Seasons Greetings from Fedex .. and power of viral videos

This morning I was intrigued to see the link to a video clip on Yahoo’s homepage.

 “It was the monitor toss seen 'round the world. FedEx has responded to a viral video that showed one of the company's drivers throwing a (now broken) computer monitor over a fence.”

With online holiday shopping and eCommerce – even in a sluggish economy – crossing allexpectations, the action by an (irate?) Fedex employee could come as a jolt to most of us. Fedex .. and UPS, DHL and other courier firms are the last mile in eCommerce, perhaps providing  the closest “human” face to an otherwise contact free shopping experience. And when an employee - even if it one of several hundreds of thousands of them in the supply chain business – goes rogue; and is caught on tape shamelessly doing so, the video is bound to go viral.

Not surprisingly, Fedex responded with swiftness and issued a statement “The situation has now been resolved to the customer's satisfaction, and we are handling the employee according to our disciplinary policies...While we continue to be surprised about the behavior shown, we know this is an aberration and is not reflective of the outstanding FedEx customer service that makes us proud around the world.”

Score +1 for bloggers and viral media and for speedy customer satisfaction response.  Season’s Greetings!

Any Lessons to be learnt from AMRI tragedy in Calcutta, India? Sure … But

It was shocking to read about the horror from the Kolkata #AMRI hospital fire that claimed 86 of 160 patients. (NYT)  Given the sense of public outrage, it is not surprising to see how the Government has formulated a “Special Investigation Team” to probe the “causes of the worst hospital fire in recent memory”.

Obituaries are being written and a lot of questions being asked by Digirati and Media and more importantly the Indian middle class, that is a key ‘consumer’ of private hospital services in India.

Non resident Indians, self included, are also closely watching the outcome of investigation though I am personally not holding my breadth on any meaningful change in attitude towards the value of individual human lives in a country with over a billion of them. Perhaps it is my personal  glimpse into human-crisis-management in India has made me a bit cynical (ref)
But I guess it is not just me. Santosh for Über Desi blog sums it up in a sentence “ Indian cities, over the last 20 years in particular, have sought to model themselves after the West; swanky malls, ritzy apartment complexes and state-of-the-art hospitals and medical care; for all this prosperity and opulence, safety and concern for human lives is still a “phoren” concept.”

If you ask most Indians and NRIs if there are any Lessons to be learnt from AMRI tragedy, most of us would say sure! But the real question is whether we have an appetite for changing the status quo. And can Indians afford the cost of safety that accompanies a concern for human life.

Writing an e-book. Learning from Mark Cuban?!

It is thanksgiving day and I got around to catch up with some reading, blogs etc. There was an interesting article in WSJ earlier this week "In E-Books, a New Player" The article describes how the entrepreneur Mark Cuban plans to leverage his cyber presence to write an e-book.

Mark Cuban has 335,000 friends on Facebook and 760,000 followers on Twitter. Monday, the Internet billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team will test just how friendly those fans really are. . . . Mr. Cuban has written a 30,000-word e-book, "How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It." Culled from blog postings Mr. Cuban has made over the years about his business career, it will be available for $2.99 through online digital-book retailers. To drive sales, Mr. Cuban plans to tap all his online followers. "All I have to do is get them to pay attention and hit a link," he says, estimating that his blog posts attract anywhere from 50,000 to one million readers.

The potential success of Mr. Cuban’s book also hinges on his cyber-popularity and popularity.   Fascinating model that many wannabe writers will surely try to follow.

While writing my book on Offshoring IT Services, I didn’t really leverage as much of Web 2.0 as I probably should have. Would my experience on writing and publicizing a book have been any different?

I guess I will have to find out with my next book. :-)


 

Enterprise Architect : shifting from consulting to Full-time EA (and back)

For the past few years, I have been a consulting Enterprise Architect,  working with a wide cross-section of clients, industry verticals and technology domains. Some of my engagements have been short and specific to an EA domain. I have also had the opportunity of being embedded in client’s EA organizations for extended periods of time. Some of my offline with  client and consulting EA's sometimes shifts to career planning and management.  Many in full-time Enterprise Architect roles at large enterprises muse on moving to consulting; I have seen more than a few join my EA practice during recent times. Likewise, I have also seen fellow consultants take up full-time EA role at client enterprises.  

