Storytelling: From Facebook to FPT and culture management in software outsourcing company

From Facebook’s storytelling…

Early 2014, I was amazed with new feature of FB: Never before can I easily look back to history of my own. Want to see what happened today last year, or 10 years before? Well, just go to http://facebook.com/todayinhistory and choose the date you want.  As soon as you do, new feeds of that particular day will be displayed and will make you feel nostalgic and complicated. Yes, it is a mixed feeling when you look back at your difficult moments and compare them with your current happy moments, or vice versa.

Same things happened with me when I looked at my friends’ “2013 video” at the end of 2013. As its name suggests, this video was basically a story combined of most-like photos and status that I had posted throughout 2013, ingeniously played in the theme of harmonious background song. Again, I felt nostalgic and complicated. It happened with many of my friends and many people around the world too. I bet if you experienced this, you would have felt the same. However, whatever you feel, you could not deny that was is so tempting and appealing to watch again and again the stories, except this time they were not only about yourself, but also about your friends. I was so engaged with the stories, and facebook is the charismatic teller who told stories of myself and my friends. At that moment, I realized that I like hearing stories, my friends like hearing stories and many people around the world like hearing stories. Maybe we all like hearing stories.

Why we should talk about ethics?

Cisco case

In order to effectively answer the proposed questions we have decided as a group to focus our answers on the following four key variables: Quality, Cost, Time and Scope. These key variables directly affect the success of a project.

Zara case

In order to effectively answer the proposed questions we have decided as a group to focus our answers on the following aspects: inventory, technology and finance. These subcategories will encompass the scope of the questions. We believe that the new POS system should be implemented in order to avoid any future predicaments that Zara may face by the continued use of the old technology. After careful analysis of the case study we believe the new system will streamline inventory processes. Given the calculations, with limited data provided, we concluded that Zara is financially capable of making the transition to the new technology.

IT outsourcing lifecycle

The outsourcing lifecycle framework is an imperative tool for practitioners. There are two common models for outsourcing lifecycle, one by Cullen et al. (2005) and one by US General Accounting Office (2001) (GAO). This post will explain each model, compare and contrast them.

Transition phase in outsourcing

One of the most risky phases in the outsourcing lifecycle is transition phase. During the transition phase of outsourcing various types of risk are generated. These include financial risks (i.e. creation of additional costs because of the disruption of normal service delivery), regulatory risks (i.e. risks of not operating in compliance with wider regulatory standards, for example ISO), and operational risks (i.e. risks that present obstacles to the execution of operations). One of the most important operational risks associated with the transition phase is the transfer of knowledge.