Category: Strategy

How Getting Analyzed Can Help You Be a Better CEO

Psychoanalysis is a form of therapy that involves talking to a trained analyst who tries to work with your defense mechanisms, repressed memories and other obstacles that may hinder you from achieving what you must. Psychoanalysts are different from psychologists, though both can be loosely called “psychotherapists”. A psychoanalyst is a person who is trained in the Freudian or Neo-Freudian principles that believe in the dynamic nature of our consciousness. They believe, the unconscious mind has a lot of potentials, which can be explored to remove problems that exist and create a psychological state that is free from defenses & destructive behaviors. Sigmund Freud was the original proponent of psychoanalysis and it has come a long way. Today, psychoanalysis sessions do not last for years like they used to and are, instead, brief and to the point. Though not accepted by mainstream psychologists, psychoanalysis has its own proponents and many successful businessmen swear by it for their fruits. In this article, let us take a look at what psychoanalysis does and why it will help you to be a better person. How can psychoanalysis help you? If you are a CEO or a person who has huge responsibilities, you really need to have a sharp and calm mind. Anxieties and neuroses will not help you be successful and they will not allow you to reach your full potentials. If there are lingering problems that date back to your childhood or adolescence, they can be effectively addressed during therapy. A psychoanalyst will, usually, ask you to discuss everything that comes to your mind without any inhibitions. This sort of “free association” and “stream of consciousness” helps the psychoanalyst to assess which defense mechanisms are working against you and which ones are pulling you down. By tackling these maladaptive defense mechanisms and making sure that psychic conflicts are resolved, you will be able to be a better boss, manager or even just an employee. If you are a CEO, it is all the more important to resolve your psychic conflicts. Let us take a look at a few instances in which psychoanalysis might be deemed necessary or helpful. You are feeling overworked and are growing resentful towards your employees Your technical skills are not as good as they used to be Your managerial skills are waning You find it difficult to maintain calm and poise when it comes to handling difficult clients You often find it difficult to sleep When you sleep, you might experience strange and vivid dreams that often scare you Your performance at job might go down You might no longer want to lead or take responsibilities You might feel like “giving it all up” If you experience any of these thoughts or feelings, it might adversely affect your work performance. Psychoanalysis helps you to address your problems at a very deep level, at the unconscious level. Other forms of psychotherapy, usually, address only the superficial issues. Psychoanalysis goes deep down and tries to rectify defenses that are deeply ingrained within your psyche. If you feel you are experiencing any of the symptoms listed above, it is probably time to get analyzed by a therapist trained in psychoanalysis. Where to find a psychoanalyst? Classical psychoanalysts are hard to find but you will, usually, be able to find a psychotherapist who leans towards psychoanalytical thought. Speak to the therapist over the phone or meet them in person before actually signing up for therapy. Therapy is an ongoing and continuous process that helps you to achieve your inner potential. If you are a CEO or a boss, it is even more important to maintain peace and calm & have a healthy mind. Before stress goes out of control and begins to affect your work, try to seek therapy. There is nothing wrong in choosing psychoanalysis or another form of psychotherapy even if you do not have serious psychological issues. Psychotherapy helps you to remain in touch with yourself and not be bogged down by everyday pressures; and that is very important to succeed in life and in your profession. If you feel the need to talk, speak to a trained therapist. It will prove to be more beneficial for your business than speaking to colleagues or friends.

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5 Defense Mechanisms You Must Never Use As a CEO

