UMESH PONNAN

Say No to Tobacco

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Mon, 30 May 2011 21:18:00 -0700

Here are few details to know about Tobacco and must be shared and spread to as many as people possible across globe:

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death. This year, more than 5 million people will die from a tobacco-related heart attack, stroke, cancer, lung ailment or other disease. That does not include the more than 600,000 people – more than a quarter of them children – who will die from exposure to second-hand smoke. The annual death toll from the global epidemic of tobacco use could rise to 8 million by 2030. Having killed 100 million people during the 20th century, tobacco use could kill 1 billion during the 21st century. It kills more than five million people a year – an average of one person every six seconds – and accounts for one in 10 adult deaths. The tobacco epidemic kills nearly 6 million people per year.

· Only 5.4% of people are protected by comprehensive national smoke-free laws.
· In 2008, the number of people protected from second-hand smoke increased by 74% to 362 million from 208 million in 2007.
· Of the 100 most populous cities, 22 are smoke free. Almost half of children regularly breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke.
· Over 40% of children have at least one smoking parent.
· Second-hand smoke causes more than 600 000 premature deaths per year.
· In 2004, children accounted for 28% of the deaths attributable to second-hand smoke.
· There are more than 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, of which at least 250 are known to be harmful and more than 50 are known to cause cancer.
· In adults, second-hand smoke causes serious cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer. In infants, it causes sudden death. In pregnant women, it causes low birth weight.

For more info, please check the below link:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/index.html

SAY NO TO TOBACCO !!!

Salient Features of Jan Lokpal Bill

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:08:00 -0700

An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up
Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.
Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.
The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.
How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant.
So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a month’s time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.
But won’t the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That won’t be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.
What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months.
What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.
It will be the duty of the Lokpal to provide protection to those who are being victimized for raising their voice against corruption.

Source: India Against Corruption (http://indiaagainstcorruption.org/index.php)

We are in Blue, You are in Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:58:00 -0700

We are in Blue, You are in Blue

Together we all are, go India go we are with you

Sweat is Blue, tears are Blue

Joy is Blue, blood is Blue

We are in Blue, You are in Blue

Together we all are, go India go we are with you

Colours are many, but none like Blue

Teams are many, but none like you

We are in Blue, You are in Blue

Together we all are, go India go we are with you

Matches are few, luck is with you

Winners of the cup are meant to be you

We are in Blue, you are in Blue

Together we all are, go India go we are with you

Cheer Indian Cricket Team and let them bring back the glory of 1983 this time!!

National and Organisational Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:29:00 -0800

National and Organisational Culture

View more presentations from Umesh Ponnan.

Business Process Outsourcing in India

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 10:17:00 -0800

The offshore outsourcing started in India three decades back when multinationals started to outsource services to India in the mid 1980s, which had a fast-track movement in 1990s. Although outsourcing of manufactured goods, import and export of products existed many years back but outsourcing of services was not in movement prior to 1980s. This was enabled by the impressive development in internet and telecommunications which offered quick entry for outsourcing of services to India. In 1980s, British Airways and other global airlines made their base in New Delhi in order to execute their back-office operations. Joining the league, many international banks like American Express also started conducting their regional back office operations in India. In 1985, the first multinational technical design centre was set up in Bangalore (Bengaluru) by Texas Instruments (Source: Sourcing Line website). The first large scale offshore outsourcing in India started after the visit of GE’s Jack Welch to India in 1989. Although GE already had presence in India, they further went to establish captive business process outsourcing centres which primarily dealt with their non-Indian operations. Late 1990s were the years for boom in Information Technology and Telecommunication sector, the Y2K problem and rapid development in internet gave way to IT and Telecommunication services to be outsourced to India (Sourcing Line, 2008). Primarily, business process outsourcing in India became popular in engineering and information technology sector. Business process outsourcing in India widely covers areas such as manufacturing, automobile services, call centre services, data entry, transcription, financial services, banking services, engineering services, infrastructure, healthcare services, IT and Telecom, HR services, and web services.

