opportunities, many barriers may exist, preventing

Butler S., Adebanjo D. and Ismail H. (2008).

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND LEVERAGING OF BUSINESS EFFECTIVENESS IN SMES - A Case Study.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 93-100

DOI: 10.5220/0001911400930100

 SciTePress

an organisation adopting e-Business. The effective

adoption and implementation of ICT may rely quite

a lot on individual factors such as organisational

size, structure, mix of available human and financial

resources and capabilities (Pavic et al, 2007).

This is further supported by resource issues

relating to finance, skills and personnel are expected

to impact on the decision to adopt e-Business, (Fillis

et al, 2004). Research has found that there are a

number of barriers and success factors associated

with e-Business adoption for an SME. (Taylor &

Murphy, 2004) identified high initial set-up costs of

ICT and e-Business can act as a barrier for an SME.

Clearly, SMEs are presented with a number of

challenges to realise the benefits e-Business that can

provide to an organisation. However, open source

technology may provide a solution by providing

access to technology which may not be cost

prohibitive.

1.1 Open Source

Open source is a development method for software

that harnesses the power of distributed peer review

and transparency of process. The promise of open

source is better quality, higher reliability, more

flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory

vendor lock-in (Open Source Imitative OSI, 2008).

Open source software has grown in popularity in

recent years, with governments, business firms,

military organisations, and educational entities

incorporating open source software into their

enterprise functions to counter tightened budgets and

rising operational expenses (Hedgebeth, 2007). Any

reservations that exist regarding security may be

short-sighted, with financial services institutions

such as Experian, embracing open source software

recently, (Ferguson, 2008). It appears open source

popularity will continue to grow, with predications

that by 2012, more than 90 percent of enterprises

will use open source in direct or embedded form,

(Judge, 2008).

Open source appears to be here to stay, but what

open source software is available which can be used

to develop e-Business applications, based on an e-

Business three tiered architecture (Figure 1).

2 TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

The research team identified various Database

Management Systems (DBMS) which could be used

in the data tier of the three-tier architecture. The

research team analysed SQL Server, Microsoft

Access and MySQL to consider suitability for e-

Business applications for the case study.

Microsoft Access is a DBMS developed by

Microsoft Corporation and belongs to the Microsoft

Office family of products. Microsoft Access

includes database functions that allow users to

perform database queries and has some very good

reporting interface. Microsoft Access is a flexible

package and is suitable for organisations that have

small database requirements and require few

database records. In a database environment with

multiple users, connections and queries, Microsoft

Access will probably become unreliable and slow.

However, Microsoft Access can be less expensive

than some other DBMS on the market.

Microsoft SQL Server is another Microsoft

package, but this product is primarily marketed

towards large organisations with large database

requirements. SQL server is an enterprise-level

database system and is widely used in organisations

that require a database that can handle high use,

multiple transactions and offers high reliability.

Microsoft SQL server is certainly a viable option for

large organisations and the cost highlights this,

while SQL server is an expensive option and

requires a lot of training to be able to use the product

effectively.

MySQL is an open source project which has

been publicly available since 1996, but has a

development history going back to 1979, (Welling &

Thomson, 2003). MySQL is a relational database

management system (RDBMS), which enables data

storage, searching, sorting and retrieval. MySQL has

many attractive features which include speed, ease

of use, query language support, capability,

connectivity, security and portability (DuBois,

2003). MySQL has become a popular database

solution as its popularity within the database

community has increased and would probably suit

most database needs.

It should be noted that there are several database

options available and the views expressed by

authors, practitioners and application developers on

available database systems varies significantly.

Many developers and practitioners may have a bias

towards database systems with which they may have

had previous experience. It is clear that the choice of

database system will depend on a number of factors

such as price, speed, efficiency, etc. The database

comparison table illustrated below in Table 1

highlights the differences in the most suitable

database systems available.

The research team analysed suitable scripting

languages for the business logic layer of the three-

ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business

tier architecture. The research team analysed ASP,

ASP.NET and PHP to consider suitability for e-

Business applications.

Table 1: Database Comparison.

