TY - JOUR A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - The current state of IS offshoring in Germany BT - Project characteristics and success patterns JF - Journal of Information Technology Management N2 - This paper empirically examines the current state of the IS offshoring phenomenon in Germany regarding project characteristics and success patterns. Relying on a sample of 304 projects conducted at various industry sectors and companies, results show that IS offshoring primarily occurs in sectors Telecommunications and IT at large corporations. Cost reduction is the main reason for going offshore and offshore projects are executed as part of a larger program at companies. Noticeably, most projects are delivered from India. Additionally, neither captive offshoring nor offshore outsourcing dominates as a de-livery option. Comparing different project subgroups regarding project success, the results reveal that projects delivered by an internal or partially owned service provider are more successful. Other project characteristics such as a project’s embedded-ness in a larger offshoring program, a project’s size, or a project’s offshoring degree in terms of relatively offshored labor hours show few significant differences. The paper addresses the paucity of empirical research on the current state of the IS offshoring phenomenon in Germany. KW - Offshoring KW - Nearshoring KW - Information systems sourcing KW - Outcome KW - Project success KW - Success factor KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Offfshoring Y1 - 2010 UR - http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-1/article4.pdf VL - 21 IS - 1 SP - 49 EP - 70 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Evaluation criteria for selecting offshoring candidates BT - An analysis of practices in German businesses JF - Journal of Information Technology Management N2 - The identification of suitable applications or projects is a main initial step in any software development or maintenance related IS offshoring arrangement. This paper examines evaluation criteria and their importance for selecting application or project candidates for offshoring. Based on a literature analysis and interviews with 47 experts from 36 different German companies describing 64 case examples, we find that in contrast to the literature, “size”, “codification”, and “language” are perceived as important selection criteria by experts. Case examples additionally show that “business specificity” seems to be a main reason for application or project failures, that “business criticality” appears to be less important than suggested by the literature, and that adequate “size” might be a necessary prerequisite, but seems not to be a sufficient criterion for an application’s or project’s suitability for offshoring. These differences in comparison to findings from the literature may be explained by cultural and language differences. KW - Offshoring KW - Nearshoring KW - Outsourcing KW - What to offshore KW - Selection criteria KW - Information systems KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Offshoring KW - Projekt KW - Evaluation Y1 - 2008 UR - http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XIX-4/article2.pdf VL - 19 IS - 4 SP - 16 EP - 34 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Wulf, Frederik A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus T1 - Information security risks, benefits, and mitigation measures in cloud sourcing T2 - Proceedings of the IEEE 21th Conference on Business Informatics (CBI): 2019, Moscow, Russia N2 - This paper develops a categorization of cloud security risks, elaborates how they impact information security, and discusses potential security benefits from cloud sourcing. This review integrates the literature on information systems and computer science to summarize managerial and technological mitigation measures that enhance cloud security. The analysis uncovers gaps regarding the empirical investigation of security considerations in the corporate decision-making process. Specifically, the micro level of how security comes into play in the decision-making process and whether mitigation measures proposed by scholars are practically feasible requires further investigation. Furthermore, the macro level, how stakeholders perceive cloud sourcing, is not yet well understood. KW - Cloud Computing KW - Security KW - Risks KW - Mitigation KW - Cloud Computing KW - Datensicherheit Y1 - 2019 UR - 10.1109/CBI.2019.00036 SP - 258 EP - 267 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Do researchers investigate what practitioners deem relevant? BT - Gaps between research and practice in the field of information systems backsourcing T2 - Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (IEEE CBI 2018): Vienna, Austria, 11-14 July N2 - There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Backsourcing KW - Anwendung KW - Literaturbericht KW - Information systems KW - Backsourcing KW - Practical applicability Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI.2018.00014 SP - 40 EP - 49 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Könning, Michael A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Multisourcing on the Rise: Results from an Analysis of more than 1,000 IT Outsourcing Deals in the ASG Region T2 - Tagungsband Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2018 (MKWI 2018): data driven X - turning data into value, Leuphana Unversität Lüneburg, 6.-9. März 2018 N2 - Information technology outsourcing (ITO) has long been recognized for its numerous potential advantages such as lowering costs, accessing external skills, and improving efficiency, flexibility, and quality. However, it also exposes client companies to various risks, including vendor lock-in, poor agility, or insufficient vendor expertisein individual domains, especially inincreasingly dynamic market environments. Consequently, companies increasingly implement multisourcing by composing a “best of breed” set of vendors for their various IT services. In this paper,we use a dataset of 1,016 ITO deals closed with Austrian, Swiss, and German client companies between 2006 and 2017 to analyze the development of the ITO market in general and multisourcing in particular. Our results show decreasing services run rates, shorter contract lengths, an increasing number of concurrent service providers per client,and a distribution of the total number of contracts to a larger set of vendors, all pointing towards an increasing popularity of multisourcing. KW - Multisourcing KW - IT-Outsourcing KW - Sourcing strategy KW - Outsourcing KW - Strategie Y1 - 2018 UR - http://mkwi2018.leuphana.de/programm/tagungsband/ IS - Band V SP - 1813 EP - 1824 PB - Leuphana, Universität Lüneburg CY - Lüneburg ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Kobus, Jörn A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Lean Management of IT Organizations BT - a Perspective of IT Slack Theory T2 - Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2016), Dublin, N2 - Lean Management has been successfully implemented in production organizations since several decades. The study at hand investigates the implementation of Lean Management to IT organizations (Lean IT). The study offers three contributions: First, it explains on