Personal finance sites put a lot of attention on saving money, investing, even career advice. I haven’t read a lot of information on how research a product before you buy it. Today I’d like to share with you my thoughts and maybe in comments you can teach me a thing or two.
How much [...]

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Continue reading → How I Research a Purchase

I’ve touched on the subject of money and happiness in a few prior posts. Specifically, in my post The Link Between Money and Happiness, I discussed research that showed how financial situations might affect the amount of happiness that more money can buy. A new study looks at the physical reaction that accompanies the worth [...]

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Continue reading → More on Money and Happiness

I am writing this from the lobby of the good but not “fairmont good” - Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada - the venue for ICIS 2007. I presented my paper on Information Sharing and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) use in supply chains. The paper was received very well - I had more than 60 people in attendance - standing room only. Here is the paper’s abstract. Full paper is available from the conference proceedings - if you want the full paper but can’t find the proceedings - drop a comment/email and I will send you one. The paper was nominated for the best paper award at ICIS.

SOA and Information Sharing in Supply Chain: “How” Information is Shared Matters!

This also happens to be the year that I am in the job market - that means a lot of interviews. So this was a busy conference - busy but successful.

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Continue reading → ICIS: International Conference on Information Systems 2007

In the past, we’ve discussed how nearly half of Americans are concerned about their outstanding credit card debt. With teaser rates, high fees, minimum payment increases, and similar issues, it’s no wonder that such concern exists. A new study finds that these concerns don’t necessarily prevent consumers from borrowing.
As reported in a recent article, consumers [...]

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Continue reading → Debt Discomfort Doesn’t Prevent Borrowing

My research paper “Impact of SOA Use on Performance Outcomes of Information Sharing in Supply Chain” has been accepted for the INFORMS CIST - Conference on Information Systems and Technology 2007. This would be my second visit to CIST. I love this conference for its open, discussion oriented format and great participation. This will be my fourth research conference presentation this year (after Academy, AMCIS and ICIS) - the year is turning out rather well.

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Continue reading → Going to INFORMS CIST 2007, Seattle

I have just came back from AMCIS 2007 - Americas Conference on Information Systems. The conference was held at the beautiful Keystone, Colorado. I presented my preliminary paper on Prosper.com titled - “Bank of One: Empirical Analysis of Peer to Peer Financial Marketplace”. The presentation was received very well. I even received an invitation to submit it to a very good journal - which is quite nice. Several attendees asked me for a copy of my presentation - so here is a PDF copy of my AMCIS 2007 presentation on Prosper.com. The paper itself is available through AMCIS Proceedings or upon e-mail request to the author.

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Continue reading → Bank of One: Prosper.com

Recently with so much discussion going on about college debt, I wanted to see if there was any scientific research on factors that might affect the amount of debt a person is carrying. I came across a study published in 2006 that sheds some light on this matter. This study was published in the [...]

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Continue reading → How Your Attitude and Financial Literacy Affect Your Debt Level

One of the ways I decide what to post about is by looking at what search terms browsers are looking for while reaching my blog. This is quite easily accomplished by using traffic tracking services like sitemeter or mybloglog (I use both). Recently many visitors came to my blog looking for information about Information Systems research conferences. So - here is an attempt to provide some commonly needed information about Information Systems research conferences. This includes large conferences that look at business application of Information Technologies/Systems. This consolidated information would be useful for starting PhD students in MIS/IS/IT area. Disclaimer: This is by no means an exhaustive list and the acceptance rates mentioned are approximate.

Starting off there are two kinds of research gatherings - those that publish full papers in proceedings and those that don’t. The difference is important to realize. Since you can publish a paper only once, if the paper is published in its full form in a conference proceeding then you can not publish the paper in a journal without significant revision. On the other hand, conferences that do not publish proceedings or only publish a abstract of the paper in their proceeding - then you are free to publish the same paper later in a journal. Conferences of this type are often called a workshop.

ICIS - International Conference on Information Systems (Link to ICIS 2007):
Reputation: Tier 1
Acceptance Rate: 12-15%
Proceedings: Full Paper

ICIS is the most prominent research conference in IS research area. Its a large gathering with a very international profile. I have been to last two ICIS (Vegas and Milwaukee) and both have been very positive experiences. The papers are of good quality, attendance in paper sessions is quite decent and most active researchers in IS are usually there. ICIS also hosts job interviews for IS faculty positions. ICIS 2007 is in Montreal, Canada. ICIS publishes full proceedings and is very very selective. Its acceptance rates in past years have been around 12-15% - which is very low for a conference - its quite difficult to get a paper accepted at ICIS.

