An Assessment of the Factors that Lead to Outsourcing of Service Provision in Makerere University

Abstract

This study assesses the causes of outsourcing in Makerere University. The specific objectives were; 1) to identify the factors that lead to outsourcing in Makerere University, 2) to identify the problems associated with outsourcing in Makerere University. The third and last objective was to identify the strategies used to solve the challenges associated with outsourcing at Makerere University. The study collected and analyzed data using quantitative method of data collection and analysis through survey questionnaires collected from a sample size of 96 employees of Makerere University. The study found out that the factors that lead to outsourcing are; need for saving on labour costs, the need for Improved quality, Need for effective communication, the need for products that are not produced by the outsourcing firm and the desire of risk sharing between the outsourced company and the sourcing company, then the challenges associated with outsourcing are; Outsourcing providers not keeping confidential information for Makerere University, Hidden costs like variation that the providers always exaggerate hence leading extra costs, Outsourcing providers assigning duties to the subordinates who do less than required and Writing poor contracts that leads to cost over estimation or under estimation. Then strategies for dealing with the challenges associated with outsourcing are; setting up laws and regulations for outsourcing practices, framing of service level agreements and employment of experienced outsourcing service providers. The study concluded that; outsourcing is influenced by different factors, is associated with different challenges and there are available strategies to solve the challenges associated with outsourcing as some factors, challenges and strategies indicated a significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables while others did not. Therefore the study recommended that; Outsourcing should be only done to products and services that cannot be delivered without outsourcing, the university should only outsource if the cost benefit of outsourcing is big and tendering should be adopted by the university so that several bids can be got by the university so that better providers can be adopted