that too they outsource!

Infertile Westerners outsourcing childbearing to India - The Boston Globe: "As temp jobs go, Saroj Mehli has landed what she feels is a pretty sweet deal. It's a nine-month gig, no special skills needed, and the only real labor comes at the end -- when she gives birth." Well why not! If it's done here, I'm sure you can do it cheaper over there for less of a hassle. The product quality apparently is second to none. Now in a few years India will have world class facilities, spanking clean, with a CMM level 5 accreditation. As far as optimization goes I don't think they will be able to get those projects to go much below 9months cycle. ;-)

A little round up of interesting stories from EE Times

First you have news that Wipro is clocking in again > 30% growth beating expectations. This is pretty interesting to see companies in India growing quarter over quarter of growth greater than 30%. It's interesting because we're talking billion dollars total revenue, growing that much means lots of new business is being closed. The trend of outsourcing is not slowing down, it's only accelerating. Another interesting story confirming this phenomenon, it's TCS who plans to hire >30,000 people this year alone. They are just huge numbers by our standards, the city where I was born is was much smaller than what TCS plans to hire this year alone.

Where is Canada into all of this? I'd sum it up as Innovation is not a capacity play - so when it's time to solve an innovation problem, throwing more bodies at it will not fast track your way to a solution, you want to put the right minds to solving it. We have the right skills to innovate, and the innovators right here, this is one the many reasons that makes me believe Canada has a great shot at the Product Development Ooutsourcing market.

One last story it's funny how the minute people start to have more money, they slow down on the kid side of things.

Ocri radio - April 2006

Yours truly is on this month Ocri Radio podcast on the case for Outsourcing R&D in Canada/Ottawa.

Ocri Gala

All right, yesterday I was at the ocri gala. We were one of the finalist for the service of the year award. While we didn't win, it was a great night of fun. It had just enough glitz and glamour, the setup was great, and the format was just formal enough. Nice touch to every one involved, and thanks for taking the time to celebrate together the success stories of the region. Many thanks to OCRI and the event sponsors for making this possible.

Techdirt: How NTP Kept Wireless Email Prior Art Quiet For $20,000

Techdirt: How NTP Kept Wireless Email Prior Art Quiet For $20,000: "The scary part, though, is that NTP's lawyers were able to effectively silence Goodfellow in the case, paying him $20,000 for a few days of 'consulting' work, with part of the deal being that he was prohibited from revealing any info to RIM during the case. So, while they kept the prior art quiet for $20,000, NTP's lawyers walked away with $600 million." This a NY time story about a guy who thought he was doing the right thing by not patenting, and ended silenced big time by NTP lawyers. Interesting inside story anyway.

Cliché but there is more to it

USATODAY.com - Google's hidden payroll: "But Gandhi's Adsense profits have exceeded his wildest dreams. He now earns about $1,000 a month from the program, the same salary he previously earned as a software engineer. His new income has allowed him to leave his job and return to school. 'Today I am able to sponsor my higher studies because of Adsense,' he says." Ok if you read on this is a big time cliché story I got off the google code blog. Adsense for people in NA at a individual level doesn't really amount to a whole lot as a supplemental revenue, but for an Indian guy it can change a life. In other words for adsense to work for an individual in NA means that it needs to bring in roughly 5-6times more on a monthly basis than it's counter part in India for one to be able to give up his job and live off of adsense. Does it mean we have to come up with better ideas? Or maybe go live in India to make the idea viable. To me this is the cost of innovation going down, the barrier of entry of a product developped globally is lower than a product strictly developped in NA. The low cost structure makes for more ideas being viable. This is a very simple but yet convincing example that the world has changed and the freedom that money brings is no longer only for the super riche of our world but guys in India living on 1000$/month can now make a choice too.

Green

Listening to the radio this morning the topic was green companies, or companies that are taking actions to minimize the impact of their activities on our global ecosystem, ie Earth! To my great (and the radio host as well) surprise the person arguing the point went on to say that it's normal for companies to want to make money, this is by law why they are created, otherwise one would create another kind of organism, like not for profit. The radio host tried over a couple of times to get the person to re-phrase, or reposition the statement, and she was always coming back with the same message. Companies exist to make money. This is an obvious statement, coming from someone arguing the need for sustainable develolpment it's surprising. More and more people are coming around to the need for sustainable development. Companies to make money need people to buy their products - ding!

What I found interesting in the interview is the interviewee was totally making the point that companies making money is an essential part of sustainable development, because they are integral part of the sustainable development supply chain just like you an me. The companies like you and me need to understand how they can become more efficient, productive, etc through the use of sustainable practices. So when you leave tonight, don't forget to turn off the light of your office!

