3rd Gen Outsourcing Model

3rd Generation IT Outsourcing Model

This term seems to have been coined by General Motors (GM), when GM moved from EDS as a single-source IT supplier, to the new model of dividing the whole IT chunk into smaller more manageable units to be executed by different vendors – the so called multi-sourcing scenario.

The challenge lies in following areas in this so called 3rd Gen Model:

The coordinator of the multi-sourced IT vendors, who also happens to be one of them
The end-to-end ownership of specific applications (development, performance and maintenance) – with the client washing-off their hands from it

Another important reason is the increasing concern and in fact demand from the business (read CEO) is how to create alignment of IT with business. In the earlier generations this was missed. IT Value measurement and alignment with business is the reason for trying to define the alignment as clearly as possible. I think the key of the 3rd Gen Outsourcing is IT alignment with Business Objectives where vendor works cohesively with the client and other outsourcing vendors in clearly aligning IT with business objectives.

Competitive Advantage in the GIXBANG World

Intellectual Capital

In the rapidly globalizing world of continuous change and cutthroat competition, every enterprise searches for competitive advantage. In this world the only resource a modern enterprise possesses is its quick and accurate decision-making capability.

Knowledge, Ideation, Creativity and Innovation in the enterprise needs to be tapped and harnessed in a systematic manner to create a future proof enterprise. The know-(how, what and why), business processes, Information Systems, databases, decision-making systems and organizational structure forms what are called Intellectual Assets. These assets need to enmesh with the human capital, convert it into value for the enterprise and its end customers in combination with its complementors, customers, suppliers and even competitors.

The value created by this interplay of Human Capital and Intellectual Assets needs to be protected, leveraged, and converted into Intellectual Property (IP) for attaining competitive advantage in the new world.

Numerology, Forecasting and Naming

What is in a Name? Looks like lot of things.

I have been trying to find out a name that a set of people should agree. It has to be cathy, short and more importantly follow the numerology constraints as well.

Numerology maps alphabets to numbers and then based on the numbers, the numerology framework tries to predicts the future of the entity with a particular name. There are two main systems of mapping alphabets to numbers that are followed. First one is fairl straight forward as one can see below

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z

The second system is as follows _ it is little non-symmetrical as the system avoids the digit 9. I will explain why 9 is avoided later. The second system is as follows

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
A B C D E U O F
I K G M H V Z P
J R L T N W
Q S X
Y

Lets say you want to name some thing, say Ladoo - To use the framework - we map Ladoo (each letter to the specific digit)

L A D O O
First Sys 3 1 4 6 6 = (adding all the digits) 20 = adding 2 + 0 = 2
Second Sys 3 1 4 7 7 = (adding all digits) 22 = adding 2+2 = 4

The unitary digits that we get by adding all the digits in a name tell us the characteristic of the name. According to first system the reduced single digit is 2 (2 is the number for Moon). The entity named Ladoo will have characteristics like moon. Similarly reduced number as per system 2 comes out to be 4 (which is the number associated with Hindu Mythological character named Rahu).

Typically if you want good attributes it will be great if the number is reduced to 1,3,5 or 6. Other numbers will create some issues typically.

May be now you will choose the name judicially,