Outsourcing Success: Unique, Shifting, and Hard to Copy

by Sara Cullen

This Executive Report by Dr. Sara Cullen provides a new conceptualization of IT outsourcing (ITO) success from the client's perspective based on results from three surveys conducted during 1994-2000, a review of previous research, data from 49 cases, and data from seven additional in-depth cases. The key conclusions reveal that success is idiosyncratic and moving -- no single organization seeks exactly the same things as another from their outsourcing deals. And these goals vary over time. Replicating another organization's deal is unlikely to give you the success that you want -- you must design your deal to match your unique goals, needs, and constraints. Success is an individual journey; similar decisions made by different organizations yield different results based on the organization's competency.

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Outsourcing Success: Unique, Shifting, and Hard to Copy1 December 2007