René Seifert - Entrepreneur & Global Citizen

All my 10 years of being a radio-presenter till 2003 slightly re-appeared yesterday night when I was guest at the radio show at SeoFM.com, a weekly online-format of Germany's leading Search-Engine-Optimizers (SEOs) Marcus Tandler (a.k.a. Mediadonis ) and his "partner in crime" Ralf Götz (a.k.a. Fridaynite). It's a one hour talk format which is about the latest development/gossip from the SEO-scene mixed with a lot of infantile jokes - to which I contributed gladly :-) In addition, Mediadonis interviewed my on my business of offshore outsourcing to India for projects revolving around SEO, which could be either building some content-centred apps, some BPO driven tasks for e.g. ad-campains or content-production. Here is the link to the show for time-shifted listening (German language).

So one after the other:

• Sure, surprise, surprise, India is good at software engineering, yet as I have written already on this blog a few times, it's always a number game, hence: If you have 5 people for at least 3 months, it's worth considering. The more and the longer - the better.
• For BPO also big numbers pay off and it always will be much easier, maybe only feasible, if the task is not to a large degree dependant on German language.
• Content-production can work, again in English language. The challenge will be in recruiting and quality assurance, and again, will only pay off with scale.

Mediadonis charmingy titled this show "Rent a Jobkiller", no wonder as I had explained plainly : "My business model rests on two pillars: One is slashing German jobs and increasing unemployment, the other exploiting poor Indians and taking away their future". As there are really people who argue such nonsense with fully conviction, I have made it a virtue to repeat it ironically as often as possible …

5.55 PM

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Posted to Business, English, Europe, Germany, Globalization, India, Language Selection, Media, Offshoring, Technology, Uncategorized

Something I really don’t want to miss out on reporting was my visit to Bangalore’s Vatsalya Orphanage last Saturday. Thanks to my neighbour Shashi who is like a sister to me, takes care of my house when I am travelling and likewise of me when I am at home in Bangalore, has been involved for years into charity work for this place. The entire “Abhaya Ashram” of the compound has been handed over by the Maharaja of Mysore in 1948 then under the title of “Association for moral and social hygiene” - so says the inscript carved in stone at the entry.

I bow my head in deepest respect for all the work which Shashi and the other volunteers are putting into making this place a little oasis for those who would otherwise be forgotten and left behind. The place is neat, in good shape and very well run which is a challenge by itself: hiring some full-time staff, refurbishing things which need it most and constantly trying to find donors for funding.

I got such a very warm welcome by the around 50 children who were waiting in excitement for the “Uncle from Germany”, sitting row by row on mattresses. Many questions which I had to answer from “What do people eat in Germany” to “Why are you so tall”? I spend a good there, at some point solving some algebra equations with them (they really got all of them right). It was indeed for me very touching seeing all these bright, curious and energetic kids in front of me who certainly did not have the best start in the past, but thanks to Vatsalya could look into a brighter future.

Here is the bedroom of the children where they start their day really early at 5.30 am. And I could tell that they made a very robust and disciplined impression without missing out on giving them as much love as such a setting allows for. (Here are, by the way, a few more pictures on Flickr.)

My words in Vatsalya’s guestbook started with: “Where there is caring, there is hope”. Yet “caring” should not just remain an abstract metaphor on paper, but ought to translate into an obligation for myself to make a difference. For instance, reasonable money can pay for many clothes, books or desks in the classroom. And spending time there means equally doing a favour to the children as it doing a favour to myself for staying grounded to the realities of life and receiving these small little gestures that money can’t buy.

7.14 AM

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I remember when I heard this song for the first time in the back-seat of a car driving through Mumbai, it's humid heat, it dusty streets when hardly any traffic moves forward, I was taken in immediately. It came from a CD which I understood was from the same artist, and as distances in the speed of snail in Mumbai provide ample time, the song came at least three times. I must have heard it a few times on random occasions, but never "got a grip on it". Untill I recently bought a compilation of "Top 50 Bollywood Songs". And as I lost it, so I found it. "Bulla Ki Jaana Kaun", by the Indian artist Rabbi Shergill. My phantom pain of missing out on the songs got more than alleviated by the additional detection of the video on YouTube. Here it is, and it is as stunning as the song, it's very much like India, it's kind of also a bit of "my India".

