Smart-sourcing strategies: Technology, Business, Finance

Chrome ad - Tanjore - The web is what you make of it

Over the years there have been a lot of creative, innovative ideas and advertisements that came from Google. I think this is one of their best ads. 

 

Shawnee, KS to Minneapolis, MN via Waterloo, IA via KY

Last week I had an opportunity to drive from Shawnee, KS to Minneapolis, MN. Along the way I stopped in Waterloo, IA for a meeting. Here are pictures from that trip.  

At Shawnee, KS.

 

 Hot summer afternoon on Interstate.  

 

Welcome to Iowa. 

 

Imes Bridge. Madison County IA. Bridges of Madison County. This one is very close to interstate exit (less than 2 miles) a must stop if you are traveling on I35 and are short on time. Other bridges are 12 miles inside.  

Imes Bridge from inside.

H O T in Iowa. with heat index it was above 100 at almost all places.

Dave's restaurant. Charles City, IA. This is a best little restaurant in Charles City, IA. Fried Chicken is absolutely delicious.

Ford in India: Winding up the Indian car buyer

We love the story told by Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, to illustrate how Western companies don't always get the Indian market. When Ford, he explained, decided to make a big move into India, it decided to pare down a $20,000 model it made in the US to a $15,000 version for Asia, which it figured would be more affordable. One money-saving idea was to get rid of the electric windows in the back of the car.

What Ford hadn't realised was that a $15,000 car would be the preserve of Indians wealthy enough to employ a driver – most of whom were unimpressed with the fact that their staff had automatic windows while they were stuck in the back with old-fashioned winders!!

 

 

Improving Software Product Quality With Effective SQA Solutions

Author: Riyaz Lakhani, Head of India Operations - Mantra Technologies
Riyaz completed his engineering in 1993 and immediately started working in the IT industry. He worked for several companies including KPIT Cummins and Cybage, where he served in various capacities like the Practice head for IBM Software, Delivery Head for EU etc. During his career, he had the opportunity of trotting around the globe for either for project discussions, or presentations in board meetings or for pre-sales activities. In 2007, he joined MantraSys in capacity of the Head of India Operations. He manages all the delivery, project management and technical aspects of all the projects. You can email him at Riyaz@mantrasys.com

Improving quality involves applying appropriate methods to close the gap between current and expected levels of quality as defined by standards. This core QA activity uses quality management tools and principles to understand and address system deficiencies, enhance strengths and improve health-care processes. A range of quality improvement approaches exist, from individual problem solving, rapid team problem solving and systematic team problem solving to process improvement and redesign and organizational restructuring/re-engineering. QA topics that are part of Improving Quality include:

The Four-Step Approach to Quality Improvement

Quality improvement (QI) methodology has evolved over the years. Early QI efforts assumed that improvements could be readily attained by adding new or more things, such as new machines, procedures, training or supplies. It was believed that simply adding more resources or inputs would improve quality. People working to improve quality learned that increasing resources does not always ensure their efficient use and, consequently, may not lead to improvements in quality.

In fact, a key lesson is that in many cases quality can be improved by making changes to health-care systems without necessarily increasing resources. Interestingly, improving the processes of health-care not only creates better outcomes, but also reduces the cost of delivering services by eliminating waste, unnecessary work and rework. Inspecting main activities or processes is another approach that managers have used to identify and solve problems.

This method tried to increase control over staff and often blamed people for mistakes. This philosophy of improving quality showed limited success because it did not necessarily identify barriers to improvement or generate the support of workers, who felt resistant to being evaluated. In contrast, current QI approaches examine how activities can be changed so employees can do their work better. For example, poor employee performance may stem from a lack of supplies, inefficient processes or the lack of training or coaching rather than worker performance.

The philosophy behind the QA Project’s approach to QI recognizes that both the resources (inputs) and activities carried out (processes) must be addressed together to ensure or improve the quality of care. In response to the wide variety of settings and circumstances it has encountered in over 30 developing countries, the QA Project defines quality improvement as consisting of four key steps.

