The trends show an increase in IT Outsourcing (ITO) use. Studies also show that the relationship between the provider and service buyer is vital to the success of an ITO. Therefore, there needs to be more knowledge about which Influencing Factors (IFs) should be considered in ITO relationships. This study aims to support ITO organizations by identifying the IFs in ITO relationships and facilitating successful outcomes and relationships in buyer-provider partnerships in ITO. The authors used a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed research literature from 2010 to March 2023 on ITO and then applied grounded theory to better understand the IFs in ITO relationships. The study demonstrates that the main factors (Ifs) in an ITO relationship are Contract, Commitment, Communication, Collaboration and Trust. Additionally, the ITO services' loss of competence and control has also been observed. The knowledge provided in this research closes the research gap. For the practitioners, it delivers influencing factors that should be considered for building or developing a better relationship with their providers. The study suggests practitioners concentrate their ITO improvement initiatives on trust, contract, and communication as the three most important impacting IF factors on ITO relationship.

Cloud Computing (CC) is an increasingly alternative for IT Outsourcing (ITO). There is a consensus that a good ITO relationship between the service buyer and provider is a prerequisite for the success of an ITO. However, there is a lack of studies concerning the relationships between large companies owned by public organizations and CC-providers in Sweden. Consequently, there is a lack of knowledge about the risks that could jeopardize relationships between companies owned by public organizations and their CC providers. Thus, this study seeks to answer the research question: “What are the risk factors to consider for building and maintaining a successful relationship between CC-providers and companies owned by public organizations in Sweden from a buyer's perspective?”. The study has identified seven most critical risk factors that should be considered to keep or build a well-working relationship between CC parties. These factors are contracts, the client's degree of expertise in IT operations, measurement problems, the Swedish Public Procurement Act, provider challenges, relatedness, and ex-ante imperfection. The findings of this study can be used by large public organizations in Sweden who plan to use or who are using CC in order to mitigate the risks in CC relationships.

Several predictions show an increase in Cloud Computing (CC) in the coming years. The risks in CC relationships can jeopardize the CC services; therefore, this research has looked to find the risk factors in CC relationships in public organizations in Sweden. A survey research strategy has been applied and the data was collected through interviews with IT decision-makers with relevant experience in CC relationships. The study has identified security as a critical risk factor. The CC clients do not trust their providers and therefore, they do not place sensitive data in the cloud. Additionally, we have found other risks in CC that are not critical, like, asset specificity, a small number of suppliers, uncertainty, relatedness, measurement problems, competences. The reason for this result is the low complexity of services in the studied public organizations. The findings of this study are several risk factors that public organizations should be aware of for improving their relationship in CC arrangements.

The cloud archetype is fundamentally dynamic for both service customer and service provider. From the provider's perspective, resources are removed and/or added irregularly and urgently together with updating of service level agreements (SLAs). However, this dynamical behavior makes contracting sophisticated. Yet, there is a lack of knowledge on how to handle these dynamics contractually. To address this knowledge gap, the authors have investigated “how to improve SLA management with dynamic SLA iterations.” For this reason, a model for cloud computing SLA negotiation is proposed to facilitate the buying organization in determining uncertainty by analyzing attributes of asset specificity and risks associated with them. Survey research has been used for testing the model. The respondents rationalized the SLA negotiation with a better cognitive understanding in all phases within the model. The study's findings could support cloud service buying organizations to minimize the risks with ever-changing requirements.

Relationship management in IT Outsourcing (ITO) is widely accepted as a prerequisite for a successful ITO. However, there is still a need for understanding the important factors that contribute to a successful ITO relationship in large companies in Sweden. Therefore, this study wants to address this knowledge gap. The studied companies are the largest ones regarding turnover in Sweden and are present in the “Large Cap” segment at Nasdaq Stockholm Exchange. The results of this research are compared with a previous study done in 2012 in large companies in Sweden. The findings show that the most important factors (from a buyer’s perspective) for a successful ITO relationship are communication; conflict and conflict resolution; trust; commitment; cooperation; and internal competence. The identified relational factors in this study contribute to ITO research and can help ITO decision-makers in large companies to have successful ITO relationships and improve their ITO.