Under the capitalist world system, India has transformed from semi-periphery to core category where it acquired many advanced economic activities and improved its trade with developed nations (World Systems Theory, Lecture notes). Following this, the Indian business process outsourcing industry is dominated by IT and ITeS (IT enabled Services). Over the past decade, India has seen a tremendous growth in IT and BPO industries. Topping the list of offshore destinations, India is now accounts for 65 percent of the global IT offshore industry and 46 percent of global business process outsourcing industry (NASSCOM-McKinsey, 2005). As per NASSCOM & McKinsey’s report, the global offshoring exceeds US $300 billion and Indian IT and BPO industries will grow at an annual rate of 25 percent, which will contribute US $ 60 billion to export revenues.

NASSCOM’s 2009 report shows that Indian IT-BPO grew by 12 percent and reached US $ 71.7 billion. Software and services exports including exports of IT, Engineering, R & D and BPO, reached US $ 47billion in FY 2009 showing 16 percent growth rate. In last few years India has seen diversified market exposure to offshore outsourcing which includes several mature and emerging markets. As per the report, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) held the major share in Indian IT-BPO and is also the largest vertical market for the industry followed by Hi-Tech / Telecom (NASSCOM 2009). Following this development in Indian business process outsourcing sector, it is very evident that the three decade old industry has shown great value addition to the India’s economy and society. Business process outsourcing has not only driven the development of various regions in India but also has vastly contributed towards empowering the huge talent pool by creating innovative platforms.

Indian IT-BPO industry has gone under a quick uprising meeting the global standards and needs. The industry is now one of the main pillars of Indian economy and has put India as an IT hub at a global level. NASSCOM’s study shows that the industry is heading towards IT Strategy, Consulting, and high-end services like analytics and engineering design services (NASSCOM, 2010). Thinking about the kind of tasks being outsourced to India, we can now see that Indian business process outsourcing is now taking in more quality works than quantity related. The type of works such as back-end processing works, data entry, software development, customer support and maintenance works, are now being reduced in numbers. As the focus of the industry is now shifting towards more on quality related tasks, Indian business process outsourcing sector is providing its service in end to end product development, business transformation and re-engineering. As per NASSCOM, the value proposition of Indian business process outsourcing is now on domain expertise which supports end to end services along with research and development, whereas in 80’s and 90’s it used to be providing low-cost services and high labour pool.

As Indian IT-BPO industry is holding major share when compared to other outsourcing services in India and going by the reports produced by NASSCOM, Indian IT-BPO industry is having its presence in 52 nations, 200 cities and 400 delivery centres. There are 10 companies which are listed on overseas stock exchanges and the whole Indian IT-BPO industry serves over 400 Fortune 500 customers (NASSCOM, 2010). Study done by NASSCOM also shows that Indian outsourcing industry has employed around 3 percent foreign nationals which helped creating savings of US $ 25-30 billion in source economies in FY 2009 (NASSCOM, 2010). Following this if we think what impact Indian business process outsourcing is has shown on employment sector in India, it is far higher when compared to other sectors. Alongside of having over 750 captive outsourcing centres including world’s six largest software companies, it employs 20 percent of the workforce in the country (NASSCOM 2010). The Indian IT-BPO industry has created direct jobs for over 2.2 million people and it has also contributed to providing indirect jobs to 8 million people (NASSCOM 2010).

By 2010 it is expected that employment (both direct and indirect) created by Indian IT-BPO industry will go up to 10 million and 20 million respectively (NASSCOM, 2010). Looking at the employment opportunities provided at the level of cities (tier1, tier 2 and tier3), interesting the facts shows that 58 percent of workforce in Indian business process outsourcing industry is from tier 2/3 cities with 56 percent being the key bread earners (NASSCOM, 2010). The NASSCOM study shows that by 2020, industry will provide direct employment to 4 million people from tier 2/3 cities.

Indian IT-BPO industry is doing its best in providing employment to female workers. 31 percent of Indian IT-BPO industry’s workforce in FY 2009 was represented by women, responsible for 45 percent of new intake (NASSCOM, 2010). The study also shows that by 2020, there will be five million women employees expected to join the industry’s workforce.