• Step one: Identify > Determine what to improve
• Step two: Analyze > Understand the problem
• Step three: Develop > Hypothesize about what changes will improve the problem and develop solution strategy based on these changes
• Step four: Test and implement > Test the hypothesized solution

QI is not limited to carrying out these four steps, but rather emphasizes continuously looking for ways to further improve quality. When improvements in quality are achieved, teams can continue to strive for further improvements with the same problem and/or address other opportunities for improvement that have been identified.

Step one: Identify

The goal of the first step, identify, is to determine what to improve. This may involve a problem that needs a solution, an opportunity for improvement that requires definition or a process or system that needs to be improved. Examples of problems or processes that are commonly identified include low coverage, inadequate counseling, lack of drugs, lost lab reports and excessive waiting time. This first step involves recognizing an opportunity for improvement and then setting a goal to improve it. Quality improvement starts by asking these questions:

• What is the problem?
• How do you know that it is a problem?
• How frequently does it occur or how long has it existed?
• What are the effects of this problem?
• How will we know when it is resolved?

Step two: Analyze

Once areas for quality improvement have been identified, the second step is to analyze what we need to know or understand about this opportunity for improvement before considering changes. The objectives of the analysis stage can be any combination of the following:

• Clarifying why the process or system produces the effect that we aim to change
• Measuring the performance of the process or system that produces the effect
• Formulating research questions, such as the following:
  • Who is involved or affected?
  • Where does the problem occur?
  • When does the problem occur?
  • What happens when the problem occurs?
  • Why does the problem occur?

To reach these objectives, this step requires the use of existing data or data collection. The extent to which data are needed depends on the quality improvement approach chosen. Techniques to analyze problems include clarifying processes through flowcharts or cause-effect analyses, reviewing existing data and, when needed, collecting additional data.

Step three: Develop.

The third step, develop, uses the information accumulated from the previous steps to explore what changes would yield improvement. A hypothesis is formulated about which changes, interventions or solutions would reduce the problem and thus improve the quality of care. A solution strategy is then developed based on this hypothesis. It is important to remember that at this point the hypothesis remains a theory, as it has not yet been tested. A hypothesis is a tentative assumption made in order to test its consequences. It is based on people’s knowledge and beliefs about the likely causes and solutions of the problem.

Step four: Test and implement.

This step, test and implement, builds on the first three. A hypothesis is tested to see if the proposed intervention or solution yields the expected improvement. Because interventions that prove to be effective may not yield immediate results, allowing time for change to occur is important in the testing process. The results of this test determine the next step.

Determining the Next Step after Solution Testing

Test Result	Next Step
Proposed change did not produce an improvement	Start the improvement process again or look for flaws in the proposed change
Proposed change yields improvement that is not completely satisfactory	Modify the proposed change and then re-test the modification
Proposed change yields satisfactory improvement	Begin the implementation of the change or intervention

The Spectrum of Quality Improvement Approaches

Rapid Team Problem Solving

Rapid team problem solving is an approach in which a series of small incremental changes in a system is tested—and possibly implemented—to improve quality. This approach entails many small to medium size tests of individual changes in similar systems. Like individual problem solving, this approach could be used in any setting, although it generally requires that teams have some experience in problem solving and/or seek a mentor to help implement this approach quickly. This approach to quality improvement is less rigorous in the time and resources required than the next two approaches because it largely relies on existing data and group intuition, thereby minimizing lengthy data collection procedures. Rapid team problem solving may involve cause analysis, but implemented in a less rigorous fashion than in systematic problem solving. Teams are ad hoc (temporary) and disband once the desired level of improvement has been achieved.

Systematic Team Problem Solving

Systematic team problem solving is often used for complex or recurring problems that require a detailed analysis; it frequently results in significant changes to a system or process. The mainstay of this approach is a detailed study of the causes of problems and then developing solutions accordingly. This detailed analysis usually involves data collection and therefore often requires considerable time and resources. While systematic team problem solving can be used in any setting, due to its in-depth nature, it is most appropriate when the ad hoc team can work together over a period of time. Typically, such teams disband once sufficient improvement objectives are reached.

