It is over 50 years that we have gained Independence from the British Raj...yet when I see the IT/Outsourcing boom it really makes wonder how much economic independence we have really gained. The British RAJ was all about controlling India economically and making money by using our raw materials and using us a cheap labour. We were also a market for thier goods on top of all that.
Have things really changed ...?? especially when you look at the IT sector.
We still are being used as cheap labour except now it is in the field of software development, IT services, BPOs etc.. Over 90% of the sector are basically captive units for companies in the west. So if they shut the TAP we run dry.. not much independence I would say.
We dont really have any upgrade of knowledge domains, the products that we work on or support basically belong to the West so when they find a cheaper and practical alternative like China, they will move and we would be left high & dry. Is this really independence..
To top it all, often we make their products and it is these very products that we will buy again... interesting isnt it , when you think of it .. is this economic independence. ?
I do believe that our inherent capacity as a skilled and evolved services oriented market which is considered as our biggest advantage might become our biggest enemy in the long run.
Hey I am a part of it too as I run an offshore software developmenat company which primarily survives on business from the West and I am not complaining as it is my source of livelihood but am I kidding myself when I say I am economically independent...
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Junk candidates, resources...
As we go thru the daily routine of interviewing candidates for our office, there is this HUGE AMOUNT of JUNK candidates that are applying. They claim to have experience but even a fresher from school would know more programming than them and yet they will have this extremely long resume claiming huge experience and yet they dont know ANYTHING. It is very frustrating and irritating interviewing such candidates as it is a complete waste of our time and money.
I think everybody just wants to jump onto the IT bandwagon whether they are trained for it or not. Recently I interviewed this candidate and in our company we sometimes take the HR interview first , so here he sat confidently , answered with a lot of gusto etc. etc..seemed to be good so I shortlisted him. I had even asked him in general about the technologies and projects he had worked on. As he left he asked our front office assistance what was the position for which he had just been interviewed for ??!!! so now they dont even know what they going for an interview for, so long as its in IT and there might be a slim chance he might get selected.
Then there are these standard fake resumes and projects that seem to be floating around in the market. They are so many candidates who show the same projects and same description in thier experience profile even though they come from different companies. Its like we used to do in college for our term submissions, one person used to actually do the work and then we used to take his file and everyone used to copy the work and it seems it is now being done with resumes. !
Junk, fraud and absolutely rubbish level candidates get caught in our interviews within minutes so WHY do these candidates apply and how come they have the impression that they have a chance to be selected ???
Well.. these very same candidates get jobs in larger companies with much higher salaries for the SAME PROFILE.. cant believe how anyone in thier right mind would do this but it happens all the time !!!
This strenghtens my personal belief that 100s are being hired by the large companies like herding a pack of sheep and then they are not really being put into live production because they would screw up the project, they are either being put on bench (to show bench strength) or put onto non critical parts of projects so that clients can be shown that the promised number of people are being put on the job. How can they afford to do this ... well I come back to my previous arguement.. when you have a large project the client cannot really find out how many programmers are actually working compared to the ones that have been paid for, how many really are productive versus how many are just a part of the facade. Just add the people seems to be the policy as it helps billing.
Once again I do not feel that ALL big software companies are doing this but I have a strong belief it might be happening in atleast some of them.
If I am correct, this cannot last long and it will spoil our name in the global market....the leaders in our industry should address this seriously.
I think everybody just wants to jump onto the IT bandwagon whether they are trained for it or not. Recently I interviewed this candidate and in our company we sometimes take the HR interview first , so here he sat confidently , answered with a lot of gusto etc. etc..seemed to be good so I shortlisted him. I had even asked him in general about the technologies and projects he had worked on. As he left he asked our front office assistance what was the position for which he had just been interviewed for ??!!! so now they dont even know what they going for an interview for, so long as its in IT and there might be a slim chance he might get selected.