"Bulla Ki Jaana Maen Kaun" actually means "I don't know who I am" and pays tribute to the famous Urdu poet Bullae Shah, a beacon of peace between rivalling Muslims and Sikhs in Punjab. It's worthwhile noting that the poet wrote at the beginning of the 19th century, yet his message hasn't lost anything from its relevance today. In sync with the lyrics, the video shows what the mystery of India is about. Many people, different people who in spite of their various background form a "unity through diversity" as writer and diplomat Shashi Tharoor explains in his fluid book "The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone". And the pre-eminent statement "I don't know who I am" serves much less a confession of one's disorientation or, worse, lack if identity than the acknowledgement of one's humility during the pressing quest for truth. 

Hope you like the song, too, along with the video, the entry-scene of the magic Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, with it's fast cuts, it's deliberate blurs, it's changing places, colours and faces. In all the possible abstraction of a song, its whole mood reflects precisely that India is a never-ending stream of discovery. Where now knowing who you are, is both a starting point and and end in itself. 

4.47 PM

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Yesterday I had a very inspiring flight with Lufthansa 754 from Frankfurt to Bangalore, because my seat-neighbour was a "dead head". What sounds grim to the uneducated ear (like mine was till yesterday as well), is a common expression in the aviation industry. It means that a flight attendant is on a flight (sometimes even in uniform) as a passenger, because this flight serves as a transportation flight to her next mission where he or she will be on duty. The reason yesterday was that there was no paying guest in the First Class, hence Lufthansa kept it empty, but therefore was coping with a surplus of flight attendants. Yet, for the return flight of the same crew which will leave tomorrow morning from Bangalore to Frankfurt on LH 755, there again the plane is fully loaded, hence the flight attendant is required. 

Another thing I can assure: My "dead head"-neighbour was very much alive and very friendly, too. And as I always want to know it all, I poked her with tons of question which she patiently answered. How the crews constantly change and they have been trained to work together well in each and every constellation, but that for a longer trip of a few days team-spirit would kick in which would even make a difference for the better. So, it's basically like in any other profession.

What I really appreciated was her commitment which she had towards her company which was true and genuine, and not just a show to please me. And my own observation with Lufthansa's service overall is really positive, and especially it has improved over the last 10 years. In the vast majority, the crew expels a solid German charm which is perfectly fine: It's not subservient, good so, but I'd describe it as friendly, fast and efficient. As the service on board is improving, the gap to the service level on the ground (especially in Germany) is widening. What I have experienced there already from the check-in counter to the desk in the lounges was abysmal. 

When I asked my neighbour what the two shittiest incidents were in her 10 years of flying, she mentioned two. The second-shittiest was a flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt when a passenger got a heart attack. Thanks to the defibrillator on board, a doctor who happened to be on board, managed to re-animate the person and recommended a safety-landing to bring the patient to intense care on the ground. The plane was already somewhere at the east coast of Canada and the nearest airport was prohibitive because of bad weather. An other, further airport seemed possible, the plane was in descend, the captain advised the crew that due to bad weather and a short runway that it should prepare for a "safe landing". The weather was that bad that in the final approach, however, the captain decided for a go-around with next destination Reykjavik in Island. At this point the patient who scratched the end of his days by a narrow margin started to argue with the crew. 

Not what one might expect, that he was scared for his life and why the plane didn't land to get him to hospital. By contrary, he insisted he was fine, he needed to go to Frankfurt, because he would miss his connecting flight. Yet, the pilot clearly told him "no way", first because the doctor said differently and second, by now the plane had burnt so much fuel through the missed approach that it had to land for refuelling anyway. In Reykjavik all went fine, the ambulance took the patient and the plane could continue to Frankfurt within one hour.

Clearly number one of my neighbours bad events happened on October 7th, 2002 when a Boing 747 from Lufthansa in marginal weather conditions was set for approach to Mexico City airport. The crew on the flight deck got a warning from the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) about another plane which would intersect the course of their flight. Air Traffic Control (ATC) gave instruction NOT to climb what was exactly what TCAS commanded. As the planes got closer and closer, the pilots - according to their training - decided to ignore the ATC, follow the TCAS and pull up. My "dead head" sat on the left side of the plane looking out of the window when the Jumbo went into a steep climb, just at that moment the clouds cleared up for a moment and she saw the other plane, an Airbus from Mexicana Airlines, under-flying the Jumbo at 30 meters distance. Pretty shitty picture, isn't it. I found an online-source about the incident here.

