And Vijay Says…

As I look back at the last one week in India , I am both incredibly proud of what we have accomplished as a country – and incredibly sad and angry at how much is left to be done to bring India socially forward from 1800s to 2013 .

Let me get the awful stuff off my chest first . Supreme Court ruled that consensual sex is criminal , if the parties involve are of the same gender . Essentially they upheld a law that was made in mid 1800s under British rule and over turned the high court verdict that decriminalized this . Supreme Court took a very narrow view of the matter – essentially , they kicked it to the legislature to amend the law .

India is a free country – so why does the government think it is constitutional to get into the sex life of its citizens ? Essentially this law also negates the possibility of gay marriages . It is a gross violation of citizens’ fundamental rights for government to decide who they can have consensual sex with and who they can marry . Life imprisonment apparently is the punishment for gay sex. I can’t believe we have to deal with this in 2013 .

Congress party has made its stance clear that they oppose the judgment . BJP seems to be in support of the judgment – which is not a surprise given the party has limited secular credentials . Not sure where AAP stands on this . But essentially – this means the legislative route will take a while since there is no broad base support to pass legislation smoothly . There are legal options the government can file – including a curative petition . I hope they do that quickly .

I am rudely surprised I did not see the President and Prime minister of India making a comment on this SC verdict .

What was most appalling for me was the reaction I saw in Social media . People who should know better came out in BIG support of the Supreme Court ruling . Broadly their argument was
1. It is unnatural and god doesn’t approve
2. Only a minority of people are gay and rules should not be bent for their benefit

How do these people get to judge what god likes or doesn’t like ? Why didn’t the rest of us get that memo ? India has a clear distinction between church and state – so why is religion even brought into this discussion ? And why is there no similar extreme outrage when people cheat in their marriage and sleep around with others ?

Also – if minority rights don’t matter , why are politicians dead worried about religious minorities at election time ? Would they stop having reservations for education , jobs etc based on religion and caste ? Clearly the answer is NO . So why is being a minority being used against only gay people ? Gay people have all the same responsibilities in India as other citizens – so why should they alone have less rights ?

I got so worked up seeing the social media conversations that I unfollowed and unfriended a bunch of people . I cannot believe these folks could stoop to such a low level .

Political parties have a lot to answer for – this arcane law has been around for ages . When the HC overturned the law – and the appeal went to SC, why didn’t the government start a parallel legislative effort to erase this from the law books ? Clearly they are worried about how the voters will react in next election . So they tried to play it safe and thought they can leave this alone for judiciary to deal with . Judiciary inexplicably issued this terrible judgment as a result .

This is just a reflection of the larger social outlook in India . Being gay is still not a socially accepted thing in India – large part of the population still think it is a sin of some sort , and they react in terrible ways . The way to change this is only via education – over a long period of time . But in the short term – there is no excuse for not pursuing legal and legislative options right away .

Please don’t forget – Gay people are people too ! Live and let live

I am not so sure all the 14 principles apply today for the information economy. I can’t say for sure about manufacturing though. For what it is worth, here are my quick thoughts. This post got triggered in my mind when I read my friend Jonathan Becher posting on validity of MBOs. http://jonathanbecher.com/2009/02/02/eliminate-management-by-objectives/ . It is a great read – but who would expect less from Jonathan 🙂

Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service with the aim of becoming competitive, staying in business and providing jobs..

Definitely a good thing to keep focus on product and service. But I am not sure constancy of purpose is the best way to put it – purpose changes with market. Sometimes you need to focus on revenue, some times on market share, some times on profit and so on. There is no universal constancy of purpose. Life is all about trade offs.

Staying in business and providing jobs is a good thing too – but not an end in itself. World does not need yet another company doing the same thing. Why not free up the investment for a better opportunity than just stay in business? I do wish the “job for life” principle in Japan was universally true – but it clearly is not.

Adopt the new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins.

I am not sure whether Deming started this or someone else did – but over time, I have realized there is no such thing as “win win”. Some one loses – or charitably, some one always wins less. “Win Win” is possible for a given interaction for a short time – so the only way in which a vendor and customer has “win win” is if transactions occur repeatedly over very long periods. That very seldom happens given the barrier to entry for competitors will lower over time.

Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality.

