A RELATIONSHIP

PERSPECTIVE ON

ITOUTSOURCING
A longitudinal study at four companies provides valuable insights
about the evolution of IT outsourcing relationships.

utsourcing has been a key method

for managing IT and systems (ITS)
portfolios of companies since the
early 1990s [2, 6, 8, 9]. It is generally believed that a firms varied ITS
portfolio including application systems (referred to
as x) can be managed effectively by outsourcing
service providers (referred hereafter as xSPs) without adversely affecting the firms goals of organizational effectiveness.
Outsourcing is defined as the contracting of various information systems functions such as managing of data centers, operations, hardware support,
software maintenance, network, and even application development to outside service providers [1]. A
service provider in such a contractual relationship
assumes responsibility, or ownership, for some
aspects of the outsourced ITS portfolio. However,
contractual relationships between client and service

provider firms may vary considerably, because xSPs

may not only assume different levels of responsibility or ownership of the client firms ITS assets, there
is usually a considerable degree of variation in the
types of ITS functions, activities, and infrastructure
outsourced by different firms at different times. For
instance, if the outsourced ITS activity is routine
and simple, such as the programming of a small and
well-defined application system, a simple contracting approach to managing the outsourcing relationship might be the right choice. On the other hand,
if large swaths of the ITS infrastructure of a firm
involving several interdependencies and complexities are outsourced to an xSP, a strategic partnership
approach to managing the outsourcing relationship
may be the appropriate choice. This may be so
because neither the formulation of an exhaustive
contract nor precise measurement of performance
on individual aspects of service delivery may be pos-

<<<BY RAJIV KISHORE, H.R. RAO, K. NAM, S. RAJAGOPALAN, AND A. CHAUDHURY>>>

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Extent of Substitution by xSPs

sible when complex portfolios of ITS assets are out- examine the movement of organizations changing
sourced.
ITS outsourcing relationships over time within or
Earlier research by the authors [9] developed a across the four relationship cells.
framework that classifies client-provider outsourcing
In the support relationship, the role of the outside
relationships into Four Outsourcing Relationship service providers is limited and insourcing is more
Types, (a framework we call FORT). A client firms prevalent than outsourcing. The alignment relationrelationship with an xSP firm can be classified into ship enables firms to obtain service providers technione of these four generic
client-provider relationship
types. However, outsourcing Key Questions for Assessing Extent of Substitution by xSPs
what extent:
relationships between client To
High
Reliance
Alliance
are service providers involved in routine day-to-day operation of
existing application systems of the client firm?
firms and their service do service providers have managerial control and decision-making
authority over the operations of existing application systems of the
providers may change over
client firm?
are service providers involved in the planning, development, and
time. Here, we discuss the four
implementation of new application systems for the client firm?
do service providers have ownership of hardware, software and
Low
Support
Alignment
relationship types in terms of other
physical infrastructure of the client firm?
do client data reside on hardware platforms owned and operated
by service providers
the competencies and moni do service providers personnel replace in-house ITS personnel of
the client firm?
toring mechanisms required are
Low
High
service providers responsibilities restricted to off-site activities?
Strategic Impact of Outsourced ITS Portfolio
for effectively managing them,
and then trace the movement Key Questions for Assessing Strategic Impacts of Outsourced ITS Portfolio
of client-vendor relationships To what extent:
the outsourced ITS portfolio provide the client firm with competitive advantage?
within and across relationship does
will the outsourced ITS portfolio affect the long-term competitiveness of the client firm?

