Research Proposal: Challenges of Business Outsourcing Strategies

This research proposal investigates the critical challenges that undermine the success of business outsourcing strategies. It begins with an introduction highlighting the dual nature of outsourcing, where it can lead to business profits and sustainable growth or failure. The project objective is to examine the key causes of outsourcing failures within organizations. The scope includes identifying drivers that contribute to these failures, providing valuable insights for corrective decision-making. The literature review covers the benefits of outsourcing, such as improved efficiency and reduced costs, while also acknowledging potential drawbacks like reputational damage and security risks. The research questions explore the main causes of outsourcing failure, including managerial, technical, and socio-cultural factors, and the resulting disadvantages. The research design employs a case study-based analysis using both primary and secondary data, including case studies of failed outsourcing implementations, court cases, and existing literature. The methodology involves data collection, analysis, and triangulation to ensure validity and reliability. The proposal also includes a time schedule and a reference list, concluding with a Gantt chart for the research plan.

Running Head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL 1
RESEARCH PROPOSAL

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................3
1.1 Project Objective.........................................................................................................3
1.2 Project Scope...............................................................................................................3
2. Literature Review...............................................................................................................3
3. Research Questions/Hypothesis..........................................................................................4
4. Research Design and Methodology....................................................................................4
5. Research Limitations..........................................................................................................6
6. Time Schedule (Research plan)..........................................................................................6
7. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................6
8. Reference List.....................................................................................................................6
9. Appendix.............................................................................................................................7

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1. Introduction
There are numerous examples of organizations who have gained business profits and
sustainable growth due to business outsourcing. On the other hand, there are
someorganizations who have failed to extract the advantages offered by the strategy of
business outsourcing. This research work aims to examine the key challenges or shortcoming
that makes the business outsourcing strategy to fail in the organization.
1.1 Project Objective
The main objective of this research is to examine the challenges that make the business
outsourcing strategy a difficult one and thus makes the decision of business outsourcing a
failure for the organization. This research thus examines the main causes of the failure of the
business outsourcing in the organization.
1.2 Project Scope
This work shall give the list of drivers that lead the organizations towards a failure business
outsourcing strategy. Through this research,many organizations can get proper insights
related to business outsourcing and thus can make corrective decisions for business
outsourcing strategy.
2. Literature Review
Business outsourcing is a strategic business strategy that has proven to be very useful in
terms of improved efficiency, improved company focus, improved revenues, improved
flexibility of doing work and reducing operational costs ( Ahonen et al, 2010). On the other

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hand business outsourcing if not implemented properly can result in loss of reputation to the
business, lack of employee motivation, loss of jobs, security risks to the data of the business
and customer conflicts. Thus, it is necessary that organizations make effective business
outsourcing strategy to exploit the advantages it offers to the organization (Hanafizadeh et al,
2017; Aziati et al. 2010; Massini et al, 2012).
3. Research Questions/Hypothesis
Primary Question
RQ: 1 What are the main causes of the failure of the business outsourcing in the
organization?
Secondary Questions
RQ: 2 What are the main managerial, technical and socio cultural factors in the strategic
outsourcing decision project that cause the outsourcing decision to fail?
RQ: 3 What are the disadvantages due to the failure of the outsourcing strategy on the
organization?
4. Research Design and Methodology
To examine the main factors which cause the strategic outsourcing decision to fail, the
research methodology employed is the case study based analysis. The case study based
research methodology allows observing, exploring and explaining various concepts within
the real-life setting and thus gives agreater understanding of the causes that lead to the
expected outcome. In this methodology number of cases related to the research is examined.

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This research thus makes use of qualitative evidence where the data is collected from the case
studies of business outsourcing implementation in some organization. From the literature
review, it is clear that business outsourcing is a business strategy that offers multiple
advantages and when implemented in wrong way leads to failure of the business. Thus, for
the purpose of this research few failed implementation of business outsourcing are examined
and the reasons fortheir failure are assembled and analyzed.
Primary data: the primary data comes from the examination of the case studies of failure
business outsourcingorganizations. There are reports on the failure incidents of the
outsourcing, evidence related to the causes of failure produced in court cases and reports of
failure statistics etc. This becomes the main source of analysis.
Secondary data: from existing literature the disadvantages of the business outsourcing gives
insights on what happens if this strategy goes wrong. From this data, qualitative analysis key
variables are devised for examining the case studies. This data is collected from existing
literature review, publications, recognized websites and organization websites.
Data analysis:The key variables formed from the secondary data are collected and the case
studies are examined with respect to these variables. This data is coded into the table and is
used for triangulation. Then a cross case examination is done to understand the causes of the
failure of the strategy of business outsourcing (Lacity et al, 2011).
Validity and reliability: To ensure that the research is a valid and reliable one the research
makes use of data published in the court case proceedings, in media reports, on websites of
the organizations and through reputed and recognized publications (Saladana & Johnny,
2012).

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5. Research Limitations
There are many cases of business outsourcing failure and the disadvantages suffered by these
organizations. It is not possible to explore all these organizations.
6. Time Schedule (Research plan)
Tasks Number of days
Preplanning 2
Literature review 7
Finalizing research questions 2
Methodology selection 3
Data collection and Processing 7
Analysing the data 5
Reporting 4
7. Conclusion
There are many organizations who have failed to extract the benefits of outsourcing due to
improper planning, improper management and control, and many other reasons. This research
work gives the details on why business outsourcing fails and what are the disadvantages it
can cause to the organization after failure.

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8. Reference List
Ahonen, J., Savolainen, P., (2010). Software engineering projects may fail before theyare
started: post-mortem analysis of five canceled projects, Journal of Systems 83 (11)
2175–2187.
Aziati, N., Hamid, A., &Salim, J. (2010). Inter-Organizational Knowledge Transfer Through
Malaysia E-government IT Outsourcing: A Theoretical Review. Journal of World
Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, vol 4, pp 66.
Hanafizadeh, P., Zare Ravasan, A. (2017). An investigation into the factors influencing the
outsourcing decision of e-banking services: A multi-perspective framework.Journal of
Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing.
Lacity, M., Willcocks, L. and Khan, S. (2011), “Beyond transaction cost economics: towards
an endogenous theory of information technology outsourcing”, Journal of Strategic
Information Systems, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 139-157.
Massini, S. and Miozzo, M. (2012), “Outsourcing and offshoring of business services:
challenges to theory, management, and geography of innovation”, Regional Studies, Vol.
46 No. 9, pp. 1219-1242.
Saladana, Johnny (2012). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Sage. ISBN
1446247376.

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9. Appendix
Gantt chart for the research proposal
Preplanning
Literature review
Finalizing research questions
Methodology selection
Data collection and Processing
Analysing the data
Reporting
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Work Strucutre for research
Number of days
Figure 1: Gantt chart for the research proposal