Practice
This section contains articles, reports and details of my ongoing projects that might be of interest to managers, MBA students and consultants.
1. Business Process Outsourcing/Offshoring
While the level of sophistication in the services offshoring industry is growing rapidly, one still comes across some errors of judgement that seem fairly typical and widespread. Read about them in Seven Myths about Outscourcing.
The widely held view is that the only most routine and standardized processes are suitable for offshoring. However, in a recently completed study, we found that for "offshorability" what matters may not be how standardized a process is, but how standardized its links to other processes are. Read the report on "Knowledge management in Offshore Service delivery".
When deciding an offshoring strategy, a key decision is the governance model- captive, third-party or JV? Read the report on our study of how firms in the financial services industry make these decisions in "Services sourcing in the banking and financial services industries".
2. Mergers, Acquisitions & Alliances
"Integration trade-offs" analyses the basic post-merger integration trade-off between autonomy and coordination that is relevant to mergers of all sizes - whether it is P&G buying Gillette or Cisco swallowing a technology start-up. If you focus on M&A in the technology sector, you might also find it useful to see this article on "High Tech M&A".
If your company does many frequent acquisitions, you may find it useful to read "Merger Mania", which provides an overview of how to set up M&A target selection, due diligence and post merger integration as a repeatable business process.
When setting up a strategic partnership, should you consider using an equity investment or even creating an equity joint venture? To find out, read "Choosing equity stakes" in partnerships.