The Outsourcing Blog: Horses for Sources

Stop Press: meaningful use of Twitter discovered

Just as I was about to close down my Twitter account, I discovered a perfect use for the tool:

Swine Flu can impact your service levels

If you wake up looking like this...

Proof that you can stabilize your operations eventually...

It's all about hitting the ground running after you sign the contract

Social Media: Unlocking the Awesome Potential of Behavioral Disorders

After our recent banter surrounding Executive ADD, I thought I'd share this hilarious venn diagram from Despair.com's blog on social media:

"A gorgeous, 8-color masterpiece which captures ever so brilliantly the three behavioral disorders propelling the continued phenomenal growth of today’s most widely-trafficked social media sites. And at the intersection of the dysfunctional forces of Narcissism, ADHD, and Stalking resides today’s fastest growing social media experiment of all- Twitter..."

Remote Infrastructure Management anyone?

Happy 2nd birthday Horses for Sources...

306 posts, 1445 comments, 12,000 subscribers and 30,000 RSS-feeders later, "Horses" today makes it to 2 years' old.

There's never been much of a plan, just a platform for good discussion, sharing of ideas, and open debate on tough issues for the global sourcing industry - and all with a hint of cranky sarcasm.  And we try to keep it unbiased...

Drop me a note if you have any suggestions on what you would like to see more/less of on here - your input is always welcome.  And a special thank you to all of you who come here regularly and support this site (you know who you are).

Here are some favourite posts from the last 2 years:

Getting to a point where you can lay in one place and not have to do anything ever...

Warning: some bad language, but extremely funny...

Was it really that believable?

I'm still getting emails / tweets and calls from all sorts of people wanting to talk about the "sensational news" yesterday, on what was a record traffic day on the Horses.  And if I haven't already made it plain enough, it was an April Fools joke.  And while it was kinda funny, what hit home was how believable the story was. 

Yes, protectionism already is the number one impediment to outsourcing growth over the next few months, but we're never going down anything like the crazy lines outlined in the post.  What's nervy, however, in this era of rapid change, is the fact that so many people fell hook, line and sinker for that little prank.  It made me realize how prepared so many people are for sensational changes to their way of life.  And if you feel I went too far I do apologize, but everyone seems to have taken this in a good spirit.  I really feel we need a sense of humor and a few laughs to help out out of this tough time...

 

The soon-to-be-appointed head of the outsourcing disciplinary committee

Being middle-seated... all the way to Orlando

You may recall the classic post “Being middle-seated in the back-row”. Well, I think I can go one worse… by being middle-seated all the way to Orlando (gasp). Yes, I was stuck in hell all the way to purgatory...or was I stuck in purgatory all the way to the gates of hell?

Orlando is my version of a very, very bad dream: a world where you can actually buy a fake Guinness in a fake Irish pub, and get stuck behind entire families in lengthy queues where the kids start at 220lbs… you never normally ever see people like this, but somehow Orlando acts as a magnet for over-sized, under-cultured plasticity.  Seriously, why bother with Guantanamo for interrogations? Just lock suspects in Epcot for a couple of days and we’ll find out who killed JFK, which Ritz-Carlton Osama Bin Laden resides in these days, and even where Bernie stashed his $50 billion…

Payback can be sweet...

It's really not THAT bad

Check out this video of an hysterical passenger screaming at airline staff and writhing on the floor after missing a flight at Hong Kong airport.

no more said...

What goes around comes around

This credit-crisis-fueled recession is testing us far more deeply than merely everyone shaving a few costs while we ride this sucker out. And while it hurts, a little pain should bring about some positives that go far deeper than mere penny-pinching. We need to dig deeper to understand more about what makes us good people: fun to be with, smart to do business with, and decent returners-of-favors. I have always (somewhat naively) operated on the “what goes around comes around” principle, but I truly believe these times will help many of us get what we deserve. I don’t mind doing people favors – I just don’t do them twice if the first one never got returned when I needed it.

But we will come out of this, and we will emerge a bit smarter, a bit leaner, a bit more streetwise, and I firmly hope this will bring the best qualities out of us. We may emerge a few percentage points poorer than when we went into this, but the world we will be living in should be one where we help each other out more, and appreciate what we have.

When I look at the way many corporates and people behaved during the greed years, I sincerely hope these experiences bring a degree of humility to us all. I live and die by my friendships – whether personal or work-related, and I know many of you who have the same principles will get through the next couple of years. However, we all know people who just focus on what they can get out of others and rarely put back – those are the people I fear for in this economy, and I hope learn to act with more humility as a result.

