IT Application Outsourcing in Europe: Long-Term Outcomes, Success Factors and Implications for ITO Maturity

Scientists developed maturity models for IT outsourcing (ITO) in the past with the aim to achieve better ITO result with it. But currently, companies and science still own no patent recipe to ensure success with ITO. The dramatic growth of ITO is accompanied by back sourcing of formerly outsourced IT functions or reports about dissatisfaction and problems with ITO. Hence, the effectiveness of existing maturity models is questioned by the author. Both these contrary trends make clear, that first an answer must be found to the fact which factors are really responsible for sustained ITO success, before these factors can be assigned to maturity levels. This paper takes up this research gap and presents the core success factors emerging from an intensive multiple case study analysis of 8 successful application outsourcing cases in 5 European banks and their temporal relevance within the generic ITO process. Implications of these results for an ITO maturity model are discussed.