The Optima Kart

As I’ve shared previously, I came to the financial services industry with an undergraduate degree in computer science from a state school. Perhaps to compensate for my lack of “pedigree,” early on I put an emphasis on data and credentials: did the candidate have the “right” credentials from the “right” b-schools and companies? As I gained confidence and experience, I put more emphasis on the intangible skills that are intrinsic to whom a person is. So what do I look for when I hire today? Here are my eight Cs when examining candidates:

• Credible: Is this someone with integrity and sound judgment, who is believable and trustworthy, and who will act in good faith, not just to the “letter” of a law/policy, but embrace and respect its spirit and intent?
• Competent: Is this person the “real deal”? Does s/he have the requisite skills, experiences and knowledge to be successful in this role?

• Cultural Fit: Is this someone with the values, outlook and behavior that is congruent with that of our organization and team?

• Can-Do Attitude: Does s/he have a positive outlook with a bias to action? Is this someone who is resilient and results-oriented? Will s/he act like an owner and not just bring good ideas to the table, but also execute those ideas as well?

• Charitable: Is s/he singularly focused on his/her own success at the expense of others, or is this someone who uses his/her experience, knowledge and connections to elevate and benefit others?

• Change-oriented: Is this someone who embraces change and sees it as an opportunity for—or obstacle to—progress? Can s/he operate comfortably in a fast-paced, dynamic environment?

• Curious and Connected: Is this someone with a thirst for knowledge, who is willing to learn new ways and unlearn old ways? Is s/he actively engaged in industry conversations and well placed to bring fresh ideas, insights and perspective to the team?

• Communicator with Distinction: Can this person organize his/her ideas, get those ideas across and tailor the message to meet the needs of different audiences? Is s/he an acute listener who truly hears and understands the messages that others are sending?

]]> https://optimakart.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/how-the-optima-kart-hire-the-eight-cs/feed/ 0 573 theoptimakart The Optima Kart https://optimakart.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/why-your-competitors-star-performer-failed-in-your-organization/ https://optimakart.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/why-your-competitors-star-performer-failed-in-your-organization/#respond Mon, 23 Sep 2013 19:54:45 +0000 http://optimakart.wordpress.com/?p=570 Read More in Why your competitors star performer failed in your organization]]>

The Optima Kart

Stealing your competitor’s star performer!! Ok!! I get it, I have done that before and chances are that some of you have as well.

Most often HR is pressured by Managers into playing all sorts of dirty games to hire the top talent from the competitors. Sitting with a new hire to get the database of top talent from his previous employer, offering an informal reward to those who refer and bring competitor’s A players and what not!

These managers think of only the easy path while deciding on to bring a rival’s talent –
He knows the industry already – Check
He has proven the competencies required to do the job – Check
He has shown such an outstanding performance – Check
He will hit the ground running without any training – Check

But yet why your competitors star performer fails in your organization! Here it is!

Not having the Support

Chances are that he was getting the right support system at competitor company that helped him shine in his profile. And it is lacking in your organization. Be it access to the resources that are required for him to do his job, having supportive co-workers, having the opportunity to work independently or the freedom to make decisions. It is not just about having the right competencies to do the job that matter but it is also about having the right environment with sufficient support that helps him perform better.

Not with the right Manager

Of course, you hired the right employee with the right skills at the right place. But is he with the right manager?! A wise question to be asked. If the manager in your organization is a snarky micro managing mediocre who takes the credit of the great work of his team members, then there is no point in bringing in any rock star to work with him.

Not a cultural fit

The competitor organization’s culture can outrun yours if their organization values were aligned with their employees personal values and interest. If it was a friendly and upbeat work environment that helped him to put his full self at work and if your organization culture is not encouraging enough for him then it might take a while for him to be productive.

Depends on what stage of growth your organization is in

It can be that your competitor is a better established player than you and their product or services are highly dominant in the market. That would have helped him attain sustainable growth at the competitor organization.

Share your experience of hiring a competitor star performer at your organization.

