Abstract:
Outsourcing plays a major role in Sri Lankan telecommunication
industry by targeting cost reduction and task specialization to get the
competitive advantage over rivalries. Managed Services is one of the
most important type of outsourcing which can be predominantly seen in
telecommunication industry in the Sri Lankan context. Operation and
maintenance cost of the network elements takes a huge portion of the
total OPEX and there is a trend of outsourcing them to vendor
companies for the benefit of the operator. On the other hand the quality
of service is utmost important while looking for cost reduction as it is
the attractive part of customer engagement within the business
environment. But there is trade-off between cost reduction and service
quality of the operation. It seems to appear some issues associated with
the overall service quality of a Managed Service Contract although the
cost of operations is reduced to a certain level. Therefore, it is vital to
identify the critical factors which affect the service quality of Managed
Service Contract in the Sri Lankan context. The authors have chosen the
quantitative deductive approach and the data was gathered from 83 top
and middle level managers in the telecommunication sector who are
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directly engaged with Managed Service Contracts through a
questionnaire survey. Both SPSS and Smart PLS software packages were
used to carry out the exploratory and confirmatory factors analysis for
the initial data refinement and evaluating the overall model respectively.
Quantitative data collected via questionnaires were analysed by using
inferential techniques such as descriptive statistics and linear
regression. The customer relationship and technology transfer of
Managed Service Provider have been found as key factors on service
quality of Managed Service Contract. Further, it was found that the
relationship with the customer was the most critical factor and that
there was no reward of technology transfer mechanisms. Hence, the
findings of the research can be used by the stakeholders in
telecommunication sector to increase the service quality of the Managed
Service Contracts.
