Group members:

Introduction

Since the end of the eighties, outsourcing ICT-related work has become daily business for organisations. Where American firms initially were forced to expand there work towards India, outsourcing slowly changed into a potential cost-saver. Nowadays it is the global trend to expand non-core activities to third parties. This development is not only seen within the ICT-sector, other sectors also see the advantages of outsourcing. If a company, inland or abroad has more knowledge on certain business-processes, outsourcing can reduce costs, increase the speed of deliverables or enhances the quality of products.

This trend sourcing is a serious development of doing business. But how about the education on this topic? What does a graduate actually know about outsourcing? There is only one institution of higher education in The netherlands which is focusing on IT-sourcing, a specific category of sourcing. Is this enough to handle the overall quick development of outsourcing?

Problem statement

How can a higher education curriculum facilitate in its students' preparation for working in and with outsourcing and offshoring?

One of the sub questions will be:

Can a higher education curriculum facilitate in its students' preparation for working in and with outsourcing and offshoring?

More sub questions will be formulated during the workshop's preparation phase, and probably during the workshop itself.

Theoretical Framework

The scope of this research includes three variables. Two of these variables are from different perspectives. The first variable is from the perspective of the industry. The second concerns the educational sector. These two variables are indepent. the third one is a depending variable and tries to determine the size of the discrepancy between the two indepent variables.

Definitions and concepts

Knowledge requirement: Amount of knowledge necessary for working in the IT sourcing sector. This knowledge demand is usually stated from a company's perspective.

Knowledge provision: Amount of knowledge concerning IT sourcing provided by educational institutions.

Knowledge gap / discrepancy: The discrepancy between knowledge requirement and knowledge provision.

Knowledge: As defined in the Oxfor English Dictionary [1]:

expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject
what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or
awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation

Outsourcing: Outsourcing involves the transfer of the management and/or day-to-day execution of an entire business function to an external service provider.[2]

Offshoring: Offshoring describes the relocation by a company of a business process from one country to another -- typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or a supporting processes, such as accounting.[3]

Outsourcing and offshoring are used interchangeably in public discourse despite important technical differences. Outsourcing involves contracting with a supplier, which may or may not involve some degree of offshoring. Offshoring is the transfer of an organizational function to another country, regardless of whether the work is outsourced or stays within the same corporation/company. [4]

BPO - Business Process Outsourcing: a form of outsourcing which involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business function to a third-party service provider. [5]

ITO: Information Technology Outsourcing, sometimes also called IT Enabled Services Outsourcing, is a company's outsourcing of computer or Internet related work to other companies This is often work that does not require so much technical skills . The term is used in reference to Business Process Outsourcing. [6]

Theoretical model

Conceptual Model

A Knowledge Requirement relates to one or more Parties.
One or more Knowledge Provisions (partially) meet one or more Knowledge Requirements.
A Knowledge Provision has one or more Parties.
A Knowledge Discrepancy is defined by a combination of a Knowledge Requirement and Knowledge Provision
A Knowledge Discrepancies has a Priority.
A Knowledge Discrepancies can be part of a Cluster.
A Cluster has a Priority.
A Knowledge Discrepancy may have one or more Solutions.
A Solution can be part of a Cluster.
A Solution relates to one or more Parties.
A Solution has a Priority.

Research Method

In order to give an answer to our research question, data has to be gathered. We will intend to do so by means of a workshop. A group of about eight people with expert knowledge on the topic will attend a brainstorm session in which they write down all ideas, issues, scenarios etcetera. Next the items will be categorized and discussed within the group. On some items the group members will agree, on others they won’t. In the end the group should have a list of items on which they agree. This list should provide trustworthy information by which the research question can be answered. The session will be recorded and transcribed so that the exact data will be preserved. Not only the results from the session itself can provide worthy information, but also the course of the session can provide information aswell. This information might be left out unintentionally by the group. The records and transcription should provide access to this information.

