Introduction

IT-Outsourcing is a concept that describes the supply of part or all of Information Technology (IT) services by an external supplier company, known as IT-vendor, to a client company. The ‘IS-Improvement’ is one of the three strategic views of IT-Outsourcing for clients and involves advantages like focusing on core business, cost reductions and increase of IT-resources efficiency.

Objectives

The purpose of this project is to discover, describe and analyze the most critical aspects in implementing IT-Outsourcing and the critical aspects of the ‘IS Improvement’ view of IT-Outsourcing for clients, to further let IT-vendors know how they can improve on delivering their services to their customers.

Research Question

“Which are the most critical factors in implementing IT-Outsourcing and which are the critical aspects of the IS-improvement view of IT-Outsourcing for four organizations as clients?”

Method

This project follows an exploratory research method. It is mainly an action research but there is also an element of a realist research. The subject of IT-Outsourcing was chosen because it is part of IT-Management. The analysis is based on primary data collected from four organizations in the European Union (EU) that were chosen because they use IT intensively in their activities. Access to these organizations was because of convenience since it was enabled by personal contacts. Two organizations were in the shipping business, the third organization was an electronic-devices factory, and the fourth was a university. The data collection was based on three face-to-face interviews with the IT-Managers of the organizations, and one response was collected by electronic means since the fourth respondent (also IT-Manager) completed and sent the questionnaire by e-mail. The interviews were based on a semi-structured questionnaire, that in turn was formed based on the content of the critical literature review. The critical literature review was formed from books and articles found at Mälardalens Högskola’s library and databases, and interlibrary loans. The data were inserted in a table for content analysis that helped count the frequencies of the various factors of IT-Outsourcing. The results were drawn based on qualitative analysis and they were tested against dialectical critique.

Conclusions

The most critical factors in implementing IT-outsourcing for these four organizations are: Hardware maintenance is the most critical area to be outsourced. Low costs of services, supplier’s stability and reputation are the most critical factors in selecting an IT-vendor. Supplier’s understanding of client’s objectives is the most critical factor for a successful relationship between clients and IT-vendors. Precise definition of costs is the most critical factor to be included in an IT-Outsourcing contract, and selective/partial IT-Outsourcing is the IT-sourcing solution preferred by these organizations. The ‘IS-Improvement’ view of IT-Outsourcing for these four organizations is not valid, but the respondents’ words indicate ways that IT-Outsourcing can be improved to achieve increased IT-resources efficiency.