Today, we had a meeting with one of our senior person in the hierarchy of our organization. His designation is, “Partner – Global Consulting”. There were about 20 participants in that meeting. Few of them are just new to our organization and others are as old as 4 years in this organization. This meeting started with a short introduction of current organization strategy and the purpose of the meeting.
The purpose of the meeting is to meet all the leads and get to know them. Secondly, answer any queries / issues / concerns / questions / blah .. blah ..
At the beginning of his introduction, he mentioned that if the current organization is considered as black triangle as shown in the picture. The brown lines are the separation between different levels within the organization. As we are currently growing, the outer triangle which is in blue color is the expected growth and there is a wide space on the top part when compared to other parts of the scope.
Now it is in the hands of the middle tire work force who wants to grow to the next level of the ladder, to decide and act accordingly, as there is a wide area to prove the ability as well as ample space to fit-in themselves. It is good to know from his words about increasing the current head count to a newer horizons. According to the figures, LiquidHub is around 800 employees now. In the recent times, there added 200 resources at USA and about 100 resources at India office. The expected growth is about to become 500 resources at India office by the end of this year and about 1000 by 2012.
Offlate, LiquidHub has acquired a company by name E Brilliance, which as a rich head count of 50 employees. Few other acquisitions are under pipeline, which only about 4 folks in the organization are aware about the deals. As these are very sensitive details and the deals at very early stages, it is not wise to disclose the information, but am sure that these deals would be at very high standards.
As the discussion is happening, there raised a concept of the revenue that is being generated from US office as well as India office. He had drawn a graph comparing the revenue details as mentioned in this picture. The historical figures show that the US revenues have taken a dip during the recession time. Where as the revenue generated from India office is study and continued with the same pace as that it is during the previous years.
There are many reasons for this continuous revenue generation, as the competitors are loosing their business, LH kept their business intact with the clients. The services that are rendered with the existing clients are at very satisfactory level and they never thrown LH from their business. At this junction, he also quoted about a big client. This client used to do business with few other software vendors including Wipro. During the recession time, they have decided to shut down their outsourcing to all other vendors except Wipro, but they never thought of LiquidHub. They continued to signup every other year, and we are currently in the 5th year with that client. Which is a good news from the point of happy customers as well as the strength of the resources that LiquidHub India is possessing. He recollected few of the happy moments that are related to couple of projects that are running successfully for more than 4years. At few instances, the business people are asking the developers that are working with the respective projects about the business functionality rather than the application functionality. When the business sees a change in their workforce, it is obvious that the new workforce would not be aware of the spirit of the business. Our developers are in better position than that of the current business work force. Our developers know more than the client’s workforce.
While the discussion is taking into a shape of the potential markets and the areas where the opportunities that can be tapped, he took a small example of pie diagram as shown here. If any vertical is outsourcing their work to services industry, the top four / five / n companies compete and grab the major share. Then there lies an untapped potential for all the small and medium business entities. But again this small portion it self is a huge amount when seen in USDs. Ofcourse, LiquidHub is not in a position to venture out to such large scale, but it is inevitable for us to tap. Otherwise, we would not be growing.
A project worth of 5M is really huge from the LiquidHub’s point of view, but again, if we work steadily and grow slowly, it is not a major task. To prove these statement, in the recent times, LiquidHub had signed a 5 year contract & support deal with one of the client outsourcing the working from about 4 years. This is a huge contract, beyond much LiquidHub can eat, but as the time span is over the period of 5 years, it is not a problem to support this client. And again, this is a good news for a long term commitment from client’s stand point of view.
During his speech, he also quoted that he wanted to see LiquidHub as the credible alternative for every other large outsourcing players in the IT market, whether they are from US or from outside US. There are many things that can be scribed here. If I’ve to take few notes and high light the points, they cumulate as mentioned below.
- How we react in every situation is a message that we are communicating to our team
- Make yourself irrelevant in your role to move to the next level
- Educate others to resolve and adapt what you are capable and see them in your position, only then you can look forward for other positions
- Your are a trust worthy and your managers looks at you whenever he has something to get done. Just think that do you have any other resource that you can look at when you have something to be get done, so that your manager is happy to see that resource in your absence
- Culture is more important when you work in any organization, and the technology comes later
The discussion has also seen a Q&A session.
Question) Involvement of Architect in the early phase of project makes sense for the better delivery of the project, so we expect such intervention. What are your comments on this.
Reply) You mean of an Architect from US or India? If your interest is about Architect from US, may be yes, we are currently looking into that. But again, if your idea about the Architect from India office, then rather depending on any other Architect, if you take that steps making the project more reliable and stable, that would be more meaningful.
Question) Are we focusing in anything at Education sector?
Reply) Our first goal is to be good in services industry. To answer your question, it is No, we are currently focusing on Financial Services / Health Care / Commercial Market
In the end, I’ve made couple of recommendations / suggestions to let the LiquidHub India workforce be informed about the latest happenings.
Recommendation 1) Management should make steps towards conveying the non sensitive information (or) hurdles that they have faced during any acquisition / huge deal with client / major milestone
Response) As there many details involved during any acquisition, it might not be practically possible to communicate. But he can do that on a video call with the leads, so that the required information can be conveyed.
Recommendation 2) Management should make steps towards communicating everyone about the hard work done by the respective people who are involved in cracking a deal / completing the acquisition / blah .. blah.. So that everyone get to know who took extra hard work and whose extra efforts made that happen
Response) There would be lot of people who would be involved in such situations / transition period / etc., anyhow, let me think of what I can do
Recommendation 3) Pitfalls (or) lessons learned during any unfinished business / unsuccessful deals / failed projects / etc.,
Response) These are very sensitive and may not be possible. But you can always reach me over my mobile phone to talk and am open.
