THE RISE OF OUTSOURCING Outsourcing business services to help startups to survive

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to gain insight into the extent to which digitalization alleviates bottlenecks of startups through gaining knowledge and saving time and money by outsourcing non-core business services. In 2018, only 61 percent of startups in the Netherlands survived the first five years. Despite their added value, startups often face several bottlenecks. Outsourcing can decrease the bottlenecks and is becoming more tradable due to the effects of digitalization. However, non-core business services may be outsourced more easily than core business services. Therefore, the research question was: To what extent does digitalization of business services contribute to alleviating liabilities of startups through stimulating outsourcing of an increasing number of non-core business services thus creating more space for the entrepreneur to focus on core business activities? A quantitative study was conducted, based on a survey sent to Dutch entrepreneurs. The digitalization of business services and the extent to which a service relates to the non-core business do not increase the extent to which services are being outsourced. It does not alleviate the bottlenecks that enable the entrepreneur to focus on increasing the competitive advantage. However, significant relations between specific outsourced services and specific bottlenecks exist.