IT Outsourcing - A Strategic Choice for KM

Even though ITC had a low infrastructure services, they performed well in their knowledge management efforts. Their outsourcing decision is likely to be responsible for it. They were able to concentrate on the particular infrastructure required for their work. In ITC, the Internet is enabling collaboration among the staff and connecting them to external sources of knowledge that used to require travelling abroad in the past.

"That used to be quite a difficult thing, it was a problem, the only way you could get access to journals would be either to go to Europe in person and then do a literature search. I normally go to Wageningen every year, that's my almamater, but now I can liase with the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. I only send keywords of research topic and they will do the relevant search and send back to me abstracts. I will request the document I am interested in and they will send it to me… I get table of contents of recent journals and if something is of interest to me, I send to them by email and they send it back to me."

ITC have extended their computing infrastructure by using the Internet to exchange files even to next door.

"…we don't want to go into the cost of having a LAN, so even for me to send things next door, I go through the Internet."

Technology is seen to a vital role in knowledge management, but that technology on its own cannot make knowledge management happen (Hibbard, 1997). This was evident with ITC: their low ranking in IT infrastructure capability did not affect their KM efforts, because knowledge actually resides in people, technology can only assist in making things work more efficiently. Moreover, there was a presence of a minimum IT infrastructure supported by their outsourcing partner, which they were able to balance with other variables as suggested by Leavitt (1965). While the availability of IT infrastructure is important, support for its applications, usage, and technical components can significantly lower its usefulness.