Then there are these standard fake resumes and projects that seem to be floating around in the market. They are so many candidates who show the same projects and same description in thier experience profile even though they come from different companies. Its like we used to do in college for our term submissions, one person used to actually do the work and then we used to take his file and everyone used to copy the work and it seems it is now being done with resumes. !
Junk, fraud and absolutely rubbish level candidates get caught in our interviews within minutes so WHY do these candidates apply and how come they have the impression that they have a chance to be selected ???
Well.. these very same candidates get jobs in larger companies with much higher salaries for the SAME PROFILE.. cant believe how anyone in thier right mind would do this but it happens all the time !!!
This strenghtens my personal belief that 100s are being hired by the large companies like herding a pack of sheep and then they are not really being put into live production because they would screw up the project, they are either being put on bench (to show bench strength) or put onto non critical parts of projects so that clients can be shown that the promised number of people are being put on the job. How can they afford to do this ... well I come back to my previous arguement.. when you have a large project the client cannot really find out how many programmers are actually working compared to the ones that have been paid for, how many really are productive versus how many are just a part of the facade. Just add the people seems to be the policy as it helps billing.
Once again I do not feel that ALL big software companies are doing this but I have a strong belief it might be happening in atleast some of them.
If I am correct, this cannot last long and it will spoil our name in the global market....the leaders in our industry should address this seriously.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Watch out for the big guys, they could make more money out of you ....
Just the other day I was explaining to my father how size of a software development company also influences the way you can make money if you want to. He wanted to know how some companies larger than us were making so much money inspite of such large overheads while smaller companies with more expertise, experience and lower overheads make less.
So I explained a possible scenario.....
When you have a LARGE company you automatically for some strange reason get selected over smaller companies for larger orders which may need many engineers, it is a KNOWN fact that the client really has no way of really finding out how many engineers are really working on a project unless they have a educated and dedicated project manager from thier side who knows how to undertsand and apply performance metrics (now this rarely happens). The projects managers of today especially from the client side really dont have the time for this and hence the possible opportunity for making more money.
Let me explain a POSSIBLE scenario. A client gives a software development company a order which needs let us say 30 people. What really could happen is only 22-25 engineers are really put on the job while the impression is given that 30 people are working full time on the same. So the client pays for 30 engineers, is shown as if 30 people are on the job but in reality only 22-25 people are working. Now it doesnt really stop here , out of the 22-25 people that are actually working, a couple of them are freshers/relatively less experienced but the client is paying as if all were of a particular level so a little more profit here ... so not bad for the money you are making .. let us sum it up..
- you charge for 30 people at about 20-30% profit
- you actually put 22-25 people instead of 30 people so more profit here
- you dont fill ALL the exisiting 22-25 people actually with people with higher level experience and hence less spend on salaries so a little more profit here too. Now imagine the possible profits being made if a company is given an order where over 100-200 people are supposed to be working...
Not a bad scenario for making software development a profitable business..
AND YET these companies will go to these very companies because they are a BIG company, having so many engineers , buildings, certifications etc. etc.. and small companies who would probably do it cheaper , faster and better are discounted purely because of size.
Let me be clear that this is a scenario and now it is upto the readers to decide on this possible scenario. I am sure not all big software companies do this but I am sure a lot of the above happens since you have the advantage of size.
There really should be a rethink.
So I explained a possible scenario.....
When you have a LARGE company you automatically for some strange reason get selected over smaller companies for larger orders which may need many engineers, it is a KNOWN fact that the client really has no way of really finding out how many engineers are really working on a project unless they have a educated and dedicated project manager from thier side who knows how to undertsand and apply performance metrics (now this rarely happens). The projects managers of today especially from the client side really dont have the time for this and hence the possible opportunity for making more money.