Process Improvement

The most complex of the four approaches, process improvement, involves a permanent team that continuously collects monitors and analyzes data to improve a key process over time. Process improvement generally occurs in organizations where permanent resources are allocated to quality improvement. The permanent team may use any of the other three QI approaches, for example, forming ad hoc teams to solve specific problems. Process improvement is often used to assure the quality of important services in a health facility or organization. Since this approach is often used to respond to core processes of a system, various stakeholders contribute to the analysis stage. The table below compares the four QI approaches.

	Individual Problem Solving	Rapid Team Problem Solving	Systematic Team Problem Solving	Process Improvement
When to use the approach	When you know the problem is dependent on only one person	When the team needs quick results and has a lot of intuitive ideas	When the problem is complex or recurring, requiring analysis	When a key process or system requires ongoing monitoring or continual improvement
Teams	Unnecessary	Ad hoc	Ad hoc	Permanent
Data	Almost none	Can succeed with little data	Need data to carry out root cause analysis to understand the causes of the problem	Data from continuous monitoring; may need to collect more
Time	Little	Little	Limited to the time necessary	Continuous

In sum, experience with quality improvement has rendered it a simpler, more robust methodology and the application of QI methodology to a wide range of settings has become clearer. The settings include both clinical and nonclinical environments, with the approaches ranging from individual problem solving to process improvement by permanent teams. In all of these approaches, the methodology and principles remain unchanged, though their specific methods may vary.

 

About Author

Riyaz Lakhani, Head of India Operations - Mantra Technologies
Riyaz completed his engineering in 1993 and immediately started working in the IT industry. He worked for several companies including KPIT Cummins and Cybage, where he served in various capacities like the Practice head for IBM Software, Delivery Head for EU etc. During his career, he had the opportunity of trotting around the globe for either for project discussions, or presentations in board meetings or for pre-sales activities. In 2007, he joined MantraSys in capacity of the Head of India Operations. He manages all the delivery, project management and technical aspects of all the projects. You can email him at Riyaz@mantrasys.com

 

Mobile Payments on Starbucks.. Why not make FREE drink Mobile?

Today Starbucks announced a mobile app for Blackberry and iPhone that will let customers pay for the coffee. That's wonderful and very convenient for Starbucks coffee drinkers.

Just one more thing they should really do is - add Free drink on mobile app, too!

I am Starbucks gold card holder myself. And, after every 13 drinks Starbucks gold card holders get a card in the mail for a FREE drink. Its kind of a hassle to keep those cards, not lose them and use those before the expiry date. Earlier it used to be a free drink right at the time of card swipe.. but later Starbucks changed it.

I think it would really help to go mobile if the FREE drink is added on the mobile app.. in fact, a little count for remaining drinks for the FREE one would actually increase Starbucks sales!

Is Facebook just a craze, or can it topple Google?

Recent media attention to Facebook and people associated with it is just phenomenal. In late 2010 Facebook became number one site, in terms of unique visitors per month. It passed Google in October and November of 2010. Also, in 2010, Facebook crossed 500 Million users mark making it 3rd largest community on earth behind only China and India.

Just past week, Goldman invested 500 million in Facebook and rush from its clients to buy a piece of Facebook shares is frantic. In this same article, columnists note:

Wealthy Goldman clients have been jockeying for a piece of Facebook since the deal was struck last weekend, a situation reminiscent of the technology bubble of the late 1990s when online-grocery seller Webvan Group Inc. and other upstarts with far shorter track records than Facebook sold stakes to investors.

All, these numbers raise a question - is it all really worth it? What's the Facebook's value add to the end users? And, is Facebook really a big life changer, or just a craze?

Google Vs Facebook

Google, since its launch, has provided a distinct value add for the end user. It has, for most part, proved to be a solid search engine where people go to search and then, from there, go to other websites. Although, Google news and Google Maps are another features of Google widely used, Search is what has made the life of end users easier and, to the extent, better. Compare that experience with Facebook and I am not sure exactly what value does Facebook provides for the end users. As one of my tech executive friend puts it, a typical Facebook user is just a data entry operator who does data entry for Facebook and other B2C companies. I couldn't agree more.   

