UDSKRIFT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:25.135 --> 00:00:29.967
here we are, another tech unbox, unboxed by BBD, and today I've got with me David.
00:00:29.967 --> 00:00:33.109
I'm your host, koen, and I'm looking forward to this conversation.
00:00:33.109 --> 00:00:35.365
David, can you explain who you are and what you do?
00:00:35.365 --> 00:00:36.951
Hi, good afternoon.
00:00:38.121 --> 00:00:43.412
I'm David and I've been with BBD for a very, very long time.
00:00:43.412 --> 00:00:45.487
I have a few responsibilities.
00:00:45.487 --> 00:00:50.892
I have a geography responsibility for Portugal.
00:00:50.892 --> 00:01:03.487
I have some other responsibilities within the BBD business in Europe and I also have responsibilities for the scale-up that I'm involved in and I'm assisting them in scale.
00:01:05.382 --> 00:01:09.525
So that's kind of interesting because you have a lot of roles, a lot of responsibilities.
00:01:09.525 --> 00:01:13.891
But today we're going to talk a little bit about ride-shoring.
00:01:13.891 --> 00:01:17.590
Please explain to us what was the concept of ride-shoring.
00:01:18.801 --> 00:01:23.072
Ride-shoring is a term traditionally known in manufacturing.
00:01:23.072 --> 00:01:33.504
The process of moving parts of your business operation to the best location focuses on maximizing profits and lowering costs.
00:01:33.504 --> 00:01:42.006
If we look at it in software terms, it's a combination of nearshoring, offshoring and onsite.
00:01:42.006 --> 00:01:50.549
It's to bring the best quality people in the best locations and to make the best mix possible.
00:01:50.549 --> 00:02:05.224
So sometimes it's not straight nearshoring, it's not straight offshoring and it's not straight on-site, and we all know bringing people all back into the office on-site isn't always possible.
00:02:06.862 --> 00:02:22.668
right, right shoring is, let's call it, the right mix and can that something that be objectively measured, or is it the more subjective term that is, depending on the situation, which time it is right shoring for you as a company?
00:02:22.989 --> 00:02:30.206
some companies for example, in in europe, is gdpr bringing a team from india?
00:02:30.206 --> 00:02:38.424
While it might be lowering your cost, it won't serve your gdpr needs, your privacy needs.
00:02:38.424 --> 00:02:44.991
So sometimes you would need some of the team to be in india, some of the team to be in portugal.
00:02:44.991 --> 00:02:46.539
It all depends.
00:02:46.539 --> 00:02:48.243
So that's where the thing comes right.
00:02:48.243 --> 00:02:55.385
Sure, it's a process that you go through with the clients to understand what what's best for them.
00:02:56.348 --> 00:03:03.486
yeah, and one of the topics that a lot of people think about when they think about the term outsourcing and nearshoring and so on.
00:03:03.486 --> 00:03:11.567
It's around the whole idea about the fact that you lower down your quality for costs, so you sort of juggle between the two.
00:03:11.567 --> 00:03:14.385
But is this really true and how do you trade this off?
00:03:14.385 --> 00:03:14.939
The?
00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:15.902
lowering the cost.
00:03:15.902 --> 00:03:24.787
And the bad quality comes when you give all the responsibility over to an organization.
00:03:24.787 --> 00:03:30.567
But it's a partnership between two organizations.
00:03:30.567 --> 00:03:33.754
Two organizations are joining and working together.
00:03:33.754 --> 00:03:36.925
They both need to ensure the quality.
00:03:36.925 --> 00:03:47.002
So whilst the provider of the service has their list of measurements to quality, the organization also should.
00:03:47.002 --> 00:03:57.442
It's not abdicating responsibility from the organization, saying, well, I've sent it off to offshore, so it's going to be done, and when it comes back it's going to be great.
00:03:57.442 --> 00:04:00.704
That's how often projects go, really, really bad.
00:04:00.855 --> 00:04:15.522
Would you have some real examples for us as the listeners to share, maybe how that can actually be successful in reality In reality, teams work together and we put in processes, testing, for example.
00:04:16.144 --> 00:04:22.581
Testing has various things within testing, so we can do automation testing, manual testing.
00:04:22.581 --> 00:04:33.663
Quality also comes in the form of specification how good are the specifications, how good is the product design, how all of those things work together.
00:04:33.663 --> 00:04:40.574
You also don't have to augment your team just with developers or only with product design.
00:04:40.574 --> 00:04:50.862
It can be a mix and you can choose the best people from either your organization, the organization you're shoring or offshoring to.
