Research Topic: IT Outsourcing
Department of Information
Systems, The
University of Melbourne, Vic 3010
Members of department with an interest in this topic
(To contact the
individuals below, please follow hyperlinks to their personal web pages)
|
Name |
Role |
Interests |
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PhD Student |
PhD topic: Relationship Management in IT
Outsourcing Supervisors: Peter Seddon and Rens Scheepers |
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|
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Outsourcing life cycle, outsourcing configuration, ITO success, outsourcing contract management |
|
|
Senior Lecturer |
|
|
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Assoc. Professor IT Outsourcing
Interest-Group Coordinator |
How should IT outsourcing be managed to improve chances of beneficial
outcomes for client organizations? |
|
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Professor (fractional fulltime appointment) |
Primary position is Professor in Information Systems, |
What is IT Outsourcing, and why is it
important?
In the last decade, information technology (IT) outsourcing
has emerged as an important tool for enabling organizations around the world to
gain access to specific IT skills and services, focus on their core
competencies, and in some cases, reduce the cost of IT service provision. Its economic impact is now huge. 2003 Revenues of US-based vendors EDS and CSC
were US$21B and US$11B, respectively (EDS 2004;
CSC 2003). In
IT Outsourcing (ITO) is
the contracting out of IT service provision to one or more external
organizations (Domberger 1998). The client organization enters into contracts
with one or more suppliers (sometimes called vendors) of IT services, and
managers in those firms become responsible for the management and provision of
physical, software, and/or human resources that provide IT services for the
client organization. The key test is
responsibility for managing service provision.
For example, although entering into a contract for the provision of
contract programmers and analysts or consultants, or entering into a contract
with a software vendor for rights to use packaged software, are examples of
contracting for the provision of IT services, if the direct management of those
resources remains the responsibility with the client organization these are not
examples of IT outsourcing. Outsourcing
involves the handing over of responsibility for service provision to another
organization. Inevitably this gives rise
to possible conflicts of interest between the two organizations. According to Domberger (1998), outsourcing is a sound decision if the
net cost to the client organization drops as a result of outsourcing, provided
there is no drop in service quality.
A recent and growing trend
in outsourcing is business process outsourcing (BPO). Typical examples of service provision through
BPO include accounting, human resource management, and ITO. In other words, ITO
is just a special type of BPO. Many of
the lessons learnt in the last decade about ways to manage ITO also apply to
BPO.
References
Domberger, S. (1998). The Contracting Organization: A Strategic
Guide to Outsourcing.
Kern,
T., Lacity, M. and Willcocks, L. (2002). Netsourcing:
Renting Applications and Systems Over Networks.
Recent Key Publications on IT Outsourcing
(for
more publications on ITO, please check individual-member web pages)
·
Alborz, S.,
Seddon, P. B., and Scheepers, R. (2003). A Model for Studying IT Outsourcing
Relationships,
· Alborz S., Seddon, P.B., and Scheepers, R. (2004). Impact of Configuration on IT Outsourcing Relationships, AMCIS 2004
· Cullen, S. and Seddon, P.B. (2004). IT Outsourcing Configuration: A Key Concept for Understanding IT Outsourcing Arrangements, PACIS 2004
·
Cullen, S. and Willcocks, L.P. (2003). Intelligent
IT Outsourcing:
·
Cullen, S., Willcocks, L.P., and Seddon, P.B.
(2001). Information Technology Outsourcing Practices in
·
Lacity, M.C. and
Willcocks, L.P. (2001). Global
Information Technology Outsourcing: In Search of Business Advantage,
·
Seddon, P.B.,
Cullen, S. and Willcocks, L.P. (2002). Does
Domberger’s Theory of ‘The Contracting Organization’
Explain Satisfaction with IT Outsourcing? International Conference on Information
Systems (ICIS), Barcelona, December 2002
Major Interest-Group Projects
Survey
of IT Outsourcing Practices in Australia, 1999-2000
Summary
of major findings of the 1999-2000 Survey
Person
responsible for content on this page: Peter Seddon
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created:
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