In short, business process outsourcing is taking greater turns in Indian economy contributing at a better level. The industry has shown 1.2 percent of national GDP in FY 1998 which is now estimated to be 5.8 percent showing net value addition of 3.5-4.1 percent (NASSCOM, 2009). Indian business process outsourcing industry has been taking tasks which offered low – cost services and greater scalability to customers involving tasks such data entry and call centres. And now moving its focus on high-end services such as end to end product development, R & D and business consulting. This move of Indian offshore outsourcing industry shows that now more and more quality jobs are being sourced than quantity based. Result of this move shows industry’s growth and also this has provided employment opportunities to a vast pool of workforce including those in tier 2 and tier 3 cities such as Indore, Ahmedabad and Cochin.

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Reference

Indian IT-BPO Factsheet, 2009. Indian IT-BPO Industry 2009: NASSCOM Analysis. NASSCOM, India. [Online] Available at : Accessed on [ 26 November 2010].

McKinsey & Company, 2005. NASSCOM-McKinsey Report 2005 - Extending India’s Leadership of the Global IT and BPO Industries. [Online] McKinsey & Company. Available at : Accessed on [28 November 2010].

Mike. 2008. History of Outsourcing to India. [Online] Sourcing Line. Available at : < http://www.sourcingline.com/resources/history-of-outsourcing-to-india> Accessed on [ 11 January 2011].

NASSCOM, 2010. Impact of IT-BPO Industry on the Indian Economy and Society. [Online] NASSCOM. Available at: < http://www.nasscom.in/upload/newsline/sept2010/InFocus.pdf> Accessed on [06 January 2011].

#Innovative experime

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 11:25:00 -0800

#Innovative experiment by IBM in India http://htxt.it/OI9W

Winklevoss Brothers

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 10:58:00 -0800

Winklevoss Brothers want more from Mark and filled a lawsuite against him again claiming that they were given false info about FB's worth while settling $65 million in 2008... FB is making money, so do they... : )

Blekko – Search engine with Slash tag

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 08:45:00 -0800

I have been reading about Blekko from quite some time. Finally I made my mind to visit Blekko and see what difference it brings in the search engine world. I must say I was very late to discover this goodie. Blekko (currently in beta version) gives you a better insight in searching web and giving you choice of excluding what you do not want to look for.

It uses Slash Tags to give a much closer search result which you are looking for. Slash tags are unique with Blekko and beauty is one can have personal slash tags, by which others can also get benefited. Blekko comes with variety of standard features and a fresh way to show the search results. When you make your search at Blekko, you can not only get to see the similar pages but also you can now have access to SEO info, info regarding duplicating the content, IP etc. Also Blekko gives you a option to make a search result ‘spam’ so that it will be removed from your search permanently.

Blekko can be called a tool for web researchers and SEO professionals. It shows the SEO information of a particular site in a very simplest way which in other hand you can get it from Google Analytics ...but with bit of head scratching. Blekko also brings various technologies together and bond them so well that in future it can challenge the big daddy of search engines. At Blekko you can create your own website list, edit search history, makes you social where there are people following you, and the fascinating thing is you sitename.com /date /rss and you get real-time feed.

Google has got many search features where you can search with criteria like place and time. More modification to the search results page has been done in recent past. You can see images in Google search in a more improvised way. The best part of Google is that it’s friendlier with users and it’s been in the web world from quite a long time. However, I believe that online marketing professionals will like Blekko in certain way. Already Blekko is catching up with waves in the online world and when I did a search on it in Google Insights, I was amazed to see that my Indian mates are hitting hard for it – high search volume index.

Anyway let’s wait and watch how other search engines reply back to Blekko’s slash tag technique and how Blekko comes out with PPC campaign strategies. In the meantime if any of you are on Blekko then you can follow me ; ) (http://blekko.com/user/umeshponnan).

How to reduce website download time?

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sat, 4 Sep 2010 09:43:00 -0700

Website download time and SEO have the same relation as a customer and retail store has got. Imagine you go to your favourite retail store to buy monthly grocery but you find that it takes long time to get your items billed and ultimately it takes more time for you reach home back. Whereas your friend uses an automatic checkout store where he can straight go to the counter and get the items billed and checkout with the help of an automatic machine. It saves time and your friend pays the same price as you do. Now it’s obvious that next month you will join your friend when it comes to buy monthly grocery.