If you have ever met a person interested in psychology or human behavior, you have probably heard of defense mechanisms. A defense mechanism is an unconscious strategy used by people to meet with the demands of real life. Life poses us with a lot of challenges and psychoanalysts believe that these challenges cause psychic conflicts. When there are psychic conflicts, ego, or the part of the human mind that deals with the reality, tries to form defense mechanisms to be able to deal with situations in a better way. Some defense mechanisms are useful and others are quite harmful. Useful defense mechanisms include altruism and sublimation. Altruism is a tendency to help others in order to avoid feelings of guilt. Sublimation is the tendency to do creative and productive activity in order to avoid negative emotions. However, there are many more pathological and harmful defense mechanisms. In this article, let us take a look at 5 defense mechanisms that can potentially be very harmful to someone who is running a company. Displacement Displacement is a defense mechanism that involves a person displaying aggression on an object or a person that is not harmful. He or she may not be able to display aggression at the real cause of frustration. Thus, the person ends up displacing the anger, frustration and aggression at an object or a person who is of no harm whatsoever. For example, a CEO may scream at his secretary when his profits are not showing up. A manager may become over critical of his subordinates when his own superiors are placing unreasonable demands on him. Rationalizing Rationalizing is a form of defense mechanisms in which a person offers explanations to himself, when there is none really available. When something undesirable happens or presents itself, an individual may rationalize the situation by convincing himself with a more pleasing or acceptable explanation. For example, a CEO whose company has fared very badly may rationalize that the price of commodities are too high and thus, the company is running under losses. A web designer may rationalize a buggy website by telling himself that the developer may have coded wrongly. Projection Projection is a defense mechanism in which a person misattributes his own undesirable thoughts, feelings and impulses. When a person is not ready to face with his or her own feelings and emotions they may attribute it to someone else. For example, an employee who is jealous of his colleague may think that the colleague is jealous of him. He will not be ready to accept that he is projecting his own jealousy on the other person. Denial Denial is one of the most common defense mechanisms used by people. This is the tendency to refuse reality because reality is harsh. It is one of the most primitive defense mechanisms and also one of the most harmful. When something is painful or disturbing to admit, we may end up saying the source of pain does not exist. For example, a business owner whose profits have nosedived may continue to avoid looking at statistics and remain calm and composed. He just does not want to admit that the company is facing losses as that would be unacceptable for him. Acting Out Acting Out refers to an extreme kind of behavior that a person is incapable of expressing. A person who is unable to express his or her emotions, thoughts and feelings may just begin to scream, yell and shout. Instead of saying “you are annoying me” or “I do not like what you do”, a manager may bang at the desk and leave the place. This is one of the more severe forms of defense mechanisms and can cause a lot of harm to both the person who is acting out and others around him or her. Seek Therapy If you feel you are unable to identify which defense mechanisms you are using or if you sense that your work is getting affected by your thoughts, feelings and emotions, seek therapy. A well trained psychotherapist will be able to identify which defense mechanism you are using the most and how it is affecting your professional life. Once the defense mechanisms are addressed, your professional life will begin to improve as well.

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Why You Must Start Wearing a Suit to the Tech Conference

Appearance, as we all know and refuse to admit, matters quite a lot. We are all consciously or unconsciously judging people based on how they look. This is a flaw of human character which some people are able to overcome. Others, not quite. What you wear and how you dress up communicates to us at a subliminal level. The patterns, the colors, the texture of the fabric, the quality of the fabric and even your physical appearance matter a lot. It is not fair but that is just how the society is. Thankfully, there is more awareness today about how your height, skin color or weight need not matter when it comes to deciding on your abilities. Yet, these prejudices and biases are deeply ingrained in our minds. When you go to the next tech conference wearing a t-shirt because that’s what all the techies do, you might probably be right. It is always more democratic to wear something accessible and comfortable, instead of stuffing ourselves in suits, especially, if we live in a warm climate or if it is summer. However, wearing a suit to a conference has been proven to gain more acceptances among other CEOs and possible clients. If you are trying to bag a few deals, you probably need to wear that well-stitched suit and carry a good briefcase. Here are some reasons why: 1. Suits make you look serious If you are running a tech company or a web design agency, you need to make sure that you look serious. As we mentioned earlier, humans always judge things and people based on appearances. A website that looks great receives more clicks than a website that looks shabby. Similarly, a well-dressed CEO commands more respect and sends out a vibe of seriousness than a CEO who wears sneakers and frayed t-shirts. You can do that but you need to have the luxury of being Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerburg. Until you are one among those top 10-20 CEOs, conventional wisdom suggests wearing a suit or even just a tie and a neatly-pressed shirt will help you command respect. 2. Well-stitched suits convey a sense of stability Suits are designed to provide an illusion of you have a better frame. It gives the impression of you having broader shoulders and smaller waists. It hides unwanted flab and makes you look all tucked-up & trim. It makes you look stable and not in a condition of disarray. When you look stable, there are chances that at some unconscious level, people around you think that you are stable; and when people believe in your stability, they will take you more seriously than they would take someone who does not look all that stable. 3. Suits have a positive social connotation From a very long time, it is deeply ingrained in our minds that we go to work wearing suits. We go to marriages, funerals and dinners wearing suits. They have a positive social connotation, except for funerals, of course. Somewhere along the way, people began to see suits as a sign of being a salesperson, in a negative way. However, everyone can tell the difference between a well-stitched and bespoke suit & an off-the-rack suit. A bespoke suit has a positive connotation when you are at a conference where you probably will meet a lot of judgmental and prejudiced people who judge you based on what you are wearing. If you want more people to share their business cards, play safe and wear a suit. 4. Suits are comfortable It is a misconception that suits are uncomfortable and that they can’t be worn in warmer climates. In warmer climates, you could opt to wear a blazer, which again gives an air of formality, even if it is not as formal as a suit. Moreover, all the extra pockets help you to keep the business cards in, without having to waste time; and once you get used to the various pockets and spaces that a suit jacket provides, you will find it to be an indispensible part of your wardrobe. Certainly, suits are sometimes not uncomfortable. It just needs a little bit of “getting-used-to”. You might think no one really notices what you are wearing at a tech conference. You might also believe that most software programmers, developers and CEOs of technology companies have a relaxed dress code; and they do. As long as you are at your office, it is really quite all right to wear what you want. However, if you are at a conference and are looking for opportunities to network with possible growth of business, you need to present yourself well; and wearing a suit will always help you to look your best.

