Street level offshoring strategy
Chetan and Michael made a couple of interesting comments on my recent blog “What’s the big deal about big sourcing deals?”
Michael seems to agree with the theme when he says “Media needs a headline to splash and nothing is more headline-esque than a deal worth hundreds of millions or in some cases a billion or more” but Chetan seems to extend my assertion by pointing out the big-picture: “At a sales/account or program mgt level , larger outsourcing deals could get complex with respect to delivering the desired cost savings , best practices , governance , security & risk compliance , the growing web of SLA’s , program management etc.” These are certainly strategic aspects of larger deals.
Where I would take off on my argument on big and small deals is about how all (sourcing) strategies need to translate to actionable tactics… street level strategies if you will. I find it interesting that hardly any analysts, writers and other blog ‘thought leaders’ focus on this aspect.
Before I go on further, I do enjoy my share of ‘strategic’ reads [Recent reads: Can Indian IT Services Companies Keep growing ....? and Outsourcing & Offshoring: The Smart & Mature Way]
The point I am trying to make is that most analyst reporters and bloggers focus on ‘strategies’ and good, bad and ugly aspects of going offshore. But one wonders if they are barking up the wrong tree. I find it amusing to read accounts by bloggers who take pride in writing “when I was meeting with a CIO of XYZ Inc, we discussed a strategy for….” Don’t mistake me, I am a big fan of strategic thinking as the next consultant. However during many of my consulting gigs (some of them ‘strategic’), I notice that most, if not all IT Leaders – CIOs, IT Directors et al – are past ‘defending’ their “offshoring strategies” to managers and analysts. For them leveraging external teams, even from across the globe is just another tool in the toolkit. And if one were to take a Pareto’s 80:20 principle, about 80 percent of technology leader’s time is spent on fighting tactical fires, production and operational challenges, aligning with business stakeholders among other tasks.
The tactical nature hit home recently at an engagement where a colleague and I were advising a CIO on his roadmap for an application portfolio. During the first couple of weeks of our engagement, I observed the CIO, his directors and others huddled together well past 7 PM. And occasionally when we’d get to work in the mornings, we’d notice large boxes of pizzas in the breakroom (read: night outs)
I then got talking with my onsite engagement leader who admitted that he also did all-nighters with the client to ensure that the offshore team (thankfully during their day shift) was there to fight the ‘fire’ of the new production release. Now, this CIO does not need descriptive analyst reports or fancy ‘trends analysis’ to see how his global team came together to fight the fire.
What he really needs is a street level strategy to ensure that his team continues to operate optimally….so that in in the rest of his 20 percent time, he can focus on his “corporate IT strategy..” which the consultant in me can blog about (right?)
