News

On October 11, 2011, Mr Keith Cilia Debono from Malta obtained his Degree of Doctor of Business Administration.

Mr Debono successfully defended his doctoral dissertation "Competitive Potential of Small to Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) Information Technology (IT) Outsourcing Vendors in a Small State of the European Union: A Case of Malta”.

In his thesis Mr Debono investigated how IT firms exploiting the growing business opportunities arising in Information Technology (IT) outsourcing, are able to compete successfully on a long term basis, particularly if such organizations are small and operate from a small island state as in the case of Malta. He recommends that Maltese IT outsourcing vendor firms need to focus on innovation, in terms of their products, their processes and/or target markets. Such innovation increasingly needs to target specialist, niche markets. Furthermore, Maltese IT vendor firms need to take the plunge and go for more lucrative overseas ventures, rather than restrict itself to the small, intensely competitive, albeit better understood domestic market. National endowments (such as language fluency or cultural proximity) or regional (EU) or state funded programmes or incentives to foster innovation are recommended, but should not be seen as a panacea for long term competitive sustainability. On the other hand, collaboration in areas such as resource sharing even with larger, rival firms, based on carefully considered win-win based relationships, are not to be excluded. Ultimately, the Maltese IT vendor firm cannot simply rely upon the specifics of an outsourcing contract to secure its working relationship with the customer for a specific period of time. It is rather the engendering of an ongoing, informal business relationship between the vendor and the customer that is of paramount importance.