Are We Losing Our Competitive Edge?
Is it just me sitting here in Silicon Valley or is it really happening? I am sure this is top of mind topic for many of us in the Indian IT services industry but what surprises me is the same reason I keep reading over and over again: rising value of rupee. Is that truly it? What about equiping our people with some basic communication and cultural skills to stay competitive? How long before we wake up to the fact that technical skills aren’t everything?
I met a top Indian IT services executive last week in Sunnyvale, CA. I was shocked how we provide little to no training (even within the big firms) on basic communication, business and cultural skills before we ship our people to US client sites. He is on the verge of losing a huge contract because of the quality of his people on site and their inability to communicate effectively. Is this isolated? My guess is not as I keep hearing more and more such stories..I think our true differentiation will be in combining our technical expertise with other ‘flatworld skills’ like basic communication, effective e-communications, ‘ways of working’ in US, UK, etc. I think we will continue losing our edge if our IT and HR executives dont pay attention to this ASAP.
Comments anyone?
Hi Sujata: thanks for your comments. Just reinforces how important it is to invest in polishing our IT workforce before they leave India. Feel free to send me an email if you would like to discuss anything specific. I will be more than happy to share what has worked for us.
hari.candadai@foreseeconsultinggroup.com.
I luckily found here the area CLOSEST to my heart right now! cannot agree more …I live in Australia and work in one of the top Banks in the offshoring area where most of my Indian IT vendors seem to be having this same problem and often aren’t aware how quickly it can turn off some clients. On one conference call I had to go back later and tell the vendor to make sure the people on the project do not agree to things that are clearly not do-able. In another instance when needing to update on a critical delivery, the project lead advised the Australian client “It is all in God’s hands now”. He did not understand why the client had a severe escalation alarm when all he had meant was “It is all going well and ready to complete”. It is not about the language nuances only and ofcourse the western clients also need to understand the flat-world in our ways to some extent. However this is one area that IT companies MUST look at more seriously. In Australia we are using a company MMG) that is in the niche area of cross-cultural competence building and proactively equips newly arriving IT people from India as well as the Aussie client firms to build India specific long-term exec coaching…this is helping some of the key Indian IT vendors in a big way as well as the client firms…but still a lot more needs to be done even before they leave India and arrive here to work on projects.
Asif: I wholly agree that we cannot (and should not even try) to change our basic cultural roots and behavior. That is so engrained in all of us that it will come off as artificial and awkward in the western society. However, I am convinced that there is some polishing that can be done to our brilliant technical work force with minimum time and investments which can yield great returns if done right and practice sustained. I am talking of say, a 8-12 week program that coaches on basic communication, interpersonal and cultural skills which gets them started on the global citizen path. As our institutions are not doing it, someone has to start this very tailored and practical orientation with real life examples, etc. It can only benefit the individual and the company, in my opinion. We have tried a very focused 8 week skills training model in my offshoring company and seeing the benefits already. As Mr. Ramalinga Raju, Chairman, Satyam said ” I would like to think of our workforce as raw diamonds in plenty and not enough capacity to polish them. All you have to do is spend 3-6 months with them to ensure that they are up to global standards.”
Thanks for your comments, Asif.
Hari: Firstly, this blog has hit the right place..globalservices ..which talks about the cross cultural influences in the offshoring space. Secondly, the flat world concept (thanks for thomas friedman and Infosys) is hype created for the good of IT industry…it is basically globalisation and NOT flattening out cultural connect!
Now, having said that..let me also point out that the tolerance levels in the western society (both business and public) has gone up drastically to the ‘mistakes’ we had in our communication and business skills. In one of my meetings with the CEO of wipro BPO put this very rightly “…since our people are going global …you just cannot change certain ways of their communication…its deep in their upbringing..”. I completely agreed with him…perhaps if try to change all our plp to the ways of the world (im leavin out basic etiquette)..we might be creating some kind of Mutuant!!
believe me, Indians and their ways are not more seen..’funny’ in many ways today…westerners understand this very well that acceptance of how we are ..is a positive way forward…
Linkov: Absolutely. I think cracking that culture code to the region and even country level will be key. We literally need a dictionary of what a certain term means in different parts of the world plus add to that country examples or a scale of what can be perceived as aggressive vs. straight forward, clear, etc.
A favorite example of mine is how my boss here in the US puts it: “If I were you, I would do….” means ‘you better do it this way’..which can be interpreted differently elsewhere.
Good points. Hari
Hi Hari, clearly “flatworld skills” is such a big issue for India, China, and Asian countries in general because the cultural background, the mindset of Asian people is quite different from US/European. Thus it’s not just about training, it’s also about the willingness to explore & understand different culture as you try to establish communication. I get several promo e-mails from Indian IT shops per week and every single one looks pushy for me. In Russia Asian & European cultures are mixed, but i bet initial reaction of some Brit bloke would be to trash such an e-mail immediately.