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Parity and Parities?
This word has kept coming back to me over the past few days, at the office, during my jogging, while driving and eventually I asked myself, why? Was it only because of the bill concerning parity between men and women on companies’ board of directors? Or was it the constant media attention over the past few weeks with its constant and painful repetition that has kept bringing back this idea… but finally I realized, why.
Indeed, without using this word myself, for several years now this concept of parity, naming it or not, has actually been central to my business concepts and to some of the most important decisions that I have made. Possibly it has been one of my goals, not necessarily secret, but something I cannot always explain easily to my professional colleagues, partners or even to myself. It is like something we need to do without knowing exactly why.
I confess that I am constantly looking for new means to improve Pentalog’s performance levels in growth and in profitability that our competitors have not been able to attain. In the past six years Pentalog has outperformed the market 6 to 20 times in terms of organic growth and 3 to 4 times as much in terms of profitability (only in the past 3 years as regards to this last parameter). For a long time, I did not accompany this development with specific risk management (as we do now), but I always wanted to manage multiple sorts of equilibrium that could be called… parity:
- Parity between salaried shareholders and non-salaried shareholders, because I believe it is essential to associate our employees with the company in order to obtain a sustainable performance and at the same time to have associates whose expectations are purely financial.
- Parity between provincial cities (which offer us stability) and capitals, which bring us business opportunities and exceptionally skilled people.
- Parity between the $ zone and the € zone which also helps mitigate the currency risks. I have already expressed my thoughts concerning this subject in the past and I will soon touch on it again.
Now we will add new requirements. I would like to see the various departments of the company functioning with a minimum of multiculturalism. We are now working on it:
- 10% of the capital is now Romanian, German and Moldovan (100% of the 10% is owned by the employees). I want to increase this figure in the future. This is unavoidable if we want to meet the founding principles of Pentalog in continuing to associate our best employees with the company. It’s now between 1 and 2 million euros that have changed nationality. It is very inadequate, but the GA (General Assembly) is no longer completely French and I am very proud of this.
- Our Steering Committee has been insufficiently Romanian. Romanians are nevertheless the first nationality of our group but up to now only Monica Jiman represents them in the most operational committee of the group. She will now be joined in the Presiding Committee of the group by Raluca Otelea, the boss of PeopleCentric. This other board which brings together the Presidents and Vice Presidents, develops the business strategy and transforms it into tactics and it is also in this committee that is established the list of corporate risks facing the Group. Here the Romanians represent 33% of this committee. That’s better! There is to date no Romanian on the Board of Directors. This is something we need to improve.
I think the principle of managing multiple parities is ultimately essential for the behavior of any society, whether it is a company or a state. Thus the best means to protect ourselves from the emergence of major risks is through the diverse expression of different sensibilities, and which mobilize the forces that would otherwise remain untapped. In the latter case, this parity becomes an excellent means of leverage for the company.
More importantly, considering the debate on gender equality on administrative boards, a point which I believe we have already surpassed, I believe as a general rule, this principle is essential in the accomplishment of a sustainable performance in any social organization.
Finally, I have two comments to make on gender parity in Pentalog. Our Steering Committee is 60% female, our Board of Directors 33% and the Presiding Committee is exactly at 50%. We are not far behind the legal calendar.
Press review week 17/2010
- Cloud Computing, Security Focus of CentraComm Regional IT Forum (26 April 2010, PR News Wire)
- German Business Confidence Increased to Two-Year High in April (23 April 2010, Business Week)
- Time for some honesty about IT cost cutting (21 April 2010, Silicon)
- Why should CEOs give top priority to outsourcing ? (21 April 2010, Silicon India)
- Is technology killing Mother Earth? (21 April 2010, CIOL)
- Outsourcing: This election’s forgotten issue (20 April 2010, Silicon)
- Look Beyond Cloud Labels: Prepare for Hybrid Journey (20 April 2010, CIO)
- Der Frühling kommt langsam auch im IT-Arbeitsmarkt (26 April 2010, CIO)
- Warnende Anzeichen: 8 Gründe, den Outsourcing-Anbieter zu wechseln (23 April 2010, CIO)
- Deutschlands Manager im Sog des Web 2.0 (21 April 2010, Silicon)
- Facebook: Ein “Like”-Button für das gesamte Internet (21 April 2010, Die Presse)
- Globalisierung: Zu weit gegangen (21 April 2010, ZEIT)
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The first PM Camp in Hanoi
Last Saturday, Cornel and I organized our first PM Camp (Project Manager Camp) in Hanoi. After X sessions in Europe and with very positive feedback from the participants, we decided to extend these seminars to Asia. There was no reason why they should not be included. During these sessions, we offer project managers and other team leaders a forum for interaction and communication, where organizational, management and technology matters are openly discussed. These subjects cannot always be easily discussed around the coffee machine. We subsequently give them a framework for discussion during PM Camps.
Cornel and I were able to coordinate our different schedules in order to conduct this session in Hanoi. As usual, we submitted a list of subjects, concerning technical and management subjects, a few days prior to our camp to better fulfill the expectations of those participating. So we discussed topics such as team conflict management, risk management, continuous integration … I must say I was favorably surprised by the interactivity in the discussions concerning these various subjects. Experiences, different points of view were shared and discussed in detail.
The PM Camp also gives me the opportunity to address directly our Project managers and team leaders who play a key role between our producers and our future projects. So I was able to talk to them about:
- Innovation, a key factor in our growth. It is not only just for the elite, wherever the ideas come from, they are valuable.
- Remind them of the importance of their own proposals when communicating with their client. Their teams are not merely producers.
- The industrialization phase of our organization is already well underway (process, metrics …) this cannot be done without them.
- The responsibility they have in regard to developing the capacities and skills of the members of their teams.
During this PM Camp French, English, Romanian, and Vietnamese were spoken. We shared many good moments together whether it was during the PM Camp or at lunch or over a glass of beer, sitting on the sidewalk on a (very) small chair eating gelatin rice stuffed with pork and boiled peanuts, or the “sausages” wrapped in banana leaves and dried squid.
In short, there is a strong desire from management (no matter the branch they come from), to share their experiences and express their needs. This has reinforced our belief in the organization of such events. We already know that one of the participants from Hanoi will lead a discussion concerning a subject during the next PM Camp in Europe. All that remains is to find a subject!
Press review week 16/2010
After three months with iPhones…
Beginning in January 2010, we decided, after consultation with telecom operators to call upon Orange to establish our fleet of mobile telephones in France. We took advantage of this new contract to deploy a fleet of iPhones for our managers. We now have 13 3Gs iPhones.
The choice of the iPhone for business use has not always had good press. I wanted to give you our assessment after 3 months use.
As a little reminder, I would like to give you the context of its use… The iPhone, for Pentalog, is considered a professional tool under the control of the ISD. Users cannot install applications. This requires approval for the purchase (even for the free applications). The “Profile” is enabled on the terminal, and it allows us to limit access to certain features without disrupting the operation of the terminal.
The main applications that have been added are as follows:
- Skype: I will not present it
- BFM TV: it remains connected to the visual information H24. Our nomadic personnel have need of it.
- Cityvox restaurants: normal, it was developed by Pentalog
- DropBox: Sync with an online file repository (presentation, various files…)
- RSS reader: a must-have feature for tracking information
- GeoTaxi: find a taxi in Paris
- Travel-SNCF: Hourly transportation
- La Tribune, Le Monde, LePoint: additional information
- IDICT: online dictionary
- ISIP: SIP client to connect us to our private Centrex
- P5Dial: tool for home use and access to our voice VPN via the GSM network. Savings assured
- OneTeam: chat client to access our private chat.
- Yellow Pages: online directory
- RATP: again for travelers
- Rotaxi: list of Taxi companies in Romania. Very useful.
- TripIt: monitoring our movements. TripIt will soon be directly connected to our system of internal travel
- Travelers: contents published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on practical information concerning different countries
- Google Analytics for those who follow the activity of websites
- Cacti & Nagios for those who follow the network infrastructure
- Facebook & Twitter for those who can justify a presence on social networks.
Initially, users were a bit frustrated with the limitations set on the installation of applications. When an application is professionally justified, it is not denied. No one has shown signs of resistance to this change and the adhesion was practically immediate. It must be said that we have been able to increase the use that these managers were able to obtain with their previous smartphones.
Everyone has now taken the measure of the interest and the inevitable functions of this type of device: direct communication, usability… The major defect and it is so well known is autonomy. To address this problem, we have acquired external batteries that are recharged through the USB port. Autonomy is thus multiplied by 3 to 5 times with minimal amount of additional space.
Although not a cell phone for an adventurer, it is very suitable for use by our nomads. For the moment, none of the terminals have been broken. Several have been customized (hull, protection …). A user employs it even as an access badge.
We also have a stake in security issues with the terminal. Yes, this is the second weakness of the iPhone. The initial responses to guarantee a level of security were to systematically use the unlock code, to activate the boot after 10 failed access attempts. In addition, personal iPhones do not have access to the company messaging service. The iPhone is not a USB key; thus it limits the amount of uploaded files onto the terminal. It uses a VPN to access sensitive corporate resources. We will be very attentive to the features of the new version 4.0 of the OS for security and for the management of our fleet (remote control, application deployment “over-the-air”,…).
It is still too early to assess the impact of the new uses on the cost (data) abroad. I will wait see over a significant period of four received invoices. But everyone has been made aware that the mode “Data abroad” should be activated only when needed.
For the record, you may have read in a previous post that the managers were meeting last weekend in Brasov. It is the first time that the large family of French, Romanian and Moldovan iPhones were brought together. Some extra cell phones (personal iPhones) were even invited for this beautiful family photo.
In conclusion, we have no regrets after three months of using iPhones in our enterprise. The planned evolution of the iPhone is going in the right direction.
Seminar: “How to Manage Change”
Last weekend, Pentalog held a large seminar in Brasov, presented by Pierre Thelin, about “how to manage change”.
The Pentalog strategy has given rise to several questions. First, having gone far beyond our expectations, we have been obliged to grow very quickly. We will have crossed the landmark of 500 employees in the next 3 months, in comparison with the 100 employees we had less than 4 years ago. Thus a regular training program for our executives has become a necessity. We can not content ourselves with simply being aware, and depend on individual efforts. We need to go faster.
Similarly, in our strategies, we have anticipated this development over the past several years and have devised a very innovative business model. Because of this, and it has become perfectly clear in our internal satisfaction surveys, that our staff do not always understand these changes, which has limited their adherence to the company strategy. The Production Engineering (productivity, metric system), cloud computing, are still only words in most companies, when they presently represent 40% of Pentalog projects, tools and methodology.
Therefore, last weekend, we worked on it and proposed to 23 of our managers new communication methods to help our collaborators and partners (clients), understand the changes involved in our growth and strategy.
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Press review week 15/2010
- IT Operations: Beware the Cloud Boomerang (6 April 2010, CIO)
- Asian Markets | Shares rise on global optimism(7 April 2010, Live Mint)
- New technology to make ads more interactive (9 apr 2010, Business and Leadership)
- Social Media Safety: Acceptable-Use Policies Critical (9 April 2010, CIO)
- Column: Why outsourcing will not harm the US (9 April 2010, Financial Express)
- Cloud Computing Shakes Up Traditional IT Outsourcing (12 April 2010, CIO)
- Signs of strong recovery in global IT market (12 April 2010, CIOL)
- Das deutsche 150-Milliarden-Problem (8 April 2010, Focus)
- Soziale Netzwerke – Wie die Internet-Dörfer funktionieren (8 April 2010, Financial Times Deutschland)
- Die deutsche Wirtschaft klettert langsam aus der Krise (9 April 2010, Zeit)
- Die Gründe gegen Cloud Computing (9 April 2010, CIO)
- 3 Entscheidungshilfen Wer besser nicht twittern sollte (9 April 2010, CIO)
- Studie belegt Aufschwung bei IT-Ausgaben (9 April 2010, Swiss IT Magazine)
- Embedded Software: IT wird mit Produktdesignern reden müssen (9 April 2010, CIO)
- Datenschutz bei Facebook: “Jeder muss lernen, mit Verantwortung zu leben (9 April 2010, Stern)
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A new means of Communication
Since 2004, we have been operating Centrex solutions. These are IP mutualization solutions using PBX. Last year to increase our agility for the services provided by using this platform, we have also internalized it. We are operating presently with Asterisk from which we have several SIP trunks in order to have greater outgoing redundancy.
Among our many possibilities, there is also the capacity to make a web-call-back from our websites. In the next version of our corporate web site, visitors will be able to enter their telephone number and if it is in a country covered, and not black-listed, our centrex dials the number, the very moment one of our personnel lifts the receiver. This is a Web-Call-Back.
But for the present time, we have integrated our websites with a SkypeCall function. We have just deployed a Skype gateway between our Asterisk and Skype. It takes the form of an Asterisk extension with which we have configured with an internal number (with our extensions) and the access parameters to our Skype account. When a call is received on Skype from our website, the call is routed to the gateway and where it rings on all the telephones extensions in the company. The first person to pick up the telephone answers the call. The Skype caller account name is indicated on our telephone. The call then can be routed into our internal network. For example, the call could be transferred into our conference system.
