Application Software Outsourcing: Buyers Are Seeking More Expertise from Providers

To come up with a short list of the best-fit providers, users need to answer 14 critical questions in TEC’s Outsourcing Evaluation Center pre-screen questionnaire. Amongst these, four questions are related to the providers’ expertise. These areas of expertise are

• system development process expertise,
• application development expertise
• domain expertise, and
• technology expertise.

Of course, TEC’s selection service goes far beyond generating a short list of qualified providers, but the short-listing process is informative enough to provide me with a general understanding of buyer requirements of the above expertise areas.

The sample size of this data is also quite satisfying. There were 2,351, 3,619, and 6,299 comparison projects taking place in the application software outsourcing area in the years 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively.

The Rankings

The following figures show outsourcing buyers’ requirements in the four expertise areas. In each chart, expertise options are displayed in a descending manner from left to right according to the frequency that they are selected by buyers in year 2008.

Figure 1. System development process expertise.

Figure 2. Application development expertise.

Figure 3. Top 10 domain expertise.