An Open Challenge

A seemingly-unlreated article on Fortune.com drew my attention : The Amazing Do-It-Yourself Economy. The article talks of how much easier it's become for 'amateur' hobbyists to create products - websites, videos, audio, electronics - that are as polished as the professional ones.

One line in particular riles me :
To be fair, all this amateur energy isn't exactly a new force. When exciting technologies emerge, Americans have always pounced and created something original.

What are the rest of us, then? Where are the hordes of desi bloggers, singers, creators, inventors, ready to push their content to the rest of the world?

Well?

Prophecy Fulfilled...sort of.

At a book exhibition recently, I found a copy of a once-popular book - "The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer", By Edward Yourdon. This book describes how Software jobs are going to move from the USA to India and other outsourcee countries, and what American engineers should do to save their jobs. He also adds an appendix describing the Indian software Industry, and how it is developing.

In case you haven't heard of this book before, it's understandable. This stuff was written back in 1991, fourteen years ago, long before the current brouhaha over the issue! There are lots of things he got wrong, of course, such as suggesting that Americans should use CASE tools to improve their producivity beyond the reach of the Indians.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to read the section on India. The Indian infrastructure he describes feels like a bad dream today. For example :

After learning that my flight from Madras to Bombay would be delayed for four hours, I spent another hour with an NIIT manager trying to call the Bombay office to advise them of the delay. It was fruitless: we could not get a connection. Indians are accustomed to this, and have even accepted the fact that if they make an advance deposit of 5000 rupees, it may still take four years to get a new phone installed. Shrugging, they smile and say, "Actually, it's much better now that it was before..."


Nevertheless, Yourdon is spot on with the path he predicts for the Indian IT Industry. The evolution that it will go through (according to him) goes :

1. Building a reputation by providing cheap programming services on site at the customer's location.
2. Shifting the programming services back to India, with well-specified programs and systems delivered via telecommunications link to the overseas customer.
3. Gradually shifting the emphasis and focus from low-cost services to high-quality services.
4. Shifting from a service industry to a product industry by finding market niches or by providing higher-quality, lower-cost clone products.
5. Finding a try value-added software-intensive product in some application area that encapsulates India's own unique expertise.


Where do you think we are now, 15 years after this brave prediction? I'd say we're pushing for step 3 to happen. As evidence, take this recent story on SearchCIO. It quotes the Chief Strategist of Wipro as stating proudly, "Small companies don't come to Wipro.".

Indeed, we are increasingly seeing a particular type of outsourcing projects move off the radar for larger Indian companies. I mean those projects that came here strictly to save money. The ones that insist on giving only outlying, non-core work to the outsourcees and then paying the lowest possible rates. These projects are beginning to go to Vietnam or Uzbekistan. Indian companies are proud of themselves for taking on only the 'better' quality of work.

Let me state this up front, as an Indian software engineer/outsourcee : This is VERY DANGEROUS if it's happening everywhere in Indian companies. Bad work today, if done properly, leads to good work tomorrow. While the bigger companies, that pay well, cannot fight on price anymore with Vietnam and co., we ought to be seeing a new layer of smaller, tigher, cheaper outsourcees coming up in smaller cities in India now. They should be the places where the bad projects go, not Vietnam. The Indian software industry should not be a single, monolithic block that raises or reduces billing rates together, there needs to be competition - local competition - snapping at their heels. There need to be places where simpler work is done for lower rates by less-experienced people.

This may sound paradoxical : I've been complaining about the bad work that outsourcees do, in nearly every post. But that is one extreme; this is the other. Both are bad. Creating an industry entirely of cheap, billed-rock-bottom programmers that do manual testing was my fear earlier; the new one is having a huge pool of architects doing work at high prices, with no space for newbies or part-timers. We need a proper Ecosystem of all types of engineers.

Such an ecosystem will be essential if we want to move on to the next steps in Yourdon's path.

'Social Networks'

[This article was published in the Express Careers section of the Indian Express on 5th May 05.]


Social networks: A key to employee retention


The Indian IT industry is now entering the consolidation phase. A large number of companies have established themselves with the customers, and have proven themselves as reliable, low cost outsourcing destinations. Now they must secure their presence in all segments of the software development cycle - design, development, testing, maintenance and support. For this purpose, every company today seeks to grow and create specialized work force in all these areas. Companies also want to establish quality processes, and increase the percentage of experienced employees.

The biggest hurdle faced by all companies is retention of employees. More than ever, engineers are feeling frustrated by the assembly-line style work done by software companies. They repeatedly change companies, trying to find work that suits them, yet finding themselves bored by the monotony of every task. In this job-hopping, companies end up with employees that do not stay long enough to imbibe the company culture and values, and thus are not suitable for higher-end jobs.

Companies usually encourage employees to work as hard as they can, and promise bonuses as incentives. However, beyond a point, money does not serve as a motivating factor. One big factor that creates boredom in the employees' lifestyle is the lack of any extra activities or hobbies in their day. In order to keep employees happy and productive, they need to have some social activities and interest-based interaction with peers regularly.

A good solution to this is to create cultural activity groups within the company. Sub groups can be formed related to various interests such as music, dance, painting, sports, singing, quizzing, or trekking. These groups then hold shows, exhibitions, and competitions at regular intervals, open to all employees.

Alternatively, company-wide parties, movie screenings, dinners and picnics can be organized. These are informal events where people can interact with each other without the formal organizational structure coming in between. People meet their friends, old acquaintances, and spend the evening discussing things other than their jobs.

These activities create a welcome change from work, and give people something to look forward to. In Pune and Bangalore, for example, the IT companies hold yearly inter-IT company quizzes, cricket and football tournaments. These are keenly fought efforts, and the entire software engineer community follows them with interest.

An important effect of such activities is the social bond it creates between employees who have common interests. It creates friendships between people who may sit in different buildings, different departments, and pairs them together in joint activities. The social network of these employees thus improves, and they look forward to meeting other people within the company. In large companies, this is a real boon because otherwise employees get to interact only with people from their own projects and thus feel constricted.

Another effect is the creation of a sense of belongingness. Employees who play, say, cricket for their company feel a sense of pride in belonging to the team. The people who cheer for their teams feel the same sense of pride when their team fights well.

A third effect is the image of the company itself. A company that routinely produces winners of a quiz competition gains a reputation for being a 'smart' company. A company that organizes seminars and conferences gains a reputation as a leader-type.

Last but not the least, these activities create informal channels for people to talk to their supervisors and management teams. Discussions on project environments, quality of work, etc. can take place with no risk, and defuse potential tension.

All these activities create a kind of bonding between the employee and his company. He knows the people there, he is comfortable working there, and he has someone to turn to when he wants activity partners. These factors are just as important as the work environment and technologies in retaining him in the company.

More importantly, such measures cost very little to the company. They definitely cost much less than repeatedly losing qualified employees and retraining new ones. With time and a sensible approach, companies can ensure they minimize their attrition rates and grow with the least possible problems.