I had an interesting time interacting with and interviewing fellow consultants and technologists the past couple of weeks. The consultants in question were referred to us by the head of their company’s consulting practice since the group was being disbanded due to some corporate restructuring; and the management of the firm had offered to connect them with other partner organizations (including Infosys). Why that group was being disbanded rather than being offered/sold as a consulting practice is something I had no intention of probing. So here I was, working with my colleagues to whet the profiles from that data set, and began making cold calls to talk with the prospective candidates. A few observations based on my interactions with the prospects:

Based on the stream of queries I received, I decided to elaborate on the topic further (published here online: “Viewpoints on Pre Sales, Sales support at Software Service Firms”). This is a working draft that I will continue to revise, so keep your queries and comments coming.

Case in point, I was at meeting of an engagement team and managers of one of our clients in the context of their team exploring the use of BEA’s Aqualogic as an integration platform. During the discussion, one of the executives made a mention that although we were a large service provider, with over hundred-thousand talented individuals who had expertise in myriad technologies, he was only exposed to the (Infosys) team assigned to their projects onsite and offshore, which was primarily in Microsoft .Net Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) space.

Most IT teams that leverage open source tools, frameworks and solutions expect their team members to actively participate in the forums, and in case of teams that include service providers, say Infosys, expect them to also leverage and contribute to the open source community.

• Executives at some firms, reading the tea-leaves about the impending slowdown are digging their heels deeper and taking a closer look at their spending, expenses and sometimes key initiatives that could be making them competitive. 
• Some Business Integration initiatives that were started with much fanfare last year are getting a second look before they can be rolled out. This includes key SOA initiatives, which I had blogged about a while ago
• Offshoring will continue to remain on corporate radar screens as a means to derive efficiencies by leveraging global talent

Though there may not be a direct correlation between the three trends, one can connect the dots.

Reading about this incident, I began reflecting on my experience with IT in the Government and the security policies and checks-and-balances inherent to managing such systems.

This itinerary meant that I had to leave home at 4.30 to drive down to the airport, park my car, and check in for the flight. In the morning rush, I decided to check my mails and voicemail on the blackberry after I had some wait-time at the airport. And was I surprised to see a note from Bob, the client VP of Strategy whose team I was meeting with:

Thanks to varied viewpoints of bloggers - Nicholas Carr, Blogger News Network  Marc Parent et al - the issues, including the ‘global security’ ‘sabotage’  and economic impact have been debated threadbare during the past few weeks. The media was also quick to ‘analyze’ the impact on software majors in South Asia, and naturally, Infosys figured in a fair number of articles too. [e.g Economic Times, Finance Week]

“while I  do believe it's a very important role, I  also think the success of this depends on a) how it is communicated, across levels b) the authority vested in the engagement manager and c) will of the vendor's leadership/operational folks in actually actioning on perceived improvement areas.
My experience from a few years in this field (working for an i-banking kpo) is providers are fairly short sighted, constantly chasing monthly billing (acceptable), but not really focusing on offering an overall experience for the client.
While it is not likely to hurt vendors today (since clients don’t have too many alternatives), clearly down-the-line....when the market opens up (which it will), vendors that take a very bottom line driven approach will not be the better for it."

Among these commenting on the topic, a blog that caught my eye was Ben Worthen's viewpoint in WSJ’s blog [“Young Mainframe Programmers are the Cat’s Meow”], where he raises the question: Where do businesses find people who remember how to program the things? The obvious answer would be: offshore; but there again, it is not as simple as that.

• Students and academics: Empirically observe and learn from people on the ground. The goal of such offshore study trips is generally to observe aspects of offshoring from an academic perspective and the agenda could include visits to offshore companies, meetings and Q&A sessions with executives etc. [Examples of such visits 'study trip' 'India Study Trip']
• Prospective clients: The agenda of such visits by prospective clients is to assess the infrastructure and capabilities of one or more short listed service providers. Such visits are generally organized for executive management or CXOs during final stages of negotiating with service providers.  Of course, the agenda is for those undertaking the trip to see through PPTware and online brochures.
• Existing clients: The agenda for client visits in an existing relationship vary and depend on the nature of engagement and prospects for future enhancement in relationships. The visits are generally orchestrated by onsite engagement managers who may also accompany visiting executives. Other times such visits may involve line managers, architects and others from client end to spend time with offshore teams at their base locations.

Case in point is a recent visit by a CIO and senior executives of a client I work with. The client's team was accompanied by the onsite Engagement Manager, who got the following 'thank you' note after the visit: