Category Archives: Of Interest

The manager took a call from his daughter when a prospect called him

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
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It is natural to care about your family. You should ideally care more for them than you do for anyone else! But, my assistant called a manager in India about a job we needed him to do. He interrupted our call to talk to his daughter and then forgot to call back. My assistant waited up for him for a long time. This is very irresponsible.

In India, people have a different idea about responsibility which is why they get in trouble with American clients. Americans don’t want their calls to be interrupted unless it is an emergency. This manager could have talked for 1 minute to his daughter, finished up with my assistant and then called his daughter back. There are ways to handle conflicting commitments without offending or inconveniencing anyone.

The result is that this particular manager in India is now off our list of prospective companies to hire. We think he is irresponsible, or just too busy to be able to handle a job from us.

We also heard another story about a young Indian guy who took a call during an interview. That is insane. That is an extremely unprofessional and disrespectful thing to do. Sometimes people lack common sense, but having sense can save you from losing clients.

The moral of the story is that if you interrupt a call with a prospective client, you will probably lose them. If someone has known you for a few months (a few weeks is not long enough), then you can put them on hold if necessary. You can take a few necessary liberties with people you know well, but not with strangers. Additionally, if you are in hot water with a client, don’t put them on hold. If you are already inches from being fired, putting them on hold for ten minutes could be the last straw that gets you fired for good.

Maid in Dubai Continued: an introduction to Maidalytics

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
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“If Dubai follows my advice, they’ll have it maid!”

Having a maid labor pool in Dubai
I wrote another piece about a strategy for having a government operated labor pool for maids in the Emirates )where Dubai is the largest city.) The basic idea was to have the government import prospective maids and provide dormitory accommodations for these ladies at no cost to the maids. The government would then charge a fee to employers in exchange for paying for the air transportation and interim lodging for these ladies. There might be an up front fee, plus a percentage of the maid fees for the first year or a fixed monthly fee for the first year.

On humorous note, Dubai will probably misinterpret my suggestion about having a maid labor pool and build a four acre, multi-billion dollar luxury swimming pool & Jacuzzi complex for their maids just to show off.

A problem solved
The problem is that currently families hire maids, sight unseen and sign multi-year contracts for maid service. The maid cannot legally leave the arrangement until the contract is over or risk imprisonment. This puts both parties at risk. The families have no idea if they will like the maid, and the maids don’t know how they will be treated by the family. Having a dormitory arrangement paid by the government would allow families to meet maids, and pick & choose. If a family didn’t like a particular maid, they could fire them, and the maid would have a place to stay at the dormitory. If a particular maid didn’t get picked for too long a time, or got fired too many times, the government would have the option to deport them and the airfare would be paid for by the government in my system as a courtesy to all parties involved. The expenses incurred by the government would be roughly compensated for by the fees charged to employers.

Maid Training
Since the Emirates aspires to be the best country that is, was, or ever will be, it makes sense that they might enjoy the idea of going to the next level managing their country. UAE is a country that is managed like a business, and the result is that they are not only prosperous, but very popular with folks from all around the world. It only makes sense that the government might ponder the idea of engaging in value added services that would make the lives of their citizens and upper class residents even better than it already is by using some innovative techniques that no other government has ever thought of.

In the UAE, maids are brought in from other countries with contracts. You cannot legally live in Dubai without employment, and you can’t get in the country unless you already have a job if you are a laborer. Upper class people have the cash to be able to come as a tourist to Dubai and make connections, but poor people don’t have that option. The basic problem is that an employer has no idea how good the maid is at their duties. Language compatibility is not always ideal either. There is also no guarantee that there won’t be personality clashes as well. If the relationship goes poorly, the maid has nowhere to go unless the employer pays for their return trip. Part of the solution is training and evaluation. Which facets should be taught though?

Laundry
This is an easy one. Most people know how to do laundry, but perhaps with a little instruction, their folding skills and ability to handle difficult situations might be enhanced.

