Professional Summary

Vijay Gurbaxani is Professor of Business and Computer Science and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. His research, teaching and consulting interests are at the nexus of business strategy and information technology (IT). He focuses on analyzing how emerging information technologies enable business model innovation; on developing and evaluating business-driven strategies for the sourcing of information services; and on valuing IT investment. His approach is distinctive in its use of economic principles as the lens with which to analyze strategic management questions.

Industry Experience

Vijay has extensive experience in management education and advisory services, having lectured worldwide on management issues, taught extensively in degree and executive education programs, and consulted for and provided research expertise to many organizations, including Fortune 500 companies, technology service providers, and leading consulting firms. Recent keynote presentations include addresses at Computer Science Corporation’s (CSC) Leading Edge Forum, Gartner Group’s IT Services and Sourcing Summit, Centric Events Group’s Outsourcing Strategies Conference and the Sourcing Interest Group’s Sourcing Leadership Conference. The research arms of consulting firms including CSC Research and Advisory Services and the Concours Group have frequently sought his expertise in economic-based analysis of strategic IT management issues for numerous multi-client research studies. In 1994-95, he was a Research Fellow at CSC, reporting to the President of the Technology Management Group, where his responsibilities included conducting research on strategic sourcing, advising the senior leadership on strategic direction, developing strategic pricing approaches for outsourcing services, and making presentations on IT strategy to clients nationally. His research-based framework on governing outsourcing relationships has been used by numerous clients and IT service providers. He served on the Board of Directors of a start-up Business Process Outsourcing company (that was later acquired by a publicly traded firm), and is currently on the Board of Advisors for an IT services provider firm and for a security software company.

Research

Vijay has an active research program supported by funds from the National Science Foundation and from industry, having raised over $5MM during his career. He authored the book, “Managing Information Systems Costs,” and has published over 40 articles and management reports in the most prestigious journals in his areas of specialization including Information Systems Research, Management Science, MIS Quarterly and Sloan Management Review.

His research has been recognized for its academic excellence and its importance to business. Vijay has been named one of the most productive scholars in the Information Systems discipline, and his impact is evidenced by the frequency with which his research is cited by other scholars. One of his publications was recently ranked first in the field of Information Systems as measured by citations by researchers in business disciplines other than Information Systems, a measure of its broader impact. His expertise in outsourcing was recognized when he won the 2002 Outsourcing World Achievement Award in the Academic category by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Michael Corbett and Associates at the fourth annual Outsourcing World Summit Conference & Exposition. He was awarded the Andersen Consulting Outstanding Faculty Award and the Corporate Partners Faculty Fellowship. His doctoral thesis won the prize for the best dissertation in a worldwide competition sponsored by the International Center for Information Technologies. He has been a visiting scholar at the business schools at Stanford University and at MIT.

Research Leadership

Vijay serves as Director of the Center for Research on IT and Organizations (CRITO) Industry/University Consortium, a National Science Foundation sponsored think tank that partners with innovative organizations to conduct and disseminate research that is both academically rigorous and relevant to business. The CRITO Consortium shares its findings through executive briefings, papers and workshops. Research sponsors include the Boeing Company, Gartner Group, IBM, Intel, and International Data Corporation and the US Department of Defense.

He recently founded and directs the Southern California Chief Information Officer (CIO) Roundtable, designed as a research salon to introduce and assess emerging management thinking within a group of senior IT executives. Members include executives from ten leading Southern California companies including Broadcom, Ingram Micro, the Irvine Company, Disneyland Resorts, and Pacific Life.

From 2001 to 2005, Vijay played a leadership role in the founding of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a large multi-disciplinary research organization aimed at accelerating innovation by driving research from theory to practice. The institute was funded with a $100MM start-up investment by the State of California and is based at the Irvine and San Diego campuses of the University of California. He developed and coordinated a research agenda focused on the economic, managerial and social impacts of IT.

Academic Management

Vijay served as Associate Dean of the MBA program from 2004 until 2006 and from 1995 to 1999. In both terms, he successfully led the school’s efforts to develop and implement new innovative curricula aimed at providing students with the capabilities and knowledge needed for success in the businesses of the future. In his first term, he initiated and then led the development of the school’s new strategic focus on the transformative role of information technology in business, an approach which led to widespread external recognition of the business school as a center of excellence in IT in business (4th in Wall Street Journal’s annual rankings of business schools by specialty), and significant increases in the school’s national rankings. In his second term, he led a substantial redesign of the MBA program to reflect the importance of driving growth through the new business imperatives of innovation and technology-enabled productivity.

Education

Vijay Gurbaxani received Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Business Administration from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester, New York. Dr. Gurbaxani received an integrated 5-year Master’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.