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Field trip to Vestas's IT organization in Manila.

We are four students: Jesper Larsen and Tue Lassen (Bachelors in political science) & Claus Laustsen and Rasmus Knap (Bachelors in IT) from Aalborg university, who are currently studying IT management as our Master.

As a part of our 9th semester we are writing two scientific papers in collaboration with Vestas. Furthermore an aspect of our 9th semester has been concerning sourcing strategies and project management. Therefore it is relevant for us to visit Vestas's IT organization in Manila. Besides Vestas we are going to visit two other offshored IT-organizations, NNIT and Excitor.

The papers are as mentioned being composed in cooperation with Vestas which offshored a part of their IT organization to Manila back in 2008. The papers concern the following:

1. How has Vestas IT-organization developed their IT-capabilities and structure over time in the efforts to become a strategic (trusted) partner to the business.

2. To describe and define the IT middle managers role in the IT organization.

The purpose of our trip is to collect data for the two papers and in general learn about and experience the practical aspects of offshoring. We are thereby gaining practical knowledge regarding the challenges IT organizations face when they offshore parts of the IT function, that we can compare to the theoretical literature we have been presented to in class.

We consider this a unique chance to explore the different processes in an offshore organization and learn how leadership and management can be performed.

The purpose of this blog is to summarize and reflect upon the experiences gained from visiting three offshored IT organizations.

Ready to go to Manila? Not quite - the economical aspect

As a student everybody knows that one is on a tight budget and consequently we needed resources to cover parts of our expenses. We therefore have petitioned different funds which have responded positively. The realization of the trip became imminent once the petitions were accept, which was a great relief for all of us.

The blog will be updated regularly and pictures will be shared as well.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Food variation - a succes

After the interviews with the managers we invited one of our local colleagues to dine with us and she suggested a Mexican restaurant. It was nice to sit down and have an informal chat about everyday stuff.
Regarding the food perspective we perceived the concept of food variation a huge success. Unlike the Danish food culture where everyone orders their own dish, the Philippine food culture is more about sharing a variety of different dishes, while enjoying the social relations. Therefore the Filipinos cherish the lunch break a lot.  One could argue that the lunch break is more holy to the Filipinos than the Danish who usually just rush through their meal and get back to work. We very much enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and the variation of different meals and stuffed we went back to work on our blog J  
Indsendt af kl.

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