This book addresses the buying organizations' perspective on risks, relationships and success factors for accomplishing a successful IT Outsourcing (ITO). Today’s landscape in ITO is complex and these perspectives are important in ITO and therefore there is still a need for it to be further explored. Furthermore the studies concerned the risks, relationships and success factors in ITO need to be extended in more large companies from different countries to better understand how we could improve the ITO in these companies. In order to address this issue the authors of this book have performed different studies that span about 10 years concerning the risks, relationships and success factors in ITO in large companies in Sweden. The authors have focused on both theoretical and practical aspects concerning risks, relationships and success factors in ITO and they have used transaction cost theory, agency theory and core competency theory as main theories to support their research. The data concerning this study has been collected at two different times during the last 10 years with about five years' difference between them. In this way the performed research has enabled a comparison of the data collected on two different periods in time including of the related changes. The book will help researchers in ITO as well as practitioners like ITO decision makers in large companies to understand how to mitigate the ITO risks, improve their ITO relationships and identify the ITO success factors.

A company has to operate with flexibility and cost-efficiency due to the continuously competitive business environment. Nowadays, cloud computing (CC) plays an essential part in flexibility and cost-efficiency of IT infrastructure. Companies using CC have to know how different types of contracts and their terms, modes of relationships, contract quality, and relationship management influence their CC activities. This article discusses how to build successful relationships in CC. The field of this study is CC from a service buyer perspective. The applied research strategy was survey research and the data was collected through interviews with IT managers in different medium-sized companies in Sweden. To identify and analyse the influencing factors of relationships in CC this research has used Transaction Cost Theory. The findings of this research are the identified influential factors to improve a cloud computing relationship like asset specificity, fee-for-service contracts, contract length, provider/buyer organisation sizes and the number of providers including guidelines for decision makers to strengthen this CC relationship.

There is an extensive scientific research on the disadvantages of losing competencies in IT Outsourcing (ITO). In this study we have looked exclusively at “tacit” knowledge (knowledge that is hard to transfer to another person practically or in writing) and a analyzed the skill lose in ITO in a medium-sized, governmental agency in Sweden. The tacit knowledge of the primary processes and how the information systems are used in the organization, are considered to have significant value for ITO decisions. The research problem is the lack of knowledge about how loss of tacit knowledge influences ITO. To address the problem a case study research has been used as research method and the data was collected through interviews with decision makers in a Swedish governmental agency in the process of outsourcing their IT. The study has found a few justifications for keeping tacit knowledge of secondary processes in-house, only in organizations with a high uncertainty. In fact, for highly specified primary processes, it is of advantage to keep tacit knowledge in-house. Otherwise, the focus should be on standardization and the use of best practices. The results of this research could provide guidelines to IT managers of other governmental agencies in Sweden that are having a similar organization size.

This thesis investigates large private companies in Sweden that have outsourced their information technology (IT). A considerable proportion of IT outsourcing (ITO) is unsuccessful. For IT service buyers, this could cause IT that does not fully work, entailing problems with the network, application, infrastructure and security, with serious consequences such as a loss of customers’ confidence and significantly increased costs. Therefore, the main research goal was to analyse and define ways to improve ITO for buyer organizations. This main research goal was accomplished through three research goals that are the followings: 1) To develop a method for risk assessment in IT outsourcing; 2) To identify the important factors in IT outsourcing relationship; and 3) To identify the success factors in IT outsourcing.                      

The research strategies applied in conducting this research were design science research and survey research. To achieve the first research goal, a method was developed for assessing the ITO risks, including support for mitigating these risks. This method could help both researchers and practitioners in estimating the ITO risks and in this way improve ITO. An application based on the developed method was used to facilitate the testing of this method by several ITO decision makers in large companies concerning its usability, correctness and functionality. Moreover, a study was performed to explore ITO decision makers’ acceptance of the developed method and their use of it for assessing the ITO risks.            

