Information systems outsourcing: an empirical study of success factors

Abstract

Although Information Systems Outsourcing has experienced a dramatic growth in recent years, there is a lack of success in many of these contracts, which makes it necessary to study the factors determining that success. The present paper proposes a set of key factors to achieve IS outsourcing success. It also establishes a number of measures meant to assess the degree of success reached by firms at outsourcing. We have validated both things (the proposed success factors and the factors to measure success) through a survey carried out among the Information Systems managers of the largest Spanish firms. The perceived benefits of outsourcing can be reduced to three types: technological, strategic and economic. Strategic motivations stand out as the most important ones in this study. This paper not only identifies the most important outsourcing success factors, from the client’s point of view, but also studies the evolution of these success factors during the last few years in the Spanish context, and offers a number of measures to assess the degree of success obtained by firms with IS outsourcing. So the model could be useful both for teaching and for the industry practice.