Not yet ready for China
I love travel and visit new places, even if that’s on a business trip. Needless to say that living “5 to 7” lifestyle (by 5 am Monday you are on a plane to the client and ~7 pm on Friday are back on your way home) grows old quickly, but my engineering leadership role delivers travel in just the right amount. So I was quite excited when I got a chance to go to China to meet with a few promising offshore outsourcing companies. Impressed by meetings with vendors’ execs I was looking forward to starting with one of their teams in China.
Jumping ahead, I have to tell you that out of my top three impressions of China one was far above the expectations, one was at par, and one was way below. The first one was food – sorry Chef Chu, Dragon Well, and Yank Sing – there is no better place for Chinese food than China. The impression that was exactly at par with my expectations was my prospect resources’ command of English – it was dreadful. That was not a big deal for me though – English is a second language and work in progress for me as well, plus quoting Clarence Darrow, “Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?”. The thing that fall way below my expectations and to large degree ruined the trip was technical skills of engineers I saw.
Having spent the last 10 years of my life in Silicon Valley I’ve been conditioned to be surrounded by people much smarter than I. A great majority of them came from Asia. So I was expecting to see people like Bhaskar H, John B, Mark Dao, Shao Fang, Harshal Deo, Michelle Sue, Ashish Mangla… I was expecting maybe not the same level of intelligence, grasp on technology, and knowledge of foundations but at least somewhat close. Instead, my vendors paraded in front of me dozens of engineers who could not explain what a polymorphism is, project managers who did not know how to use MS Project, business analysts with nothing but a desire to be one. A few days into my interview process going through at rate of ~20 30-min interviews per day I met only one decent PM who did not speak English at all, one good yet quite junior business analyst (she was an IIT grad and just moved to China with her husband), and a handful of barely acceptable engineers. My interviewing stats were:
Project Managers – 1 out of 9
Business Analysts – 1 out of 11
Senior Developers – 0 out of 6
Mid Level Developers 2 out 14
Junior Developers – 4 out of 9
QA Leads – 1 out of 4
Blackbox Testers – 4 out of 6
Automation Testers – 0 out of 7
After visiting four companies my mind was set and I switched to enjoying tours to Forbidden City, Bird’s Nest and Summer Palace; I climbed the Great Wall, took many pictures, and bought a bunch of souvenirs. I knew that would be a while before I see China again.
Having spent some time thinking through the reasons behind my failure to find the vendor I could probably attest to those commonly known:
- China is relatively new to the IT outsourcing, in particular for US projects. There is a great deal of skills, experience and understanding that has not yet been built up.
- Language is a natural and serious obstacle which China outsourcing companies need to invest a great deal.
- Chinese outsourcers need to learn how to deal with a large variety of cultural differences to successfully compete (and not only on cost). I believe that they need to find their own style. While a lot could be taken from success of Indian vendors, just “cut and paste” would not work.
On my trip to China I also discovered a few things that I had not heard of before:
- In Chinese education system getting an English major ranks bottom low vs. engineering or CS degrees. Inevitably it attracts the least talented students. However, in a race to address language handicap outsourcing companies recruit English major students for key development positions – project managers, business analysts, etc. No wonder none ob the BA I interviewed heard of UML…
- While checking out offices of many outsourcing companies I noticed one thing in common: developers’ desks were perfectly clean – not a single book anywhere. I guess one of the reasons is in lack of relevant literature in native tongue. Reading O’Reilly in English is an uphill battle for many of engineers.
- Most of the engineers I talked with gained all their knowledge on the projects they worked on, which is a great way to learn when it is one of the methods, not the only. Result is extremely narrow scope of knowledge / expertise.
So I guess I am not ready to send my work to China yet, while I really do want to. Why? That would be a great topic for another post.
Can’t teach an old dog new tricks
“Yes to death” is a well known phenomena. In many places people are conditioned never to say “No” and that’s particular true for India and even more so for Indian outsourcing companies. Saying No as well as other forms of delivering “bad news” or “negative message” are considered rude and offensive. The fact that it causes enormous issues on business delivery side is dwarfed by the cultural conditioning. Not long ago I was on an interviewing marathon in Noida, India. Just before the start I spent some time talking with a VP of services for the company. I asked him what his company did to deal with cultural differences. He went on explaining how they invested in cross cultural training and that all employees were specifically trained on “cut to the chase” American culture, and so on. My first interviewee was a project manager with about 10 years of experience. I asked him “Rajiv, imagine the situation that when your team is falling behind because of some serious screw up on my part. What would you tell me to deal with the situation?”. The next five minutes went into back and force of defining the fine details of the situation and I started running out of patience, so I asked again “Will you tell me that you are falling behind and that is my fault?” Rajiv went silent for a few seconds, looked at VP and than said – “Of course I would never tell you that!”
