Managing Offshore IT

Most of us in the technology industry are observing the recent hype over cloud computing, some hoping that it might provide a boost to the tech sector in an otherwise bleak economic climate. And if one goes by the assumption that technology trends peak when the business press begins featuring them, cloud computing must be peaking the hype curve.

As we head into the easter holidays, I decided to catch up on the chatter on cloud computing. I began with Kris Gopalakrishnan`s views express during his trip to Davos for WEF earlier this (Infosys CEO Sees Brightness in Clouds) Wall Street Journal recently featured a story (The Internet Industry Is on a Cloud -- Whatever That May Mean) that begins by explaining “Ever since Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt publicly uttered the term "cloud computing" in 2006, a storm has been gathering over Silicon Valley.”
 

Continue reading "Silver linings in the cloud?" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am consulting with Enterprise Architects of a multinational client, helping define a framework for EA modeling. An area of emerging interest in the group here is around Business Architecture. The members of the core Enterprise Architecture team are seasoned technologists who also have a good grounding of the enterprise drivers and challenges. While they have grounding in the “Business of IS” it is not necessarily the “business” of the organization, which is to say they are not functional experts in HR, Finance or other operational areas.

Continue reading "Musings on Enterprise Architects, Business Architects and glorified Business Analysts" »

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Continue reading "Musings on Global Travel and Universal Adapters" »

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I got around to reading the insightful write-up “The Next Revolution in Productivity” published in the recent issue of Harvard Business Review [HBR, June 2008, also Arvindra Sehmi's blog] in which the authors make a case for business process re-engineering using Service Oriented Architectures (SOA). The authors write how “It is becoming possible to design many business activities as Lego-like software components that can be easily put together and taken apart;” The LEGO analogy is succinct and consultants are sure to pick on this: my colleague Binooj has already begun using it successfully to articulate SOA to clients!. One can even argue that technologists are already sold on SOA [Ref EDS’s corporate blog: Has SOA Emerged to be the Dominant Design in Software Architecture?] so the real logical step would be to take a top-down, business centric view. 

In making a case for SOA, the authors of the HBR writeup observe that bigger challenge is to ensure business alignment:

Continue reading "Musings on SOA and The Next Revolution in Productivity" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Leveraging Open Source tools, framework and even code by developers in large (read traditional) IT shops is becoming increasingly prevalent. Which means, offshore teams that work with such IT shops are increasingly utilizing the ‘power of many’ and contributing back. I had briefly blogged on the convergence of Offshoring and Open source a while ago but hadn’t touched on a practical dimension that I came across recently.

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.

Continue reading "Practical reality and challenges of offshoring open source development" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

There are days when I really wish videoconferencing will mature to a point where it negates travel; or at least minimize it. Today is certainly one such day. I was scheduled to meet with a client to discuss their Enterprise Architecture initiative at their office. It was meant to be a day-trip and my flight was scheduled for 6.20 AM, reaching Anytown, USA at 8.30 giving me time to get a rental car and drive down straight for the meeting.

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:

Continue reading "Musing on Travel, Business Meetings and Videoconferencing" »

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Continue reading "Musings 2.0 …softer challenges of Web 2.0" »

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It’s the Thanksgiving week in the US and the Christmas lights outside our office building come on tonight. Along with discussion of shopping deals, Black Friday and Turkeys, conversation will drift towards Christmas and the New Year…. Which means one thing: pundits, gurus and forecasters will roll-up their sleeves to make big predictions for “the year to come”  and the list is sure to contain the ‘usual suspects’ which is beginning to include Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0.

Flash back to over a year ago, Business Week had a cover story on how “Web 2.0 Has Corporate America Spinning.” Sure myspace, linkedin, youtube and Second Life have scores of Digerati excited. And surely some businesses have also jumped the bandwagon while a fewer entrepreneurs are raking billion-dollar valuations while academics like Andrew McAfee continue to ideate on “How to Hit the Enterprise 2.0 Bullseye” and researchers like Professor Murugesan begin compiling handbooks on Web 2.0, 3.0 and X.0

Continue reading "Thoughts on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0: What does it mean to you and me?" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing the management guru Prof. C.K Prahlad talk eloquently about his idea of Bottom-of-pyramid (BoP)and how organizations and individuals around the globe are benefiting by skimming margins at the BoP of larger organizations and trends. For those of us in the business of offshoring, BoP seems to be everywhere. Case in point, I was in the Plano, at the Texas office of Infosys last week interacting with fellow architects and academics participating in the Infosys Certified CTO “Enterprise Architect” workshop. For the two-week long session, I stayed at a nearby hotel [Let’s call it XYZ suites]

I have been traveling on business regularly ever since I started my career in IT in the early nineties, more so in my current avatar of a consulting architect. So what made me reflect on BoP during this trip?

