Transition and delivery challenges of retained organizations in IT Outsourcing

Abstract

Outsourcing their IT is a difficult endeavor for many enterprises. Remaining IT organizations often face a multitude of challenges but lack the necessary capabilities for managing the outsourced services. In this paper, we provide rankings of these challenges with regard to the implementation of retained organizations and their daily business. While the most critical issues arise at the interface with the service provider, the interfaces with the own business units are problematic as well. Our findings reveal that particularly the early involvement of the own business units and the development of sufficient awareness of upcoming changes are key success factors. Our research is based on the results of an extensive explorative study. With our work, we lay the basis for a better understanding of the transition challenges of retained organizations and, thus, a mature implementation and operation of these. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.