Outsourcing and Offshoring - Open Educational Resource

Friday, October 10, 2025

The Pepperdine MBA, UCD MBA and MSc workshop on "Why Ireland for EMEA and Operations HQ?" - April 30th 2025

Visiting students MBA class of 2025 from from the Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University in the USAw will taking part in a joint workshop with UCD's current MBA class and the MSc Digital Innovation programme. The resultant research will be presented in student Posters at a MBA/MSc workshop run on Wednesday 30th April 8:30-13:00. This event is being run in conjunction with visiting .

The topic is particularly relevant in light of the uncertainties emanating from the US at this time.

I know that we all need to hear about and make the case for deciding on Ireland as a base for operations when they present to the visiting which you are also very welcome to attend if you can.

On 08-Apr-2025 A class visit to IDA Ireland's Emerging Business Division in Three Park Place. The IDA will present 9 cases of companies that have established an operation in Ireland and discuss current and future trajectories. These companies are offered to be the subject of the "Why Ireland for EMEA and Operations HQ?" poster, group activity.

On 30-Apr-2025 we will be joint organisers for the MBA/MSc workshop titled "Why Ireland for EMEA and Operations HQ?". Guest speakers include Tom Rourke, Vice President for Design, Insights and Innovation at Kyndryl and Dajana Achelpohl at AI Change Maker and formerly of Former Google & PayPal Leader in EMEA Services Management. This event is run in conjunction with the visiting Pepperdine MBA class. The MSc students will present "Why Ireland for EMEA and Operations HQ?" posters during session breaks.

Monday, February 10, 2025

Why Ireland? A poster presentation - Group Activity

WHY IRELAND? A POSTER PRESENTATION - GROUP ACTIVITY

This is a semester-long activity in which each group researches and interviews an international company running EMEA operations in Ireland.

Deliverables for the poster (10 marks):
The working files for this activity are to be shared via a Google Drive folder. The Google Drive folder must be under version control, each member to have access to it, each member to contribute, update, make notes and other files etc. This culminates by each group preparing a poster version of their findings for display and participation in the MBA/MSc workshop titled "Why Ireland for EMEA and Operations HQ?". This event will be run in conjunction with visiting Pepperdine MBA students on Wednesday 30th April 8:30-13:00.

SCOPE:
A research activity in which each group researches the story behind an international company that has decided to establish operations in Ireland. What happens/happened next? What activity did they start with? What market or operational responsibilities have they run from Ireland: EMEA operations, finance, treasury, sales, support, product development, R&D, international headquarters, etc. Consider the audience to be other fast growing emerging businesses looking to establish an operation in Europe.
This activity culminates with each group preparing a poster version of their findings for display and participation in a UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School MBA/MSc workshop "Why Ireland for EMEA and Operations?". The event will be run in conjunction with visiting Pepperdine MBA students on Wednesday 30th April 2025, from 8:30-13:00, in E201 UCD Blackrock campus.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Each participating member of the group to share their own copy of the group poster via Brightspace.
Please adapt the revised Poster template:
A1 poster template on Google Drive

Monday, January 27, 2025

Understanding and misunderstanding Outsourcing

Is outsourcing evil?

What is wrong with outsourcing?

What is right about outsourcing?

What is outsourcing?

What can we outsource?

Is outsourcing a new strategy?

Is ITO different to other kinds of outsourcing?

Is BPO different to other kinds of outsourcing?

What is its history?

Does its history matter?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/189788/global-outsourcing-market-size/

and Bono on why Ireland is the business

Global Teams

Experiences on Virtual Teams

This survey aims to establish the level of knowledge and experience of virtual teams and their supporting tool-technology combinations among the survey group. The survey is an adaptation of the one carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit in the report "Managing virtual teams Taking a more strategic approach" in 2009.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QQDND2V

Governance

Globally Distributed Teams

Gautam Sonti’s film - An inside view of outsourcing.

Assumptions, misunderstanding, realities of Outsourcing

Assumptions, misunderstanding, realities

Outsourced (2006) the movie https://goo.gl/XSP9yt

Sourcing models

Supplier capabilities

Client Perspective

Outsourcing 2.0 (an FT video article)

Global impact of corporate ethics - exercise

Global Innovation

Ethical Issues

Discussion of...

...a snapshot of progress on your own particular research country/region:

One research article addressing the economic impact, e.g. one or all of: national ITO, BPO, ICT activity, and/or services activity in general.
One research article addressing one or more relevant social factors, e.g. unemployment, education, HDI etc.
One table summarising some relevant data e.g. over 10-20 years. Probably sourced from UN or World Bank or national statistical agencies.

Global mapping exercises for Apple Corp.

90% of the World's Coltan reserves are located in Africa with most of that coming from the Katanga region in the DR Congo.
In the news: Apple in talks with miners to secure cobalt supplies: source

Apple Inc is talking to major cobalt producers to secure supplies of the material vital for the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that power its mobile phones, three cobalt industry sources said.

"In 2016, we expanded our responsible sourcing efforts beyond conflict minerals to include cobalt. We’re proud to report that 100 percent of our conflict minerals and cobalt smelter/refiner partners are now participating in independent third-party audits to ensure their own business practices are conducted responsibly. Our commitment to responsible sourcing will not waiver and we will continue to drive our standards deep in our supply chain. (Apple Supplier Responsibility, 2017)

Search for "3TG, conflict minerals, illicit trade, coltan, columbite-tantalite, tantalum": source source source
Coltan refining and supply for sale: source source

Questions for places and about data

What country/region and why is it interesting?
Why is my <country/region> an important location?
Why makes this <country/region> a good destination?
What criteria make a <country/region> attractive?

What Factors? (01)

What Factors? (02)

Looking for primary empirical data sources

Locate a <country/state/region/city> statistical office?
Can you find county data for human social indicators?
Is there data on traded services, technology, software and digital industry sectors?
Perhaps you can find ICT business activity data, perhaps from a sector/trade organisation?
Can you break out ITO or BPO activity data?
Are NGOs or other organisations active in offering digital services (impact sourcing)?
Have scholarly reports addressed sourcing activity, perhaps social impact?

The MGS Blog