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What Is the Difference between a Business and a Brand?

A number of people, even those who are entrepreneurs themselves, are often confused by the words “business” and “brand”. So, what really is the difference between a business and a brand? We have all heard people say “We are no more a business. We are a brand.” What they imply is, they have become an “institution”. They are not a non-entity anymore but people recognize their products and services for what they are. They no longer look up in yellow pages and arrive at the doorstep of the business. What is a brand and what is a business? A business that becomes a “brand” is a business that is easily recognizable and is almost the talk of the town. Yet, this is not the right definition of a brand. A brand is actually the name, term, symbol, design or just about anything that identifies a company’s products and services as distinct from those of others. A brand is then something that is offered by a business entity and is recognizable on its own and is not confused with others in the same category. While LVMH is a company, it has a number of brands. A brand makes a company unique and recognizable While Levi Strauss is a company, Levi’s 501s are a brand. Everyone knows what a Levi’s 501 is and how it feels to wear. Thus, it is a brand. In order to build a good brand, we first need to identify what separates a brand from a company or business. To put in short, a company or a business is a legal entity that engages in brand building, so that its products and services are recognized for their uniqueness. Thus, brand building activity is undertaken by companies and businesses to create their own niche and to build an audience. Brand building is not about becoming known among people but is a lot more than that. It is about creating a niche and building a good rapport with the target audience. All this can only happen when products and services are top-notch and have been around for a while. No company or business can create a brand without being in business for some time. The importance of time in brand building Every brand has a cycle and it begins with incubation. Once it is incubated, a brand becomes known and is exposed. It becomes part of people’s conversation. Similar to a product cycle, a brand cycle starts abruptly with the launch and then plateaus, only to end. Brand cycles are, however, longer than product cycles. A successful business will try to keep a brand in a plateau-stage by making sure that it is being rejuvenated often. Brands need to be rejuvenated and revamped in order to remain in business for a long time. Pepsico’s Pepsi is a brand that has been around for decades. It has taken various roles and has been marketed differently each time. The ingredients and the substance of the drink haven’t changed but the branding strategy certainly has. When people became aware of extra sugar in carbonated drinks and the empty calories in them, Pepsico launched Diet Pepsi, another brand that is still in the plateau stage. For a brand to be successful, it needs to reinvent itself according to time, space and culture. A successful company understands that its brands are its assets. A company or business needs to begin building brands, instead of just products and services. That is the only way they can remain in business for a long time. How to start building a brand? If you are asking yourself when you can possibly become a “brand” as the lay people say it, it could be from today. Start offering something new and unique & create a buzz around that on the social media. Brand building can only happen when people recognize you as a brand. In order to do that, you need to begin spending time on social media or invest in a good digital marketing agency that will be able to help you build a brand online. If you have any questions regarding online brand building, do not hesitate to contact one of our digital marketing professionals.

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A Step-By-Step Guide on SEO Copywriting