Anyway, I will finish this little diatribe with a couple of points about how to treat our friends and colleagues:

People: remember who your friends are. Stop thinking just about your career and your self-interest, but take some time to get to know people a little better – and not simply those aspects that can further your own goals and ambitions

Work: use this episode to get smarter at what we do. Focus heavily on providing value and put in a little extra time and effort. If you are lucky enough to be in a job, remember the unluckier folks who helped you along the way, and take some time to see if you can help them out. If you are one of the unlucky ones, call in your favors – you will quickly learn who your real friends are...

I write this piece at 37,000 feet above the Atlantic, it's my birthday... and I need a break from this presentation, so forgive me this little opinionated indulgence...just this once :)

Best of Horses '08... the funny ones

Multi-lingual outbound sales anyone?

Someone should tell this kid to go into BPO... he'd make far more money -:)

(Thanks Ed)

India shows us how to innovate

My old friend Raj Sajja, who works for Oracle in Singapore, picked this up on video-camera during a recent visit to New Delhi... innovation at its best

How the credit crunch will affect Britain

Will one be wanting fries with that?

(Thanks Bruce McCracken for this little piece of humour...)

Why Rick Astley should be put in charge of the US Treasury

 

10 commandments of blogging

Vinnie Mirchandani picks up on a great posting from Christian Today on ten cyberspace commandments to give bloggers a "moral edge in a virtual age":

• You shall not put your blog before your integrity.
• You shall not make an idol of your blog.
• You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.
• Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.
• Honor your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.
• You shall not murder someone else’s honor, reputation or feelings.
• You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.
• You shall not steal another person’s content.
• You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger.
• You shall not covet your neighbor's blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

I recently ran my own analysis on what makes a blog compeling, but this takes cyber-guidelines to a new level -:)

In case you missed the real debate...

In case you missed it...last night's hilarious skit of the VP debate on Saturday Night Live:

I cannot be serious

When I arrived on these Western shores a few years ago from the Old Country, I made it a personal mission to ensure (some) Yankees around me learned that special brand of humor termed as sarcasm. This habit of mine seems to have spilled over into my blogging... My recent post "The Calamity Clients Awards, 2008" enticed a couple of people to contact me - one person asking where she should submit her vote, the other kindly advising me to find a way to scrap the vote before I offended someone. 

For clarification, the purpose behind the Awful Outsourcing and Calamity Client awards was to

1) Make you laugh;

2) Have a subtle dig at some of the awards being banded around the outsourcing industry;

3) Raise some real issues concerning some struggling outsourcing engagements, and the fact it actually takes two-to-tango in this business (both vendors and clients).

Thanks for the many, many messages I did receive from those of you who did realize all three of the above points - very much appreciated, and makes me feel my original mission to induce sarcasm into the North American outsourcing industry is largely working :)

Anyway, I'll lurch back to more serious stuff next week... peace out

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Definitely not serious...

The Calamity Clients Awards, 2008

Due to popular demand, we're adding an additional category to the 2008 Horses awards for Awful Outsourcing:  "The Calamity Clients".  Yes, it's not always vendors which are responsible for outsourcing calamity - it often takes two to tango, and this is the vendor's chance to counter-punch. 

As there are several well-trodden paths towards calamitous outsourcing, we will be distributing several awards across the following non-specialist areas:

The 2008 Horses Awards for Awful Outsourcing

In light of all the recent banter on the credibility of awards, I thought we'd serve up our own awards ceremony - and I reckon we can put all of the other lists/awards companies out of business in a heartbeat, because only one vendor will get upset with each award (genius 'eh?)... Here are the categories:

Worst Outsourcing Provider of the year:

Vendors - are you just so plain awful you can't hold down a client?  Then, this could be for you! This is restricted to vendors which have had a minimum of three clients bail on them over the last 12 months, whether they "backsourced", or paid millions to switch to another provider. 

The "Awful Advisor" award:

Rarely is a sourcing advisor ejected from client-site, but it's happened - and a few times!  Buyers - please nominate that team of consultants that drained you of billable hours, before coming up with recommendations that you could have got from a taxi-driver.

The "Bait-and-Switch" special:

Buyers - did you sign up with a vendor, when the minute the ink was try, the entire team who worked their guts out to woo you simply vanished?  Those Six Sigma black-belts, LEAN luminaries and Kaizen karate kids never materialized?  They leave a zero off from the attrition-rate in their Hyderabad call center?  Then nominate your favorite bait-and-switcher today.