The investigation found out 1.5 years later that it was the clear fault of Mexican Air Traffic Control and the pilots had saved the lives of their own 388 plus 120 people of the other plane through their disobedience. Interesting I found the smart way of my neighbour to cope with the incident: She wanted to come over it, deliberately requested the same flight again and for landing asked the captain to watch the landing from the jump-seat from the cockpit. After seeing how this landing could go smooth and safe, she managed to mentally tick it off once forever, and continue enjoying her work as she had always done.

On February 7th 2008, during the fantastic EO University in Delhi (I wrote about it here), Mr. Rajiv Memani, Country Head of Ernst & Young India gave a presentation which was insightful. Yet, the aftermath of that presentation was it it own way insightful, too, and I thought I write a few open lines to him. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Mr. Memani,

On February 7th 2008 you really excited a whole crowd of committed members of the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) with your appearance at our University in Delhi. You held a profound, analytical and highly competent presentation about the state of the Indian economy, its opportunities and its risks. For me (as I wrote on this blog ) and for many others it was one of the highlights of our learning programme. And, as entrepreneurs, we understood well that you were not just showing up for charitable reasons, but certainly also as the leader of Ernst & Young India. To describe company as a "for profit" would be stating the obvious.

So your company certainly took a good decision to act as the lead sponsor of the event, with your logo all around and a desk to start a conversation with one of your employees which could at some point lead to an engagement for your firm. The platform you selected for this kind of activity was without doubt in marketing terms "highly targeted" towards your potential client group.

Yet, what struck me more than strange is your personal and your organizational behaviour in the aftermath of the event. You held a presentation with insightful Power Point Charts where you promised to share them with whoever would require them. He or she should just drop you an e-mail. Smart move, unassuming and purpose-driven: permission marketing at its best. Also, you and I had a brief chat after your presentation, exchanged business cards and shook hands with the mandatory, easy-going "let's keep in touch".

Sadly, unlike Ratan Tata's famous words "a promise is a promise", your promise doesn't seem to bear any meaning. A week later, I wrote you a friendly e-mail reverting to your promise politely asking for the presentation. That I did not get any reply, did not diminish my perseverance. Hence, I addressed the super-helpful staff of EO who had coordinated your appearance. From the messages I received from them, I have not the slightest doubt that they tried everything to contact you directly as well as members from your staff. No reaction, nobody ever returned their calls and e-mails. 

Isn't that ironic, Mr. Memani, that your organization spends significant money on customer acquisition on such an event, you spend your valuable time there - all for the purpose to build relationships with potential clients. And then right when when this purpose starts to materialize, there is just a black hole that swallows all the matter. 

I wonder what I should make out of that. From any standpoint of business reason, you are clearly part of a dysfunctional organization which is counterproductive to its own alleged objectives. That you in your responsibility might not have the time to reply personally would be more than understood, but obviously there is the inability to establish and run a proper staff around you. Can it be that the headline of the Financial Express "Rajiv Memani ascends the EYI Throne" was by accident so right, because you are sitting in your ivory tower, detached from operations and devoid of the ability to lead by example?

Anyway, Mr. Memani, let's not make a diplomatic crisis out of that, I'll keep your presentation in good memory, yet felt the inner urge to share these thoughts as a sort of peer-to-peer feedback with you.

With best regards

René Seifert 

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ADDITION on April 5th 2008:

Thanks Dima for your comment and moreover for sending me this dearly sought-after precious asset :-) As I try to the best of my abilities to stay fair: The presentation from Mr. Memani and Ernst & Young was really excellent. And potentially my intrinsic statement that the follow up on the event was generally crap an exaggeration. I also of course don't assume at all that there was any deliberate "discrimination" between Dima and me. Yet, my description of events on my end was still accurate. So overall, I'd suggest, "shit happens" and case closed. 

On another line I find it a fantastic example of the power of blogs as a conversational medium with all its opportunity to fill gaps, straighten things out and make adjustments on the truth. 

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UPDATE on July 30th 2008

The events around this blog post don't stop neither online nor offline. 10 days back I got a request (not from Ernst & Young) to take this post down which I declined. Given the internal nature of that discussion, I feel unable to share its details here.