Continue reading "Offshoring BoP and Tandoori Nights in Texas" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

A few weeks ago, I blogged about “M & A among offshorers" In that blog, an aspect of mergers I omitted was the big consolidation among enterprise software vendors during the recent years. Just a few examples from the past few years: Peoplesoft buying J.D. Edwards, in turn getting bought out by Oracle. Similarly Oracle bought out i-flex and CRM maker Siebel. IBM acquired Rational Software.  and Lotus.

Now comes news that “SAP may buy Business Objects.”  Bloggers and analysts are certainly vocal about this, move [Sadagopan, John Murrell, barrons, Mark Evans TechCrunch] though many have ignored the strong offshoring angle.

Continue reading "SAP may buy Business Objects: The offshoring angle" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Regulars: this mid-week blog entry has less to do about sourcing and more about how Information Technology is shaping the Newspaper business (or is it the other way around?). Like many of my peers in the industry, I have been watching the Dow Jones buyout drama play out during the past few months with more than cursory interest.

A question that I have been musing about is how much have Internet and 'Web 2.0' Technologies attributed to the recent buyout of Dow Jones at a premium by Mr. Rupert Murdoch. My two cents on Newspapers and the New Paradigm, published in this week’s ACM’s ubiquity.  As always: inputs and comments welcome

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A while ago, I blogged about “Open Source and Offshoring: Two Disruptive Forces Begin to Converge?” Extending the thinking, there was an interesting article “Social networking Joined-up thinking” in a recent issue of Economist magazine that talks about the trends in social networking and how it is impacting the corporate world. The author begins by examining “consumer adoption of social networking has grabbed most attention since then. But interest in the business uses of the technology is rising. . . .Many companies are attracted by the marketing opportunities offered by community sites.” This blog is an example of social networking that I attempt to participate in.

There is another example of a client’s business I came across that made me reflect on how Open Source, Offshoring and Web 2.0 are beginning to converge.  A case-in-point:

Continue reading "Open source and Web 2.0 business models" »

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There are frequent articles in the IT and business press on merits of certification; about how certification helps candidates set themselves apart from their peers in the market, a differentiation strategy if you will. My musing is not about certifications per se but about another dimension: recertification.

To set the context for this discussion I am a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the PMI, and Open Group, TOGAF, certified Enterprise Architect. The certifications are in addition to my educational qualifications in management and computers. Now, every so often my peers and colleagues begin to muse about the impending expiry of their PMP or TOGAF or other certifications. There are endless debates in chat forums and discussion groups on ‘why should I pay to re-certify’ or ‘should I re-certify’ etc… my two cents:

Continue reading "Musings on (Re)certification" »

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These days anything with a ‘services’ moniker sells….and not surprisingly we are hearing a lot more on SaaS : Software as a Service.

Charlie Bess in the EDS blog muses “Will 2007 be the year of SaaS?” The new moniker certainly has its followers. Martin Langedijk writes
“We all have been taught by our parents from a young age that sharing is a good thing! Software as a Service (SaaS) is based on the principle of sharing; in this case the sharing of resources, computer hardware, knowledge and most importantly the sharing of cost.“

Flavors of SaaS has been around the industry as far back as we can remember, with a couple of trends firming up over the past few years:
Application service provider (ASP) : A licensing fee and a monthly fee are separate and are paid to the maker of the software and to the hoster of the software.
Software on-demand : In software-on-demand type of hosting, there is no division between licensing and hosting fees, and there is little or no customization of software for customers.

Continue reading "SaaS, Services and Offshoring" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Continuing my earlier thread on managing Agile Offshore Development, a few notes from my recent reading on the topic:

It was interesting to scan the articles in this month’s Agile Journal focused on “Offshore Agile Development”. The editor leads by stating:
Offshore Agile development - no longer an anomaly but an increasingly attractive option for developers and consultants alike. Most companies start with some co-located Agile experience and then transition to offshore teams. However, others jump right into distributed Agile projects, and then factor in the time and cultural differences when involving teams in different countries or companies. Regardless of the approach, the numbers are growing. Successful offshore Agile teams have begun to discuss their experiences and share best practices for these challenging projects.

Continue reading "Additional notes on Agile Offshoring" »

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I was reading an interesting blog note Open source meets off-shoring where Steve Hamm comments on the recent announcement by the database company Ingress to go offshore “I think this is a significant announcement. It will make other players take heed--both on the open source software side and within the Indian tech industry.” Tom Berquist, CFO for Ingress is equally upbeat about the trend in his blog stating how the “Two Disruptive Forces Begin to Converge” Tom says:

When they work with our products they can get started immediately using the open source GPL license, without having to procure a commercial license. After they build and test the application (and fully understand the load characteristics) they can purchase database support subscriptions from us that tie directly to the number of servers they need to purchase. Nothing is wasted, and the software-related costs are deferred to the end of the project. This is a huge advantage to the customer and the services firm, and we believe that over the course of time all development will be done on open source technology even though some of the production deployment will continue to be done on commercial software.