AMCIS - Americas Conference on Information Systems (Link to AMCIS 2007):
Reputation: Tier 3
Acceptance Rate: ~50%
Proceedings: Full Paper, Research-in-Progress

AMCIS is a really large gathering of IS researchers - but mostly has participation from US. The high acceptance rate means that its easy to get your paper accepted here - but it also means that the average quality of paper is not very good. Attendance in paper sessions is usually low. However - I recommend going to this conference as you get to know a lot of IS researchers and some Universities hold their hiring interviews at AMCIS.

HICSS - Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (Link to HICSS 2008):
Reputation: Tier 3
Acceptance Rate: ~50%
Proceedings: Full Paper

HICSS is an expensive conference to go to - Hawaii in January! Its a great vacation if you stay for a couple of days after the conference - however - the conference itself nothing too great. Good thing is that the atmosphere is quite casual (think shorts and printed shirts) and stress free; bad thing is that attendance levels are low (what else can be expected - when you are in Hawaii in Jan). Since the conference is so expensive to attend, number of submissions are lower - so a 50% acceptance is not bad. One really bright part of the conference is the Competitive Strategy, Economics and IS mini-track organized by three leading lights of IS research - Rob Kauffman, Eric Clemons and Rajiv Dewan. This track has low acceptance, really good papers and very good participation.

WISE - Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (Link to WISE 2006):
Reputation: Tier 2
Acceptance Rate: ~30% (guesstimate)
Proceedings: No Proceedings

For researchers studying Information Economics or Business Value of IT, this is THE place to be. Its a two day workshop where all the big guns get together and have a really good critical discussion. Its a short, interactive and very valuable workshop. This also happens to be my first ever research conference - so I like it even better. You only submit a five page extended abstract to WISE - so you can submit in-progress research as well - which is great. This also has one of the last deadlines (early Sept) - so you can submit your summer work here - good timing. WISE is one of the many workshops that happen just before ICIS (pre-ICIS workshops) - and it is usually very close to ICIS location - so you can combine the two visits.

Academy of Management - OCIS Division (Link to AoM-2007):
Reputation: Tier 3
Acceptance Rate: ~50%
Proceedings: Abstracts and Extended Abstracts

Academy is the biggest gathering of all - all management divisions are there. Information Systems researcher usually find place in the OCIS division. I haven’t been to this conference as yet - so no first hand information - I am scheduled to go this year - so I will know more soon. The acceptance rates are reasonable/easy and it only publishes abstracts or extended abstracts - so works well for in-progress research papers.

CIST - INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (Link to CIST 2007):
Reputation: Tier 2
Acceptance Rate: ~30% (guesstimate)
Proceedings: No Proceedings

The annual INFORMS conference is a big deal (and a big gathering) for Operations researchers. As part of the INFORMS conference, IS researchers organize the two day WISE-like event called CIST. Difference is that you need to submit a full paper for CIST. The level of discussion and participation is same as WISE. A very good conference to present your research before you submit it to a journal, especially for research connected with operations. CIST also has some practitioner participation.

WITS - Workshop on Information Technology and Systems (Link to WITS 2007):
Reputation: Tier 2
Acceptance Rate: ~30% (guesstimate)
Proceedings: No Proceedings

WITS is another pre-ICIS workshop - but its focus is more technical than WISE. Design science researchers find this particularly attractive. My research usually does not fall under the WITS umbrella - I have heard good things about it though.

Alright - that finishes my top of the mind info in research conferences/workshops in Information Systems. Hope somebody finds this useful. Feel free to add to this info by posting comments.

Updates:

• Andrea has this very informative blog about pre-ICIS workshops. Click here for Andrea’s blog.
• Prof Don Harter at Syracuse has maintained a page on IS Conferences with links to past conferences. Link to Don’s Conferences Page.

