They bring good things to Romania

GE goes East! One good, comprehensive article on outsourcing, in FT today, on Business Life. A few excerpts:

How many Korean-speaking accountants are there in China, and how do you recruit and train them? You may not expect the head of an India-based outsourcing company to need answers to questions like these, but Pramod Bhasin does. He is president and chief executive of Genpact, the former “captive” outsourcing unit of General Electric that was known until Tuesday as Gecis Global. The new name aims to reflect the company’s independence from the US group, achieved at the end of last year.

Given the pace at which Genpact is hiring – 800 to 1,000 people worldwide each month – and training – 7,000 to 8,000 people a year – this is no easy task, and it has prompted an international search for talent. “It’s our job to tap into the intellectual capacity of a country,” says Mr Bhasin. “If we need engineering skills and they are available in Romania, that is where we go.”

However, each country in eastern Europe tends to run out of capacity pretty quickly, he says, and this pushes up salaries and other costs. Hungary, where ­Genpact established operations in 2002, has already become more expensive, he says, and that was partly why the company opened a facility in Romania this summer. The new unit currently employs only about 50 people, but Mr Bhasin predicts this will increase quickly to 500 to 600, and could eventually exceed 1,000.

The biggest foreign operation is Mexico, where the company has 2,500 employees in two cities, Ciudad Juarez and Caborca, providing English and Spanish-based services to its mainly US clients. In Asia, Gecis set up operations at Dalian in China in June 2000. Already it employs about 1,500 people there. In Europe, the company’s Budapest-based subsidiary began operations in September 2002, expanding into a second building in May this year. Employment is about 670.

Earlier this month, the company’s Romanian facility was officially opened in north Bucharest. Employment is approaching 170, but there is room for 1,500 workers. The company’s increasingly multilingual workforce puts it in a better position to handle pan-European work from eastern Europe. The whole of GE in Europe, for example, is served from Budapest and Bucharest, along with a carmaker and an office equipment manufacturer.

Bashing Bush?

I just love it when insiders go public. This is exactly what David Frum - a former White House speech-writer - did today (see the FT's Comment page).

The case for President Bush has never been that he was a master of detail. The case is the opposite: that he is a leader who dares greatly and accepts risks from which most politicians would flinch.

says Mr Frum.

While I agree that bold leadership is generally a pre-requisite in business as much as in politics, truly great leaders don't just take risks at any costs. Greatness, in leadership, lies with acknowledging truth; thorough understanding of context is key to effective risk management. Balancing risks and reward is what tells, eventually, a leader from a manager.

Then, once a leader gauged risks and sold a credible assessment of a project's expected costs to his board, comes the pricing. How heavy the toll should be to bridge public expectations to political actions? Take this: "at a price, it is almost always possible to offload the risks you know about, trough multiple layers of hedging and insurance" (Greg Brown, Kenan-Flager Business School).

Mr. Bush, I reckon, failed short of gauging risks effectively because of his inability to focus on details. By the same token, his pricing proposals were erroneously based on wrong cost estimates.

Mr. Frum, the author, goes on saying that

In a 2003 book about Mr Bush, I offered this assessment of his personality: Mr Bush is “a good man who is not a weak man. He is impatient, quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic, often uncurious, and as a result ill-informed...[but] outweighing the faults are his virtues: decency, honesty, rectitude, courage, and tenacity”.

I won’t dwell into Mr. Bush’s splashing virtues to an audience overfed with Hollywood role-models. One last thing, though: Mr. Bush seems to resemble, now more than ever, the sad figure of a lonely, luck-deserted cowboy.

But, time will tell.

Nava conducatoare

Asa a tradus unul, odata, leadership. Omului astuia, un sindicalist bagaret si guraliv, ii cazusera ochii pe un paper academic produs de niste scandinavi. Cu orice ocazie a vorbit despre autorii aia (altfel niste oameni onesti, sunt convins), pana ni se acrise celor care aveam ghinionul sa ii cadem in preajma.

Neverosimil, acest Mitica fara frica (de ridicol) ajunsese sa tina cursuri si pe la una dintre facultatile din Universitate. Da, la un curs din asta a vorbit el odata, sacadat si plicticos, despre cate tipuri de nave conducatoare au identificat niste cercetatori scandinavi.

La vremea aia evident ca facem misto de tampitelul asta.

Dar stiti ceva? Omul asta intuia ca problema noastra in Romania e legata de insuficienta (institutionala?) de a ne asuma responsabilitati. Ca in orice tara saraca, si Romania suferea de absenta liderilor politici responsabili, vizionari si curajosi, onesti si inspirationali, care stimuleaza societatea civila si inteleg importanta domniei legii. Oameni care construiesc institutii moderne, care sfideaza traditionalismul retelelor de interese personale.

Despre lucrile astea scrie si in FT azi, pe pagina doi, in josul paginii (President's Address Leadership key in poor nations, says Wolfowitz

O sa citez cateva fragmente care mi se par ilustrative:

On leadership and accountability, Mr Wolfowitz stressed the need to address corruption and to strengthen checks and balances on governments, including civil society groups and the free press.

"We know that sustained economic growth is essential for development and reducing poverty," he said, adding that there was a range of factors affecting growth that was too often discounted or dismissed as "soft".

"Sustainable development depends as much on leadership and accountability, on civil society and women, on the private sector and on the rule of law, as much as it does on labour or capital," he said.

He stressed the importance of improving women's access to education, health and credit, adding that civil society groups had an important role to play in building a bridge between citizens and their governments. Strengthening the rule of law and judicial institutions was also crucial for encouraging increased investment in developing countries.

Mr Wolfowitz said he was encouraged by signs of improving leadership in Africa. "Africans are stepping up to their responsibilities and taking charge of their future. A new generation of African leaders is setting examples by stepping down when their terms of office end or when they are voted out."