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Transcript of Research Paper - Global and Onshore IT Outsourcing and Their Impact on SMBs
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Running Head: OUTSOURCING AND ITS IMPACT ON SMBs 1
Global IT Outsourcing and Onshore IT Outsourcing: Their Impact on Local SMBs
Michael C. Ledesma
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected] -
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Abstract
The small to medium sized business often engage in IT outsourcing contracts is it due to a cost
savings decision like large corporations make or is it due to a lack of resources such as funds and
manpower? Large companies use several types of measures and methods to manage their global
IT outsourcing contracts to ensure their success and the issue at hand is can these small to
medium sized firms use these same measures to ensure success of their smaller contracts. A
survey was taken from a small sample of local small to medium sized businesses to poll their
input on these two issues. The results show that small companies, due to their small nature, tend
to outsource their small IT infrastructure needs to onshore contracts because they choose not to
maintain it internally. The results also show that these smaller companies share the same pitfalls
that larger companies do and can take the very same measures and methods that large companies
use to ensure the success of their small IT outsourcing projects.
Keywords
Global IT Outsourcing, Onshore IT Outsourcing, IT Infrastructure,
Introduction
In the U.S. in 2009, there was an estimated 27.5 million small businesses, 157,000
medium sized businesses, and approximately 18,311 large businesses (Babin & Nicholson,
2011). These statistics may seem staggering, but it is a common pattern in most other developed
countries for small to medium sized business. These numbers continue to grow but so has the
need for IT infrastructure and services for these small to medium sized businesses. Global IT
outsourcing is an option for large businesses but why not for small to medium sized businesses.
This research aims to demonstrate that global IT outsourcing is an advantage only to large
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businesses primarily due to its cost factor as many smaller companies cannot afford the million
dollar contracts or the resources to manage the global aspect of the outsourcing project. Yet,
global IT outsourcing shares aspects with onshore IT outsourcing, outsourcing from a firm local
to their area, that these smaller firms can adapt to but on a smaller scale. There are certain risks
and measures that can be taken to attempt to reduce the failure rate and have the project result in
success. These same principles discussed for global IT outsourcing can be applied to their local
onshore IT outsourcing project, and if applied correctly, can result in the same success that the
larger firms experience.
Background
Both global IT outsourcing and onshore IT outsourcing have become very common in
todays competitive market environments. IT outsourcing can be defined asan act of delegating
or transferring some or all of the IT related decision making rights, business processes, internal
activities, and services to external providers, whether they be offshore or onshore, who develop,
manage, and administer these activities in accordance with agreed upon deliverables,
performance standards and outputs, as set forth in the contractual agreement (Dhar &
Balakrishan, 2006). IT outsourcing can be broken down in to four broad categories. The first is
General IT Outsourcing which includes web servers, e-mail, and data storage. The next is
Transitional Outsourcing which describes the activities that need to be performed to switch to a
different IT platform. Business Benefit Contracting is the third category and describes when two
firms work together and both parties benefit from the collaboration efforts. The last category is
Offshore Outsourcing where the work is performed overseas and not domestically and usually
involves software development (Fraihat, 2006). As more and more companies utilize this new
business technique, the IT outsourcing industry has experienced tremendous growth over the past
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two decades. According to market research, spending on IT outsourcing reached $56 billion in
2000 and had expected to top $100 billion by 2005 (Ye, 2005). But it is important to note that
only primarily large corporations engage in global IT outsourcing due to the prices involved with
the contract and the availability of resources to manage the contracts. For example, companies
like Accenture, IBM, HP, Infosys, Tata Consulting Services, and Wipro have begun to invest
heavily in offshore contracts (Babin & Nicholson, 2010). The scope of such offshore
development contracts for companies can be staggering. Approximately forty percent of IBMs
business is in outsourcing and is ranked second most valuable brand according to Interbrand in
2009 with a brand value of $60 billion. HP, another large corporation, has an outsourcing
percentage of thirty percent (Babin & Nicholson, 2010).