A few common themes for such shift include personal reasons constraints - need to cut back on travel consulting involves - or the urge to move on to other industry verticals which consulting gig’s can facilitate. And in many cases it also boils down to the bottomline ($$$).  Some random observations based on experiences of people I have seen switch roles

Full-Time Enterprise Architects	Enterprise Architect Consultants
The role of an Enterprise Architect is typically a mix of subject matter expert, internal consultant, mentor and coach.	Role of a consulting EA is that of a deep subject matter expert, focused on advising client’s decision making.
As key stakeholders bridging the business-IT divide, Enterprise Architects are vested in the success of strategic initiatives, held accountable for their decisions and advise given to business and IT.	Consulting architects are not expected to have a 'permanent' tenure with a client. While they may also be responsible to deliver in success of client’s initiatives, they are generally not held accountable
Vendor relationship and management skills are getting to be important, especially in large-scale sourcing contexts.	The focus is on client stakeholder management and ability to continually sell one’s individual and consulting firm’s services
As client’s technology teams get leaner with larger sourcing initiatives, Enterprise Architects are expected to add to project/ program governance and also governance around vendor management	EA consultants may sometimes get an opportunity to be a part of client's Architecture governance teams but the focus is primarily on solution delivery and reviews
An Enterprise Architect’s performance indicator, measure of success includes contributing to long-term growth and ensuring success of business’ initiatives	Consultant’s PI is more black-and-white and typically includes a mix of billable utilization, meeting sales targets, contributing to consulting firms’ downstream business
An EA can reach out to internal networks and resources not available to outsiders	The consulting EA may need to be facilitated on reaching out to internal - client - resources. however he will have access to his extended network from his firm

 
The above is by no means a comprehensive list though it may weigh in while one considers a switch from being a consulting EA to a full-time EA. Do ping with your inputs and I will add to it.

ps: Added note from a fellow EA (Kurt Barndt)  "I would add you serve who ever pays you.  If you work for a services organization sometimes you are put in the position to balance your company’s interests with that of your client(s).  Working in house has an easier alignment from a company perspective however organizational/peer alignments become more significant especially as there are less and less in-house employees in the ever growing services-based environment."

Does IT Matter? Warren Buffet says Sure: By investing in Business of IT

Almost a decade after Nicholas G. Carr ignited a firestorm with his Opinion piece in the Harvard Business Review "Why IT Doesn't Matter," Warren Buffet has answered.

For years after the Mr. Carr’s article and book were published, IT executives and technocrats tried refuting the view with logical arguments. Perhaps the most resounding rebuttal to the view is the action by the Oracle of Omaha.

Media today is abuzz on the move Berkshire Hathaway investing $10.7 billion in International Business Machines (IBM) this year. What makes it noteworthy is that Warren Buffet had for long refrained from making major investments in tech companies.  In an interview, Mr. Buffett was quoted saying "It's a company that helps IT departments do their job better, It is a big deal for a big company to change auditors, change law firms”  . or for IT departments to move away from using IBM. … Buffet was also quoted saying that as the company retains existing clients, they are growing substantially around the globe.  (Ref: CNBC Interview transcript)

What was unsaid in the interview with Mr. Buffet was how well IBM has embraced the global delivery model , a.k.a Offshoring pioneered by Indian firms – TCS, Infosys, Wipro et al.  It is expected that in 2011 , IBM will recruit approximately 24,000 more employees taking it to a total of nearly 154,000 employees from India.  IBM India account for about 90,000 employees. Roughly translated, IBM's Indian employees would generate $35 billion of IBM's revenues in 2010 (out of about $120 billion) [Wikipedia] 

The Enterprise Architect in me is fascinated by the move. More than any the utopian goal of “moving up the value” chain, excelling in the “business of IT” that most technocrats profess to, the action by an uber business strategist : investing $10.7 billion in an IT firm in the current economic climate speaks volumes.