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Continue reading → Research Conferences in Information Systems

I am a huge fan of LaTeX (especially on Emacs). I love the output generated by LaTeX and I would have been so happy continuing to write my research papers and dissertation in LaTeX - but alas - that is not to be. First of all, Information Systems research conferences ask for submission in MS-Word format - no exception. Secondly, now that I am handling large numbers of references and a huge pdf document library for my dissertation, I can not escape using EndNote for managing references - and EndNote does not support LaTeX.

So finally, I am giving up on LaTeX and shifting all my writing to MS-Word. I would continue to keep my LaTeX skills updated though - with the hope that once I graduate and (hopefully) become a faculty - I will perhaps be able to migrate back to LaTeX.

Sidenote: EndNote is amazing! I recommend EndNote to all researchers and especially doctoral students who are building their research paper library. It has helped my research productivity big time.

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Continue reading → Giving Up on LaTeX

My papers have been accepted at both the AMCIS (Americas Conference on Information Systems) 2007 conference as well as AMCIS 2007 Doctoral Consortium. Its great news - a good start to the conference and job hunting season. The papers accepted and their abstracts are below:

Service Oriented Architecture (“SOA”) has been viewed as a strategic approach to IT that provides increased flexibility. However, there is scant research evidence of SOA adoption leading to tangible performance benefits across a cross section of firms. We fill this research gap by empirically analyzing the impact of SOA adoption on the performance of electronic supply chains for a cross section of large US firms. We estimates the moderating impact of SOA adoption on relationships between supply chain performance and complexity and transparency of information sharing relationship between firms and their suppliers. Our results show that while SOA adoption mitigates the negative effects of information sharing complexity, it also reduces the positive benefits of information sharing transparency. Thus while SOA adoption can lead to potential improvements in performance, the extent of the benefit depends on characteristics of the information sharing relationship.

Peer to peer financial marketplaces provide a platform for individual lenders and borrowers to interact and transact. These marketplaces dis-intermediate the traditional financial services business models. In this exploratory paper we study the operation and effectiveness of one such marketplace: Prosper.com. We analyze six months of lender, borrower and loan repayment data to answer preliminary research questions about lender behavior, market effectiveness and antecedents of loan default. We show that lenders mostly behave rationally and charge appropriate risk premiums for antecedents of loan default. We also show that there are mismatches between risk premiums charged and relative importance of factors that drive loan default. We then explore the dynamic process of lenders adjusting their lending strategies to reduce these mismatches. Interestingly, our results indicate that the group reputation used in marketplace is not effective and needs to be enhanced. Our analysis provides a base for future research in this exciting and evolving context. Our results provide directions for practice applications as well as future research in design of financial marketplaces, investing and risk mitigation strategies and improving effectiveness of financial marketplaces.

AMCIS 2007 is in Keystone, Colarado from August 9-12, 2007.

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Continue reading → AMCIS 2007 and AMCIS Doctoral Consortium

My last post on the group reputation system at Prosper.com focussed on the effectiveness of the system. Since then I have continued my research on the same and will likely deploy a survey to group leaders in next couple of months to test my hypotheses.

There has been a lot of research recently on online reputation systems like the ones used at eBay and Amazon. There are some important differences between the “individual” reputation systems at eBay etc and the group reputation system at Prosper.

• Seller Only Reputation: First of all, Prosper’s reputation system is essentially a seller reputation system. Buyers do not need to prove their reputation as they bear all the risk (since they pay money upfront). This is a key difference compared to eBay where the reputation system includes both buyer as well as seller transactions.
• Credit Scores: While the reputation system is the ONLY window to a seller’s reliability in eBay; in Propser, buyers have access to the credit history of sellers - which gives them all sorts of information to judge seller’s reliability. So the reputation system here is of only incremental importance over and above the information available in the credit history. The group reputation system is essentially as secondary reputation system with the credit score being the primary reputation system.
• No Repeat Transactions: Unlike eBay and Amazon, sellers at Prosper rarely conduct repeat transactions (second, third loan). Since the sellers are unlikely to come back to the market, their incentive for keeping a great reputation in the market is quite low. Hence, there needs to be factors beyond the marketplace to force them into complying with buyer’s expectations.
• Group’s Core Connection: Prosper expects that if sellers are part of a tightly knit group then there would be peer pressure from the group for the seller to behave nicely. However, this would only be true if the group has a strong core connection (whether offline or online) which has some value to the seller. Currently most groups in Prosper do not have a core connection - they are just an online group of people with similar needs. This is unlikely to lead to good behavior by sellers and we have seen the evidence of same in the repayment data.
• Filtering by Groups: Prosper also expects the group to be a filtering mechanism where group leaders check the listings and only let trustworthy borrowers come to the market. However, many groups do not even enforce the mandatory review of the listing by the group leaders - so even this expectation is futile.
• Conclusions: Based on the above - we come to the following conclusion:
• Groups that share a strong core connection (offline or online) would perform better
• Groups that have a strong process for filtering listings would perform better

