Data Warehousing Implementation and Outsourcing Challenges: An Action Research Project with Solectron

Since the 1980s, Solectron evolved as a contract provider of manufacturing, distribution, product design, and full-service supply chain integration to many Fortune 500 companies in the telecommunications, electronics, and computer industries. In order to achieve this set of capabilities, Solectron established a tightly coupled set of collaborative relationships with supply chain participants– including both suppliers and customers. This action research study explores Solectron’s data warehousing implementation and outsourcing experiences to support the organization’s strategic direction. We uncover the absence of new set of critical preimplementation performance metrics for managers and researchers to consider under conditions of outsourcing; multiple, simultaneous projects; and lack of IT internal expertise. Thus, our research offers hypotheses that can be further tested by future research.