This gateway can also make calls to Skype. Asterisk has been configured so that each Skype account name also has a specific number. The operation is then inversed in regards to the previous function.
What is the advantage of this solution for Pentalog and for our clients?
From the website, it is obviously easier to establish a more direct, and immediate contact with the visitor. A question, a project, we can be easily reached with a click of the mouse from a computer equipped with a Skype configuration.
For our clients, it can also mean a free call from their computer. This will allow us also to limit the use of Skype, which still poses a few security problems.
In the end our clients gain in supplementary reduced costs and a new communication method.
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Croissance + Spring Campus… I believe I am no longer a French Boss
Last week, Virginie and I came back from a road trip to Avoriaz where we joined our friends of Croissance +. As usual, Frederic and his team had prepared things beautifully. The theme, this year was “Towards Full Employment” which seemed a bit esoteric, because basically I do not believe in it! For some time now, I believe that France has chosen the option of a society of unemployment. I do believe that societies which are too highly protective, will eventually accumulate high labor costs, which in turn will drive core employment outside their borders, and this is hardly avoidable. Of course, no one has ever looked at it from this point of view, but it takes quite a degree of productive innovation to afford the costs of integrating the best health system in the world, the best pension system, and one of the shortest work weeks. When you sell a satellite or a fighter plane (and you still must sell them), it’s ok. For automotive production and tee-shirts… it’s another matter.
Therefore, what have I learnt? First, I realized how our business leaders are experts in the French administrative system and that I am personally overwhelmed when it comes to these matters. I even wonder if this knowledge is healthy? Wouldn’t it better, if they could concentrate completely on their business model and the development of their business?
Secondly, and this represents one of the competitive advantages of Pentalog, I got well aware of all the difficulties that some are having, whether, it’s the legal work week, employee motivation, the amount of social costs or taxation. There is too much money being paid out to the different financial advisors and fiscal lawyers, to optimize this or that, in short, wasting time, resources, money, which is being taken away from their business development and the creation of wealth. These “system optimizers” are just parasites. Everyone is asking for more clarity, and simplification. Less aid, grants and more freedom, please! I learned, would you believe, that the amount of grants to French companies is greater than that of the sum of corporate taxes collected? How and why have we reached such a level of absurdity?
I must admit when I arrived in Avoriaz, in the back of my mind, I had the idea of finally relocating Pentalog Labs to France… but the debates of last week left me a little cold concerning this idea!!
Moreover, having lived in many developing economies, I had lost sight of the economic issues taking place in Europe and the U.S… Nicolas Bouzou, Jean-Marc Daniel (colorful!), Michelle?, in the discussions led by the extraordinary Nicolas Dauze of BFM and Frederic Bedin, President of Croissance +, put into perspective what it is meant by the word innovation in companies, gradually moving the cursor from “to have” to “to be.” A quick example taken from the public bike rental system, as a personal service, we have come to understand that beyond the bike itself, and the innovation and economic exploitation… what is more important, is the concept of the liberty to chose, this idea is more important than the bike. The bicycle I bought at Decathlon created no jobs, and generated no economy and is not there when I need it. Even MIT is studying this concept. It is the same for housekeeping services, child care or looking after the garden. I can not take care of everything, however, there are managers and tools, which in turn will generate innovation, management teams and skills and at the same time will ensure good quality services for the best prices.
This has ultimately nothing to do with sustainable development, and nothing to do with Grenelle, but there is no doubt that the economic crisis which is hitting the mature economies is also a crisis of “to have” instead of “to be”. It is clearly understood by our friends and customers from Nekoé, in Orleans… but also our co-workers in People Centric, who have already sold their time and skills management solutions and are advancing quickly in this sector. The worst, is that I have spent a great deal of time over the past 10 years looking for new means to optimize the Pentalog resources and expertise and I overlooked the needs of these new sectors which are ultimately very close to us… in terms of management issues. We need to accelerate faster in this direction because the innovations of the group might well be of interest to them!
