THE IMPACT OF ADVISORY SERVICES ON CLIENTS AND VENDORS IN IT OUTSOURCING ENGAGEMENTS

Information technology outsourcing (ITO) continues to be an important market and research topic in 2016. The client-vendor relationship has been identified as one of the key driver to foster successful outsourcing engagements. But another stakeholder besides client and vendor that presumably highly influences this relationship is neglected in ITO research so far: the advisor. This research-in-progress paper propose to investigate how and why advisory services impact the relationship of clients and vendors and the project success in ITO engagements. To answer our research question, we build on principal-agent theory and social exchange theory as our theoretical lenses to explain the impact of advisory services on the client-vendor relationship. We develop our preliminary research model with three hypotheses and introduce our research design using a case study-based, mixed-method approach. Our planned outcome is a model explaining the role of advisors for improving ITO success. We conclude with an outlook about our next steps and the study’s planned contributions

Opening the Black Box of Advisors in Information Technology Outsourcing: An Advisory Activity Model

Information technology outsourcing (ITO) is an important market phenomenon and research topic. Recently, research has identified advisors as a key driver for successful ITO engagements. In this paper, we investigate the activities of third-party advisors in ITO engagements for the first time. We used an exploratory qualitative research approach and conducted 14 expert interviews with experienced industry practitioners. In analyzing the data, we identified 104 activities that serve as the basis for a novel IT advisory activity model for ITO. We also identified common viewpoints among the practitioners and matched them with findings from other research studies based on a literature review. Our model provides interesting insights into ITO and the role that advisors play in client-vendor relationships. This study delivers a basis for further research about advisors’ influence on clients and vendors in the ITO context

Critical Issues of IT Outsourcing Vendors in India

Global outsourcing of IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) has now become an accepted corporate strategy of a vast majority of firms around the world. The functions being offshored have increased in scope and magnitude and have climbed the value chain ladder. However, the literature has overwhelmingly focused on client-centric issues to the neglect of vendor concerns. There is a rich tradition of ranking critical issues confronting Information Systems executives, and some studies have even explored critical issues of outsourcing clients. These rankings have significant implications for both researchers and practitioners. Our study focuses on the nascent area of IT outsourcing vendors. We examine the issues from the standpoint of IT outsourcing vendors in India, currently the primary destination for IT offshoring. The results suggest that for the Indian vendors, the most critical issues are not related to cultural, language, and time-zone differences as suggested in many writings. Rather, the most critical concerns are issues dealing with work arrangements and relationships with the client, and issues related to the client’s organizational readiness for offshoring. Clearly the understanding of such issues is important to the vendors, but also to the clients in order to maintain an effective dyadic relationship

Critical Issues of IT Outsourcing Vendors in India

Global outsourcing of IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) has now become an accepted corporate strategy of a vast majority of firms around the world. The functions being offshored have increased in scope and magnitude and have climbed the value chain ladder. However, the literature has overwhelmingly focused on client-centric issues to the neglect of vendor concerns. There is a rich tradition of ranking critical issues confronting Information Systems executives, and some studies have even explored critical issues of outsourcing clients. These rankings have significant implications for both researchers and practitioners. Our study focuses on the nascent area of IT outsourcing vendors. We examine the issues from the standpoint of IT outsourcing vendors in India, currently the primary destination for IT offshoring. The results suggest that for the Indian vendors, the most critical issues are not related to cultural, language, and time-zone differences as suggested in many writings. Rather, the most critical concerns are issues dealing with work arrangements and relationships with the client, and issues related to the client’s organizational readiness for offshoring. Clearly the understanding of such issues is important to the vendors, but also to the clients in order to maintain an effective dyadic relationship

Critical Issues in EHR Implementation: Provider and Vendor Perspectives

Stakeholders, both internal and external, can have differing and sometimes conflicting perspectives and priorities even though each has a vested interest in organizational success. Using the lens of stakeholder theory, we examine the differing views of stakeholders (namely, medical providers and vendors) in the implementation of electronic health record (EHR) systems. The implementation process itself can be broken down into three phases: pre-implementation, during implementation, and post-implementation. After determining a comprehensive set of seventeen key issues relevant to each phase, we discovered that there are significant differences in the perceptions of EHR vendors and their customers in terms of which issues in each phase of an EHR implementation are most important. These findings indicate that vendors tend to underestimate the role of nursing staff and that providers tend to underestimate the role of security. Both groups, however, agree that physician support throughout the implementation is essential for success