Research domain

There are two main domains where the research will take place in, these are the business and the education domain. In more detail it will mainly involve the business sector that has interest or already has taken part in the outsource/offshore techniques. In the education domain the subset Dutch higher education will have the focus in our research.

The research domains are:

Business domain
- Outsource/offshore business domain

Education domain
- Dutch higher education domain

Both domains have a shared common interest, which is to better prepare students for the outsource/offshore business. The Dutch higher education will have to make sure that their students are more familiar with this business by providing them with the proper educational lectures on this matter. The business side will benefit from this by having students who will fit in this structure more easily. But they will have to make sure that their business processes will fit in the outsource/offshore sector. To realize this both parties will have to share information and knowledge on this subject to each other. This makes our research interesting for both sides.

From these two domains we can distillate the stakeholders. In the Outsource/offshore business domain we have these stakeholders:

Companies that are in the outsource/offshore sectors or that are interested in these sectors

In the Dutch higher education domain we have two stakeholders:

Higher Professional Education (HBO) and Universities

Empirical model

Our empirical model can be defined as the structure of the workshop and the selection of the participants. This structure defines not only how the data will be gathered, but also why the results are valid. First of all the workshop knows a particular selection of participants. They consist of people from the educational system as well people from the business world. This should provide the input and data to measure the opinions and views from the educational perspective as well as the industry perspective. So by this selection and mixture people with different expertise we made the variables industry perspective and education perspective explicit and measurable. To do the same for the third variable, the descrepancy, we need to define the structure of the workshop. By using a specific structure we make sure that the workshop will follow a specific path so that the data will be usable. The workshop starts with an introduction and some individual statements. Next is a brainstorm session in which all data will be gathered. To gain more detail, the group will be split up and the topics from the brainstorm session will be discussed. In the guided discussion the data will be stripped down to that explicit data on which the experts will agree. This also provides the validity for the data. Since the experts with different backgrounds agree on this data, we can make the assumption that the data is correct. The discussion between the participants representing the first two variables should give a clear view of the third variable, the descrepancy. So the descrepancy variable is made explicit through the discussion of the participants.

Our workshop will know the following format:

Welkomstwoord ( Marchel Tolboom, vice president Cap Gemini)
Introductie (prof. Andrzej K. Hajdasinski)
Start sessie
1. Individuele statements (10 min)
2. Brainstorm/brown paper session (60 min)
Pauze (10 min)
Break-out groep (30 min, om de 10 minuten roulatie van participanten over groepen)
Presentatie bevindingen groepen (20-30)
Guided Discussion (sourcing integraal onderdeel opleidingen (BW en ICT)? ) (30 min)
Conclusie (10-15 min)
Borrel

Time schedule

Date	Item	Description
2008-10-20	Location	@Cap Gemini
2008-10-26	Participants	Send invitation
2008-10-26	Conceptual Model	Including ORM-model
2008-10-27	Workshop content planning	...
...	Workshop facilities	Video camera, Beamer, Brown paper w. PostIts, Noteblocks, Handouts, Photographer

Analyzing our data

Data analysis model

Moet nog in het Engels, komt later. --Sander van Hooft 10 dec 2008 10:18 (CET)

Preference WS: Facilitator is not participant.
Topic is one entity.
Conclusion and argument separated (subtypes):
- Conclusion is a specific form of argument that is imortant to the structure of the workshop.
  - WS begins with an argument.
  - WS ends with a conclusion.
A reaction can be seen as an argument responding to another argument . A reaction can have a motivation.
- This leads to the objectification of reaction.