We have refined the conclusions above to generate research hypotheses and are testing these hypotheses using forthcoming survey data and data collected from Prosper. I will post the results once the analysis is done in next couple of months.

Links

1. Thanks are due to Prosperous PF Strategies for leaving a thoughtful comment. Link to the comment.
2. Rate Ladder is an excellent resource for Prosper participants. It is a little cluttered with ads - but has great information.

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Continue reading → Group Reputation System at Prosper.com - II

Asimov - Science Fiction

Since I can remember I have been a fan of Asimov’s Science Fiction. The Foundation series is my absolute favorite. Asimov, however, was at his best when writing short stories. These short stories are “short” on length but incredibly complex and full of implications for matters as broad as religion, God, evolution and decline of civilization and so on… I consider “Nightfall” his second best work with an ending that takes your breath away - gives you goosebumps! But I reserve the title of best Asimov work ever to “The Last Question”. It packs such a powerful punch in just one sentence in the end that you keep pondering over it for long after you have read the story. Its so completely incredible and yet so feasible…

Now - some good soul has done us all a favor and put “The Last Question” online for all to read. If you have not read it as yet then you are in for a time of your life. Enjoy - here is the link.

I could not find an online version of “Nightfall”. If you know where I can find it - please do let me know.

Research Update

This year is turning out to be a great year. Another paper of mine titled “Collaboration Network Structure in Open Source Software Projects” has been accepted for presentation at the 5th AIS SIGSAND Symposium on Research in System Analysis and Design to held on May 12-13, 2007 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here is the abstract of the paper:

In this study, we view open source development teams as social collaboration networks of developers. By integrating theories and methods from social network, software engineering and organizational behavior studies, we examined the collaboration network structure of ongoing open source projects and the impact of the network structure on open source developer productivity. With development data from SourceForge.net, we found that open source developers, like their counterparts in traditional software development setting, have the tendency to use larger and less centralized collaboration network structure to tackle more difficult projects. However, such collaboration structure is associated with lower developer productivity. Our findings indicate that OSS practitioners still need to deliberately manage collaboration structure of the development teams to enhance productivity.

This research is co-authored with Ning Nan (University of Oklahoma) and Li Wang (Ross, Michigan). As usual, a copy of the paper is available on request.

Lastly, Thank you Miron for linking to my blog.

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Continue reading → Asimov’s “The Last Question”

Today is turning into a pretty nice day. First, I checked the current copy of the SmartMoney, the magazine of the Wall Street Journal, and saw that it referred to my research on peer to peer financial marketplaces in one of the articles. Second, I heard back from the Academy of Management Conference and one of my papers have been accepted for presentation there.

The current issues of SmartMoney has an article on Prosper.com titled “The Banker Next Door” by Ann Kadet. She quotes my research in the article. I am quoting the article below:

As a whole, Prosper’s lender community is still more subject to irrational whims and emotional behavior than professional credit analysts. Sanjeev Kumar, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, analyzed six months of Prosper activity and found that quantitative data such as credit scores and borrower income explain just a third of bidding behavior. “Everything else is subjective, like whether there is a photo of the kids”, he says.

Here is the link to the original article: Banker Next Door.

Now the other good news. Academy of Management is the largest association of management researchers and professionals. The Annual Meeting of Academy is one of the largest gathering of management researchers. It would be a great experience to present in the Academy 2007 conference. The paper accepted is titled: Embedded Trust in Open Source Software Development Communities. Following is the abstract of the paper:

Structure of naturally evolving collaborative relationships in open source software (OSS) development communities has been identified as a critical factor in success of OSS projects. This study attempts to extend the literature by examining impacts of collaborative relationship structures on trust, an important yet under researched construct in the OSS context. Based on social network and organizational theories, this study proposes that collaboration network structures have significant effects on individual OSS developer’s trust in a project team. Subsequently, we expect that trust has positive effects on effectiveness of an OSS development community. Empirical analysis of project and survey data using partial least square (PLS) verifies that collaboration network structures significantly affect trust, which subsequently enhances OSS team effectiveness in terms of perceived software quality, team cohesiveness and satisfaction with the teamwork. Results of this study shed light on the antecedents and relevance of embedded trust in OSS communities with significant implications for both researchers and practitioners.