A Step-By-Step Guide on SEO Copywriting

As a marketer, you cannot afford to lose the customer who visits your website and does not bother to purchase from it. The obvious reason for this failure is that your website lacks compelling content for the target audience. It does not matter how good the quality of your content is. If it is not valuable and relevant to the target audience, the content posted goes wasted. Market your content in such a manner that it goes well down the throats of your visitors. The whole idea behind SEO copywriting is that the visitors get impressed with the quality of the content on your blog, website or e-store and they are more likely to become your customers in future. What is SEO Copywriting? SEO Copywriting is an art of writing quality content with relevant keywords with a dual focus on target audience and search engine friendliness. The basic job of the search engine is to display the best and relevant results. However, one must remember not to stuff keywords unnecessarily as the search engine crawlers discard dubiously written content. SEO Copywriting adeptly presents the product offerings thereby pushing sales and click-through-rate. Write your content with conviction and aim to be on the front page of Google. This article will provide you a step-by-step guide on SEO Copywriting. Keep your writing focused Though you have to optimize your content for search engines, do remember that it is actually meant for human beings. Do not digress from the topic. Add valuable content that enlightens the readers. Keep your content tightly focused on the topic and the relevant keywords. Usually, very brief content is not substantiated by the crawlers. Keep the length of your content long enough generally above 300 words to get eminence from search engines. Keyword Research Keyword research is pivotal to the SEO Copywriting process as it broadens your horizon to understand customers’ preferences. The right set of keywords will increase conversion rate of your website which is your priority. What should you do to optimize keyword research? How valuable is your keyword?As a matter of fact, customers use different words while searching for the same product. You need to find out what keyword is more often used. This will help you to narrow down your keyword list and optimize your content against those keywords. How can you achieve that? Take a pen and paper and jot down the keywords which you think are most likely to be used by the visitors Type those keywords/phrases in the search engine and see what results are displayed Use Google Analytics to find out what keywords led the user to your website and improve your keywords based on the test results. Should you focus more on the long-tail of keywords?The answer is yes. Why? Because 70% search on the engine is headed by unique phrases. This clearly shows how important it is for you to be specific with your content. The content should be such that answers your prospects’ question. For example if they want to know “How to increase the battery life of your phone?” then your mobile-phone oriented e-store should be able to answer that question. Many website designers include FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) in their website to get more traffic on their website. And genuinely written answers drive the target audience to purchase the product from your e-store. What tools can you use?There are a variety of tools available like Google Adwords keyword tool, Google Insights for search, Google trends keyword demand prediction, Wordtracker’s Free Basic Keyword Demand. To find out how keyword-rich is your article, you can use SEO for WordPress if you are working on WordPress or use SEOmoz. Please note that keyword richness has nothing to do with keyword density. Appropriate use of keywords Now that you know the essentials of keyword research, start writing your content. And ensure that you use the keywords naturally. If your focus shifts toward increasing keyword density, then you start losing the quality of your content. Also, leading search engines use Latent Semantic Indexing to search for related keywords, synonyms and grammatical variations in your content. So, you don’t have to sound rhetoric yet appropriate. Structure your content Content structuring is important before you start writing your content. It gives a clear direction to the reader where your content is leading them. Avoid writing ostensibly if you want to get higher ranking in the search results. In-depth yet succinct content is not only liked by the visitors, it is SEO-friendly as well. Optimize title tags Ideal headlines are the ones that draw the attention of the viewers in SERP and are compelling enough to hit your website. Title tags are necessary to establish the relevance of your keywords. So, your title tags must contain keywords and your content must contain the most important keyword used in the title tag. What are the requisites for an ideal title tag? Keep it snappy and informative Do not cram keywords in it Use only one title tag on a page Limit it to 70 characters including spaces Know your competition You must understand that you are not the only one to get your website visible in the SERP. There are many in the market trying to sell the same product as yours. Search your product by using the appropriate keywords and see what results appear in the front page. These are your competitors. Visit their website and find out how to improve your website. Put your thoughts in and do even better. Optimize snippets Snippets also known as meta-description is the vital information displayed below the title tags in the SERP. It is specifically written for every page on your website with relevant keywords so that the viewers get some information about the content on your page. It helps them to decide whether or not to visit your webpage. Snippets are usually limited to 150-160 characters and must contain at least one keyword phrase from the page. Get your content noticed and shared

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Eastern Europe May Lose Its Significance as a Nearshore Destination