Value for the end-user

I think Value innovation and addition by Facebook for the end user is almost zero. There is hardly any feature in facebook, that was not there before in some way or the other. On line communities(Yahoo Groups), emails (for direct communication), chat, groups, Photo sharing (picassa) - all these features were already out there, for years, and people were using it, also for years. Facebook only packaged these features in a nice single interface. So, Facebook's direct value add to the end-user is zero. 

Value for the Businesses

Businesses that benefit directly from marketing via Facebook are primarily B2C businesses.  Considering that Facebook's large user-base  is primarily consumers, B2B businesses do not benefit much from Facebook. They instead opt for Google Adwords or LinkedIn for their marketing dollars, and they will continue to do so. In addition, B2C businesses currently marketing on Facebook will see their ROI decreasing as the time goes by and as their fan base grows substantially.    

End user profile and impact

• Spending power of the end user - Generally, people with high spending power like to disclose very little about themselves online. These are the people that B2C companies would benefit more, however without much Facebook participation from higher-spending power folks, companies marketing on Facebook typically have large fan base with not many spenders.  
• In-active users - Many end users on Facebook are largely in-active. They only listen but don't talk. I know many of my friends who prefer to talk on GroupOn or FourSquare instead on Facebook. I personally think GroupOn has better value proposition than Facebook.
• Disguised users - During my recent trip to India, I talked to many young children (age group 10 - 15) who have created Facebok profiles for themselves falsely stating that they 18+ in age. They are really heavy users of Facebook, but how much business do they give to companies marketing on Facebook? 
• Psychological impact - This is a serious issue and deserves much more attention. In his book Nicholas Carr correctly says that - man makes a tool and then the tool makes a man! With instant comments, or lack of them, desire to put pictures online, disclosing intimate personal experiences and basically trying to be what you really are not does create long-lasting impact on a person in real life. I think this is the most serious yet neglected side of the Facebook.     

Looking at the some of the past companies, at-least at this point of time, it appears that Facebook might be following more Webvan than Google.

Facebook Overtakes Google To Become Most Visited Website In 2010

Here is original article from TechCrunch.

• ebay is not in top 10 for 2010.
• Bing is in.
• I am surprised to see myspace in Top10. Does anyone still uses myspace.. I thought everyone is on Facebook now.. or Orkut if you are in India.
• It seems that more people are using gmail or Google apps than their personal yahoo account.

 

Offshoring: Smaller vendors take on bigger companies

Good article about the recent trends in outsourcing industry. US companies are increasingly preferring to work with smaller providers with niche expertise, better client attention and stronger value proposition.

The boutique-sized , niche-focused outsourcing providers seem to be giving giants like HP, IBM, Accenture , TCS , Infosys , Wipro , HCL and Cognizant tough competition in terms of offering a greater degree of customer satisfaction.

A comprehensive poll of over 6,547 outsourcing clients worldwide found that smaller vendors are satisfying more clients, and to a much greater degree, in comparison with their big-ticket counterparts. The study carried out by the Black Book of Outsourcing - which was acquired by business research firm Datamonitor Group a year ago - has represented all outsourcing fields including IT, KPO, LPO and BPO.

Mantra Technologies is uniquely positioned for such change. We are US based with better client proximity. We have keener eye to client business needs and we better align our teams to meet those goals.

 

6 Tips to Reduce Customer Support Cost by leveraging Software QA

This post was published earlier, but I trhought it is worth re-visiting some of these tips again.

One of the clients of my company for whom we provide software development solutions, last month asked us if we could help them bring outside perspective to their growing business challenge - over the last 4 quarters or so company was witnessing a steady uptick in number of support calls and time per support call. This was putting burden on their smaller support staff and also creating some not-so-positive noise among customer base. Question was what's causing uptick and how to reduce that number while enhancing customer satisfaction.

Many small and midsized software companies are dealing with this issue. With the challenging economic and business conditions, its not only the service / product provider companies, but often their end clients are also going through organization changes which sometimes affects the provider companies. Here are some factors that our team came up with, although only few of these were actually applicable to the client company.

1. Loss of key knowledge resource: Losing an experienced resource within the company often creates bottle neck for the rest of the supp rt staff. If that resource is still within the company but only reassigned to another team then making that resource available on-demand, as need basis can be very helpful. Knowledge transfer and training could also be arranged through lunch-n-learn sessions. If such resource has left the company then problem could be more painful. Best way to tackle such problem is to identify knowledge leadership within current support team or company to address immediate problems and then work on creating long term solutions. In some cases, contracting with an ex-employee(s) might also be a good option.