Language
Maids coming to Dubai are typically from the Philippines, Pakistan or Ethiopia. They might know some English, but do they know Arabic? It makes sense that prospective maids are taught the language of their prospective employers to ensure that communication is smooth. Special attention to vocabulary relating to maid type duties could be emphasized during this training.

Cooking
Food is cultural. If a lady from Ethiopia is a master chef, but then comes to Abu Dhabi for a job, she might not know how to cook the local specialties. She might not have ever heard of these specialties. It might be nice if a government operated maid dormitory / school could teach them all of the local dishes, and perhaps a few dishes from India or other regions where employers might be from, or popular foreign dishes that they might like such as boeuf bourgignon!

Child-care
I know nothing about this because I am a guy, but there must be some advanced techniques for taking care of infants. Burping 101, diarrhea relief methodology, and crying reduction therapy.

Cleaning
Once again, this is not my department. Come to my apartment and you will be unpleasantly reminded that I’m not joking. Cleaning techniques can be complicated. There are many types of sprays, bleach, and scrubbing brushes. Knowing the right tools to use for particular tasks can be a daunting undertaking.

Maid Testing
Before a maid is given a long term assignment, I think that the government would be doing the community a huge service by testing these maids out, to ensure the highest likelihood of a happy experience as possible. Families who were willing to test maids out could be given a discount on maid service in exchange for their feedback which would be translated into analytics. Families could give a report card for each maid that they tried out for 3-7 days with scores for cooking skills, repetoire of recipes, language skills, personality, how good they were with small children and not so small children, cleaning, reliability, and responsibility. A simple survey with about 20 questions on a scale from one to ten with a comments section would be enough. It is a common mistake in the survey business to ask hundreds of questions and drive the survey taker crazy and leave no room for individualized comments. Short and simple wins the game in my opinion.

If the families testing these maids gave scores that differed drastically from other families offering feedback, they might be deemed to be unreliable in their analytics and dismissed from the testing program. Reliability in analytical feedback is critical, so you need individuals who systematically submit data that looks reasonable. I will note that personality analytics would be the one analytic that could vary extremely from person to person, so there is no way to know if that analytic is “reasonable” since some people get along well and others clash!

Each maid could be tested by four families before being dispatched on a real assignment. Although, I think it would be better if real assignments didn’t have any more than a week to week contract in the beginning, these assignments would be given with the intention of being long term.

Try four and pick the best.
It might even make better sense to let families try out four maids one after the other, and then pick the one they liked best. Each maid could be tried out for between one and four days. Families could even have the option to try as many maids as they wanted if they were willing to pay the associated fees involved in trying them and buying an “option” on the maids they liked. The maids would return to the dormitory for classes after their tryout was done to ensure that they would be available if picked. Once the family had sampled the work of each maid, they could pick the one they liked the most, and that one would be guaranteed to be available! What a system.

Scoring the maids using maidalytics (maid analytics)
Since these maids would have been tried out by many families and given scores, those scores could be tallied up and the maid could be assigned a score. Rather than clunky scores such as A, B, C, etc., it might be better to have scores on a 100 point scale with an explanation of how many percentage of maids are at each score level such as in the 70’s, or the 80’s, etc. If a family wanted a maid, they could request a maid with higher score if they were willing to pay more. Or, they could request a maid who was stronger in communication or culinary analytics if that is what they wanted.

Summary
The basic idea behind maidalytics is to ensure that families in Dubai get a maid that they will be ecstatic about. Why force people to be in miserable contract with a maid you can’t stand when you could get someone you adore? Using my very sensible system, families can get the optimal maid for them with minimal effort and no strings attached. Maids also have the right to quit if they feel a particular family doesn’t treat them kindly enough or works them too hard.

Outsource: A special economic zone for “Difficult Workers”

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered why there is so much unemployment in the land of opportunity? Is it because of outsourcing, automation, or is it the economy? Is it because the government makes it hard to hire people without paying minimum wage, liability insurance, unemployment insurance, payroll taxes, accounting, etc? What a headache! No wonder people want to outsource to Manila!