Eastern Europe May Lose Its Significance as a Nearshore Destination

A lot has been written about the importance of Eastern Europe as a nearshore destination. Nearshoring activities take place in countries which are closer in time and culture to the client countries. For instance, Ukraine, Serbia and other Eastern European countries are closer to Western European countries in terms of culture and time zones. Nearshore destinations make things easy When we compare France with India, the cultural difference is huge. However, though French people and the Serbians speak different languages, cultural similarities and geographic proximities trounce the differences. Thus, nearshore activities are considered to be much more advantageous to companies that outsource work. Until now, countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Greece have been nearshore destinations for both Western European countries and the North American companies. And it did work well for the clients as they found working with people who wake up at the same time as they do, much easier than having to deal with people who are between 6-12 hours away. However, things are not looking too good in Eastern Europe. In fact, recent trends indicate that Eastern Europe may gradually lose its prominence as a nearshore destination. There are a number of reasons for this pessimistic outlook. In this article, let us take a look at why Eastern Europe may be losing its mojo. Political upheavals As we all know, Eastern Europe is not the easiest place to be a politician today. Whether one is running for office in Serbia or someone is trying to become a mayor of a Ukrainian city, things are as complex as it can get. Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and other former Yugoslavian countries have had a disturbing history, all of which leads to a general sense of doom and gloom. Politics in these countries are invariably a reflection of what happened two decades ago and people are still coming to terms with the ravages of political upheavals. All this is reflected in the way they conduct business too. Though most countries in Eastern Europe are stable today, their political issues are not yet resolved. Serbia, for instance, is trying to become a member of the European Union but is still under the watchful eye of Russia, its prominent ally. Serbia is also engaged in disputes with its neighbors including Kosovo, which Serbia claims as its own. All this is not recognized by the European Union and financial policies are often a result of these disputes. Bad economy Economy in Europe, as a whole is not really great at the moment. Portugal recently got its way out of EU handouts but others have not been so lucky. Greece is mired in economic difficulties and so is Italy. With that in mind, we must remember that Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia are all some of the poorest countries in Europe. Their economy needs to improve a lot and the infrastructure isn’t developed yet, because of the conflicts that they have experienced. When we say infrastructure, we mean in terms of information technology. Of course, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania have all responded very well to infrastructural demands but the sheer amount of economic troubles has often overwhelmed these East European countries. With that in mind, we must remember that Ukraine is one of the largest outsourcing destinations and its economy is one of the reasons why its people are so disenchanted and disappointed with the way things are. Naturally, the country is not stable at the moment and it is not clear how long it will take for Ukraine to come out of the economic and political mess it is in right now. Wars and conflicts Europe is not the first region that comes to our minds when we speak of wars and conflicts. Unfortunately, no region in this world is safe from wars and conflicts and every region has populist movements and conflicts that feed into the troubles experienced by nations. Some of the most conflict-hit regions of Europe are Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, Romania and Moldova. All these countries still carry disputes that from the days of Soviet Union. All these countries were under the influence of former Soviet Union and currently, under the influence of Russia. Ukraine is descending into a civil war-like conflict whereas Serbia is still trying to fix its problems with Kosovo. Meanwhile Romania and Moldova have their own regional problems where people with regional interests have begun to demand independence. With all these conflicts in mind, it is not possible to see a positive growth in terms of outsourcing and near shore activities. One needs to wait and watch to understand how things might develop but at the moment it does not look rosy. Natural disasters It may be surprising to learn that Eastern Europe is also plagued by natural disasters. Recently, Both Serbia and Bosnia were flooded after torrential rains. More than 40 people lost their lives and the floods have been described as the worst in history. Both Bosnia and Serbia suffered equally, though they have been rivals for a very long time. Natural disasters like flooding and extreme temperatures are not unknown to Eastern Europe. What makes it different from natural disasters in China or India is that these countries are very small, with very fragile infrastructure. Even a small damage to their roads and other infrastructure is enough to cut of large parts of the country. This is not so in India or China, where the area that is inhabited is so large that disasters are usually centered in small pockets. Nevertheless, these problems are often enough to drive away investors and look for greener pastures, where natural disasters are far and few. It remains to be seen how Serbia and Bosnia will cope with the recent floods. General sense of pessimism All these problems in Eastern Europe have led to a general sense of doom and gloom, which is not good for anyone. When there are political conflicts, wars and natural disasters happening, economy is bound

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5 Signs That You Have Chosen the Wrong Outsourcing Partner

Outsourcing specific business processes to offshore destinations has grown over the years while deriving major benefits for businesses. Though cost-saving has been a popular idea in the past, outsourcing today portrays a much larger picture with serious implications for your business. There are many reasons why companies choose to outsource. It is a strategic decision made by the company for the following reasons: To focus on core activities by optimizing internal resources – It is a common practice to outsource task, which are not your expertise. But here we are talking about those tasks that consume unnecessary time and administrative cost of your business. For instance, as a life insurance company, you can outsource the task of managing bills and receipts, customer care etc. This way you can focus more on marketing, developing new customers, policy design and research. Shifting to new technology – You might not be aware of emerging technologies in software development even though it is crucial for your business to stay ahead in the market. Perhaps, it is not your fault. When you rope in an experienced outsourcing partner, they help you to invest in new technology. This makes sure that you don’t compromise on product quality and improve productivity of your processes. Increase your capacity to bear risks – In the event of any natural disasters or a major human error, your IT system can get damaged, thus, affecting your operations. Outsourcing partners are very well-equipped with a back-up plan and turn around the system in no time. Cut down infrastructure cost – Shifting to new technology or maintaining existing technology requires huge investment on machinery, office space, license, hardware and software. To get rid of all these additional costs, it is a wise decision to leave it to the expert outsourcing partner who can do so at a much lesser cost. Access to highly skilled talent – Outsourcing destinations in Asia has a surge of qualified professionals. They understand your needs and deliver a high service quality. Besides that, other reasons for outsourcing include cost-cutting without compromising on quality, overcoming seasonal shortage of labor and scarcity of talent. Despite selecting a partner of your choice, it is common to find dissatisfaction with the work of your partner. It is quite possible that your partner started off well but deteriorated in quality later. The first step is obviously to analyze the situation by pin-pointing the areas of improvement. But if it does not work out and your partner fails to listen to you, then it is time to re-consider your decision. A common sign that you have chosen a wrong outsourcing partner is when your partner starts measuring success through savings and efficiency at the expense of service & product quality. Apart from that, following are the five signs you need to observe that indicate you have chosen a wrong outsourcing partner: Reduced client satisfaction – Client satisfaction is your top priority. Only a satisfied client will recommend your services to others. The outsourcing partner needs to give the same level of importance to your client as you do. To understand your business needs, he needs to understand the needs of your client. But when your partner does not care about your clients and is not flexible enough to bend his approach to serve your customers better, it often aggravates to client dissatisfaction.This consequently leads to poor service quality for your clients. If your outsourcing partner is taking care of front-end services i.e. facing your clients directly, then the issue escalates very quickly. On the other hand, in case back-end services are dispensed by your partner, you get a timely warning from your clients through their valuable feedback or complaints. Remember that the outsourcing partner carries your brand image by delivering his services. Apart from that, there is another concern when your partner keeps your clients lower on his priority list. This is a case when he is serving multiple businesses like yours. This practice leads to unnecessary delays for your clients. High attrition rate – A healthy company always takes care of her employees with a long-term perspective in mind. In return, employees also show their loyalty to such companies which reflects in their tasks. They are ready to go an extra mile in times of need and meet project deadlines.But when your outsourcing partner is short-sighted and starts looking for cheap labor without giving any perks, nobody is willing to work for a long term in such an unstable work environment. His only focus becomes cost-effectiveness. Though it is a great place for a fresher and a temp to gain some experience, an experienced person is unwilling to work for such a company.Employees are the one who take the company forward. A long association with the employees means they understand your old customers and their needs very well. They are the ones who train new talent. Moreover, your clients look for consistency and stability when they associate with your business. Employee base with a high turnover rate means fluctuations in service quality. If your outsourcing partner is marred by poor labor policies and continuous labor conflicts, it poses a threat for your clients. Lack of intent – An outsourcing partner is supposed to give you full support to keep up the level of service delivery. Your outsourcing partner could be plagued by lack of intent when he is quite often citing contractual terms and conditions. He fails to deliver the projects on time and gives excuses.It leads to conflict between your in-house and offshore team wherein the offshore team leader becomes reluctant to pursue his team members. It turns out to be impossible to work with such a partner who is not putting in its full potential. One reason could be that they are overloaded with other projects and take you for granted.While the other reason could be they just don’t want to do it because the management is too lazy to implement and are looking for easy money. It is better

