1. Vinay Gupta, President and CEO of Janeeva, which sells software to help companies manage outsourcing relationships, gave this advice (Bloomberg Businessweek, 2013):

I would strongly encourage business owners to visit the vendors facilities. There are a lot of fly-by-night operators, so you want to make sure you have touched and seen the facility before you hand them your business I would do at least a 30-day free pilot with the provider. You want to see if it is a good fit and find out who you will be interacting with on a day-to-day basis. Not all companies follow this advice.

a. Discuss why companies would take these precautions when setting up an outsourcing relationship.

b. Discuss why companies would not take these precautions when setting up an outsourcing relationship.

2. Research legal websites discussing SLAs. Compile a list of recommendations, including what to do and what to avoid.

3. Netflix streams videos on TVs, personal computers, and smartphones using cloud services from Amazon Web Services (AWS). Its model is a direct challenge to traditional content distributors, which are limited by physical distribution and network broadcasting. In contrast, Netflix capitalizes on low cost and virtually unlimited cloud capacity to deliver content on demand almost anywhere. In 2011, Netflixs subscriber base surpassed that of Comcast, the largest cable provider in terms of subscribers, to become one of the largest video content distributors in the nation. Research Netflix to learn more about its position in the industry in the on-demand economy and explain how it is currently using cloud technologies to create business value. Research another company in the media and entertainment spacefor example, Roku or Hulu. Compare the cloud strategies of the competitor to Netflix.