From Fragmented to Integrated IT Service Delivery: Identifying Coordinating Challenges

Previous research identified that the delivery of integrated IT services requires intensive coordination. The aim of this research is to create a deeper understanding in how a vendor coordinates the delivery of integrated IT services to their clients as part of an outsourcing arrangement. This paper presents the results from an explorative empirical study, based on four vendors in the field of IT outsourcing. Our findings are twofold. First, as vendor organisations can be characterised as highly fragmented monolithic systems, our study reveals that the coordination process within and between units and subunits often results in a struggle to deliver integrated IT services. Secondly, we found that all vendors under study organised the orchestration role within their Delivery organization. More specifically, the unit that is most involved in the delivery of integrated IT services is responsible for the coordination activities. Since the topic of coordination from the perspective of vendors has hardly been researched, our research aims to contribute by partly filling this gap.