Access SQL

Server

MySQL

Cost Inexpensive Expensive Free

Speed Weak Strong Strong

Efficiency Weak Strong Strong

Users Few Many Many

Connections Few Many Many

ASP is a server-side scripting language

developed by Microsoft to run dynamically

generated HTML pages. ASP was originally

introduced with Microsoft’s server platform and

utilises VBScript, a variation a Visual Basic

Language, consequently both Microsoft products.

Although scripting languages have been changing

rapidly, many competing technologies have

introduced new integrated features, while ASP has

been lacking in this area. However, many business

environments have Microsoft servers. This is

probably a major driver for the continued use of

ASP and ASP supports Microsoft SQL server, which

is also widely used.

ASP.NET is part of Microsoft's .NET platform

and should not be confused with ASP. Although

both are developed by Microsoft, the only other link

between both technologies is that they both use

VBScript. ASP.NET can be used to build dynamic

web sites, web applications and XML web services.

ASP.NET offers developers the ability to build

pages using controls such as buttons or labels, with

properties assigned to the controls. The controls

produce segments of code, e.g. HTML for forms.

This concept introduces the idea of all the code

behind the page. This may reduce development time,

but it is fair to conclude that programmers and/or

developers will always need a deep understanding of

the technology, even with the .NET concept of code

behind the page.

PHP is an open source scripting language and

was originally started as a hobby, this programming

language has grown in popularity and use in recent

years. It can be imbedded into HTML pages and

allows communication with a database. A number of

databases support PHP, which include MySQL,

dBASE, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and many

more. PHP supports most back-end databases, but it

is most commonly known for its seamless

integrations with MySQL. It can also run on a

number of operating systems such as Windows,

Linux, MAC OS and most varieties of Unix.

Furthermore, it is well supported by several PHP

discussion groups and communities. PHP has grown

from a set of tools for a personal home page

development to the world’s most popular web

programming language, and it now powers many of

the Web’s most frequent destinations (Shiflett,

2006).

The choice of ASP, ASP.NET or PHP will

ultimately come down to the application

requirements and the hosting provider environment.

The choice will also include the developers’

familiarity with programming language. If the

developer is familiar with C, Java, JavaScript, etc,

then PHP may be the best choice. If however, the

developer has little experience of programming

languages the choice may be the .NET concept of

code behind the page. ASP.NET or PHP would be

more suitable for e-Business applications, as

software support and updates for ASP becomes

redundant in the future. The technology comparison

table illustrated below in Table 2 highlights the

differences in the most suitable technologies

available.

Table 2: Scripting Language (Source: Oracle).

ASP.NET PHP

Cost Free Free

Platform Cost Expensive Free

Speed Strong Weak

Efficiency Strong Weak

Security Strong Strong

Platform Strong Weak (IIS Only)

A number of technology options exist for e-

Business applications and only a handful have been

analysed due to suitability and requirements for the

e-Business applications to be developed in this

paper. This paper investigates the use of open source

software for e-Business applications as access to

financial resources can be limited in an SME.

The research team found that MySQL would be

the most suitable database option for each case study

organisation due to cost, stability and security.

MySQL is a true open source database management

package. As a result, the research team decided that

PHP would be the most suitable scripting language,

as it works seamlessly with MySQL and, once more,

it is an open source product.

Therefore, the research team agreed to develop

the e-Business applications using MySQL and PHP

for the data layer and business logic layer,

respectively. MySQL or PHP do not require a

commercial licence and all are battle-proven on high

volume websites. Apache was selected to provide

the web server environment. The apache web server

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND LEVERAGING OF BUSINESS EFFECTIVENESS IN SMES - A Case Study

open source project was developed and as an open

source HTTP server for operating systems such as

Unix and Windows. Apache has been the most

popular web server on the internet since 1996

(Apache, 2008). Apache is also the most popular

web server and has the largest market share, used on

over 50 percent of web servers, (Netcraft, 2008).

The software selected for the development of e-

Business applications are Apache, MySQL, and PHP

are open source software and are known collectively

as AMP.