Let me explain a POSSIBLE scenario. A client gives a software development company a order which needs let us say 30 people. What really could happen is only 22-25 engineers are really put on the job while the impression is given that 30 people are working full time on the same. So the client pays for 30 engineers, is shown as if 30 people are on the job but in reality only 22-25 people are working. Now it doesnt really stop here , out of the 22-25 people that are actually working, a couple of them are freshers/relatively less experienced but the client is paying as if all were of a particular level so a little more profit here ... so not bad for the money you are making .. let us sum it up..
- you charge for 30 people at about 20-30% profit
- you actually put 22-25 people instead of 30 people so more profit here
- you dont fill ALL the exisiting 22-25 people actually with people with higher level experience and hence less spend on salaries so a little more profit here too. Now imagine the possible profits being made if a company is given an order where over 100-200 people are supposed to be working...
Not a bad scenario for making software development a profitable business..
AND YET these companies will go to these very companies because they are a BIG company, having so many engineers , buildings, certifications etc. etc.. and small companies who would probably do it cheaper , faster and better are discounted purely because of size.
Let me be clear that this is a scenario and now it is upto the readers to decide on this possible scenario. I am sure not all big software companies do this but I am sure a lot of the above happens since you have the advantage of size.
There really should be a rethink.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Another day begins....
Its 10.00 am and I am getting ready for another day at office. An employee of ours is leaving us and has submitted his resignation. He has got a good opportunity in a larger company with a salary much higher than what he is getting here. I am really happy for him as he had joined us as a fresher with low confidence and now he has grown professionally and will move well up the ladder of his professional life. Not worried about my company as he will be replaced with another competant and good engineer and life goes on...
However this whole issue of software developers jumping from company to company, each company outdoing the other in terms of salary with the large companies just gobbling up by the 100s and then thier own staff moving by the 100s from one large company to another , every large companies just hearding them like cattle ... a very crucial issue comes to my mind... I read a recent article that in day there are about 20,000 change in epf numbers, that means 20,000 people have changed thier jobs and let us not forget the count of people who dont have epf numbers. Let us be non -biased and consider let us say 10,00 people are in the process of jumping from one company to company in a day. Now each of these people will have undergone the process of handing over responsibilties in thier previous company and will undergo training and introduction in thier new company. Let us say both these activities take a accumilated 15 days presuming these companies are ISO & CMM level companies and these procedures are stremlined as well as there is not so much domain knowledge transfer.I might be wrong to say just 15 days , it could be 30 or more days that these 2 activities could take but I will stick to 15 days. Now any manager knows that these 15 days are UNPRODUCTIVE from the clients points of view because no work gets done, it is just the process of handover and introduction.
So can you imagine the total non-productive days of work taking place every day ie 10,000 people shifting jobs everyday X 15 days ie 150000 man days of un productive work is taking place every day in our country.....it makes me wonder whether we are giving true advanatge of offshore software development as a country as a whole.
However this whole issue of software developers jumping from company to company, each company outdoing the other in terms of salary with the large companies just gobbling up by the 100s and then thier own staff moving by the 100s from one large company to another , every large companies just hearding them like cattle ... a very crucial issue comes to my mind... I read a recent article that in day there are about 20,000 change in epf numbers, that means 20,000 people have changed thier jobs and let us not forget the count of people who dont have epf numbers. Let us be non -biased and consider let us say 10,00 people are in the process of jumping from one company to company in a day. Now each of these people will have undergone the process of handing over responsibilties in thier previous company and will undergo training and introduction in thier new company. Let us say both these activities take a accumilated 15 days presuming these companies are ISO & CMM level companies and these procedures are stremlined as well as there is not so much domain knowledge transfer.I might be wrong to say just 15 days , it could be 30 or more days that these 2 activities could take but I will stick to 15 days. Now any manager knows that these 15 days are UNPRODUCTIVE from the clients points of view because no work gets done, it is just the process of handover and introduction.
So can you imagine the total non-productive days of work taking place every day ie 10,000 people shifting jobs everyday X 15 days ie 150000 man days of un productive work is taking place every day in our country.....it makes me wonder whether we are giving true advanatge of offshore software development as a country as a whole.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)