Which of the following statements about outsourcing of systems development is correct?

Outsourcing systems development to a third-party vendor necessitates a clear and unambiguous definition of business needs and requirements. This creates a critical need for a formal communication bridge between internal business stakeholders and the external development team. The business analysis function fulfills this role by eliciting, analyzing, documenting, and managing requirements to ensure the final product meets business objectives. Consequently, the rise of outsourcing has been a significant driver for organizations to establish and professionalize their internal business analysis capabilities to manage these complex supplier relationships and ensure project success.

A. Outsourcing increases the critical need for rigorous, accurate, and complete user requirements to prevent costly misunderstandings with an external team.

B. Outsourcing is fundamentally a contractual relationship, which makes effective contract management and governance more essential, not eliminates it.

D. A primary motivation for IT outsourcing is often cost reduction, which typically involves moving development to countries with lower, not higher, labor costs.

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1. Paul

D.

Cadle

J.

& Yeates

D. (2014). Business Analysis (3rd ed.). BCS

The Chartered Institute for IT. In Chapter 2

Section 2.4

"The development of the business analyst role

" the text explains how trends like outsourcing have increased the demand for skilled business analysts to act as intermediaries

ensuring clear communication and precise requirements definition between the client organization and the supplier.

2. Carmel

E.

& Agarwal

R. (2001). Tactical Approaches for Alleviating Distance in Global Software Development. IEEE Software

18(2)

22–29. This publication highlights the communication and coordination challenges in outsourced (global) development. It implicitly supports the need for a dedicated function

like business analysis

to create detailed specifications and facilitate understanding (p. 24)

which contradicts option A and reinforces the rationale for C. https://doi.org/10.1109/52.914734

3. Whitten

J. L.

& Bentley

L. D. (2007). Systems Analysis and Design Methods (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill/Irwin. In Chapter 3

"Managing the Information Systems Project

" the text discusses outsourcing as a project management strategy. It emphasizes that successful outsourcing relies on extremely clear contracts and statements of work

which are based on thorough analysis and requirements definition

thereby increasing the importance of the analyst's role (p. 80-81). This directly refutes options A and B.