IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijbisy/v37y2021i1p78-105.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimising IT outsourcing services by managing the balance between standardisation and customisation - a providers' perspective

Author

Listed:
  • João Correia Dos Santos
  • Miguel Mira Da Silva

Abstract

During the last decades, information technology (IT) outsourcing gained considerable management attention being considered a strategic decision to promote success. IT outsourcing providers deliver services using complex service systems composed by people, technology, and information, resulting in operational contexts displaying multi-input and output variables that many times originate high degree of variance between contracts and clients. Consequently, service providers have an operational context to be improved. The focus of this research is to study the balance between standardisation (mainly for productivity increase) and customisation (primarily for client satisfaction) that is a major issue for providers serving multiple clients. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a linear programming technique used to manipulate multiple inputs and outputs. Design science research allowed was to develop and test an artefact based on seven service dimensions, with 24 service items applicable to a single service or a multi-service configuration. The results obtained allow identifying the best operational strategy to follow. Future research is possible as adapting the artefact to other service sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • João Correia Dos Santos & Miguel Mira Da Silva, 2021. "Optimising IT outsourcing services by managing the balance between standardisation and customisation - a providers' perspective," International Journal of Business Information Systems, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 37(1), pages 78-105.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijbisy:v:37:y:2021:i:1:p:78-105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=115070
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijbisy:v:37:y:2021:i:1:p:78-105. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=172 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.