Comments on: Bill Campbell Talks About Empowered Engineers http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/ Sharad Sharma examines the transformation challenges facing the software industry Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:48:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Ranga Raj http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/#comment-1395 Thu, 29 Mar 2007 06:14:23 +0000 http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/#comment-1395 Well, the whole outsourcing aspect started off as a cost arbitrage value proposition. As the salaries of our engineers increase at the current rate, with the supply/demand in-balance, there has to be a correction factor. The correction factor will hurt a lot of people and will cost the country. There are two ways to transform this 1. China has been the manufacturing base of the world and has not stopped at that - they have been moving up the value chain into design and productization through predominatly the reverse-engineering route (as most of them are physical goods). We have to move up the value chain and transform ourselves to be a value player - therefore a value arbitrage comes into the picture instead of cost. This of course is achieved through innovation as other points discussed above. 2. Local market - Again similar to China where initially the chinese economy was driven by exports and the money made through that process has given rise to a huge local domestic market that the world wants to address, in which case it does not make sense to design in the US for Chinese markets, and therefore product centers are being moved to China to address local markets. The government has hastened and forced this process by raising the bar and saying these are local standards and if you want to address the local market, then follow local standards (media, telecom etc.). The Indian government cannot follow suite, but the local economy is booming and India as a market is becoming increasingly attractive. Local services company that were export oriented with the thought that markets existed only in the western world are now looking behind their shoulder to see the local market being equally attractive. So as global companies start to want to address local markets, companies need to leverage this by doing local product management, design, manufacture etc. It is happening with some of the examples mentioned - cell phones from Nokia, Motorola. It is just the beginning, but the stars are aligning! Well, the whole outsourcing aspect started off as a cost arbitrage value proposition. As the salaries of our engineers increase at the current rate, with the supply/demand in-balance, there has to be a correction factor. The correction factor will hurt a lot of people and will cost the country.

There are two ways to transform this
1. China has been the manufacturing base of the world and has not stopped at that - they have been moving up the value chain into design and productization through predominatly the reverse-engineering route (as most of them are physical goods). We have to move up the value chain and transform ourselves to be a value player - therefore a value arbitrage comes into the picture instead of cost. This of course is achieved through innovation as other points discussed above.
2. Local market - Again similar to China where initially the chinese economy was driven by exports and the money made through that process has given rise to a huge local domestic market that the world wants to address, in which case it does not make sense to design in the US for Chinese markets, and therefore product centers are being moved to China to address local markets. The government has hastened and forced this process by raising the bar and saying these are local standards and if you want to address the local market, then follow local standards (media, telecom etc.). The Indian government cannot follow suite, but the local economy is booming and India as a market is becoming increasingly attractive. Local services company that were export oriented with the thought that markets existed only in the western world are now looking behind their shoulder to see the local market being equally attractive. So as global companies start to want to address local markets, companies need to leverage this by doing local product management, design, manufacture etc. It is happening with some of the examples mentioned - cell phones from Nokia, Motorola.

It is just the beginning, but the stars are aligning!

]]> by: Manjunath M Gowda http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/#comment-1372 Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:25:38 +0000 http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/#comment-1372 Very good article and I always beleive that only innovation at every step and every stage can differentiate you in this dog eat dog world. Like the article but I didn't like this senetence : "Innovation comes through having great engineers, not great product-marketing guys" Innovation is for everyone and for every department and I am sure there are 1000 news innovative ways of marketing the product where product-marketing guys play a big role; there are new innovative ways as Admin can think of running his chores - in reality innovation is for everyone and at every stage. Manjunath M Gowda www.s7solutions.com "Where migration meets Innovation" :-) Very good article and I always beleive that only innovation at every step and every stage can differentiate you in this dog eat dog world. Like the article but I didn’t like this senetence :
“Innovation comes through having great engineers, not great product-marketing guys”
Innovation is for everyone and for every department and I am sure there are 1000 news innovative ways of marketing the product where product-marketing guys play a big role; there are new innovative ways as Admin can think of running his chores - in reality innovation is for everyone and at every stage.

Manjunath M Gowda
www.s7solutions.com
“Where migration meets Innovation” :-)

]]> by: Kumar Rangarajan http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/#comment-1368 Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:49:48 +0000 http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/03/27/bill-campbell/#comment-1368 I read this post after it was forwarded by my company's CEO, and it certainly was worth the read. Though it was forward with the assumption that this is meant for 'innovators' (aka engineers), I think this article describes the role that the evaluators/managers have to play in innovation (though it does'nt fully describe how). Engineers typically tend to be over-optimistic and normally overplay the importance of an idea/feature they thought about. But it is the evaluator of these ideas, who need to play the Devil's advocate here, and try and extract real value out of the idea. The trick is to be balanced... how to be objective, at the same time not put off the creativity or the enthusiasm of the idea generator. But then hey, who says it is easy being a manager :-) :-) Kumar Rangarajan Senior Architect S7 Solutions I read this post after it was forwarded by my company’s CEO, and it certainly was worth the read. Though it was forward with the assumption that this is meant for ‘innovators’ (aka engineers), I think this article describes the role that the evaluators/managers have to play in innovation (though it does’nt fully describe how). Engineers typically tend to be over-optimistic and normally overplay the importance of an idea/feature they thought about. But it is the evaluator of these ideas, who need to play the Devil’s advocate here, and try and extract real value out of the idea. The trick is to be balanced… how to be objective, at the same time not put off the creativity or the enthusiasm of the idea generator. But then hey, who says it is easy being a manager :-)

:-)

Kumar Rangarajan
Senior Architect
S7 Solutions

]]>