Knowledge Transfer in IT Service Provider Transition

Although outsourcing Information Technology (IT) services brings benefits, it might cause loss of knowledge and dependency of the contractor in relation to the service providers. When a transition occurs between providers, knowledge sharing is essential for the contractor and to the new contracted. This paper presents the proposal, execution and evaluation of a knowledge transfer process to the transition phase of a contract. A case study was conducted in a Brazilian Federal Government Organization during a contractual transition. Data collected from two projects allowed the evaluation of the proposed process. It was observed that the training activities performed, and the granting of access to process information and to the services to be transferred were essential to an effective know ledge transfer. Although this work is a study of a single case, it was observed that the process could be generalized to service provider transitions involving contracting organizations of IT services.