The Lousiest HRO provider:

We're spoiled for choice with this one - how many payroll runs did your supplier miss?  Do you blame it for all your dysfunctional HR processes?  Of course you do! Here's your chance to throw your HRO provider fully under the bus.

The Funkiest FAO supplier:

Still closing the books from Q4 2007?  Got 2,748,547 unpaid invoices?  You know what to do...

And finally.... Thought Laggard of the Year:

Sick of the same old bleating from past-it, out-of-touch old industry windbags?  Tired of reading their dreary old articles that they probably got some freelancer to write for them anyway?  Worn-out with ego-filled luminaries starting their own blogs then leaving them stranded after three posts?  Well, now it's time to recognize their anti-contribution to the outsourcing industry!

 

Ensuring your sub-processes fit with the MSA

Remember these legends...But can you recall the name of the drummer (pictured in the center)?

How to celebrate that contract win without rubbing it in...

Apologies in advance to our German readers.. but you have to admit this is seriously funny :)

What's driving your outsourcing agenda?

Should this firm go for a straight "lift and shift", or move to an offshore model?

(Hat tip to Mark Stelzner for dredging up this little gem)

Why is it that...

Someone has always half-completed the crossword in American Way magazine  

Musings from abroad: Futuristic BPO

No, it's not Disney.....can you name the place?

Musings from abroad... dispatch #3... Indian drivers

Welcome to a rather cool and cloudy Bangalore in June.  Indians have no concept of how to slowdown in traffic: cars, motorbikes, trucks and buses all focus on where they are headed, and, as opposed to their looking around to check the way is clear, they hoot their horns to tell others to get out of their way, with a fearless disregard of the risks and consequences. The same can be said of their rampant services industry, where their businesses have refused to slowdown, check their wing mirrors or pad their brakes, in fear that their revenues or profit margins will be seriously derailed.  Here's the evidence:

Musings from abroad... dispatch #1

 

I'm currently on a three-week outsourcing excursion across France, UK, Belgium and then India... so I thought I'd entertain you all with some pictures and musings along the way.  Am currently enjoying the hospitality of a outsourcing provider which owns this rather charming estate... can you guess which provider it is?

Ensure you have a solid platform before you seal the deal

Anyone from the UK will appreciate this...

Cost-cutting measures for troubled companies in these tough economic times

In these troubling economic times, most firms are tightening their belts to keep those unnecessary costs down while we look to ride out this recession.  I used to charge $500/hour for dishing out this kind of advice, but I thought I'd give out some cost-cutting tips to Horses-readers as a gesture of economic goodwill:

1) Make all your senior managers and sales people fly Northworst.  You'll be amazed at how many of those "critical" business trips go away....

2) Reduce the "on the road" food budget to $30 a day.  (Makes everyone order pizza to their rooms, rather than those terrible room service burgers);

3) Enforce a zero-tolerance policy on alcohol products to be expensed.  This will automatically reduce 25-50% from your bottom-line.  (Better than any outsourcing initative);

4) Send all your lowest performers on Six Sigma certification training.  They'll either disappear from your payroll completely, or have a complete epiphany and start delivering the goods;

5) Seek out the cheapest, most desperate outsourcing service provider you can find and get them to take on all your messed-up HR, finance, procurement and customer service processes.  Hire a razor sharp sourcing attorney to include performance-levels you would never have dreamed possible - and which you would never have ever reached yourself in a million years.  Wait one year, do nothing, and they are guaranteed to have missed every single performance metric.  Now you can sue them for a small fortune for lost revenues that you would never have made in the first place.  Genious;

6) Sign a corporate deal with Red-roof Inn for any off-plan sales reps.  There is no better way to improve performance;

7) Completely refocus your entire business strategy on producing mind-numbing facebook applications.  You can't go wrong, trust me.

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Time to look at new means to lower those corporate costs -:)

Looks like I'm next...

You can now offshore me. 

    Am thinking of re-training as a plumber

       ... you can't offshore them

              ... can you?

Taking control of your vendor relationship

Thanks Dana Stiffler, AMR's application services guru, for contributing this

Bendium

Get your service levels right before you sign the transaction...

Guest post: John Cleese's "Letter to America"

I am delighted to announce that today's guest post is from none other than Mr John Cleese of Monty Python and Basil Fawlty folklore.  I'm afraid Mr Cleese has some rather disturbing news for you Americans.  Over to you John....

Blind date

Not a lot to do with outsourcing....

