Best Practices for International eSourcing of Software Products and Services

This paper analyzes how the information and communications technology-supported international eSourcing of software products and services (IeS) can be effectively executed. The extant literature falls short of providing a systematic and detailed enough set of best practices to guide IeS. This paper presents best practices for IeS to facilitate further research, and to help managers and other stakeholders to understand, execute, and proactively improve and manage international eSourcing. The practices emphasize the need to establish and enact rigorous, mature, and quantitatively managed eSourcing life- cycles in order to transcend temporal, geographical, social, technical, and other boundaries in IeS.