First we went to the software services and business process outsource arm of the company and listened to a presentation from two speakers, who talked about the company and the outsourcing industry in India, specifically about the airline reservation service Sabre. They talked about the effect of specific project management practices on their efficiency; for example, a high reuse of their code can increase their efficiency by 300%, high management and staff experience by 110%, effective tools by 35%. They deal with the constant change in product design by freezing requirements each week, by working with the customer everyday, and by making tweaks to the product everyday to remain aligned with their customer’s needs. However, the budget also determines the number of “use cases” that they can focus on.
Our second stop was the Knowledge Solution Business arm of NIIT. Our host was a personal friend of our professor Mani and he’s a very funny speaker, but his was a quiet sense of humor. He talked about their three business divisions, which correlate to the target customers: 1) K to 12, 2) retail, and 3) corporate. He talked about the internal products, such as the product called CLiKS, that they released to the public in response to customer demand. He said, "We not only made a mistake here (pointing to CLiKS 1.0), we compounded it (referring to CLiKS 2.0)."
Their differentiating factor is something they call “critical mistakes analysis.” They analyze where the mistakes happen and target the training based on what they find, so that they focus on areas where people make the most mistakes, they train only the people who need training, and they cover only on the specific training that those people need.
After the presentation, they served us a wonderful Indian lunch buffet. And then I fell on my face after tripping on a dip under the carpet. When they brought us on a tour, they pulled in someone who worked in the team that works with Microsoft. I asked him a few questions as the group moved on. We were following the group then he went into his office for him to give me his business card. Then he decided to call someone in his team who had worked with Microsoft the longest. She came and we got introduced. We didn’t spend more than five minutes. Then he walked me out to catch up with the group but they were nowhere to be found. We walked out the gate but the bus wasn’t there (it turns out that the bus was parked a couple of blocks away on another road). So we headed back inside and he tried to call different people to find where the group was. We thought they might still be on a tour in the building. Then, on our way out, we met Wendy (our International Programs coordinator) and the tour guide who were looking for me. Mani was upset.
The third stop was in the NIIT training center itself. We sat in a very small room (too small for 30 people) and sat in very cramped school chairs. It seems we got the same presentation that is given to potential students. The presenter was apparently an engineer who was in between projects and was therefore teaching until his next project starts. He was too detailed in his presentation and very impatient. Meanwhile, another man served hot beverages and cookies as noisily as possible with clinking cups and saucers and a beeping cell phone, irritating the lecturer even more. I thought it was hilarious how people in India could be as passive-aggressive as the Minnesotans visiting them. :-D
Our final stop is at the Center of Research of Cognitive Systems (CRCS) with a professor, who had a PhD in Physics and leaned more towards research. He talked about the need for teachers and schools in the rural areas and the financial infeasibility of providing those teachers and schools. So, he and his group look for ways to educate the population by self-learning through low-cost solutions.
As an experiment, they went to a rural area where literacy is low. The project was called “Hole in the Wall.” They set up a computer behind a wall with a touch-screen and left it there. After several months, they talked to the children who learned how to use the computer on their own. The children had learned how to get around on the web and they described the process using a different paradigm and using their own names for things. They called the cursor an arrow. They learned that if they move the arrow over an underlined word, the arrow turns into a hand. And when the arrow is a hand and they pushed a button, they said that the hand turns into “Shiva’s drum.” It was the hourglass.
He also told the story of an old man who learned to use the computer to play games. Somehow, he figured out the order of the programs in the Start menu and which one to select to start the game. But the man was illiterate, so what the professor did was mix up the menus. The next time they spoke, the man scolded him for breaking the computer. But the professor found that the man was still able to find his favorite game. It turned out that the man remembered what the letters on the name of the application looked like and was able to describe the letters in terms of curves and straight lines. So, he was essentially "reading" in a very basic sense.
Since accent training is a necessity for the call centers, the professor came up with a self-learning solution. What he did was to program a speech-to-text application with a British accent. When the students spoke into the computer with an Indian accent, the computer naturally couldn’t understand them. So he told them that they had to learn to speak so that the computer would understand it. Eventually, they learned to speak with a British accent; however, they spoke the words exactly as it was recorded, with the same intonation.
Observations, insights, and lessons learned
Only 30% of the employees in NTL are women. Based on that information, it seems that they have the same problem attracting women into the industry as they do in the US. I don’t know if the reasons are the same. All the Indian women I met in the US are highly technical. Granted my sample is non-representative, since all the Indian women I met in the Bay Area and in Seattle were working in the software industry.
I also noticed that the cubicles are very clean. In my first professional job, we were told to keep our desks cleared and empty; it was an intimidation tactic. It’s intended to make any guest think that the office resident had already gotten his/her work done. In NTL, the reason is different. To preserve the integrity of their clients’ data, they have an entirely paperless office. This prevents any passerby from being able to grab a piece of paper with some critical information off of a cubicle. They also use 128-bit encryption, which surprised me because I thought that 128-bit encryption cannot be exported due to the US government security. Or maybe I’m getting confused with my numbers.
Geek culture in US is cult-like. Being nerdy is a badge of honor. The ultimate geek is one who dresses in t-shirts and jeans, drinks too much coffee or soda, lives on junk food, and locks himself or herself up in the office to work. In India, the IT workers are very polished and presentable – they wear business suits or business casual, they are more social, and they know how to attend to guests. I think this difference reflects the fact that, in the US, the software industry is focused on producing software, while, in India, the software industry is primarily comprised of software services with focus in the "services" part.
Three letter acronym (TLA) of the day:
MTI: “mother tongue influence.” It’s used in discussions about accent training, particularly for call center representatives.
An auto rickshaw. more pics
Traffic is incredibly chaotic – busses, auto rickshaws, bicycles, cars, mini minivans, trucks of all sizes. Often, there’s only a foot between vehicles; sometimes only a couple of inches. Red lights are just a suggestion. Vehicles cross an intersection if nobody is coming in the other direction, regardless of the light. Everybody honks. Our tour guide says that it’s how everybody knows where everybody is. And it’s a good thing because most of the rickshaws don’t have rear-view mirrors or side mirrors. And people don’t stay in their own lanes! In a two-lane street, there would be up to five vehicles side by side. They sneak in wherever they can. But somehow, there seems to be a method to the madness. The traffic flows smoothly. We haven’t seen any accident. And everybody eventually gets to where they need to go.
Adventure of the day
We were running late at one point because the bus driver didn’t slow down enough for us to find the building. So we passed it and had to loop back. Then the driver wouldn’t drop us on the right side of the street, so we got off the bus. Mani said we had to walk back a long ways to get to the underground crosswalk. Rohit said that even if we went as a large group, the cars will still not stop for us. Niels just said, “Let’s go.” And before the rest of the group could think, there we were, crossing the street with Niels leading the way. Well, Niels is 6’2” tall, heavyset Dutchman. He stands out. When he held up his arms to stop the cars, the cars stopped. Brian later said, they didn’t have a choice – hitting Niels would make a big dent on their little cars. Needless to say, we all got across the street safely.
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