....but made me laugh :)

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Quirky differences between Brits and Yanks Part I... coping with defeat

Coming from the old country and spending the last few years adjusting to life in the new world, it's about time I started sharing some observations over the cultural chasm that exists.  However, it's probably better I leak out my views in digestible chunks to avoid risk of deportation.  Anyway, let's start with sport:

Just stop and smell the roses

Got the best piece of advice all of last year from my wife: "Just stop and smell the roses"... so tonight I did, taking a walk through the snow on Boston Common :)

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Boston Common in the snow

(taken with a 2 mega-pixel camera phone)

And if a sourcing advisor was elected President...

• Everyone In the West Wing will have to work until 9PM every night so taxpayers feel they are getting their money’s worth
• He will have walked every congress member through the “State of the Union” address prior to presenting it In order to gain consensus and avoid any political land mines
• The US Budget will be delivered as one large spreadsheet full of pivot tables
• All official White communications will be done in PowerPoint
• White House meal budget will increase six fold
• Cabinet members will need to have a hypothesis prior to engaging in any official business
• The President’s salary will be done through a SOW
• The US will have the greatest strategy, but none of it will ever happen
• He will start planning reelection immediately as a means of “follow-on work”

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.... have a great 2008 to readers of Horses for Sources :)

Outsourcing innovation at Burger King

Burger King is certainly stepping up its customer retention initatives, as typified with this creative new campaign highlighted by the Human Capitalist.  Not only is the fast food giant driving customer loyalty, but it also is leveraging the latest sourcing models to drive down costs and improve the customer experience....

Is Feedjit accurate?

To emphasize the global nature of outsourcing, I downloaded this fancy "Feedjit" widget onto the blog the other day to show a regional map of visitors to this site (see left column).  I was excited to see visitors from places as far flung as China, Belarus, Sweden, Malaysia, Brazil and Australia, but started to get concerned when I got a hit from....er.... CANADA?

What's going on - I didn't think that Internet thing had made it up there yet?  I must complain to Feedjit about the accuracy of this tool "grin*...

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Mooses for Sources next?

Annoyances at work that make you cranky...

OK... I didn't get middle-seated today, but having had successive days of dental work, overdoses of Novocaine, followed by blood-work... then slipping on ice and spraining my ankle, I am a leetle beet cranky..... so here we go:

People who NEVER do any work, but always complain how busy they are;

People who pretend to be your best pal to get you to do them something, then you never hear from them again;

People who are constantly "selling", to the point where you have no clue who they are anymore;

Company politics...aargh (what more can I say);

Project managers;

People who hide the fact they have limited knowledge in something by gibbering a load of b******* to the point that everyone in the room switches off;

People who are constantly re-arranging a meeting, when the amount of time they spend re-arranging the damn thing, they could have just called you and had the necessary discussion (besides, how can their schedule be so packed if they are sitting in front of outlook all day);

People who cancel meetings at the last minute - ALL the time;

People who accept meeting invitations and blow you off with no explanation;

People who try to make you look incompetent;

Project managers;

Former colleagues who simply "must get together for a drink" and ALWAYS take a rain check at the last minute;

People who keep changing their mind to the point that you want to throttle them;

People with ADD (I may fall into this one too....);

People who fly somewhere for an internal meeting they could just have easily have had on the phone;

People who fly 1st class for sub- 2hour trips;

People who leave their cellphones on their desks when they wander off somewhere and subject you to a very cheesy ring-tone;

People who eat some stinky microwaved meal at their desk and pollute the entire area;

People who have to run to Starbucks every hour;

People who just aren't very nice;

Sales people who take credit for anything that got sold, even though all they did was process the PO;

People who start using their Blackberry while you are talking to them;

Europeans who drop everything at 5.00pm... (I'm a Euro, so can get away with saying that...);

Project managers;

People who complain all the time, then claim that YOU complain a lot to someone else.....

OK.. that's enough!

Early morning photo....

Somethings you may not know about me...

1) I am a sports-junkie (passions include Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and the Boston Red Sox);

2) I grew up in London and Cambridge (UK).  My hometown friends are all lunatics who refuse to act their age;

3) I have lived and worked in the UK, France, US, Singapore and Australia;

4) My wife, Pooneh, is Canadian (pictured) and I am a Brit living in Boston, MA;

5) My favorite things to do (apart from watching sport) involve skiing and drinking exorbitant red wine;

6) I would like to retire as soon as I can swing it;

7) I had this very embarrassing piece written about me by "FAOToday" last year...but it's worth a giggle:    Download Fersht_FAOCover_Story.pdf

Being middle-seated in the back row

Today, for the first time, I got middle-seated - in the back row - courtesy of Delta Airlines.  Not only that, we sat on the tarmac in Atlanta for 2 hours waiting for the "traffic" to clear (heh?).  So I got thinking about some of the things in life that irritate me.....