BANGALORE: Infosys embarked on an ambitious drive in 2011 to get at least one-third of its revenues through intellectual property. Two years on, the division responsible for this is reporting losses and brings in less than 2% of sales. To its credit, the platforms and solutions division — excluding the core-banking software product Finacle that brings in about 4% of sales — has grown faster than the company average and has booked business worth $730 million, spread over 8-10 years.

The Products, Platforms and Solutions division, called PPS internally, is operating at -3 % profit margins at present. The initiative, part of chief executive SD Shibulal’s ” Infosys 3.0″ strategy , is meant to take about five to seven years to pay off and calls for significant initial investments to build custom software solutions for specific industries.

However, analysts said the $7 billion, Bangalore-based company must make acquisitions and have a stronger sales push for its IP-led solutions, if it is to move the needle and meet revenue targets. “To take it (PPS business) to one-third of their revenues, Infosys has to do multiple tuck-in acquisitions,” said Kuldeep Koul, analyst with brokerage firm ICICI Securities. “Eventually, when the business reaches a steady state, the margins should be significantly higher. In my estimate, a steady state is at least 5-7 years away”.

Like its peers in India’s $75-billion technology outsourcing industry, Infosys is attempting to move up the value chain at a time when their traditional, bread-and-butter business is fast getting commoditised.

Infosys is among the few to have a wellarticulated a strategy for intellectual property-led solutions. Revenues in this unit come from developing software platforms for customers such as Bharti Airtel, which took Infosys’ help to create a mobile-wallet last year. Infosys did not make its executives available for comment as the company is in a “silent-period” ahead of its quarterly earnings announcements in early October. In June, after the March quarter earnings, Shibulal had told ET that the company would look at acquisitions in this space across geographies and industry verticals.

It had also earmarked $100-million (. 630-crore ) innovation fund to incubate ideas related to the PPS business from within Infosys and outside. “Around 33% revenues from PPS looks unrealistic because no service-line in the whole of IT industry accounts for 33% of any company’s total revenues,” said Sandeep Muthangi, vice-president, research at brokerage firm IIFL Institutional Equities.

Muthangi said while revenues from PPS has not grown significantly, it is to the company’s benefit that Infosys is seen as one of the first movers when it comes to marketing its products and platforms.

Sudin Apte, CEO and research director at outsourcing advisory firm Offshore Insights, said Infosys is doing the right thing by investing in products and platforms, but the company needs to invest more on its front-end and sales to push products in this service line. “4.8% of revenue in sales and marketing is hardly anything,” Pate said.

IBM said it would invest $1 billion in new Linux and open source technologies for its servers in a bid to boost efficiency for big data and cloud computing.

“Many companies are struggling to manage big data and cloud computing using commodity servers based on decades-old, PC era technology,” said IBM vice president Brad McCredie.

“These servers are quickly overrun by data which triggers the purchase of more servers, creating unsustainable server sprawl. The era of big data calls for a new approach to IT systems; one that is open, customizable, and designed from the ground up to handle big data and cloud workloads.”

Linux is an open-source operating system which can be used in servers, personal computers and other devices.

IBM, which produces supercomputers as well as servers which run computer networks and manages big data for corporate clients, said it would establish a new Linux in Montpellier, France:

“The new center is among a growing network of centers around the world where software developers can build and deploy new applications for big data, cloud, mobile and social business computing on open technology building blocks using Linux and the latest IBM POWER7+ processor technology,” IBM said.

NEW YORK: Microsoft has announced a new $40 billion share buyback as part of an effort by the transitioning US tech giant to return more cash to stockholders.

The tech giant, which has seen its stock stagnate in recent years, also said it was increasing its dividend by 22 percent, to 28 cents a share.

The new share buyback comes on the heels of another share repurchase plan announced in 2008, which was set to expire on September 30.

“These actions reflect a continued commitment to returning cash to our shareholders,” said Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood in a statement.

The move comes with Microsoft in transition, having announced the departure of chief executive Steve Ballmer within a year.

Microsoft, which is trying to refocus the company around “devices and services” after missing the transition to mobile computing, also recently announced it was buying the mobile phone division of Nokia.

