A Study of the Perceptions of IT Professionals on IT Outsourcing
Outsourcing Information Technology (IT) functions are becoming common IT strategies. Whether it is the implementation of large I.T. systems, or smaller software applications, the task is expensive, and is often a difficult process with high failure rates. Recent studies of what factors influence project management success identified 23 unique critical success factors, with good communication being one of the important factors. Yet, very often the decision to outsource appears to be poorly communicated. The impact on IT professionals’ is not good. The purpose of this research is to reveal what perceptions exist within in-house IT professionals. This research provides the results of a study completed by 120 in-house IT professionals. The majority of the respondents (94.1%) came from Government; Banking/Financial Services; Retail and Travel industries. Respondents were asked about their perceptions on IT outsourcing in terms of the benefits to the organization and to the IT professionals. A strong correlation between the employee’s perceptions on IT outsourcing and the level of outsourced IT functions within their company was identified. The results of the study also show that the perception of the staff affects the staff performance on an IT project, resulting in the greater possibility of project failure.
Dr Bernard Wong
Dr Bernard Wong is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Software Engineering from the University of New South Wales, a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Sydney and a M.Com. degree in Information Systems from the University of New South Wales. He is a Certified Quality Analyst (QAI), a Certified Software Quality Assessor (ISO9000 Auditor), and has been certified with Assessment and Workplace training. He is a full member of the Australian Computer Society (ACS), the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the IEEE.
Since 1991, Dr Wong has been engaged in teaching, research and consulting in the fields of software quality assurance, software engineering, project management, and information systems. During this time he has established new courses in Project Management and Software Quality Assurance. He has supervised a number of postgraduate research projects, and mentored a number of industry students.
Dr Wong has over twenty years of industry experience, where he has worked as a programmer, an analyst/programmer, a systems analyst, a business analyst, a project manager, and as an I.T. trainer. He has consulted to companies large and small, in both the public and private sectors. The commercial exposure has been extremely important to his academic contribution. Not only has it supplied him with many case studies, essential for relevant teaching, it has also been invaluable as a source to his research.