Being middle-seated - in the back row
LinkedIn invitations from people I don't know, or will ever have the need to know
Being middle-seated - in the back row
Bacardi (ugh)
Victoria Beckham
Basketball...the first 59 minutes
Bowflex infomercials
Being middle-seated - in the back row
People who talk incessantly about themselves
Stale coffee in airports
Hotel room service charges
Bluetooth headsets
Just being middle-seated
Taxis with no A/C
Taxis that smell
Being middle-seated
The term 'RPO'
Pay-for-play conferences
American airlines coffee
Trying to get anything with Best Buy rewards points
Disney
British tourists at Disney
Americanized Chinese food (you know the place)
People who stick on 16 when the dealer's packing a high number
Macdonald's salads (why?)
Boring blogs
That guy on Fox News (work it out...)
Cheap wine
American commentary on world cup football (soccer) matches
That arrogant Brit on American idol
James Patterson novels
Donald Trump's sweep-over
Johnny Damon
Bad sales reps

People who pretend to be my friend when they want something
Using snail-mail

Subway
Doing expenses
Steely Dan 'best of' albums
Being middle-seated - ESPECIALLY in the back row

The UK's most Irritating export?

Somethings are better kept onshore...

My name is Phil and I am a recovering Crackberry addict

It’s official, I have come out of the closet and am confronting my addiction.  I will be available for group therapy and counseling sessions to all you fellow recovering addicts.  (In fact, I actually dropped mine into a bathtub a few weeks’ ago which finally got me on the wagon, but that’s another story…..).  Here are some telltale symptoms:

   

1)      Onboarding a new job.  Your chief concern is your new firm’s PDA policy.  Will they support Blackberry?  Will they buy you that latest model that has you salivating, or will they force you to use some bug-ridden Microsoft pocket PC thing?  You really don’t want to look at the new Health plan, that 401K, or expense policy until that all-important PDA issue has been resolved.  You proceed to spend your first afternoon selecting your preferred PDA, and the majority of your fourth day (when it arrives) talking to tech support getting the thing working.  Then you worry profusely that you didn’t select the right model (that suretype method sure is tricky) and that leather pouch just don’t look quite as sexy clipped to your belt as you had envisioned…

2)      ADD.  You knew you had a latent case, but now it’s fully rampant.  Conversations can barely last 2 minutes before you have to have a sneak.  You start to hang out with other addicts at work to avoid feeling awkward…

3)      Driving.  You have mastered the art of one-handed emailing on the dreaded device while changing lanes on the tollway at 75 mph.  Oh – and the quick “two hands off the wheel routine” to switch between applications is a little risky, but you have already resigned yourself to the fact that crackberrying comes with death-defying risks.

4)      Flying.  A) You have already been busted on several occasions by flight attendants for taking a sneak-peak after the “turn off all your electrical devices” warning.  I mean - are you really going to derail your plane just ‘cause your pilot's got some annoying feedback going off in his headphones?  and B) Upon your plane hitting the tarmac you are primed and ready with your finger at the “on” switch for the very moment the pilot pads his breaks.  You thank the Lord for the invaluable extra 120 seconds of Crackberry time you created for yourself as a result of your precision timing, before staring intently at the little screen to watch those new memos pop into view….

5)      Social occasions.   Your spouse has specifically warned you about Crackberrying in front of the guests.  The conversation is caught in a vociferous debate between the merits of the ’86 Margaux and that great run of ’99 Cabs…. You can’t take it anymore… you sneak to the washroom…just one reception bar, but that’s enough to get those little memos popping in….phew.

6)      The Bedroom.  Your spouse has banned it…you have resorted to hiding it in the bedside table drawer….you wake up at 4.00am in a cold sweat….”just a quick hit” you think, sneaking it out of the drawer….you feel a slap…you turn around and there she is – a look of ferocious hatred on her face….oh no, this isn’t good….

7)      Brickbreaker.  You have a colossal problem here – you have spent more time on this mind-numbing game that you did with the ‘Cube in the ‘80s…you start having conversations about the infernal game with complete strangers also playing it on planes…”I just can’t get past that level with all the bricks blah blah”.

8)      Power-precautions.  You have a spare battery (always fully charged) and a spare charger.  Now that is serious….even I wasn’t that bad J

A Crackberry addict spotted earler.  This one clearly has issues....

Outsourced!

In case you haven't see this rather amusing movie trailer...