1. People

It all starts with the people in your offshore team. No matter how well you define your requirements, how solid the process of your supplier look: you need to have the right person doing the right things in your projects. In order to build a strong dedicated team that will produce results on the long term for you, it is crucial to have an influence on the selection of your team members. Ideally, you co-develop a recruitment process together with your supplier, where you can hold interviews, tests or any other screening method.

2. Process

There needs to be a common understanding of ‘how we work’. As an outsourcer, you need to have a basic structure on which all people involved can rely. In the beginning of the cooperation, the process might be written down on one page, but over time it should evolve into a well documented, proven offshore process document. A few crucial aspects that need to be described in the process are: how do we make requirements and who is responsible for what part; What online project management tool do we use and how do we use it (instruction guide); if your team is a team of programmers: what is our coding standard; how do we communicate (meetings, methods, systems); what are the steps involved from project inception until implementation.

3. Preparation

Take the time to prepare for the offshore cooperation. Invest time in meeting the key people on your vendor’s side, to define processes, to select the right people in your team, to prepare contracts, to define projects, to get your existing organisation ready for the new situation. Before ‘doing the work’, a solid foundation has to be created by thinking about the ‘how we work’ . Your existing people have to get used to the change and they need to get the big picture.

4. Profit

Before and during the cooperation, the bottom line should be that offshoring brings your company profit. This should not be limited to the cost-savings, the maths should take into consideration: increased flexibility, possibility to take on more projects and grow in revenues, to realize faster time to market.

5. Performance

All the people working in the cooperation should create productive output and this needs to be measured. Regular evaluations of the team members on aspects like productivity, quality, personal skills, team skills, billed hours, can increase the insight you have about each persons output.

- Timeline. Outsourcing brought $12 billion to India in 2004. India has grown even bigger on this number since 2004 and many other countries have followed India’s example in the IT outsourcing field. These numbers will keep on growing for the decades to come.

- Timeline. In 2010 companies still choose price over quality (the below document is about the US, I believe in Europe this might be different) and companies are frustrated about the quality of work. In my opinion, there are 2 important things here. First, price is important at the moment because of the worldwide recession. In times of rapid economic growth, companies need people and outsourcing is a requirement for companies to grow as shortages in IT staff make it hard to find talent. Second, companies report frustration because global sourcing is still in its infancy. People need to gain experience in order to know how it works. As more companies outsource, more frustration is reported. As people gain more experience in the next years, outsourcing will become more normal, eventually making it normal practice in  any company.

- Models. Traditionally, most companies outsource projects or tasks. Especially in IT, it is hard to define clear requirements for projects, resulting in gaps in expectations between client and supplier. With big distances both physically and culturally, such gaps grow. Hence, the future of outsourcing will be in more direct models, where outsourcers either set up their own captive center (either through BOT or as direct investment) or directly manage a team employed by a supplier. Below this is also mentioned as ‘making things work’. Outsourcing projects is more complex than managing offshore staff directly (provided that the right processes are in place!).

- Types of services. IT has been the launching business domain in global sourcing. Sometimes I wonder why this has grown this way, as IT is more complex than many other business processes. Currently, BPO and KPO are growing substantially and I expect other fields to dominate the global sourcing market in a decade. It will become normal to outsource any task or activity which can go through a wire to the best fitting country or company.

- Impact on the economy. The figure shows that the US insources more services than it outsources generating a trade surplus. Similar numbers hold true in Europe. Even though a lot of offshoring-opponents believe the impact on an economy to be negative, the future will prove that offshoring facilitates the growth of the economy, resulting in wealth on both ‘sides’ of the equation.

Source: Focus.com

So the latest version of WordPress, 3.0 is here . This is not much of a surprise since we get new versions almost every month. But this release stands out as a much awaited release, since it has some major fresh features for a great user interface.