3 CASE STUDY

Organisation A was a micro-size manufacturing

organisation based in the UK. The research team

also found that the case study company was

experiencing sustainable growth, with a year-on-

year sales change of more than forty percent. The

case study found that the organisation was suffering

from ‘growing pains’ in a number of areas of the

business. The research team carried out interviews,

process review meeting and structured walk-through

to understand business operations and indentify

improvement opportunities. It was found that the

organisation used office applications and had a

legacy system for stock management, but many of

its key processes were paper-based and manual. It

was found that the organisation was becoming

inefficient in a number of its key processes. The

research team and management reviewed all

improvement opportunities to identify ‘urgent

improvements’. A key process in the dispatch

department was causing a bottle neck and affecting

other areas of the business. This was identified for

improvement actions. The process was know as the

‘verification process’, was critical to the business,

and directly affects the organisations ability to

service customers.

This process was a manual process. It required

personnel in the dispatch department to validate the

data on six documents against a master data sheet to

ensure all the data on the documentation matches

that on the master data sheet. Once complete, a

manager would then be required to repeat this

process to verify all the documentation was correct,

and data was not overlooked accidently. This

activity was required to be completed on every

product. It was a critical step, as the data and

information contained on the documentation

comprised of product information, safety data and

certified values.

Organisation B case study was a medium-size

car finance broker based in the UK. This

organisation has been established for some time,

with a growing finance portfolio. The primary role

of this organisation was to link car dealerships and

finance organisations able to provide funding for

vehicle leasing and purchasing, acting as an

intermediary. The organisation used a proprietary off

the shelf software package to support its operations.

The software did allow some customisation, but it

was found this had its limitations.

Through management briefings, conducting

interviews and process reviews at each visit, it was

possible to identify issues and problems with

business processes. The research team identified

issues with current business processes, data

integrity, processing time and legacy system. The

organisation rely on external parties, (car

dealerships), to provide legible and complete

information for finance proposals. It was found that

proposals are hand written by car dealerships and

then faxed to the contact centre for processing. Once

received, employees were required to transfer the

information on each proposal onto the legacy

system. However, if an application has not been

hand written in a legible format employees were

expected to decipher information on the proposal,

presenting the organisation with data integrity

issues.

Furthermore, it was found that because proposals

were faxed this affected the quality of information

on a proposal. The organisation team were fully

aware of this problem and were keen to resolve this

issue through the use of technology. The research

team identified this as an area of improvement, as

improvements, or elimination of data integrity

problems would provide the organisation with clear

and accurate information and more efficient business

processes.

The organisation offers products which require a

decision of acceptance or decline within two hours.

It was found that sometimes this is exceeded due to

incomplete or incorrect data collection, which

necessitated follow up actions and telephone calls by

employees resulting in extended processing time. It

was found that if the processing time extended

beyond two hours then a dealership would source

finance from a competitor, resulting in lost

commission for the organisation.

ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business

4 RESEARCH AIMS &

OBJECTIVES

The overall aim of this study was to determine ways

in which open source software may be used to

develop e-Business applications to improve business

processes in each case study organisation. The

research focuses on identifying suitable open source

software to develop such applications. The research

then moved onto proposing solutions utilising

internet technology, and then developing e-Business

applications. To achieve this aim, a number of key

objectives would have to be met. These key

objectives include:

• Identity open source software for e-

Business applications.

• Determine ways in which solutions can be

developed using internet technology.

• Develop e-Business applications for each

case study organisation.

• Identify benefits e-Business provided each

organisation.

• Use findings in the paper for the

development of an e-Business framework

for an SME adopting and implementing e-

Business.

5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The primary research for this paper is based on a

case study of two UK based SMEs, the first is in the

manufacturing industry, and the second is involved

in the financial services industry. Two case study

organisations were selected for this paper so that

research could be completed on a manufacturing

organisation and non-manufacturing organisation.

The case study is action research lead in both cases.

In first case study the research team spent more than

18 months working with the case study company on

an e-Business development programme, to develop

e-Business capabilities and implement operations

management tools and techniques. An associate

from the research team was based at the case study

company throughout the programme.

The second case study company is a medium-

size enterprise based in the UK. The organisation

investigated the use of internet technology in both

front and back end activities to improve business

operations to minimise processing time and data

integrity issues to improve competitiveness of the

organisation.

The research team carried out several face-to-

face interviews with stakeholders from case study A

and B. The interviews with case study A were

primarily carried out with key stakeholders, but this

was then extended to include employees involved in

business processes to better understand each process.

Once each process was fully understood, the

research team then began identifying areas for

improvement through the development of a web-

based system.