It is interesting to note that these larger firms have begun to focus on a new aspect of
their offshore outsourcing contracts, more in particular environmental factors and their impact
such as greenhouse gases and the carbon footprint left behind by the firm. For example, in July
2009, Walmart assessed its 100,000 suppliers across the globe. Walmart is the largest private
user of energy in the United States and wants to reduce that amount not only here in the United
States, but in the countries where their suppliers are located as well. In addition, these large
companies are also focusing on strategic sustainability which be best explained as choosing a
unique position-doing things differently from competitors in a way that lowers costs or better
serves a particular set of customer needs (Babin & Nicholson, 2010). In addition, there is a focus
on e-waste. Several countries have recognized the growing problem of e-waste and have enacted
legislation that requires a planned and environmentally appropriate method for disposing of
obsolete electronic equipment. In the United States, 19 states have passed legislation mandating
e-waste recycling programs (Babin & Nicholson, 2011).
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There have been countless studies and research on the success and failures of global IT
outsourcing projects as well onshore projects. Global IT outsourcing contracts have about three
prevailing themes. The first is the overall structure of the relationship, the second is the
processes involved during the contract, and the last is the nature of risk of the relationship.
These three once combined, give an overall view of how the contract interacts with each other.
Global IT outsourcing projects also have four different dimensions, that once addressed and
executed properly, could definitely aid in the success of a project: forming an appropriate global
IT strategy, using proper global IT platforms, managing international data transfer, and surviving
the cultural environment (Chen, Tu, & Lin, 2002). Forming an appropriate global IT strategy
involves proper planning and research into the proposed provider and often the provider will
have an on-site developer present to gain a better insight of management skills. When deciding a
proper global IT platform, some common expectations of a successful one include manpower
and skill advantages, technical and cost advantages, and government regulations and restriction
(Chen, Tu, & Lin, 2002). When looking at the dimension of international data transfer, it can get
complicated by local data transfer laws in the foreign sites as well as hardware and software
prices being drastically different offshore (Chen, Tu, & Lin, 2002). Lastly, surviving the culture
is a critical and hard to accomplish because many countries do not have the same language,
customs, and even the pace of daily life(Chen, Tu, & Lin, 2002).
So why do these large companies engage in large multi-billion contracts? In many large
organizations, IT outsourcing is being considered as a viable cost reduction alternative. Cost
reduction is the main driving factor for outsourcing their IT activities (Dhar & Balakrishnan,
2006)but it is followed closely now by goals such as improving company focus and achieving
business transformations where these large firms form partnerships with other companies to
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rapidly and substantially improve performance at the organizational level (Ye, 2005). But there
have been additional recent studies that have mounting evidence that large companies have
turned to outsourcing for more strategic reasons, including keeping up with cutting-edge
technology, creating value for the organization and its customers, and broadening infrastructure
and operations reach (Ye, 2005). Success is based on achieving goals of three parties: the
outsourcer (the hiring agent), the outsourcee (the service provider), and the end user of the
resulting project (Misra, 2004). But above all, studies have shown that direct support from top
management is the key to success of an IT outsourcing project for both firmsactivities (Dhar &
Balakrishnan, 2006). In addition, a good outsourcee will have a good service consistency,
technical competency, compatibility, and continuity (Misra, 2004).
However, studies have shown, not all global IT outsourcing projects end in success.
Many factors contribute to this, some of them being that the firm outsourced all of its IT
functions (Chen, Tu, & Lin, 2002). It is a well-known fact that some activities cannot be
outsourced primarily because they need to stay in house for control reasons and sustaining
competitive advantage(Chen, Tu, & Lin, 2002). Also, due to poor planning, many global IT
outsourcing projects experience negative factors like unexpected outcomes and diminishing
service levels (Dhar & Balakrishnan, 2006). Some additional pitfalls to outsourcing success
include weak management, high hidden costs, poor communications, and business uncertainty.