Same way when your customers come online to visit your website, they wish that your site downloads faster and thus they can have a quick and smooth experience. This will make your website more user-friendly and helps to bring in more traffic. In this article I have mentioned few tips which new folks having websites can follow. Following are tips which can influence your website’s downloading time:

1. Use compressing software applications like GZip which helps to compress your server files. This helps in increasing transfer of data per user.

2. Graphic and Design files to be resized and compressed. Using tools like OptiPNG you can optimize the size of your PNG images used in websites. There are many other tools also available like Libjpeg which helps is optimizing Jpeg images. You can also use options like having Sprites and Paralleling request. These will help in downloading the images in a quicker way and thus helping your website to download faster.

3. Minifying CSS and JavaScript files can also help your website to download faster. This will remove the unwanted line breaks and spaces from your files helping you to save few bytes.

4. Caching is another good way to save some bandwidth and making downloading the site faster. Caching is a technique where resources like images and scripts are reserved for the returning visitors of website. Ideally, you can keep the cache-time limit for more than 30 days.

5. Use Cookieless Domain to serve your static content of the website. This helps you to avoid cookies to be transferred every time there is a request on your site. You can call all images, CSS and JavaScript of your website from a cookieless domain.

I hope the above mentioned tips might help you in making your website to download faster. Apart from these, use tools like Page Speed and YSlow which evaluates the web pages of your website and gives suggestions to improve the downloading time.

Podcasting and its benefits

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:16:00 -0700

I know most of us have heard and are familiar with the concept of PODCASTING. However, I felt like posting a small write-up on Podcasting here at my blog. This post might help the beginners to get acquainted with the concept and value-addition given by Podcasting. And for those who are familiar with it but have never tried hands on it, might get a spark in mind to start using it as an extensive marketing tool.

Let’s first know what a Podcast is. The word Podcast is a blend of two distinct words – pod (playable on demand) and broadcast. A Podcast can be called as an audio file which can be downloaded by you and listened to it whenever you want and wherever you are. Just how you subscribe to various online articles and news feeds, you can also subscribe podcasts and download them to your desktop (having internet connection) or mp3 player. To do so you just require client application software known as Podcatcher. Podcasts can be anything ranging from a music file to any recorded discussions, lecture notes to class room trainings; you can get any topic of your interest in the form of podcast.

Now that we know what a podcast is, let us explore few benefits which you can have by podcasting. In the world of marketing, podcasting has caught attention of many organisations and individual entrepreneurs and below mentioned are few benefits:

· Make your customers or target audience know you better – with podcasting, you can present yourself or your organisation in a much improved way. Those who listen to your podcasts are the ones who are really interested in you and thus more prospective customers for you and increase in traffic to your online interface.

· Communicate effectively – using podcasts you can communicate with target audience in a more effective way by giving out valuable information, which in turn makes your target audience trust you more and come back to you often.

· Your customers get required information when they are on move – as podcasts can be downloaded in mp3 players and also there are options available for the smartphone users. Hence even when your customers are on their move, they can listen to you and get updates.

· Gives you opportunity for more earnings – if your podcasts are famous and liked by many then you can even be approached by the advertisers. Thus you have more options for earning now.

· Respond to your customers’ feedbacks – your podcasts can clarify all your customers’ queries and respond to their feedbacks.

The above mentioned are just few benefits and once you start using podcasting as your marketing tool with time, you will experience more such benefits. Podcasting can tap your hidden customer base and gives you reach to millions. So let go your podcasts on air and enjoy the experience.

SEO Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Wed, 4 Aug 2010 17:12:00 -0700

Following are the few tips which can be taken in to consideration while you plan to get along with SEO process for your website. Although there can be many more points to be considered but these in my understanding are the basic tips to follow. Hope these helps to kick start SEO process for your website:

1. Make a long term commitment with your SEO process as it is not for one time

2. Do a proper Keyword research and Analysis keeping your product line or services in mind

3. Make sure you have unique Title tag, Meta tag, Description for each page

4. Develop search engine friendly and unique content using targeted keywords

5. Have Google or XML Sitemap in home page

6. Increase link popularity by exchanging quality links from the site which are of same industry

7. Keep simple and organised directory structure

8. Avoid Cloaking

9. Avoid making your website full of flash or graphics or Ajax

10. Don’t stuff keywords in Meta Tags, image alt tags, page footer etc

11. Don’t use the same anchor text in all pages

12. Avoid using underscores in urls

13. Try to avoid Java Script, Tables, and on-page styles in the main HTML code rather try to call them from location

14. Never trust SEO expert who promises to bring your website on first rank or top listings forever. There is no guarantee in SEO for this.

