Making the multi vendor sourcing successful

Organizations which adopted outsourcing during their early days mostly ended up moving into fully outsourced, single vendor model. Traditionally most of the contracts that likes of IBM and Accenture signed were single sourced contracts. They still continue to hunt and close on first generation outsourcing account as these accounts typically give them more autonomy and price advantage during initial years till they embark on cost rationalization journey. However, over years the clients face a challenge around agility and investments from such long drawn contracts specially if partner incentives are not aligned to enable business growth.

Fully outsourced model often needs a true partnership model, where partner is invested and focuses on maintaining the technical landscape for the business benefit. However, in more cases than not the long standing contracts may lead to depleting cost advantage or vendors becoming complacent with their services, there by effecting the IT health and agility. Second generation outsourcing is often meant to introduce healthy competition, bring down cost and enable infusion of capability specific sourcing strategy. While this sounds easy, it is not so simple to introduce vendors into strong incumbency environment. The change in sourcing strategy often requires enabling the change through in sourcing some key capabilities like: architecture, vendor management function which assures fair and equitable play and investment and incentives for new vendors to gain knowledge and insights into existing systems.

Some of the key factors to consider to assure that your investments in multi sourcing strategy yield the desired result during the transition phase:

• Ensure fair and equitable volume business to vendors to keep them invested and help them grow
• Identify strong competency areas for vendors and introduce them into the IT landscape through small and medium sized projects in less risky areas
• Carve out business areas with mutually exclusive business interest for vendors to assure smooth support in services. Eg: Operations vendor might not be allowed to bid for new apps hence it will have incentive to grow in operations
• Create a strong project/ programme management layer which is tasked with assuring smooth running of project and resolving vendor conflicts
• Monitor the vendor portfolio growth and performance against incumbent

Transition from fully outsourced model to multi vendor model could be an easy track to failure if change is not enabled with leadership rigour, in house capability, enabled change champions and fair and equitable battle ground for the incoming vendors. In case you have been feeling the need for de risking your IT portfolio and you look forward to bring in more partners, you might want to gear up with some key get rights first to assure smooth move.
 

Vested Outsourcing - Taking IT eco system from cost centric viewpoint to business differentiation

Sourcing strategy is one of the core elements that have taken CFO's attention world wide.
Reason?
"One of the bigger and easier cost heads to target"
Number?
"Almost 2-5% of revenue goes in IT spend for for all industries world wide. Infact smaller you are, higher could be your spend and with new digital world, this could be the larger element of your cost."

Well, should this continue? That's a debate we get in today. In the new digital economy, technology is not just a support system, or a must have survival feel good factor to run business competitively, it is increasingly coming at the core of business model for some organizations or becoming one of the key differentiators. The axing of the rising tree by cost cutting might not mean so much value to your business unless there is some real thought that has gone behind its relevance. The once non core elements could have moved to the core element of your strategy with digital being at the heart of your next gen survival.

Sourcing world realizes the importance of vested partnership being at the heart of sourcing strategy in coming time. For most of the organizations technology now forms a large part of their business performance. Some of them being : time to market, customer experience lifecycle or a completely new sales channel driven by technology. Companies like dell, microsoft, apple have increasingly proven that an effective and real time digital eco system can help organizations bring on efficiency and scale which becomes central to their differentiation strategy. Organizations who realize the relevance of this paradigm shift are no more looking at cost or labour arbitrage as the only driving factor for outsourcing, instead they are looking for partners who can understand their business, jointly invest and help them exploit the benefits of digital eco system to advance their motive. To maintain the momentum and interest, the risk and reward of the two organizations entering such setup are fairly discussed and balanced that enables both organizations to grow and thrive in their business. Such outsourcing contracts create a framework for performance and outcome, giving full autonomy to the vendor fairly compensating for high performance with additional business or performance payout in short run in lieu of long term business improvement.

Five principles of Vested Outsourcing (source: University of Tennesse)

 

 

University of Tennessee came up with the concept of vested outsourcing; this has been successfully tried and adopted by some world class organizations like Mc Donalds, P&G and Microsoft to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship with their supply side partners.
The contract framework around risk and reward incentivization that equitably puts right incentives for both partners to create a joint eco system to drive mutual growth lies at the heart of the same.

Incase you are tired of:

• cost driven sourcing which does not add business value 
• being constantly nudged by business to create technical innovation capability
• inability to retain and create the best capability for core part of technical skills due to lower volume and lack of career path

You might want to stop wasting your effort in re inventing the wheel, and start looking for solution on your cost beaten partners. Help them earn through efficiency drives and eco system value addition and not through cost quality trade off.