PDO firms on course for IPO

IndianExpress.com :: Persistent Systems on course for IPO: "Persistent Systems, the Pune-based outsourced product development outfit recently funded by US-based venture funds Norwest Venture Capital and Gabriel Venture Capital, is coursing towards an IPO by April next year to raise some $30-50 million (Rs 200-250 crore). " The PDO market is hot enough in India that VCs are investing in companies. Fifteen years ago VCs did invest in plays like CGI and Cognicase who got bought by CGI. At software 2006 I ran into Canadian VCs and it's amazing how they are not on the same page as their american conterpart about being R&D efficient. For a US based VC it's very important for their investments to have an Outsourcing strategy, for a Canadian VC this doesn't ring a bell yet. It makes so much sense to them, and they see so much the writing on the walls, that they are back at investing in services companies. I wonder what it's going to make our VC community see beyond the organization they invest in. Success is speed, and speed comes by ramping up quickly, and executing flawlessly. Lining up partners in ones R&D supply chain accelerate your time to market and increase you chances of meeting customers expectations. It allows one more time for the customer, and hiring the specialist one needs to deliver. R&D groups of companies are now the maestro and the first strings, the rest of the orchestra is partners you mix and match according to the current cycle needs.

IndianExpress.com :: Persistent Systems on course for IPO

IndianExpress.com :: Persistent Systems on course for IPO: "Persistent Systems, the Pune-based outsourced product development outfit recently funded by US-based venture funds Norwest Venture Capital and Gabriel Venture Capital, is coursing towards an IPO by April next year to raise some $30-50 million (Rs 200-250 crore). " The PDO market is hot enough in India that VCs are investing in companies. Fifteen years ago VCs did invest in plays like CGI and Cognicase who got bought by CGI. At software 2006 I ran into Canadian VCs and it's amazing how they are not on the same page as their american conterpart about being R&D efficient. For a US based VC it's very important for their investments to have an Outsourcing strategy, for a Canadian VC this doesn't ring a bell yet. It makes so much sense to them, and they see so much the writing on the walls, that they are back at investing in services companies. I wonder what it's going to make our VC community see beyond the organization they invest in. Success is speed, and speed comes by ramping up quickly, and executing flawlessly. Lining up partners in ones R&D supply chain accelerate your time to market and increase you chances of meeting customers expectations. It allows one more time for the customer, and hiring the specialist one needs to deliver. R&D groups of companies are now the maestro and the first strings, the rest of the orchestra is partners you mix and match according to the current cycle needs.

What does it remind you of?

Now small cos facing talent crunch - The Economic Times: "One morning last winter IBM employees at SEEPZ, Mumbai, were witness to hiring — guerrilla style. Just before boarding their bus they were given attractive, glossy handouts. Chic, colourful and engaging, the pamphlet talked about a relatively small IT firm"

I hear of people poaching during smoke breaks too!

Panel at Software 2006

Microsoft official cites quality as offshoring priority | April 4, 2006 05:55 PM | By Paul Krill Interestingly enough I was at that same talk, sitting just behind Paul, who was frantically taking notes. During that panel people quantified the productivity of their offshore resources hovering between 60-90% of their counterparts in-house. They say they are happy with the through put, as long as it's above 80%, and they don't think it's going to go above 90% for the forseeable future. Two years ago only if they had been asked the same question they would have said 50%, all in all a good progression. My theory to this progression - it's as much due to the people over offshore, as much to the people on shore who are learning to work with people in other countries, new cultures.

DML Presentation

Here is the presentation I gave to DML last Thursday. I can talk for hours about this stuff, if you have questions please drop my an e-mail.

leExecutiveClub - disscussion on Outsourcing

Offshore Discussion The transcript of a panel that took place at the "LeExecutiveClub" Thanks to Geraldine Réau for sending in the link. I don't know much yet about the Executive club, but I plan on attending their events upon my next visits. Reading through the transcript, we can see various perspectives on Outsourcing, supplier(s)/buyer(s) experience.

outsourcing models for software development -Tyner Blain

Four outsourcing models for software development -Tyner Blain In his post Tyner explains makes the case for four outsourcing models. The models are based on what you outsource. He then goes on to explain how things work in each respective model. He concludes there are no right answer and every project has its specific.

I would like to push his model further, to help people figure what would work for their organization, and literally where geographically it would work best for them. Just like italian cuising, any projects like a reciepe has its holy trinity of ingredients, they are Control, Coordination and Communication ( or 3Cs for short). BTW for an italian receipe the three ingredients that makes up the holy trinity or frisotto are oinion, carrots, and celery.

Depending on the project, various of each C will be required to deliver on time an on budget. How you prepare, manipulate, transform the 3Cs is done through People, Process and Tools.

What needs to be realized at this point is the correlation strong correlation that exists between People and Communication, and Control and Tools. My reasoning is as follow:

• The spectrum of software projects goes from mechanical work to highly innovative, leading edge work
• Tools and Control - The more mechanical the tasks in the projects are, the more tools are developed and used to implement the tasks, the more the project can be Controlled strictly by the execution of tools
• People and Communication - The more innovative the tasks, the more communication they require among its team members to get it done.

One can conclude - The more a project relies on people, the more important it is that we understand each other clearly - the more important it becomes the team hired is close by, ie same language, same culture, same time zone etc... At the other extreme the more a project relies on tools, the less important it that the team is close by etc, the tools will churn out metrics that tells you if the partner is on track or not, and help you control what is going on. More of a throw over the wall approach.

So in my mind how you outsource depends on what your project at hand is and how much time one has to deliver.