Managing Offshore IT

Over the weekend, I was watching “Death of a Salesman,” the drama on DVD based on Arthur Miller’s American classic, which, incidentally was a required reading for us in school when I was growing up in India.

Though it has been decades since Miller wrote the drama, it captures the essence of salesmen (and women… I will refrain from being Politically Correct, and not use “sales person”); And why do I bring up this topic? Because most of us in the offshoring space are essentially salesmen.

You don’t have to agree to this argument but let us start at the bottom of the pyramid: The offshore developers, programmers and coders: these are the folks who write, build and test software programs to specifications. One might think that they are not really “selling” anything. Yes, they are primarily selling their skills and talent to employers. If the employer happens to be a software services firm like Infosys, their skills are in turn packaged with their peers to “projects” for clients. This is a two-way selling: they are sold on the dream of working for world-class organizations, opportunity to interact with smart peers, work on cool technologies and…..you get the drift.

A few rungs above the developers are Project managers, team leaders, group managers who “anchor” offshore initiatives. One could argue that these folks are also not really “selling” anything. But there again, they are selling. Right? They sell ideas to clients and ensure that their teams are able deliver on the ideas. Lest we forget, responding to proposals, RFPs and RFIs involves selling (and pre-sales).

Beyond this level, especially when you turn to the client facing folks (onsite folks)…now, they are the ones selling all aspects of the life-cycles, living in the sweet spot where selling and delivering software solutions to clients converge.

Flattening of the world (as Friedman calls it) also means all of us in the offshoring space are salesmen. Death of a Salesman? ….long live Salesmen. 

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This flakiness of videoconferencing technologies was inhibiting Project Managers, Engagement Leaders and other client facing folks from even proposing “tools” in a competitive landscape. Most feel that it is still worth the effort for the expert (or team) to be co-located in the same conference room during crucial meetings, sessions, presentations and the like..Needless to say, the cost of such travel is ultimately borne by the client, many of whom -- like Bob I was talking with in Boston – are beginning to seek out alternatives.

And this is where American Innovativeness is beginning to play out. During our conversation, Bob mentioned how some executives at his company were sold on HP’s Video Collaboration technology.

HP Halo Collaboration Studio, developed with Dreamworks, the multimedia and animation company. An article in InfoWorld says “Conceived by Dreamworks as a response to travel concerns after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Halo allows meeting participants to make eye contact, share files and documents, and shout over each other in an attempt to be heard, just like a real meeting.”

Not to be left behind, CISCO, recently announced the launch of video-conferencing solution that a WSJ article says “Its so-called Cisco TelePresence Meeting Solution has been in the works for nearly two years.”

The maturing of such remote conferencing technologies that can be comfortably and conveniently used will hopefully reduce, if not eliminate business travel for road-warriors like me. [note to self: you are going to loose a valuable perk: frequent-flier miles…. Note to wife: will be back home for dinner tonight, not just this weekend] 

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The cost of flying the teams back and forth was least of his worries at the moment --though I am sure some financial guy in his organization was going to give him a hard time later – the real challenge was to work through the logistics of travel: who goes where and when, and to ensure that everyone’s calendars were sufficiently open….not to mention the ‘softer’ side of things that began playing out like a manager having to miss his son’s birthday party planned months in advance…you probably get the drift.

Now, what’s new here, you must be wondering? Those of us in the offshoring space live and breath the challenges of bridging the “time and space” divide…but most of the time, it is we -- the sourcing organization’s folks -- who bend over backwards, jump through the visa hurdles, missing birthday parties, trainings and the like, just to be present at a client’s crucial meeting, summit or review sessions.

If we can help clients leverage the benefits of technologies, why can’t we be eating our own cooking? In the section on Video conferencing in my book, I ponder over the same topic “Technology to facilitate videoconferencing and teleconferencing has been around for a while but the widespread usage hasn’t followed. Why hasn’t videoconferencing become popular?” Even scholars seem to be wondering about the challenges in adopting the video-conferencing technologies. A Professor asked me about this very topic while I was presenting on offshoring management at the recent Smart Sourcing Global conference in Los Angeles.

Video Conferencing technologies and tools have been in existence for a while and continue to mature, so everyone should be jumping on to using the tools instead of hopping on to the nearest airport. right? 

