아웃소싱의 서비스 수준 협약 : 개념적 모형과 성공 요인에 관한 연구

  • Published : 2003.05.01

Abstract

In late 90s, organizations recognized the information technology as an key enabler of the business strategic accomplishment which lead them heavy increment on IT investment. These organizations tried to hold the competitive advantage by focusing on their core competency. And these acts raise their interests on IT outsourcing. Recent trends of the organizations concern on evaluating the effectiveness of the previous IT investment and the reasonable selection on IT investment type. Also, the objective evaluation of the service level and continuous improvement are major concern of the outsourcer. Consequently, interests on Service Level Agreement (SLA), an immanence operating tool for managing the level of the information system service objectively and qualitatively, were raised among IT outsourcing service providers, outsourcers, and operating departments. Yet, only a few domestic conglomerates adopted the SLA, and exact usage of the SLA is currently unknown. Because of the importance of the SLA between a service provider and an outsourcer, the agreement is treated with high confidentiality. This raised the problems to both the private and public organizations, are considering the SLA, with absence of concrete guide line to internalize SLA management process. This study provides the organizational and environmental factors of the adopting and applying the Service Level Agreement (SLA) by conducting multiple case research. The sampled companies are currently implementing the SLA over 1 year of usage period. Factors were used to provide the operational contribution for implementing the SLA. The study also provides the effects on IT performance through the SLA. For this, in depth interview was conducted for each sampled company. As a result, if SLA between outsourcer and service provider can be used as an immanence operation tool and actively implemented, SLA will be an strategic tool for various decision making in IT management practice with long term relationship, better shared partnership, and continuous service improvement.

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