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Here’s the next chapter of my India whirlwind tour and some new observations:
It’s amazing how westernized India is becoming. I’m currently in a car with a driver driving from Bombay to Pune (a current educational and up-and-coming tech center in India). Beyonce is blasting on his CD player. Funny. There is also some strange obsession with Bryan Adams over here. I was at a few different hotels/stores where I heard elevator music versions of Bryan Adams songs. I chalked this up as coincidence until I was having a conversation with a guy about the caliber of American concerts they get in Bangalore. “Oh we get great concerts here sir. Like Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, Metallica, Bryan Adams” Never heard Bryan Adams in that context before. Gautam confirmed this was true. Apparently almost every India party will play traditional India dance music and at some point, “Summer of 69”.
Text messaging is everywhere. Not just as a means of person-to-person communication, but business-to-consumer communication. At the bottom of every billboard is a short code you can text for further information about the product being advertised. Want to check your flight status? Text the flight number to FLIGHT. In fact, some airlines allow you to buy a plane ticket via text message. There is huge opportunity to help US companies explore this advertising/commerce channel.
I feel spoiled having English as a first language. Almost all signs in the city are in English in India. It’s very easy to get around and conduct day-to-day activities. Due to the British influence, English is taught in the schools from a very young age. Even the labor workers have some grasp of English. I’ve found the communication gaps with Indians is rarely to do with their grasp of the English language, and more with the speed in which they speak it. Apparently native US English speakers speak 80 words per minute. Indians in their native tongue speak 120 words a minute. So even if they know what they are saying, they are often saying it faster than we’re used to hearing. That combined with an accent makes it difficult at times. B.T.W., The Chinese native tongue speaks 160 words a minute.
“50 cent“ playing on the radio now.
There are some very interesting business customs here. Every company I’ve visited has presented me with a bouquet of flowers when I walk in the door. Often presented by an Indian woman in traditional Indian dress. One business actually presented me with a Hawaiian-like “lay” of beautiful Indian flowers, painted a red spot on my forehead and swished aromatic candles under my nose. This apparently is a traditional Hindu blessing. The folks I’ve come to visit here have been extremely hospitable, which has inevitably lead to the “Delhi Belly” incident.
Two nights ago I sat down to dinner with a rep from one of the firms I was visiting for some Southern Indian fare (traditionally spicy). He asked if I liked spicy food, and being pretty conservative to date, I decided to see if I could hang. “Yeah I love spicy food” We proceeded to sit for a 3 hour dinner eating more and more “aggressive dishes”. They were excellent and. . really. . .frickin. . .hot. It was a great meal and after dinner and a couple beers I retired to my room. The next morning I woke up with a little “rumbling” in the intestinal region. I chalked this up to the combo of spicy food and beers and headed to my meetings. I only had a few minutes for lunch between my morning and afternoon meeting. The last thing I really wanted was more Indian food at this point, but with limited time to hunt around for other options, I resigned to shoveling down some more Indian food at the hotel’s buffet. . . .more rumbling.
My afternoon meeting was with the company I had dinner with the night before. It was great (more flowers), friendly conversations, strategizing on how we can utilize their European network to bring our services to Europe, very exciting stuff! Towards the end of the meeting the VP of Sales stood up and said “I understand from Raj that you are a big fan of spicy Indian food. I have arranged to have Hyderabad’s specialty dish, Briyani”, catered in for our meeting from the infamous Palace Restaurant. B.T.W. Palace’s Briyani is really. . .fricking. . .hot. With a rumbling belly full of buffet Indian food I’d rather eat my shoe at this point, but I obviously had to be a good sport. A plate full of Briyani later I was headed to the airport. . .sweating.
