Monday, January 8, 2007

Portfolios of Exchange Relationships

During ICIS 2006 in Milwaukee (Dec 10 - 13, 2006) we presented our latest research on Portfolios of Exchange Relationships: An Empirical Investigation of an Online IT Marketplace for Small Firms .

With 1,200 participants and 132 presentations ICIS 2006 was very successsful. Thanks to the conference chair William Haseman and program co-chairs Detmar Straub and Stefan Klein. Great research and presentations and the HSE/RSM ICIS 2006 reception was well received.

Friday, January 5, 2007

Online Services Marketplaces

Our research was discussed in an article by Global Services written by Shyamanuja Das entitled Online Services Marketplaces.

Quote from the article:
“Online marketplaces have given the small buyers a place to go shopping for outsourcing services,” says Ulad Radkevitch, Research Scholar, Erasmus University, the Netherlands, and Co-author, Leveraging Offshore IT outsourcing by SMEs through Online Marketplaces — a research paper. Online marketplaces for IT services reduce costs of contact, contract and control for small buyers, argues Radkevitch in the research paper.

Online Flower Trading

Flower Auction Aalsmeer reported an explosive growth of their Online Remote Purchasing system called "Kopen op Afstand". By the end of 2006 around 150 million euro trade is executed via this online auction clock system, approx. 15 % of the total clock turnover. See Aalsmeer news.

Entry Barriers of Online Markets

At the Annual Informs Meeting 2006 (Pittsburgh, November 5-8, 2006) we presented our latest research on entry barriers. Our presentation The Effects of Supplier Entry Barriers on the Performance of Online Markets for IT Services was well received. We compared two online markets (one with high, the other with low entry barriers) and measured the impact on performance.

The Annual Informs Meeting had over 3,100 presentations with several great online auction tracks (around 85 presentations) all organised by Mike Rothkopf. Here you can search the program and sessions.

The Winner's Curse in IT Outsourcing

In November, 2006 Leslie Willcocks and Mary Lacity published their book Global Sourcing of Business and IT Services. The book provides an excellent overview of their research on the different aspects of sourcing.

One of the chapters includes the work by Thomas Kern, Leslie Willcocks, and Eric vanHeck on the Winner' s curse in IT Outsourcing (previously published as "The Winner's Curse in IT Outsourcing: Strategies for Avoiding Relational Trauma", California Management Review, 44 (2), pp. 47-69 .2002).

The Winner's Curse is an intrigueing phenomena: the winner ends up as the loser. In the article we analysed 85 IT outsourcing projects of which 31 projects had a negative impact on the client and 15 projects showed the Winner's curse characteristics. In total 12 projects were negative both for supplier and client and ended up in relational trauma. Lessons learned are provided that overcome these situations.

Theory and Practice of Information Markets

It was fun to be invited by the Helsinki School of Economics to discuss their new research program on the Information Economy. The seminar was held on a ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm (October 25/26/27, 2006). My presentation dealt with Theory and Practice of Information Markets. We discussed the research results and how these results can be applied in practice. On the way back from Stockholm to Helsinki we had some stormy weather, but we survived.

Online Procurement Auctions

The Seventh National Electronic Procurement Seminar was organized September 21, 2006 by the NEVI. There was a lot of interest in the results of the implementation of online auctions for procurement in different industry settings in the Netherlands. Companies such as KLM and Philips provided insights about how to creat value with online procurement auctions. My presentation about Online Procurement Auctions: Success for Buyers and Sellers dealt with different examples and key insights.

BPO as Strategic Partnering

Together with the Management Development Institute (MDI) in Gurgaon, India, we organized on August 24, 2006 a seminar on how to create successful relationships in business process outsourcing between European clients and Indian service providers. Several Indian service providers discussed how to deal with the European market and how to create win-win projects. Attached is the presentation BPO as Strategic Partnering of Prof. Saxena and Dr. Bharadwaj about the preliminary results of the MDI/RSM project. The project is sponsored by the European Union. For me it was the first time to visit India and although two days is short it provided me with some insights about the strenghts and weaknesses of the Indian economy.