Archive for the ‘Bangalore’ Category

Trip Report: India December 2008 – Sentiments From Bangalore

Published on December 4, 2008 by R "Ray" Wang

The "New" Bangalore Airport

(Photo: The "new" modern and spacious Bengaluru (BLR) airport.  Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.)

New airport symbolic of Bengaluru's on-going transformation. Arrival into Bangalore was quite a treat with mild 75 degree (25C) weather, less humidity, and a spanking new airport built by Zurich Airport, Siemens and India's renown Larsen & Toubro for a price tag of $625 million.  The old airport was closer to downtown, but frankly not worthy of Bangalore's world class info tech reputation.  The trade off - the Bengaluru International Airport is located in Devanahalli, 35km North of Bangalore city center It's further away, and takes about an hour to get there.  Infrastructure is spotty from the newly built National Highway 7 (Bangalore-Hyderabad Highway) to MG road, there are some segments that seem like they are in perpetual construction.  On the way back, you feel the effects of the new Indian airport - great check-in flows, auto bag screening, real jetways to the planes (no more transfer buses), high end boutiques, western style food courts, and real air conditioning! Leading services providers move to deliver differentiated IP. Conversations with the leading firms highlighted continued advancement in the value chain.  These service providers have managed to rapidly transform themselves over the past 2 years.   The goal of achieving a trusted advisor status among clients remains in sight.  There were 4 key themes from my meetings with our vendor clients as well as customers visiting these Indian service providers:
  • New vendor focused centers of excellence show increased competency
  • Continued micro verticalization adds to industry credibility
  • Deeper specialization in industries, roles, geos, and market segments opens up new markets
  • Transition from selling to an IT user to earning a business leader's trust reflects new buying patterns
As with conversations in Mumbai, there is a sense of slow-down, but this is relative to the growth rates of 50% Y-O-Y growth that some firms have enjoyed during the past 5 years.  Hiring continues and ranges from replacement only to "moderate" growth of 20% The bottom line -service providers making the transition to solution providers System integrators now have the power to deliver their IP via the Cloud, PaaS, SaaS, and other mechanisms.  The result - IP can be owned and distributed directly to customers.  The more this happens, the more customers will have choice beyond the large vendors.  If successful, innovation will thrive and customers will win as these solution centric ecosystems get built out. Your POV. What are you seeing in the India market? Is your services provider becoming more strategic?  Feel free to share with me your thoughts.  You can post here or send me a private email to rwang0@gmail.com. Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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Ecosystems: Systems integrators should transform to solutions providers

Published on March 3, 2007 by R "Ray" Wang
As I reflect on my current trip to India, I can't but help feel the deja vu of the Silicon Valley during the late 90's. Streams of business people come in and out of the lobby with ideas, deals, and lots of excitement. I'm typing away from the Hotel Leela in Bangalore where I just met with a client in the system integrator space. Like others, she also commented on the tremendous growth in just the past year. Among the construction cranes, cows in the street, motorized rickshaws, and the hustle and bustle of a country on the move, I have firmly experienced an outsider's perspective on India's growth.

With each trip, I notice new architectures and campuses being built or expanded for each of the SI's. India's info tech economy continues to grow and their system integrators now play a significant role in the global professional services business. As they continue to make progress and gain multi-billion in revenues, they remain on an aggressive move towards the next step in the value chain.

With that perspective in mind, opportunities exist for these highly skilled system integrators to make the transition from system integrator to solution provider. More importantly, those system integrators who have the development capabilties and understanding of various middleware platforms such as BEA WebLogic/AquaLogic, IBM WebSphere, Microsoft.Net, Oracle Fusion Middleware, and SAP NetWeaver have an opportunity to change the software environment in their next transformation. Just like Electronic Arts who builds software on Sony's Playstation, Microsoft's X-box, and Nintendo's Game Cube, imagine a world where an Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Cognizant, and HCL deliver their own Chinese HR talent acquisition solutions or eastern european process manufacturing solution on top of NetWeaver, Fusion, WebSphere, VS.NEt, or WebLogic.

Delivering last mile solutions regardless of middleware platform potentially transforms system integrators who are channels for the big vendors like SAP and Oracle into solutions providers who view SAP and Oracle as a strategic supplier. But to get there, these SI's will require internal transformation in their capabilities. Customers must view these firms as trusted advisors across the enterprise.

However, skills shortages still abound in advanced capabilities such as change management, master data management, business process reengineering, and overall IT strategy. But with some retooling, expect the most nimble and adaptive of these system integrators to make the transformation. Clients desperately seek resources to deliver process innovation while optimizing commoditized processes via BPO. The key success factor will be the capability to deliver modular last mile solutions by industry and geographies on top of agnostic middleware platforms or SaaS deployment options.

Once that transformation has been attained, IBM and Accenture will nervously have to look in their rear view mirrors as the competition charges forward. But for now, their positions remain safe.

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2007 by R Wang. All rights reserved
(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.) Copyrighted 2008 by R Wang. All rights reserved

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Best Practices: A Work Plan To Successfully Negotiating Software Contracts (Part 2 of 2)

Published on March 13, 2004 by R "Ray" Wang
In the last post we talked about 7 strategies to plan a software contract negotiation:
  1. Ensure that the right team is in place
  2. Identify the organization's key business drivers
  3. Determine the product adoption plan
  4. Consider contract strategy implications of the software ownership life cycle
  5. Align contract strategy with product adoption
  6. Identify leverage points
  7. Prioritize key contract objectives
So building on Steps 1 to 4, here are the Steps 5 to 7... Step 5: Align contract strategy with product adoption
  • Inputs:  Step 4 red lined contracts with suggested improvements .  Pricing comparison spreadsheet.  Cost savings opportunity calculator.
  • Action items: Rank suggested terms and conditions improvements list against product adoption plans.  Compare term and conditions against best practices.  Identify flex up/ flex down provisions for user based and usage based licenses.
  • Deliverables: Prioritized list of negotiation points for terms and conditions .  Target objective for user based and usage based license costs.
Step 6: Identify the leverage points
  • Inputs:   Prioritized list of negotiation points for terms and conditions .  Target objective for user based and usage based license costs.
  • Action items: Determine vendor's current financial position .  Review last 10 deals for key concessions
  • Deliverables: List of leverage points.
Step 7: Prioritize the key contract objectives
  • Inputs:   Leverage points from Step 6 .  Current order documents .  Current offers.
  • Action items: Agree on key objectives.
  • Deliverables: Final objectives list .  Finalized negotiations strategy
Hope this helps put it all into context! Contact me at rwjhu@yahoo.com if you need any assistance in your contract negotiation.  We provide fixed fee pricing, retainer models, or gain sharing for Baan, JD Edwards, Lawson, Microsoft Great Plains, Oracle, Peopelsoft, SAP, And Siebel contracts.  Just ask! Copyright © 2004 R "Ray" Wang. All rights reserved.

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