I will list out a few new features here:

1. The Installation registration page

The previous versions of WordPress had a major security hole as the admin username for the backend was automatically generated as “admin”.  Users had to create a new username for the admin and delete the “admin” from the database.

The new released 3.0 covers that risk by giving an option for users to create their own username and password before the installation.

2. New welcome template

WordPress users would be very familiar with the blue drab default skin that came with the WordPress installation.

That has finally been removed and replaced by a new, fresh theme called the 2010 theme. As the name implies, they plan to have a new template every year.

This is a real refreshing sight, when compared to all the older versions of WordPress.

3. Link Shortener

This is a very helpful feature which enables us to generate short links for our articles (just like in twitter).

4. Individual Author templates

This allows us to have unique author page designs.  So each author can have his own template. It comes handy in case of multi author blogs.

5. Multi Site feature

The best feature by far, this allows us to manage number of blogs with just one admin. Imagine that you’re a web developer who wants to build and host your client’s blogs and sites — you can run hundreds of client sites under one WordPress installation.

So the new release in fact merges WordPress MU and the plain WordPress.

And finally here is the link to a more specified instructions on the new features. http://sixrevisions.com/wordpress/wordpress-3-0-guide/

So this is really the best version of all, and who knows, they might come back with an even more amazing one next month!

Anyone attending a sales training course will be told to get equipped with a CRM system. So should we fill up our bar with Coffee, Rum and Milk?
No, we are talking here about the system which should help you shift your leads and sales potentials away from thunderbird or Outlook. Even Excel or a simple paper sheet will not help increase revenue and profitability.

You need to know with whom you are dealing. For this you can use a CRM system and implement a workflow to help you speed up your work.  What if you are just a one or 5 person strong team? Hey, you do not need SAP CRM to be successful but you need some kind of software to keep things tidy.

So, there are many options. Open Source offers server based software which you can install on a web server or any small computer you are not using a lot in the office. “SugarCRM” and “vTiger” offer community based versions. Sugar even offers a professional version at a moderate license fee.

So what is the best?

This depends on your needs and your location. If you are based in Europe you will find vtiger quite interesting but you should not send out any invoice or quote before having the platform customized by a professional consultant. Otherwise your clients will get heart attacks when reading that your 12k offer is grown to 12.000.000.

So what about SugarCRM?

Sugar is available in 2 editions and can be customized to quite some extend. Customization costs often prove to be lower than with vtiger. So we can expect to see a lot of interesting opportunities in the field of outsourcing.

This is due to the fact that most companies using vtiger or sugarCRM in the Open Source Edition will be consisting of 1-10 employees. Are they going to be open minded to accept products other than Microsoft CRM 4.0? Well, this could be quite the truth, when you look at the workload for an IT Expert to operate and maintain such a CRM.

With open source, you will have installed and customized the system once, then added data and organizational structures before starting to work. Once you are running on full steam you only need to keep running backups for safety reasons.

So do you prefer rum or milk in your coffee?

Getting the necessary skills to operate your own CRM can be costly and time consuming, so IT Outsourcing can speed up things for you. Besides, when recording client data you need to keep in mind that European laws require you to protect data what is quite some complicated way if you are trying to save cost by outsourcing the running of the software, too.

Best option would be to outsource the system to a hosting provider in the Netherlands, Germany or the UK. This can keep you safe from overregulated issues which are beyond the grasp of human beings.

Hence, keep it fast, simple and profitable.

That’s what outsourcing is there for.

In my previous article, I wrote about personal values in the offshoring context. In this article I want to discuss the role of people in making offshoring work. Some questions related to this subject:

• Who are the people in my offshore team?
• How do I create support for offshoring among my people?
• Does the culture of my company match with the supplier’s culture?

Based on my experience with offshoring success and failure, I would say that companies that place an accent on the people, increase their chances. Let’s take a look at the three above questions.

Who are the people in my offshore team?

