Information Systems Outsourcing: Risks and Benefits for Organizations

Abstract

Information Systems (IS) Outsourcing has emerged as a strategic option to be considered and has been increasingly adopted by managers. However, many contracts still fail during their initial years, meaning that Outsourcing has also been subject to strong criticism. There are advantages to Outsourcing but also significant risks associated to it, and the assessment of both is therefore of great relevance for informed decision-making. The objective of this chapter is to determine to what extent a common view about risks and benefits associated to IS Outsourcing is shared by the Portuguese market players: Service Providers, Clients and Opinion Makers. In order to accomplish this, an on-line Delphi study was conducted, combined with the Q-sort technique, which allowed to obtain the perspective of each player on the risks and benefits IS Outsourcing. Comparing these perspectives it was possible to understand that the market players don’t share the same point of view.