臺大管理論叢 NTU Management Review VOL.29 NO.1

Construct Outsourcing Vendor Selection Criteria for Business Intelligence 192 abilities to be possessed is an essential topic that outsourcing vendors must address to receive partnership opportunities from their clients. Although the selection and evaluation of outsourcing vendors are essential to an outsourcing process, related topics remain to be further investigated. Reviewing literature on BI shows that previous studies have mostly focused on the establishment of BI systems and the subsequent effect on business performance, but few scholars have examined methods for evaluating and selecting outsourcing vendors that provide BI installation services. In other words, there is yet a multidimensional evaluation scale with criteria for selecting such outsourcing vendors, indicating a gap in current academic research on related topics. In practice, not only do firms not have a comprehensive evaluation tool for selecting appropriate BI outsourcing vendors, but the vendors do not know what considerations are made by firms who seek to procure services through outsourcing. Consequently, the vendors cannot adjust their technology and service content to meet firms’ requirements in advance. Therefore, this study aims to establish a set of criteria for firms to select BI outsourcing vendors. This study first reviews literature related to evaluation of BI outsourcing vendors to compile related evaluation criteria, which are then revised on the basis of relevant theories and the functions and frameworks of BI. Next, the modified Delphi method is adopted to administer two rounds of questionnaire surveys, selecting criteria suitable for assessing and selecting BI outsourcing vendors. In addition, the analytic hierarchy process is used to sort the criteria by importance. The proposed criteria can assist firms in objectively choosing BI outsourcing vendors, and serve as a reference for BI outsourcing vendors to adjust their service contents and business strategies. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation tool for firms to select BI outsourcing vendors. For firms that are currently implementing BI systems through outsourcing, they can also use the tool to assess the performance of their subcontracted vendors and thereby propose improvement and suggestions. This facilitates the success of the overall outsourcing process. To BI outsourcing vendors, the evaluation criteria proposed in this study can be used as a basis to adjust their business strategies, enabling their technology and service content to further concur with their clients’ needs. Moreover, the proposed criteria are based on outsourcing vendors for implementing information systems in general, and are modified according to related theories; hence, the criteria can also be adopted to select outsourcing vendors for other types of information system. Conversely, outsourcing vendors for other types of information system can adopt the proposed criteria to adjust their service contents.