Reader discretion is advised for the rest of the story:
Now I heard a lot of horror stories before I came over about the lack of availability of toilet paper at public restrooms in India. My first few days here I carried around a roll just in case disaster struck. This was inconvenient as it did not fill well into my briefcase and I had to be discreet whenever taking out my laptop so my toilet paper didn’t roll across the conference room table. The fact is I hadn’t found TPA (toilet paper availability) to be a problem at all. So this particular morning, I decided not to pack the just-in-case roll. Arriving at the Hyderabad airport I checked in quickly and made a beeline for the “Gents” bathroom. Stall number one, no TP. Stall number two, no TP. Upstairs bathroom stall one, TPA test, negative. I started to realize something. It wasn’t that they were out of toilet paper, there wasn’t even a dispenser mounted to the wall to hold it. Stalls consisted of a toilet and a water spicket coming out of the back wall. The spicket was the same style you would connect an outdoor hose to. I didn’t see how this could be of any help. Oh, and no paper towels either. I ran out into the terminal frantically looking around. I saw a magazine vending machine off to my left. This would not be pretty, but could be functional. Side note here: Indians have some weird fear of change. Every transaction that I’ve done that has rounded to anything less than 10 rupees (the smallest bill), has resulted in either the merchant conceding the change required or rounding the price up so change wouldn’t have to be issued. Needless to say the magazine vending machine took 5 rupee coins and I didn’t have any.
Scouring the terminal I was starting to freak out a little (think Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly). Did Indian people not poop? What the hell did these people do! All of a sudden, a little corner kiosk/store caught my eye that was called, and I’m not kidding, ‘Fancy Man Things”. They sold dress shirts, ties and three packs of cotton handkerchiefs for 115 rupees. “I’ll take that box of handkerchiefs” I said handing him 200 rupees “keep the change”. As I was running out of the store they shop keeper yelled after me , “I have some nice one’s with colored patterns if you want”. Thanks for the suggestion pal, but style didn’t really matter here.
Well you can probably guess the rest of the story. I got over my first bout of “Delhi Belly” successfully. Debriefing with Gautam that evening, he informed me there is an effective clean up process that utilizes the spicket, but I would most likely be too uncoordinated to accomplish it. I’ll stick to carrying my private roll for now.
Well, laptop battery’s going. Going to try to catch some shut eye, even though Cam’ron is blasting in the background. Every time a new song comes on the driver turns around and smiles at me as if to say “Cool right?” It’s no Bryan Adams, but yeah, it’s cool.
Talk to you all later,
-J
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
India is winning. . .
I'm in the midst of a trip to India to identify some partners for F1000 client engagements and Solstice's internal development projects. My initial reactions below. . .
The growth here is electric. It’s evident in the dynamics of the construction going on at every turn, the fast paced movement of folks on foot, bikes, rickshaws and cars, and in the eyes of everyone I have met. People living here are genuinely excited about what is going on in India and they are extremely proud to be a part of it. I imagine this is what the 50s might have felt like for our grand parents before we started getting used to our prosperity.
Outside of the genuine excitement, here are some things that have really stood out to me:
There is a ridiculous amount of people. I knew this coming in but you have to see it to believe it. Roads are packed with traffic, which by contrast, moves pretty quickly because no one stops for stoplights, pedestrians, etc. Driving on the roads is almost comical. Lane lines are generally ignored, vehicles are constantly cutting each other off and these little three wheeled motorized rickshaws (Indian taxi cabs) are like bees buzzing in and out of cars. Every car has little dents and dings from bumping into other cars. No one stops if this happens. It’s like a video game.
The large population has had a really interesting effect on the economy. First of all, labor is crazy cheap. One of my old Accenture colleagues, Gautam, and his wife have three full time “servants”, a cook, a maid and a driver. The maid cleans the entire apartment top to bottom every day and does the laundry daily. The cook prepares three fresh homemade meals (and smoothies and snacks) every day. The driver waits outside all day in case they might want to go somewhere. He then drives them and waits for them to be finished. This could be a ½ hour stop at the store or 8 hours at work. In my opinion, the driver is completely justified because I would last about 5 minutes on the streets before getting crushed. The combination of the three salaries costs under $500/month. Imagine that, $6K a year and you don’t have to do anything ever again. This also demonstrates the large disparity in income between the classes. The other impact of the population density is real estate prices are ridiculous. Gautam’s modest 2 bedroom apartment (about 1300 sq ft) is worth over $1,000,000 US. The prices easily rival any large US city. Since real estate is so expensive, and salaries are so cheap, people often live with their extended families for a long time. Products aren’t necessarily cheaper either, due to the high demand, while service labor is. For example, I got a couple work shirts tailor made. It cost me $45, $42 of which was for the material, $3 to have a tailor custom make it.