This I agree a 100%. And now with big data techniques, and lower HW costs – it is economic to achieve even higher quality at same or lower cost.

End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone.

Again – agreed a 100%. The only time when I think price is justified as a sole criteria is for commodity purchases. Commodity at spot prices are fine, and should not come with premium.

Improve constantly and forever the system of production, service, planning, or any activity.

Partially agree. The trouble with incremental improvement is that over time it is a guaranteed way to get disrupted by competition.

Institute training for skills.

Partially agree. Institutional training is fine for manufacturing skills probably . But encouraging a culture of continuous learning where the onus is on employee to keep up with the modern techniques is way more productive today. Corporate training has serious limitations on speed and agility.

Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspiration.

100% agree – absolutely a necessity. And sadly not enough of that happens in our industry. High time we took a better interest in leadership development.

Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work effectively.

100% agree – but sadly a lot of IT industry is based on fear. Many will not admit it in public, but fear is routinely seen as a management instrument.

Break down barriers between departments.

100% agree – there should be absolute minimum barriers. My team once spent 2 months designing BI security for a customer , and then I asked the COO of the company why there is such a lack of trust between employees. 15 minutes later, he killed that tight control mechanism. Anything not mandated by legal requirements was canned. Ever since, I proactively ask such questions to the highest rung person I can find before we start a project. It is unbelievable how much lack of trust exist in the world.

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity.

Slogans do tend to work for a short period. But beyond that we get into eye rolling territory. Over advertising internally or externally is a bad idea and will back fire. I have had fierce arguments on this topic with colleagues and usually I have lost.

Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.

This is where I have strong disagreement . If there is no trust between leader and followers, I think MBOs dont mean any thing. However, if some trust exists – MBOs and quantitative goals are by far the best way to ensure baseline performance.

The root cause of all evil is in the necessity to predict performance, especially in public companies. If the CEO and CFO has to commit to a numerical EPS or revenue or whatever to street, they cannot then stop driving those things down the chain.

Abolish the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates competition and conflict.

Partially agree – doing it just annually means little to nothing. However, competition is a good thing as long as it is done with good spirits and trust. Some conflict is also unavoidable and I dare say it is a good thing to have some healthy conflict. Someone needs to give a heads up when emperors walk around naked.

Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

Again, institutional training is a limited vehicle for education in my opinion. I have rarely seen it work for informational workers, especially the experienced folks.

Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.

Agree 100% – this is why it is important to set a strategy and then tie all goals of individuals and teams to the corporate strategy. Random projects and proof of concepts generally don’t go anywhere because there is no tie to something the company as a whole is tied to. Transformation cannot be accomplished by a corporate strategy group or a group of Vice presidents with slogans . It needs everyone to pitch in. And they wont pitch in till they believe in the end state. I would rather see no transformation than people chasing vague concepts and ideas that someone up the chain thinks is important, but cannot articulate in a way that rest of the company understands.

I have been on the vendor side of the table almost all my professional life . I have done development , support , relationship management , sales and so on . Throughout my career – irrespective of my employer – a recurring issue I have seen is that customers feel they don’t get adequate value from their vendor contacts. And I hear from my account colleagues “I don’t even know what the issue is – they never told me before escalation “.

So here are a dozen thoughts about that – as usual, just my personal opinions only. Maybe some of this will help you – and I am looking forward to learn from your experiences.

1. First things first – and pardon me for saying this bluntly – you get what you pay for . So choose your software , consulting and support model wisely . Vendors typically think highly of customers – but remember they run a profit making business . The analogy I use is the one of cheap airline and hotel tickets – the provider doesn’t make any money on the ticket itself . But they will charge you a lot for changing travel dates or a change in destination. So know what you are buying into . Haggle all you want when you buy – but buy with your eyes open .

2. Have a master agreement in place up front with every vendor . Negotiate all you want with the general framework of all future contracts for the life of that document . This will prevent you the grief of wasting time on boiler plate stuff on every transaction .

3. Treat your vendor representative as a partner – understand their goals and share your goals . Remember that he or she is not there to just sell to you . The vendor pays them to be your advocate too within the vendor company . Use that to your advantage . Every CXO I worked with when I had a sales goal in past knew my targets . In many cases I knew what their goals were too . You wouldn’t believe how easy life becomes when trust is based on transparency .