But, there are other reasons why unemployment is so high in America! Difficult workers! Many managers simply don’t know how to deal with difficult workers or don’t have the patience! It also might not be economical for them to deal with these stubborn workers. What if there were special government programs that were specifically designed to help deal with challenging types in the work place? Better yet, what if there were a special economic zone where unemployed people could go where they were guaranteed a job! Not necessarily a job they would love, but at least food on the table! Additionally, these impossible humans would be given some specialized education that would help them conquer their bad habits from within!

Types of difficult workers

(1) The late type.
Some workers are just late wherever they go. Maybe they operate on Middle Eastern time. People are always late in the Middle East you know. Maybe these workers should just pack up and move to Egypt? My solution is to have companies that the government pays to hire ONLY workers who show up late. The entire company could be configured to pay these workers based on productivity and NOT based on when they showed up. Or better yet, in order to gently refine the habits of “The habitually unpunctual”, there could be incremental small penalties for tardiness. A few pennies per minute during their first several months on the program. As time went on, the penalties could slowly increase. It takes months and years to reform bad habits, so let’s give these people a chance in an environment that is engineered to understand them.

(2) The argumentative type
Don’t get me wrong. The argumentative types are often late, and then will argue with you about how it is YOU who are the late one, or how YOU never told them that they had to be there at a specific time. With these types, everything needs to be in writing, otherwise you will lose the argument. But, imagine a company who is forced by the government to ONLY hire argumentative types? It might not be a nice place to work — HEY, IT’S a GREAT PLACE TO WORK — be quiet — no YOU be quiet…. but, they would at least not be unemployed and taking up food stamps. Instead, the government would give the company who hires them extra money as a reward for hiring these difficult people, and money for training them to be a little less argumentative — even though they are not argumentative — even though it is YOU who are the argumentative one and problem need the argue-reduction training more than they do.

(3) The careless type
A zone for these people already exists. It is called India. The entire country caters to careless people. You can’t paint a house in Tamil Nadu without spattering paint all over the walk-ways and the leaves of the trees. Has anyone ever heard of a drop-cloth? If people are too careless to hire, they need help! Special companies could be set up and given some funding by the government if they would just hire these careless types and try to keep an eye on them. Maybe they can learn to not make quite so many blunders with a little guidance!

(4) The missing deadlines type
If you have work that is not time sensitive, you might be able to work with these types of people. Some people come to work on time, but they can’t get any actual finished products delivered on time. What can you do? Special companies would be created to give work specifically to people who miss deadlines. That describes 90% of Americans, so this special economic zone will be a place where you won’t be lonely for long!

(5) Liars and cheaters
Good god. This group is larger than you think. Good luck trying to work with them. Special companies that monitor their workers carefully would be set up to hire these people.

(6) The drama type
Do you know people who are always stimulating, creating, or nourishing dramas in the work place? There is always a problem, or a scare with this type. You have to have a degree in Psychiatry to know how to deal with them.

(7) The slacker type
There are people who come to work on time, but the minute you stop watching them, they slack off. Such people need to be paid by the job. If you pay them by the hour, pay them based on what their productivity was the last month. If they did almost nothing, then pay them almost nothing. Minimum wage makes it impossible to hire such people, so our economic zone will not have a minimum wage. If you are worth $1 per hour, then that is what you get paid!

(8) The not following directions type.
You need to keep an eye on these people 24/7. The minute you stop watching them, they are going off on a tangent. Special following directions exercises need to be given to them to keep them sharp. Following directions is a skill that many of us are not good at. Those who are worst at it need to be helped! Otherwise unemployment will be through the roof.

