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Abstract
There are a number of compelling reasons for companies to look outside their own organizational and national boundaries for the skills and knowledge needed to compete in the global marketplace. Improving telecommunications infrastructures around the world and highly skilled talent pools in low cost nations are only a few of the drivers motivating companies to collaborate with partner firms located abroad. Such collaboration is, however, extremely difficult to control and coordinate. This paper examines a special case of global transorganizational insourcing in which two dispersed, semi-autonomous organizations within the same parent entity collaborate on a software development project. The project involves an American and Indian team working together to develop an enterprise-wide SAP application for Transangara Corporation, a large software publishing house headquartered in the United States. Using a transorganizational development (TOD) model, the study analyzes the reasons behind the failure of the collaborating teams to meet the scheduled release deadline for the project and presents the steps taken to address the challenges. The paper concludes with a set of lessons learned and best practices for companies dealing with similar projects.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Madhu T. Rao
Madhu T. Rao is an Associate Professor of Information Systems in the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University. Dr. Rao's research focuses on areas of global IT management and the control and coordination of dispersed teams. His research has been published in books as well as respected academic journals such as the Journal of Management Information Systems, the Journal of Global IT Management, Information Systems Management, Small Group Research, and the Academy for Educational Leadership Journal. Dr. Rao's most recent research in the area of global IT outsourcing has been covered extensively in both print and broadcast media. Dr. Rao has a Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Before joining Seattle University, he served on the faculty at American University in Washington D.C. as well as Salisbury University in Maryland. Prior to becoming an academician, Dr. Rao was a systems analyst for Tata Consultancy Services in New Delhi, India.
Terrence W. Earls
Terrence W. Earls is a General Manager in a large software company's Enterprise Application Services group. Mr. Earls leads the development and project teams for an internal SAP implementation, responsible for the company's worldwide supply chain, financial, and human resource systems. He has served two terms on the $12m not-for-profit Board of Directors of the Americas SAP User Group (ASUG) where he had overall responsibility for delivering education to the 30,000 members of the organization. Mr. Earls graduated from the College of William & Mary in Virgina with an undergraduate degree in Operations and Information Technology and an MBA from Seattle University. Mr. Earls is currently based in the United Kingdom.
Gloria Sanchez
Gloria Sanchez has a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing degree from Instituto Tecnológicoy de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City and an MBA from Seattle University. Ms. Sanchez was an operations coordinator for Gallup - Taylor Nelson Sofres in Mexico where she oversaw the operation and logistics for market research studies such as polls, mystery shoppers, and Rapid Market Optimization models for several Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Sanchez was also a liaison with customers in the U.S. and Argentina. Mrs. Sanchez currently works as a Marketing Executive in Microsoft Corporation.