[nukkad] Letter from the trenches

[JayaRam Tummala <>]

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Good article abt current turbulence in IT Industry... 

JayaRam Tummala
Atlanta, GA
Ph: 404 573 6193(Work)
    678-571-8075(Fun) 


Letter from the trenches
===================
The dotcom boom, the doom and then the tech gloom. The ripples 
of the slowdown in the world's largest economy have most 
countries facing the impending recession. Slowdown, pay-cuts, 
lay-offs, shutdowns seem to be the universal lingo. Just when it 
was felt that we had seen the worst came the terrorist attacks, 
threatening the global economy of harsher days ahead. In an 
exclusive to CIOL, Subroto Bagchi, co-founder of MindTree 
Consulting, pens the 10 most important lessons one needs to pick 
up, based  on his rich experiences in the US in the past and 
present tenures.

My first assignment in the US was in 1990 when Wipro asked me to 
move to the Silicon Valley to set up a beachhead. A decade 
later, I am back here, as co-founder of MindTree Consulting - 
looking after our operations in the Americas. Until recently, I 
used to tell people, half in jest, between both assignments, 
everything is the same. Both the times, there has been a Mr.
Bush as President, both times there has been recession and both 
times, US has gone to war. Yet, in 1990 - we had probably less 
than five software companies of any consequence, work was done 
only in client locations and the India brand did not exist. 
Today, we are talking about 850 or more companies directly 
impacted, more than 400,000 people and their families involved 
and depending on how the world emerges from the brutal attack
on the World Trade Center - we will really know what will be in 
store for each one of us individually and collectively. Yet, 
there are lessons we need to pick up as we go.

1. Beyond a point, worrying does not help, you have to know as 
you go: Yes, the US is in a state of recession. The last one 
lasted 3 years - from 1989 to 1992. This one has been worsened 
by the dot.com / Internet bubble which was fanned by an 
overheated stock market. As a result, the crash has been louder 
than last time. Also, as against the last recession, today's 
world is so well connected, so simultaneous that if you touch 
some thing  in New York - in the very next moment, you can feel 
the impact in Tokyo or Bangalore. The other aspect is how much 
people are exchanging information and how fast news and analysis 
reaches them today. This has at least one negative impact. It 
breeds a herd mentality at a global level. If one company in one 
industry does a layoff, everyone else says, why am I not
following suit? Either people say the world is going to be great 
place or every one says it is coming to an end. The truth is in 
the median. Beyond  a point no one knows the full story, no one 
has the full data. After all, who could predict the WTC bombing? 
So, we have to focus on the job at hand and move on. We have to 
make changes, as events unfold. The important thing is in 
cultivating the ability to do so.

2. Companies are not slot machines:  In the last few years, fund
managers, venture capitalists, retail investors and a tribe of 
analysts had all contributed to the over heated investment 
climate. Unfortunately, people had lost track of a simple truth. 
A company is not a slot machine. But for a moment, let us agree 
 that it can be. The danger in that argument is that, the rules 
of the slot  machine then apply to companies. What is the rule? 
A slot machine can  reward only two per cent people only two per 
cent of the time. Change that  simple rule and no one will ever 
set up a slot machine. We had the absolutely crazy environment 
in which, first of all, people regarded companies as slot 
machines. Worse, 98 per cent people expected to get more  than 
they gave 98 per cent of the times. Educated people should know 
that  that is a coveted but not feasible model. Unfortunately, 
in the mayhem - a  lot of people got greedy, set up companies 
with short-term gain in mind  and they are falling by the 
wayside today. Quite sadly, they are taking a  lot of people 
with them.

3. You do need a business plan after all: When we thought of 
MindTree Consulting, we began the process of thinking  through 
the business plan 14 months prior to launching the company. We  
wrote an old-fashioned business plan that ran in to 80 pages. 
Did we have  all the answers? No we did not have all the 
answers. Yet, we wrote the  business plan - not to con someone
in to funding us. We believed  what we  wrote and used it to 
guide us till we rewrote the plan again. Yet, I know  of someone 
in the valley, who raised $100 Million without having to write  
a business plan. Every one got so carried away that some one 
said,if you  have to write a business plan, you are no good. 
This company just wrote a  sheet of Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs) and handed them to their potential investors. Two years 
in to the game, the $100 Million has evaporated and so has the 
company. The moral of the story is, you  cannot  build 
businesses in the air. You cannot work for people who do that. 
If  you choose otherwise, you choose the consequences as well.

4. People need real skills to build real solutions for real 
customers to get real cash: People make money when real 
customers buy real things and pay for them. Only then, our 
customers can use your or my services. Those services cannot be 
vaporware and they cannot be devoid of the need to build 
solutions that "move" things. Yet, we live in times in which
these seemingly simple precepts were thrown away. Many 
trivialized the effort it takes, the investments you need and 
the time it takes before capability can be built to listen to 
customers, understand needs, manage them and build value for 
them. We also diluted the standards for hiring. We overlooked
considerations and ignored simple rules of engagement. From the 
developer perspective, a lot of people know that they do not 
know. Some have no understanding of business and how things 
work. Armed with a rapidly acquired degree, some questionable 
work experience, they all flew  with the H1 visa. A H1 visa 
takes you from place A to USA. It does not  make up for, nor
does it shorten the knowledge acquisition process and the  
experience building that are pre-requisites to delivering real 
value to paying customers.

