IT Sourcing Portfolio Management for IT Services Providers - A Risk/Cost Perspective

Utilizing a global IT sourcing strategy bears enormous growth potential. With the main focus on cost reduction in valuation of sourcing alternatives, risk and risk diversification effects are often inadequately considered or completely neglected. This systematically results in wrong decisions about global sourcing. Correct decisions are in particular important for the success of IT services providers (ITSP), which are the major beneficiaries of the market growth, though being faced with intensifying competition. This paper proposes a decision model for allocating software development projects of an ITSP to available sites in a risk/cost efficient way by adapting Markowitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory to IT sourcing decision making. The suggested approach covers not only costs and sourcing risks but also interdependencies between both sites and projects. Additionally, we propose methods for quantifying the necessary input parameters. We demonstrate the practicability of our approach in a case study with data from a major ITSP

Coordinating the Relationship between IT Services Providers and Clients: The Case of Cloud Computing

The focus of this research is on the IT service relationships that exist between clients and providers in cloud computing. Cloud computing is an important context in IT services management since it has become an increasingly popular delivery model. We use coordination theory and a case study of a cloud computing-based company to investigate how cloud service relationships are managed. Evidence of both the standardized and customized relationships is based on a case study of SiteWit, a new startup company that is both a user and provider of cloud services. This company is an interesting case to study, given the real-time, intensive nature of the technical demands, the multiple service relationships that must be managed, while at the same time minimizing costs

Inter-organizational fault management: Functional and organizational core aspects of management architectures

Outsourcing -- successful, and sometimes painful -- has become one of the hottest topics in IT service management discussions over the past decade. IT services are outsourced to external service provider in order to reduce the effort required for and overhead of delivering these services within the own organization. More recently also IT services providers themselves started to either outsource service parts or to deliver those services in a non-hierarchical cooperation with other providers. Splitting a service into several service parts is a non-trivial task as they have to be implemented, operated, and maintained by different providers. One key aspect of such inter-organizational cooperation is fault management, because it is crucial to locate and solve problems, which reduce the quality of service, quickly and reliably. In this article we present the results of a thorough use case based requirements analysis for an architecture for inter-organizational fault management (ioFMA). Furthermore, a concept of the organizational respective functional model of the ioFMA is given.Comment: International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC

IT Offshoring in Tunisia: Trust Views from the Client and the Vendor Perspectives

This article is about the role played by trust in structuring and shaping offshoring processes and how cultural differences interfere and play a mediating role within these inter firms relationships. Our study conducted within three IT services providers companies established in Tunisia has provided a dataset that has first confirmed the structuring role of trust in terms of transferability effect between the client and the offshoring unit. Our findings also indicate that trust is perceived as an influencing factor when it is situated at the inter organizational level and not at the interpersonal level for all the actors, independently of their cultural affiliation (individualistic versus collectivist). Whereas, “Cultural differences” are finally not experienced the same way by our respondents, notably trust seems more difficult to settle between the Tunisian partners than between the Tunisian offshoring unit and its European clients

Noteworthy: demographics, auto industry, Texas jobs

Economic conditions - Texas ; Automobile industry and trade ; Population ; High technology industries

INVESTING IN IT: SOME CHALLENGES FOR GLOBALIZATION PROCESS IN ALBANIA

Globalization is an inevitable and irreversible process. The globalization is the philosophy that support establishment of private company (business) without boundary and in the all word. It is the irreversible process. The ideology of globalization is that the world is the big market where each company, undistinguished the country, has the access (the right) to compete without national or local boundary with the others company. The money, the technology, and the stock have moved fast between the countries. Together with products and the finances also the ideas and the cultures are moved freely. The FDI in ICT are the most important factor for the development of this sector in Albania and has more to do to stimulate the foreign investments. How it will be the process of globalization for Albania within the ICT contect of investment? Why so many multinational corporate are addressed to invest in ICT sector in Albania? How can explain the fast economic growth of ICT investment in Albania?Globalization, ICT, Investment, Albania

