I came late to the Gartner outsourcing summit yesterday. I knew I had to be at the conference all day on Tuesday because I was presenting, but Monday was going to be more of a networking day.
When I did arrive, I talked to a few people and then went to a session highlighting the outsourcing opportunities in Brazil.
Robert Janssen of Brasil IT gave an interesting presentation, of course full of all the usual information one would expect, but used an interesting analogy I’d like to repeat.
Robert said: “I was at my favourite pizza place in San Francisco the other day. The owner was smiling so I asked him what was so good today. He told me that he had just had his best day ever for pizza deliveries – even delivering more than the local pizza chains like Domino’s. I asked him, what ‘s his secret? How can he deliver more pizza from one store than Domino’s can across the Bay region? The pizza restaurant owner replied: ‘I only hire Brazilians to deliver my pizza.’”
Robert then went on to explain the reasons the pizza restaurant owner gave for his choice of delivery riders: “There are three reasons. Firstly, if they can ride bikes like they do in São Paulo then they can deliver fast anywhere. Second, they just get things done, whatever happens, and third, they are completely flexible. Whatever unforeseen event occurs can be dealt with – my riders come to me with solutions, not problems.”
It’s a nice little outline of some of the cultural advantages of Brazil. The usual presentations listing the number of college graduates and internet connections can get a little boring so kudos to Robert for livening it up.
What made the session even better though was that the global technology head of HSBC in Brazil, Jacques Depocas, was there and he talked at length about the experience HSBC has had in the country. This was supposed to be a closed session – no bloggers allowed – but I got special permission directly from Jacques to reproduce some of his comments.
He said: "So why did we set up our centre in Brazil? There were many reasons, but it started off because, when the decision was taken in 2005, the global head of the GLTs had previously worked in Brazil for three years and he knew that due to the maturity of the Brazilian IT industry he could find skill sets that were very hard to find in other regions. The time zone is favourable. There is a strong cultural similarity with Americans and Europeans. People think of their career in the long-term and there are good union relations in the industry, plus it's a very mature industry - about two million people work in IT in Brazil. There are other factors, such as political stability and good infrastructure, but the real difference is in the experience of the people. Brazilians often work through university, so they are getting valuable work experience much earlier than in most regions. If you look at my team, almost 25 per cent of my people have more than 10 years’ experience - that's very hard to find in some other areas."
That final point was supported in some of the other Gartner sessions today as a key differentiator. There are a lot of people out there more worried about the quality of their team than the cost reductions. And for those organisations it looks like Brazil has something to offer.