15. Go for PPC, it is worth investing in it

16. Write news articles and start blogging

17. Invest time on Social Media with good strategies

18. Don’t submit your website link to directories more than once

So you now that you know the basic steps to follow, get started and keep going. If you wish to add more to the list then feel free to comment and write back to me.

Keyword selection and importance

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:27:00 -0700

Keywords are the key to open up the doorway in order to bring-in targeted customers to your online interface, your website. Keywords play very vital role in establishing your business online. Now there will be few questions marks tagged around your head, which are most likely:

· Why to break your head in thinking and using keywords?

· What are the keywords you should be using?

· How to amass these keywords and use them to benefit your business?

If you have an online presence for your business from quite some time and still blinking on the first question, then you should definitely realise that you are far behind in competition. It is very important for one to know what are the keywords associated with one’s own business. These keywords are the phrases or terms by which your prospective customers search for the products or services your business is about and through keywords you can drive very huge traffic to your website.

Keyword selection is very critical task and you should find your keywords in a smart way. In order to know what keywords you should use, you should know what words will come to your customers’ mind when they would want to look out for your products or services. For example, if you have a product line of ‘couch’, then your customers might search it with phrases like ‘single seat couch’, ‘3 seat couch’, ‘leather sofa couch’ etc. You should also be aware of keywords used by your online competitors. Run a small research online in all the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, & MSN and check for the keywords your competitors have been using. This will give you a fair idea and help in selecting your right keywords. Keep in mind that your keyword should be explicit to your industry. The more you choose relevant keywords which define your products and services closely, the better quality traffic you will experience on your website.

Once you narrowed down to your keywords, you should know where they stand in the virtual space. There are various famous online tools available through which you can find out the popularity of your keywords but most widely used and recommended is Google Adwords where you can find global and local search numbers for your keywords along with critical information like the region they are searched more and trends. Along with popularity you should also be checking how specific your keyword to your business is. Consider the same example of ‘couch’. Say if you are dealing with ‘sleeper couch’ and but you are using popular generic keywords then for sure you will get a good traffic to website but conversion of visitors to customers might not be that effective because there is a possibility that you will get visitors who were looking for ‘traditional couch’ or ‘ leather couch’ as well. Thus you should make sure that your keywords are specific to your product line or services.

Now that you know what keywords you should be using to describe your product line or services, you should use them in an effective way. Content of your website plays a key role in this. When someone searches using those keywords, search engines look out for the indexed web pages containing those keywords. Thus, while writing content for your website you should use these keywords to describe your product line or services wherever possible and give hyperlinks to corresponding pages. But make sure that you don’t stuff your content too much with keywords as search engines hate such practices. You should also focus on plurals and forms of your keywords in order to give more room to your prospective customers to reach to you.

Once you are done with all this process, don’t forget to monitor the performance of your keywords and keep updating them time to time. Once you master this process, you will see how you play around and juggle with words to get your business benefited.

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Key References:

Dallas Harvey. Choosing The Right Keywords For Your Business. Available: http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1368/Choosing-The-Right-Keywords-For-Your-Business.html. Last accessed 01/08/2010.

Scott Buresh. Facts of the week: How to choose the right keywords for your site. Available: http://www.free-seo-news.com/newsletter70.htm. Last accessed 01/08/2010.

Wendy Boswell. How To Choose The Right Keywords and Phrases for Your Web Site. Available: http://websearch.about.com/od/quicktipsandtricks/ht/keyword.htm. Last accessed 01/08/2010

Jagadeesh M. Keywords: Search Term - What, How it Works, Types, Operators and Role in SEO. Available: http://knol.google.com/k/keywords#. Last accessed 01/08/2010.