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Qualities You Need To Look For In Your Virtual Team Members

Qualities You Need To Look For In Your Virtual Team Members

There are a number of challenges that clients encounter while hiring remote workers and virtual team members. In order to avoid problems in the future, you might want to look for some important qualities among possible recruits. Before that, let us take a look at common problems that clients encounter when dealing with virtual team members. Incomprehensible communicationCommunication is a major challenge among global virtual teams. People belonging to different cultures have their own way of communication. Since most of the interaction is devoid of face-to-face contact, team members often miss out non-verbal cues like body language, voice tone and facial expressions. Emotions are completely cut-off from the day-to-day interaction and people react mostly on the basis of electronic messages passed between one another. Moreover, time zone differences make it difficult for the members to conduct frequent video conferences. Recording every task onlineSince there is no common office place for the team members, every task they perform has to be updated in the online directory. Whether it is critical or not, the tasks have to be recorded online on a daily basis for the perusal of the managers. Such data-filling tasks consume extra time and discourage the team members. Though, much of it depends upon collaboration potential of the team using effective collaboration tools. Tracking and improving WIPTracking the work-in-progress of individual team members is crucial for the team leaders to establish their performance level. Setting up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and measuring them becomes challenging with increasing complexities of the project. Since, the team members are working in aloof environment, straight-forward and cold feedbacks from managers are quite discouraging for them & their KPIs suffer. Lack of social interactionVirtual team members work in solitude. So, they miss out on office chit chats and friendships. They have limited networking opportunities due to which they feel insecure of their growth prospects. There is no one to celebrate their professional success or motivate them in their downturn. Though there are social media tools incorporated by the companies to encourage casual interaction among the employees but nothing can fulfill the emotional satisfaction generated by face-to-face contact. There are many companies that hire employees who can work from the comfort of their home but considering these inevitable challenges, virtual team members need to have certain qualities that make them fit to work in a virtual environment. Qualities desired in a virtual team member Self-motivationSelf-motivation is the most important trait required in a virtual team member working from home. Their performance, ability to meet deadlines and productivity are all dependent on their motivation levels. Usually, in an office environment, people discuss their personal and work-related issues with their colleagues. This gives them some kind of emotional relief so that they can focus on their work. But there is no such case in a virtual environment. Though work-related issues are addressed from time-to-time by virtual team leaders, nobody brings up their personal issues. Well-equipped and thorough with technologyMost of the time, small companies set a criterion for selecting virtual candidates to be well-equipped with the required hardware and software. In exceptional cases, companies set-up a home office for their virtual employees. In any case, you are required to be thorough with the online technology that helps you to collaborate and communicate effectively with the group. There are many tools and applications that you need to set-up yourself to be able to do that. A person who feels uncomfortable in dealing with technological complexities offered by virtual environment is deemed unfit for a virtual job. High intelligence quotientVirtual team members are required to work in time-bound projects with continuous pressure from the employers. Moreover, there is no physical support available to them, which means they have to handle the entire pressure themselves. If all the team members are able to use their cognitive abilities faster, then it proves fruitful for boosting the performance of the team. Though, IQ level is not related to talent, personality or application but it surely adds to their productivity. Collaborates effectivelyThe team members need to have adequate experience of working in large teams. They need to know whom to collaborate with by excluding people irrelevant to the task. In large teams, members have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Ability to collaborate effectively will help save a lot of time of fellow team members by preventing confusion and incongruity. Members need to be aware of collaboration using social media tools that help in sharing knowledge and best practices with their colleagues. Efficient communicatorCommunication becomes a challenge when there is no face-to-face contact. Whether it is e-mails or instant messengers, communication needs to be seamless. Team members working in global teams need to possess cross-cultural communication skills. They need to have the ability to work together with people from different nationality and religion. Every person in the team needs to know how to communicate effectively besides language barriers. They need to be active listeners while communicating through video chats. TrustworthyTrust is build through consistency and efficiency of task-completion in virtual teams. In office environment, colleagues, usually, hand-over their task to each other during personal urgency or other priorities and they understand each others’ problems. But as there is no social bonding among the virtual team members, ongoing commitment towards the task is what develops trust. Make sure that the team members have proven track record of meeting deadlines and commitment. They need not be habitual of giving excuses. Check their references. AccountableAccountability of tasks is critical to virtual environment. Virtual team members often hesitate to rely on each other as they have never met in person. Most of the work is interdependent. Completion of one task is dependent on the completion of the other. If one member fails to accomplish his task, it affects the whole team. The whole team becomes responsible for project delay. This causes feeling of distrust. Accountable team member is always dedicated to finish the task irrespective of any challenge he faces. Complex projects have no room for failure.

