Point to Ponder

Getting back to blogging mode is always difficult, atleast for me its always been the case.

For me there should always be a stimulus to do so.. Today its for altogether a separate reason. I accompanied a collegaue of mine to a seminar cum workshop by ORACLE Pakistan and very well organized CIO-PK (CIO-PK (Rabia n her team).

Its always nice to be amongst the top IT professionals of the local industry. This time around database professionals primarily from the financial hub (Karachi) were present on the ocassion.

Oracle team lead by Rizwan Munawar - Country Head Applications Business (Pakistan / SAGE) shared a detailed insight on how ORACLE after taking over SUN microsystems has become the power house for any Telco, FSI (Financial Service Industry) or Retail sector organization.

The focus of today’s workshop was how serious is ORACLE with the Information Security of its deployments. The workshop was titled ORACLE (Security Inside out).

With its latest product of ORACLE 11g, the database giant has brought in some interesting and solid features for IT security personnel. To name a few:

• ORACLE Database VAULT
• ORACLE Audit VAULT
• End to End Identity Management Solution

Details of the features can be found here.

Just a quick post for all the fresh engineers or engineers to be;  At look at the Telecom world.

A resource (http://www.linkedin.com/in/saundraoneil) at linkedin shared the pdf.

Click here to View

The recent press release by Gartner Research is simply amazing. It concludes that Asia / Pacific would lead the Mobile Payment Users across the globe in 2010. Have a look at the stats below:

Mobile Payment Users by Region (Thousands)

Source: Gartner Website

Yet, we dont see more products coming in the local market by the telecom + fin companies. Is the easy-paisa model hard to replicate or the remaining telcos are too scared to jump in this market.

I believe local marketing is in a “wait and see mode” at the moment. However the case of micro-payments does make sense in a country like ours.

Comments & feedback appreciated.

No the post heading is not a typo. This is a cross post from my personal blog. I bet you would like the content and google (just spilled the beans i guess :p) for its PDF version on the net.

Follow here to find out more !

There was a time not so long ago when people (mostly salaried class) used to draw funds from banks using cheques; at times waiting a good amount of time to get the job done. Even more time to submit utility bills.

Then in came the ATM networks from banks. This on one end eased up the pressure on counter staff but on the other end also gave the convenience to customers for withdrawal of funds closer to their homes.

While the service industry in financial sector grew strength, the under-lying IT/Telecom infrastrcuture also grew in leaps and bounds, giving more access to telecom facilities to common man.

However the cost to reach the consumer in rural markets remained high for financial sector. One of the possible reasons could be low transaction frequency Vs the high setup and operational costs.

So how does the financial sector reach the un-served regions while still keeping the setup and operational costs to a minimum? In came the idea of branchless banking and mobile commerce to the rescue. The regulatory authority allowed the financial institutions with the help of telcom sector to bring forward and serve the un-banked regions.

Initially SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) provided the branchless banking guidelines which focused on the bank led model. Recently there have been news that SBP is also considering telco led branchless banking.

With different types of models and mobile banking services available in the market today, the end user is about to see yet another revolution in this sector. The technological model in use by these organizations vary from one Co to another (discussion of this shall follow in subsequent posts).

The telcos and (or) the banks (whether commercial or microfinance) are eyeing the micro-payments section of the market. Who could have imagined a decade ago that you could send money back to your home-town with the click of few buttons on your cell-phone? Yes you could do that with Internet as well using Internet Banking, but what if you dont have access to internet and in the middle of no-where; where u still get your operator’s signal?

I would say this is convenience at its best. In the coming posts we shall discuss the tecnology in use locally and the rise of m-payments across the globe.

Comments welcome from industry guru’s

The subject today tries to address one of the sensitive area of an employee growth. Career growth regardless of the nature of organization you work for is the prime objective of every employee.

It is true that working for an organization with lesser head count makes your work more visible to everyone (peers, juniors, seniors) and one has deliver in the best possible manner. The same is also true for organizations such as MNCs or any other global Org.

Many a line managers in order to increase the visibility of their team mates, engage them in multiple assignments or go for the traditional job rotation philosophy. However they tend to forget the aspirations of the employee. Yes increased visibility across different organization divisions increases the chances of employee growth. But there is a high probability that the employee looses the career direction he / she has set for themselves.

Professionals in their mid-careers need to analyze this aspect very carefully. This strictly does not mean that you decline the tasks being assigned to you, however a review your career path is always helpful in such situations.

Appreciate if Telco / non-telco gurus can provide further input / comments on this subject.

Recently one of my linkedin contact [wont dare to put his name here ] posted a question in Q&A section and i quote:

“How do we integrate Six Sigma tools and methods into the work we do daily to serve our customers?”

Further elaborating his question he goes -

” – Question arises as to how do we successfully integrate 6-Sigma into our management systems and as a foundation for an organizational improvement process that is an integral part of how we do business? Can anyone please share his/her personal and professional experiences and challenges that any organization comes across in terms of a paradigm shift and change management, while implementing business/quality initiatives like 6-Sigma. And how to ensure that it doesn’t die down with the passage of time …”

There have been quite a few replies from different domain experts. I too responded to it (paste later below). However the point i want to stress here is the fact that nearly all the replies and the question itself indicates a very important aspect; that Process improvement, Quality management implementation and Process efficiency tools and methodologies like 6-sigma, CAPA etc require continuous focus from senior management. Indeed it is a big paradigm shift.

