MIS Research Center Seminar Series

Date: November 21, 2003

Topic: "Interpreting and Managing the Business Risks in International Outsourcing"

Featured Speaker: Matt Hunt, Morgan Stanley Vice President of Information Technology Resource Management Group

Abstract

In the past three years, American firms have been increasingly making the choice to outsource IS development and IT support to foreign countries, in an effort to control costs and improve on-time delivery of software that meets the mark in terms of quality. Some knowledgeable observers point to India and China as offshore locations that offer some of the best new development talent—with the potential to become even more competitive than the high quality software development human capital that is currently available in North America.

This seminar will feature Morgan Stanley Vice President, Matt Hunt, a specialist in outsourcing and vendor management. He will present his personal perspective on recent trends and developments in international outsourcing, based on his experience over the last five years at the New York-based financial services powerhouse. A central message associated with his interpretation of what has been happening involves his assessment of the critical business risks that are inherent in international outsourcing, and the management strategies that are necessary to keep them under control. This background will be set up a “business case” that seminar participants will discuss in breakout sessions, and in a final plenary session.

In addition to Matt Hunt, MISRC Director Rob Kauffman will briefly present a related managerial perspective that argues in favor of applying “portfolio management” principles, including risk frontier analysis, risk and diversification thinking, and performance variance drivers, as a means to diagnose and control organizational exposure to the multiple risks of outsourcing. MISRC Research Project Members and IDS Department doctoral students, Kunsoo Han and Bin Wang, will also participate and facilitate. Kunsoo Han will discuss recent advances in IS research that will lead to new thinking about how to make outsourcing vs. build-to-own decisions for application software and key elements of IT infrastructure. Bin Wang will provide a brief overview of what’s going on with software outsourcing to China and other Southeast Asian countries, and offer some of her thinking on opportunities for geographical diversification of risk.

Format

The format of the seminar will involve presentations as well as facilitated discussions among seminar attendees.

Biographies

Matt Hunt has been the Vice President in Morgan Stanley's Information Technology Resource Management Group over the last 6 years. He has helped to build an IT outsourcing program that now supplements Morgan Stanley's already robust employee staffing model. The Resource Management Group in which Matt works covers all aspects of outsourcing relationships. These areas include internal client coverage, vendor selection, contract and rate negotiation, risk management, infrastructure deployment, internal accounting and controls, day-to-day vendor management, vendor performance analysis, and development of the Firm's IT sourcing strategy.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Matt worked in IT systems development and internet technology consulting. Matt holds both a BS in Management Information Systems and an MBA in Strategic Management & Organization from the Carlson School of Management.

Robert J. Kauffman is Professor and Chair, Department of Information and Decision Sciences, and Director of the MIS Research Center . He is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder (BA), Cornell University (MA) and Carnegie Mellon University (MS, PHD), and has worked in international banking in New York City, and as a faculty member at New York University and the University of Rochester, prior to joining the University of Minnesota. His teaching interests focus on senior management issues in IS, business value of IT, technology investment and adoption decision-making, business policies relative to technology standards, and organizational, strategic and economic analysis of IS. His IT industry expertise is primarily in the areas of banking, securities markets and financial services; electronic markets on the Internet and in e-procurement; the hospitality, travel and airlines industries; and IT strategic planning and financial evaluation. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic conferences, and his perspectives on IT in organizations and research articles have been widely published in leading management journals. He recently received a “Best Research Paper Award” at the annual Institute for Management Science's Conference on Information Systems and Technology (INFORMS CIST) in mid-October 2003 for his work on the economics of strategic information sharing by firms that use inter-organizational information systems approaches in supply chain management and e-procurement. He also recently chaired a research symposium on “Revolutionary Strategies for Research Design and Data Collection for E-Business Management Research” at Carnegie Mellon University , as well as the E-Business Management Research Track at the International Conference on Electronic Commerce, Pittsburgh , PA , October 2003. Finally, he also co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Management Information Systems on “Competitive Strategy, Economics and Information Systems” that appeared in mid-October 2003.

Kunsoo Han is a PhD candidate in Information and Decision Sciences at the University of Minnesota . He received his B.S. and M.S. in Management Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His current research interests include economic analysis of interorganizational systems and B2B electronic commerce.

Bin Wang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information and Decision Sciences. She is a graduate of Purdue University, and a past graduate of Renmin University in Beijing, China. Her research interests focus on the performance of IT-focused firms, the analysis of electronic marketplaces and the new business models of the Internet, and the applications of theory and methods from marketing science, strategic management, economics and biostatistics. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Management Information Systems, First Monday, and several conference proceedings. She was also the co-editor of a special section in the Fall 2003 issue of the Journal of Management Information Systems.