Challenges of Client-Vendor Relationships in Information Technology Outsourcing Engagements: An Interpretive Structural Modelling Approach

The client-vendor relationship is a key success factor for information technology outsourcing projects. Although many studies have been published about this concept, many of them have focused on a set of particular elements and have not investigated the relationship and dependencies between them. This research paper provides an overview about existing challenges for client-vendor relationships and discovers relationships between them by applying the ISM methodology. We conducted a literature research to gather and analyze relevant articles and identified 11 relevant challenges. Based on the literature research and 20 questionnaire responses we gathered from experts, we used interpretive structural modelling to discover the relevance and the contextual relationships among the identified challenges. The findings of this study reveal that three challenges, namely (1) lack of experience, (2) lack of good management practices and processes, and (3) lack of contractual objects can be treated as key elements for establishing a client-vendor relationship. We discuss further research directions and explain why all other identified challenges have high dependencies on each other

INNOVATION ON THE VENDOR SIDE - ANALYZING THE EFFECTS OF INNOVATION INITIATIVES ON OUTSOURCING PROVIDERS\u27 PERFORMANCE

‘Innovation through outsourcing’ describes a firm’s strategy to receive innovation by outsourcing IT or IT-intensive processes to more competent and innovative service providers who, in turn, do not only operate their activities but also improve and innovate for or on behalf of their clients. This strategy has gathered some attention by recent research, though it has almost only examined the client perspective, yet. We contribute to this sub-field of IT outsourcing/BPO research by analyzing vendors’ strategies to improve their innovation capability and thus to be more innovative for their clients. Based on a longitudinal global dataset of 136 outsourcing vendors, we analyze which innovation-enabling initiatives are related to superior firm performance (in terms of revenue growth). We find that particularly employee-involving initiatives are promising: outsourcing vendors that have implemented, e.g., idea/innovation platforms that support employee-driven innovation, receive above-average revenue growth

Analysis of computer services industry

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96905/1/MBA_KhuranaW_2000Final.pd

Supply Chains and Porous Boundaries: The Disaggregation of Legal Services

The economic downturn has had significant effects on law firms, and is causing many of them to rethink some basic assumptions about how they operate. In important respects, however, the downturn has simply intensified the effects of some deeper trends that preceded it, which are likely to continue after any recovery that may occur. This paper explores one of these trends, which is corporate client insistence that law firms “disaggregate” their services into discrete tasks that can be delegated to the least costly providers who can perform them. With advances in communications technology, there is increasing likelihood that some of these persons may be located outside the formal boundaries of the firm. This means that law firms may need increasingly to confront the make or buy decision that their corporate clients have regularly confronted for some time. The potential for vertical disintegration is a relatively recent development for legal services, but is well-established in other sectors of the global economy. Empirical work in several disciplines has identified a number of issues that arise for organizations as the make or buy decision becomes a potentially more salient feature of their operations. Much of this work has focused in particular on the implications of relying on outsourcing as an integral part of the production process. This paper discusses research on: (1) the challenges of ensuring that work performed outside the firm is fully integrated into the production process; (2) coordinating projects for which networks of organizations are responsible; (3) managing the transfer of knowledge inside and outside of firms that are participants in a supply chain; and (4) addressing the impact of using contingent workers on an organization’s workforce, structure, and culture. A review of this research suggests considerations that law firms will need to assess if they begin significantly to extend the process of providing services beyond their formal boundaries. Discussing the research also is intended to introduce concepts that may become increasingly relevant to law firms, but which currently are not commonly used to analyze their operations. Considering how these concepts are applicable to law firms may prompt us to rethink how to conceptualize these firms and what they do. This paper therefore is a preliminary attempt to explore: (1) the extent to which law firms may come to resemble the vertically disintegrated organizations that populate many other economic sectors and (2) the potential implications of this trend for the provision of legal services,the trajectory of legal careers, and lawyers’ sense of themselves as members of a distinct profession

Critical Capabilities for Offshore Outsourcing of Information Systems

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