Man Vs Machines

Last week I was going through the merger which happened, or atleast was suppose to happen, between HP and EDS.  Mark Hurd – CEO of HP has an amazing idea of trying to automate things and have un-manned sites.  Which I feel is quite a different way of thinking.  People are always the real resources – not machines?  Otherwise we would have all lived in a (Terminator 3 – The Rise of the Machines) kind of a world. The reason I am writng is not weather HP merges or acquires EDS?  It is the theory of automation to reduce cost. Their is no real relation in terms of cost between humanbeings and machines.

If Mark feels that merging with EDS will give him un-manned data centers, which he will replace people in data centers with HP hardware and technology?  He is in for a big surprise.

Because by the time, this deal closes good people from EDS wil already have been long gone. 

And beside all this anyways, you really cannot expect the same efficiency from a machine, which a humanbeing is expected to deliver.

Even machines break down Mark?  Just like humanbeing fall ill.

Your cost cutting strategy does not correctly fall in place here.  I feel Mark needs to come down to India to learn some good man management skills.  The old grand father style management, where to cut cost you lay off people is outdated these days.  We have much better ways to increase profits, reduce operational cost, without cutting jobs and laying off people, and for certainly not replacing machines in the place of humanbeings.    

I mean one fine day, what is Mark going to do?  Replace himself with HP Hardware and Technology?  Does HP even have efficient hardware and technology to replace Mark himself?  Anyways we wish Mark and his team the very best in their endeavours to automate and make everything at HP unmanned in order to cut cost. 

Intellect – n – Intelligence

I have always felt that people who claim themselves as quite intelligent or the “I know it all” are in essence a sap.  These days we all have heard that we need to master the art of THINKING, and we need to think, reason, and question.  We teach our kids the same thing.  But what puzzles me is – do we really think?  I am not very much into blind beliefs, that some of the organized religion practice.  In terms of organized religion – I guess I am quite contemporary.  These days not to say but everyone has thier own custom built faith.  We have all forgotten the true beliefs and have adopted to what we feel we are comfortable with.   

Anyways that is besdie the point.  These days as we all know it is not enough to have a college degree.  You need to be more than that.  That is where I believe the individual’s intellect comes into play.  For example, my professional profile requires more of a THINKER person than just point blank academically intelligent.  I am into business development for a software company.  I feel instead of, blindly following prescribed time tested methods for generating business, it never hurts in this fast pace age to try newer ones.  Because I feel – Change is the only thing constant – and to be different is quite normal.  These days with emotional quotient replacing IQ - to be a thinking man is better than just pure academically awesome.  The more number of degrees does not quite necessarily mean the more number of promotions.  There are quite a few achiever’s who possess little or no academic qualifications but are masters in their field and academics are built around them. 

Therefore developing your intellect is as important as intelligence, sincerity, determination, patience, honesty, and all that good stuff!!!

Outsourcing Is not about Stealing Jobs

I find this statement quite disturbing: “We are keeping all the work in-house, trying to keep our economy up!”  Outsourcing does not mean anyone is stealing jobs of anyone else.  Beside the fact, their is accute shortage of technically qualified people around the world.  One of the main reason being, cut throat competition in the world.  Organizations are searching for every possible way to remain competitive and still be profitable in a challenging economic environment. So where does the question of keeping the economy going, come into play. 

 Due to the strong currency of the west, the Asian countries especially the Indian subcontinent has become a favorite hot spot for major IT players to have as their back office hub.  Which keeps the big players very competitive in their pricing model. Therefore everyone feels that the US economy is going down and the Asian markets are booming.

 Companies outsource not only for economic gain. but also because they do not want to manage labor (staff).  These days it is quite difficult to manage people, therefore many companies go ahead and outsource their non-core development activities which take up too much of their time. 

I just want to say when everyone talks about Information Technology – Outsourcing – will always prop up.  It could be on shore, near shore or offshore anywhere.  But it will happen.  Without outsourcing companies these days cannot survive. 

Outsourcing!!!

Organizations are searching for every possible way to remain competitive and still be profitable in a challenging economic environment.   Companies often outsource critical infrastructure items to save money, enhance their employee efficiencies at reduced costs, and still create quality solutions and services.   These days outsourcing is in every field.  Business, Language, Law, Knowledge process outsourcing, Back office, Customer Care, Technical support, and the list go on.  Hence choosing the right partner is of utmost importance.  The partner should be able to provide on time delivery of work.  Language and time difference should not be a barrier.  I have always felt. That outsourcing does not replace your internal development team.  It acts as an extension to the already existing team.  Every company has small work off and on for which the internal resources would have a negative feel, with the amount of time, labor, training, and capitol, required.  That is when the outsourcing vendor comes into play.  The specialized multi-disciplinary resources are available to you on a dedicated or as-needed basis which acts as a direct extension of your product development team.  The cost factor is always very attractive at least in terms of offshore.  This is because of the strong US Dollar.  Cost and time to market are always not the reason, outsourcing of non-core development activities helps companies focus on their core competency.  Especially with small organizations they can focus on marketing initiatives. 

The Affair

Smita Deshpande, an ordinary, everyday housewife is married to Amith, a management executive who has risen to the top of the corporate ladder, working for one of the top most Management Consulting of Mumbai.  Amith is extremely handsome, and is still a prize catch even though he has children in their teens.  Sonia Agarwal, an intelligent, very beautiful and an extremely sexy young woman enters the firm to do her intern for the summer.  Sonia on the first meet with Smita tells her that she is having an affair with her husband but has no intentions to marry him. 

            Throughout the story, Smita remains disturbed about Sonia’s wicked moves and tricks.  The young woman was stunning, and her message was very clear when she told it to Smita on Smita’s fourth wedding anniversary.  Now Smita had to do something about this wicked, very clever, young and sexy Sonia to save her perfect marriage and her attractive husband. 

            Smita always remembers how easily she had written off her mother’s words when she had married handsome Amith Deshpande after he had left his first wife for her. 

“If he will do it to one woman, he will do it to you.”  Not Amith, she had thought then.  And not her.

With all this drama going on in Smita’s life, her husband’s mentor and a person they all liked and cared for, Mr. Ramnik bhai Patel, dies suddenly.  He survived by his wife, Mrs. Dakshaa ben Patel, Smita’s best friend, and two daughters and one son.  After a brief interrogation, Dakshaa cracks up under pressure and confesses for the crime, that she did it in self-defense.  Smita and her youngest daughter Rachana believe her.  The whole firm disbelieves her.  They are upset with her, and her misbehavior in dragging a good man like Ramnik bhai’s name down the drain.  Smita has to fight with Amith to prove herself right every time.  Amith has two children from his previous wife, Shweta, who has taken away all of Amith’s money during their divorce.  Amith eldest daughter, Vaishanvi, who is fourteen years old, the typical teenager, blames Smita for breaking their parents happy married life.  Smita at the end believes that the only way to end this whole drama is by murdering Amith the way Dakshaa murder’s Ramnik bhai.  Which she finally does and gets rid of the man she once loved very dearly.  What inspires her to kill Amith is how Dakshaa had killed Ramnik bhai and pleaded self-defense.  Smita calls the police and surrenders.  She realizes that she is not as weak as Shweta, Amith’s ex-wife who weeps over what her husband has done to her.  Smita wants to teach Amith a lesson and take revenge for playing with her life.  Betraying her trust.