5. Hard work and loyalty are back in fashion: In 1998, I had 
Gallup do a poll with 100 software engineers to accurately  map 
the profile of the essential Indian software developer. Turned  
out, it is a 26 year old male, decided to be a software engineer 
in his  9th grade, came from a nuclear family, father  
professional, mother home  maker, places learning, family and
money as the priorities in life (in  that order), is a 
pathological learner ("learns to learn" more than "learns to 
do") and has changed 1.75 jobs in the first two years of his  
career. Go to any one, any where in the world - they will tell 
you what is  wrong in that model. You have to choose your
career well. You have to know  that you cannot be just a bundle 
of technical skills. There is more to  life than writing code. 
The world needs solutions, not software and it will take time to 
master that. You just cannot be tactical with your own  life - 
sooner or later, it will all catch up. That is beginning to 
happen.  You did not need a recession or a Bin Laden to drive 
home that point. That  is the way it works in the medical
profession, in public life, in journalism, in teaching primary 
school children. We cannot be an exception.

6. It is going to be a long haul: How long before the current 
slow down, recession, uncertain geo-political  situations get 
better? First of all, it will get worse before it gets  better. 
But it will get better. It is very unlikely that we will see 
improvements before the end of 2002. First of all, in the best 
case scenario, the aftermath of the WTC tragedy will take
the rest of the calendar year to get sorted out. Disclaimer: 
Even Mr. Bush does not have  full knowledge and full control 
over what will happen, what will be the  consequences and what 
cascading impact we will see as a result of the  planned overt 
and covert operations. Given that fact, investment climate  will 
be cautious, new applications will be on hold and business
justifications will be demanded before anyone spends any money. 
So, it will be somewhere in the middle of next year that we will 
come out of the penumbra of the economic effects of the next 
three months. And when we do come out, it will not be a start 
from where we left ourselves in 1999. It will be a world that 
will demand more personal and collective accountability. 
Markets, customers, investors and employers will not be the same 
again. Given that, you and I will need to ask our own selves 
some very basic questions whose answers only you and I have.

7. Skill merchants beware: In all the flux we are seeing before 
us, if there is one thing that is  increasingly clear, it is 
this - people who have a purely skill view of  themselves, will 
have more difficulty coming through. There are a lot of  people 
out there who think that knowing Java, C++ or EJB is what it 
takes  to assure career continuity. Unfortunately, it takes
much more than that.  Early in one's career - a technical person 
needs to learn a lot many other  things. He or she needs to 
understand how businesses work, how to handle  clients, how to 
work as a team and a host of other things. These can  happen 
only one project at a time and require both patience and
contemplation. Traditionally, many people have thought these are 
fringe issues and what really matters is the ability to churn 
code. Additionally, people need to learn some very non-glamorous 
things. The current crisis reinforces the fact that the real 
world depends on mainframes, legacy applications and a host of 
very mundane but critical things. People who have disdain for 
these will be in for surprises. We have to have the same
attitude to the routine as we have for the latest and the best.

8. Know how much to fake: In the last two years, I am amazed as 
to how many people we have bred who  are not their own selves. 
Every other day, I come across people who have a 
disproportionate image of their own selves. Worse, they believe 
in the  self-created image. Some people look so puffed up. 
Strange job titles,  phony accents may look alright for a while. 
After some time, they can  actually make a person unusable. The 
other day, I met this otherwise very  usable middle level 
manager. Pre-melt down, he got carried away and got  slotted for 
some thing he did not quite fit. His company is gone but he is  
still perched on that imaginary place. Even making conversation 
is so  difficult with him because he helplessly mouths jargons 
that make him look  like a liability. It is important to be 
yourself. Fancy words on a resume do not carry one beyond a 
point. They actually destroy you.

9. How tactical can you, should you be?: It is important to 
seize the moment and take advantage of opportunities. But how 
far should you push the envelope? In the last few years, 
investors, employers, employees and customers - every one has 
been guilty  of developing a tactical view of the world. This 
was to hurt sooner or  later. The current situation has hastened
the process. The result is that  investor money has evaporated,
companies are floundering and employees are  lost in a maze. In 
times like these, we tend to blame everything other than our own 
judgment. While the events around us are responsible, so are  
we. In Bhubaneswar, next to my in-law's house, there used to be 
a private  computer training institute that was always full. 
Whenever I visited them,  my in-laws would ask me if all
the boys and girls there would soon be  flying off with H1 
visas. I was getting tired of saying "no". After a  while, I 
began to suspect my own cynicism. Today, the place is quiet as a 
 graveyard. The question is, how could thousands of people who 
could not  write a page of English without making a dozen 
mistakes and had no math  skills and would not qualify a written
test for a third level engineering  college, suddenly become 
exportable computer wizards? Did they themselves  not know this? 
Did their parents not realize the improbability of it all?  We 
can blame the slow down. On the other hand, we are the slow 
down.

10. The world will move on. Will you be there?: Allan Greenspan 
says that the only thing certain about a recession is that  it 
gets over. I could say the same thing about war and associated 
crisis  that we are going to witness. That is how the world has 
always worked. Our  parents and their parents have seen larger 
crisis. It so happens  that our  share of growing up is coming 
to us after a protracted period of what  looks like good
times. Having said that, things will come back full circle. As 
that happens, some will survive and some will be hurt. Rather  
than worry about either, it is a good time to do some deep 
reflection and  come to terms with realism. It is also a good 
time to take a larger, more  comprehensive view of ones career
and make some solid investments towards  that. It is also a time 
to rethink ones perception of some old fashioned  things like 
focus on fundamentals, hard work, loyalty and building real  
value for real customers. Are you ready?

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