I personally believe that, before we look into the future, we should have a glimpse of the past and the shortcomings. It’s important to analyze the problems and build the future projections like we do using EVM for projects. The major area of concern is not the cost but lack of value/innovation in outsourcing. The resources are deployed just for the sake of billability irrespective of their technical capability or viability in current mix.
Some key examples of added values can be to provide new ways of:
- writing efficient design & code
- automate test-cases with-out customer-driven
- propose new solutions to business problems for current or future customer requirements
- implementing customized methodologies as per project requirements using LEAN processes etc.
Typical outsourcing should add R&D even in normal projects and maintenance nature of projects then we can gain customer confidence. The mundane job is not going to help at current billing rate which is dropping regularly. Only innovation can beat this competition and put Indian IT ahead of outsourcing curve.
The next area of concern is the customer confidence which is multi-fold. First the estimation processes are not mature and based on empirical methods (FPA, UCP etc.) and still rely on traditional wide-band Delphi or WBS approach irrespective of which development methodology is opted. e.g. In Agile development environment, WBS/Delphi approaches are viable but for traditional methodologies (RUP, Waterfall), FPA or UCP needs to be used.
Next level of confidence issue is security. When I talk about security, I cover Data/network/documentation/idea etc. as part of required security focus areas which are vulnerable in most of the Indian IT players. We have to build professional code of conduct which is practical & easy-to-use instead of long security policies documented with-out solving any purpose. BPO, KPO and even small subset of IT is based on data security and needs to be addressed on top priority.
The last but not the least is cost, which is of type:
- Direct and
- Indirect
The direct cost is of course employee’s salary. Again this problem is two-fold. The employee’s current remuneration is not as per his/her technical/business capability but based on years of experience. Salary needs to be normalized as per the employee’s capability and active role. There is no harm in paying more if it is adding value in terms of delivery efficiency, new ideas or getting new business.
The indirect cost is where management needs to focus on new ways of operational efficiency. Current operations are running with a decade year old plan and trying to compete with today’s dynamic environment. Cost-cutting with-out rational thinking is not going to help until objectives are laid-out.
Now I would like to bring your attention on future at-least for 4 years. If we are able to play with above mention problems to turn them as our positives, I believe India can not only maintain its leadership tag but will be pioneer in world for Innovation with Professional Ethics and cost-effectiveness.
I will continue to add the same based on your inputs
Naresh Chandra yadav http://ncyadav.wordpress.com/
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