Social IT outsourcing

In spite of the core classes, draining most of day (and night) time, I’d like continue sharing the most interesting events going on here at Sloan. On the last day of orientation, September 11th, I assisted to the speech of Jeremy Hockenstein, Sloan alumni, former consultant but, most important, founder of Digital Divide Data.

DDD is a company based in Cambodia and Laos that provides IT outsourcing services as, for instance, data entry and digitalization. To provide these services DDD relies on Cambodian and Laotian people, especially on disadvantaged youth. Selected candidates are given IT and English lessons and after 3-8 months they start effectively working in DDD. Also during work, employees continue to attend school and after 3-4 years they graduate, now able to get a qualified job in the market, and they leave their spot to another candidate.

DDD now is a company of more than 500 people and has trained more than one thousand since its foundation in 2001. Its 2008 revenues surpassed 2 mm$ and now the company is standardizing the operations among the 3 offices to improve its profitability. At this regard, Jeremy talked about how the company is now focusing more on sales and less on donations in order to build a business sustainable in the long run. On top of this is worth noticing that DDD has ambitious expansion plans for existing offices (up to 1500 people in next years) and for going outside Laos and Cambodia through a social franchising model.

I consider this balance between social and business goals very interesting and critical for many companies with similar missions and I’m curious to see how DDD will evolve in the coming years.

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