Results

Conclusion (in between)	Participant
The ‘gap’ rises because students are being educated too much as 'nerds' and not enough like a manager or director, outsourcings needs to be managed. Guest Lecturers	Guus
Sourcing is a process. It is necessary to understand the global process, you don't have to know all the details. So it is about requirements? Ontzuil. Iedereen moet uit zijn hokje komen en meer samenkomen.	Foppe
With only management, you can't build anything. Students have to make their own choices, will I be a generalist (manager) or will I be a specialist (builder). More internships	Ton
Met kritisch vermogen kom je er	AnneMarieke
Mens- en zelfkennis is belangrijk	Erlend
Verder kijken dan je eigen discipline	Gertjo
Bedrijven moeten openstaan voor stages	Nynke
Praktijkervaring opdoen Er is in het algemeen al een ‘gap’ tussen het wetenschappelijk onderwijs en het bedrijfsleven.	Erik
Onderwijs moet met nieuwe ideeën komen	Paul

Conclusion (end)	Participant
Don't stick in your room, but talk to others. Broaden your horizon first, then become an expert.	Gertjo
Focus on the direction of projects. It's about to give and take. (Partnerschip).	Paul
The business world has to be open for the higher education.	Nynke
I want to volunteer to contribute to a managementgame on outsourcing. In this game, one or more cases should be processed.	AnneMarieke
Create focus on selfreflection by students.	Ton
Outsourcing is an interesting subject. Try to bring the practical experience to the education.	Erik
Find the dialogue between the business world and the education. The education needs to focus on the demand and the business world needs to focus on how to express that demand clearly.	Guus
5 times Why, focus on the question "Why".	Erlend
Durf de oorzaak aan te pakken. Nu zijn we aan het lappen, maar een band kan je maar een aantal keer lappen. Stel het meer ter discussie. Durf ter discussie te stellen de politieke structuur, de onderwijsstructuur, en het praten over waarde ipv aantallen. Kijk naar de oorzaak.	Foppe
Be proactive, not reactive. Outsourcing is a never-ending story.	Andrzej

Possible Solutions	Participant
Arrange guest lecturers from business..	Guus
Students need to be taught to work in teams and familiarize themselfs quickly in certain situations. Je zou vanuit de praktijk cases kunnen presenteren aan studenten om daarmee aan de slag te gaan. Dit kan dan gecombineerd worden met de theorie op scholen. Guest lecturers Offer ‘Best-practice’ at lectures. Offer knowledge to why something goes well, but also to why something went wrong.	Erik
Teach students where to cut in the chain. Er moet partnership zijn tussen mensen die generalistisch kunnen denken en mensen welke specialistisch kunnen denken.	Gertjo
we verzamelen specialisten uit elke cyclus deze geven dan gastcolleges aan onze studenten, en dan simuleren we met de studenten een succesvol project. We besteden heel veel aandacht aan communicatieve vaardigheden.	Nynke
Doe ervaring op in de praktijk in multidisciplinaire groepen. Niet alleen theorie, maar ook gerelateerde zaken zijn belangrijk Set up an Acadamy for outsourcing. There is no need for a study in outsourcing. Het onderwijs moet inspelen op het helder zien te krijgen van deze procesketen zodat op de juiste plek kan worden door geknipt	Paul
Internships meer aandacht besteden aan generieke vaardigheden, aan probleemanalyse, keten/proces denken dan kennis op het gebied van IT gerelateerde zaken. Een modulair stelsel voor het onderwijs op basis van de fasering binnen outsourcing. Management game. Case uitwerken in stappen en rollen die overeen komen met het outsourcingstraject. De uitbestedende partij moet de vraag helder formuleren en definiëren.	AnneMarieke
Je zou studenten aan het begin van een project van te voren laten vastleggen wat ze willen leren uit het project, en na het project laten kijken wat ze geleerd hebben. Op deze manier ontwikkelen ze vanzelf reflectieve vaardigheden.	Ton
In de opleiding moet veel aandacht besteedt worden aan de vraag "waarom ?" en "hoezo ?"	Erlend

Complete Analyzed Data: PDF in Appendix

Conclusion

After analyzing the results of the workshop we came to the conclusion that all participants agree with the fact that preparation is necessary for students to face business challenges like outsourcing and that bridging the knowledge gap between on the one hand the educational domain and on the other hand the business domain is not a task merely for one party, but there has to be some form of collaboration between them both.