1. Lack of adequate QA / Testing: If your support team is getting higher than usual calls from your customer base, particularly immediately after your new release or a code change on which your developers work hard for months, then chances are proper testing was not done prior to the roll out.
   1. Unit testing performed by developers is not really a release quality testing.
   2. Ideally you should have sanity test and build verification test done on entire product (even to those areas which were not changed).
   3. Well defined test cases, test scenarios, test plans can also be very useful to ensure release quality. Mantra Technologies has well defined quality assurance guide lines for the product release which we highly recommend to all out customers.
   4. Software testing is an entire different subject and needs its own space, but this is one of the key reasons or lack thereof why you may see a spike in support calls and dip in customer satisfaction. Some of the testing approaches you should consider are:
      1. Functionality Testing
      2. Regression Testing
      3. Integration Testing
2. Lack of knowledge base: This is a common knowledge that your support staff (your customer facing staff) should be well equipped with all the tools and ammo they need to be more efficient and effective. Still, I find it surprising that many small and mid size companies fail to make use of commonly available tools.
   1. You can make Wiki forums available within the company where all employees can learn from and contribute to.
   2. FAQs on your website - this is a wonderful, first line of defense against some common problems or questions.
   3. You can leverage your company blog and HowTo sections with useful information.
   4. You can also make small, quick video (typically less than 5 minutes in length) and publish those on secure customer section on your website.
   5. If you have SalesForce or any other CRM tool in use, with few clicks, you can allow your customers to open a ticket and have it routed to appropriate support person (with some business rules.) If you don't want to invest in such tool, you can look at some low cost or free solutions such as zoho.
3. Change in Management, change in priorities: Many times a change in the management or change in priorities (as a reaction to outside events) may prompt changes in support structure. Even if all the changes start with a good intention, buy-in from the support staff is equally crucial to guarantee the enhanced customer support.
   
   
4. Years old, un-documented code base: How old is your code base? Are there any areas in your code that no one knows about but everyone is afraid to analyze? Many customers find documentation solutions from Mantra Technologies effective strategy to make the best of the old code. This well documented code and help files which are then made available to support staff further helps them to provide best customer service.
5. Lack of support and escalation process: How well your support staff, particularly newer members of your support staff, understands the gravity or seriousness of the customer issue. This is truer if your support operations are outsourced and even more so if to another country. 
   1. Do you have predefined consistent escalation processes? 
   2. Do you have proper training and measurement of support staff readiness?
   3. how customer focused, friendly are your first line of support staff?
   4. Does your support staff feel need to drag your developers into support issues more frequently?
   5. Do you have right measures of your support staff and more importantly are they aligned to your business goals? For example, if your business goal is to increase customer satisfaction then you cannot only measure the number of support calls handled / hour.

6.      Failure to understand changed customer expectations / users: Just like your company, there is a good possibility that your client's team has gone through some changes, too. May be they have lost a key resource who had a great knowledge of your application. And, now all of a sudden you are getting all the questions which that resource used to answer internally.

1.  How do you and how early do you identify a support issue from training issue.
2. How do you approach your customer and tell him to invest in re-training a new resource or do you avoid that to maintain a client relationship and instead burden your support staff?

For any software company, large or small, application support team is the ultimate brand and product ambassador. They are also your sales people because best service often results in to increased sales and vice-versa.

 

7 Common Mistakes Software Product Manager Should Avoid

While working for many years with software product managers and small / mid-size ISVs, I have seen time and again companies falling into traps on their way to new product development. Here I am trying to summarize some of those traps in one place:  

1 - Thinking too big - ‘Put all bells and whistles in first version’

"We don't want to let client know what we are up to, we will surprise them"
"We have enough experience, we will just go to the market with a full version with all the features"
There is always a lot of excitement at the beginning of a product cycle. Everyone, especially a product Manager, wants to give a killer, cutting edge, next generation product that will leave the competition in dust and make the this product numero uno in the market. This is the most common trap many company fall into. Partly because of the pressure of higher management, or sales & marketing folks, product management just tries to include all the features, bells and whistles in to the product at Release 1.
Such approach, thinking too big, eventually leads either to delays in product cycle or inferior quality or both. A better approach, instead, could be to start with a basic functionality first. Make the product work and let it do its core (only) function successfully with few basic, select additional features. Simple. Nothing complex. Rather than adding all the features, time and attention should rather be provided to evaluation, validation and experimentation of latest technology, platforms, scalability and ultimate user experience.

