Comparing Business Process and IT Outsourcing Risks--An Exploratory Study in Germany and Australasia

摘要

Outsourcing is a well-accepted and commonly used business practice. Practitioners and scholars acknowledge that there are not only benefits but also risks involved in the external production of company services. But are the risks the same for different types of outsourcing? This paper explores how senior management evaluates the risks of business process outsourcing (BPO), compared to those of IT outsourcing (ITO). Thirteen expert interviews were conducted, with informants from client firms and outsourcing vendors. The interviews took place in two different cultural backgrounds, namely Western Europe and Australasia. The research highlighted 15 key risks and revealed that while there were some differences in emphasis, there were few differences in perceptions across the two regions. Interviewees specifically reported that the smaller the vendor market, and the less 'mature' this market was, the higher were perceived risks. They also observed that the more complex and non-standardized the business process, the greater the risk, with fewer BPO vendors with a track record in the delivery of complex, less-standardized processes.