In respect of case study B, initial interviews were

held with senior management (directors), and the

Information Technology (IT) manager. The research

team began with understanding existing business

processes. This process enabled the research team to

understand finance proposal process from initial

enquiry to release of funds.

In case study A and B the research team was

involved in the system analysis and development

process for each web-based solution. In case study

A, the research team designed web-based

applications to improve existing process, data

handling and reduce resource requirements. In case

study B the research team designed a new e-

Business application to link car dealerships and the

case study company to improve operational

activities and enable information sharing. In both

cases the research team developed the e-Business

applications using open source software, which had

been designed for each case study organisation.

6 FINDINGS

Organisation A

It was decided that a web-based verification

application would be developed by the research team

to improve the ‘verification’ process for organisation

A. The study had already identified that access to

financial resources for technology development

would be a constraint. This resulted in the

stakeholders agreeing that the ‘quick win’ project

should be developed through the utilisation of

barcode and open source technology. This was the

perfect opportunity for both the research team and

the organisation to witness the viability and

suitability of open source technology, which was a

new concept to the case study company.

The web-based application would be developed

so that barcode data on a product master data sheet

could be scanned and stored on a database. The data

required for validation would be stored in barcodes

on product documentation when printed. An

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND LEVERAGING OF BUSINESS EFFECTIVENESS IN SMES - A Case Study

employee could then use the verification application

to complete data verification checks using a barcode

scanner. The application would check the barcode

data on the documentation, against the master data

stored in the database, informing the employee of a

pass, or fail. This would result in eliminating

management from this process, as the employee

would not be required to perform data verification,

thus eliminating human error from the process.

The application successfully developed with

open source technology (APACHE, PHP and

MySQL). It was successfully implemented and

replaced the existing manual process, thus

improving the process significantly. It was found

that the new application provided several benefits,

such as more efficient business processes within the

dispatch department because the current bottle neck

had been eliminated. This in turn helped speed up

the dispatch of goods from the department.

Furthermore, through better utilisation of human

resource management, more time can now be spent

in other areas of the business, which could provide

even more cost savings or help improve revenue

streams through new product development.

The total project cost for the application was

calculated at £4006.35. This included hardware,

software, training and development costs. The new

process provided a resource saving of fifty percent

and a noticeable improvement in throughput time.

This was calculated as a total cost saving of

approximately £20K in the first year, providing an

approximate five hundred percent Return on

Investment (ROI) for the case study company.

It was found that the verification system

provided a number of benefits which could not be

fully quantified. Some of which included the ability

of the case study to eliminate the bottle neck

observed in the department. This in turn helped

increase the throughput of goods in the dispatch

department. Furthermore, through better utilisation

of human resource management, time can be spent

in other areas of the business, which could provide

even more cost savings or help improve revenue

streams through new product development. The

process was de-skilled, resulting in any employee

being able to perform verification using the web-

based system, after initial training.

In addition, the development of the web-based

application includes the storage of data, using the

MySQL database. As a result, management can use

the data to monitor the process and retrieve

historical data to help make business decisions.

Finally, the research team found that knowledge and

understanding of e-Business application had been

positively witnessed and experienced by the entire

organisation. Management and personnel involved

in the verification process have commented that

without the adoption of the system, it would have

been impossible to meet current customer demands

using the existing approach.

Organisation B

The research team and employees from the

organisation reviewed several web-based

applications used by competitors and organisations

providing financial services. This provided the initial

concept of a web-based application to the

organisation. The research team held focus group

meetings to discuss, and identify desirable

functionalities of the proposed web-based

application. It was agreed that the application would

also include finance quotation tools for dealerships

to use whilst using the web-based proposal form. It

was thought this would enhance value proposition to

dealerships, thus encouraging adoption. The web-

based proposal form would include validation

functions to ensure that all required information was

completed on the form before submission, thus

ensuring data integrity and minimising errors, thus

reducing processing time.

It was agreed to develop and implement the

solution in phases. In the first phase the solution

developed would store all the proposal information

in a database. The proposal would then be encrypted

and emailed to the organisation for processing, this

would replace the fax. The next stage of

development would look at identifying solutions to

allow data sharing between different operating

systems and programming platforms.