2 - Wrong adaption of a Global Model

Developing everything in-house, outsourcing an entire product development and applying in-correct global strategy all could potentially lead to high product development costs or inferior product.  

• Using offshore-only provider - All you are getting is a cheaper programmer with no meaningful on-shore collaboration. You should instead tap into a glocal (local consultants with global efficiencies) providers such as my company.  
• Doing all in-house - Easier to maintain and implement, but you limit fresh ideas and product cycle efficiencies.
• Outsource everything - your company needs to adapt to a product than other way round. This is most risky approach.
• Keeping Testing in-house - It has been proven that software testing is generally a non-core task of the product development cycle and often better accomplished by outside party. my company has large customer base where we do only testing of their product.  

3 - Work with offshore only provider (outsourcing 1.0):

“We are only looking for programmers at lower cost.”
“We have this existing relationship and we are set with them.”
When you hear yourself saying “we are set”. you really are in need of a fresher perspective and newer vendor. Offshore only providers often don’t have their roots in US. I sometimes call them utility companies. They don’t hear, see and experience same things that you and your client does and thus lack perspective necessary for deeper collaboration and better product development. Lot could be said on this point, but key is that you will have much better product if you collaborate with a vendor that is local to you or local to product’s end market, and also could deliver efficiencies associated with global model.

4 - Keep everything in-house:

“We do everything in-house”
“We have never worked with outside vendor. We have all we need.”
This strategy is easy to manage and often perceived as faster to implement. The downside of this strategy is that product team does not get outside ideas and perspective. There are many outside companies who may have done done good groundwork, framework which could be beneficial to your product. You could also tap into their experience of working with other product companies similar to yours. But by keeping everything in house you are limiting yourself from any such ideas and experience.

5 - Outsource everything - Even innovation?:

“We want you to develop a complete solution for us. do your own R&D”
“You figure out the what, how and which technologies, methodologies and algorithms. Just give us a product that meets our requirements.”
This is a commonly followed approach in smaller companies where they lack technology resources to developer a new product. An outside company may not know your client base as well as you do and, furthermore, they may not have as good innovators as they may have developers. This approach should be avoided in all circumstances, especially when you are developing a new product. Such companies should seriously consider partnering with a local consultant who also can also bring global teams to the product development.

6 - “Do it just like how the old application does”

“It should work exactly like how the old app works. No changes at all!”
“Why would anyone want to do it differently, I don’t understand.”
This is a common mistake for companies that already have an older product out in the market and intend to re-engineer the same to the newer technology. Part of the reason of this strategy is customers are already familiar with the product and company don’t want to lose those customers because of newer product. You need to understand that while you can maintain same functionality, fundamental user experience should not necessarily be the same, it could be much better. After all, you want your next generation product smarter, scalable and simple.
Once I worked with a company that was working on a new .NET version of their legacy product. The only requirement, often, that was provided to the development team was a screen-shot of an older COBOL based system. “Here do it just like this one” was often the whole requirement. Needless to say that, this product didn’t turn out as expected.  

7 - Minimum client involvement

 “Let’s wait before we let them know what we are up to.”
“Let’s surprise them with the new version, instead of taking their time now”
I have seen many companies developing a product in relative client isolation i.e. without a client involvement. This is where higher management needs to step in to invite some of the key clients in and have them their say in the product’s newer version.
Recently I was talking to an CEO of a product company. Among many things, we were discussing client participation in the new product release he had planned. He, refreshingly, surprised me when he said they wanted to build only a small skeleton version first and take it to the road show with potential clients in turn asking them for their participation, feedback for next versions.
This is the best approach for a product development and also to ensure client acceptance to the new version.