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How to Manage a Virtual Team Efficiently

Virtual team members are scattered across the globe. A poor team leader is often responsible for diminishing co-ordination and productivity among the team members. As a result, you are left lurching in the middle and shelling out money to hire new members & firing previous ones. Poor management leads to project failures, shifting deadlines and poor service quality. Key reasons for the failure of the team are as follows: Lack of clarity – Even though you hired highly skilled professionals, virtual team members are plagued by differentiation. Individual members have their own way of working and a different definition of quality. They act like unguided souls who work hard based on presumptions. The end result is chaos. Insufficient information sharing – Virtual team members rely on tools to communicate and share information with each other. Inadequate training on the use of tools does no good to your company as the employees fail to exploit the potential of tools to share real-time information, thereby, causing lags. Clash of priorities – This highly skilled group of people give priorities to the work of their choice. Consequently, there is lack of co-ordination, missed deadlines and overall poor performance level of the team. A good manager is the one who recognizes these follies and devises strategic methods to resolve such matters. Let us briefly discuss the advantages of having a virtual team on-board before we head towards managing them. Advantages of having a virtual team Reduced cost – Virtual employees can be hired to do the same job at a much lesser salary as compared to your in-house staff. Moreover, administrative overheads are drastically cut down by negating office space and set-up. Even if you set up home-office for virtual employees, the cost is much lower than setting up the office. Centers of excellence– Highly skilled virtual employees are scattered across the globe. Every geographic location comes with its own set of expertise. Global integration– As and when business grows, the virtual team members form a team around themselves. This way, different teams around the globe work together to accomplish a common goal. Structural and demographic diversity – As opposed to hierarchical structure in a traditional organization, virtual teams are often unstructured as the team members belonging to different locations are reporting to different managers. Such diversity brings in varied feedback, work experience, nationality and networking opportunities. Managing a virtual team Classify the processes into task-oriented and socio-emotionalVirtual employees communicate with the help of technology unlike office employees who rely on face-to-face meetings. A task-oriented leadership approach is required to manage virtual employees as it is focused on the completion of particular tasks, which serves as a measure of their success and reliability. In addition to that, human personality evolves by repeating series of crisis and resolution. Pose your employees with challenges continuously to get the best result out of them. Build upon superior knowledge available remotelyEvery virtual employee working from a remote location has some or the other functional expertise. But the fact is that this expertise is not available to all the team members. Replicate the most desirable skill set across the team to improve overall productivity of your tasks through periodic trainings. Share superior knowledge with the team members so that they can evolve, use their existing knowledge to innovate and take a sense of pride in their work. Moreover, it is important that your employees learn with time or else they will have no reason to be loyal to your organization. Encourage self-leadership among team membersVirtual employees are deprived of social bonding with their colleagues. So, it is important to keep them engaged through interaction and information sharing via technology. They are unable to interact with their fellow team members face-to-face, negating the use of facial expressions and non-verbal cues. A team leader has to infuse leadership qualities in the team by asking them to actively share important information and take initiatives. It is essential that the team members are self-sufficient and rely less on the leader for managing their tasks. Focus your HR efforts not only on building virtual team leaders but leaders across the team. Arrange physical get-togethers sporadicallyFace-to-face get-together becomes indispensable when your goal is set-up for a permanent virtual team working on long-term basis. Such meetings improve communication, collaboration, understanding and cohesion among the group. The meetings don’t have to be formal always. Informal meetings like party, family get-together etc. help your team members to further strengthen their bond and generate larger returns for your company. The investment and time devoted in such get-togethers work in your favor considering the scale of your business. Informal/Formal video chatsThough e-mails and instant chat messengers are used for most of the communication needs, there are certain things that can be explained through visual interaction only. Encourage the use of video chat applications like Skype, iChat, OoVoo, AT&T Connect etc. to facilitate video chatting among the members. Video chats enable the team to interact through effective visual communication. They can pass visual cues through expression and see the person on the other side. Visual interaction makes your project more humane. Without any video communication, virtual team members are just like computers sitting at the two corners of the world. Cultivate a sense of global cultureVirtual employees are subject to different working environment like working alone from a remote place and interacting with culturally different people on a regular basis. The HR strategies need to include inter-cultural training as they are aligned towards fostering a global mindset among your virtual employees. A global mindset will prepare your employees to become diversity-friendly and be more flexible working with people belonging to a different time zone. If your business serves customers across the globe, then your employees need to realize so even if they are not directly dealing with them. Use screen sharing toolsConsidering the distance and lack of immediate expertise unavailable to employees, screen sharing technology has proven extremely helpful for virtual employees. The person on the other computer can take charge of what you are doing