This year has started well - I attended the first conference of the year and my paper got accepted at the first paper submission of the year. I hope the luck is continue for the rest of the year as this is my job market year. Talking of jobs - I finally finished writing my academic Vita.

I also got the full student feedback for the course I taught in Spring 2006. Here is the feedback image from the evaluation website:

Quite Nice, Huh?

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Continue reading → Research Mentioned in SmartMoney; Paper Accepted at Academy

Continuing my data analysis pieces on Prosper.com (click here for all my posts regarding Prosper), I am looking at the group rating system in this post (using the more academic term - Group Reputation Systems).

Prosper introduced the rating system a few months back. Borrower’s have the option of being part of a group and groups are given a star rating (1 star to 5 star) based on the repaying history of past loans originated from the group. More details are available on Propser’s page. Now, the first thing which is clear to anyone with any experience lending on Prosper is that this group reputation system is broken - it does not work! In this post I will first provide “empirical evidence” (fancy research term for a statistically tested argument) that the group reputation system is not working and then I will discuss reasons why this is so and how can this be fixed.

Effectiveness of Prosper’s Group Reputation System

The essential idea is the groups will keep tabs on their member borrowers resulting in lower default rates for good groups. This will lead to lenders charging lower interest rates (lower risk premiums) for borrowers belonging to these better groups, providing incentives for borrowers to be part of these groups. A nice virtuous cycle. Now, lets look at some numbers and see if this cycle is in fact working:

The image below is a screenshot from Prosper of interest rates for last 30 days. Look at differences between interest rates for borrowers belonging to a group and those not.

As we expect, for most categories interest rates for group members are below those for non group members. This is good - the system is mostly working for the borrowers. However, there are many categories where the system breaks down and non members in fact get better rates (for example: AA for loans between 5K and 10K).

Now lets see if the system is working for lenders. I can’t divulge all the details here as its part of a research paper that is under review - but this is essentially what I did. I collected six months of listing information and the loan repayment information for all resulting loans. Then I analyzed this data to discover the factors that are antecedents of loan default - factors that drive loan default. The analysis was done using something called a duration model (also known as survival analysis). This statistical technique is widely used to model failure events where time to failure is known. Failure in our case is of course a loan default. Duration models output hazard ratio, which is an estimate of the relative risk of failure resulting from the factors included in the model. A hazard ratio greater than 1 would mean that the risk of failure increases with the factor. In my preliminary models the hazard ratio for group membership came out well above 1. This means that the risk of default is actually higher for borrowers that belong to a group! So as far as lenders are concerned - the group system completely does not work.

The duration model of loan defaults also uncovers some interesting results.

• The Debt to Income ratios of borrowers seem to have no impact on the risk of loan default
• Amount of information provided in listing description (on an overall description length basis) has no impact on the risk of loan default
• Being a homeowner also does nothing to the risk of loan default
• Listings with endorsements from group leaders seem to have a lower risk of loan default

I will provide more details of this analysis as the paper passes through the review process and I finalize my dissertation.

Whats the Problem?

This is a topic for future post. There has been extensive academic research on reputation systems in past years - I will borrow from those and analyze Prosper’s reputation system in that light.

GMAT Preparation?

One of my long time friendshas started this wonderful online service to help students preparing for GMAT. Look up his site WinGMAT.com. I have looked through the contents of the site and they are good, quite good!