The organisation successfully implemented a

web-based e-Business application using open source

software (PHP & MySQL). The application

improved information flows between the car

dealerships and the organisation, replacing the paper

passed proposal application process. The application

was first released to field sales staff for review and

testing, before being released to car dealerships.

However, it was identified that the next stage of the

development may be more difficult, as the

application would be required to share data directly

with legacy systems, posing a security risk.

Furthermore, a dealership has requested information

sharing between both organisations to simplify the

proposal process. If the organisation can provide a

solution, the dealership as agreed to complete all

business transaction with the case study company.

This has resulted in the proposal for the application

to be developed further, into a web service.

ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business

7 DISCUSSION

Although both case study organisations had

implemented e-Business applications successfully

using open source software, the research team found

that a number of barriers existed, which included

access to skills, key personal and business culture

issues.

It was found that Case Study A had little

knowledge of e-Business, e-Business applications or

the benefits and opportunities that could be realised

by an organisation adopting e-Business. The

research team managed to involve as many

employees as possible in the development of the e-

Business application, to help deepen knowledge and

understanding and encourage buy-in at all levels of

the organisation. It was also found that the

organisation lacked the necessary skills and

knowledge to develop e-Business applications.

Moreover, the research team found that access to

personnel required to implement and deploy the

application was limited, due to personnel involved in

other business activities. Once the e-Business

application was successfully implemented, the

research team arranged a feedback meeting to

ascertain personnel experience of e-Business. It was

found that the approach to involve personnel had

been received positively, as personnel felt that e-

Business knowledge and understanding was now

evident throughout the organisation.

It was found that Case Study B Company did

have knowledge of e-Business applications, but did

not fully understand how internet technology could

be deployed to improve operational activities. The

research team found that the organisation did have

an information technology department, which were

highly skilled in a number of areas, but did not

possess the necessary skills to develop e-Business

applications. Moreover, it was found that access to

personnel was limited, similar to the first case study

organisation. Clearly, key stakeholders must

appreciate that access to personnel is required,

which may remove personnel from daily business

activities. The project feedback meeting found that

all involved had a positive experience and found

open source could provide significant benefits to the

organisation. This organisation is now looking to

develop the e-Business application into a web-

service for its dealership network. This will also be

developed using open source software.

This paper had already indicated that access to

software can be cost prohibitive, but this was

overcome through the utilisation of open source

software. However, a number of other barriers for

each organisation were observed by the research

team, and these need to be considered by academics

and practitioners involved in e-Business

development projects for SMEs. Although many

barriers may exist, each organisation experienced e-

Business benefits, as illustrated below in Table 3 and

Table 4.

Table 3: Case Study A - e-Business Benefits.

Cost Saving Process Effects Culture Effects

£20K (year 1) Bottle neck

removed

e-Business

knowledge &

understanding

Data integrity e-Business buy-in

Increased

throughput

Positive

experience of

open source

software

De-skilled

process

Open-source

buy-in

50% human

resource saving

Table 4: Case Study B - e-Business Benefits.

Cost Saving Process Effects Culture Effects

N/A Information

sharing

e-Business buy-in

Legible data Positive

experience of

open source

software

Reduced

processing time

Open-source

buy-in

8 CONCLUSIONS & FURTHER

WORK

The case study found that SMEs face a number of

challenges, and that e-Business can provide

opportunities for organisations to improve business

operations, information sharing and remain

competitive. However, they may face several

barriers to e-Business adoption, one of which is

access to technology. It is found that access to new

technology can be cost prohibitive, or existing

legacy system costs may prevent further investment

in technology. This may be overcome by the use of

open source technology.

The research team found that open source

software can be used for the development of e-

Business applications, namely MySQL and PHP. E-

Business applications were developed and

implemented for two case study organisations, to

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE AND LEVERAGING OF BUSINESS EFFECTIVENESS IN SMES - A Case Study

support business processes and enable information

sharing. Supporting the view of (Bocij, 2003) e-

Business is aimed at using information and

communications technology to integrate and

enhance processes. In a value-chain context, the

efficiency of processes is enhanced, which should

result in lower-cost, higher quality products so

giving the customer better value.

Although open source technology may provide

an SME with an opportunity to develop low cost e-

Business applications, access to personnel with the

skills, experience and knowledge of such technology

is still required. Therefore, more research into access

to open source skills is required to ensure that open

source technology development can be supported in

the future.

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