a conceptual level how Lean Management can be transferred from production to IT organizations (philosophy, principles, tools). Second, it provides a theoretical perspective on why Lean IT can be beneficial for IT organizations (IT Slack theory). Third, it provides insights to the stated research questions (three benefits and three propositions) from an initial case study of an internal IT service provider for a large international insurance company (> US$25 Billion revenue; >20,000 employees; active in >120 countries) and lays out the research methodology and potential focus areas for further studies. KW - Lean Management KW - Lean IT KW - IT Slack theory KW - Implementation KW - Application development and maintenance KW - Lean Management KW - Informationstechnik Y1 - 2016 UR - https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/ManagingIS/Presentations/1/ SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Bary, Benedikt von T1 - IT-Backsourcing JF - Das Wirtschaftsstudium : wisu N2 - The importance of information systems (IS) for companies has grown rapidly over the recent years. For example, companies from various industries are focusing their efforts to digitize business models, to adopt agile forms of collaboration, and to leverage automation of routine tasks. This forces companies to review their IS sourcing strategies and to potentially consider alternatives for current outsourcing contracts. One potential option could be to backsource IS services currently performed by external vendors. Based on empirical observations, previous academics defined it as the repatriation of all assets, activities, and skills needed to perform IS services back in-house, which had been outsourced previously to one or multiple vendors. The distinctive characteristic of backsourcing is the change in ownership back to the mother organization. This distinguishes the term backsourcing from similar terms, e.g., backshoring, reshoring, or relocating, which rather focus on the change in location of the service delivery. At the initial sourcing decision, the strategy to outsource an IS service was considered most promising. However, certain developments both inside the company, but also on a broader industry level may lead to a re-evaluation of the situation and thus to an adjustment of the original sourcing strategy. Over the last years, there has been a strong increase in cloud-based services and a shift towards the deployment of standardized, almost “industrialized” applications as services. Before, large companies leveraged their size in realizing economies of scale within their sourcing volumes. The raise of cloud computing as well as standardization of service delivery decreased those benefits and led towards a decline in large outsourcing contracts across a variety of services and a growth of multi-sourcing of individual IS services from the respective “best-in-breed” vendors for shorter time periods. Besides sourcing the best vendor for each service, companies that implement multi-sourcing strategies additionally aim for cost benefits due to an increased competition between vendors, and an increase in agility and adaptability. At the same time, a move towards multi-sourcing strategies with shorter contract durations leads to an increase in so-called “second generation sourcing decisions”, namely whether to continue outsourcing a respective service or to bring the service back in-house. Given the developments within the IS environment, this research projects aims at understanding why IS services are backsourced and which factors influence a company’s decision to backsource an IS service. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - IT-Backsourcing KW - Information systems KW - Outsourcing KW - Rückverlagerung KW - Auslagerung Y1 - 2019 IS - 6 SP - 702 EP - 706 PB - Lange ; Mohr CY - Düsseldorf ; Tübingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Kobus, Jörn T1 - Lean IT BT - Lean Management in IT-Organisationen JF - WISU - Das Wirtschaftsstudium KW - Informationstechnik KW - Lean Management Y1 - 2017 IS - 1 SP - 87 EP - 92 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Current state of IS offshoring research BT - A descriptive meta-analysis T2 - Mäkiö, Juho; Betz, Stefanie; Stephan, Rolf (Eds.): Offshoring of software development. Methods and tools for risk management. Karlsruhe: Universitätsverlag Karlsruhe N2 - This paper empirically examines the current state of the IS offshoring phenomenon in Germany regarding project characteristics and success patterns. Relying on a sample of 304 projects conducted at various industry sectors and companies, results show that IS offshoring primarily occurs in sectors Telecommunications and IT at large corporations. Cost reduction is the main reason for going offshore and offshore projects are executed as part of a larger program at companies. Noticeably, most projects are delivered from India. Additionally, neither captive offshoring nor offshore outsourcing dominates as a de-livery option. Comparing different project subgroups regarding project success, the results reveal that projects delivered by an internal or partially owned service provider are more successful. Other project characteristics such as a project’s embedded-ness in a larger offshoring program, a project’s size, or a project’s offshoring degree in terms of relatively offshored labor hours show few significant differences. The paper addresses the paucity of empirical research on the current state of the IS offshoring phenomenon in Germany. KW - Informationsmanagement KW - Offshoring KW - Erfolgsfaktor KW - Offshoring KW - Nearshoring KW - Informations systems sourcing KW - Outcome KW - Project success KW - Success factors Y1 - 2007 UR - http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-1/article4.pdf SP - 7 EP - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - IT Backsourcing BT - Insights and Implications From a Global Survey With IT Practitioners JF - International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance N2 - With the growing importance of IT as competitive advantage, companies aim to increase their digital transformation activities. Consequently, companies are also revisiting their existing IT sourcing arrangements. In the article at hand, the authors explore the concept of IT backsourcing by presenting the results from a quantitative online survey with global IT practitioners. The authors confirm that backsourcing is frequently applied in practice, with key reasons being dissatisfaction with service or relationship quality and higher than expected costs. Further, the authors identify IT services with an increased likelihood of being backsourced, e.g., application development or data center, and discuss the effect of a CIO change on the backsourcing decision. In addition, the authors show that there are differences in the perceptions on the antecedents and the results of backsourcing decisions between management and operational level. The authors conclude with practical implications for IT managers based on their findings. KW - Outsourcing KW - Backsourcing KW - Business-IT Alignment KW - CIO Change KW - Digital Transformation KW - Insourcing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4018/IJITBAG.2019070102 VL - 10 IS - 2 PB - IGI Global ER -