Creating Better Governance of Offshore Services

Abstract

Given the extensive history that companies now have with offshore outsourcing and the critical role that it continues to play, it is vital that we synthesize the many lessons learned and formalize them into a workable and flexible governance model. A review of the leading academic and practitioner literature on offshore outsourcing provided the basis for development of nine attributes of best practices/maturity. These attributes were used further to propose a framework for mature offshore outsourcing governance. We conducted a case study of a leading U.S.-headquartered multinational company and its major offshore vendors, some of whom the company had been involved in offshoring with for many years. By juxtaposing the case study experiences with the disparate literature on offshore outsourcing and IT governance, a proposed model for mature offshore outsourcing governance emerged.

Keywords:

• IT governance
• offshore outsourcing
• offshore vendors
• IT services