Jobs? What types of jobs could be given?
Any type of jobs. Just because someone is a difficult worker, doesn’t make them any less intelligent than anyone else. I know tons of very gifted people who are like pulling teeth to work with. They all have trouble holding jobs, but they are all excellent at all of the tasks I give them. So, what gives? Quality of work is only one analytic. Coming to work on time, and getting things done on time is another aspect of work. Manufacturing, programming, teaching, writing, office work, and car repair are examples of jobs that could be dispatched in this zone. Ideally, this Special Economic Zone would have every conceivable type of work, so that the maximum number of people could be helped!

The goals behind this zone would be:
(1) To give jobs to people who might be able to function under specialized supervision
(2) To help unemployed people fix the problems that are within them that cause them to be unemployed.
This would reduce unemployment and benefit society in many ways.

You might also like:

Special economic zone for insourcing in Oklahoma
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/04/a-special-economic-zone-idea-for-insourcing-in-oklahoma/

A free economic zone in America?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/03/a-free-economic-zone-in-america/

Mid life work crises happen 2x for women, but only once for men

September 22, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged | Leave a comment

In America, we have a very feminist culture. A woman can do anything a man can do, and perhaps even better. Of course, while these women are out fighting for equality, they typically neglect their household duties such as taking care of their children and husband, get divorced, and have misguided children as a result who have a poor sense of family values. But, putting spiritual values aside, women are not the same in the workforce. Here is why.

Patience is a virtue!
Women are more patient than men, especially in their twenties. This allows them to stick longer at a job that might show no immediate signs of opportunities for advancement. This allows women to get more raises and advancement. They have the patience to take the time to master their skills too. In this respect, women as an entirety are better than men in the workforce. Women also are often more easy to get along with on the phone and patient with difficult customers and difficult situations. Not the women I know (necessarily,) but once again, women as a whole.

Midlife crisis #1: mid-thirtees
Both genders have midlife crises. I have one every day for example and I am a guy. Men lose their urge to keep their job in their late forties or fifties and want to travel the world or buy a sports car in many cases. Women on the other hand have their first mid-life crises much earlier. It is more of a breakdown that happens somewhere in their mid-thirties. I have seen this happen to many people. They lose their ambition at work. Their previous cast iron work ethic becomes lost to a desire to be a mom, or just take it easy. Although women are capable of doing the same tasks that men are, the desire to keep up with the rat race year after year seems to be weaker in women, especially at this age. If women can pass through this crisis age where so many fall short in their careers or quit entirely, then they have another hurdle to overcome.

Midlife crisis #2 for women
Women have another crisis during menopause. They get crankier, and their work suffers in many cases. Their desire to work long hours and do difficult work diminishes. In a society that expects women to be as men, it must be difficult working, having two midlife crises and then having to raise whining children all at once! Goodness.

The irony is that America is a feminist country, yet both genders act like men. Wouldn’t we be a masculinist society if both genders idolize the male role in society? In my mind feminists are the most authentic sexists that exist, because they see a lesser value in the women’s role in society while systematically pointing the finger at men calling them sexists!

Korean style mid-life crisis (sesame glaze not included)
Koreans are a very different type of nationality than others. Koreans have their own midlife crises, often in their early forties (for men) or early thirties (for women). The Korean male breakdown happens earlier than when American men often break down. Koreans are pushed so hard by their parents, peers, and society as teens and young adults to work themselves to the bone and get ahead, that they breakdown and become basket cases in many cases when they reach around forty. Society allows them to slow down at this point and take it easy a bit. The problem is that many Koreans get disgruntled with work, life, and society at this stage and drop out, or make a major life change. I have seen this happen several times with people I know from Korea.

Cultural differences are not what you think?

September 21, 2010 by 123outsource
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We have all read books about cultural differences. We have read about people’s bizarre experiences in foreign lands traveling, teaching, and doing business. But, what do books really teach us? Do they teach the real culture, or some outdated behavioral patterns from a few subjects in a particular subculture of a particular vast area in the globe.