In my book, Offshoring IT Services, I dedicated a section to explore the “Tools and Technologies of Communication.” Needless to say, an analysis of video-conferencing technologies figures there.

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In my previous blog, we looked at some aspects of how individuals are working to become Global Managers…a trend that is getting to be truly globalized (pun intended).

The Economist magazine, in a recent article “The battle for brainpower” talks about how talent has become the world's most sought-after commodity, and the shortage is causing serious problems. The article echoes a general trend that most managers at multinationals are observing, adding “Over the past decade multinational companies have shipped back-office and IT operations to the developing world, particularly India and China. More recently they have started moving better jobs offshore as well, capitalising on high-grade workers with local knowledge; but now they are bumping up against talent shortages in the developing world too.”

Similarly in a recent Silicon India  article, Being a Global Manager, the author focuses on a few key imperatives for a manager to succeed in the global IT industry, and elaborates on.

- Management
- Leadership
- Communication
- Relationship
- Innovation

For those of us in the Offshoring IT Services space who live and learn the best-practices of managing global teams across time-and-space boundaries, the articles in the business and technical press corroborate our empirical observations.

Before I end: Season’s Greetings for Id and Diwali. [This year even NASDAQ is wishing Indians Diwali]

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Richa, in her recent blog posts about her first-hand observation on how “The War for Talent Heats Up” in India. Although I can completely empathize with Richa’s frustration, I can also see why the “hot” techies are running after employers who profess to offer “a few dollars more.”

Young and aggressive, many of them are perhaps oblivious to the longer term opportunities that a global career in IT has in store. Surprisingly, programmers and software professionals in America seem to be more astute about globalization.  

The recent article in Fast Company magazine “You're a new tech grad looking for work. Check out Mysore” makes for interesting reading. The story talks about how new graduates like Brandon Pletcher -- a 23-year-old computer-engineering grad from the University of Arizona and Nicole Dun, A freshly minted 22-year-old computer-science graduate of the University of California at Davis, are globalizing their careers.

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In one of my avtars as a columnist for Express Computers’ I had written a column on Pre-sales in software service organizations (Re: “Pre-sales support is a necessary evil"). Though it has been nearly two years since it was published, I continue to receive comments on the article, perhaps because of the relevance of the topic. One such note is from Mr. S (below)

***********

Dear Mohan,
Hope you are doing well. I work for Indian IT Company and am placed Onsite (in UK).
I have about 8 years experience in IT Industry. Now my problem is my company asking me to take new responsibility of Pre Sales support. I am trying to gather information about Pre Sales. I read your article in IT People. It is very impressive.
I am worried about How to start to work on Pre Sales and What to do? and How to do? I never had touch with Sales People.
I am under pressure to fulfill my new responsibilities. Please guide me to achieve this.
1. What is the first step I should do.
2. How best I can fulfill my company expectations.
Your help would be really valuable to me at this stressful time. 
Awaiting for your Reply
Regards
S

***********

Well, instead of responding only to S, I have decided to blog on the topic. This way others can either concur with my views or post comments. Right?

In the article, I had mentioned how consulting companies were increasingly asking consultants to contribute to pre-sales support, preparing project proposals, and responding to RFPs (Request for Proposals) and RFIs (Request for Information) and the like. I had given several pointers in the article. I have also dwelt on the topic in my book.

Perhaps the most important tool for Mr. S and his peers to consider is the aspect of leveraging the organizational resources. Simple, when responding to client queries in a pre-sales role, you are not an individual but an ambassador of your company.

For instance, at Infosys, our consultants have several tools including

1. An elaborate (award winning) Knowledge Management portal accessible to employees across the globe. The taxonomy is intuitive and searchable. Typically people responding to proposals scan the KM portal for internally published data and references on projects, technologies [more about it online or in my book]
2. Email groups: There are several e-mail groups of experts (functional, technical and others). Responses are near-real-time as they can be! 
3. Bank on researchers and internal experts: At Infosys, there are several research groups – technical, functional and business focused – whose focus is on helping client facing teams address client issues and challenges including responding to pre-sales queries. You will need to find your internal research groups in your organization whom you can ping. 
4.  External research: this will help in landscape scanning, getting information on competitors, market trends and the like. This could be formal or informal research (depending on the nature of the query, cost, budget and time required to respond)

I realize that some of the suggestions above are skewed towards larger organizations (like Infosys) that have invested in research and support for pre-sales and customer servicing. However, managers at smaller organizations also have similar, though informal, researchers and ‘thought leaders’ they can bank on. You will have to network with peers in your organization to discover the support mechanism available to you.