To address these challenges, focuses on soft control mechanisms such as trust and commitment
are reinforced to reduce these pitfalls (Huang & Goo, 2009). Some drawbacks to global IT
outsourcing include security of information and data, quality of personnel and work cannot be
guaranteed, the cost to maintain the contracts, the fact that cost savings will not be realized in the
short-term, and more importantly, the public opinion of the United States towards companies
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who IT outsource (Kakumann & Portanova, 2006). In order to try to avoid a failed project, there
are factors that should be analyzed that are considered risk assessment factors. These include
aspects like geographical location, political climate, cultural implications, quality standards, legal
contracts, and intellectual property (Dhar & Balakrishnan, 2006). Outsourcing service recipients
often use a service-level agreement (SLA), an addendum to the main contract of financial and
legal terms, to ensure the performance and execution of outsourcing services. When negotiating
an outsourcing relationship, the SLA should be kept short and basic yet focusing on service
elements and metrics (Huang & Goo, 2009).
As mentioned above, small to medium sized businesses cannot engage in such large
contracts. But there are onshore IT outsourcing providers that they can turn to. Much like large
companies engage in offshore IT outsourcing for cost saving, small to medium sized business
engage in onshore contracts for strategic goals (Misra, 2004). In todays fast-paced business
environment, it is impossible for these smaller organizations to understand, develop, and
implement every information technology needed. Therefore, these smaller firms actively seek
external IT providers to obtain needed IT services at lower costs and to achieve other goals such
as better IT performance, improved services, and innovation. This phenomenon is referred to as
onshore IT outsourcing, which can be defined as the delegation, through a contractual
agreement, of all or any part of the technical resources, the human resource, and the management
responsibilities associated with providing IT services to an external vendor (Ye, 2005). In
addition, the future of outsourcing deals is trending towards smaller agreements with specific
business objectives and away from the full service, 10-year, multi-billion dollar deals that the big
firms use. And because there are more smaller deals, this opens up the market creating new
opportunities or more vendors. Smaller IT outsource service providers will have new
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opportunities to compete in specialized niches (Cohen, 2004). Prices may drop due to
competition of these firms resulting in further advantages for the small to medium sized
business. Since many new small businesses are start-up business, onshore IT outsourcing is a
common option in order to reduce start-up time to new markets, and for organizations entering
new business lines. Many small to medium sized business use onshore IT outsourcing for data
center operation, desktop help support, help desk services, networking management, software
development and support, disaster recovery, web hosting, and application management (Fraihat,
2006). Other companies outsource for services such as accounting, human resources, research
and development, customer relationship management, tax preparation, film and cartoon
production, and radiology analysis (Palvia, 2007). This popularity of outsourcing is increasing
rapidly among this business sector, SMBs, especially as large parts of IT are grown to be looked
at as commodity-like (Fraihat, 2006). Managements view from these small companies is very
similar to that of a large company and would typically like to have some the mentioned IT
services out of their scope of worry (Pistole & Bragg, 2005). In addition, the lifting of the in-
house IT burden also lets a company invest human capital to maximize productivity and foster
innovation. Small firms that have outsourced, have reported that they have had, on average, a
61% boost in revenue compared to firms that have not outsourced (Pistole & Bragg, 2005).
When looking at global IT outsourcing and onshore IT outsourcing, they share some
common characteristics to outsourcing in general. For example, the following is a list of
Critical Success Factors for outsourcing activities: the dependence of company on vendor, the
risk of information leakage to outsiders, trustful relationship, low-cost high-quality proficiency
services, focus on strategic core competencies, and flexibility of business and commitment
(Fraihat, 2006). All of these success factors are applicable to either type of outsourcing as well
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as the risk assessment factors of geographical location, political climate, cultural implications,
quality standards, legal contracts, and intellectual property. There is also common to both types
of outsourcing the role of the Project Manager handling the outsource project. These roles range
fromLeaderwhere the PM supervises, trains, and organizes the people under him. There is the
Resource Allocatorrole which allocates human resource, financial resources, and information.