Musings on body shopping, IT Service Firms, visas and the 7 Year itch

Technology sourcing companies have long struggled with the "7 year itch" but now with a few forces coming together, the problem seems to be getting magnified: Sluggish global economy coupled with continued demand for offshoring, protectionist visa policies, and IT service companies continuing to go after a slice of the same big pie. The unsung beneficiaries of this: small, mid-size body-shops (And no, in this blog, I am not adding to the debate on Whether Infosys Is a 'Body Shop')

Firstly, defining the 7 Year Itch. Many IT professionals who have grown in a service firm, especially those with an extended experience working on hot technologies in more than a few projects feel the need to explore the grass-on-the-other side. These Tech-lead/Junior-Architect level folks are also backbones of successful IT sourcing projects, and are much in demand.

Case in point. Here is a practical problem that managers of sourcing firms face. My client just awarded a million-dollar six-month contract for the next phase of eCommerce program to my firm. Most of the existing technical folks in my project are already locked into working on the previous phases. I don't have a pool of experienced IBM Websphere, IBM Portal and IBM Commerce programmers currently available in my organizational bench pool to join the team at a short notice. Flying in folks from out of US is not a practical option for two reasons: we don't have a pool of "visa ready" folks waiting on bench, and getting visas for other folks at short notice would be impossible.

What do I do? I turn to sub-contractors in the local market. The sub-con has a database of Websphere professionals working for other tier-1outsourcing and offshoring firms - possibly my competetors. These also happen to be folks either going through a 7-Year-Itch at their firm, are looking for a subcon to sponsor their immigrant visa or simply an opportunity to make a few dollars more as an IT contractor.

There are a few interesting market forces coming together here, something that the body-shops are looking to capitalize on.

• Sluggish global economy with continued outsourcing. Sluggish global economy means most companies either have a hiring freeze or a slowdown in hiring. The slowdown in hiring does not always mean a corresponding freeze in the technology initiatives, which translates to an opportunity for sourcing vendors.
• Let the big dogs fight over the slice of the same pie. A client may decide to award an eCommerce project to a Vendor A and a SAP upgrade program to Vendor B. Vendor A scrambles to put together a team of Managers, Architects, Tech Leads and Developers proficient in eCommerce technologies. Vendor B likewise does it for the SAP program. Just like organizations realize they can easily interchange and deploy resources across client programs, the ‘resources’ realize they can switch employers and continue to work on same technologies.
• Fewer Work Visas: Not wishing to go against political headwinds, service companies are applying for fewer work visas. Even the few applications are going through additional scrutiny by immigration officials, which means one thing: fewer experienced IT professionals available in any geography.

Opportunity: Body Shops promise mobility while carving out a niche. Technologists with the 7-Year-Itch are motivated and unencumbered by a baggage of loyalty and need to work for a single employer. However, their mobility is restricted by their immigrant/visa status and sluggish hiring by end-clients. Also, most large sourcing firms are reluctant to hire candidates in the US if they also have to sponsor visas for them. The body shops are stepping in to provide a bridge: hiring talented individuals who can be sub-contracted to larger sourcing firms with the only overhead of having to sponsor their paperwork.

ps: As with any opportunity, there are risks, especially for those being "body shopped." Risks include being out of visa status if the body-shopper is unable to get the right paperwork to sponsor visa extension …. but that is another topic in itself.

Congrats : 2011 Enterprise Architecture Awards Winners

Enterprise Architecture as a practice continues to evolve. While consultants and experts in the industry debate over the role of EA in technology and business, Architects in successful organizations continue to guide, mentor and steer their business and technology teams to leverage industry best practices.

Coagulations to Enterprise Architects for making it to the top of the 2011 list:

• American Express
• Bayer Healthcare
• First Data
• Singapore Ministry of Education
• Proctor and Gamble
• USAA 

Ref: The 2011 Enterprise Architecture Awards from InfoWorld and Forrester Research

 

Successful EAs seem to be doing the right things:

• Help define the right roadmaps and guide teams to work towards them
• Enabling "knowledge bridge" between business operations and IT
• Create a framework for strategic technology programs to coordinate technology adoption and development in a manner that maximizes value
• Moving away from being hostage to a legacy of dysfunctional IT, help the organization transform into an agile organization that embraces change
• Digitize and simplify its end-to-end processes
• Experimenting with different approaches to presenting data and collecting and maintaining architectural elements

As a consulting Enterprise Architect, I have had the pleasure of working with EA’s from organizations that continually move towards top of these lists. However, the challenge I continually see is that not all Enterprise Architecture organizations do all the right things all the time.