The hotels are interesting. Due to the heavy business traffic the nice hotels all sell out and go for between $300-$500 a night. They are awesome though. The next tier down however is Red Roof Inn style. There are no “mid range” hotels. There is a business opportunity here if anyone knows anything about starting hotels.
The food is fantastic, if you like Indian food. Their attempt at sandwiches is weak, gross actually. But the traditional Indian food I’ve had has been spectacular. Some of the best lamb and chicken dishes I’ve ever had. Funny story: last night I ate at a famous southern Indian restaurant in Chennai with a local potential business partner, Paddy. This older Indian man walked in
and the whole place stopped, I mean every conversation, every movement just stopped as he walked by and sat down. I asked my colleague who he was. “He’s the Indian Robert Dinero. Probably one of the most famous guys in India!” India has the second largest film making industry in the world, next to Hollywood. In fact, they call it Bollywood. I encouraged Paddy to take a picture of him with his camera phone. Indian Dinero (his real name's Rajinikanth b.t.w.) saw him and he held up the camera to ask if it was OK to take his picture. He waved us over! We walked over to his table and Paddy said “I was just explaining to my American friend that you’re the Indian Robert Dinero”. The guy laughed and gestured for us to sit down next to him for a picture. Paddy offered for me to sit down for the picture first and Indian Dinero said, no not the American! He doesn’t even know who I am! Let him take the picture!” Pretty funny. He’s right though. I still don’t know who the hell he is. Got a picture of him and Paddy though and Gautam is very jealous.
The airports are very convenient and highly secure. You have to show an itinerary just to walk in the door. You scan your bag before you go to the ticket counter. The lines are all short. You’re in and out in 2 minutes. The security check points are funny. Since product is expensive and labor is cheap, there are a bunch of dudes with hand scanners that do the scanning (vs. the electronic doorways you walk through). There are no jetways. All the gates are right in the front and to get to your plane you hop on a bus and it drives you over. This means less walking actually and you’re more likely to make your flight if you get to the airport a ½ hour before flight time (I tested this today). Tickets are also cheap. You can get to anywhere in the country for $100.
The planes are awesome. I’ve flown Kingfischer airlines twice and it’s my favorite. Every plane was brand new. Kingfischer was started by the guy who started Kingfisher Beer (Indian beer). He is the Indian Richard Branson apparently. He got pissed at some airline two years ago and so decided to start his own airline. There is satellite TV in every seat and every flight attendant is hand picked by him. Coincidentally, they are all gorgeous. Really, I mean it, like model gorgeous. Of course it’s my favorite airline because of the satellite TV (that’s for Gina).