The PM is also the Spokesman because of his contact with the various people in the organization
when discussing the project. The PM also plays anEntrepreneurrole because needs to predict
users needs and managements expectations. He is aLiason because he is the middleman
between his organization and the external firm and is aMonitordue to him scanning the external
environment for changes (Karlsen & Gottschalk, 2006). All of these roles are pertinent to
whether a project is a software development project with a company located in India, or a project
with a firm located 15 miles from the organization. In either case as well, the idea of social
capital plays a key role with both global IT outsourcing and onshore IT outsourcing. These IT
outsourcing partnerships constitute a form of social capital for the firm that chooses to outsource,
that facilitates knowledge exchange and transfer. The increased knowledge stock as a result of
knowledge exchange and transfer, in turn, forms the foundation for IT value, which is manifested
as success in business operations and IT-enabled innovation. Specifically, the structural
dimension (partner resource endowment) and the cognitive dimension of social capital (shared
vision and shared cognition) have a strong impact on knowledge acquisition; whereas the
relational dimensions of social capital (social interaction and trust) has strong direct effects on
successful outcomes of IT outsourcing (Ye, 2005).
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Methodology
The research methodology for this particular topic of global IT outsourcing and its impact
on Small-to-Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) both here and markets abroad was designed to
occur in three separate distinct stages. Each stage has its own significance before the other and
must be completed in succession in order to ensure that the information used is accurate and
valid. The first stage Topic Review and Analysis involved an in-depth Literature review of
several different types of articles from numerous journals, newspapers, trade magazines, and
other periodicals in circulation within certain industries involved with global and onshore IT
outsourcing activities or intentions to participate in such activities. This would be the initial
qualitative analysis of the topic as the goal of stage one is, become familiar with the many facets
of global and onshore IT outsourcing whether it be for partial service of a full service package
for all IT activities in that organization, this option is usually common for larger organizations
(Babin & Nicholson, 2010), but there are also onshore IT outsourcing companies that offer cost-
efficient services to small-to-medium sized business. Once a clear picture of the current global
and onshore IT markets and all of their characteristics including risks, barriers, opportunities, and
the various types of services and products as well as the numerous costs, both monetary and
critical time associated costs such as manpower, downtime, monitoring, and support, were
understood; the second stage Survey and Interviews was able to begin. In this stage, with a
clear picture of the key issues at hand, a survey or a phone interview was conducted with a very
small sample of small to medium sized businesses within the surrounding communities of the
university campus of Cal Poly Pomona as well as some select contacts at companies located
throughout the greater U.S., whom I had maintained communication with during my work as
Project Manager at an IT firm located in Walnut, CA. This small sample may be seen as non-
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effective, but due to time restrictions and participant participation, it should suffice as the
hypothesis should show the evident patterns and actualities between them. During this stage
Data Collection was performed by analysis of the survey sheets distributed to this small sample
of various businesses and organizations through Google Docs or via phone interviews performed
for contacts who needed the process to be expeditious and those that were able to allocate a few
minutes to completing the form or provide the data by some other medium. The data received
covered topics such as the company or organizations current IT infrastructure in place
physically at their location whether it included website servers, e-mail servers, file servers, or
networking equipment installed and fully operational at the location. There were also particular
questions positioned strategically on the survey in an attempt to inquire on their overall stand on
environmental issues as this is of significant importance in regards to the sustainability of an
outsourcing relationship (Babin & Nicholson 2010). These are of great importance as these were
designed to attain the interviewees attitude towards certain aspects of global and onshore IT
outsourcing such as cultural preference and environmental impacts which would be the only part
of the second stage where qualitative information would be attained as it was in the first stage.
This data is then organized into a tabular form in order to perform analysis to arrange the
information in a manner that would allow a clear picture of small to medium sized business
wants and needs. Thusly, Stage Three is the overall analysis of the survey info to conclude with
findings that will show the correlation between global and onshore IT outsourcing and small to
medium sized business. These three stages when completed in succession will help to answer
the following research questions about global and onshore IT outsourcing and its impact on small
to medium sized businesses:
Research Questions:
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1. How many local Small to Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) outsource their IT needs,whether the need be for partial outsourcing (i.e. website hosting, network
administration, etc) or a full service IT outsource for all IT activities pertaining to the
organization, to offshore firms or onshore firms, and if so, are they primarily for costreasons?