Trading Places
Once in a while it’s fun to put on shoes of a vendor and see the selection process from the other side of the table. A few days ago I was asked by my long time vendor to help them on a sales call. I have to mention that one of the reasons I like working with these guys is they made themselves a true part of my team, so I felt obligated to help them out as I would do to someone from my own company. Nothing to make a sales call fun like last minute changes. This time it was pretty dramatic – the sales person could not make it. So I found myself along with another guy in a similar situation in front of a CTO of successful startup in the city. Ted, the CTO, did not seem to enjoy the situation. He turned to the “hiring manager” and asked him: “Vladimir, are you saying to me that the company which we are considering is not even here!?” I felt bad for the guy and decided to say few good words about my vendor, reasons I hired and kept them for quite some time now. Ted did not find my attempts to any degree entertaining “Why are you talking!? It should be the sales rep who answers my questions! I have real questions – what is your turn over ratio? I need to know exact percentage!” In the next few minutes the situation progressed from goofy to outright embarrassing. Fortunately it did not last long and in 15 minutes we were escorted out of the building. Oh boy, am I glad that my paycheck doesn’t depend on outcomes of such meetings. BTW, to the best of my knowledge we paved the trail for an Indian company that made a presentation right after us, they had a solid slide deck, all ratios ready and I am sure were not wearing jeans and pullovers. What is still bewildering to me is why someone would prefer a ppp to a genuine customer reference. But as they say “different strokes for different folks”
Food for thought
No matter how well traveled you are be beware of dining experiences. The dangers come in all shapes and forms, literally. Many of my friends were knocked down by local foods while vendor shopping especially in China or India. My friend Boris, VPE of a successful Silicon Valley startup, was out for two days after savoring jellyfish dinner in China, another friend was hard down for almost a week after lunch at McDonald’s in Moscow. I heard that asking for simple local food (something they know how to cook) works well. I also heard that asking for “food that an American can eat without getting sick” gets the message across. I tried those as well as many others and can assure you that none are fail-proof. My latest memory is a low key dinner in Bangalore, where my hosts were quite accustomed to guests from the states. Everything was beautifully served and spiced to a perfect degree; no surprises and no concerns. After the dinner the waiter brought a plate with leaves wrapped into small pouches. My hosts all gabbed one of those and suggested that I do the same – “it’s like a mint candy”. I guess “like” was the key word there, a second later I learned that biting the green pouch feels like drinking Listerine out of fire hose. Luckily I knew the way to restrooms which I covered in just a few jumps.
It’s good to be king
Shopping for an offshore vendor is unforgettable experience even if you are looking for relatively small contract. Where else an IT manager would be a subject to such royal treatment? Every time when I face a dubious pleasure of vendor shopping I keep reminding myself that it is probably one of the best parts of outsourcing. And there is always something fun to remember about those trips. Not long ago I was in Pune, India meetings with Satyam – one of the top tier outsourcing firms. The lobby of Stayam’s office was decorated with welcome slogans, flowers and colored sand “paintings” on the floor. There were four of five executives greeting me, all holding high positions in the company. They shook my hand with impressive enthusiasm. A few women dressed in saris welcomed me with large bouquets of roses. While a photographer jumped around taking pictures of this one-of-a-kind event one of the execs whispered in my ear that this was unusually flamboyant greeting that they only offered to utmost important guests. After a few more awkward moments we moved to the conference room with maybe 20 execs and managers. The power point parade began after 30 minute round of “quick” introductions. 15 min into presentation I noticed that older execs started to fall asleep, most with their eyes opened; the skill I always wanted to master. A couple hours later I was exposed to more glorious aspects of the company history and abilities than one can possibly tolerate. By that time I knew for sure that no company in the world comes close to Satyam in terms of quality of the resources, ingenuity of leadership and reliability of its management. Speaker after speaker we were moving down the agenda of what was called out as a brief discussion of the company’s capabilities. Lunch, a buffet of monumental proportions, was a welcome break then an hour later and a few pounds heavier I was back to the power point water-boarding. But I was adapting, it seemed that finally I was getting the grip on the art of sleeping while actively participating. Unfortunately the photographer woke me up. He brought me a CD with my pictures. I put it in my laptop to bring back fading memories of the morning. Here they were: the lobby, execs, saris, roses… Alas, the victims of the greeting ceremony were two strange guys wearing suites and all American smiles. For some reason I did not feel that special anymore. Yet so happy as that little excitement saved me from immanent death by power point.
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