This is a crucial element in offshoring. Eventually, no matter how good you think your supplier is: the work is done by people and the supplier is as good as the people they put on your team. Even if your team is very big, you want to make sure that you have an influence on the selection procedure. Your people will have to cooperate with your offshore team and they should be happy to work together and to cooperate to achieve your goals.

I believe that any organization wishing to make offshoring work, should engage in the recruitment of the team members, by aligning interviews, performing tests and making sure the people ‘fit’ with your company.

How do I create support for offshoring among my people?

This question is hard to answer because every organization differs. In general, it is wise to engage the key players in the decision to offshore, from an early stage. The project manager who has to manage your offshore team should be among the supporters of the initiative. So is your management team.

The best starting point is setting out your vision and making sure everybody sees the same picture. Then define goals that you want to achieve within 1 year and goals that you want to achieve within 5/10 years. Everybody should see where you´re going.

Another important topic to address is the risk for people that they will lose their job. Many people believe that the logic outcome of outsourcing is that they will be fired. But do you really envision that? Do you create an offshore team to have extra capacity or do you want to cut down your costs and let some local people go? Do you move your current people to another job, will they have the same growth perspective?

Last but not least: let your onsite team physically meet your offshore team. You will see that as soon as they have drunk a beer together, they will start helping each other, producing better results and bringing you closer to your goals.

Does the culture of my company match with the supplier’s culture?

This last question should be asked early on in the supplier selection process. It is the basis for your cooperation, because if the cultures don’t match, you won’t have the right people on your offshore team and there will be no support from either side. Focus on the feeling you get when meeting your supplier, ask about their values, ask about the way they pay their offshore employees. Maybe you even want to interview a few people from their offshore centers to get a feeling of the company’s way of working.

Zwaag, May 2010 – Open Coffee Holland, the open networking club by and for local entrepreneurs, will hold its 100th meeting on June 16 2010. This special jubilee is to be celebrated in Marnemoede restaurant in Ijsselstein. Open Coffee was organized for the first time three years ago in Amsterdam and was an immediate success. The meetings are open to everyone and the main objective is to bring local entrepreneurs and small businessmen together. Currently, Open Coffees are held every month in over 80 cities in The Netherlands all of which are organized by entrepreneurs who are involved in regional activities. This time the 100^th Open Coffee in Ijsselstein is organized by Manuele Koelemij, franchiser of Employment Office Flexibility.

The Open Coffee Club is an English initiative by Saul Klein, who is one of the founders of Skype. His goal was to acquaint internet entrepreneurs, developers and investors with each other in an informal setting in London and in doing so he wanted to provide a clearer picture of the investment industry and stimulate entrepreneurship. Maikel Kok, Managing Director of the software development company Bridge, made sure that once the Open Coffee concept was introduced in Amsterdam on March 15 2007 the meetings spread like wildfire through the country. He did so with uncurbed enthusiasm and dedication. The popular networking club distinguishes itself because of its informal meetings and therefore it shies away from concepts such as membership, speeches or agenda items. Key to the meetings is an informal cup of coffee and a nice conversation with unknown fellow entrepreneurs.

Maikel Kok: “At Bridge we noticed three years ago that entrepreneurs were looking for a local network which has networking and openness as its goal. Open Coffees gives entrepreneurs a chance to leave their desks and contact other entrepreneurs. Ideas, plans, deceptions and victories, all subjects are given a chance. This open character goes very well with Bridge’s company strategy. Therefore I am proud of the fact that the 100^th meeting is to be organized already. On behalf of all Open Coffee organizers I wish everyone lots of networking success!”

About Open Coffee

Open Coffee is an informal meeting which is held regularly so that people who are involved in ‘online business’ can meet each other, discuss ideas, share knowledge, brainstorm, hold meetings or cooperate. The goal is to network in a relaxed way whilst enjoying a cup of coffee. Open Coffee is an open concept which started in London and is now held worldwide every week at over 100 locations. The time and content differs from city to city but everywhere one is given a change to meet interesting and kind people. See www.opencoffeeclub.nl for more information.

