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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.

Monday, November 14, 2011

The hub in Manila







Today we got a hands-on experience of the Philippine perception of being on time. We preordered breakfast Sunday afternoon to be sure that it would be ready the next morning at 7:45. Of course that did not work… 7:15 we received a phone call about some details regarding our breakfast, which was fine, but around 8:20 we decided to go back to our rooms since we would be picked up at 8:30 and still had not seen the breakfast.

View from the office - notice the amount of cranes

Vestas office was on 32th floor with a very beautiful view of the city. We spent the entire day interviewing our Finn Poulsen, who is the general manager of the office. We were at the office from 9 to 17, but the day felt longer because of our jetlag and lack of sleep (someone kept singing during the night outside our hotel). It was inspiring and very educational to interview Finn. We learned about what it takes to establish an offshore hub and what competencies are needed. We heard about how his work in Manila has changed his role in Vestas's IT-organization. We were given an impression of the experience of being a Danish expatriate in Manila. We heard about the decisions behind making a hub in manila, instead of e.g. China and India and which culture, communication and time issues there are between the Danish and the Philippines.
We were recommended to go to a little restaurant called “the old spaghetti house” to get decent food in a reasonable amount of time. We got some pizza and somehow we managed to avoid getting the spaghetti dishes which was our original intention and supposedly the core capability of the restaurant. Even though there were shared opinions on the food we were full and ready to recharge ourselves and our computers.
Indsendt af kl.

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