2. When local Small to Medium Sized businesses (SMBs) outsource their IT needs to anonshore outsource company, can they utilize principles and factors that the larger
organizations use for their large multi-million dollar contracts to ensure success?
The above research questions will aid in the research paper in testing the following
hypothesis about IT outsourcing in both the global and domestic arena encompassing aspects that
are foundational to business activity, may have environmental impacts, and cultural implications
which may either improve or damage the outsourcing relationship:
H1. Small to Medium Sized Businesses utilize local outsource firms for their various IT
needs instead of offshore providers because of their lower cost and manageability.
H2. Global IT outsourcing is unattractive to Small to Medium Sized Businesses because
of cultural and political factors which are integrated into the decision making process when
dealing with an offshore contract.
H3. Both global and onshore IT outsourcing share factors that are common to each other
that the small to medium sized business can use to ensure success like the larger companies do.
Stage One: Topic Review and Analysis
During stage one, the goal was to not just look at global and onshore IT outsourcing as a
service where you meet a provider, sign a contract, and receive your goods. But rather, the goal
was to get an in depth look at how the global and onshore IT outsource process worked, both on
the micro and macro level. Academic journals were the first to be researched through the use of
a highly organized database where only relevant articles by accredited authors were taken into
consideration. These journal sources enabled an accurate account of what the global and onshore
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IT arena was truly made of to be revealed and understood in a clear and concise manner. It was
through this initial research that a realization was made that global IT outsourcing has significant
impact on political and cultural forces acting on the partnership of organizations, and it is
through managing these forces that progress and innovation can be maintained and fostered.
During this stage of research, there was great effort into looking for sources that showed any
pattern of behaviors or attitudes demonstrated by American companies when inquired upon
about global or onshore IT outsourcing and their views towards the issues at hand now that a
clearer picture was being formed. Lastly, there were a variety of case studies that were looked
over to provide a sort of benchmark for the success and failures of the global IT outsourcing
projects in order to compare and contrast these results and data from the results and data
collected from the Small to Medium Sized Businesses.
Stage Two: Surveys and Phone Interviews
After an accurate view of the global and onshore IT outsourcing market including the
various cultural, environmental, and political factors that accompany it, surveys were made to
sample a small selection of companies locally, a few within the central U.S., and a few on the
east coast. The questions from the survey were designed to firstly attain quantitative data from
the respondents, but also to attempt to develop an overall attitude conveyed by the respondent or
interviewee. The questions to the survey were the following:
1. Do you have on-site servers for: File/Sharing ___ E-Mail ___ Website ___2. Do you use any types of software to collaborate with co-workers? Yes ___ No ____3. Is this software proprietary? In other words, is only available to you? Yes ___ No ____4. If so, was it developed offshore? Yes ___ No ____5. Have you ever considered using Offshore IT Outsourcing? Yes ___ No ___6. If you have considered using Offshore IT Outsourcing, what company was it and where
were they based? Text ___________________
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7. Have you ever used domestic vendors to outsource any of your IT needs? Yes ___ No___
8. Do environmental concerns come into play when considering partnerships for various ITneeds Yes ___ No ___
Only if Currently Using Outsourcing Services (whether Domestic or Offshore)
9. Is the majority of your outsourcing activity domestic or offshore? U.S. Based____Overseas____
10.Was the output (product or service): Satisfactory ___ Excellent ___11.Were there any significant failures or downtime: Yes ___ No ___12.Was the decision to outsource a cost-savings decision or lack of resources: Cost-Savings
____ Lack of Resources ____
13.If you are utilizing offshore resources, which country and /or area is it:India ____ China _____ European Country ____ Other(please provide): ________________
As you can see these questions were designed to cover the major aspects of global IT
outsourcing versus the onshore local outsource provider including significant factors like cost
savings and specialization needs as well as environmental and cultural implications in regards to
why or why not a particular offshore provider is selected.