In recent months we have been reading a lot about social network sites like facebook, XING and other portals making profitable use of the user data they are storing.

Politics usually react by designing legal structures which are not going to help the development of the internet. Where borders seam to evaporate, national laws are reduced to barking dogs.  With the current situation Ministers have learned their lesson and are using the social media as a tool to force social media to rethink their policies.

Eventually ministers participate in social media portals (facebook) in order to increase the number of followers who will also support the minister’s initiative. This is very much the case with the German minister who has been increasing the pressure on facebook so that they improve their data protection policies. Eventually, she decided to cancel her facebook account and hereby motivated other people to either cancel their own accounts or reduce the quantity of material they have been leaving in facebook. Hence, social media is not just useful to build up a public image but also to influence people and companies.

On the one hand you could argue that clients might start questioning if their existing solution is going to keep within the expected or required boundaries. On the other hand, it must make clients aware that data security is not just a matter of having a firewall on the server. Good site security needs know-how and that is not for free but available at competitive prices.

But how do you get your services to a state that they will not get you into trouble?

This is not an easy question. This requires not just technical knowledge but also an insight into local data protection laws and regulations. In General: the safer the server, the database and its scripts the less you are likely to get security issues.

But what if you use the client data to earn extra cash? It is not a good idea to sell your clients data to a 3^rd party in order to finance your business plan. You need to change your income generation to make your services much more attractive to users and advertisers. Add powerful tools for targeting advertisements and you will start winning again. But you need to have real business intelligence knowledge. For that best outsource your ideas in order to speed up delivery of new services at much lower costs.

Knowledge is power but unrivaled attractiveness is tremendous.

“The Scandinavian market is open to specialized offshore outsourcing providers”

Zwaag, May 17 2010 – Bridge, specialist with regard to software development and offshore outsourcing, has opened a new auxiliary branch in Linkoping, Sweden. From this location Bridge offers its services with regard to offshore outsourcing projects to IT departments of middle and large organizations. Sweden is one of the leading countries with regard to IT innovation and automation to realize company growth. The Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 by the World Economic Forum states that compared to  the rest of the world Sweden uses IT in the best way to realize durable economic growth in the long run. Bridge subscribes to this view and also signals that the need for fast, economical software development is there.

Bridge has several software development centres in India, Moldova and Ukraine. These centres provide clients with access to a large number of highly educated IT professionals. The specialist in offshore outsourcing develops several software applications such as server and internet based, mobile solutions and critical (precision) applications. John Eriksson, one of Bridge’s experts who was trained in the Indian development centre, is a Swedish citizen and was named Business Development Manager in Sweden. His knowledge of outsourcing and the fast developments and demands of the Swedish market provide Bridge with a chance to respond to the increasing demand of  specialized offshore outsourcing by the Swedish companies.

Hugo Messer, fellow founder and director of Bridge: “Sweden is very much like the Netherlands with regard to culture and work ethics. This makes it easy to communicate with the Swedes and attract Swedish projects. However it is always better to be represented locally by someone who speaks the language and can appreciate the client’s wishes. Therefore we transfer the market development with full confidence to John Eriksson. Sweden is a leading country with regard to green and durable IT projects. Just like in the Netherlands however, Sweden is coping with a lack of highly educated software developers, which causes wages and development prices to rise. This is why Swedish companies find it very interesting to outsource technical projects offshore. The Scandinavian market is open to specialized offshore outsourcing providers. Thanks to the new office we will definitely be part of the expected Swedish market growth.”

I just wrote a comment on Computable, a famous Dutch IT newspaper; the article discusses a research from Ordina about the under estimation of the human side in outsourcing. Speaking about the human side of outsourcing puts two central subjects into my mind:

1. Focusing on people when organizing outsourcing

This brings questions like:

-           Who are the people in my offshore team?