I visited four different potential partners yesterday. One was a smaller startup of really smart software engineers, one was essentially a sweat shop (20 programmers packed in a 12x12 room, a very hot room) and the other two were large publicly traded companies. I’m really glad I came because on paper, the first two firms looked the same and visiting their development center proved they were very, very different. After visiting these firms there are three major things I’ve determined. 1) All application development will eventually be over here. They’re not ready for it all yet, but they are coming up the learning curve fast and eventually will surpass the purely domestic US firms. In some ways, they already have as some of their CMM processes force them to focus on continuous improvement. As collaboration software continues to improve and software development tools continue to mature, this will become more and more of a reality. In ten years I’ll be surprised if there is any application development happening in the US. Probably on the same scale as the amount textile manufacturing that’s occurring in the US (i.e. very little). 2) Their growth is constrained by sales. These guys can build stuff until the cows come home but they don’t have the people to sell it. As I was listening to their sales pitches I was giving them suggestions on how they could improve the delivery of their value proposition. With the big guys, discussions on how we can engage them as a partner turned to discussions on them acquiring us. I don't feel this makes sense yet. What is contagious is there excitement and passion for delivery. Their portfolios are impressive as well. They are building some very cool stuff and are just as engaged in embracing emerging technologies as we are, probably more so because there passion for learning is thriving. There project management processes are also improving. They’re all talking Agile, which I found very inspiring. Finally 3) Since they are so far removed from the business users, they are going to have a hard time building strategic technology (i.e. EA), product management/deep business analysis or management consulting practices. This is where the future and opportunity lies for boutique consulting firms (i.e. Solstice). Offshore firms are going to have to either partner or inorganically acquire this talent, but those roles will remain in the US (or wherever the business is). Just like the clothing industry, the clothes may be made in China, but they’re still designed in New York.
That’s all for now. I have some other things to share but will save that for a later date. All in all it’s been a great time and I’m looking forward to the rest of the trip.
Let me know your thoughts!
-J
The growth here is electric. It’s evident in the dynamics of the construction going on at every turn, the fast paced movement of folks on foot, bikes, rickshaws and cars, and in the eyes of everyone I have met. People living here are genuinely excited about what is going on in India and they are extremely proud to be a part of it. I imagine this is what the 50s might have felt like for our grand parents before we started getting used to our prosperity.
Outside of the genuine excitement, here are some things that have really stood out to me:
There is a ridiculous amount of people. I knew this coming in but you have to see it to believe it. Roads are packed with traffic, which by contrast, moves pretty quickly because no one stops for stoplights, pedestrians, etc. Driving on the roads is almost comical. Lane lines are generally ignored, vehicles are constantly cutting each other off and these little three wheeled motorized rickshaws (Indian taxi cabs) are like bees buzzing in and out of cars. Every car has little dents and dings from bumping into other cars. No one stops if this happens. It’s like a video game.
The large population has had a really interesting effect on the economy. First of all, labor is crazy cheap. One of my old Accenture colleagues, Gautam, and his wife have three full time “servants”, a cook, a maid and a driver. The maid cleans the entire apartment top to bottom every day and does the laundry daily. The cook prepares three fresh homemade meals (and smoothies and snacks) every day. The driver waits outside all day in case they might want to go somewhere. He then drives them and waits for them to be finished. This could be a ½ hour stop at the store or 8 hours at work. In my opinion, the driver is completely justified because I would last about 5 minutes on the streets before getting crushed. The combination of the three salaries costs under $500/month. Imagine that, $6K a year and you don’t have to do anything ever again. This also demonstrates the large disparity in income between the classes. The other impact of the population density is real estate prices are ridiculous. Gautam’s modest 2 bedroom apartment (about 1300 sq ft) is worth over $1,000,000 US. The prices easily rival any large US city. Since real estate is so expensive, and salaries are so cheap, people often live with their extended families for a long time. Products aren’t necessarily cheaper either, due to the high demand, while service labor is. For example, I got a couple work shirts tailor made. It cost me $45, $42 of which was for the material, $3 to have a tailor custom make it.
The hotels are interesting. Due to the heavy business traffic the nice hotels all sell out and go for between $300-$500 a night. They are awesome though. The next tier down however is Red Roof Inn style. There are no “mid range” hotels. There is a business opportunity here if anyone knows anything about starting hotels.
