Too many Managers spoil the project

All of us in our childhood must have heard of the proverb "Too many cooks spoil the broth". If too many people try to take charge of a task, the end product might be ruined. This applies to any task like an implementation project as well.An easy way to identify if the project is going awry is when you find many people following up to find the status of the job being done. In one of my earlier projects there was one developer writing a piece of code and there were four managers chasing the poor lady for updates and status. However, none of these managers were capable or inclined to help out the person writing a complex piece of code.One really felt bad when a bug was detected in the code and none of the managers took ownership and started blaming each other and the poor lady for writing the incorrect code.

So, the next obvious question would be wher the top management is blind to such mis-management or most of the time over-management (sometimes micro-management)? My answer would be a definite 'Yes'. For the top management what matters at the end of the day is billing and not success or failure of projects. They are mostly driven by short term objectives of ensuring that their bench strength is low and not the long term objective of ensuring customer satisfaction by delivering a good solution for the client. Also, with having too many managers, the internal dynamics of peer rivalry; of each person trying to show case himself as the better manager in the eyes of top management and trying to out-do the other in a selfish manner puts the project at a grave risk.

Most of us would have seen or been part of such a project. Do share your thoughts on why we staff so many managers when there is no necessity for so many managers without defining clear boundaries and scope and conflicting job area. And, if someone has changed such a scenario, do share your experience on how to change such a situation and bring the project back to track?

Indian Megavendors

The other day i was reading an article in http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/aug/13slide1.htm on India's top three IT companies. As per this article, Gartner has come out with a report in which they predict that, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies, and Wipro Technologies, collectively referred as 'India-3,' will emerge as the next generation of IT service megavendors. These vendors are increasingly being considered for strategic service deals, and will augment or, in some cases, replace today's acknowledged megavendors by revenue -- IBM Global Services, Accenture and EDS -- in this space by 2011, says Gartner.

Obviously this means there will be a lot of consolidation that is bound to happen in the IT space in India, as there are a lot of tier-2 firms who cannot match the pace of growth of the top 3 firms in India. This means some of these small IT companies will be forced to sell out as the war on margins and cornering a portion of the relatively fixed marketshare will become more acute. However, for the top-3 to actually reach the levels of present generation megavendors, apart from the cost advantage, they have to position on other parameters as well. The article talks of four critical competencies on which the emerging Indian megavendors are positioning themselves.

The competencies are: process excellence; world-class HR practices; providing high quality services at a low cost; the achievement of significant and disproportionate 'mind share' compared to their actual size.

However, the catch is to continue providing high quality services at a low cost and yet try and increase the mind-share further. With wage bills increasing and worries over global slowdown, maintaining low cost is definitely a big challenge. However, i feel where Indian top-3 companies are critically lacking is in thought-leadership. The culture of innovation and path-breaking developments is still not visible. The present day megavendors have primarily reached this position due to a large investment in innovation and thought-leadership. Anyways, interesting times ahead for all in tough situations, and obviously only the toughest will survive and prosper.

Oracle acquires Hyperion

The news is at last out. Oracle Press states "Oracle today announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: HYSL), a leading global provider of performance management software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion."
This raises a host of questions for SAP users who rely on Hyperion for their BI needs. Also, this now raises a question mark on Oracle's own BI suite, which have been off-late trying to regain their market share. Will, Oracle put in the same amount of marketing effort for its own BI products after acquiring Hyperion? What will be the future focus of Oracle regarding OLAP technology? Oracle would definitely gain a lot of market and a good BI product range already with Hyperion. Guess a lot of us would now miss the OLAP war of Oracle Express and Hyperion Essbase.

Oracle to Buy Demantra

Oracle yesterday announced that it will expand its supply chain planning applications with the acquisition of Demantra, a leading provider of demand-driven planning solutions. Leveraging powerful analytics and collaboration capabilities, Demantra offers solutions for Demand Management, Real-time Sales and Operations Planning, Retail Planning & Store Replenishment, and Trade Promotion Management and Optimization.

Further details can be obtained at the Oracle site http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_may/demantra.html?msgid=4777530

Medieval policies of Indian Bodyshopping companies

Barring money and fear, I feel there is no motivation for a consultant to work for a software bodyshopping company. One finds a lot of companies in India who lack the ability to bag independent projects getting into bodyshopping. This trend is definitely disturbing as this tends to bring down the quality of work of consultants who lack the motivation of doing actual good work. My advice to companies hiring consultants from bodyshopping companies is: ‘one cannot win a war by hiring mercenaries’.