-           How do I create support for offshoring among my people?

-           Does the culture of my company match with the supplier’s culture?

2. The impact of offshoring on your personal values

This subject deals with the human motivations as opposed to sound business logic:

-          Did you ever think about your feelings when thinking/acting on outsourcing?

-           Do you decide purely on rationality and numbers or is there also a voice inside of you telling you                     ‘let’s do it’?

-           What does offshoring add to your personal values?

I want to discuss the second subject in this article and will discuss the first one in my next article.

To me, business is intriguing; it’s exciting to see what people do to make a living, what ideas they implement to set up a business. But on the other hand it’s often boring to speak about business subjects that are so far away from my basic human needs (eating, sleeping, relaxing). Do I need to make all my decisions based on profit, on sound business logic, on achieving business goals? Isn’t it much more interesting to look at my personal values, to do something which makes me happy, brings me fun, to do something bold and exciting?

One of my personal values is adventure/entrepreneurship (those are synonyms in my personal perception). To me, offshoring is a big adventure. The first time I was having a video conversation with someone from Ukraine through skype, I thought it was so incredible. And still I believe it’s great that we have the possibility to cooperate with someone on the other side of the world. That borders have disappeared and it doesn’t matter if someone works for me from India or is sitting in my Dutch office. And that we are able to make offshoring work, to set up something and profit from it.

Another important value for me is love and openness. This may sound weird in a business environment (my colleagues also looked surprised when I named these in a value-definition meeting we did a few years ago), but it’s important to me. I spend so much time working with people that I like to feel love towards each other and to be completely open with each other. This value is also the basis of my curiosity to work with people from other cultures. The way people in the Netherlands deal with love and openness is completely different from Indian and Eastern European people. Opening up to other cultures gives me insights into my own believes and I learn from that.

And finally, I love to travel and live abroad. Offshoring gives me this opportunity and I travel to other countries regularly. Without Bridge, I would not have had the great experience of living in India.

Of course profit, process and performance are essential to make offshoring work. But I believe that humans sometimes tend to forget about their deep personal values in their business endeavors. I am very curious on how you think about this subject and hope you will share some ideas.

A cool thing in this old-school process is that it activates different members of the team. Even those, who wouldn’t be asked otherwise. Even those, who would tell you that the project is doomed unless you decide to do something about that performance issue found last month.

At the same time in small teams this kind of process looks like complete overkill. In small teams  which deal with small chunks of work knowledge about risks (about everything actually) is often commonly shared. The problem isn’t about bringing individual opinions to the table. The problem is to make risk management as simple as possible yet still effective.

An easy and powerful approach here is to forget that there is something like risk management at all. At least to the point where you don’t consider having dedicated formal process to do risk management. Instead you incorporate risk management to everyday tasks: stand-ups, retrospectives, demos, planning meetings etc. You discuss potential risks every time you discuss a task or story. You discuss potential risks whenever you feel about it.

You won’t even need a risk log. If you talk about risks at every occasion you quickly learn how to catch those which may become painful (filtering by type) and those which are likely to hit you (filtering by frequency of mentioning).

When you keep talking about risks all the time people learn to deal with them naturally as they work on their tasks. Potential performance problem Luke mentioned yesterday? I’ll run some stress tests as I just have a while and maybe Mike would take a look at database as he’s already tweaking it to build that new feature. The trick is we don’t call it a risk. It is just a performance issue. Possible performance issue actually. Luke just thought it might become a problem but in a couple of days the problem will be gone, this way or another. And you don’t need to use the word risk, have a risk log, perform risk assessment, build and implement mitigation plans etc.

The only thing you need to have this kind risk management in place is a bit of trust and open atmosphere. Oh, co-location and no-meeting culture may help as well but in small teams both are usually in place already.

Read this and other articles of Pawel Brodzinski on his Software Project Management blog.