Stage Three: Data Analysis and Cross-Referencing
During the final stage of research for global IT outsourcing and the impact on Small to
Medium Sized Businesses, there is an attempt to cross reference the factors that help a global IT
outsourcing contract to that of onshore providers. The goal of this portion of the research is to
conclude that SMBs around the globe, can utilize the same measures used in global IT
outsourcing to manage their onshore IT outsourcing project to ensure success and reduce as
many risks as possible.
Multiple Research Methods
There were numerous methods of research utilized when delving deeper into the topic of
global IT outsourcing and its impact on small to medium sized businesses. This was done
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primarily due to the fact that each method may have its flaws or drawbacks, but by using a
variety of methods, there exists the ability to strengthen the validity of the data collected (Petter
& Gallivan, 2004) . Since the hypothesis cover a variety of aspects to global IT outsourcing and
onshore IT outsourcing, multiple methods were needed to tie together patterns and consistencies
found in other global markets, whether they by small to medium in size or a large conglomerate
of an organization.
Findings/Discussion
After analysis of the survey data (see Appendix), the following charts were made:
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The numbers show that the majority of small to medium sized firms that took the survey
do not use offshore IT outsourcing services with the exception of the firm using Wipros services
in India. However, there were a few of these small to medium sized business that had considered
utilizing offshore IT outsourcing services. One firm in particular considered an offshore
company to manage their files and maintain their storage of data, but decided not to in the end,
and went with an onshore provider. Yet, the majority of these small to medium sized business
do utilize onshore IT outsourcing services. Eighty-two percent of the companies surveyed utilize
a software platform to collaborate with each other in the workplace and twelve percent of those
were proprietary; yet none of them were developed offshore. The charts indicate that although
they may have servers on-site at their organization, seventy-two percent of the companies that
used onshore IT outsourcing services indicated that the decision was based on lack of resources,
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not necessarily due to a minimization of costs decision. When comparing these findings with
the literature review, it is evident that all companies surveyed needed to utilize an IT outsourcing
agreement to service or perhaps setup IT infrastructure at their organization s workplace. As
mentioned earlier, smaller companies tend to want the commodity like products of their
organizational structure, websites and networking installations, to be taken care of externally so
they can focus more on their core competencies, and not have to hire skilled IT professionals to
manage and maintain their smaller infrastructure much like a large corporation such as IBM has
to.
The data shows that of the eighty-eight percent of those companies that used onshore IT
outsourcing, just about fifty eight of them take into consideration environmental factors, which
are primarily of a global concern, yet this environmental awareness trickled down into the
decision making process for an onshore contract demonstrating that possibly global IT
outsourcing principles and measures can be directly correlated to onshore IT outsourcing
practices. In addition, there is also evidence from the same eighty-eight percent of those that
used onshore IT outsourcing, experienced a negative result from such a contract. In particular,
only twenty-seven percent reported that they experienced excellent results while the rest
reported only satisfactory results. Interestingly enough, fifty-four percent of those who used
onshore IT outsourcing services reported that they had significant failures and downtime,
overwhelming evidence that these contracts were not managed correctly and suffered from the
same drawbacks and risk factors that large global IT outsourcing contracts suffer from. Thusly,
it is safe to say that smaller firms can utilize the measures and critical success factors that larger
firms use such as HP, to ensure that these outsourcing contracts are managed and executed
successfully. As mentioned earlier, there has to be a strong emphasis on project management of
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these smaller contracts and the top executives, even from a smaller firm, have to be involved to
ensure its success.
