Critical Success Factors for Offshore Software Development Outsourcing Vendors: An Empirical Study

Abstract

AbstractCONTEXT – Offshore software development outsourcing is a contractual business of high quality software production with significant cost-saving.OBJECTIVE – The objective of this research paper is to analyse the factors that influence software outsourcing clients in the selection of offshore software outsourcing vendors.METHOD – We have performed questionnaire surveys with 53 experts. We asked the participants to rank each success factor on a five-point scale to determine the perceived importance of each success factor. Our survey included success factors identified in the previous findings of systematic literature review study.RESULTS – Our study reveal both cost-saving and appropriate infrastructure as the most influential factors in the selection of outsourcing vendors. Our results also indicate that appropriate infrastructure, cost-saving and efficient project management are common success factors across different groups of practitioners.CONCLUSIONS – Cost-saving and appropriate infrastructure should be considered as the prime factors in the selection process of software development outsourcing vendors.KeywordsSoftware DevelopmentSuccess FactorSystematic Literature ReviewCritical Success FactorLevel ExpertThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.