Culture doesn’t exist

I remember reading that the Arab culture is XYZ. Then, I met real Arabs and they were the exact opposite of XYZ. So, which one is it? Are they or are they not like XYZ. Next, the politically correct nitwits will take this window of time as an opportunity to insert their unwelcomed chime in about how you cannot generalize people. Guess what, the existance of the notion of culture suggests that you can generalize people who belong to a particular culture of having a high probability of having cultural traits associated with the culture — assuming you have correctly defined the culture.

What is the right definition?

But, putting aside who is right or wrong, and which book is better or worse, and what definition of a culture is right or wrong — it is complicated. No dated text can possibly encompass the complications of defining a moving target involving hundreds of millions of people who are dispersed over large areas of geographic territory with multiple classes, subcultures, ethnicities, and other variables. So, how can you learn about culture? Put the books aside, and get on a plane! Yee-haw!!!

Getting off the plane

So you get on the plane and get off in China. You are given endless praise, and eat it all up only to find that people are upset that you accepted their praise? And you thought that dealing with women was difficult. “Do I look fat?” “No, honey, you look fine”. “No, I really do look fat, I have gained an ounce”. “I don’t notice that non-existant ounce”. “I did, it is here, are you blind?”. “Hmmm, you are right, you really did gain an ounce!.” “How can you say that!!!”

Have you eaten?

So you mangle saying, “Ni chi fan le mei?” and the Chinese tell you that you are an expert in Chinese. You say, “Not really, but thanks anyway”. They don’t like it when you get too arrogant. But, then later on, you notice that they will make some inflated statement about themselves and then you go back to your book. Wait a second, you are not supposed to say that. We are in China after all. So, the locals break the rules — they just don’t do it that often. Americans love individuality — so, therefor you are being un-American by getting on a bus, or agreeing with large groups of people about what they believe in. But, Americans are very predictable in their likes and dislikes and a lot less individual than you think. Chinese also brag more than you might think as well. So — it is complicated.

So, how does this relate to your business? This is a blog about business after all?

You need to understand other cultures, so you can squeeze more money out of people from different countries. It is that simple. But, which part of cultural competency really matters? A book isn’t going to teach you that. The bigger points are how to gain TRUST, popularity, and comfort with your culturally different friends.

Many Americans never want to see your face in business. How inhuman — no wonder I don’t have too many American friends! Indians insist on seeing you face to face. Asians want to gain trust and develop a relationship in many cases — at least if they are serious about you. I guess I fit the Asian stereotype although I am not Asian in this birth. Putting culture aside, don’t prejudge people who are from a particular land. Maybe the Americans really do want to meet you in person a lot. Maybe it is the client from Beijing who wants the entire relationship online with no phone calls. Understanding what people from particular cultures USUALLY like is knowledge you should have. Catering to their ACTUAL likes is a much more valuable skill.

My bottom line advice is to spend time with people from different cultures. Understand the cultures, and individuals. Learn how to be attentive and figure out what matters to them as individuals while using cultural data to guess what is more likely to matter to them. Guessing probability and making unflattering assumptions that prejudge someone are different and you need to be very aware of that distinction

When you don’t blog, you miss it!

September 21, 2010 by 123outsource
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Blogging is something new to me. I never used to do it until late 2010. As a child I hated to write. As an adult I have grown used to it. I never imagined that I would have a job that involved so much writing. As a child, I thought I would be an efficiency analyst for big companies. In a sense I do a lot of that for my directories and I am very efficient in many ways and very analytical in my daily activities — something my customers appreciate as I teach them how to analyze markets that they participate in.

But, I miss blogging when I don’t do it for a while. There are spells for weeks when I am busy on a project and I won’t write blogs. I even have dreams about blogging. Symbolically, I might see a pencil in the dream, or feel sad in the dream because I am not in front of a computer. This happened on a recent meditation trip. I was enjoying a pristine forest, meditation, hiking, great food, and the company of other like-minded people. I started having dreams about blogging. I realized I need to do it.