00:04:50.862 --> 00:04:52.446
It's a various combination.
00:04:52.446 --> 00:04:53.956
You need to get the right fit.
00:04:53.956 --> 00:05:04.360
So if you put quality as the principle and you work around to achieve it, it almost sounds like a flexible engagement from both sides.
00:05:04.379 --> 00:05:06.002
It almost sounds like a flexible engagement from both sides.
00:05:06.023 --> 00:05:07.105
It is a flexible engagement.
00:05:07.105 --> 00:05:09.449
Things are changing all the time.
00:05:09.449 --> 00:05:18.471
We're all trying to understand, for example, the role of AI, and how is that going to change the development landscape?
00:05:18.471 --> 00:05:26.062
The new UX, the design, the content, marketing and software development is never changing.
00:05:26.062 --> 00:05:33.786
So what we decide to do today and how we set things up today, in a year's time might be completely different.
00:05:33.786 --> 00:05:38.942
You might end up in an organization that now they need to scale.
00:05:38.942 --> 00:05:41.985
So we need to bring on a whole bunch of new people.
00:05:42.535 --> 00:05:47.860
And how do you sort of safeguard that you're on the right track together and in the right stage?
00:05:47.860 --> 00:05:56.802
Because I
Load full transcript
think you rightly so say that you can move from some startup to scale up, but how do you know it's the right time to actually scale up?
00:05:58.178 --> 00:06:07.045
Every organization that decides to let's use the word outsource either their development, their UX or the testing.
00:06:07.045 --> 00:06:09.041
They have a roadmap.
00:06:09.041 --> 00:06:12.944
So they're looking six months, they're looking a year ahead.
00:06:12.944 --> 00:06:25.266
The best thing for that organization is to share that with their partner, with the vendor that they're trying to engage with, and make sure that that vendor also then buys into that vision.
00:06:25.266 --> 00:06:38.541
If you're just looking to let's use the word body shop, if you're just looking for a bunch of freelancers and you're just wanting to body shop and add some muscle to your organization, then things are going to fall apart.
00:06:38.541 --> 00:06:42.218
But if you bring someone on board and you show them the vision, this is what I want to build.
00:06:42.218 --> 00:06:52.620
This is where I want to be in six months' time you get that buy-in from the company engaging.
00:06:52.660 --> 00:06:55.206
But when we talk flexibility, it also comes hand-in-hand with availability.
00:06:55.206 --> 00:06:58.076
How do you then work out the availability part, and how does bbd play a role in this?
00:06:58.617 --> 00:07:02.865
I think that's one of the the hardest things about startups and scale lapses.
00:07:02.865 --> 00:07:05.661
At what point do I need to bring on people?
00:07:05.661 --> 00:07:07.540
If I bring them on too soon, I'll burn cash.
00:07:07.540 --> 00:07:10.182
If I bring them on too late, then I can't.
00:07:10.334 --> 00:07:11.298
I lost my opportunity.
00:07:11.459 --> 00:07:15.238
Correct, it's a two and a throw, it's between the two organizations.
00:07:15.238 --> 00:07:18.997
So, as BBD, we try to remain flexible.
00:07:18.997 --> 00:07:33.725
We have a lot of developers, a lot of UX people, we have capacity in five different locations and we have projects starting, we have projects ending, we have you know and we have people moving about.
00:07:33.725 --> 00:07:49.187
So, for example, a real example is I've worked at BBD and in BBD for a very long time I might know someone who is moving projects or becoming available and might be really, really well suited for the current project that I'm on.
00:07:49.187 --> 00:08:01.627
And if we're talking to that long-term vision, the roadmap, and I understand where the organization is going, look, I know, sort of in six months' time you mentioned you want to start building this.
00:08:01.627 --> 00:08:02.740
I know the right person.
00:08:02.740 --> 00:08:11.285
So let's start having those conversations, let's earmark those people, let's put them down as possible people we could bring on board.
00:08:11.285 --> 00:08:14.084
And that talks to the partnership and to the planning.
00:08:14.654 --> 00:08:18.346
So what you're saying is, david, you bring anticipation to the mix as well.
00:08:18.346 --> 00:08:25.625
So flexibility, availability and then anticipation, but how I mean you're for a long time, you know in Portugal.
00:08:25.625 --> 00:08:30.846
Is the European market different than, for example, your home base, south Africa?
00:08:30.846 --> 00:08:32.799
The market is different.