does
the outsourced ITS portfolio call for a close partnership between the provider and the client firm?
cells over time. This discussion
does the outsourced ITS portfolio allow for the development of strategic interorganizational relationships?
is based upon conceptual does the outsourced ITS portfolio provide opportunities for identification of value points that can be
leveraged in the ITS portfolio?
development from extant liter- does
the outsourced ITS portfolio provide opportunities for business process improvements?
does the outsourced ITS portfolio open up new revenue opportunities?
ature and case data longitudinally collected from four client
sites during two different time
Figure 1. The FORT cal expertise on a project basis. The reliance
periods.
framework.
relationship requires more commitment to the relaThe FORT Framework
tionship from vendor firms because significant porThe FORT framework consists of two dimensions tions of a clients in-house operations are transferred
most germane to outsourcing relationships. The first to external service providers. In contrast to other types
dimension deals with the extent of ownership sub- of outsourcing relationships, clients and service
stitution by outsourcing service providers. Owner- providers work together in alliance types of relationship substitution focuses on the aspect most ships as strategic partners that have common goals.
important in an outsourcing relationshipthe
These four outsourcing relationships require differdegree to which ownership and/or control of various ent types of competencies and monitoring mechaITS assets such as hardware, software, telecommuni- nisms [2] as described in Table 1, and a client firm
cations infrastructure, and data center operations should consider these as they make choices concernhave been transferred to xSPs. The second dimen- ing outsourcing relationships with service providers.
sion deals with the strategic impact of outsourced For example, the support relationship involves low
ITS portfolio. This dimension captures the influ- coordination costs and monitoring the relationship is
ence the outsourced ITS portfolio has on a firms easy because the extent of substitution by the vendors
competitive positioning and its long-term strategy. is low. In contrast, in the alignment and alliance relaIf the outsourced ITS portfolio adds value to a firms tionships, coordination is much more complex and
competitive advantage (for example, by improving monitoring becomes more difficult in the alignment
key business processes, or by enhancing its relation- and alliance relationships because specifications for
ships with its customers or suppliers, and so on) the outsourced information services are difficult to specstrategic impact of the outsourced portfolio will be ify completely a priori, and outcomes are generally
deemed to be high. The four resulting types of out- ambiguous and uncertain.
sourcing relationships are support, alignment,
Alliance relationships typically grow and build
reliance, and alliance (Figure 1). The framework can upon previous small, but successful, exchanges
be used to depict both static and dynamic aspects of between organizations. The evolution of alliance relaclient-provider relationships and then utilized to tionships is thus preceded by interactions; and current
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December 2003/Vol. 46, No. 12 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM

interactions form the basis for future interactions

because of increased interorganizational coordination
and communication. Thus the development of an
alliance relationship is an interactive, dynamic process.

On the other hand, when the extent of substitution

by service providers is high, service provider-specific
investments by clients are also high. For example,
clients become more committed to service providers
equipment, technology, sysReliance
Alliance
tems, and skills in the reliance
Extent of substitution: high
Extent of substitution: high
and alliance cells, and this
Strategic impact: high
Strategic impact: low
Most comprehensive type of outsourcing like the GM-EDS,
Typically IBM-Kodak type of outsourcing.
results in a locked-in relationAmerican Airlines-Sabre, or Delta-Transquest types of
Cost reduction is generally the major motivation for
outsourcing relationships.
outsourcing.
ship and what Williamson [10,
This relationship involves management of a strategic
Contract periods are usually longer term.
partnership with the service provider.
Required Competency and Monitoring Mechanism
12] refers to as small numbers
Required Competency and Monitoring Mechanism
Ability to routinize rules and procedures is required for
opportunism. Moreover, as
Behavior-based performance measurement is usually
effective monitoring of the contractual outcomes.
effective as outcomes for outsourced information services
Outcome-based controls are generally more effective than
provider-client relationships
are the most difficult to specify; they are generally most
behavior-based controls in this relationship.
Effective incentive plans augment outcome-based controls as ambiguous, uncertain, and dynamic.
move from support to alignment
service providers are more highly involved in more facets of Effective monitoring mechanisms are high on mutual trust
and low on contractual control. This requires conscious
a firms information services provisioning.
or reliance relationships, and
attention to the processes of development of mutual
Ability to call and evaluate multiple bids is generally needed
interorganizational trust between the client firm and
to ensure a cost-effective outsourcing deal.