Twitter has become an obsession too just like blogging. I need to write tweets daily, and they need to be ones that will be popular too. Underaverage tweets just don’t cut it with me anymore. No more writing up a bunch of tweets and publishing them. Now, I compare my tweets before they go into my scheduled tweet list.

I encourage others to engage in blogging too. It expands your consciousness and becomes part of who you are. Write a blog entry today!

Does visiting the desert make you smarter?

September 20, 2010 by 123outsource
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There are all types of techniques for how to become smarter. You can read, or do thinking exercises. Some people train themselves to remember long lists of numbers or other information. Some people go to school and attend lectures. But, I have come up with a real shocker: Going to the desert made me starter — and I have proof.

I play this Chinese game called Go. It is a very complicated game. Players have ratings that could be a kyu or a don. The stronger players are don players and don levels range from one to ten (the world’s strongest player is a ten don). I play online Go, and have noticed that my rating goes up and down very quickly. If you are having a bad day, instead of giving you some leeway, they demote you to a lower ranking after you have lost a few games. It really makes no sense, but is a great way to track how good your thinking was on a particular day.

In any case, I had not played in about three and a half years. When I went back to playing, I noticed myself making all types of very careless mistakes that lead to huge losses. As business people, we can all appreciate the fact that a single mistake can cost us thousands. In any case, after a month of playing, I got to the point where I made very infrequent tactical errors. But, I noticed that I was working too much, and getting mentally fatigued as well as physically fatigued. So, I went to Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree is a desert destination with lots of hikers, rock climbers, photographers and many who engage in overnight camping. The energy there really picks me up. I always joke that there are different types of qi according to acupuncture theory, but the type of qi at Joshua Tree is Joshua qi. In any case, after I came back from my happy day of hiking in 92 degree weather in Joshua Tree, I noticed that my Go rank jumped up 1.5 ranks. After the energy that I had picked up in the desert dissipated after a few days, my ranking went far down.

The point of this quirky little analysis is that getting energy from nature can enhance your thinking ability. It is temporary of course, but isn’t it nice to keep an edge and always be your best?

May the qi be with you!

Don’t expect to get paid more due to your GPS coordinates

September 19, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: America, Of Interest | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t expect to get paid more because you were born in a particular country. Americans feel that they intrinsically deserve more money for doing certain tasks. Americans also feel that because the cost of living is higher in the United States, that therefor, they should get paid more.The truth is actually very interesting. America is actually one of the most efficient countries on earth. You get more land per dollar than almost anywhere else on the planet. It is cheaper to purchase a house in Oregon than it is to buy an equally sized house in Pune. A laptop in America costs less than the same laptop in Mumbai. America is not more expensive, except for labor and healthcare. Additionally, an apartment in an expensive part of Los Angeles is $2000 per month for what you might be able to get in Tennessee for $350. Costs in America really vary, so we can’t generalize about what “costs” are in America.

Moreover, American workers typically produce a lot more output per hour than people do in most other countries. Countries like Norway, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the United States produce a lot of output per-capita. People at Indian BPO companies typically get less done per hour and make more mistakes that require redoing the same task multiple times.

My findings are that many Americans merit more money for particular tasks than overseas counterparts because of better skills, more efficient output, and better communication skills. The fact that it is more expensive here has nothing to do with anything.

On the other hand, Filipino call center workers are nicer and smoother than their American counterparts and can get done roughly as much work as well. Over time, the Philippines has been gaining market share for call center business and their wages have not been going down. You are worth what you are worth, so leave your GPS coordinates out of it!

Your GPS doesn’t determine what our BPO is worth!

Tweets:
(1) Just because you live in America, it doesn’t mean you deserve to get paid more.
(2) Americans get paid MORE per hour AND the cost of land and food are LESS in the US too!

You might also like:

Outsourcing Obamacare
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/14/outsourcing-obama-care/

Rates for Office Space around the world compared
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/12/19/rates-for-office-space-around-the-world-compared/

Is it a spiritual success to be calm when your site is down?

