Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology of Technology: Business Information Systems in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology / This study evaluates the utilisation and effectiveness of contract clauses in Information Technology (IT) and Information System (IS) projects in South Africa to address and mitigate key risks associated with these types of projects. This study established whether specific clauses were being utilised to address key risks, and where clauses were being utilised, whether these clauses were effective in addressing and mitigating the impact of these key risks. The need for the study arose because the researcher had experienced on several occasions in his workplace that contracts which appeared fail-safe during the negotiation stage did not reach the proposed targets, let alone maturity of the agreement. To establish whether colleagues in similar positions in computer-based organisations experienced similar disruptions a quantitative questionnaire was distributed to organisations in the Johannesburg area to gain an insight into their risk profile. Risk could arise from the contract construction and/or wording. Reference was made to the contracts in the engineering environment where standard contracts have been in place for a number of years. Specifically the New Engineering Contract (NEC) of 2011 and the Professional Services Contract were consulted. The study concentrated on four categories of risk identified in a literature review, namely corporate management risk, project management risk, resource utilisation risk and technology risk, which resulted in 42 sub-factors examined. The population of suitable and relevant IT and IS companies could not be definitely established but the researcher made telephonic contact with known organisations and 24 participants agreed to participate in the exercise; 12 service providers and 12 clients of providers, where 78% of participants experienced one or more of the risk factors, and 53% used NEC standard contracts.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Information and Communications Technology, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2017. / The selection of an appropriate vendor from a set of competing vendors in information technology outsourcing is an essential decision for the effective and efficient management of supply chain management in a fiercely competitive environment. Given the growing and intensive applications of information technology resources to improve process efficiency, achieve growth, foster innovation and transform service delivery, the need arises to outsource the major information technology operations of an organisation, as a strategy for organisations to concentrate on their core businesses. Information technology outsourcing is an important constituent in supply chain management, because it demands effective selection of an appropriate vendor, based on multiple conflicting criteria. Supply chain management places strong emphasis on effective evaluation and selection of vendors against usually conflicting multiple criteria, rather than on cost as a single criterion upon which to base a decision. Multiple criteria generally include both qualitative and quantitative attributes, some of which can be fuzzy in nature. The overarching purpose of this research is to screen the most important criteria of information technology outsourcing for vendor selection based on expert opinions. The experts are from institutions of higher education, health, inspection and testing, property, shipping, state own enterprise, local government and transportation, who share their views regarding criteria that influence their vendor selection decision. Since the vendor selection decision is characterised by a high degree of subjectivity, interdependency and conflicting criteria, the analytic hierarchy process is applied to determine the weights of the identified criteria, evaluate and rank the potential vendors that provide information technology outsourcing services to the sampled institutions. The sample size for this research comprises 16 respondents and the 11 criteria which are cost, quality, commitment, additional resources, additional expertise, prior work, contract terms, confidentiality, location, on supplier database and black economic empowerment. Results show that quality of product is the most important attribute for vendor selection in information technology outsourcing. In addition, the study found that the sampled institutions can categorise their information technology outsourcing vendors more effectively and select a more effective supply chain partner. Moreover, the sampled institutions can provide unsatisfactory vendors with valuable feedback that will help them improve and become good partners in the future. / M