Toward a model of effective monitoring of IT application development and maintenance suppliers in multisourced environments

Abstract

Many international corporations are now adopting multisourcing approaches to information technology (IT). Multisourcing is described as the disciplined provision and blending of services from multiple suppliers both outside the company and within the company. This approach to meeting business goals is primarily concerned with the relationship between the client organization and the multiple suppliers. To date, aspects relating to performance measurement and governance have scarcely been covered in the literature, and established IT frameworks such as control objectives for information and related technology (COBIT) provide imprecise approaches for monitoring suppliers. In this study, we intend to sharpen the existing understanding of how corporations manage and monitor suppliers in a multisourced environment and of why specific key performance indicators (KPIs) are utilized. We provide insights using a real-life example of the monitoring of IT application development and maintenance (IT ADM) suppliers and suggest monitoring dimensions based on a cross-case analysis. Based on inter-rater reliability, we further derive a minimum set of corresponding IT ADM KPIs. This study is expected to help corporations facing similar challenges by providing a set of essential KPIs to monitor IT ADM suppliers.