![](bg7.png)
the chain or not’. Therefore, the chain enforcement
is anchored within each chain participant, as shown
in Figure 7.
5 BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS OF
THE FRAMEWORK
The business implications of the assurance frame-
work are initially assessed using expert interviews at
two large public companies, which use complex
ICT-enabled service chains. In the interviews, the
assurance concepts were discussed, interpreted, and
the possibility for implementing these artefacts in
practice were investigated. In addition, several
workshops were held at the organizations, to discuss
and improve the framework. The main conclusions
of this iterative process are:
Chain risk-control Awareness
In general, the discussions on the chain risks and
controls perception was classified on the operational
interface level towards the business environment.
The awareness of chain risks and control were clear,
but the solution or mitigating measures were not
available. Therefore, in most cases the assurance
was covered only by ‘checking the front- and back-
door’ of each chain participant. The chain-awareness
was obvious and almost all respondents saw the
added value of the conceptual assurance framework.
No Chain Governance
The second observation in the discussions was that
governance components as chain policy, chain risk
management and chain audit were classified as nec-
essary and needed, but were not (yet) operational.
The only chain-wise components were secured by
bilateral quantitative service level agreements. The
chain policy and strategy were rudimentary devel-
oped.
The need for a New Assurance Approach
The third observation was the need for a new assur-
ance approach. Based on chain-incidents in the re-
cent past, which occurred in The Netherlands (i.e.
DigiNotar, DigiD and others), the need for an assur-
ance framework undeniably has become essential. In
this context, the approach of assurance as well as
testing of the artifacts of TORC and CICS was con-
sidered realistic to solve their chain assurance in
practice according to the respondents.
Based on the expert interviews and workshop re-
sults, we can conclude that there is a need for a new
approach for assurance in ICT-enabled service
chains as well as an assurance framework, which
supports the anchoring of assurance in the
ICT-enabled service chain.
6 CONCLUSIONS
As a result of the increasing dependencies on exter-
nal parties when providing services, traditional
methods of determining risks and controls within IT
services are no longer sufficient. However, specific
control measures are inevitable for assurance and
become increasingly important in current complex
ICT-enabled service chains.
In this paper, a conceptual framework for assur-
ance is presented within multiple participant ICT-
enabled service supply chains. The framework is
based on four drivers for designing and assessing
ICT-enabled service chains: (i) the atomic chain
approach; (ii) employing the system of transference
of risk-control obligations (TORC) in the chain; (iii)
developing a collaborative system of chain controls
i.e. the Chain Internal Control System (CICS); and
finally, (iv) the combination of these drivers in a
Chain-Governance structure, i.e. a mutual system of
chain-policy, -risk management and –monitoring.
The application of the framework will particular-
ly benefit current service-oriented organizations. As
such, the designed conceptual framework for ICT-
enabled service chains will be further developed and
implemented in service chain organizations. Conse-
quently, the direction of future research is to develop
a further refined integrated assurance framework for
ICT-enabled service chains. The TTISC project
group (Towards Trustworthy ICT-enabled Service
Chains) aims on further developing this framework.
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