Challenges and practices identification in complex outsourcing relationships: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Complex IT outsourcing relationships aptitude several benefits such as increased cost likelihood and lowered costs, higher scalability and flexibility upon demand. However, by virtue of its complexity, the complex outsourcing typically necessitates the interactions among various stakeholders from diverse regions and cultures, making it significantly more challenging to manage than traditional outsourcing. Furthermore, when compared to other types of outsourcing, complex outsourcing is extremely difficult because it necessitates a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which proportionally increases the risk of project failure. In order to overcome the failure of projects in complex outsourcing relationships, there is a need of robust systematic research to identify the key challenges and practices in this area. Therefore, this research implements systematic literature review as a research method and works as a pioneer attempt to accomplish the aforementioned objectives. Upon furnishing the SLR results, the authors identified 11 major challenges with 67 practices in hand from a total of 85 papers. Based on these findings, the authors intend to construct a comprehensive framework in the future by incorporating robust methodologies such as AHP and fuzzy logic, among others.

Challenges and solutions in the outsourcing process of healthcare units: A thematic analysis of a scoping review

“…Within the inter-organizational challenges, relationships with several environmental entities such as the insurance system, private partners and customers seemed to be crucial in implementing an efficient process of outsourcing in healthcare units (21,29). Despite the common misconception, one study showed that the relationships between such inter-organizational entities are much more integrated and connected to each other than intra-organizational relationships (30), a finding that clearly states the inter-connected nature of the realm in which any malfunction in the process related to each entity acts like a domino and paves the way for a total failure in the process of service delivery, a phenomenon which was narrated by several studies probing the challenges in the process of outsourcing (27)(28)(29)31).…”

“…As this study foundcomplexities in rural areas as a major inter-organizational challenge faced during the process of outsourcing (29), Some researches have proposed the mainly impoverished low to middle income attribute of the society living in the rural areas as a major contributing factor resulting in an inefficient and ineffective outsourcing process, such phenomenon can be traced back to the fact that after the process of outsourcing which arguably results in higher costs of services for customers, the outsourced units expose to a diminished number of customers due to the lower socioeconomic level of the rural population (32,33); Moreover, staff with higher expertise and higher level of technologies seem to be harder to get employed in rural areas due to the costly nature of such inputs while the outsourced units in the rural areas lack the needed funds and the desired attractiveness to obtain such resources added with the lack of desirability from the side of private partners to cooperate in such risky circumstances (23,27). Some studies have found lack of negotiating power as a major challenge ahead of organizations daring to outsource some of their units leading to a complete dependency to the private partner which ultimately results in the inability of the outsourced units to preserve its interests and desired targets (21,(27)(28)(29); this phenomenon has shown to be the result of multiple circumstances such as insufficiency of private partners, disparities with the insurance system due to the existing conflict of interests and more importantly the inconvenient structure of the draft and the inability and lack of expertise to design and propose a comprehensive draft in the process of outsourcing (21,22,29).…”

“…As mentioned before, one of the fundamental challenges within the process of outsourcing isimproper management and monitoring (22,24,27,29) ; multiple studies have shown that lack of monitoring on productivity and satisfaction of personnel and customers of the outsourced unit has resulted in multiple undesirable outcomes in the outsourcing process and have proposed different initiatives and reforms to improve monitoring of the outsourced unit such as payment and management reforms (4,21,22,26,29); Reforms such as implementation of productivity based payment and connecting the payment system to customer's satisfaction have shown to boost the efficiency of the outsourcing process in which the payment fluctuates in accordance to the status of outsourced unit's productivity and it's customer's satisfaction (21,26); Meanwhile, multiple innovative initiatives have been proposed by several studies including adaptation of different frameworks, indexes and checklists to facilitate the assessment process of outsourced unit's status in different criteria such as satisfaction, marketing and other organizational outcomes (21,24). It has been shown that early assessment and feedback of the unit's status in the process of outsourcing is a crucial action to enhance and boost the efficiency of the outsourcing process (24), while adopting a penalty system has been proposed to be helpful if the outsourced unit's status remains poor in several assessments (21). Moreover; outsourcing in the form of leasing has been shown to be a more efficient form of outsourcing while more extensive research needs to be done on this issue in order to find a detailed assessment of the factors contributing to this phenomenon by future researchers(4).…”

Strategy and additive technologies as the catalyst for outsourcing, process innovation and operational effectiveness

“…Outsourcing refers to the transfer of activities to external parties. Although both internal and external activities create value for the client, sometimes it is more efficient for the organization to externalize some non-core activities to parties who can provide the required services faster and cheaper [80][81][82].…”

Software integration model: An assessment tool for global software development vendors

“…Each development team in GSD is responsible to develop their own component with little concentration on the full picture of the whole system. 2,11,13,27,28,41 Similarly, each team may be using a dissimilar process model and standards that will further complicate the integration process at the end. 10,42 In GSD, a late consideration on the integration problem may make the project more problematic and may increase the overall development cost.…”