The second research goal investigated how to improve service buyers’ ITO relationship with their providers. A well-working ITO relationship is a critical determinant of successful ITO and is relevant to the whole ITO life cycle. This research goal was achieved by identifying and analysing the most important factors in ITO relationships, including a prioritized list of those factors that are highly recommended for use in creating and maintaining a good ITO relationship.                      

The third research goal examined how to improve ITO by identifying and prioritizing the success factors (SFs) in ITO. This research identified the ITO SFs in large companies and provided a prioritized list of them to be applied in these companies with a description of the value that they could create from implementation during the ITO life cycle. Moreover, the SFs identified in large companies were compared with those identified in medium-sized companies, which could give an indication to the researchers in this field that company size matters in regard to the implementation order of the identified SFs.              

In summary, the research presented in this thesis contributes with: 1) a method for assessing the risks of outsourcing IT and, in the case that IT has been outsourced, suggested ways to mitigate them; 2) the important factors that could improve ITO relationships and 3) a prioritized list of success factors that could improve IT outsourcing.

Denna avhandling undersöker stora privata företag i Sverige som har outsourcat sin IT verksamhet. Som vi uppmärksammade har en stor del av IT-outsourcingen (ITO) misslyckats. För köparen av IT-tjänsten kan det leda till bristande IT funktionalitet med allvarliga konsekvenser som i värsta fall leder till förlorade kunder och betydande kostnadsökningar. Därför är det övergripande forskningsmålet är att analysera och fastställa hur ITO:n för köparen av IT tjänsten kan förbättras. För att lösa det övergripande forskningsmålet forskningen undersökte: 1) Utvecklingen av en metod för att bedöma riskerna med IT-outsourcing; 2) Identifiering av de viktiga faktorerna inom IT-outsourcingsrelationer; och 3) Identifiering av en lista över framgångsfaktorer i IT-outsourcing.

De använda forskningsstrategierna för att genomföra forskningen var ”design science research" och kartläggning. För att uppnå först huvudforskningsmålet, har en metod tagits fram för att bedöma riskerna och vägleda hur man kan minska dem. Den här metoden kan hjälpa både forskare och de som utövar IT-outsourcing med att bedöma ITO-riskerna och på så sätt förbättra sina IT-outsourcing. 

En programvara baserad på den metoden har utvecklats för att underlätta testningen av metoden vilket har genomförts med IT beslutsfattare på stora organisationer, beträffande användbarhet, korrekthet och funktionalitet. Dessutom har en studie utförts för att bedöma om programvaran kan accepteras av IT beslutsfattare och få reda på om de skulle använda metoden för att bedöma ITO riskerna.

Det andra forskningsmålet har undersökt hur köparna av den outsourcade IT-tjänsten kan förbättra relationen med sina leverantörer. En bra ITO-relation är en avgörande faktor för en framgångsrik ITO och den är viktig för hela livscykeln. Forskningsmålet har uppnåtts genom analys för att hitta de viktigaste faktorerna ITO-relationsfaktorer, som studien rekommenderar för att skapa och underhålla en bra ITO relation.

Det tredje forskningsmålet har undersökt hur ITO kan förbättras genom att identifiera och prioritera framgångsfaktorerna i ITO. Studien har identifierat framgångsfaktorerna i stora företag och tagit fram en lista med prioriterade framgångsfaktorer som bör implementeras i de undersökta företagen. Dessutom så har nyttan av dessa framgångsfaktorer beskrivits under ITO livscykeln. Dessutom har de identifierade framgångsfaktorerna från stora företag jämförts med framgångsfaktorerna som har identifierats för medelstora företag. Denna jämförelse ger en indikation till forskarna på det här området att prioriteringen av framgångsfaktorerna är beroende av företagsstorlek.

Sammanfattningsvis, den beskrivna forskningen i den här uppsatsen bidrar med: 1) En metod för att bedöma risker och förslag på hur minska dessa risker; 2) En lista med de viktiga faktorerna för att förbättra ITO relationen inom IT-outsourcing och; 3) En prioriterad lista av framgångsfaktorer som kan förbättra IT outsourcing.