Electronic Government Outsourcing Issues in Malaysia

Abstract

In today's knowledge-driven economy, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are major enablers in all sectors particularly in government departments. Furthermore, it is infinitely acknowledged that information is power, thus, in keeping up with the ICT evolution, the transformation to e-government has continued to be Malaysia's main agenda for economic resilience, capacity building and social capital integration. However, not all government agencies are able to offer the core e-government services to the public as cost, legacy systems and advance ICT skills are the main barriers. Therefore, agencies have to resort to outsourcing where another set of issues have to be contended with. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to provide preliminary insights on a case study of a federal agency's issues with outsourcing, specifically by assessing the feasibility of outsourcing an agency's core e-services including other aspects of backsourcing or insourcing. Also, the findings from the qualitative inquiries and analyses would provide a new framework on outsourcing issues, particularly for e-government services. The implications of this study is that online public services are crucial to a country's socio-economic development as this offsets other important agenda to catapult the country's growth and wellbeing toward Vision 2020 as well as to sustain these positive developments. Also, the ripple effect of an effective and efficient e-service delivery will certainly affect other national issues such as citizen integration, public well-being, international relations, and political stability.

Exploring the Factors that Influence the Success of Insourced Government ICT Projects

“…RELATED WORK Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are major enablers in private and government sectors in today's knowledge-driven economy (Samsudin et al, 2013). ICTs in government ISs are used to provide an online service and to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions (Ahmad & Othman, 2007).…”

“…The three types of ICT projects development and implementation, are insourcing (internal personnel); outsourcing (external services); and co-sourcing (external services with an internal expert) (Ahmad Nawi et al, 2012). As previously mentioned, few studies address insourcing of large-scale government IS because most studies conducted more focused on outsourcing, whether in public or private sectors (Arshad et al, 2010;David et al, 2007;Samsudin et al, 2013). Insourcing an IS is the use of internal IT officers (in Malaysia, government staff members who are graded above clerical staff are titled officers) to continue the system development and maintenance.…”

Client’s Readiness Assessment Success Factors for Outsourcing Software Projects

“…Various studies have been conducted which directly or indirectly emphasize the factor or elements that organizations should consider and react as a player in the outsourcing activities [4] There are also some studies on the readiness approach [14], [15] and models to measure either the success and/or readiness towards certain concepts. The purpose of the model varies depending on the concepts that are going to be taken.…”

“…Effective and successful implementation of IT projects in the private and public sectors may offer opportunities and make economies more competitive [3]. In the government of Malaysia (GoM), although IT is generally not involved in creating competitive advantage, it is still viewed as a primary mechanism for creating more efficient service organizations [4]. According to The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) [5], the need has arisen for an IT service in the GoM to be outsourced or handled by external parties in order to fulfill the demand for better government services, quickly and effectively at anytime and anywhere.…”

Analysis of IT Multisourcing Practice in a Telecommunication Company

“…Attempts have been made to benefit from IT outsourcing by reducing operational costs involved in IT development and maintenance in such industries as government (Samsudin et al 2013), healthcare (Roberts et al 2013). With the help of publicized multi-billion outsourcing deals, most industries started to experience with IT outsourcing.…”