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Continue reading → Group Reputation System at Prosper.com

I have not posted anything here for a while as I have been busy trying to give shape to my dissertation. As part of my research I have been working with Lending, Borrowing and Loan Repayment Data at Prosper.com and there are some pretty neat results. I finished writing an article about my results and submitted it to one of the major Information Systems conferences AMCIS (Americas Conference on Information Systems) for review. I of course can not detail all the results here as it is under review, here is the abstract of the paper I submitted:

Peer to peer financial marketplaces provide a platform for individual lenders and borrowers to interact and transact. These marketplaces dis-intermediate the traditional financial services business models. In this exploratory paper we study the operation and effectiveness of one such marketplace: Prosper.com. We analyze six months of lender, borrower and loan repayment data to answer preliminary research questions about lender behavior, market effectiveness and antecedents of loan default. We show that lenders mostly behave rationally and charge appropriate risk premiums for antecedents of loan default. We also show that there are mismatches between risk premiums charged and relative importance of factors that drive loan default. We then explore the dynamic process of lenders adjusting their lending strategies to reduce these mismatches. Interestingly, our results indicate that the group reputation used in marketplace is not effective and needs to be enhanced. Our analysis provides a base for future research in this exciting and evolving context. Our results provide directions for practice applications as well as future research in design of financial marketplaces, investing and risk mitigation strategies and improving effectiveness of financial marketplaces.

I am excited about my research on Prosper.com (or Peer to Peer Financial Marketplaces - the name I have given to the broader phenomenon). I am continuing to enhance my analysis and looking for improving my paper and submitting to a top journal. If you would like to read a copy of my paper then pls drop a comment with your email and I will send one to you.

It seems my research will be quoted in the SmartMoney Magazine. Ann Kadet, who is a columnist and Senior Editor with the magazine got in touch with me about my research on Prosper.com. The coming issue of SmartMoney will have an article on Prosper.com and according to Ann, there will be a mention of my work. Cool…

Portfolio Update

Like everyone else, my stock portfolio also took a hit in last two weeks with the sharp decline in US markets. Although, I continue to believe that in the medium term stocks are worth keeping - so I used the drop to add to my holdings and I have now mostly recovered. My current major holdings are (in order of size of holding): STX, AMD, TTM, TNE, UL, FTE, SCSS, CX, CAT, IBN, TTMI, HMC and TKC. As you can see - I have diversified considerably - I now have large technology MNCs, Indian Auto, Brazilian Telecom, Mexican Cement, Consumer Goods, Global Auto, Turkish Telecom and some good old US companies in my portfolio… Before the Feb end decline, I had booked profits to the tune of some 16% return - not bad for a two month period.

Research Update

Since I wrote last one of my papers was nominated for the best paper award at HICSS 2007 (Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences). The paper is available here. I have further improved this paper and it is now going to be a part of my dissertation.

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Continue reading → Prosper.com Data Analysis

I have not written for a while as I am attending the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) 2006 in Milawaukee, Wisconsin. Its a delightful downtown full of holiday decorations and lots of beer places. Yesterday I presented a research paper in the OASIS Workshop - Empirical Analysis of Determinants of Perceived Customer Satisfaction with Open Source Software (extended abstract).

This post is essentially an update of previous posts. First - my stock portfolio, then an update on my Prosper adventure and lastly, research.

Stock Portfolio

My post on a 60%+ stock market return in 9 months generated a lot of interest. Well - my portfolio is continuing to perform and I am on on track for ~80% by the end of the year. I will be paying capital gains tax on this end of the year - but thankfully my marginal tax rate is low so its not going to hurt too much. Here is my current stock portfolio:

• Seagate (STX): It has been the largest stock in my portfolio for a while. Now I have booked profits to the extent of about half of my initial holding but I still have quite a bit left.
• LCA-Vision (LCAV): I bought some when it dropped after bad results as I am positive on its medium term growth. It has been reasonably volatile since then and that had given me the opportunity to book profits and re-enter.
• Cemex (CX): It is the classic business school case - and its growing. There have been some unpleasant acquisition news going around - that gave me an opportunity to enter. This is my first time holding on Cemex.
• TurkCell (TKC): I put in a lot of money on this a few months back - was down a significant percentage one time then it recovered sharply and I was able to book profit on my entire holding. Then it dropped and I have re-entered.
• Tata Motors (TTM): I have a smaller holding in my one time employer than I would like to have. I am looking for entry points but it has been consistent and strong.
• Other small holding are - Select Comfort (SCSS), Christopher & Banks (CBK), PepsiAmericas (PAS) and HiMax Tech (HIMX). I picked initial stakes in all of these after their sharp down move recently.
  