The food is fantastic, if you like Indian food. Their attempt at sandwiches is weak, gross actually. But the traditional Indian food I’ve had has been spectacular. Some of the best lamb and chicken dishes I’ve ever had. Funny story: last night I ate at a famous southern Indian restaurant in Chennai with a local potential business partner, Paddy. This older Indian man walked in
and the whole place stopped, I mean every conversation, every movement just stopped as he walked by and sat down. I asked my colleague who he was. “He’s the Indian Robert Dinero. Probably one of the most famous guys in India!” India has the second largest film making industry in the world, next to Hollywood. In fact, they call it Bollywood. I encouraged Paddy to take a picture of him with his camera phone. Indian Dinero (his real name's Rajinikanth b.t.w.) saw him and he held up the camera to ask if it was OK to take his picture. He waved us over! We walked over to his table and Paddy said “I was just explaining to my American friend that you’re the Indian Robert Dinero”. The guy laughed and gestured for us to sit down next to him for a picture. Paddy offered for me to sit down for the picture first and Indian Dinero said, no not the American! He doesn’t even know who I am! Let him take the picture!” Pretty funny. He’s right though. I still don’t know who the hell he is. Got a picture of him and Paddy though and Gautam is very jealous.The airports are very convenient and highly secure. You have to show an itinerary just to walk in the door. You scan your bag before you go to the ticket counter. The lines are all short. You’re in and out in 2 minutes. The security check points are funny. Since product is expensive and labor is cheap, there are a bunch of dudes with hand scanners that do the scanning (vs. the electronic doorways you walk through). There are no jetways. All the gates are right in the front and to get to your plane you hop on a bus and it drives you over. This means less walking actually and you’re more likely to make your flight if you get to the airport a ½ hour before flight time (I tested this today). Tickets are also cheap. You can get to anywhere in the country for $100.
The planes are awesome. I’ve flown Kingfischer airlines twice and it’s my favorite. Every plane was brand new. Kingfischer was started by the guy who started Kingfisher Beer (Indian beer). He is the Indian Richard Branson apparently. He got pissed at some airline two years ago and so decided to start his own airline. There is satellite TV in every seat and every flight attendant is hand picked by him. Coincidentally, they are all gorgeous. Really, I mean it, like model gorgeous. Of course it’s my favorite airline because of the satellite TV (that’s for Gina).
I visited four different potential partners yesterday. One was a smaller startup of really smart software engineers, one was essentially a sweat shop (20 programmers packed in a 12x12 room, a very hot room) and the other two were large publicly traded companies. I’m really glad I came because on paper, the first two firms looked the same and visiting their development center proved they were very, very different. After visiting these firms there are three major things I’ve determined. 1) All application development will eventually be over here. They’re not ready for it all yet, but they are coming up the learning curve fast and eventually will surpass the purely domestic US firms. In some ways, they already have as some of their CMM processes force them to focus on continuous improvement. As collaboration software continues to improve and software development tools continue to mature, this will become more and more of a reality. In ten years I’ll be surprised if there is any application development happening in the US. Probably on the same scale as the amount textile manufacturing that’s occurring in the US (i.e. very little). 2) Their growth is constrained by sales. These guys can build stuff until the cows come home but they don’t have the people to sell it. As I was listening to their sales pitches I was giving them suggestions on how they could improve the delivery of their value proposition. With the big guys, discussions on how we can engage them as a partner turned to discussions on them acquiring us. I don't feel this makes sense yet. What is contagious is there excitement and passion for delivery. Their portfolios are impressive as well. They are building some very cool stuff and are just as engaged in embracing emerging technologies as we are, probably more so because there passion for learning is thriving. There project management processes are also improving. They’re all talking Agile, which I found very inspiring. Finally 3) Since they are so far removed from the business users, they are going to have a hard time building strategic technology (i.e. EA), product management/deep business analysis or management consulting practices. This is where the future and opportunity lies for boutique consulting firms (i.e. Solstice). Offshore firms are going to have to either partner or inorganically acquire this talent, but those roles will remain in the US (or wherever the business is). Just like the clothing industry, the clothes may be made in China, but they’re still designed in New York.
That’s all for now. I have some other things to share but will save that for a later date. All in all it’s been a great time and I’m looking forward to the rest of the trip.
Let me know your thoughts!
-J
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