Day 11 – Strategic IT Outsourcing (II)
Grading briefs of Bharti Airtel completed
Day 11 Strategic IT Outsourcing – online discussion questions
- What constitutes “transaction costs” in capital expenditures?
- How unconventional are the proposed deals with the network vendors and IBM?
- Whose wage structures are similar to restaurant servers? Why do they get paid similar to servers?
- What would be the reasons for Ericsson or IBM to sign the deal with Bharti? What would be the reasons not to sign?
- Why do trust and mutual cooperation matter in a long-term outsourcing contract?
- Why is a service-level agreement important?
Day 11 – Strategic IT Outsourcing (II) – class slides and video
Day 11 – Strategic IT Outsourcing (II) – in-class discussion questions
- If you are a parent of a high-school kid, how would you write a private-tutoring contract with a tutor? If you are a tutor, how would you?
- What’s the strategic position of Bharti Airtel in the industry? Is it doing well? What are Bharti’s core competencies?
- Why did Mr. Gupta, the managing director of Bharti, say “Budgeting for capital expenditures was a nightmare”? (p. 1)
- Think about the relationship between Bharti and Ericsson, a network equipment vendor. What are the interests of Bharti? What are the interests of Ericsson? Are they in the same boat?
- In the proposed outsourcing contract with the network vendors, how will Bharti pay, for what? With IBM, how will it pay, for what?
- If you were a network or IT engineer, would you work for Bharti or Nokia/IBM?
- What could go wrong in Bharti’s long-term outsourcing relationship?
- Should two roommates write and sign an agreement? Or can they?
We’ll discuss these questions in-class next Monday. Do not write comments here.
Day 11 – Bharti Airtel – Reading Brief guidelines
- What are Bharti Airtel’s business areas and key business functions?
- What is the unique nature of the proposed outsourcing deal of Bharti?
- Why does Mr. Gupta propose this deal?
- What are the reactions to this deal from Bharti and the vendors?
Your brief does not need to cover “History and Background” and “Indian Market for Telecom,” but DO NOT skip to read them. Also, don’t forget to bring “Bharti Airtel – One Year Later” case to the class as well, but you don’t need to read it.