1、 1 外文题目： Classfication of Outsourcing Phenomena in Financial Services 出 处： Institute of Information Management 作 者： Braun Christian,Winter Robert 4 CLASSIFICATION OF OUTSOURCING CASES Current outsourcing phenomena are described and conceptualized in this section on the basis of the framework propose
2、d above. In addition, these are illustrated using case examples. Table 2 shows a summary of the outsourcing phenomena and cases described in this section in accordance with the four dimensions. 4.1 IT Outsourcing In the case of IT infrastructure outsourcing, the service provider takes on the operati
3、on and maintenance of the service customers IT systems. The service provider 2 is responsible for the customers computer and/or communications systems as well as their data center. In most cases, the service provider also takes on the companys internal IT personnel.Long-term contracts of up to ten y
4、ears and usually a very high order volume are characteristic of IT infrastructure outsourcing. The services provided are very strongly adapted to the needs and requirements of the customer (one-to-one approach). The chosen degree of independence in the case of IT infrastructure outsourcing can be ei
5、ther spin-off or outsourcing. In many cases, the IT infrastructures are not outsourced to a legally independent, external service provider but spun off to form a subsidiary or capital investment. An example of IT infrastructure outsourcing is the contract which the Deutsche Bank concluded with IBM i
6、n 2002 (Donath, 2002). Shared Hosting denotes the standardized provision of data center services by a specialized service provider for various customers (Riedl, 2003, p. 8). Unlike IT infrastructure outsourcing, the service individualization between service provider and customer is consequently low
7、(one-to-many approach). In the technical literature the term “platform operations” is normally used for this form of outsourcing. Data center services are often spun off to a subsidiary or capital investment which also offers its services to third parties. At the level of the IT infrastructure, the
8、Winterthur Group, for example, has already been practicing outsourcing for many years (Winterthur, 1999). Another special form of IT outsourcing is application service providing (Kern et al., 2002). In this case, applications and the associated IT infrastructure are outsourced to an external service
9、 provider as part of a license agreement (Knolmayer, 2000, p. 443). This usually involves external outsourcing. The external service provider makes standard software with a low level of customizing capability available to various customers (one-to-many approach) and operates this in a central data c
10、enter. The provider takes care of the license, operation and maintenance of the software, and is responsible for user service. The users access the application via the internet. The application is licensed to the customer and is usually paid for on a per user and per month basis. There are already a
11、 large number of ASP solution providers in the 3 market. These include both pure ASP providers who market their own software as an ASP solution, and sales artnerships with established software manufacturers such as Microsoft, Peoplesoft and Siebel. The customer profile of ASP providers essentially c
12、onsists of small and medium-sized businesses for whom own development and own operation of the application would not be commercially viable. The ompany S whose customer base includes small businesses in the financial services sector can be cited as a case example of application service providing. Th
13、ey offer their own, customizable online CRM solution (Customer Relationship Management) which can be used to organize and manage customer data (S, 2003). In the case of application hosting a customized standard software is made available to a specific customer (one-to-one approach) and operated by t
14、he service provider in a central data center. The service provider is responsible for customization, operation, maintenance and user service. Contrary to the ASP approach, however, the customer possesses the software license and accesses the application via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and a perm
15、anent line. In addition, the software is usually customized to suit the special requirements of the customer. The chosen degree of independence in this case is normally outsourcing. Cortal Consors, one of the leading online brokers and financial services specialists in Europe, has concluded an outso
16、urcing contract with TDS, for example, a provider of application hosting for SAP systems (TDS, 2002). 4.2 Business Outsourcing A new and as yet not fully mature form of outsourcing is the provision of web services. From a technical point of view, web services are self-descriptive software components
17、 which possess a functionality packaged behind standardized interfaces and are loosely linked (Alt et al., 2003, p. 66). From a business point of view, web services perform a clearly definable task in a business process (Alt et al., 2003, p. 66). This means that parts of a business process can be outsourced, i.e. procured externally. In this case, we therefore talk of outtasking and not business process outsourcing. Web services are reusable, largely automated and can be used individually or as a