Conclusion
When small to medium sized businesses engage in onshore IT outsourcing contracts, they
do so for reasons of lack of resources, not cost savings like the large companies use global IT
outsourcing contracts for. Due to the small to medium sized business organizations size, lack of
resources is common as managers would rather outsource the activity than invest money into an
internal IT department, when they can invest it in other core competencies. These small to
medium sized business also share the same drawbacks and pitfalls that the larger companies
experience, just not on a global scale. These small to medium sized organizations need to
manage their small outsourcing contracts in the same manner that a CIO from a large firm
would, with great diligence and strong project management skills and making sure to utilize
Service Level Agreements to ensure success and be reimbursed for downtimes or failures. The
global IT outsourcing contract and the onshore IT outsourcing contract are one in the same, with
the only difference being the context of the contract. It is safe to say that an offshore contract
can have a macro effect for a large company due to its global nature, while an onshore contract
has a micro effect on the smaller company and its immediate environment. Because of this, the
smaller company can model its outsourcing practices after the larger firm and ensure success.
The global arena in business is becoming more like a canvas while the small to medium sized
businesses are the portions of the paintings on that canvas. All together, they make the painting
of business productivity, but it is important that each portion of the picture be in proportion to
others and fit within the canvas. The artist of this painting is a combination of the efforts of the
CIOs of large firms and the owners of these small to medium sized businesses. When working
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together in unison sharing the same practices and thusly successes, only then can the picture
become famous and widely accepted as the masterpiece.
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References
n.a (2012). Advocacy Small Business Statistics and Research. Small Business Administration.Retrieved from:http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqindex.cfm?areaID=24
Babin R. & Nicholson, B. (2010). Sustainability Practices in Global IT Outsourcing.Manchester Business School Working Paper. No. 602. Retrieved from:http://www.mbs.ac.uk/research/working-papers.aspx
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Appendix
Pleasecheck
eachtypeof
serveryou
physicallyhave
on-site
Doyouuseanytypes
ofsoftwareplatforms
tocollaboratewithco-
workers?
Is
thissoftware
proprietary?In
otherwords,isit
availableonlyto
yo
u?
Ifthesoftwareis
proprietary,wasit
developed
offshore?
Haveyouever
consideredusing
OffshoreIT
Outsourcingfor
anyofyourIT
needs?
Haveyou
ever
useddom
estic
vendorsto
outsource
any
ofyourIT
needs?
Do
environmental
concernscome
intoplaywhen
considering
partnerships
forvariousIT
needs?
Isthemajorityofyour
outsourcingactivity
domesticoroffshore?
Ifyouhave
consideredusing
OffshoreIT
Outsourcing,what
companywasita
nd
wherewerethey
based?
Werethere
anysignificant
failuresor
downtime?
Wasthedecisionto
outsourceacost-
savingsdecisionor
lackofresources?
Ifyouarecurrently
utilizingoffshore
services,which
countryarethey
basedin?
Wastheoutput
(productor
service):
NoOn-SiteServNo
NotApplicable
No
No
Yes
No
U.S.Based(domestic)
Yes
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
U.S.Based(domestic)
No
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Excellent
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
Yes
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
Yes
U.S.Based(domestic)
Yes
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
U.S.Based(domestic)
No
CostSavings
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/PrinNo
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
No
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
NotApplicable
Yes
Yes
No
U.S.Based(domestic)
Wearecurrently
Yes
CostSavings
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/Prin
No
No
NotApplicable
No
No
No
U.S.Based(domestic)
No
LackofResources
Excellent
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
NoOn-SiteServYes
No
No
No
No
Yes
NoOn-SiteServYes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
U.S.Based(domestic)
Yes
CostSavings
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
NotApplicable
Yes
Yes
No
U.S.Based(domestic)
Itwasmoreofco
ncep
.
.
Yes
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/PrinYes
No
No
No
Yes
No
WiproinIndia
NoOn-SiteServYes
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
No
U.S.Based(domestic)
No
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
Yes
U.S.Based(domestic)
No
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Excellent
NoOn-SiteServYes
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
Yes
U.S.Based(domestic)
Yes
LackofResources
NotApplicable
Satisfactory
File/Sharing/Prin
Yes
No
NotApplicable
No
Yes
No