Developing a Maturity Matrix for Business Process Outsourcing

Abstract

Organizations are outsourcing processes to save costs. Most organization do not achieve the anticipated cost savings which is typically the main driver. Research shows that a level of readiness is required to achieve success in BPO projects. The level of readiness is inter alia determined by processes readiness. Process readiness is also described as the formalization of the processes. Organizations find difficulties formalizing their processes. One of the reasons is that the decision steps within the processes are a nexus of governance and regulatory compliance objectives. Business rules are applied to the decision steps within the processes. Since changes occur most often in business rules it is recommend for organization to have their change management focusing on business rules. Maturity in business rules increases a firm-level agility, rapid rule updates, improved multi-channel management, greater control of business rule updates by the business staff, reduced system development, in addition to significant improvements in rule consistency, accuracy and reliability (Morgan, 2002). To become mature in business rules, strict governance is required. The research focuses on the structure of business rule governance to achieve organizational readiness for BPO. A design research is conducted to develop a maturity matrix in business rule governance. The results of the thesis project describe the first steps in implementing a business rule approach to achieve a level of agility which corresponds with a required organizational structure to achieve readiness for BPO projects.