The maker of Windows software had been the undisputed leader of the tech sector for years, but it has recently been overtaken in market value by Apple and Google.

Microsoft shares rose 0.59 percent to close at $32.93. A buyback generally boosts the value of a stock by reducing the number of outstanding shares.

Keith Weiss, analyst at Morgan Stanley, said the news was a “modest” positive for Microsoft but noted that investors may be cautious because of the “struggling devices strategy.”

Citi analyst Walter Pritchard argued in a research note that “there is much more room for Microsoft to return more capital through dividend.”

Microsoft has more than $70 billion in cash holdings, much of which is held overseas. Like Apple and some other tech firms, Microsoft has held off repatriating the cash, which could be subject to the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

The company has sent out invitations to a September 23 event at which it is expected to unveil new Surface tablets to challenge iPads and Android devices dominating the market.

The event to be held in New York comes as the US technology giant struggles to remain relevant as Internet-age lifestyles shift from traditional computers to smartphones and tablets.

The company was forced to take an embarrassing $900 million writedown this year for “inventory adjustments” due to a poor reception of its tablet. It also cut the price of the Surface.

Microsoft is also holding its analyst day this week, where it will discuss the strategy and rationale behind the Nokia acquisition.

“Investors remain unconvinced of the logic behind the Nokia deal, thus management should clearly articulate why a smartphone presence is critical to the long-term success of Office and Windows,” Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow said in a note to clients.

“Additionally, with many long-only investors unsure about how the new strategy will affect Microsoft’s financial model, we expect goalposts to be provided to help investors understand how the transition will play out.”

Lenschow said the buyback plan was in line with expectations, but that the time frame for the program was not clear.

In the most recent quarter, Microsoft posted a profit of $4.97 billion, held back by the writedown for Surface.

Microsoft said its results were helped by growing revenues from business services, which offset the hit from a lagging market in personal computers.

Microsoft’s Windows remains the dominant platform for personal computers, but the PC market is being overtaken by tablets and other mobile devices.

A Gartner survey showed a worldwide drop of 10.9 percent in PC sales in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, with PC shipments falling to 76 million units.

A separate survey by IDC projected that tablet shipments would surpass total PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The new Bangalore facility will feature several centres of excellence and house technologists from both eBay marketplaces and PayPal. It builds on eBay’s existing presence in India which includes a global development centre with over 2,200 employees in Chennai and the eBay India business unit in Mumbai.

The company is aggressively hiring senior technologists with strong product development experience across many functions including research, platform and application development,architecture, quality engineering, product management, marketing and product analytics, user experience and design, and information security.

“PayPal is growing at a phenomenal rate globally, as we continue to execute on our bold vision of re-imagining money,” said Anupam Pahuja, general manager – PayPal in a statement.

“To support this growth, we are looking to tap into the large pool of software engineering talent in Bangalore to come innovate with us and create the future of commerce. We are committed to India as a technology hub and see India’s software engineering talent as a critical driver for the long-term success of PayPal’s global payment platform,” he added.

Said Rajesh Ramachandran, General Manager -eBay Marketplaces: “eBay’s ecosystem provides technologists a unique combination of startup culture to innovate and product excellence culture to build products that creates value to millions of customers. The India centre plays a strategic role in global product and technology innovation. The Bangalore centre will bring in significant thought leadership to drive critical business initiatives.”

HP is considering cutting 25,000 jobs,

We had this yesterday, based on a tip from a source.

HR Akshay Inc is confirming much of what we heard.

The key things we heard:

• Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program. We’d guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don’t come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don’t expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP’s total workforce numbers won’t reflect all of the cuts.
• We’re hearing that manufacturing staff won’t be hit as hard as others. That makes sense to us given that HP is more of a product company than a software or services company.
• Speaking of services, keep an eye out for HP Services results, which one insider said is expected to have another abysmal quarter. HP’s outsourcing units could be particularly hit hard with whatever layoffs come and many of their jobs moved offshore. We’re hearing that people with 8-10 years of experience—or are at the top of the salary charts — are the most vulnerable.

