Erik Beulen

Managing complex IT outsourcing-partnerships

This article discusses the management of complex IT outsourcing partnerships from the perspective of both outsourcing companies and IT suppliers. The research project included 24 interviews with business and IT executives of outsourcing companies, executives of IT suppliers and experts. This article aims to provide a better understanding of managing complex IT outsourcing partnerships by proposing a descriptive framework containing relevant governance factors. The investigated cases and expert interviews and IT outsourcing literature are used to evaluate the framework. The results of the analysis and the framework itself illustrate the various complex issues arising in managing complex IT outsourcing partnerships.

The contribution of a global service provider's Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to staff retention in emerging markets: Comparing issues and implications in six developing countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the contribution of a global IT service providers Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to staff retention in emerging markets. This includes a comparison of the relevant issues and implications derived from a study investigating six developing countries. The author of this paper concludes that the functionality of global HR systems should be supplemented with local adaptions in order to achieve the best support for staff retention management.Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical framework for this paper is based on HR literature concerning staff retention and on the framework proposed by Martinsons for human resources management applications of knowledge‐based systems. The argument is illustrated by quotes from 16 semi‐structured expert interviews with Accenture HR executives and managers in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Latvia and Slovakia.Findings – HRISs contribute positively to staff retention for global IT service providers in emergin...

Managing an IT-outsourcing partnership in Asia. Case study: the relationship between a global outsourcing company and its global IT services supplier

The article describes a case study of an Asian information technology (IT) outsourcing partnership in the discrete manufacturing industry. Interviews with business and IT executives of both the outsourcing company and the IT supplier provided the necessary insights. Nowadays, many organizations in discrete manufacturing move their plants to Asian countries or other lower wage countries. Most IT suppliers in Asia are relatively inexperienced with the management of IT-outsourcing relationships. But not only are the IT suppliers inexperienced, also the outsourcing companies do not have track records in the management of IT-outsourcing relationships. Moreover, besides the level of experience also cultural issues play an important role in this matter. Contrary to the level of experience, the cultural factor will not change over the years. The article aims to provide a better understanding of managing IT-outsourcing partnerships in developing Asian countries on the basis of an IT-outsourcing partnership model.

Control in Outsourcing Relationships: Governance in Action

The outsourcing market has been growing for decades. Also the impact of IT services on the performance of business processes is still growing. Therefore the need for governance structure in outsourcing relationships is undisputed. Service recipients and service providers have sometimes difficulties to control their outsourcing relationship. This research includes an overview of IT governance frameworks and items. Our research is based on two global IT outsourcing relationships. The governance strategies in these two case studies are analyzed and compared in this paper

Parallel Transitions in IT Outsourcing: Making It Happen

Global sourcing of IT services is growing consistently over the last decades. Along with this rapid growth, instances of failures, sore relationships or unsatisfactory performances during IT outsourcing engagements are prevalent and require management attention. Over two-thirds of the problems in these unsuccessful engagements arise due to failed or poor transition. Transition is immediately followed by contract signing and precedes service delivery phase. It sets the tone for the entire relationship and involves handover of outsourced services from either the client’s internal IT department or the incumbent service provider. Recently second and third generation outsourcing engagements are coming into existence, with offshoring and multi-sourcing as an integral component of these engagements. Multi-sourcing deals, involving several service providers are emerging and require transition to be implemented in parallel. These developments exacerbate the complexity of transitions due to the presence of multiple service providers and several distributed or offshore locations, thereby further enhancing its bearing on the success of an engagement. What are the Critical Success Factors for parallel transitions? We conducted an initial Delphi study to explore success factors for parallel transitions. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the contractual agreement including transition exit criteria. Also the implementation of a joint steering committee contributes to transition success. All the stakeholders, including representatives of the incumbent service provider(s), should be represented in the steering committee to act responsive. Finally, the findings emphasis the need to manage dependencies between the transitions not limited to time lines and availability of critical resources for knowledge transfer and balancing between business continuity and timely and effective knowledge transfer.

Long-held perceptions of the consequences of IT offshoring will become a reality: fewer IS jobs in developed countries

F or more than two decades, economic power gradually has been shifting towards developing countries. As recently reported in the New York Times, the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, have a bright future; they have been growing at a fast pace for the last 10 years (Gray, 2010). This situation will have long-term consequences for the IS discipline in the Western world, especially for employment, which will in turn impact IS education. Long-held perceptions of the consequences of IT offshoring will soon become a reality: the number of IS jobs in developed countries will decline sharply in the near future. In support of this supposition, let us first look at market developments. According to IDC, since 1995 worldwide IT spending has seen an annual compounded growth rate of more than 5 percent, to almost US

The Importance of IT Energy Efficiency in Outsourcing Decision Making: A Survey in the Dutch Outsourcing Infrastructure Market

