Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level2#2 Connect with Your Audience - IT Service Industry

IT service industry

Good Evening Toastmaster of the day fellow toastmasters & guests. There are two main varieties of industry in IT. They are product industry & the service industry. Microsoft, Google etc are example of product industry where as Accenture, TCS etc are examples of service industry. Today I am going to share information about the IT service industry.

Like most of the hardware’s are manufactured in China, Most of the IT service/product industry majors operates from India as they can have affordable human resources. There are many types of services in the IT service industry. Some of the familiar are

1.       Application maintenance & support.

2.       Major enhancement/Projects

3.       IT Consulting

 

1.       Application maintenance & support.

In any big organization (Eg: Toyota, MetLife), there will be a huge number of applications both back office & external facing will be there. These are used to support the daily operations & enable business. For example, in insurance companies, there are departments for operations, Distribution & marketing, new product enhancements, Application & maintenance support. All these departments will have many applications either external facing or internal facing. Now I am working for an Insurance major where they are having 250+ applications. They are spending more than $10 million dollars yearly for the support & maintenance. To support these applications, having staff by the parent company is not an optimal solution. To support these applications, contract will be provided to the external vendors for 4-5 years contract. These are called as Application maintenance & support.

 

2.       Major enhancements/Projects

If the organization wants to do a major enhancement or develop a product, they have to go for major enhancement or a project. For this as per the defined internal process of the organization, the Request for proposal (RFP) will be floated with the preferred vendors. Then bidding process will be initiated & the vendor for that project will be selected for execution. For example in any insurance companies, yearly they will be releasing 3-4 new products. For each product, new project will be initiated.

 

3.       IT Consulting

In IT consulting, there are two major types, they are

1.       To do analysis on the problem & give a probable roadmap/solution. This will be normally 4-6 weeks of engagement where expensive consultant will be deployed to the client facility. They will gather/analyze data & propose a roadmap/solution to the customer. Then the customer can continue with the same vendor for execution or switch to another vendor depending on the approval of cost/solution.

2.       Another one is to provide resources alone, this is purely body shopping where the customer executes the project. The customer will request specialized resources & they will be charged on hourly rates.

Some major companies like IBM/HP provide both products & services. In any big customer organization, there will be preferred vendors & all the IT service request for App maintenance & support, consulting, major enhancement/projects will be executed through these vendors.  Some of the major IT service companies in the world are

1.       Accenture

2.       Tata Consulting Services.

3.       IBM

4.       Infosys

5.       Cognizant

6.       Cap Gemini

Etc

 

All these companies will have their majority of their bases in India. For language intensive region like Japan, bases are established in China also. The IT services will be provided with the Onsite/Offshore model of 25%~70% so that cost effectiveness can be managed. For example, in my current customer organization IBM is providing the App maintenance support with the support team sitting in China.

 

Onsite billing will be costly & offshore billing is cheap. Normally Onsite billing will be 3 times more than offshore billing. So customer prefers more offshoring of the projects to reduce the costs. From the employees in the service industry, most of them will prefer for onsite roles as the pay will be more compared to offshore.

 

These markets are so huge. For eg, my current customer organization in japan spends $200 million annually for IT alone. Now the service industry is spreading fast in China, Philippines etc.

                Hope my speech has provided some info on the operation of IT service industry. If you are working for any big organization, check internally to know about the current vendors who are providing IT app development & support. You will be more familiar with the type of activities that your IT department is doing.

Over to the TMOE 

Pathways#Innovative Planning#Level2#1 Understanding Your Leadership Style - B A I P D A C A

 

B A I P D A C A

Good evening Toastmaster of the evening, fellow toastmasters & guests. Today I am going to share information about the types of leadership. My type of leadership is democratic as per the toastmaster`s leadership manual assessment.

Who is a leader? Let`s hear it from the audience.

There are 8 types of leadership prescribed in the toastmaster’s manual. They are

1.       Bureaucratic

2.       Authoritative

3.       Innovative

4.       Pacesetting

5.       Democratic

6.       Affiliative

7.       Coaching

8.       Altruistic

Let`s discuss some of the leadership/personalities

From 1964 to 1985, he was kept in the prison on Robben Island, isolated from non-political prisoners, and placed in a damp cell with nothing but a straw mat. For many years, he broke rocks into gravel, which would eventually affect his eyesight. He learned the Afrikaans language spoken by the whites which helped to have direct conversation with the whites post his release from prison. His leadership comes under the Bureaucratic style.I liked his quote that “It is what we make out of what we have, not we are given, that separates one person from another.”

Hitler was a high task oriented leader even though he is on the wrong books. He had clear vision and knowledge of the path for execute his strategy so he is the one who directed his people in an attempt to execute his vision. He wanted to monitor everything and retain control of every task, which was about to be executed. This type of leadership is tagged under Authoritative/Autocratic leadership. It is generally followed in the Military.

Elon Musk is  comes under the innovative/transformational leader. Some of his famous companies are Paypal, SpaceX, Tesla, Solar City etc. He is a high risk taker. The first 3 rocket launches from Space X got failed.  His attempt to land the booster after the launch got successful only after 4 failed attempts. Through these companies he tried to bring innovation & transformation.

Gandhi's leadership style clearly showcases the essence of transformational/Pacesetting leadership. For example, his followers were motivated by him, trusted him, admired him, were loyal to him, and respected him. Transformational/ leaders also appeal to higher values like liberty, justice, peace and equality. His mantra is that you should Be the Change you want to see it in the society. To emphasize on simpler clothing to the people, he stopped wearing shirt & cap forever & set himself as an example.

Lincoln was a politician open to criticism and debate. He empowered his leadership through dialogue with the American society of the time and used the opinion of others to self-correct mistakes and improve his public image. The US President accepted advice but also followed his own instinct whenever he thought it wise. He comes under the Democratic leader category. Sometime he was autocratic.

He spent time talking with members of the public, taking 'public opinion. He would willingly hold public receptions and make a point of shaking everyone's hand and speaking to each individual. He had great democratic leadership qualities.

Dalai Lama is an affiliative leader, who regularly pushed his teams to their emotional and physical work limits. An affiliative leadership is based around gaining love and support.

A coaching leader quickly recognizes the strengths, weaknesses, and motivations of others to help them improve. They often assist in setting goals and provide regular feedback with challenging projects to promote growth.

Altruism in a leader improves effectiveness and increases feelings of team cohesiveness.

I believe that everyone showcases some type of leadership in certain situation. If we understand that what kind of leadership is that we are lagging & if we improved that, it will help us & the people surrounding us. If we also understand the need of the type of leadership that has to be shown at any particular situation, then the outcome will be great. In toastmasters we teach servant leadership by which we can transform ourselves & help other to transform themselves. TMOE what is your type of leadership & what type leadership you want to learn?