Suggested is that in the educational domain ICT students now have to be educated in how to be a manager instead of the so called ‘programming nerds’. Outsourcing project involve so many disciplines such as Law, Cultural studies, Business studies and ICT, which make management of, and working in such a multidisciplinary team very important for successful outsourcing projects. Also it is up to the educational system that students who graduate, have the skill to survey, analyze and find a solution for new problems.

In a fast changing global economic environment businesses have to quickly adapt to new situations and trends. This adapting is mostly learned by doing. That’s one of the mean reasons why the business is one step ahead of the educational domain if it comes to business related studies. Knowledge of how to deal with new situations and challenges is gathered in practice. By arranging guest lectures who present cases of successful and unsuccessful projects, students can acquire this knowledge which helps to prepare them for there later jobs.

References (proposed)

Sander van Hooft 18 jan 2009 00:14 (CET): Kan veel van weg...

Todd Bridgman and Hugh Willmott, Institutions and Technology: Frameworks for Understanding Organizational Change - The Case of a Major ICT Outsourcing Contract, SageJournals, The Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 2006
W.-W. Law, Globalisation, city development and citizenship education in China’s Shanghai, Elsevier, International Journal of Educational Development 27, 2007
Drs. H. ter Beek, drs. Dekker, drs. Weening, dr. Mevissen, Offshoring in de Nederlandse ICT: grenzeloze kansen?, rapport in opdracht van de Raad voor Werk en Inkomen, 2005
Giarta, Outsourcing Performance 2008, Morgan Chambers, 2008
How to organise a workshop

Appendix

Workshop

Notulen Meetings

Deelnemers: toegezegd

Naam	Organisatie	Overige Info
Andrzej K. Hajdasinski	Nyenrode. Capgemini	Professor aan de Nyenrode Business University, specialisatie: outsourcing
Guus Delen	Universiteit van Amsterdam, Verdonk Kloosters en associates	Lector IT sourcing aan de HvA, Onderzoeker bij UvA, Consultant bij VKA
Ton Tijdink	DNV-Cibit	DNV-Cibit, trekker van onderwijsaanbod bij DNV-Cibit
Marchel Tolboom en/of iemand anders	Capgemini	Vice president Capgemini
AnneMarieke van der Meulen	Getronics	Consultant in het Sourcing & Transition team
Gertjo Tigelaar	ComakeIT	Invaller voor Steven ten Napel, ComakeIt
Frank de Vries	Quint Wellington group	Partner Quint wellington group
Raymond Linkers	Sogeti	Management Consultant Strategic Sourcing, moet tijdens workshop weg om 16:15
Erik Bouwmeester	Synotion	Director, Synotion is op het gebied van IT Governance en Outsourcing één van de grootste partijen in Nederland.
Emiel Vaes	Synotion	Management Synotion
Paul Laagland	Equaterra	Heeft belangrijke bijdrage geleverd biij opstart CIO, veel ervaring met vraag/aanbod en past goed in het gezelschap
Nynke de Vries	Hogeschool van Amsterdam	Docente aan de HvA

Woensdag 19 november bellen

De gegevens van alle deelnemers zijn terug te vinden op het internet

Deelnemers: nog niet zeker

Naam	Organisatie	Overige Info
Steven Klusener	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	onderzoeker, VU Amsterdam en lid PON
Mark Korthout	Accenture	nog geen reactie, baas Outsource-afdeling*
Marcel Vrieling	Infosys
Marcel Blommestijn	Blinklane	waarschijnlijk wel.
Nico Boot	Equaterra	laat het maandag 24/11 weten.
Eric Wesselman	Price Waterhouse Coopers	woensdag 26-11 bellen/mailen
Paul Welchen	Atos Origin	laat weten of hij kan of niet
R. Coonen	Conclusion	woensdag 26-11 bellen/mailen
CIO's	diverse bedrijven	aangedragen door Foppe Vogd