You can see that I am quite heavy on emerging markets. This also insulates me from the coming decline of the dollar and the slowing down on the US economy. Here is a screenshot of how my portfolio has grown in last 6 months. Not all of this is stock appreciation - I also infused cash along the way. I have cut out the values on the y-axis for privacy reasons.

Figure 1: Stock portfolio growth in last 6 months

Prosper Adventure

I am continuing to put money in Prosper - although the careful lending strategy that I use necessitates slow scaling up. Now I have ~3.5% of my total investments in Prosper. All the data analysis pieces I posted here has helped me make better sense of the dynamics in Prosper. All my loans are current and I have average interest rate of 20%+. Lets see how long the honeymoon continues. This is my current Prosper portfolio distribution. As I had recommended in my previous posts - D credit group is the way to go in Prosper.

Figure 2: Portfolio distribution on Prosper, December 2006

Research

I am in the middle of all the big names in IS research here in this conference. I have been talking to several researchers and here is the big thing everyone is talking about - impact of IS on Innovation. The troublesome thing is that I am also looking at the same thing - although I am confident that the niche I am following is quite unique and I will be able to look at it from a different angle than other researchers.

PS> LFCFan has inspired me to put some ads on my blog and “monetize” the traffic. I am not completely comfortable about it - but its exciting to see that all this that I write has a hard cash value. If you find the ads in bad taste, not appropriate, unpleasant… then please leave a comment and I will take them out.

PPS> Its that time of the year when NASDAQ 100 index is rebalanced. This year Infosys (INFY) is being added to the index and its a great great story for the Indian businesses. Although I am very positive about future growth of Infosys - I am quite uncomfortable with current valuations (PE 45, PEG 1.29) - so I will stay out of it till valuations come down to more reasonable levels.

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Continue reading → Current Stock Portfolio, Updates

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has been on a center of a lot of debate and controversy. However, the fact remains that it is here to stay, it will continue to grow and it benefits both sides. Important thing to note through is that the nature of BPO and hence the potential benefits of BPO as well as the capabilities needed to successfully compete in the BPO marketplace have evolved significantly in past few years. This evolving nature of BPO and associated issues have been part of my recent research focus. Here is one picture that explains my view of the evolution of BPO:

The figure above says many things - so needs a little explanation. The left axis represents the main driver of BPO in a particular BPO evolution stage. The right axis represents the ideal role that a vendor should play (or a client should establish) for a BPO evolution stage. The x axis represents the three stages of evolution of BPO. The main body of the graph depicts the core activity or work that is outsourced for a BPO evolution stage. This framework was presented by Prof M S Krishnan (my doctoral advisor and dissertation chair) at the Global BPO Forum organized by the CGRL:India in New York. Prof Krishnan and I both attended the forum.

This framework is helpful in understanding the future direction of BPO. We will increasingly be moving towards the third generation BPO - BPO 3.0 - high value added, knowledge intensive BPO work. This will require vendors to change their focus from cost (predominant focus right now) and quality (emerging focus among top players) to innovation. Clients, on their side, would need to make sure that they do not use the old and outdated mechanisms (efficiency oriented SLAs, restricted collaboration…) to engage with their vendors. They will have to enter into strategic partnership with their BPO vendors to co-create value for both sides of the transaction. This is of course easier said than done - but there are many leading indicators to suggest that this is happening and growing. We (as in researchers at Ross, Michigan) have documented instances of BPO 3.0 in our case studies, analyzed them in our ongoing research and I plan to investigate this phenomenon further in my dissertation.

From a research point of view, the most interesting question to be asked is: on a broad level, what are the antecedents of a successful BPO 3.0 engagement? What kind of contracting, engagement structuring, engagement monitoring, HR policies, process selection etc needs to be done to leverage the “innovation” aspect of BPO 3.0. BPO vendors and clients have more of less perfected the art of an “efficient” BPO engagement with main focus on cost reduction. Many have acquired sufficient mastery over running an “effective” BPO operation with main focus on quality improvement. However, based on my interactions, most companies are still looking for directions on how to successfully leverage an “innovation” oriented BPO engagement where an efficiency or effective oriented policies might not only be ineffective, they may even be critically detrimental to the success of the engagement. I hope to throw more light on the subject through my ongoing dissertation research.

To end, an image I have found quite effective in breaking the ice when teaching any BPO related topic:

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