1.5 trillion in 2009 (Minton, 2010). However, during the same period, IT markets of developing countries have grown at a spectacular rate that doubles or even triples that of developed countries. Furthermore, the costs of IT services in developing countries are 35–40 percent lower 1 than in developed countries. This factor further increases the impact of IT offshoring, which has become a capability play instead of a cost play only. Developed countries have no other option but to use the capacity and capabilities available in developing countries. In their article, Hirschheim and Newman discuss five issues that relate to problems in the IS field: Y2K, the dotcom collapse, the fact that IS has become a commodity, offshoring and the current economic recession (2010). In addition to the market developments discussed above, there are two more issues that add to this mix of problems, both of which are directly related to the current level of professionalism of the IT industry. First, too many IS projects still fail (Conboy, 2010). Since nobody wants to be associated with failure, people are less inclined to become involved. Second, management development programs, including job rotation between IS roles and general management roles, are still rare (De Looff, 1996). Therefore, IT professionals tend to remain stuck in their discipline, which is hardly an appealing prospect. These two additional observations are particularly relevant for advanced professionals as opposed to entry-level students. Advanced professionals who consider exiting the IS field will be reluctant to take on additional education. This will predominantly impact the Master of Science and Ph.D. programs. The implication is that the IS discipline will have to be redesigned rigorously. Peppard has suggested a distinction in IT management between strategy creation, information exploitation and IT supply delivery (2007). All have an IT focus, but strategy creation and information exploitation obviously require significant knowledge of the business as a whole. These two aspects, therefore, may not easily be outsourced, let alone offshored. Job rotation of IS roles in strategy creation or information exploitation with general management roles are more obvious than job rotation of IT supply delivery roles and general management roles. The IS discipline should adopt job rotation as a fundamental practice. On the face of the proposition, this seems a difficult challenge for the discipline to address. For instance, more than 90 percent of the work and the majority of capital are spent on IT supply delivery – the least likely of Peppard’s roles to be a good fit with job rotation. While Hirschheim and Newman believe that highly complex tasks and customer-facing work in IT delivery cannot be offshored, this is no longer necessarily true. Improved telecommunication facilities such as global IS process and tooling (Beulen et al., 2005) and video conferencing (Guo et al., 2009) have rendered long-distance collaboration perfectly feasible. Moreover, consulting, business modeling and IS business analyzes are increasingly included in the services carried out in developing countries. Since 2008, mature service providers such as Accenture, IBM and the large Indian IS players are rapidly building up their consulting workforces in developing countries, especially in India, and increasingly in China. These changes in the IS discipline are also compounded by the maturing capabilities of IT professionals in developing countries, often occurring as a result of education received in the West. Increasingly, students from developing Journal of Information Technology (2010) 25, 376–377 & 2010 JIT Palgrave Macmillan All rights reserved 0268-3962/10

Transformation in the Dutch Non-life B2C Insurance Sector: Sourcing Implications

There is a growing corporate interest in IT energy efficiency. This will potentially impact also outsourcing decision making. In infrastructure, suppliers are focusing on increasing the IT energy efficient of their solutions. In this research 166 Dutch IT executives indicated the importance of IT energy efficiency in outsourcing decision making for infrastructure services. Is IT energy efficiency a decisive selection criteria in outsourcing decisions? The expectation is that the importance of IT-energy efficiency in outsourcing decisions increase for organization with a larger revenue, with a larger revenue outside the Netherlands, with a larger revenue outside the Europe, with a larger IT spend and larger external spend of organizations. In this research also test the expectation the importance of IT-energy efficiency in outsourcing decision making, is larger for organizations which apply for European tendering than for organizations which don’t apply for European tendering. The expectations are tested by the Chi-squared test and the Cochran-Armitage test for trends. In additional to the statistical tests also survey data is qualitatively analysed. The data indicates the importance of IT energy efficiency in outsourcing decision making as 37 % of the organizations of the respondents include IT energy efficiency in outsourcing decision making. In one out of four organizations IT energy efficiency was discriminator in the selection of the infrastructure services supplier.

Business Process Outsourcing in Suriname: Call Center Services

A large transformation in the Dutch non-life B2C insurance sector is in motion. Insurers are considering sourcing options to improve their competitive position as customer loyalty is decreasing and the online channel is becoming more important. In addition, the innovations in the non-life B2C insurance sector are limited. A change is required. To understand the required change better, the capabilities of insurers are assessed. For this research, eight expert interviews were conducted. The key capabilities identified are product development and pricing and analysis. Additionally, one other key capability was mentioned: investment. The remaining capabilities, information technology service, operations, and marketing, can be outsourced to a large degree. Identifying the key capabilities is the first step in determining the proper sourcing strategy. Insurers need to engage with third parties to remain in business. Additional research is required to prepare detailed roadmaps for such transformations.

Maturing IT Outsourcing Relationships: A Transaction Costs Perspective

Suriname is emerging as a popular low-cost country in South America with Dutch language capabilities combined with a substantial pool of qualified professionals to perform call center services. Based on Gartner selection criteria, we explore the attractiveness of Suriname for providing call center services. Two case studies, including six interviews, are conducted as the method for exploring this question. The interviewees indicated that language capabilities, low cost, and the availably of qualified resources have been the main drivers for sourcing call center services out of Suriname. The anticipated decrease in connectivity cost will also increase Suriname’s attractiveness in providing call center services. Additionally, we identify improvement areas, such as increasing the onshore/offshore ratio and English-language call center services. A major limitation of this research is that the interviews are limited to representatives employed by call centers in Suriname, which adds significant bias to the study.