APPLICABILITY OF COBIT IN MANAGING OUTSOURCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACTIVITIES: AN INVESTIGATION BASED ON TWO MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES APLICABILIDADE DO COBIT NA GEST O DE ATIVIDADES DE TECNOLOGIA DA INFORMA O TERCEIRIZADAS: UMA INVESTIGA O COM BASE EM DUAS EMPRESAS MULTINACIONAIS

When a company decides for IT outsourcing, it needs to deploy efficient control mechanisms, once the third party will be working directly with one of its most important assets, i.e., its information. Among the several sets of practices that intend to help managing IT activities, COBIT stands out for making a wide range of applicable control resources available to deal with outsourcing among other issues. In this context, the goal of this research is to analyze how the COBIT framework can help improving management processes of outsourced activities for both involved companies. Methodologically, this research was conducted through interviews with specialists and a case study, analyzing how the involved organizations can improve their relationship with each other. Data collection involved interviews with managers, document analysis and observation. The authors tried to identify which COBIT dimensions, processes and detailed control objectives are more appropriate for outsourcing situations. Improvement opportunities where identified in the studied processes, as well as actions that promote the use of COBIT. The main results involve the development of a procedure for process selection, which is directly applicable to outsourcing situations, as well as recommendations on necessary improvements in the application of each COBIT process, in order to increase the effectiveness of management of the outsourcing relationship. Ao terceirizar opera es de TI, as organiza es precisam ter mecanismos de controle eficientes, uma vez que a empresa terceirizada estará atuando diretamente em um dos seus ativos mais importantes, que é a informa o. Entre as melhores práticas disponíveis, o COBIT disponibiliza uma ampla gama de recursos de controle aplicáveis a vários cenários, inclusive o de terceiriza o. Neste contexto, o objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar como o framework do COBIT pode auxiliar no aprimoramento dos processos de gest o das atividades terceirizadas tanto pela empresa terceirizada e aquela que terceiriza o servi o. Metodologicamente, esta pesquisa foi operacionalizada por meio de entrevistas com especialistas e estudo de caso, analisando como uma organiza o (terceirizada) pode melhorar a rela o com a empresa cliente (terceirizadora). No caso analisado, as técnicas de coleta de dados foram a entrevista (com gestores das empresas), análise de documentos e observa o. Visando refor ar a aplicabilidade da proposta, buscou-se identificar quais dimens es, processos e objetivos de controle detalhados s o mais adequados a situa es de terceiriza o. Foram identif