]]> https://optimakart.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/25000-job-cuts-are-coming-to-hp/feed/ 0 548 theoptimakart {0AD8EDB3-D5EB-46A2-871C-EFC7F8A6B6D7}_HP_News-280X240 https://optimakart.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/employee-motivation-the-magic-spark/ https://optimakart.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/employee-motivation-the-magic-spark/#comments Fri, 13 Sep 2013 16:47:49 +0000 http://optimakart.wordpress.com/?p=543 Read More in Employee Motivation – The Magic Spark]]>

What is the secret to employee motivation? If you approach it from the viewpoint of production and results, you’ll win.

An employee who is “motivated” runs under their own steam. You don’t need to keep stoking them up every day.

There has been a lot written about employee motivation, but let’s look at it from the viewpoint of performance and production.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with a Sales Executive, an Accounts Person or a Warehouse Manager; if you want them to produce well, they need to be motivated.

The First Trap

The World Book dictionary defines the word “motivate” as: “To provide with a motive or incentive to act; induce to act.”

This suggests some external influence is necessary, which leads to a common misconception.

• This definition seems to suggest that you have to externally induce some magical factor called “motivation”. It sounds like you have to “give incentives”.
• From this, a lot of managers get the idea that they have to hand out freebies or organise motivational seminars in order to get their employees fired up.

The fact of the matter is, if an employee is not already motivated, attempting to boost their motivation level “artificially”, from an external viewpoint, will almost certainly fail.

The reason for this is that the best type of motivation comes from within. It is “self-motivation”. An employee who brings their own energy on the job, of course, is the optimum. Performance management is easy in this case.

Unfortunately, people who are naturally self-motivated are fairly rare. But there is definitely something you can do to improve the employee motivation level of the remainder.

The key here is the answer to the simple question: “Why does this person come to work each day?”

Think of Motivation as a Scale

At one end of this scale you have the employee who hates their job, but needs the money. At the other end of the scale is the person who gets such a kick out of their work, they can’t wait to get stuck into it.

Some people dread the thought of another “day of drudgery” and only come to work because they will get a pay cheque at the end of the week. These are the ones who take lots of “sick days”, and find any excuse to not produce the results you pay them for. These are the “non-performers” we often refer to in these articles. Their employee motivation is almost zero.

• A “top performer”, on the other hand, actually enjoys the challenge of their job.
• They get a real buzz out of achieving results.
• They get up in the morning and actually look forward to going to work.

We are not talking here about the “workaholic”. That’s someone who has such an obsession about working that they just cannot leave it alone. Some don’t even enjoy their work; they are simply unable to stop. That’s something quite different from employee motivation.

No, the top performer is generally a highly self-motivated individual who devours his or her work because they really enjoy producing the results.

Have you seen a top-notch employee who is regularly solving complex problems and leaving happy customers in his or her wake? Do they goof off, or take sick days, or come to work late?

No! The reason they don’t is that they are having too much fun doing the job. They are producing results! Employee motivation and performance management are in the right balance here.

In The Extreme

The rare case is someone who has “found their calling in life”, so to speak. They manage to get themselves into a line of work that is exactly what they want to do. And they usually dedicate their whole life to this activity.

Do you think Mother Theresa or Fred Hollows had to be pushed by some external influence to get them moving each day? Were they motivated by the money they were making? I don’t think so…

Even though these are extreme cases, we can learn some lessons here about employee motivation. The key lesson is that when a person is producing meaningful results, they are motivated. There is a definite link between production and motivation.

Production & Motivation

You can see this phenomenon very easily with sales people.

Watch a sales exec who has just made several sales in quick succession. Do they need any external push to get them going on the next sale? Not likely!

• They are up!
• They are full of confidence.
• They are eager to approach that next prospect.

 But this is also true of any job. When an employee is consistently achieving the results expected of them (or even over-achieving), their morale is high. They need no external motivating influences to get them started, or keep them going.