Indeed I still remember the time when our organization was introducing the Telecom QMS standard via roadshows across the country, we too were posed with questions that at times disappointed the Project team. Esp the ones like “Is it something like SOA?”, “No” was my response. “Oh.. then this might fizzle out like the other standards we worked on” This time round only a was the response.

There is a single slider (6-Sigma-PM-QMS) that we worked upon while we tried to blend the process improvement (6-sigma), Project Management Methodology and QMS implementation.

This might be able to provide some insight to the quality professionals as to how the three areas can best utilized to achieve organizational goals.

The very first thought that might come to the readers mind (part of my professional network :p ) would probably be..”Ahh what a crap.. He is trying to project his own role in”. No dears that, is not the case (am not working in QA anymore).

Coming back to the post subject, in my humble opinion the value of quality professionals (quality as in the process development / improvement and not the network performance guys tweaking element level parameters) in service industry is always down-played. Unless and until the organization has a greater objective to serve its purpose, the professionals are not much in demand. Talking strictly of the local market, QA / QC always takes the backseat.

The quantity over quality stigma remains there. QA /QC and audits go hand in hand. One cannot expect a line function to do its task and do the quality function at the same time. The results are ought to be biased however honest or loyal an employee. This is basic human nature.

The value of such a function remains always there. Discussing the subject of how the division had rightly qualified for a QMS standard, One of the top exec of the organization goes “Ok, but does it save me any money”.  You are bound to be awestruck by such statements. Initiatives like these are driven from the top management and once they are not into the groove, all effort and time seems to be go down the drain.

The bottom is Quality standards do not provide you financial efficiency. There are other ways of handling it and beyond the scope of a QMS office.

Quality is a very relative term. For a customer sitting in the remote areas of Pakistan, it could mean a steady signal and crystal clear voice while talking to the loved ones; it could be steady internet browsing and emailing experience, for an executive in an urban city.

..To be contd…

There has been much talk (read hype) on whether to go for 3G deployment or not; Go for 4G deployment instead or move over to the more data intensive Wimax technologies.

Yes this a big question for the operators of developing countries, especially with the likes of Pakistan; where the market penetration now stands around 90m + users, it still remains a difficult one to answer.  I believe the market is still hungry for data / internet and internet based applications. A recent study by Alca-Lu indicates that people are least willing to cut down their expenses on Broadband internet usage.

Quote :

“But in fact, broadband Internet services in particular are considered almost recession proof, with 84% of current broadband Internet subscribers saying it is the last item they want to eliminate when reducing their spending”

UnQuote

Although having said this, if the next gen mobile telephony is to jump into the market, there is one aspect that the telco marketeers need to consider. Keeping aside the corporate market, how do you sell the technology to the end users of lets say Northern areas of Balakot, users of interior Sindh etc. Many will disagree with me on the notion of selling it to such areas and will only target the major cities.

However the counter agrument is “How to do you achieve your ROI?”; selling it only to the corp world or major cities

The reason for building up the entire conversation is for the matter that you cannot sell technologies to the end user. You need to convert the technology into end user need. This is no more a time when the end user wanted to get seemless call connectivtity at countless destinations.

I believe the end user has come out of this stage. They are more desirous of services based on such technologies. Infact they are least bothered what is the base technology that a particular service is using. How many of us evn think of a paying the home delivery agent via Credit Card lets say 4-5 years back?

We need to package the upcoming technologies into services. Dont call them “Get a 3-G connection for x-amount”.. Title it something differnet like “See Youtube video without buffering.. “.. ” Use voip appl with jitters on… ” These are just some of least possible tag lines you can think so.

Think of services you can offer and the world is there at the user doorstep.

We all know the industry is going through a recession phase.  What are the organizations doing to counter this effect, apart from re-sizing / downsizing?

One of the obvious ones being cost cutting. Reduce the amount of overheads that the org has to bear, reduce perks of top management (this will definitely raise alot of eyebrows), reduce travel, reduce advertising spends (Millions of Rs per month) and possibly put a halt to the career path.

Most readers here will agree that the perks and emoluments of employees are related to the cadre they belong to.  So put a stop to their growth is one way of saving the future cost incurred. This might seem to be a far-fetched relation between career growth and the current recession, but I see a definite link to it.

As an organization, one of the ways to handle this situation is job rotation. You move the employee in different roles. Delegate the resource to another part of the organization and see how he / she performs there.

There are also notions that “Not everyone gets a vertical move”, “Vertical moves are only created by chance” etc. This on one end supports the argument of career growth within same organization but at the same time dispels the argument of vertical moves.

I believe there has to be a limit to this rotation. The management needs to take care of some valid concerns such as:

• What effects does it have on the profile of the person?
• Does the new role assigned to employee, complements or clashes with the existing profile?

(The post today somehow relates to my last post on same subject)