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Press review week 14/2010
- CIOs need to fund their own growth, report (31 March 2010, Misaustralia)
- Outsourcing: Multi-Billion-Dollar Mega Deals End in Breakup (01 April 2010, CIO)
- Cloud exposes the true cost of IT (06 April 2010, CIO)
- IT Operations: Beware the Cloud Boomerang (06 April 2010, CIO)
- The Look of Post-Cloud IT (05 April 2010, CIO)
- Salaries stall, workloads rise, and IT gets squeezed (05 April 2010, Computerworld)
- IT has to Take a Stand on Consumer Technology (30 March 2010, CIO)
- Experton Group: IT-Budgets sollen sich 2010 leicht erholen (31 March 2010, Computerwoche)
- Wie die IT-Welt im Jahr 2030 aussieht (31 March 2010, CIO)
- Die 10 wichtigsten Virtualisierungstrends (30 March 2010, CIO)
- Zukunftsstudie: “Das Web 2020 verändert die Welt” (30 March 2010, Manager Magazin)
- Business Intelligence: Open Source unausgereift und überschätzt (29 March 2010, CIO)
- Die Top 10 Outsourcing Destinationen (29 March 2010, Silicon)
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Back to Linux Open Source Solutions
I went last week as a visitor (I was interested in seeing what was new) to two events in Paris: “Linux Open Source Solutions” and “Client Strategy”. Besides the conferences which I had the opportunity to attend, I was intrigued by the dominating position Cloud Computing had taken this year and by the presence of large vendors such as: Microsoft, Oracle or Bull who all had impressive stands. The open source solutions are really starting to take off!!
During the trade show, walking down the aisles, I realized that behind open source solutions, there were a lot of people committed to the idea of free software (associations of developers and users, etc…) who are ready to share their experience. This community is really incredible first by its dynamism and its openness and seeing the presence of these young developers who are so enthusiastic, I think that open source has for the present a very bright future. Seriously, this does offer a certain guarantee for continuing support. I will not comment on very special atmosphere of this part of the show, these stands mingled together which had been quickly assembled by geeks, the smell, sometimes surprising, of developers who had been building seamless code for several hours, this definitely gives a different atmosphere which clashes with the rest of the rooms where the conferences were held and the polished displays of other companies.
This year, the emphasis was really placed on cloud computing. I noticed several stands offering turnkey services for setting up private clouds based on open source servers like Ubuntu, for example. Here it is more about solutions such as IaaS. Others, more rare, suggest the availability of platforms (PaaS) for their development tools or for the production of autonomous cloud applications. All this, therefore, is of real importance and demonstrates that Cloud computing is definitely the next stage of IT application development.
Besides these “technical” solutions, fundamental issues were also being addressed such as “how to ensure the portability of applications from one cloud to another?” Or “how the use of Open Source solutions and clouds may help to adopt eco-responsible behavior?” One example, in this regard is the manufacturer Bull, who offers via the family Bullx supercomputers, these machines used for extreme computing which are not energy hungry and offer a suite of software components based on open source standards.
Another point which came to mind was the involvement of editors in open source solutions. To cite only two of them, Microsoft has a division solely dedicated to open source (the head of this division, in fact came from Redmond to give a lecture at the trade show expressly concerning this subject) or Oracle which put layers (drivers) in its Version 11.2, which are more efficient tools specifically dedicated to open languages (PHP, etc.).
In order to reduce costs, in addition to making available the source code by some editors, there is also a new strategy taking form for further innovation which is called Open Innovation. By analogy to open source, the idea is to involve the community on certain topics of study in order to support innovation. This can be extremely interesting for a company that can then benefit from such highly specialized skills from certain research laboratories that are willing to contribute their help. I think that this concept also has taken a new dimension in recent years and the proof of this is the speech made by Bull on this subject, demonstrating how very engaged they are in this process. This subject will certainly will be soon the theme of another Pentalog article.
Continuing my observations, I also noted that there were many Open Source solutions and how many are now very well done. For example, there is an ERP open source solution, which virtually covers all the functional sectors of a company and the interfaces, could make certain editors blush with envy! As for Business Intelligence, there again the offers cover the entire scope and adapt to different uses of a company. I saw such a solution, a multidimensional engine for data analysis based on an ETL open source performance solution (Talend, to name it) and which proposes to use Microsoft Excel or Calc as a retrieval tool, starting with the assumption that these tools are the basic tools of many management control services. I think it really has connected to market expectations.
In a few words, I will terminate with the client strategy part of the trade show, I will not comment on call centers but rather, again, on using the cloud which offer services on demand. The cloud force.com offers such a variety of services and has fully integrated applications that use the social network as easily as other means of communications such as the more traditional mail or telephone. Their service starts immediately on the availability of platforms (PasS) with a development language resembling java that allows for the possibility to fully customize the tool, of course, on demand! We’re really in a new development era…
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