finally to alliance relationships,
service providers over time.
Due to a high extent of substitution by service providers,
measuring service providers conprior planning is required to keep the lights on on existing Profit sharing rules needs to be set up to incent the service
providers to engage in mutually beneficial behaviors.
application systems prior to expiration of current
tributions becomes progressively
Common objectives and mission statements help achieve
outsourcing contracts.
goal symmetry between client and provider firms.
Movement
difficult because of the higher
Informal communication channels are important.
Firms can move into the alliance cell when either the
Movement
strategic impact of their portfolio goes up or when newer
impact of providers activities on
Movement from this cell into other cells is the most
and more strategic ITS portfolio is outsourced
clients firms strategies. Similarly,
arduous, and calls for extremely well thought out
It is usually difficult to return to the support or alignments
immigration plans
cells due to locked-in relationships with current service
monitoring of service providers
Switching from current to new service providers
providers.
carries the
activities to ensure they are
highest set-up and switching costs.
aligned with client firms interAlignment
Support
Extent of substitution: low
Extent of substitution: low
ests also becomes increasingly
Strategic impact: high
Strategic impact: low
Generally consulting type high-impact IS services, such as
Typically traditional IS services such as payroll processing.
difficult. This requires for a
Cisco-KPMG partnership for implementing Oracle
Insourcing is usually the primary governance mode for the
Enterprise System.
firms in this cell.
detailed system of incentives
Mostly project-based IS services, such as those required for
Outsourcing is only used on a selective basis to support
new application systems development or implementation of
information services of a firm.
and penalties.
package solutions.
This relationship imposes the lowest switching and set-up
Gaining access to world-class technical expertise is generally
costs.
In the case of an alliance
a major motivation for outsourcing.
Required Competency and Monitoring Mechanism
Ability to organize and manage a multiple bidding process is Required Competency and Monitoring Mechanism
type of relationship, trust [11]
Ability to integrate existing information systems with new
required to reduce outsourcing costs.
information systems is usually required as service providers
Monitoring the market on an ongoing basis helps create
rather than incentives and
may have little technical knowledge about clients existing
benchmarks that can be used to evaluate the costs and
systems.
services of current service providers.
penalties becomes an impor Technically competent in-house personnel are typically
Outcome-based performance measurement is usually
required to provide technical expertise about existing
effective in this relationship.
tant mechanism to ensure that
systems and for implementing new systems.
Movement
Firms can consider a movement into the reliance, alignment, Behavior-based controls are generally more effective for
monitoring service providers' performance here as
or alliance cells.
service providers interests
specifications and outcomes are more uncertain, ambiguous,
However, a full-scale movement from this cell into the
and dynamic.
alliance cell may be a risky proposition due to a general lack
coincide with clients interests.
of prior knowledge and experience in managing that type of Movement
Firms wishing to move into an alliance relationship with
a strategic relationship.
Building trust is essentially cretheir service providers usually find it helpful to migrate to
that cell via this relationship.
ating a zipper to bind the client
Similarly, firms who wish to move back into the support cell,
with insourcing as the primary governance mode, find it
and service provider organizaeasier to migrate to that cell via this relationship in a
selective manner.
tions. This reduces uncertainty
for clients and service providers,
When the extent of service provider involvement is Table 1. Characteristics
increases commitment of both
the four relationship
low, as is the case in support and alignment relation- of
parties to the relationship, and
cells.
ships, clients make little investment in service providerfacilitates increased investment
specific assets. Client-provider relationships in these of resources in their relationship. Table 1 summarizes
two cells are usually short-term and are quite specific to these characteristics.
outsourced projects and services. Clients generally control the specification, design, and implementation Evolution of Outsourcing Relationships
aspects of outsourced projects and services and these Outsourcing relationships are not static; they are
relationships, therefore, do not entail transfer of skills to likely to change and evolve over time due to changes
the client firm or training of the client firms personnel. in the external environment and in clients internal
Because clients investments in service provider-specific requirements. Figure 2 represents this evolution of
assets are low, the likelihood of opportunistic behavior outsourcing relationships in terms of possible moveon the part of service providers is generally low. Hence, ments of client firms across and within the four cells
there is little need for incentives and penalties to be of the FORT framework.
Firms in the support cell may move into other cells.
specified in detail in such contractual relationships.
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89