However, this particular blog post is a phenomenal example of what Clay Shirkey's book "Here comes Everybody" is dealing with: The power of blogs to make the invisible visible and through that the irrelevant relevant. Again, this mentioned presentation is not the navel of the world, but still interestingly this blog post does evoke action. Yesterday, I received a tremendously friendly e-mail from an an associate of Ernst & Young who wrote that he was "truly shocked" to learn that I had not received the presentation. In addition, he was so friendly to send it right across to me attached to his mail. For this my deepest most professional and most respectful thanks. 

What happened by this blog post? A more or less vivid narration of an event mixed with my personal opinion received not just attention, but evoked action. For me personally, the case is closed for a long time with no bad blood or anger whatsoever against Ernst & Young. As I admitted in the paragraph above, I believe that the choice of my words - albeit true in facts - has been overly harsh. At the same time I believe, constantly updating on the "developing story" everybody involved becomes a winner: Obviously me for receiving the presentation :-) but over all Ernst & Young: Nothing else than the bottom-up commitment of smart associates can better refute my notion that their employer was a "dysfunctional organization". 

8.19 PM

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Trust that this is a category leader in my collection of T.I.I. (=This is India). Check the pics out, they are no fake. It’s a product to purchase in a regular shop, especially for festivals like Diwali where whole India is being blown up in controlled micro-explosions. And yes, it’s called “Hitler”, and to not make a mistake who stands behind as the godfather of the name, here’s Hitler’s picture, too.

The backside is equally enlightening. It names the company “Standard Fireworks (P) Limited” in Sivakasi, a town south-west of Madura in the state Tamil Nadu. According to Wikipedia, Sivakasi is famous for its fireworks-factories, more than 300 in number. Given that dense competitive landscape, there seem to be no strings attached to differentiate oneself “creatively” from the rest of the pack.

After more than four years in India, I no longer get really flabbergasted by such encounters. My interpretation of this name-choice is that it is certainly an allegory of Hitler’s war machine and its penetrating power to be transferred to the fireworks. Yet, there is a small relief looking at the seal on the backside again: The exact name of the product is in fact “10 cm Hitler” which might inadvertently point to true size of the prick - before he gets blown up.

Today I met Petra & Jürgen, two good friends who had lived in Bangalore till 2004 and we remembered a hilarious story which is truly a T.I.I. – clearly on the sympathetic side: I used to order pizzas in Bangalore from Domino Pizza which always got delivered tasty, crispy, hot and fresh. Somehow, the first time when I placed the order I spelled my last name several times

“S – E – I – F – E – R – T”

The person on the other side entered something into the IT-based customer- & order system, the pizza arrived, all well. The next time called for an order, I got greeted with the standard “Good evening, here is Domino Pizza, for taking your order may I request your phone number.” As for all these home delivery services the phone number is the unambiguous identifier (“primary key”) for the customer. I told him my number, he typed it into the system and asked back after what had prompted on his screen: “Are you Mr. Eife”? As a good German I would have had to correct him, ask him to change the name into the correct one, and if he doesn’t get it let him know that “verdammt noch mal, jetzt merken Sie es sich gefälligst!!” (too German to translate)

Yet, being in South India, knowing that it would just do nothing if I ask him to make that change, knowing that I would just get a virtual head-swing with “ya, ya, ya” and zero action to my request, and even worse create confusion and drastically increasing the risk to go to bed hungry that night, I succumbed to my destiny and replied to his question if I was “Mr. Eife” – “Yes, that’s right”. And frankly, I found so much of a likening of this name that whenever I called Domino Pizza I would say myself: “Good evening, my name is Eife and I would like to order a Pizza …”

10.51 PM

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Yesterday in Bangalore I felt honoured to attend a function of my friend and fellow EO -member Dr. Arjun Kalyanpur and his wife Dr. Sunita Maheshwari. Arjun is a radiologist, his wife Sunita a pediatric cardiologist. Five years ago, without having an M.B.A. or financial backing, this doctor-couple started a company out of their living room: Teleradiology Solutions. A medical service provider which delivers radiology-reports from Bangalore to the world. Or like Sunita explained: “A brown company in a white space.” Today the company boasts 160 employees and sits in the reputed technology-district of Whitefield in outer Bangalore. This is the building with the chaotic Indian reality to the left, and the highly performing Indian reality to the right. (All the pictures from the function are here in my Flickr-Set ).