Satyam's Sadagopan is naturally upbeat about the viewpoint. He blogs 'I particularly like the way Tom has captured the rationale behind the rise of the offshore service firms.'

Agreed that Open Source and Offshoring is a "potent combination" for businesses to pursue. However, I wonder what’s new in this announcement?

Continue reading "Open Source and Offshoring: Two Disruptive Forces Begin to Converge?" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been following the trends in XML standardization with more than a bit of passing interest, especially as a number of organizations -- including our clients – continue to adopt standards for data interchange, including financial reporting and management.

Case in point is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) announcement to invest $54 million to transform the agency’s 1980s-vintage public company disclosure system, that comes as a shot in the arm to organizations looking to bring further standardization to financial reporting. SEC’s release states “By moving to interactive data using the XBRL computer language, the SEC will be joining the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and the Comptroller of the Currency, which already require banks to use it.”

Interestingly, although the move towards XBRL is going to be a technology focused initiative -- especially for organizations with more archaic IT systems -- business leaders are also taking note. In the Feb 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review featuring “Breakthrough Ideas for 2007,” the authors focus on talking up the trend, stating “Here Comes XBRL” [HBR says that the list is free to read for all of February]

What does this mean to us? Watch out for lot more business and tech leaders asking about XBRL (remember what SoX did to IT compliance?)

Continue reading "Silver Bullet or not... XBRL is here" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was skimming through John Ribeiro's recent Infoworld article and began pondering over the points raised where he talks about how IBM's SOA centers in India and China are driving nimble services. The author argues how IBM is taking the promise of SOA reusability a step further: setting up SOA Solutions Centers at Pune, India, and Beijing. Their charter: to identify and create composite business services that can be reused by other customers in the same industry.

The article made for interesting reading, especially the trends in globalization of innovation and R&D can be seen in many large service organizations, including Infosys.

Continue reading "Entrepreneurial IT, Innovation and Offshoring" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Though there is an element of mutual collaboration in identifying the “right” processes and methodologies, clients generally prefer Offshore Project Managers and their teams follow their organization’s development paradigms and processes. No arguments here, since the client is going to own the software and solution, right? Well, what if the client’s preferred process is the Agile Software Process?

You may not be alone in wondering if we are talking about the right paradigm here: As more than a few bloggers have commented in the cyberworld: “Agile Offshore - sounds like an Oxymoron.”

Continue reading "Agile Offshore Development : Managing Agile Projects" »

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IT Project Managers, especially those in the offshoring space need to observe trends shaping up in the industry, especially the ones that impact their clients. [consulting 101: try to stay a step ahead of your clients and you can “wow” them]

One such trend is the evolution of Open Source development paradigms, especially the proliferation of open source tools and technologies. A couple of years ago, in my avatar of a technology columnist, I had written about “Managing open source projects.” I also examined the topic in further detail in my recently published book when I examine aspects of “External landscape and Offshoring Management” that Technology Managers need to watch out for.

Continue reading "Open Source, Offshoring and Project Managers" »

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Continue reading "Video Conferencing technologies and Offshoring (Part 2)" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Continue reading "Video Conferencing technologies and Offshoring (Part 1)" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In my pervious blog, I briefly talked about Enterprise 2.0 and offshoring. While analyzing this trend and implecations, we should perhaps take a step back and analyze some of the definitions of Enterprise 2.0
 
Professor Andrew McAfee, credited with coining the term Enterprise 2.0 in March 2006 [in an article in the spring 2006 issue of Sloan Management Review (SMR)]. In his blog, Prof. McAfee points to three broad and converging trends concerning the changing relationship between those who offer technologies and those who use them:

• Simple, Free Platforms for Self-Expression 
• Emergent Structures, Rather than Imposed Ones
• Order from Chaos

M.R. Rangaswami, from Sand Hill Group has a similar, but more inclusive definition that I particularly like (no points on guessing why!) .

Continue reading "Enterprise 2.0 and Offshoring :: Defining it" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As technologist working with a large offshore services company, I get to consult with some of the most dynamic organizations, and ideate with some very smart folks. In the section on External Landscape and Offshoring Management of my book I had talked about the need to constantly scan the technology landscape. And the buzz right now is on "Enterprise 2.0" [a.k.a Web 2.0 ?].

I have blogged my Eclectic thoughts on the Enterprise 2.0 debate. Though the book was published about six months ago, before the buzz on moniker Enterprise 2.0 took hold, I elaborated on technologies including wikis, Knoweledge Management tools, blogs and how they facilitate collaboration between global teams.
 

Continue reading "Enterprise 2.0 and Offshoring" »

Posted by Mohan Babu K. at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)