The role of application portfolio management in application services outsourcing: explicating variations in application portfolio management among outsourcing Gestalts

摘要

Prior research has identified different outsourcing strategy types most likely to succeed, described by the outsourcing extent, the contract type, and duration. Each of the strategy types serves a particular outsourcing outcome. Since application portfolio management pursues improvement and optimization in the application landscape, it supports and enables decisions in the field of application services outsourcing. The aim of our research is to investigate the varying role of application portfolio management (APM) for different application services outsourcing strategies. Therefore, we conducted case study research with eleven large German and Swiss companies. In order to identify the varying role of APM, we compared the behaviors of the companies successfully applying particular strategy types, analyzing the differences in APM capabilities, application portfolio structure, and the influence of application characteristics. The results reveal that the companies applying different strategies vary in the extent to which APM is implemented in an organization.