Most top Indian software companies continue with this sad practice of bodyshopping, which though earns them a fair amount of revenue, is however detrimental to the growth of the company in the long run. Most of these bodyshopping companies typically apply the old trick of carrot and stick policy. On one hand the consultant would be promised the moon, and on the other hand they would force the consultant to sign on all sorts of illegal 'legal' documents, so as to ensure that the consultant does not leave the organization. A couple of weeks back a friend of mine working for a shady bodyshopping company wished to leave the organization. From the moment he put in his papers, his life became a living hell. The company threatened him of legal action and refused to relieve him. Only when this poor chap paid the employer an astronomical sum (his last 6 months salary) did the company release him. This sad situation is nothing very unique to small companies. Many medium and big scale Indian software companies adopt this policy. Sadly most software consultants do not have the time or the money to fight legal battles with organizations.

The problem stems from the fact that in India almost all companies insist on the relieving letter of previous employer as a necessary document, without which the person will not be eligible for employment. If this document is not made mandatory then consultants will not be at the mercy of such cheating organizations. However as most of the recruiting organizations themselves indulge in bodyshopping, one cannot expect any dramatic changes in recruitment policies. I feel NASSCOM and Govt. of India should come down heavily on organizations who ask employees to sign bonds (usually these bonds are like, if a consultant leaves the organization before a said period of 18 months, sometime 3 years then he/she has to pay a very high bond amount in order to get relieved from the organization). Also sometimes these organizations would ask the consultant to attend a training and post that would force the consultant to sign such bonds, in which case if a consultant leaves the organization, he/she has to shell out a huge sum as training expenses in order to get relieved. And the worst kinds of bonds that consultants’ sign, are those when they go out of India on a work permit to some other country. The bodyshopping companies ask consultants going to work in other countries, to sign bonds which restrict them from seeking employment elsewhere, and per chance if they plan to leave then they need to pay astronomical sums to get relieved from the organization.

Hopefully Indian organizations will arise from their medieval mindsets and become more employee-friendly and gather their own self respect and the respect of future and existing employees.

How important is industry experience for an Oracle Apps Consultant?

With the growth in world economy, there has been a boom in IT packaged industry, especially packaged ERP products like Oracle and SAP. Indian software implementation companies are cashing in on this boom and are recruiting software professionals heavily. However, due to shortage of quality manpower, most companies are recruiting fresher as they come in cheap and also they will stick with the company for at least a couple of years. But, this strategy is fraught with danger as ultimately providing a business solution to a client is no child's play, and i have seen dozens of disgruntled business clients. Typically Indian IT companies have been involved in software projects (C, C++, java, Unix, .NET, etc) which are quite different from ERP projects, as knowledge of business is not that critical, or a few key persons in the software delivery may have the business understanding and not all the software professionals.

However, for an ERP implementation project a thorough understanding of business is of utmost importance. If companies recruit experienced people from industry who have considerable domain experience and train them in these packages, they become much better consultants and provide a lot better business solutions than a fresh engineering, accounting or a B-school graduate. In fact i feel the turnaround time, from a novice (ERP package illiterate) to an experienced ERP consultant is much less for an experienced hire compared to a fresher undergoing the same package training. But the downside of recruiting a very experienced person who has considerable domain experience but very little package experience is in providing them with suitable position and compensation, which the HR professionals have to confront. To resolve this issue, some companies are creating separate consulting divisions which have a very flat organisational structure, quite different from the usual pyramidal organisation structures.
Apart from this, the organisation structure should not be too formalised, and should be flexible. A bright performer should have ample chance and scope to excel and showcase one's talent. This an area which i feel most Indian IT companies are lacking in currently. Most IT professionals are straight-jacketed and are expected to follow the rut with very little scope to try out something new, with very little decision making powers. Now, an industry experienced person who comes from a different background faces the maximum difficulty in adjusting with this kind of company culture. Though this person has enough new ideas, but he/she has no avenues to put forth such views.
Its time Indian software companies rise to these challenges and start making changes to organisation recruiting policy, organisation structure and organisation culture.