We had a pretty interesting discussion today on the road ahead for the software industry, given the state of the economy, and the resultant pressure on cutting costs. What will it mean for the CIO and IT departments in the world's enterprises?
There's one school of thought that predicts that the CIP will get his budgets squeezed and asked to cut costs. This will result in him being unable to ask for those endless customizations and fancy menu items for his IT and software needs with multi million dollar budgets, and instead go to cloud operators and a monthly budget and take what they have to offer out of the box. The days of extensive customization will be over, and business will realign itself to standard processes, using standard functionalities. SaaS will rule.
I think it may ultimately also turn out to be the opposite. Here's why.
CIOs will get budgets squeezed. They'll need to cut costs. They'll reduce expenses on infrastructure using virtualization. They'll cut frivolous and esoteric R&D. They'll consolidate and maximize what they already have. Companies will need new business strategies and smarter ways of running their operations. In such a scenario, the focus will be on higher customizations to align their softwares with their business processes. After all that's where the differentiation for these companies will come from. The CIO can be the hero. If he can use his budgets wisely to improve competitiveness. Asking the business to standardize is probably not an option.
With Obama's dictat today to cut down outsourcing and not give out American jobs, the focus might shift from outsourcing people to "buying solutions". BPOs might be hurt hard. However, I believe there's a huge playing field for companies like Persistent to take their innovative solutions out to the world and really create an impact. The next Indian wave may be just around the corner!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Quote for the Day
Communicate. Collaborate. Contribute. Create.
I kinda like this quartet - especially since I coined it :)
I kinda like this quartet - especially since I coined it :)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Say More With Less
When I participated in the NASSCOM contest, I was given 15 mins to present my solution. 5 years of work compressed in 15 mins? Are you kidding me? Well, I had no choice, and I think I managed to do a good job. And then, for the NLF summit in Mumbai a few weeks later, I was given 5 min for the same job! The presentations I used are available... see for yourself!
What's the point I am making? Well, if you get down to it, you can say a lot with a very few words! You don't need flowery words, you don't need dozens of slides with tonnes of bullet points!
I was reading Presentation Zen (www.presentationzen.com) by Garr Reynolds, a highly recommended book for anyone wanting to be better speakers and presenters, and came across this wonderfully illustrative story I am reproducing below...
When Vijay opened his store, he put up a sign outside that said "We sell fresh fish here". When his dad saw it, he said, "we" puts the focus on us rather than the customer. So Vijay dropped the "We", and the sign now read "Fresh Fish Sold Here". His sister saw it and said, hey, the "Here" is really superfluous. So the board changed to "Fresh Fish Sold". Hey, said someone else, obviously you are selling fish, so why have the "Sold"? The board now became "Fresh Fish". When his uncle came, he said, you know what, everyone should know this is always fresh fish. We've never going to sell stale fish are we? So finally, the board just read "Fish". Next day, as Vijay walked towards his shop, he realised his customers would smell the fish from far, long before they could actually see the word "Fish". There was no need for the board.
Keep it simple, keep it concise. Your audience has come to hear you - they don't want to read a presentation. If you want them to read something, why not just send across a document? Presentations are meant to supplement your talk, it's not your replacement!
What's the point I am making? Well, if you get down to it, you can say a lot with a very few words! You don't need flowery words, you don't need dozens of slides with tonnes of bullet points!
I was reading Presentation Zen (www.presentationzen.com) by Garr Reynolds, a highly recommended book for anyone wanting to be better speakers and presenters, and came across this wonderfully illustrative story I am reproducing below...
When Vijay opened his store, he put up a sign outside that said "We sell fresh fish here". When his dad saw it, he said, "we" puts the focus on us rather than the customer. So Vijay dropped the "We", and the sign now read "Fresh Fish Sold Here". His sister saw it and said, hey, the "Here" is really superfluous. So the board changed to "Fresh Fish Sold". Hey, said someone else, obviously you are selling fish, so why have the "Sold"? The board now became "Fresh Fish". When his uncle came, he said, you know what, everyone should know this is always fresh fish. We've never going to sell stale fish are we? So finally, the board just read "Fish". Next day, as Vijay walked towards his shop, he realised his customers would smell the fish from far, long before they could actually see the word "Fish". There was no need for the board.
Keep it simple, keep it concise. Your audience has come to hear you - they don't want to read a presentation. If you want them to read something, why not just send across a document? Presentations are meant to supplement your talk, it's not your replacement!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Head First
A quick recommendation - if you ever see a Head First series book, buy it! It's one of the best ways to learn the topic - written in a very beautiful, easy to understand and learn visual style that keeps you interested and excited, and not bored with endless streams of text and boring dumps of code.
I learnt Ajax through a HF book, and just yesterday I bought one on SQL and another on C#.
I learnt Ajax through a HF book, and just yesterday I bought one on SQL and another on C#.
CK Prahalad's Favourite Example
From the NASSCOM blog:
Dr. C K Prahlad gave the closing keynote to draw the curtains on the Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2009. He has recently released his latest book titled “The New Age of Innovation” (after The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”) and he sought to drive home the point that the economic crisis is an opportunity for organisations to re-engineer their businesses and create new models of delivering products & services to their customers. To illustrate this, he cited the example of Persistent Systems which has created an innovative technology solution for BridgeStone Tyres (for tracking tyre wear status using customised PDAs) that allows BridgeStone to potentially change their core model from selling tyres to renting them out (think “tyre as a service”).
Dr. C K Prahlad gave the closing keynote to draw the curtains on the Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2009. He has recently released his latest book titled “The New Age of Innovation” (after The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”) and he sought to drive home the point that the economic crisis is an opportunity for organisations to re-engineer their businesses and create new models of delivering products & services to their customers. To illustrate this, he cited the example of Persistent Systems which has created an innovative technology solution for BridgeStone Tyres (for tracking tyre wear status using customised PDAs) that allows BridgeStone to potentially change their core model from selling tyres to renting them out (think “tyre as a service”).
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Anti Patterns - The Knowledge of What NOT To Do!
Just like Patterns tell you best practices and tried and tested techniques of doing the most common tasks, Anti Patterns are an equally powerful tool of knowing what NOT to do. As I've learnt in my decade long career, sometimes the knowledge of what to avoid is far more important that knowing what to do!
View more presentations from siddhesh_bhobe.
View more presentations from siddhesh_bhobe.
View more presentations from siddhesh_bhobe.
My NASSCOM Presentation on Slideshare
Here's the presentation I used for the NASSCOM Roadshow in Bangalore, shared and embedded here through Slideshare.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Nasscom Innovation Award 2009!
We won the Nasscom Award for Innovation 2009, in the market facing innovation in business model and business process category :)
For more on Nasscom and the awards, please visit:
http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=55730
Some of the press releases that talk about the award:
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2009/feb/03sld7-innovation-8-win-nasscom-awards.htm
http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/fullnews.asp?edid=32053
After being recognized in C.K Prahalad’s book, “The New Age of Innovation”, this particular award means a lot coming from India’s apex software industry body.
For more on the contest itself, check my earlier posts.
For more on Nasscom and the awards, please visit:
http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=55730
Some of the press releases that talk about the award:
http://specials.rediff.com/money/2009/feb/03sld7-innovation-8-win-nasscom-awards.htm
http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/fullnews.asp?edid=32053
After being recognized in C.K Prahalad’s book, “The New Age of Innovation”, this particular award means a lot coming from India’s apex software industry body.
For more on the contest itself, check my earlier posts.
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