Empirical investigation of success factors for offshore software development outsourcing vendors

Abstract

Offshore software development outsourcing is a contractual business of high-quality software production at offshore destinations with significant cost-saving. The objective of this research paper is to identify and analyse factors that are important to be addressed by vendor organisations in order to be competitive in outsourcing business. We have performed questionnaire surveys with 53 experts from a total of 20 different countries. We asked the participants to rank each success factor on a fivepoint scale to determine the perceived importance of each success factor. Our survey included success factors identified in the previous findings of our systematic literature review study. We have identified factors such as cost-saving and appropriate infrastructure, which are considered critical by the outsourcing clients. Our results indicate that appropriate infrastructure, cost-saving and efficient project management are common in three types of experts (i.e. junior, intermediate and senior). We identified cost-saving as being common in four groups of experts (i.e. developers, managers, senior managers and others). We have also identified cost-saving as being common in three types of organisations (i.e. small, medium and large). Cost-saving and appropriate infrastructure should be addressed by vendor organisations in order to compete in the offshore outsourcing business.