In addition, the contract must ensure the buyer can import its data from the old ASP in a form it can use. This should also be spelled out in the outsourcing contract, Alpert says. He's seen instances where the ASP handed over the data all right, but it was in a form that was not readily importable to the buyer's IT platform. That made the transfer all but useless.
Reliability is crucial, too.
ASPs have to guarantee a certain percent of availability. Buyers must have the ability to bring a claim against the ASP for the damage they have suffered while the ASP site was unavailable. Alpert suggests that ASP buyers check to see if their outsourcing provider has liability insurance which covers IT errors. He suggests asking the ASP to produce a certificate of insurance before signing an outsourcing contract. The reason for the insurance is that many ASPs are young companies whose revenues can to be small.