Introducing Intelligent Agents to Outsourcing

In the last few years, agent technology has significantly emerged as a new paradigm for software developers to solve complex problems. This paper extends the use of multi-agent systems into a new domain of outsourcing. It highlights the various issues associated with outsourcing decision making i.e. the complexity and the risks involved in outsourcing. The paper outlines the HABIO framework which proposes a triperspective approach focusing on the organisational, information and business perspective to facilitate the outsourcing decision-making and formulating an effective outsourcing strategy. The main focus of this paper is to describe how agents can assist the experts in their decision to support outsourcing. A call-centre scenario illustrating a 3-layered agent architecture is proposed which aims to capture the strategic, tactical, and communicational layers of outsourcing and supports the experts in their outsourcing decision-making.

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