The client is struggling. Current IT staff is not capable and are wasting valuable cycles. Competitors are nipping at their heels and IT leadership is whistling by the graveyard. What is one to do?

This is the call I received last week and I immediately sprang into action. I quickly assembled the team and we converged on the client site. The initial meeting was tense. I looked at the Executives assembled before me and boldly claimed: “Your business is dying and IT is to blame”.

As heads nodded in the affirmative, I started with the proposal in a few steps:

Step 1: Offshore the entire IT department by Christmas. In a bold move, I told the customer to perform the layoffs on 12/24 so that tax savings would be maximized. But I told them to keep the layoffs a secret so we could pump all the information out of the current staff as possible.

Step 2: Allow me to staff a massive IaaS offering with self-service, cloud-bursting, load balancing, auto-tuning, agility, flexibility, pervasiveness, and ROI. Center of innovation would be Bangalore with secondary center of innovation in Russia.

Step 3: Sign a 10 year commitment with my firm to manage the resources.

The client agreed in short order. We celebrated at a fine steakhouse, with the pre-requisite leather chairs and all. #IaaS for Christmas is what the client wanted and what they will get!

Sincerely, TCC

One of the things I love about my career is my ability to make a difference in the lives of my customers. I have a saying that is tried and true:

“It not how you play the game, it’s how you change the rules to win at the game”

Case in point. I was with a client a few weeks back holding a massive strategy summit. I had my team bring in poster-sized PostIt notes so that we could cover the walls with brainstorming and diagramming. During the meeting, it was determined that the company was losing money and market share due to the inability of their current IT team to work at the speed of business. Sensing an opportunity to go for the kill, I asked leading questions such as:

1. Does your IT team utilize the latest and greatest DevOps and Cloud Computing methodologies?
2. When hiring IT leaders, do you look for thought leaders or deep technical skills?
3. Is IT growing as a cost and, given the failure of the current staff, are you looking at an offshore strategy?

The answers were what I expected. The IT team did not practice DevOps and Cloud Computing. Why? Because there were no funds made available for it and there had been a hiring freeze in IT for years. I confidently noted that lack of investment was not an excuse for the IT department. Truly agile thinkers should be able to get creative. After all, fire was not invented by a company that made lighters! It was discovered through sheer will by rubbing sticks together.

IT leaders were not really hired, they were promoted from within. I noted this is a tremendous mistake as those who work for the company already are part of the problem and should never be allowed to move up the ladder.

Finally, IT was growing as a cost but an offshore strategy was never looked at. I quickly mentioned wage arbitrage as THE strategy to follow as it was a way of saving money while also freeing the client of any and all obligations to their IT employees.

Given my deft navigation of the meeting, the client begged me for a solution. I came back with a multi-point program focused on an offshore strategy and IaaS. I pointed out the following benefits:

1. My consulting firm would take over IT from the client. We would do this for 6 years at a total cost of $100MM.
2. The current IT team would provide knowledge transfer and would only receive their severance packages if they stayed through the entire period of 4 months during transition.
3. I would fly to our offshore location (first class round trip) and assemble an army of IaaS gurus who would combine agile IT with orchestration, business process, and Six Sigma.
4. ROI and TCO calculations would be done on a quarterly basis. If we under-performed we would try harder but if we over-performed, we would receive a bonus of 5% of the quarterly invoice.

The client gladly accepted my proposal and has engaged with us to start the process. For all of those in the same position, I highly advise you to look into wage arbitrage and IaaS as the elixir to cure all that ills you.

Sincerely, TCC