FACTORS INFLUENCING STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT DECISIONS OF ICT DATA CENTER IN ETHIOPIA: THE CASE OF ETHIO TELECOM

Abstract

Information and Communications Technology is an increasing factor in the everyday life, whether this is private or public. In coherence with this, reports and research presents the contribution to effects in terms of pollution, such as greenhouse gas emissions and electronic waste. The research in the area of information communication technology (ICT) data centers, that consume about 2% of energy that is produced worldwide mainly focuses on technological solutions. In this study, the researcher aimed to identify the challenges and opportunities (trends, pressures and factors) that affect ICT data center management decisions which has not been studied extensively. To answer the research questions the researcher carrying out a literature review and he used the initial decision-making research model as a guide for the process of gathering primary data. He prepared semi-structured interview questions to gather the primary data via interviews with expertise in the ICT data center of Ethio telecom. The main trends for ICT data center management decisions that identified from the primary data by the interviewees were virtualization and cloud computing. Furthermore, the main pressures in regard to strategic operations decisions of ICT data center were mimetic, coercive and normative pressures which includes service availability, costs, government and customer pressures. In addition to that the main factors that are identified after gathering the primary data from Ethio telecom includes service availability, cooling, costs, reliability, technology, organizational management, security, customers, speed, virtualization, facilities, energy consumption, data center management, location, human resources, quality management, storage, and service level agreements. It was found that environmental sustainability is to a large amount seen as a bi-product of the aim for general efficiency in ICT data centers among the interviewees from Ethio-telecom. In terms of factors related to environmental sustainability costs, energy consumption, cooling and e-waste were identified being paid the most attention to by the interviewees.