Non-fluid employees of large corporations

Large corporations, be it IT or non-IT (I will talk more in terms of IT firms), have the tendency of making people stick or non-fluid i.e. the same group of employees (the entire hierarchy) carrying on from one project to another. Though restructuring and location-transfers help to certain extent, but the time period during which this stickiness develops is shortening. Yes, this helps the organization in a way (better bonding between team members since they have been working together for long), but it also creates a problem. With such clusters getting formed, you would either have to go for the complete cluster or nothing. Hence, the skill availability gets severely hit and, while the employee utilization levels remain low, there is always demand for people -- a fake demand due to artificially choked supplies.

Final word
I think though such stick clusters are good, however, these clusters should be broken at regular intervals in order to ensure better access to talent across the organization. One important break-point should be the allowed time-frame for the cluster to remain a cluster once it is on 'bench'.

Even big R&D firms choke innovation

Once a great business leader (who heads a multi-billion dollar company) was stuck with a business problem for which neither he nor his wise men could come up with a real good solution. He went on and poised the question (in a simplified form) to a group of young children at a school. Children exclaimed at the simplicity of the question. And soon Jack had the solution (rather multiple solutions) before him.
Moral of the story:
1) Think different. Don’t choke innovation. Float your problems (wherever possible) to larger group of brains – instead of limiting it to your (labelled) wise men

2) Collaborate and reach out: someone from outside your team/group might turn a seemingly difficult problem into a real easy one.

3) Appreciate the fact that different people see things differently and different thought processes could actually bring out totally different views

Hyped SaaS !! Can we have 'Kaas' too.

SaaS is fast getting popular just like anything that receives extensive hype. However, the good thing with such hyped concepts is that they bring to light the basics that have been kind-of forgotten (or not treated seriously enough). This (SaaS) is a case similar to design patterns (see http://itcit.blogspot.com/2008/06/invisible-design-patterns.html). The concept has always been there, it is just the hype that is new. There have been shared servers, shared telecon services, shared hosting services, and tremendous softwares have been developed in order to cater to niche needs of various business verticals and sub-verticals. All these are like SaaS in action (in a way). So, nothing new there.

Let me, however, take another slant on this one. Can we take some learning from the SaaS concept and start treating reuse and knowledge management (which are kind-of aimed to achieve similar purpose in their own earnest) more seriously. I am not saying that IT firms (especially large IT firms) are not taking KM and reuse seriously -- what I am saying is that there needs to be a more focused effort. Or to put it more simply -- let's create a hype around KM+resuse. Should I call it 'KaaS' -- knowledge as a service?

SaaS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_Service

Cheating = Innovation

Consider this:
Innovator 1: The person who conceives the idea e.g. the person who thought of and created the first internet networking website but made almost no money from it*
Innovator 2: The person who copied this idea and raked in millions through it.

We are labeling a copy-cat as innovator...Foolish - Isn’t it? But that is true, innovation has many dimensions (broadly 2 dimensions) – Innovator 1 was great on the ‘Creation’ aspect while Innovator 2 was great on the ‘Application’ aspect.

Can we say Innovator 1 > Innovator 2 or the other way round?
Well, it really depends on what objective these innovators had in mind and were they able to achieve those objectives. However, for most businesses, Innovator 2 would be better than Innovator 1 because the inherent objective of most businesses is to make money.

So, innovation (of type 2) might not actually be a big ticket item as most people think it to be.

* This is just an example and doesn’t refer to any person in the real world

No one wants to join IT industry

Today, I am in a thought-provoking mood. So, i will leave you with a thought.

How many IT pros in India went on to pursue IT as a career because they really had a liking towards it? Or was it more because IT was the easiest choice and there was nothing else to bank on for a living?

And if you yourself are Indian IT pro, do you actually want to continue with your career in IT? Or would you rather quit IT if given an option?

I will leave it here then. Just think. And also think, why i asked you to think on these lines-- and you will have the answers?

Why restructuring causes attrition

Restructuring exercise in any organization is interpreted by people (employees) in this way: If I am going to get a new boss and a new department, I will have to prove myself again to the new group of people. I would be better off joining a new firm at a much higher pay scale. This is a typical case of comfort zone disturbance.
Similarly, a person (an employee) might feel loss of respect in the organization or might get a feeling of jealousy due to the promotion of others or better pay-revisions of others. Again, this is a comfort zone disturbance.

And whenever there is a comfort zone disturbance, people seek greater value (self perceived value) for themselves at other places (firms) either through a perceptibly better role or salary. Note that here we are talking about self-perceptions -- but isn't that the most important factor in employee retention.

Outsourcing is no more the same

With the US economy receding, there is an increased focus within firms to on cutting all kinds of spending. And outsourcing is no more the same as it used to be few months back.

The shares of Indian IT companies have plummeted as a result of this economic slowdown (partly due to appreciating rupee too). However, while IT spending is going to be cut to some extent by some companies, there will be others who would be looking to outsource more in an effort to cut costs. So, this will kind of balance out or maybe tilted a bit towards outsourcing. But note that here we have not considered those firms who have not been outsourcing. These are the 'rich' companies who have been against outsourcing. But now they will discover that outsourcing can be their savior in difficult times. Hence, they will be forced to outsource work to countries like India.

What does this mean for Indian IT companies?
1) Risk is spread better because number of clients will increase thereby reducing the dependence on a few clients.
2) Overall demand for outsourcing will increase, thereby propelling the growth of these companies further