Get started with SEO and Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:55:00 -0700

Are you running a business? Planning for an online presence through a website? Oh, let me guess you already are into the virtual universe of internet. If that’s the case, then welcome friends and be ready to shed more money to fill your pockets with more money. Confused?

After my small research and understanding, I learnt that by just having online presence in the form of a website and not doing any promotional work is actually not of much worth. Yes my dear friends, if you are having a website of your own (personal or business related) then you should look at the options of promoting it and making it more visible to your target audience. This can be achieved in the best way by following various best Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques available to all of us online.

SEO can be categorised into On Page and Off Page SEO. On Page SEO primarily deals with but not limited to finding right keywords for your business and website; developing a best suitable title for each page of your website as search engines look for titles more keenly and it helps in influencing your page ranking; having right description of page (Meta Tag); writing best and genuine content keeping your customers in mind and involving your main keywords in it maintaining their proportion; having blogs with recent and first hand information of your services and products; use of best suited analytic software for you to monitor the traffic received on your website; having internal link building strategy.

Off Page SEO, as the name goes, works off the page to increase your site’s visibility by working along with your On Page SEO elements. Off Page SEO starts after completing your On Page SEO works and deals with but not limited to bookmarking your site in various famous bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious and many more; creating separate blogs and promoting your blog in various directories meant for blog promotions like Technorati; link submissions in open directories like Yahoo Directory, DMOZ etc; promotional activities involving photos and videos in various online marketing sites; writing press releases and articles for submission in PR websites and articles sites; running your own Paid Per Click (PPC) campaign; running Social Media campaign on famous social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Bebo; approaching sites who are in the same business like yours in order to share and exchange links with each other and working on affiliate marketing.

Above mentioned activities are something which can be described easily but when you really get on with them, it requires a real lot of time and money to achieve the desired results. However, if you being into online world not promoting and marketing your services and products, then believe me there is someone else who is eating out your share of business. With hard work, patience, and commitment, the above practices will fetch you good fruits on long run.

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Key References:

Melissa. (Feb 12, 2010). How to Start with SEO. Available: http://www.optimum7.com/internet-marketing/seo/how-to-start-with-seo.html. Last accessed 25/07/2010.

Vaidhyanathan. (Sep 16, 2008). 21 Off-Page SEO Strategies to Build Your Online Reputation. Available: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/21offpage-seo-strategies-to-build-your-online-reputation. Last accessed 25/07/2010.

Competencies Required for Expatriate Selection

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Sun, 9 May 2010 04:35:00 -0700

With the growing business needs at international level, organisations have started recognising the criticality of International Human Resource Management. One of the main aspects of IHRM supporting the growing needs of global organisations is “Expatriate Selection”. Selection of key resources for the global assignments has always been a key issue faced by global organisations. This paper focuses at the core competencies required by the HR professionals/managers for expatriate selection and how they make use these competencies. By and large, this paper is divided into three parts, first part is about what is required, second part will cover the operational aspects, and third part will focus on the impact and differences involved in expatriate selection.

WHAT IS REQUIRED?

As an HR professional / manager, there is huge responsibility involved when it comes to selecting resources or candidates for global assignments. In order to select the right fit for the global assignments, HR manager needs to cover the factors (Scullion, Collings, 2006) like Strategic contribution (HR manager should possess capabilities for managing culture, facilitate change, get involved in the strategic decision making and should have up to date market information), Personal credibility (This factor involves the networking skills and being result oriented. Apart from these, HR manager should have effective communication skills), HR Delivery (HR manager should be able to frame developmental programmes, foster internal communication process, and provide career planning advice and counselling. Restructuring, measuring the global implications of HR practices are also vital. Delivery also involves staffing and performance management), Business Knowledge (HR manager should have understanding of the integrated value chain and the firm’s value proposition), HR Technology (Use of technology is a key element when it comes to global staff selection and management. HR mangers should use technology to deliver value added results). These are the primary competencies which an HR Manager should possess. Apart from these there can be few other skills also which can add more value to the selection of expatriates.

HR manager should be very clear and well aware of the assignment for which he/she will select the best resources available. HR manager should be aware of the requirements in the Host country and also should be aware of the legislation details. HR manager need to have high analytical skills for planning the selection process and also to carry out the cost related analyses. Prior experience in expatriate selection adds more value to skill-set. Awareness of the cross-cultural and behavioural challenges is highly required, as based on this you can plan for the required pre-departure expatriate trainings.

