Value Leadership Group Website

New Value Leadership Group Strategy Paper

India: An Emerging Research Cluster

By Professor Srinivasa Rangan

Professor Rangan provides cutting-edge insights into the strategies companies are applying to leverage the emerging scientific research cluster in India.

This paper is based on a global Value Leadership Group next practice strategic research project involving the research centers of more than 20 companies in India including Philips, ABB, Motorola, HP, GM, and the Tata Group.

Professor Rangan’s paper builds on his work of almost 10 years with Professor Michael Porter at Harvard University.

Click here to download the complete study in PDF Format

The New Competitive Paradigm in European IT Services – Global Strategy Conference
in Stockholm

In June 2007, the Swedish investment bank, Handelsbanken Capital Markets, and the Value Leadership Group, hosted a global strategy conference in Stockholm. The theme of the conference was – The New Competitive Paradigm in European IT Services.

The Value Leadership Group provided exclusive analysis and CEOs from industry leaders gave important new insights into the competitive dynamics and likely future direction of the European IT services industry.

More than 125 senior executives from 18 countries and a cross section of industries were in attendance. Delegates and speakers gave this event the highest ratings.

Click here to download a 1-page anaylsis of the conference

Does your Offshoring
strategy create differentiation
and greater business value?

Read an exclusive interview on offshoring strategy with Peter Schumacher.

Best practice companies – regardless of size – are those that leverage offshoring to do things they would not be able to do otherwise. You can entrepreneurially rethink your business and implement organizational and service innovations.

Companies that are not thinking about offshoring strategically are likely to miss this opportunity.

This interview was released in Belgium in July 2008 in “Offshore Update” a publication of Applied Development, continental Europe’s first venture funded offshore services firm.

Click here to download the 1-page interview in English Language

Click here to download the 1-page interview in Belgian-Dutch Language

Value Leadership Group in the news

BPO blues: Study says Indians have `yes` problem
By Siddharth Zarabi

Hannover April 27, 2006 - Despite widespread use of English, India and Europe have significant cultural differences that are showing up as concrete obstacles to offshore work.

Despite widespread use of English, India and Europe have significant cultural differences that are showing up as concrete obstacles to offshore work.

In a study on European small and medium IT companies in India by Value Leadership Group Inc, all the companies surveyed specifically mentioned the tendency of Indian workers to ‘‘over commit’’ (say yes to every request) as a significant cultural issue.

“We saw several examples of missed deadlines and project failures that the companies attributed to this trait,” it states.

The study has been authored by Peter Schumacher and Eric Olsson. It says the the cultural differences work both ways, with many Indians uncomfortable with the bluntness of Germans.

Speaking to Business Standard at the ongoing Hannover Fair, Peter Schumacher, president & CEO, Value Leadership Group Inc, said India ’s proposition of value for money, top talent and tremendous flexibility was not going unnoticed by small and medium European enterprises that had exhausted their options in Europe.

While the study mentions a number of factors that contribute to the India advantage, it also lists some other challenges faced during companies’ off-shoring work in India . One of these is that unlike in most Western countries, salaries and incomes tend to be public information in India .

This fact alone can create salary pressures for companies operating in India . The study quotes Jens Borchers of Case Consult as saying: “Never expect that a secret agreement you share with one employee will stay a secret — he or she will tell the first person in the hall after leaving your office.”

However, on one issue Indians in the IT industry score over others. This is because many of them deal only with foreign customers and tend to have substantially more experience dealing with a wide variety of people and cultures than many Europeans do.

Indian IT also has an advantage because most of the companies have always worked on a “global delivery model”, while many European companies face an uphill struggle switching to this model from their current “proximity to customer based” model.

Download article in PDF Format.

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