Critical Barriers for Offshore Software Development Outsourcing Vendors: A Systematic Literature Review

Software development outsourcing is a contract-based relationship between client and vendor organisations in which a client(s) contracts out all or part of its software development activities to a vendor(s), who provides agreed services for remuneration. The objective of this paper is to identify various barriers that have a negative impact on software outsourcing clients in the selection process of offshore software development outsourcing vendors. We have performed a Systematic Literature Review process for the identification of barriers. We have identified barriers `language and cultural barriers´, `country instability´, `lack of project management´, `lack of protection for intellectual property rights´ and `lack of technical capability´ that are generally have a negative impact on outsourcing clients. The results also reveal the similarities and differences in the barriers identified in different continents. We suggest vendors have to address different barriers in order to compete in the offshore outsourcing business.