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| September 17, 2004 - Outsourcing Roundtable OUTSOURCING Research Project Description, 2004-2005Robert J. Kauffman, Director, MIS Research Center Mani Subramani, Research Project Leader, Outsourcing, MIS Research Center General Description. We would like to invite your company to participate in a new research project to be conducted by the faculty and staff associated with the MIS Research Center at the Carlson School of Management of the University of Minnesota. In May 2004, we began to implement a new business model for our research center that will involve a combination of a Friday Speaker Series on Emerging Technologies, Outsourcing and RFID, as well as Research Projects on topical themes that are of interest to our corporate members. In the 2004-2005 academic year, we will be undertaking two separate projects: one on global outsourcing and another on RFID in retailing and supply chain management . Related to the research projects, we expect to have four keynote speakers who will give Friday morning presentations on the topics: two on outsourcing and two on RFID. We also plan to have two Research Roundtable meetings for each research projects. We expect the projects to kick off in the September, October and November time frame, and conclude in April and May 2005. To ensure that the projects will be of high value to MIS Research Center corporate members, we are planning to run the projects with a fast cycle-time, and complete them in about six months. Project Topic Overview and Research Questions. The topic of outsourcing was suggested to the MIS Research Center leadership in a Spring 2004 strategic planning meeting, and in discussions that ensued during the year. This area is currently of significant interest based on the spate of news in the popular and business press about the changing directions for IT spending, IT careers and outsourcing contracts that are being signed with service providers in Eastern Europe, India, China, Vietnam and elsewhere. The shift to outsourcing has now reached the level of more than $10 billion of IT spending per year. This makes it likely to affect and shift some of the fundamental capabilities of the American economy. At the firm level, many interesting research questions were pointed out to us in recent discussions with MISRC member firms. They include: What are the factors that influence how firms can derive value from outsourcing arrangements? What will the future practice of outsourcing vendor management look like? What are the risk management approaches firms can adopt to manage the dependence on external providers and those located overseas? What are the long-term ROI implications? Another area of interest relates to the portfolio management practices for IT projects that firms undertake in light of the move to outsourcing. Finally, we have an interest in providing MISRC members with access to our ongoing research at the national level related to outsourcing trends, shifts in labor practices in the IT services sector, and how economic growth is affected in the U.S. economy. Personnel and Process. Professor Mani Subramani will be the Research Project Leader for the Outsourcing project. His expertise is in the area of organizational governance with respect to IT, management of interfirm relationships and knowledge management. He also has a special interest in studying recent developments with respect to outsourcing and offshoring of IT products and services. Professor Rob Kauffman, MIS Research Center Director, has been instrumental in the conceptualization of the MISRC's new business model, and will be a contributing participant. The process we will use for developing this fast turnaround research project is as follows. We will kick off the project in a Friday MISRC Speaker Series meeting with a keynote speaker who will help us to set the agenda for examining the major issues associated with global outsourcing and changes that affect software development and IT vendor management practices. About one week after this event, we will convene the first Outsourcing Research Roundtable, involving the research faculty with representative of interested companies. This will be a brainstorming session that will permit the participants to state their interests and offer suggestions on the goals and contents of the project deliverables. Thereafter, the research project team will begin its work, which may involve case studies, surveys and collecting real world data. In the February-March 2005 timeframe, we will invite a second keynote speaker on outsourcing, and run a 2 nd Outsourcing Research Roundtable right after that over a working lunch. We will conclude the project with project deliverables for the participants, and a plenary presentation in a Friday Speaker Series meeting during May 2005 to brief all MISRC member firms' attendees. Outcomes and Deliverables. The Research Project will provide a range of opportunities for our MISRC member firms to benefit and exchange information about the managerial and technological issues associated with outsourcing. The participants in the project will decide the specific deliverables in consultation with the MISRC Director, following consultation with MISRC member firms participating in the research. The findings of the project will be reported with appropriate presentation materials and MISRC Working Papers available to MISRC member firms. We also expect to publish papers in academic journals using the data collected in the project. We look forward to your participation and welcome your inquiries and suggestions for making this effort successful! If you have additional questions, please contact Donna Sarppo, Assistant Director of the MIS Research Center. Outsourcing Research Project Resources. |