Consider the other scenario: an employee who is not producing any meaningful results. Think of a technician who gets the cable connections wrong, takes too long to complete the job and generally does such sloppy work that someone always has to check up on them.

These are the ones who need special performance management focus. They may even have trouble getting up in the morning, as they feel there is nothing to look forward to. Their employee motivation is almost zero.

How to Motivate

So, how do you motivate these people? How do you get employees to do, of their own accord, what you are paying them to do?

1. Offer more money?

2. Improve working conditions?

3. Increase sick leave?

4. Increase holidays?

5. Reduce working hours?

The answer is “NO”, to all of these.

And the simple reason is this: if the only employee motivation a person has (to get them out of bed in the morning) is the money, or the perks of the job; the first time they see a job with more money and better perks, they will leave you.

In addition to that, all of the things listed above are short term gains. They give only a temporary boost. None of these solutions creates an environment where the employee is continually stimulated by their job; actually looking forward to working.

Now, this is not to say that one should not strive to have the best possible working conditions for their staff. But this comes under the heading of “pride in your organizations”.

And, of course, it is a fact that your productive staff will feel this pride and, as a result, will strive even harder to contribute to the overall results.

‘Chicken & Egg’ Situation?

Ok, we’ve got two factors here. Highly motivated staff is productive. Highly productive staff is motivated. But which comes first?

Actually, there’s only one entry point to this employee motivation dilemma. We’ve already stated that, trying to motivate your staff by providing external incentives will not cut it. It’s only temporary. It will not stimulate the things that will improve their self-motivation.

Therefore, the way to tackle this is from the viewpoint of production. If you can increase their production, you will automatically increase their motivation.

Production and Motivation go hand-in-hand. Increase one, and you will increase the other.

Let me say that again: increase production and you will increase motivation!

You may not be able to externally increase motivation, but you can certainly increase their production. That’s absolutely under your motivation and performance management control. And when you do, their self-motivation will also rise!

If you want to dramatically increase your employee motivation, take a tip from those people who already demonstrate a high degree of self-motivation. They produce results!

Increasing Production

So, how do you increase an employee’s production?

Let’s break this down, because the approach is different for different types of employees. You have three types of employee:

• Poor performers.
• Average (mediocre) performers.
• Top performers.

There are three major things you can do to help these people to increase their production:

• Clarify the end-results of the job.
• Remove the barriers to production.
• Provide support.

…but it depends upon who you are talking to as to which approach you take.

1. With poor performers, you firstly need to clarify exactly what their job is. If they really knew what they were supposed to produce, this would dramatically improve their production. If you don’t have an effective Job Description for that job, it’s important that the “end result” of the job is clearly defined.
2.  For the average, or mediocre, performer, the best approach is to start by find out what’s stopping them. What barriers are they encountering that they can’t handle? They probably have a reasonably good idea of what they are supposed to produce, but they are having some difficulties. For example, a Technician can’t do his job because the job materials have not been organised in time. If you can remove some of the barriers for them, their production will go up.  Top performers generally know exactly what they should be producing and they need little help in removing barriers. In fact, don’t even try to remove barriers – solving these is part of the fun for a top performer. What you do with these high producers is find out how you can support them better so they can produce more. It might be more or better equipment, or a support person to help them out.

Indiaplaza was launched as Fabmall.com in 1999 and was one of the first to enter India’s e-commerce business. However somewhere  down the line it lost the plot and has been struggling with cash flows ever since. Last month Tech Circle reported that it has already sent a notification to all its vendors for negotiating and settling their final dues. In other words, it was looking to clear all its liabilities. The last fund raising took place in  2011 when it raised $5 million  from Kalaari Capital (then known as IndoUS Venture Partners). The company was expecting to raise the next round in mid 2013, but  reports said it could not find an investor. Previously known as Fabmall.com, Indiaplaza offers products like apparel, mobiles, books, home appliances, baby products, cameras, cakes, electronics, gift articles, home decor, health & beauty and sports products among others. Even though the site is active ,  a lot of the products are  ‘out of stock’.