OPERATIONS

Having known the competencies required for selecting expatriates, it is also very important to know the methodology to be used in selection process. Prior to selecting the various selection techniques for the selection process, HR manager has to keep few aspects in mind like setting up the legal entities to transfer employees, understand the implications and ramifications of general employment law, for example understand specific legal frameworks related to payroll and reward system etc (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007, p 98).

The process of selecting expatriates for global assignments starts with identifying right fit for the role. Mostly the eligible candidates for such assignments will be internal and their selection can be linked to transfer or promotion (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007). As a HR manager, you should be aware of the top competencies required by any candidate to be eligible for the global assignment and these can be classified[1] as Professional and technical competence and experience on the job, personality traits and relational abilities, perceptual dimensions and life strategies, self-maintenance factors, leadership and motivational factors, cultural awareness and family situations. Having these factors in mind and by strategic thinking, HR manager should also be able to trace out the capitals people need when they are on global assignments. These can be grouped as Social capital (involving trust), Political capital (leads to legitimacy), Human capital (linking to competencies) and Cultural capital (social inclusion and acceptance) (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007, p 245).

HR manager should be having understanding of technical and managerial qualifications but at the same time, manager should also keep non-technical factors in mind such as family situations. One major hurdle in the selection process is the use of informal selection processes, which Harris and Brewster (1999) called ‘coffee machine system’. This leads to selection from a small pool of candidates who are known to managers personally or come out through personal references. Such practices may lead to some serious failures. As a key person for selection of resources for global assignments, HR manager should key in more elements for formal expatriate selection systems and avoidance of such items can be extremely costly for the organisation. HR manager should have understanding of well-known selection techniques and practices such as psychometric assessments of competencies. Sparrow (1999) has outlined one such approach which consists of cultural adaptability assessment developed by Kaisen Consulting (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007). Understanding of this approach helps in finding the psychological adaptations that should occur in a global assignment but there is one potential demerit of this as candidates sometimes will not reveal actual facts related to family situations because such assignments may be critical for their progress.

HR manager should have value addition to the selection process such as to obtain appropriate information about jobs, individuals and organisation in order to enable high-quality decisions, to contribute to the most productive and effective production, to make sure cost-benefit for the investment made in an employee selected for the assignment etc. In order to meet such expectations, HR manager should adapt some good selection techniques and the most common ones are Interviews, assessment centres, psychological testing, and Reference checks. For all these techniques, it requires to have a wide range of skills so as to make a strategic decision of selecting the right fit for the role. When it comes to interviews, HR manager should be aware of the possible outcomes of using structure and unstructured interviews. Also significant cross-cultural issues can arise in face-to-face interviews (Sparrow, 1999). Behaviours of candidates vary from country to country and as an International HR professional one must encompass the knowledge of identifying such differences. One is also required to have knowledge of how to collect and analyse the data gathered from various selection techniques used in order to make a better selection.

IMPACT AND DIFFERENCES

When it comes to the selection of resources for global assignments, HR managers should be aware of the different practices and methodologies followed in different countries and these vary with different cultures as well. The selection of expatriates is subject to the various different practices followed in the respective countries. Processes are different in Europe than followed in India or Arab and Asian countries. There are different legal implications involved and HR managers have to understand the respective country law as it affects the use of employment exchanges and job centres, Fixed-term contracts, Hours of work, Time off work, Termination of employment, Redundancy, Maternity leave, Health and safety, Use of psychological testing, Disclosure of information, Discrimination and equal opportunities (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007).

It’s very important which selection technique is used in selection process as few techniques and methods are common in some countries but may not be used at all in others. For instance, empirical predictive model is common in UK and in contrast, in France, clinical assessment is more popular. Similarly Graphology is more famous in France and Switzerland, but hardly used elsewhere (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007). A study shows that how much organisations use different selection methods in different countries (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007 p103).