00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:41.601
in South Africa we're well established and we've been there for 40 years Wow and we understand the market very, very well.
00:08:41.601 --> 00:08:46.258
And in Europe, we've been here for five.
00:08:46.258 --> 00:08:48.847
What's not different is europeans are looking for the same delivery from their partners.
00:08:48.847 --> 00:09:06.258
Whether you're in south africa, whether we're in india, whether you're in europe, everyone's looking for the same amount of delivery, good delivery, and we're we're bringing that delivery, that culture, that that know-how for the last 40 years to europe, to our clients.
00:09:06.258 --> 00:09:16.668
We've had clients in europe for 50 years, but we haven't only over the last five years have we actually been actively in Europe with offices.
00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:20.265
Yeah, and today you got your boots on the ground.
00:09:20.265 --> 00:09:25.448
We mentioned Portugal, but what are the other places where you're also active as BBD?
00:09:27.160 --> 00:09:32.028
UK and Netherlands, and then India and South Africa.
00:09:32.028 --> 00:09:37.792
India if I'm not mistaken, for the past 10 or 11 years.
00:09:38.321 --> 00:09:50.264
I can imagine, if I'm a client and I'm sort of in that process of scaling, how can you help me to identify where I should actually take the best people, because you have multiple locations.
00:09:50.264 --> 00:09:51.830
But how would you then split?
00:09:51.830 --> 00:09:55.931
How would you choose which location is good for me?
00:09:56.639 --> 00:10:13.548
I'd say there's three things, the first one being is do you want some or all of the team on site in your office, or do you want them some of the time?
00:10:13.548 --> 00:10:24.870
Or do you want them some of the time, or do you want them every six months for a workshop where things are defined and a sort of a roadmap is built for the next six months?
00:10:24.870 --> 00:10:31.679
Or is it a fact that your organization is all over the globe so that doesn't really matter?
00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:34.328
Does data access apply?
00:10:34.328 --> 00:10:53.452
For example, if you have someone in a DevOps cloud role that is supporting your production, data production infrastructure and the client is in the UK, can you have someone outside of the UK access that data?
00:10:53.452 --> 00:11:03.370
If the answer is no, then even though as much as you really want to save costs, you won't be able to save costs and send it off to India, because then you're in breach of privacy.
00:11:03.370 --> 00:11:20.052
So, for example, if the flights are quick so from here to where I live in port, to Spain or to the UK or to the Netherlands, you could almost say once a month come in for two days.
00:11:20.052 --> 00:11:24.303
South Africa is an overnight flight, eight hours, same time zone.
00:11:24.303 --> 00:11:29.354
You might also want to say I have to support US business hours.
00:11:29.354 --> 00:11:34.731
If I support US business hours, having someone in India doesn't really work out.
00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:52.448
But, you might decide okay, I want to have two individuals in South Africa to cover the European time zone, and then I want two people from India to cover the Australian time zone, as an example, because they're quite close to australia.
00:11:52.589 --> 00:12:00.197
For me it's clear, it's it's almost like an architectural design that you have to make when you you make this sort of efforts.
00:12:00.197 --> 00:12:15.274
Now, what would really stroke me is that, um well, bbd is so long in business over 40 years which is amazing, but obviously that I think it's a, it's a very clear, unique selling point, if I may call it like this.
00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:25.335
South Africa is a country where you need to learn, you need to study, you need to really, really strive in order to succeed.
00:12:25.335 --> 00:12:29.961
So if you look at culturally, it's a really working economy.
00:12:29.961 --> 00:12:31.682
It's a really working economy.
00:12:31.682 --> 00:12:39.246
If you have to go back to the DNA of South Africa, specifically Johannesburg, it was the city of gold.
00:12:39.246 --> 00:12:45.149
It was founded because there was gold there and there was the gold rush, all of those things.
00:12:45.149 --> 00:12:47.491
It continues to still be.
00:12:47.491 --> 00:12:50.253
They call it the city of gold.
00:12:50.253 --> 00:12:56.475
So it is about working, it is about progress and that is within BBD as well.
00:12:56.475 --> 00:13:04.960
It is about delivery and working hard, making sure clients are happy and, obviously, learning in the process as an individual.
00:13:05.140 --> 00:13:09.745
David, thank you so much for sharing your insights around ride shoring.
00:13:09.745 --> 00:13:11.149
Thank you very much.
00:13:11.149 --> 00:13:18.131
Thank you very much also to the audience and please stay tuned because we're going to get more of these tech talks coming out soon.