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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

Successful breakfast

Wednesday started off with a rather successful attempt to get our breakfast in time. Our preorder worked and we were not delayed due to misunderstandings, which was really good cause that meant decreased stress for us. 
We arrived at the office at 09.00 ready for an exciting day filled with interviews, socialization and a rather funny visit to GreenHills Mall which is a huge shopping center in the northeast direction from the hotel.
The 3 interviews which were scheduled for the day involved a variety of department managers. Giving the four of us a more broad perspective of the perceptions the Filipinos have regarding work, life, culture and personal ambitions.  
First of all the primary impression we got from the managers we interviewed was that they were competent employees with a very professional approach to their work. They all had several years of experience in different industries which definitely has been beneficial to Vestas.
We emphasized on the Filipinos perspective regarding management styles. We learned that the Danish management style (macro-management) fits the Filipinos after some adjustment. One said that the Danish management style empowers the employee which is both challenging and motivating at the same time. In relation to this we learned that the Japanese management-style was more micro based and doesn’t leave initiative to the individual employees which can be comforting but not very challenging.
In the interviews the employees elaborated further on how they perceived the cultural differences between the different nationalities management style.  They found the hierarchal flat structure in the Danish way of management a bit odd :-) but in some way admirable.  
Even though some are more or less trying to adapt to the flat hierarchal structure their way of perceiving things is still influenced by the cultural aspects of gender and age. In the Philippine culture respect tends to come with age and gender. We have not experienced that ourselves but then again we are nothing but ignorant foreigners trying to get some impressions.  J   
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