Teleradiology Solutions’ value proposition is very straightforward: Enhance the capacity of radiologists to hospitals in the U.S., Singapore and India by a remote service, including a cost-advantage, where radiologists in India would receive digital scans via broadband. In their speciality “emergency cases”, these tele-doctors would submit their diagnosis back as fast as 30 minutes. The company is the only provider outside of Singapore which has been granted the necessary approval by the Singapore Health Ministry to do so and is currently making inroads to Europe as well.

The reason for yesterday’s function at 5 pm for High Tea was the next consequential step to enable the company’s further growth. Hence, a state-of-the-art training facility under the Sanskrit name of “Rad Gurunkel” has been inaugurated. The guest of honour to do so was Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, founder and Chairman of Biocon Ltd . Ms Shaw, besides being the richest woman in India, is highly respected across the entire country and often quoted as a role-model for women to reach highest achievements in a predominantly male-dominated society. Ms. Shaw is here with the candle lighting the lamp, Arjun to the right in the black suit.

The speeches of Ms. Shaw, Arjun and Sunita reflected pretty much the key-challenge for knowledge-driven companies like Biocon and Teleradiology Solutions: Scale. Getting the right people on board, bringing them to the required level of skills, and retaining them by growing these skills. Likewise, Infosys has recently invested US-$ 300 mn into an entire campus in Mysore. Being an entrepreneur myself, I felt amazed by the level of meticulous detail how Arjun’s company has artfully crafted processes which would be able to replicate quality of a radiology diagnosis 8,000 km such as if the doctor was right sitting beside his patient. There is for instance one FTE (full time employee) only taking care that the regulatory requirements from the U.S. are met and audited accordingly.

Constant training of medical, technical and administrative staff has according to Arjun in the past proved the most important factor in attaining that quality along with a very low defect-rate in this not very error-tolerant area. In order to be able to take the company to the next level, the new training facility will be able to scale and institutionalize the various training programmes. Here is Arjun on the right (still in the black suit, not in a white lab coat :-) and me to the left.

I wish Arjun and Sunita and all the fantastic people I met in their company yesterday all the best for their future aspirations which are constantly bolstered by hard work, dedication and honesty. In that respect, I felt deeply moved by a quotation which Sunita brought forward from the great Mahatma Gandhi: “Learn as if you will live forever, live as if you will die tomorrow.”

Yesterday it was raining like mad in Bangalore, with the usual effect that the temperature drops immediately and significantly. What happens then is that the sewers can't take all the water. The resulting effect is that the shit (or what has turned into a liquid from that feed material) is being flushed from the canalization-system onto the surface. Hence, my Sunday afternoon-walk through Bangalore received an unexpected layer of olfactory enrichment. Yet, on the pictures, one can't tell. 

Here a view on the Empire Hotel on the crossroad of Brigade/Museum-Road.

That's my coffee-break in Coffee Day on Richmond Road in my neighbourhood.

The entire picture set (19 photographs) is here on Flickr . 

Similarly, the IT-industry in India has been facing some smoothing and soothing as well lately - if not outright shit.  The drop of the dollar has created some major headache as it puts margins under tremendous pressure. Undoubtedly, in such a scenario, the vulnerability of the entire business model becomes obvious: As the major reasons for most companies in the west is clearly still cost saving, the ability of Indian companies to raise prices to compensate for the decline revenues (after exchanging them into the home-currency Rupee) is very limited. Economically, speaking prices in this sector are relatively elastic. 

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who is working in a HR-position at one of the successful mid-tier companies in Bangalore. Internally, cost are being cut. Where the HR-team used to fly to some other Indian town for recruiting and stayed in 5-star hotels, they are back to 3-star and occasionally even the Indian Railway System. Yet, on the labour market, interestingly, the unidirectional spiralling-up of wages has changed its momentum. Top performers, especially in some sought-after technologies and industry-verticals are still commanding high and higher salaries. 

However, that's the surprising news, some companies have fired staff, something which has been unheard of since the collapse of the "New Economy"-bubble in 2002. Again, having a closer look to what happens, it reveals a more differentiated picture. As companies can't really afford to forego growth by not getting talent on board (otherwise their competitors will snatch them away), they are still hiring. At the same time they are sacking the "bottom of the pyramid" which they felt they could carry around in fat times, but can't when the belt needs to be tightened. That, in turn, has led to a re-shuffling of the labour-market where the increase in supply has broadened hiring options at reasonable rates.

Sounds like an interesting case-study for aficionados of price-volume phenomenons with a pinch of game-theory in competitive environments … :-)