The Use of Hosted Enterprise Applications by SMEs: A Dual Market and User Perspective

YesThis deliberately dual perspective paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the engagement of SMEs in hosted enterprise applications in the UK. The emergence and development of the ASP sector has attracted much interest and highly optimistic forecasts for revenues. The paper starts by considering ICT adoption by SMEs in general before reviewing the provision of hosted enterprise applications in the US and UK (market perspective). The study is extended by qualitative empirical data collected by semi-structured interviews with SME users of hosted enterprise applications (user perspective) and subsequent analysis in order to develop the key findings and conclusions. From an SME user perspective the key findings to emerge from the study include: i) confirmation that ICT infrastructure was no longer a barrier to adoption, ii) the pragmatic approach taken to security issues, iii) the use of both multiple information systems and multiple service providers, iv) the financial attractiveness of the rental model and v) the intention to continue or extend the use of hosted applications. It also highlights the opportunity for gaining competitive advantage by using hosted enterprise applications to reduce costs. There are very few empirical studies of hosted applications which take deliberately market and SME user perspectives - this paper makes an important contribution in this emerging field

Everywhere and nowhere: Nearshore software development in the context of globalisation

Offshore software outsourcing, a major contributor to globally distributed work (GDW), has been identified as one of the most striking manifestations of contemporary globalisation. In particular, offshoring resonates with influential views that suggest that ICTs have rendered location irrelevant. Some research, however, has questioned this “placeless logic” and suggested that location may be significant to the success of offshoring ventures. In this paper, we draw on evidence from two nearshore software development ventures in the Caribbean to identify a number of locational characteristics relating to the physical, economic and cultural setting, local resources and government policy that may be important in influencing the suitability of offshore outsourcing venues. Some of these are recognised, even by companies pursuing placeless location strategies, while others were unanticipated. The cases also suggest that companies may be able to actively shape certain characteristics to their advantage. Implications for vendors and clients of nearshore information services, and potentially also for companies considering offshore ventures in non-traditional locations, are identified

The Use of Hosted Enterprise Applications by SMEs: A User Perspective

This paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the engagement of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in hosted enterprise applications (high complexity e-business applications) in the UK by investigating the relevance of organisational and technical factors through conducting interviews with SME users of hosted applications. The emergence and development of the application service provider (ASP) sector has attracted much interest and highly optimistic forecasts for revenues. Of particular interest in this paper is the emergence of service offerings targeted specifically at SMEs. The paper starts by considering information technology (IT) adoption by SMEs in general before reviewing the provision of hosted enterprise applications in the US and UK. The empirical data collected from SME users of hosted enterprise applications is then analysed in order to produce the key findings and conclusions. From an SME user perspective the key findings to emerge from the study include: i) confirmation that ICT infrastructure was no longer a barrier to adoption, ii) the pragmatic approach taken to security issues, iii) the use of both multiple information systems (hosted and resident) and service providers, iv) the attractiveness of the rental cost model and v) the intention to continue or extend their use of hosted applications within the enterprise. The early promise of the ASP sector appears not to have been generally realised for SMEs in the UK. This study explores the experience of early adopters of this new IT related innovation and identifies some significant business gains experienced by SME users. It also highlights the opportunity for gaining competitive advantage by using hosted enterprise applications to reduce costs. There are very few empirical studies of hosted applications which take a deliberately SME user perspective and this paper make an important contribution in this emerging field

Foreign outsourcing and firm-level characteristics: evidence from Japanese manufacturers

Based on micro data of 118,300 firms without firm-size thresholds covering all manufacturing industries in Japan, this paper investigates the foreign outsourcing, distinguished explicitly from domestic outsourcing, at the firm level. Less than three percent of the firms are outsourcing their production across national borders. The fixed entry cost for foreign outsourcing is significant and related with the firm's human skills and foreign business experience. The firms tend to outsource more of their activities overseas when their productivity is higher or when their products are more labor-intensive.Foreign outsourcing, Firm-level data, Productivity, Capital-labor ratio

Skills Assessment for Business Services: Final Report

No abstract available

Offshore IT Outsourcing between India and New Zealand: A Systemic Analysis

This article aims to understand the complex interactions of factors related to IT offshore outsourcing between India and New Zealand. A systems approach was used to structure this problem situation and develop a model. This study undertook group model building exercises to construct a causal loop model that captured the underlying structure of the system. The analysis of the model revealed a set of eight feedback loops operating in the system identified as responsible for the complexity of the problem situation. In general, the literature on IT offshore outsourcing is based on clients’ perspectives, while this study analyses the issue from a vendors’ perspective. The paper concludes by highlighting a few strategies based on long term structural changes to improve IT offshore outsourcing between India and New Zealand. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol7/iss3/3

Country Selection and Impact IT Sourcing: Relationships Between Business Factors and Social Inequality

This paper explores the relationship between offshore outsourcing rankings and country level social index data from international sources. A review of the literature notes the scarcity of industry data and objective evidence for informing country selection for sourcing activities. A multivariate analysis was carried out to identify possible relationships between commercial outsourcing attractiveness data and country level socio-economic data. Two components from country attractiveness indexes are shown to be correlated with data from three international data sets: child mortality rate, life expectancy and unemployment. The analysis indicates that higher commercial value scores are associated with lower national performance in socio-economic data. Conversely, aggregate top rankings tend to be achieved by countries with exemplary socio-economic data. We propose approaches for extending country attractiveness metrics to explicitly incorporate social impact and sustainability factors

Investigation on the TAVAAS methodology as a country attractiveness framework. The weighting of the Sub-factors.

The purpose of this Master Thesis is to further analyse one of the most complete country attractiveness methodologies available and by the name of TAVAAS. This methodology is composed by already six investigated and validated factors but the problem lies on the sub-factor weighting as all sub-factors were equally weighted. As a result, based on primary and secondary research a hypothesis was formulated to address this problem and therefore validated with a study already done by a private national outsourcing agency (APDC). The results from this study were revealing of some aspects that led foreign companies to select a given country, which in this case was Portugal, and therefore some adjustments to the original model were performed as a way to translate the motivations behind the outsourcing moves of different companies. To conclude, a final model was elaborated, in which now sub-factors bear different weights, being this decision a combination of corporate country attractiveness assessment and secondary research on the relevance of the different matters in the sub-factors