Get IN- Vested in your partners.

The art of Large Deals and B2B selling

Selling is an art?

Having spent a good time in it and loving every moment of selling, i have come to beleive it is. Yes, to a large extent it is. Science is the ability to understand the industry, connect the dots to solutinise, price it right basis market awareness, understanding of the competition etc etc. The art part of selling in B2B business is the conviction and trust that you can derive in your action and words. Unlike B2C selling, B2B has higher stakes, longer lockin period and stronger business cases associated with it.
B2B selling is about the image of the business and sales person's personal ability to carve out the best win win deal between the customer and the organization.

I have been fortunate to be a part of some of the largest contracts in European and Indian geography either as the key sales person or as consultant. Some that were won and some that were lost. Analysing each deal i have realized that there are some common patterns in victory and i will keep the pure price play out of this pattern but will talk about the ability of the sales person to drive the price. You will notice that there is very little science and a lot of people and art of running business inherent in the leadership driving the deals which makes the difference between win and loss.

Here are some interesting aspects which drive me to the art of the victorius B2B sales person:

• Ability to understand the requirements, internal motivation and organizational constraints to deliver on the same
• Ability to bring together the best of organizational capability aligned to the deal (Read people)
• Strong hold on competitive move
• Understanding and acceptance of weak points and ability to drive the senior management to accept and invest/outsource the gaps to create an end to end proposition
• Understanding the key make or break points of key stakeholders and assurance on the soft cover/alternative on the same
• Endurance to stand by, keep hopes, and constantly positively look for mutually beneficial path
• Relationship and trust with customer - This can not be faked, its a genuine effort to make the two organizations marry and succeed. It needs a very fair messaging and mentoring to assure fair path for both organizations
• Ability to identify the specialized skills that client is keen on and fears losing in the large wipe off- in short targetted alliances forged not for the capability but for comfort

The art of the B2B sales guy is the ability to tweak a large, dis oriented machinery to form a proposition which looks like an extension of his own organization to the customer. Its the understanding of people, market and power play. Most importantly, a very genuine mindset to build large enterprises with two different lineage and culture to come together as integrated organization through contractual and people structure elements. The best of deals are cracked by visionaries and people who derive power from their people.

 

Interactable Prototype is the foundation to Running Lean

Recently, i got hold of books on startups titled, "Running Lean". Given that everyone in startup world was talking about it, i picked up the same to know what is it that i could learn and use from it.
The books revolves around concepts on how to do away with business plans and keep a short and quick view on your business/product leavarging lean canvas. How to identify risks and mitigate the same. How to iteratively build the product and take the same to market. What should be the way to measure your venuture on the way.

I had some thoughts moving in my mind, so i thought why not use this book on a real business idea. So, here i was, with the book, a pen and a paper trying to define the lean canvas.

BOOM!!
Those are good thoughts, infact as a business advisory person i know that its important to solve a problem, find the customer, market it rightly, know the basic numbers and not over invest specially today, when capital intensive business are not the only way. Isnt' that like a generation old wisdom packed for business since years.

STILL, people dont faulter because they dont know it, they default because they ignore it or they over understood the customers who did not understand themselves. Process is good, but thats exactly what innovation might not be about.

BUT
Is this what will really help entrepreneurs? The fundamental issue with people is what is in their head does not match what others perceive or use. It is important to put the thoughts on a piece of paper and ask the real users if this were to be real, will it make sense to them.

PROTOTYPE
I would say inplace of writing so many documents, investing so much time thinking and planning, why not just create a quick prototype with minimal flow, take it to your "assumed" user set and define your products with them. According to me there are only two kinds of products:

a) Which people define to solve their problem and you make it
b) Which you present to people because you think they will love it

What an entrepreneur really needs:
a) A good easy flowing wireframe of his idea which pictorically tells user the problem, solution and its flow and asks them to use it and give feedback on the way.
b) Refine the prototype with users and assure a meaningful feedback mechanism
c) Once the wireframe is complete, develop this efficiently for its own users

NO
Please dont waste your life in too many documents, too many books and too much of common sense. If you have the broad idea, and the assumed user segment and a basic view on who you think you will pay. PROTOTYPE and build along with users.

The Marketing Dillema...