September 19, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Is it a spiritual success to be calm when your website is down?

The meeting
I had a meeting with a very talented programming boss. He was the brightest and most on-the-ball guy I have ever met in my work. I know many bright people, but this guy had a type of focus that others just will never have. This meeting was an interview where I wanted to hire them for regular programming tasks in particular languages. During the interview my main site went down. My site is on a very difficult server, and it goes down every several weeks. I am used to it. I am not even phased. Sure, we get 7000 visits on a busy day, but this is what life is like. It is is down at 1pm, it will be back up soon after I send an email and a quick phone call. Wait and come back later. The programming boss was more concerned than I was about my site being down. I explained to him that I had just meditated for two hours at an ashram and that I was at one with the universe. Of course I care if my breadwinning site is down, but this is how life is, and my practice is to see if it is still down after 20 minutes, and then email tech support. He said that I needed to interrupt the meeting and deal with it right NOW!

Panic attacks!
I remember how my career in web business unfolded. How I started by bootstrapping, putting my pennies together. Getting a little help from my dad with some simplistic programming. My dad was a computer genious in his time, but that was with very different technology. Web technology is something he recently learned, but never mastered. I put together a site, and kept growing it. After three years it started making some money, then more, and more. I remember, how in those days, if my site went down, I would almost have a heart attack. I literally had anxiety attacks and panicked. Once my site was down for 24 hours due to a very nasty bug. I had some very reliable programmers taking care of me at the time, but I still was so nervous.

I have calmed down
Now, it is 12 years after the inception of my main site. I have calmed down a lot. If it goes down for an hour, I know how much it costs. I know how many pay-per-click dollars I lose. I know how it frustrates my users. I know how many angry emails I will get. I have gone through this so many times, that I am completely calm when my site goes down. The level of calmness is so striking considering how I used to be. So, when that programming boss told me that I should be upset that my site was down I thought about it. Looking back, sure I should get that site back online fast, but it is a sign of some great spiritual success from my 22 years of meditation to have such a deep inner calmness when problems arise.

Measuring spiritual progress
Spiritual progress is not something that regular humans can measure. Only the gurus have the right, or the ability to judge this. But, we can see signs of progress. It is foolish to judge a person by how they behave when things are good. See how they behave when something happens that upsets them. That is the true test.

Outsourcing to Russia: hour padding seems to be cultural

September 19, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

During our worldwide search for quality custom .net software developers and PHP developers, we encountered many interesting people in Eastern Europe. We were disappointed that the number of hours they wanted to do a relatively simple task was roughly double, triple or quadruple what our local provider (who had 20 years of experience) thought was necessary. Hour padding seems to be an unfortunate fact of life in Eastern Europe, and especially with programmers in Russia. What we learned is that some companies only cheat you a little bit while others cheat to an extreme. So, when doing business with the East (outsourcing to Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, etc.), be very wary of how long they want to complete tasks that you are familiar with, so that you have an idea of how much you are being ripped off.

Also beware of their pitiful excuses for hour padding. “We are just being cautious.” How does a 40 hour job become 200 hours, I asked? I was then asked where I came up with a figure of 40 hours, and told that it was not a 40 hour job. Whenever you base how long a job should take, you have to base that on some standard that is somewhat fixed. A new programmer could use a very unpredictable amount of hours to do a relatively simple task. But, a programmer with five or more years of experience should be able to complete standard tasks in a somewhat standard amount of time. If Mark can complete a certain task in five hours, I say, “It takes 5 Mark hours to do this”. So, if you need 20 hours for the same task, your hour is worth 15 Mark minutes! Very inefficient.

Basically, you need a trusted and competent programmer to bid on a task to see how long it really should take. Then, you take that number of hours and compare it to a few bids from other providers who you are less sure about. The competent programmer might not have time to do the job, but they might have time to give an estimate. The competent programmer might charge 5x per hour as well, which is why you might think about offshoring the project.