In most companies , the vendor sales guys are only allowed to talk to procurement team or best case with IT team. And that conversation typically happens when vendor tries to sell the customer something – including contract renewal . If that is all you do with the account executive – you will not maximize the benefits the vendor can give you .

Pull these people into steering committees – maybe without a vote if you so choose . This will let them know of problems before they become emergencies, and they can arrange right people to support you . If they know at the last minute – they will still try, but might not be able to help you get the help you need quickly .

4. Help each other – there are ways the vendor can help you, like early access to roadmaps , helping you get relationships at other customers , getting you extra quick support etc . In return , the most important thing you can help with is to expose vendor to other parts of your organization . You don’t need to casually give away your business at all – That would be dumb . But let the vendor get a big picture of how your business is run . Whether he sells or not should be dependent on his value proposition – not just on relationship alone.

5. Be a reasonable reference . If the product sucks , by all means call the vendor on it . But when it does something well – try to help the vendor by offering to be a reference on your terms . It goes a long way in cementing the relationship . Set the terms you are comfortable with in the master agreement . Every time a Customer asks me for a reference , I ask them back “glad to do that for you, but will you be kind enough to do the same for another customer ?”. In most cases – my request meets stiff resistance . But I generally turn this around with time – it is mostly because customers think a lot of stuff they do in their project are unique . But as a vendor guy I see multiple such projects to know that 80% of what is considered unique is not so unique .

6. Be active in the community and drag your vendor representative with you there . Remember – not all account executives are community driven , but they will get the “what is working and what is not” quickly if they see you there . Encourage them to get active along with their product and engineering colleagues . Good things have happened – and can happen in future too .

7. Encourage vendors to play together – where applicable , ad always for your benefit only . End of the day – you need solutions, not bits and pieces . Encourage all your vendors to work together – supervise them a few times if needed to get them started . The idea is not to eliminate competition – just use competition wisely where needed . For example – let your consulting company and product companies offer you bundled deals . What they need to do is convince you that you get a better deal than if you bought separately . This is not easy for a lot of procurement teams because their KPIs do not align . It can work in your favor if done thoughtfully – get the help of a buyers agent if needed . Give it a shot .

8. Innovate at your pace – but remember there is always budget to make/save money . A lot of customers have told me that they have no money left to buy what I am selling . I don’t have a problem with that at all. If I cannot express the value of what I selling in quantitative terms with reasonable assumptions we both agree – I haven’t earned your business . So give me the information on how I can help you , let’s build a business case together . If it doesn’t satisfy you – don’t buy at all. If I look like I am just wasting your time – tell me on my face .

9. Be creative if and when it makes sense . Many customers do not understand there are many ways to write contracts . Vendors can arrange financing – which can save your cash flow . Vendors might agree to fair risk-reward contracts – including holdbacks , charge backs and so on . A lot of customers who think they have no money do not consider these options . And of course not all vendor sales people bring these up either . You don’t lose anything by asking – so ask any way . May be it will work for you 🙂

10. Don’t hide behind procurement or your consulting teams . Often I hear from customer IT and business teams something like “I don’t even know who to ask this question at the vendor . So I have asked out consultants and our procurement team”. Nothing wrong with this per se – but remember that consultants and procurement people won’t know the problem like you do . So their ability to help might be limited and they might even confuse the vendor . Cut the middleman and get introduced to the vendor . Don’t do this by breaking governance policies – help set up a governance policy that lets people close to problems to talk directly with vendors . Remember – policies are set up to increase efficiency , not to decrease it .

11. Business is personal – it is always done between two (teams of) people at the end , not by two companies whose names appear on the contract . The point being – if you are not comfortable with your vendor representative , it is fair to ask the vendor for another person to work with . This is completely a valid thing – and as long as you are fair and professional , there is no reason to hesitate . You need to be comfortable with the people you are dealing with .

12. Use peer networks effectively . If you are not convinced with the solution the sales guy is offering you for office of the CMO – ask your CMO to call the vendors CMO and ask directly for her experience with this solution . More often than not – this will help both sides . Your account team should be happy to set up such peer meetings for you all the way from developers to CEOs . Use it to your advantage – within fair limits .

That is it – I am done . Probably longer than I expected it when I started typing it . Let me know what you think