Bhavini Desai

Customer evaluation of application services provisioning in five vertical sectors

How value is created for the customer from e-business is a topic of much concern in academic and practitioner circles. In the light of the dot.com downturn, numerous e-business firms ceased to exist. This paper reports the findings from an ongoing research study on the development and decline of the application service provider (ASP) industry. Having witnessed the decline of the first wave of ASPs, with many failing to convince small and medium businesses (SMBs) of the value of adopting an ASP solution, the second wave calls for a more rigorous approach that clearly identifies the key performance areas and indicators of the ASP business model. Applying the constructs of strategic positioning, product/service portfolio, and value proposition, this paper represents the findings from 215 responses to a questionnaire survey on how potential and existing ASP customers evaluate the benefits and risks of ASP. The findings suggest that, if the ASP model is to succeed, vendors will need to carefully identify customer requirements and avoid the pitfalls that beset the first wave of the ASP model, which was largely based upon a technology push strategy.

Evaluating offshore IT outsourcing in India: supplier and customer

This paper presents the findings from an ongoing research study on offshore IT outsourcing. Field work was carried out in India and in the UK to evaluate the scale and scope of outsourcing activities. CEOs and CIOs were interviewed in fifteen supplier firms in India and two customer firms in UK, about strategic positioning in the offshore outsourcing market; benefits and risks from outsourcing; and other demand and supply-side issues. The findings suggest that, though offshore outsourcing offers new business opportunities for IT suppliers, much of the outsourced work continues to be low risk and low value. The challenge for outsourcing suppliers is therefore to devise strategies to move from body-shopping work to low cost, high value contracts, without incurring additional risk.

Vendor strategies for business process and outsourcing: recent findings from field research

The convergence between telecommunications and computing industries enabling the provision of Internet/net centric products and services has seen the emergence and collapse of the first phase applications services provisioning (ASP) industry. This paper discusses the findings of a longitudinal research program comparing traditional and applications outsourcing methods and practices. Preliminary research has uncovered a mismatch between vendor hype about the benefits of the ASP business model, and customer caution in adopting the solution. Developing a taxonomy of net sourcing approaches, the paper argues that scale, scope and integration are three key areas which must be addressed by vendors in their business plans. With the advent of Web services as an IT architecture, it is suggested applications outsourcing will extend to business processes outsourcing as important challenges relating to scale, scope and integration will be overcome.

Towards the ASP E-Business Model: A Conceptual Framework for Mapping ASP Specific Value Propositions

ABSTRACT Todays emerging market is broadly characterised by rapid technological advances. This has consequently created an imbalance between perceived market demand for services and available technology. In the past few years, a lot of money has been invested in development and deployment of a new phenomenon called Application Service Provision (ASPn), and there has been a lot of paranoia surrounding the same. Despite the promise and potential of improving the way organisations develop, operate and maintain information technology application, Application Service Providers (ASPs) have fared poorly in terms of attracting a large client base. There is a general perception of a mismatch between consumer requirements for ASP services and actual vendor offerings. The aim of this study would be to combine both academic research and industrial investigation to propose some guidelines for resolving the current gap further examining the evolution of the ASP business model. This paper draws from a two-year research study (ongoing) on the market, business, managerial and technical challenges facing global firms, focusing specifically on traditional information systems outsourcing models and frameworks and application outsourcing, involving ASPs and web services.1 This will be achieved by investigating the current usage of the ASP market and the factors that affected the adoption and use of ASPs within horizontal and vertical business sectors. As mentioned earlier, there is an indication of a mismatch between customer expectations and vendor provisions in recent literature. Case studies would further help to understand if the vendors have taken into consideration the reasons for the models failure and evolved from their original state to be successful in the market and sustain the competitive advantage. To study the process of ASP business model evolution, a study of constructs has been undertaken.