Comments on: Growth Anatomy: Call to Action http://orbitchange.com/blog/2006/12/16/call-to-action/ Sharad Sharma examines the transformation challenges facing the software industry Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:48:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Giri Krishna http://orbitchange.com/blog/2006/12/16/call-to-action/#comment-80 Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:02:06 +0000 http://orbitchange.com/blog/2006/12/16/call-to-action/#comment-80 My response here may not be relevant in the BOP context but I would like to share my frustration in dealing with the Indian IT service companies without naming them here. Almost 50% of the work we do in my organization is in - what we euphemistically call - partnership with them. So we would like to believe that they bring in competencies that we can leverage and build teams quickly to address time to market issues. They see every opportunity as an n-body solution i.e. they give us n-bodies and we use them in whatever way we can and regularly pay their dues. This by itself would not be too bad if we had the same n-bodies for any length of time. But that is not to be because these n-bodies need job rotation and hence every 18 months or so some of them leave and in 3-4 years we have a completely new team! Most of these companies are currently extremely profitable as their financial results show. Right now I am in the middle of discussions with several vendors (I refuse to call them partners here) to establish a Video Test Competency Center for my organization. All of them have come back to me with an n-body solution without addressing the basic needs or describing what kind of skillsets would be available with the team. This is despite several iterations and feedback sessions with each one of them. As a result I would like to believe they are in the Wile E. Coyote situation. So this is a business opportunity waiting to be exploited. These successful companies need to change their success mantra or they might just fade away pretty soon. The point here is that BOP or not the success mantra for the IT services companies in India has to change pretty soon or companies like mine will start looking elsewhere for their partners. There is already talk of going to East Europe or Russia and in some cases there is even willingness to pay top dollar to acquire expertise which cannot be built quickly but is available! My response here may not be relevant in the BOP context but I would like to share my frustration in dealing with the Indian IT service companies without naming them here. Almost 50% of the work we do in my organization is in - what we euphemistically call - partnership with them. So we would like to believe that they bring in competencies that we can leverage and build teams quickly to address time to market issues.

They see every opportunity as an n-body solution i.e. they give us n-bodies and we use them in whatever way we can and regularly pay their dues. This by itself would not be too bad if we had the same n-bodies for any length of time. But that is not to be because these n-bodies need job rotation and hence every 18 months or so some of them leave and in 3-4 years we have a completely new team!

Most of these companies are currently extremely profitable as their financial results show. Right now I am in the middle of discussions with several vendors (I refuse to call them partners here) to establish a Video Test Competency Center for my organization. All of them have come back to me with an n-body solution without addressing the basic needs or describing what kind of skillsets would be available with the team. This is despite several iterations and feedback sessions with each one of them. As a result I would like to believe they are in the Wile E. Coyote situation. So this is a business opportunity waiting to be exploited. These successful companies need to change their success mantra or they might just fade away pretty soon.

The point here is that BOP or not the success mantra for the IT services companies in India has to change pretty soon or companies like mine will start looking elsewhere for their partners. There is already talk of going to East Europe or Russia and in some cases there is even willingness to pay top dollar to acquire expertise which cannot be built quickly but is available!

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