Alternatively, they may decide to remain within the ship, or due to its slow diffusion in the marketplace.
support cell. Movement from the support to the
The degree of locked-in relationships is the highest
alignment cell is the least risky because it usually does in the alliance cell. Since a successful locked-in relanot involve large investments. Instead, such a move- tionship is built on mutual trust over a period of time,
ment facilitates acquisition of service providers exper- strategic movement generally needs to be based upon
tise without long-term commitments. From the prior substitutional movements. Therefore, if client
alignment cell, client firms may decide to move to firms move into the alliance cell from the support cell
reliance or alliance cells progressively increasing their directly without prior alignment or reliance relationcommitment. On the other hand, they may revert ships, both parties will suffer due to lack of built-in
back to the support cell once they
Industry /
ITS Department
Key Informant ITS Portfolio Out- Key Informant ITS Portfolio Out
Firm
Characteristics:
1st Round of
sourced at the time 2nd Round of
sourced at the time
have acquired the expertise from
Pseudonym Budget/Headcount Interviews
of 1st Interview
Interviews
of 2nd Interview
the service providers. Movements
PRPM (DDD) $7 million/45 persons Director of the IS Application
Vice president of Technology scanning,
department
development
the IS department in-house IS staff
into the reliance and alliance cells
for non-strategic
(the director inter- mentoring, IS strategic
applications
viewed earlier was planning, application
require progressively more compromoted to this development of some
position)
strategic ITS applications
mitment to the relationship from
MM (FFF)
Before Merger: $15
CIO (Senior Vice Adhoc IS projects,
IS Director
Data center operations,
million/100 persons;
President)
coding, disaster
PC maintenance, training
client firms because of the
After Merger: Separate IS Director
recovery
of IS staff
budget for merged IS
increased level of involvement of
department not
available/50 persons
service providers in client firms
CIRA (MMM) $10 million (additional Vice President of Insourcing of the
Vice President of Application development
IS activities. Therefore, outsourc$40 million for systems IS Operations
major Systems
IS Operations
on a selective basis
upgrade)/40 persons
Upgrade Project;
only for non-strategic IS
ing decisions become more irreSome outsourcing
applications
versible as client firms get into
H (EEE)
IS budget not available/ Head of IS
Training and support Head of IS (now
Data center, tele35 persons
(reports to
of IS staff (hired
reports to the
communications, and
reliance or alliance types of relaFinance Manager) consulting staff from CEO)
enhancement and
their xSP)
modernization of
tionships with their service
important application
systems
providers. As the outsourcing
relationship moves from the support type to the alliance type, Table 2. Description rules and procedures. Moreover, the impact of the
the four cases in alliance relationship on the organization and the
there is increased transfer of theoflongitudinal
study.
information; increased level and
degree of lock-in with the particular service provider
content of services that are transacted; and develop- is so large that it is usually difficult to reverse this relament of mutually shared expectations and evaluations tionship. In this sense, a direct movement from a supof each other by service provider and client.
port relationship to an alliance relationship is much
Outsourcing of traditional types of IS services cor- more risky than a movement from either a reliance or
responds to a movement within the support cell we an alignment type of relationship to an alliance type
the supportive movement. Movements from the of relationship.
support cell to the reliance or alignment cell are
named substitutional movement because either Case Studies
strategic or operational in-house IS activities are taken Data for this research was collected using the case
over by outsourcing service providers. Movements to study approach. We initially selected 15 firms of
the alliance cell from other points in the matrix follow diverse sizes in different industry groups based in the
a trend accentuated by the fact that service providers northeastern U.S. and southern Ontario, Canada
are consistently striving to expand their offerings in for our research study on sourcing practices. The
the outsourcing market. We name this strategic industries represented in our sample include chemimovement because service providers become strate- cal manufacturing, plastics and rubber products
manufacturing, computer and electronic product
gic partners of the client firms.
One of the current trends of outsourcing is the evo- manufacturing, manufacturing, food and beverage
lution from the supportive movement to the substitu- stores, credit intermediation and related activities,
tional movement and in the long run to the strategic insurance carriers and related activities, professional,
movement. However, strategic movement is less preva- scientific, and technical services, and hospitals. Of
lent than substitutional movement due to the nature the 15 firms in our initial sample, we chose four for
of commitment required on the part of both clients this particular research study for a variety of reasons.
and service providers and the amount of time it takes First, we needed only firms involved in outsourcing
to develop mutual trust between them. The low fre- of some aspects of their ITS portfolio. We also
quency of strategic movement may also be due to the wished to include firms from different industries in
recency of the alliance type of outsourcing relation- the longitudinal study to provide us with a broader
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December 2003/Vol. 46, No. 12 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM

Outsourcing relationships are not static; they are likely to

change and evolve over time due to changes in the external
environment and in clients internal requirements.

Extent of Substitution by xSPs

sample. We wanted to
have a sample of firms that
covered different types of
movements within the
High
FORT framework; and it
was important to gain top
management commitment
for repeated interviews.
Details of these firms are
provided in Table 2.
Low
The longitudinal study
was carried out over a
period of three years. Data
was gathered primarily
through interviews of
senior IS executives, and
outsourcing experiences of
the firms were analyzed by
the following key topics
and the questions shown in Figure 1:

ment from the support to

the alignment cell.

Managerial
Implications
FFF
Firms should consider the
EEE
costs and difficulties of
DDD
MMM
moving from one quadrant to another in determining the direction of
Support
Alignment
movement. Not all firms
choose the least expensive
choice. Firms should clarify
Low
High
their decision criteria for
Strategic Impact of Outsourced ITS Portfolio
outsourcing. The decision
Legend:
Supportive Movement
to outsource is a firm-speSubstitutional Movement
cific problem. Even though
Strategic Movement
many firms consider outsourcing in order to reduce
costs, technical expertise
Figure 2. The evolution of
outsourcing relationships
for new IT is a major reaAn illustration of four client
son for outsourcing. For
ITS competencies possessed by the firm
firms outsourcing relationships over time.
example, in the case of one
Motivations for outsourcing
firm the final service
Process for xSP selection
provider was not the least expensive service provider.
Criteria for selecting the xSPs
Similarly, insourcing was not the cheapest option for
ITS portfolio outsourced
another.
Contract period and contract governance
Another major reason for not choosing the least
Recurring and ongoing operations costs and
expensive outsourcing option is that the types of comswitching costs
petencies and measurement and monitoring mecha Trust with the xSP
nisms differ across the four outsourcing relationships,
Future ITS strategic plan
and the level and type of skills available within a client
The experiences of these firms show that IS man- firm may restrict the choices of client firms to only
agers approach and implement outsourcing in differ- some outsourcing relationship types. Hence, firms
ent ways even though they may have similar should develop their own outsourcing strategies as
motivations for outsourcing, such as cost reduction or dictated by their pool of managerial skills.
Firms can consider multiple movements from
acquisition of technical expertise [3, 6].
Figure 2 represents the movement within the FORT one cell to other cells in the matrix through selecframework of each of the four firms that we examined. tive outsourcing. For certain projects a firm can
Firm MMM remained within the support cell. The move from the support cell, to the reliance cell, and
firm decided to operate their strategic applications in- for others, the firm can move to the alliance cell
house and use external service providers only for non- through selective outsourcing. An advantage of selecstrategic IS functions. Firm FFFs movement from the tive outsourcing [7] is that several service providers
support to the reliance cell is similar to the IBM-Kodak can be used simultaneously by a client firm depending
type of outsourcing. Firm EEEs outsourcing became upon service providers expertise and special offerings.
more strategic and so it moved to the alliance cell. Firm In addition, it allows client firms to minimize costs
DDDs outsourcing decision corresponds to a move- and maximize business benefits simultaneously. HowReliance

Alliance

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM December 2003/Vol. 46, No. 12

91

ever, this scenario creates coordination problems

among multiple service providers, and client firms
should pursue this strategy only if they are capable of
coordinating activities of multiple service providers
simultaneously. Selective outsourcing with multiple
vendors can also be pursued when ITS activities outsourced to different providers are not interdependent
on each other. Further, selective outsourcing with
multiple vendors calls for managing a web of relationships that may be in different stages of evolution
in our FORT classification. For example, one relationship may be of the support type while another
may be of the reliance type, and yet another relationship may be of the alliance type. As discussed in Table
1, these relationships require different types of competencies and monitoring mechanisms, and firms
should pursue this strategy only if they have the
required competencies to manage different types of
outsourcing relationships concurrently.
Outsourcing should be considered more as a
management of relationship with service providers
rather than as a simple subcontract for IS commodities. From our case studies, we observed the
technical competency of service providers is an indispensable factor for success of client-vendor relationships. However, the most important factor affecting
success of outsourcing appears to be a mutual understanding between clients and their service providers.
Firms in our study developed a high degree of understanding through information sharing in regular
meetings of their top management with their service
providers. This understanding proves helpful when
client firms extend their outsourcing relationships
into higher-level relationships and it is, therefore,
important to design relationships with adequate
mechanisms for information sharing between the two
partners from the very beginning.
Firms must have a clear plan for their future
movement within the FORT framework. In our
case studies, we found that some firms do not have a
plan for what to do upon expiration of the outsourcing contract. Without a plan for future sourcing strategy and relationships in place, client firms will not be
able to develop specific competencies in the interim
to make a smooth transition from current relationships to the future ones.
This article developed a two-dimensional framework to analyze information system outsourcing relationships of client organizations with their service
providers. Four types of relationships and three types
of movements have been proposed to better understand dynamic outsourcing relationships. Future
research may investigate a number of questions that
have a bearing on the outsourcing decision. For exam92

December 2003/Vol. 46, No. 12 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM

ple, our framework indicates the following list of

issues, while not exhaustive, may be pertinent: the
effect of the client competencies required for the four
type of relationships on clients outsourcing performance; definitions and measures of service provider
performance; factors that affect movements among
the cells; and the stability of the outsourcing relationships. In general, dynamic features of outsourcing
relationships and critical factors for the movements
must be further examined in the future. c

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Rajiv Kishore (rkishore@buffalo.edu) is an assistant professor in

the School of Management at State University of New York, Buffalo.

H.R. Rao (mgmtrao@acsu.buffalo.edu) is a professor in the School

of Management at State University of New York, Buffalo.

K. Nam (knam@ccs.sogang.ac.kr) is an adjunct professor in

computer science and engineering at Sogang University, South Korea.
S. Rajagopalan is an IS manager at Northwest Airlines,
Minneapolis, MN.
A. Chaudhury (achaudhu@bryant.edu) is a professor at Bryant
College, RI.
This research was supported in part by NSF under Grant Number IIS 9907325, a
Canadian Embassy grant, and a Summer Research Grant from the School of Management at SUNY Buffalo and a New York State/United University Professions grant
to the first two authors.
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