I have always been very close to retailing( both brick and mortar as well as e retailing) and digital marketing and have been following it very closely as a consumer on a day to day basis.. My shopping habits have seen a shift from old days of local reputed shops to global brand showrooms, to malls and now to a large extent my incresing reliance for electronics, books and even groceries on e commerce sites.. While choosing the brand used to happen before i went shopping when i was a kid, now a days the choice is often questioned in multi branded showrooms or readily available information, which provides me with intelligence on the move and at the till point.. I know more than what i can retain, digest and leverage.. Infact, probably the guy billing my stuff knows more about what i like than i do.. Scary?? Welcome to the world of modern day marketeers and the latest VOC.. There is probably an end to end character sketch that is being drawn out of you while you innocently buy your fav breads and clothes..

Marketeers today do not have an issue with access and reach to position their brand or to capture the voice of their customers, they have an issue with multiple channels that provides them with access and their relevance to target varied customer segments and leveraging their information consuming habits.. The advertising budgets today have to assure brand comunication via internet, mobile, social media websites and leveraging all this to create and evolve the concept of loyalty among competition which has an equal and easy access to customers.. Technology has transformed marketing a long way.. It has taken away the competitive advantage that some brands had created due to exclusive reach and ability to spend... It has made customer more aware and flooded him with choice and information on one hand and has enabled marketeers to truly create a customized messaging to convince its buyer at every step through every means that catches his eye ball..

Last few months saw me working on some such deals to enable marketeers, what i found really interesting was the paradigm shift in the field and its increasing dependency on technology, its probably not an art anymore really, its a lot of science.. NO, its no longer about just creativity and differentiation, it is now about access, analytics, customization and simplicity.. All this while maintaining the basic concepts of brands ; keeping in mind the diverse technical constraints of different media.. There is more and more technology, intelligence, speed to change and streaming details and informations of customers; it is not a choice, it is mandatory to compete and survive in the fast chaging world on internet and mobility.. The organizations whose marketing divisions are spear heading in setting up advanced analytics and multi channel strategy in place are better positioned to enter into the consideration set of buyers world wide.. Traditional marketing firms too will have to bind their creativity and enable their team to undestand the technical compatibility for the creativity to find a market..

Technology has brought buyers and sellers close, there is more room for facts and information which constraints the traditional marketign ethos.. The real dillema is to be able to leverage this ocean of information to make right decision and drive sales and influence the buyer at every channel of information and every point of buying decision; to be able to create the loyalty segment via social media and be able to control and sustain the brand and communication without dilluting it across multiple channels.. Organizations need to build a technical eco system and capability to drive and control their marketing strategies to address the ever expanding and informed consumer segments.. This makes marketing more powerful than it ever was and brings it to the center to certain businesses.. The dillema here is, who will be able to filter the "right and relevant" information succesfully to move ahead of survival and leverage this for differentiation..

-Garima
 

Enterprise Mobility - the next disruptive market trend..

This is an interesting trend to watch. I have recently laid my hands on the book "googled" which talks on how google emerged, grew and took down the traditional advertising and marketing firms by its sheer reach, highly personalized, cheap, targetted and most importantly ROI driven market offering. While everyone thought some crazy free crawler on the move, it was slowly breaking the boundaries and uniting the world one by one; knowing each one of us, what we like, what interests us and growing every day in its intel( still growing by the way). Internet was the disruptive technology and google scanned and replicated the real world and made it available to each one of us on it.




The more i read on enterprise mobility, more convinced i am that a google who can integrate and create and replicate the world on mobiles will be the next BIG technical gainer. I have never been an early adopter of technology for long, but not anymore. First time i used black berry, i knew i was on top of every info around me any time of the day. As a manager, i need to know whats happening inside and outside my world, helps me take informed decision, helps me connect to right people at right time. Dont know whats the ROI, dont know how does one calculate the ROI for it, but i for sure know that it could be a difference of make or break in my sales field; if i stayed behind my competition in adopting gadgets that kept me informed on the toes. Mobility will definitely be the core for front ending decision makers of the industry. There is scope for:

- Smarter devices at lower prices for affordability and reach to larger population
- Applications that leverage this disruptive technology to bring the world on move
- Integrating the communications seamlessly across gadgets, devices; so that my work world moves with me, i dont have to reach to a physical desk or machine to work
- Enterprise applications that help its key work force make important decision on mobile (Retail, Oil and Gas exploration, transportation and logistics clearly have a business case for their larger part of on move workforce)
- Security protocols to assure data protection
- The mobile network providers have tasks on hand
- Synching up data across devices, tools to provided seamless working (Convergence)
- This might as well become the shop for B2C tickets selling and tool for customer loyalty (Go Mobile)


While this technology will not enable the whole world on its screen and might not be fit for it; it definitely has a potential to lead the enterprise world in name of productivity, speed, access and information. All words count towards competitive edge? Will it become survival instinct for corporates in times to come, let us watch!! :)

Now, dont worry, where you are; information and working world moves with you. You will decide and close deals faster than your competition does and you will know about the world no matter where you are. Welcome to the world of enterprise mobility, your dream of working from a hill top or an island (with mobile connections ofcourse) might just come true. Yep, we are shrinking the world further, coverging it and brining it into your hands.