Creating Products in the Absence of Markets: A Robust Design Approach

The purpose of this study is to examine how firms deal with a situation of true uncertainty about their potential markets and technologies. Specifically, we ask how firms can create products when the corresponding market does not exist. Design/methodology/approach : This paper is based on a longitudinal study of a high-tech firm, combined with analysis of existing theory in Product Design and Entrepreneurship. Findings – Markets and products are usually a defining choice made early on by firms in their strategic process. Such a choice guides their development by providing a ‘stable concept' to which decisions can be related to. When markets do not exist yet, however, this approach is not effective: Early choice of products and markets limits firms' flexibility by constraining their ability and willingness to adapt, while fundamental new technical and market information is likely to emerge during the project that will prove the initial assumptions wrong."New Product Development";"uncertainty";"high-technology venture"

Creating Products in the Absence of Markets: A Robust Design Approach

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine how firms deal with a situation of true uncertainty about their potential markets and technologies. Specifically, we ask how firms can create products when the corresponding market does not exist. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on a longitudinal study of a high-tech firm, combined with analysis of existing theory in Product Design and Entrepreneurship. Findings – Markets and products are usually a defining choice made early on by firms in their strategic process. Such a choice guides their development by providing a ‘stable concept' to which decisions can be related to. When markets do not exist yet, however, this approach is not effective: Early choice of products and markets limits firms' flexibility by constraining their ability and willingness to adapt, while fundamental new technical and market information is likely to emerge during the project that will prove the initial assumptions wrong. We show an alternative approach where products and markets actually result from a generic process of products and markets exploration driven by the firm. We suggest that this approach forms a robust design in that it allows the firm to deal with the uncertainty by simultaneously developing its products and exploring markets, while preserving the flexibility to adapt to the changing environment. Practical implications – The practical implication of this paper is to suggest an alternative approach to deliberate planning in high-tech ventures. With this approach, rather than markets and products, strategy defines a market and technology exploration process. Originality/value – The paper is original in three ways: 1) It links the product design and market exploration processes in high-tech firm development; 2) It is based on an in-depth longitudinal study; and 3) It results from an academic-practitioner collaborative work.New Product Development; uncertainty; high-technology venture.

Geography and Industry Meets Venture Capital

Do certain regions inherently enjoy an advantage in venture capital investment decisions? And how do industry characteristics affect venture capital activity? These questions fall under the reemerging study of economic geography, which suggests the importance of industrial location to economic decision making. Through the lens of economic geography, this paper examines the impact of industrial and regional characteristics on venture capital activities from 1996 to 2005. Analyzing venture capital data with nineteen regions and seventeen industries, this study affirms the significance of geography and industry to investment trends in venture capital.Venture Capital, Venture-Backed Public Companies, Economic Geography, Location, Biotechnology, Business Products and Services, Computers and Peripherals, Consumer Products and Services, Electronics and Instrumentation, Financial Services, Healthcare Services, Industrial and Energy, Information Technology Services, Media and Entertainment, Medical Devices and Equipment, Networking and Equipment, Retailing and Distribution, Semiconductors, Software, Telecommunications.

Enterprise Software Licensing: New Options - New Obligations

Software licensing options for large enterprises are evolving almost as quickly as the mission-critical software solutions those companies deploy. In the past, most software licensing metrics were based on the software installation itself. Increasingly, software publishers are offer- ing more licensing options and flexibility to meet their customers\u27 software needs; however, that increased flexibility often results in complex software asset management ( SAM ) risks and obligations. Licensing models that once would have required custom agreements with unique protocols, if technologically feasible in the first place, now are offered alongside the traditional licenses in increasingly dense menus of choices for IT teams to weigh. Businesses must equip themselves to recognize the unique challenges that accompany various options in order to avoid unnecessary licensing exposure. The options available depend in large measure on the types of computers on which the software will reside. For workstations, many businesses that once relied on a one-license-per-installation model now are migrating to server-based installations accessed from terminals lacking hard drives (e.g., thin-client architectures) and to hosted software delivered through the cloud; each of these models presents unique infrastructure and licensing challenges. Server-based licensing options are complex, with many companies facing the prospect of having to determine license requirements using intricate calculations that depend on the processing capacity of the computer or on some other metric associated with a particular software product. Unsurprisingly, many companies are finding unique solutions to those challengesincluding the formation of captive IT services providers -but many of those solutions present their own sets of challenges and risks