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Why Do Software Projects Fail When Outsourced?

Ever wondered what it takes to run an outsourcing project successfully? Ever considered the risks involved in not only hiring IT outsourcing companies, but also taking up clients from far and wide? It is business’ nature that risks can’t be avoided and that there are going to be successes and failures. What if we could predict which projects, clients and vendors have the highest probabilities of being failures? What if we knew beforehand if we could stop projects from failing and if we could ensure their success? It looks like neither the vendors nor their clients are completely powerless against the mechanisms of business risks. There are ways to know what works and what will not. In this article, we need to take a brief look at Magne Jørgensen’s study on the various failure factors of small software projects in the IT outsourcing industry. The study validates several doubts and hunches that we already had.1 What are the highlights of the study? The study revealed that risk of project failure can be predicted with a high accuracy. Choosing vendors based on previous good performance reduces risks of failures. Choosing vendors based on low price increases risk of failures. Project failures do not depend only on vendors but also on clients. Project failure rate differs across geographical regions. The study’s aim, methodology and findings The study titled “Failure factors of small software projects at a global outsourcing marketplace” was published in the Journal of Systems and Software early this year. The study helps us to understand why small scale software projects fail in an outsourcing marketplace setting. The study evaluated 7,85,325 projects and tasks at a marketplace called vWorker.com. Using a binary logistic regression model, Jørgensen was able to predict 74% of failures and 67% of non-failures, a feat that is almost astounding. There are several important points that we need to understand. If a client has previously worked with a vendor and if the vendor completed the project satisfactorily, succeeding projects had a high rate of success. This is a no-brainer. This is one of the reasons why we choose to work with the same vendor once we know that he or she was able to deliver what was promised. The client’s characteristics were equally important in explaining project failures. If the client insisted on a low price, the project, usually, failed. What could be the reason? Vendors, usually, agree to work for a low price out of fear of losing business. Eventually, they lose interest in providing the kind of services they usually provide to others at a lower price. Money is always a motivating factor. If clients insist on very low prices, project failure rate will increase. Client’s skills were important in explaining project failure as well. We usually think of vendors as the ones who need to be skilled. The question of clients’ skills does not arise at all. According to the study, if clients are not skilled in a certain area, for instance (we assume), negotiation skills, the project could fail. Increased project size heightened the risks of failure as well. This is again a no-brainer. Unless the vendors are a huge enterprise, burdening a small and individual software developer with reams of coding work to do is going to end up badly. If the project is big, then clients need to hire at least a small or medium sized company, instead of individual coders. What we think The study used a large sample and reliable statistical methods. Thus, its results can be considered valid. If you are looking for good quality vendors, you probably need not reduce the price so much that it de-motivates them. On the other hand, vendors must not take up projects which are too large for them to handle. Both the clients and the vendors need to bite as much as they can chew. Also, depending on the testimonies of friends and acquaintances to choose the right vendor is a good idea, if we consider the findings of this study. An abstract to the study can be found here. Reference Jørgensen M. Failure factors of small software projects at a global outsourcing marketplace. Journal of Systems and Software. 2014;92:157-169.

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