Hour padding seems to very an integral part of Russian and Ukrainian culture. In our experience, 100% of companies in Eastern Europe do hour padding. Indians are actually much better in this respect. Roughly 20% of Indian software companies can deliver efficient results with another 20% giving results that are not that inefficient, leaving 60% who you should avoid due to hour padding or incompetence. In Eastern Europe, 0% were efficient, with 10% who were barely acceptable in terms of time efficiency and 90% who you should not even consider.

But, before you write off Eastern Europe, they are reputed to have a higher quality of accuracy for software work than other countries. I think that a few companies in that region deserve a fair chance. Even if they charge you for too many hours, their rates are very low and maybe their quality is better than you would expect!

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Creating an online museum for your company

September 18, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I wrote about a sort of a show and tell idea in another blog entry. I was inspired after seeing how Ford Motor Company built its cars. Suddently, I thought that outsourcing companies could do the same on a smaller scale. They could show the inner mechanics of how things got done at their company.

The #1 reason why people don’t hire you is TRUST. Rather than having fast talking salespeople, brightly decorated websites, and great promotional materials, try to gain trust. The fastest way to evoke trust is to share knowledge — and customized knowledge that particular prospects want to hear. Telling people all about your company and having FAQ’s about your industry is great. The more information the better, especially if it is well organized and well written. But, what about an online presentation of what your company is really like?

Some people have slide shows, others have sales literature, a few even have a museum. If you had an online museum about how your company works, don’t you think that people would want to do business with you? It would be really cool, and fun, and draw people in. You might even attract people who are not even interested in your industry who think it is really nifty that you created such an intruiging production!

Imagine that you have a call center (call centre). Imagine that your museum starts with a huge photo of your call center and some text explaining that this is a museum of the XYZ call center in Gurgaon, India. Explain that you are a real call center that is accepting new clients today. You are not just a museum, but a real live functioning call center. Have an ENTER link on the page somewhere. Or have a web site with a smaller section that introduces the call center museum.

Show pictures of your staff doing what they do. Explain what you do for various clients and how you fulfill their orders. Have a slide show for explaining what you do in the new customer acquisition process step by step. Show how you train your people step by step. Explain the hiring and firing process, including surge hiring when you get a new large client on board. You could even show your employees carpooling to work in rick-shaws or cabs.

You could joke about how you require each employee to ingest exactly the right amount of pollution on Ganapati Blvd. East as a job requirement, and show them breathing in the air — fulfilling their job requirements to a tee.

Next, it is time for a break, so show your gruntled employees having their samosa break in the lunch room, or at their desks. Next, it is time for personal get-to-know-you sessions with your staff. Each selected member could have a one-minute introduction, and maybe a longer one with your CEO.

Then, have a summary about what the company does, and sum yourself up.
Good luck and have fun

An emotional experience with a Russian Software outsourcing company

September 18, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

They were a software company in Belarus. We called them and they were anxious to work for us. The boss liked us so much, he offered to pick me up at the airport when I visited. By the way, just for the record — if you do business in Eastern Europe, Belarus is by far the most friendly and hospitable country that has software development companies. We found the Ukrainians to be a little bit snobby and the Russians gave us a bad feeling.

In any case, we asked this Belarus Software Company to do a quick bid for us. They got the bid back to us very quickly. They wanted triple the necessary amount of hours to do a very simplistic programming job for us. We told them that the bid was not realistic. He became very emotional. He started raising his voice, showing signs of despair, asking “Why, why why?”. He really wanted our job, but his hour padding policy didn’t seem ethical or cost effective to us.

I remember that when I talked to my assistant we had a quick conversation about this boss. My assistant said that he was very hospitable and that I should work with him. I told my assistant that I want to see how hospitable he is six months after we are doing business. Well, we found out that in two days his hospitality went down the drain!

Another interesting story from Belarus!

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