Techniques like Interviews may involve different cultural aspects when it comes to conducting interviews for host or parent or third country nationals. US interview styles are different from that of Korean (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007). Again using Psychometric tests can be difficult in most of the countries due to the cross-cultural differences. There has to be culture-free, culture-reduced and culture-fair psychological testing in place in order to avoid cultural differences affecting the selection process. This adds to the cost factor involved in selection process and HR managers should judge whether this extra cost is valid or not. ‘Countries also differ greatly in terms of the practices related to user qualification, legal and statutory constraints on test use and the consequences for those tested, and controls exercised over the use of tests’ (Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007 p106).

CONCLUSION

Overall, there is great amount of effort required from HR Managers when it comes to selecting resources for global assignments. They need to have the core competencies for selecting right fit for the role, they should know what techniques and methods can be used for selection process and also should be aware how things change from country to country. Managers should be able to foresee risks involved in selection process and should encompass skills to overcome such difficulties and risks, providing better results linked to the organisation’s business objectives. The selection process is also subject to the dominant cultural viewpoint or approach adopted by the organisations (Leopold, Harris, 2009). HR Managers should also keep their organisation’s viewpoint (polycentric, ethnocentric, geocentric or regiocentric) in mind while framing the selection process.

References:

Scullion, H., Collings, G. David., 2006. Global Staffing. Oxon: Routledge.

Brewster, C., Sparrow, P., Vernon, G. 2007. International Human Resource Management. 2^nd ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Leopold, J., Harris, L., 2009. The Strategic Management of Human Resources. 2^nd ed. UK: Pearson Education Limited

Notes:

[1] Brewster, Sparrow, Vernon, 2007, p 242 (Aycan, 1997; Pucik, 1998; Yamazaki and Kayes, 2004; and Stroh, Black, Mendenhall and Gregersen, 2005)

Team Building

noreply@blogger.com (Umesh) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:42:00 -0700

Humans are social living beings who always desire to be in a group. According to Maslow’s need based theory, one of the basic needs of an individual is to fulfill the social equirements and be socially satisfied. Individuals tend to work in groups or teams to meet their goals. Without the proper understanding among individuals in a group, there will not be any growth towards achievement of the desired goals.

This necessitate for a stirring team building process, which in return will help the individuals to have a core responsibility of achieving their goals as planned and feeling of togetherness. In a team building process, various aspects have to be considered.

Core strength of team
Communication among members
Attitude towards fellow teammate
Focus of team members

Individuals should be motivated by team leaders in order to improve their performances and work for the common goal - company’s growth. Underperformers always feel a pressure of being treated indifferently by their leaders. Achilles' heel is always been noticed more than the strength. Leaders are tend to note the weak points in their team members more than appreciating them for their small accomplishments and contributions.

Rather than pointing out the weak points, leaders should try to make subordinates understand their strengths and suggest them to convert their weaknesses into strengths. In team building process, leaders play a major role. So many small issues are there which leaders most of the times ignore due to work load, like:

Proper eye contact with subordinate
Not giving much time for subordinates
Ignoring their presence
Not delegating proper work to subordinates

When leaders tend to ignore subordinate's presence and don’t make the subordinate(s) occupied with some or the other work, individuals (Subordinates) start losing their confidence and potential. They become idle and lose their caliber, which if taken care properly, can do wonders.

Subordinates always expect some attention towards them from their leaders. When team members feel ignored, the bonding between teammates breaks and conflicts arises. Leaders should always find out the reason behind the underperformance and should make subordinate understand it in a very polite manner. Leaders are expected to execute Employee Empowerment phenomenon at their work place. Employee empowerment deals with giving coaching to employees in order to make them realize their primary and secondary strengths so as to make them confident that they can play the toughest shot of the game even in high pressure. Employee empowerment involves the commitment of the leader towards building confidence and self-motivation level in subordinates. Employee empowerment brings various benefits to both the leaders and subordinates. In a way, leaders attain greater amount of confidence in their subordinates and build a very cohesive communication path with them and they also improve their monitoring skills and delegation skills. Other side subordinates feel motivated and they a get a high level of enthusiasm in them. Subordinates become more dedicated and supportive to their leaders and focus towards the ultimate goal.

Every team moves towards a common goal with a force between the leader and the
subordinates, which drives them till they achieve their goal.