My Viewpoints Published by Cutter
Here is a bit of blatant self promotion: I have been ideating on a few topics around sourcing, offshoring management and leveraging globalized teams to foster innovation.
The first paper was published in the March 2007 issue of Cutter IT Journal focused on “The IT Innovation Process: Necessity or Oxymoron?” Guest Editor, Claude R. Baudoin, introduces our paper as:
We start with San Murugesan and Mohan Babu K, who look at the shortcomings of the "closed" or internal innovation model and at the culture change required to embrace "open" innovation. Innovative ideas, they suggest, are everywhere: "The Internet and Web, blogs, wikis, and social computing and networking [help] to tap the potential of the world's growing reservoir of human creativity and innovation capabilities." Furthermore, the authors report how some companies that formerly kept tight control over their proprietary IP are now deriving significant financial, strategic, and competitive benefits from the strategic licensing of even core technologies, ideas, and applications. They outline a number of different strategies organizations can use to take advantage of these global capabilities for innovation, placing particular emphasis on the Center of Excellence (COE) model. They present a case study of a real-world COE and conclude the article with some helpful recommendations for harnessing innovation in your own organization.
The second is a more detailed Executive Report [Part of Cutter’s Sourcing & Vendor Relationships Resource series] titled “Offshoring IT: Making It a Success” Cutter introduces the topic as:
Enterprises are now offshoring many of their IT activities, and this looks to be a trend that will continue. Though offshoring has become a critical component of many businesses and has several benefits, it also poses additional challenges and risks, and achieving success in offshoring is not automatic. This Executive Report presents considerations, strategies, and practices that will help you make your IT offshoring activities a success.
Readers who have access to Cutter research are invited to peruse these reports. You may also ping me directly on this blog or by mail to ideate further… especially around leveraging Offshoring for Innovation, establishing Centers of Excellence (CoE) with global sourcing partners etc.
Footnote: The ideas were firmed up during my interactions with Prof. San Murugesan, who has also been a guest contributor to this blog, and a co-author in the papers.