-Garima
Writing this from my ipad while on move and should be able to save this on the apple icloud sooon. :)

"Execution" Dillema

I know, strategy and marketing blog should not talk about "DOING".. :D Pardon me, but "doing" has been a subject of some best seller books for years; i can not ignore any best selling opportunity. With finesse people often call it "execution". There are many books written on it, many lectures heard on it and then many people claim on it. Well, let us be clear, thinking has to happen in isolation so yes, it is fair for strategy to be formed in a closed box; thinker should not know what can not be done; thats precisely what he gets paid for. Then, how can a thinker assure that his strategy finally turns into an implementable task and shows some result on ground?? I am still struggling to find an answer on this and i am sure it is a learning that will end with life.. But i do feel all "IMPLEMENTATIONS" with excellent plans, in the end have to pass through the human mesh.. no one book can explain it, and nothing but for presence of mind, empathy, appreciation of point of views and sometimes willingness to call everyone's mistake as your mistake can help one wade through the human mesh.. But it takes a lot to rise above your own "human" self and cover all and that is where things fall apart..

Interestingly, as i think of this, i want to share where exactly did i encounter this first lesson of leadership on execution which i still struggle to bring in my personality.. It has been a fair life so far; from holding various responsible positions for which i never got paid, to some for which people are kind enough to pay (thank you by the way). My first observation was when i was made class prefect (only God knows why, i never shouted at anyone and i talked the most). Standing infront, i was supposed to handle what i could never handle for myself, "discipline all"; task was written off. The sea of faces of class mates who loved me otherwise, had it written all over their faces, "YOU ARE THE MOST HATED HUMAN".. That was my first real encounter to manage disparate expectations of people without changing them.. Suddenly, i was not a part of them?? I told myself, no i dont like it. I came back home and probably in my tiny head thought what is it worth? No one will talk to me, everyone will hate me, and above all I CANT TALK ANYMORE. I was not the class teacher, i did not have the cane ( i did not know how to use it anyway), no one will be scared of me, what can i do??

So, i started with defining "DISCIPLINE" in my mind; i was clear, talking and playing is not indiscipline as long as it does not impose same on others when they dont want to. Next day in class, i took this as a discussion with everyone asking them to tell me what did discipline mean to them?? (well, they all laughed and ignored and what followed for next 4 days is a history but in the end we got on one table).. Interestingly, everyone had a different definition, but in the end everyone somehow associated it with their "freedom". I asked, "what about other's freedom?".. And we all agreed that we can talk and play as long as we ensure that others do not get disturbed (difficult one, but they gave me the authority to tell them when their freedom bothered others).. This was to be sold to teacher, as the whole concept of "freedom" in school is what meant "no discipline" to her.. I remember how tough it was to explain anything to teachers (they lived by rule books).. She did not buy the idea, i could not shout (i cant you see), students did not stop talking and they did not fear punishment. I stood infront of the class and often could not resist talking myself.. According to me the leader "Teachers" for years in schooling system have been trying to implement impossible; on altar are some poor souls like me and the point of failure is -- there is no buy in , there is no appreciation of reality.. There is a "strategy to discipline" which can not defy the human mesh..

I realized (still a long way to internalize) that time that strategy has to restrict to definitions and rules to show the best way forward; which is fair.. To create an implementable strategy, ability to appreciate differences, understanding that humans are unique and there is self before all, no matter who you are dealing with ; is extremely important .. As an implementer of strategy, one's ability to negotiate, influence, create win win situation is what it probably takes to implement things on ground. . That is why probably smaller organizations grow fast, change fast; their human mesh is small.. When large organizations try to change, they fail for want of understanding and consensus.. Believe it or not, like school, like business.. :) there are still definitions that don’t work, leaders that stick to them, there are souls on altars who do not associate with rules and then the human mesh underneath has a life of its own.. hah! Life! From first lesson to nth and eternity may be..