ICT Services Outsourcing : A Study on Possibilities of MCDM Based Service Selection

Present dynamic business environment forces organisations to adopt new technologies in order to sustain competitive. Ideally, these IS/ICT solutions would be functional, reliable, and flexible. However, such technologies can be very expensive when owned. One of the areas that can ensure the mentioned goal is outsourcing. But how to find an optimal portfolio of ICT services? What are the decision-making factors that the manager has to take into account? And how to structure the whole outsourcing problem in the new Software-as-a-Service era? The paper discusses possible use of multicriteria decision-making methods for selecting application (ICT) services. In the first part, it briefly covers context of decision-making in relation to the actual research of application service outsourcing. In the second part, it summarizes some of the current MCDM methods, and in the third part, it outlines possible use of AHP method. Finally, it presents some remarks about future research directions. Key-Words: Services, SaaS, criteria, optimisation, outsourcing, MCDM, decision-making, IT management.