Patent ID: 8566138
Filing Date: 2013-10-22
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A non-transitory computer program product comprising a machine readable medium on which is provided program instructions for determining an expected cost to outsource one or more tasks in a business process to a set of vendors, the computer program product comprising: code for identifying a set of base criteria of the company; code for identifying a set of risks for outsourcing each task or set of tasks in the business process, the set of risks being based, at least in part, on the set of base criteria; code for creating a first set of risks that contains risks shared by all vendors in the set of vendors; code for creating a second set of risks that contains risks associated with outsourcing the business process to a vendor in the set of vendors; code for associating one or more risks in the first and second sets of risks with each task or set of tasks in the business process to create a risk-profile; code for determining a set of probabilities that correspond to the occurrence of each of the one or more risks in the risk-profile, wherein a probability is selected for each risk from an associated probability distribution that models the occurrence of an associated risk; code for determining an estimated cost for each task or set of tasks in the business process; and code for calculating the expected cost as a function of the set of probabilities and the determined estimated cost.