Deelnemers: afgezegd

Naam	Organisatie	Overige Info
Daan Rijsenbrij	Daan Rijsenbrij	Oud-hoogleraar aan onze faculteit en tevens oprichter van het Platform Outsource Nederland
Erik Beulen	Accenture	Houder van Accenture sourcing chair aan de UvT en werkzaam bij Accenture
Paul Tjia	Gpic	Eigenaar van het bedrijf gpic dat zich voornamelijk bezighoudt met offshoren en auteur van verschillende boeken op dat gebied
Gilbert Silvius	HU	Hogeschool Utrecht, lector Business ICT Innovation
Sven van Riet	Giarte	Giarte, senior advisor
Marko Gianotten	Giarte	CEO

Andere personen

Naam	Rol	Overige Info
Andrzej K. Hajdasinski	Co-organisator	Aangedragen door Marchel Tolboom, Cap Gemini
Marchel Tolboom	Co-organisator	Cap Gemini. Regelt locatie, facilitator.
Rene Joosten	Fotograaf	De Rene

Workshop Format

Welkomstwoord ( Marchel Tolboom, vice president Cap Gemini)
Introductie (prof. Andrzej K. Hajdasinski)
Start sessie
1. Individuele statements (10 min)
2. Brainstorm/brown paper session (60 min)
Pauze (10 min)
Break-out groep (30 min, om de 10 minuten roulatie van participanten over groepen)
Presentatie bevindingen groepen (20-30)
Guided Discussion (sourcing integraal onderdeel opleidingen (BW en ICT)? ) (30 min)
Conclusie (10-15 min)
Borrel

Workshop data

Presentation

Media:WorkshopPresentation.pdf

Raw Data

Flip Over

Media:Workshop_flip_over.pdf

Notulen

Media:Workshop_Outsourcing_Notulen_Matthijs_Smith.pdf

Integrated notulen

Media:Integratie_notulen.pdf

Analyzed Data

Media:Analyse_Workshop_Notulen.pdf

Photographs

Bestand:Workshop(4).jpg

Best Practices

Voorbereiding

Zorg voor een goede facilitator. Iemand die een groep kan aanjagen en motiveren. In geval dat experts aan de workshop deelnemen, voldoet een student als facilitator meestal niet. Zorg dan voor een professional. Een goede optie is bijvoorbeeld Foppe Vogd.
Zorg dat direct aan het begin van het semester cq cursus de uitnodigingen voor de workshop de deur uit gaan.
Zorg ervoor dat er meerwaarde is voor de deelnemers om naar de workshop toe te komen. Bijvoorbeeld een verslag of een artikel zal volstaan.

Uitvoering/Data-Vergaring

Zorg voor goede audio en video opnamen. Hou hierbij rekening met de omstandigheden, licht en positionering voor video, ruimte en echo voor audio.
Zorg voor minimaal twee notulisten. Twee vergaren meer informatie dan één, plus je hebt een handig controlemiddel.
Zorg voor een 'joker', iemand die overal kan bijspringen.
Maak veel gebruik van flipover's of andere aantekeningen van deelnemers en neem deze meer voor je data-analyse.

Data-analyse

Structureer de data zoveel mogelijk voordat je er diep in duikt.
Probeer de tijdlijn van de workshop zoveel mogelijk in het oog te houden.
Probeer aan de hand van de tijdlijn en de vooraf gestelde structuur een lopend 'verhaal' te maken. Hierdoor wordt het eenvoudiger de data correct te interpreteren.

Artikel

Het artikel voor in het Outsourcing Magazine staat hier.

Onderzoeksmethoden 2/het werk/2008-9/Groep04

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