商用軟體商國際外包策略之研究

Abstract

隨著網路科技與全球化趨勢的發展，在軟體的世界裡，國與國之間的距離也逐漸縮短。印度軟體代工產業的興起，就是最佳的例證。將軟體生產移往人力成本低的國家，固然可為軟體廠商降低生產成本，但境外生產的模式卻也可能為商用軟體商提高交易成本與風險。因此，商用軟體廠商如何有效地控制境外生產的交易成本，就成了一個有趣的議題。本研究透過交易成本理論、統治理論與競爭策略的理論架構，探討商用軟體商在進行國際外包時的各種考量因素、交易成本與統治模式等，期能提供台灣商用軟體商做為建構策略之參考。 從知識經濟的觀點研究商用軟體的產業結構與生產模式，發現商用軟體的生產是依比較利益進行跨國專業分工，以有效降低生產成本。當商用軟體商決定採行國際外包策略時，就必須面對境外生產交易成本的提高。本研究進一步以統治理論探討商用軟體商進行國際外包時的各種統治模式，並對商用軟體商選擇適當的統治模式作出策略建議。最後，經由研究發現CMMI認證是以降低資訊不對稱及作為衡量自身能耐標準的方式，來降低國際外包的交易成本。 針對商用軟體商的國際外包策略，本研究歸結以下幾點結論：1）商用軟體商可依比較利益進行跨國專業化生產，以降低生產成本；2）軟體境外生產的統治模式有境外市場機制、境外完全委外、境外駐點委外及境外自製等模式；3）為有效降低跨國生產的交易成本，商用軟體商必須依當地國的智慧財產權法及勞工保護法選擇合適的統治模式；4）CMMI可做為溝通信息，對外降低資訊搜尋的成本，對內可做為衡量自身能耐的標準。最後，本研究建議，商用軟體商在發展初期應以產品創新及提高自身能耐為主，待產品進入成熟期，方以成本做為競爭優勢的來源。

With the development of networking technology and globalization, the distance between countries is getting shorter in the software world. The emergence of India software industry due to global software outsourcing is a critical example. Moving software production to a low-labor-cost country can help software vendors to reduce production costs, but may also increase transaction costs at the same time. Therefore, it is an interesting issue how software vendors can governance the offshore production activities effectively. The present research attempts to review this issue from various theoretical angles, including international economics, transaction costs theory, governance theory and competitive strategy framework, with a hope to provide useful suggestions to Taiwanese business software vendors. From knowledge economics perspective, software productions can adopt different modules and can be specialized based on comparative advantages. However, when software vendor lowers production costs with offshoring, the transaction costs may increase. The present research reviews various governance models of offshoring and has recommendations on the decision making processes. Besides, we found CMMI is a good signaling device for reducing the level of information asymmetric and to reveal vendors’ competence. For the offshoring strategy of business software vendors, our research found that: 1）Business software vendor can have offshore specialized production based comparative advantages to reduce production costs；2）There are four governance models of offshoring, including offshore market, offshore outsourcing, offshore on-site outsourcing and offshore in-house production；3）In order to reduce transaction costs effectively, business software vendors have to choose the best governance model based on local IP and labor laws；4）CMMI as a signaling can reduce the information searching cost and can be a useful reference for vendors to review their competence. At the end, we suggest business software vendors should focus on innovation advantage at the initialing stage and focus on cost advantage at the mature stage.