Evaluating application service providers

Abstract

Discusses the application service provider (ASP) model, which is emerging as a new form of application outsourcing. At present, the ASP marketplace is largely vendor driven with huge numbers of vendors offering a variety of applications to the customer. These offerings may belong to software applications such as enterprise resource planning, collaborative and vertical industry. Even though there are many benefits attributed to this model suggests that, in order to reap these benefits, customers should evaluate the offerings of the ASPs. Addressing this purpose develops a taxonomy to identify the various ASP offerings and a framework to evaluate the ASP offerings on categories such as security, pricing, integration, service level agreement, and reliability, availability and scalability. Even though this framework is in an early stage of development it intends to present existing customers with performance criteria for evaluating ASP offerings. Concludes that further empirical research needs to be carried out to refine this framework and also to find the relevance of traditional outsourcing literature to this new form of outsourcing.

A Conjoint Approach to Understanding IT Application Services Outsourcing

“…Extracting and transferring idiosyncratic knowledge is impeded by organizational and individual constraints (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). The more generic the application (i.e., the less business-specific knowledge it requires) the more fitting it is to utilize an ASP (Ekanayaka et al, 2003). Conversely, the more business-specific knowledge required to service the application, the more suitable a full-service provider is.…”

“…The degree to which an application facilitates internal knowledge flow helps differentiate applications. Stand-alone applications that are less integrated within the firm, and hence less situated to pass on knowledge, are considered to be more suitable for outsourcing via ASPs (Ekanayaka et al, 2003). The more integrated an application (that is, the more the application facilitates knowledge flow), the more suitable it is for outsourcing to a domestic or offshore vendor.…”

“…Currie and Seltsikas (2001) view the changes occurring in three stages; facilities management, business-centric outsourcing, and industry-centric outsourcing. In an exhaustive review of the outsourcing literature, Dibbern et al (2004) cite well over 100 studies that have examined domestic outsourcing, with far less academic research focusing on ASPs (Currie and Seltsikas, 2001;Ekanayaka et al 2003), application development (Aubert, et al, 1996;Beath and Walker, 1998;Heiskanen, et al;Nelson, et al, 1996;Wang, et al, 1997;Whang, 1992;Grover, et al, 1994) or the determinants of offshore outsourcing (Rottman and Lacity 2004;Carmel and Agarwal 2002;Sahay et al 2003). Thus, there is a need to have a better understanding of offshore outsourcing relative to our understanding of domestic outsourcing and ASP provision.…”

“…If the application is low in heterogeneity, it is more likely to be outsourced to an ASP (Bennett and Timbrell, 2000;Ekanayaka et al, 2003).…”

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Implementation as a Complex Project: A Conceptual Framework

“…Software as a service is also a model that has gained recently growing interests in the market segment. Ekanayaka et al (2003) documented different types of support an ASP is supposed to provide (Table 3). Ghosh (2003) proposed that executives need to have a complete understanding of the technical challenges involved in adopting a new enterprise wide system and proposed that the three elements to consider are, a) network upgrade, b) hardware upgrade and c) providing global support.…”