Perhaps one of the most important criteria I have personally observed to be helpful is the RTQ and ATQ principle:

• RTQ = Read the Question. Refer to what the client is asking for in the proposal
• ATQ = Answer the Query: After you have read and understood the question (and researched on it) you should focus on just Answering the Query. And remember: say “NO” “NA” or “info not available” if you don’t have the answer. Saying so will help you more than hurt you. Nobody (least of all your client) wants to spend precious time reading an answer to a query they did not ask!

Hope this helps

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The cover story “just say know to outsourcing” in the recent issue of CIO magazine makes for interesting reading. The ideas in “3 Ways to Answer the Outsourcing Question” resonated with my thinking. The author, Stephanie Overby, says there are three ways to respond when the "O" word is uttered:

• If you have a solid sourcing strategy and decision-making framework in place and an accurate understanding of costs, service level and other considerations, you'll want to inform the CEO and let him know you're evaluating the options.
• If you're developing your sourcing strategy and getting a handle on internal and external costs, service levels, and other considerations, you want to get buy-in for that process and buy yourself more time to complete it.
• If you have not yet started to develop an overarching strategy and have little visibility into internal and external costs, service levels and other considerations, turn this into an opportunity to do so.

To this, I would add the most important aspect: Know "How To" manage outsourcing and offshoring:

• If you have a program management framework, you want to extend it to managing offshored projects too. Though the body of knowledge in offshore IT management space is limited, you may reference the Offshoring Management Framework (OMF)…[Ref: my book: “Offshoring IT Services"]

Why do CIOs and IT executives need an Offshoring Management Framework? Simple: By defining and customizing their own governance and management processes, CIOs and their teams will be better positioned to strategically leverage their vendor’s sourcing models. Better than being sold on the hype of “Global Delivery Models” that most large software service firms offer; right?

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Both the Sadagopan blogs that I follow interesting perspectives on offshoring this week. Prof Sadagopan spoke about “Infosys market capitalization at trillion Rupees” while Sadagopan in his  Emerging Technologies spoke about Innovation as Door Opener, quoting from his earlier blog about how Accenture’s market capital is now less than Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. Market capital and other dynamics aside, what both were alluding to was how Innovation is playing a role in helping offshore players open doors in the global market.

The intriguing question here is: what beyond innovation and opening doors?

The success of Global Delivery Model lies in consistent execution capability, which translates to a lot of sweat and hard work by leveraging the right tools and frameworks. While observers and strategists are either in awe of the offshoring phenomena or debate its merits in an organizational strategy, the real beneficiaries are already reaping the benefits of geographically distributed teams.

The silver bullet is not innovation -- though it does play a role in “opening doors” – but in consistently delivering results one project at a time.

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In my previous blog “Strategic IT talent: Why Offshoring is not the answer?” I tried explaining how offshore outsourcing can be leveraged to provide technical work of various genera including some high end tasks like Research & Development and innovation and Enterprise Architecture Definition.

In my day-job, I straddle the thin line between working with clients and Infosys teams on translating sourcing strategies to actionable projects and programs while also consulting on high end (well, I can call define “high end since this is my blog, right?) Architecture definition including Enterprise Architecture (EA). [I am with the System Integration practice’s Technology Consulting Group]

I don’t want to dwell too much on EA definitions since gurus both at Infosys and outside -- [Re: Craig Borysowich, Robert McIlree’s blogs -- have done a stellar job. The sweet spot I am seeking to address is on leveraging offshoring to provide EA services.

Let me try and explain my thinking; Enterprise Architecture attempts to align business goals and “’IT strategy,”   essentially help manage innovation. EA governance also tries to create an atmosphere where IT Investments are optimally utilized. There are distinct opportunities to leverage globalized (onsite, offshore) and geographically distributed teams in EA teams that include:

• Offline research : including research on industry trends, emerging technologies
• Developing and testing Proof of Concept (POC) to study technical viability of solutions

The business goals that globalized EA teams work towards are the same that offshoring can provide, and include leveraging a wider skill pool, cost-benefits and the like. Though the thoughts here are more in the form of a SWAG, I have seen some of them work in the field with varying degrees of success.

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)