V-Flyer

In case this had been missed at all:

http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... s-firm-tcs

Very interesting, thanks for posting!

p.s. probably best not to copy-and-paste the entire article to v-flyer: http://v-flyer.com/forum/index.php?f=4& ... =viewtopic

Ah yes, apologies. Thanks for the heads up.

Does this mean they are getting a new website that works and has up to date and accurate info on it?

Or have I just has a 'Pam coming out of the shower' moment??

Am not holding my breath

...and *poof* I just saw pigs flying outside my window...

I'm sure Stephenson's Rocket is currently powering the VS IT and web presence so anything above that is progress

clarkeysntfc wrote:I'm sure Stephenson's Rocket is currently powering the VS IT and web presence so anything above that is progress

I thought the energy was supplied by the sparks generated from 2 rocks being banged together in a cave somewhere.

But potato potaaaahto... as long as the new people didn't make their sales pitch to VS on an etch-a-sketch, I agree it should be progress

No. Just no. Tata are a bunch of cowboys.

Lets Hope Tata have improved since the last time I worked with them!

Two words only.....and the polite version.

Oh. Dear.

ghtconc - rest assured they haven't.

I used to work for a global IT firm [not Tata, I hasten to add] who liked to take on contracts and "best shore" the work - which to those of us in the UK normally means "ship it out to India".

Let's just say that based on my experience, VS IT will not improve. Statistics such as "helpdesk contacts down 30% / complaints up 50%" were very normal when the work was moved to the "best shore" location.

ooh, just saw those fateful 3 letters TCS... yep, worked very closely with them for many years. Not entirely out of choice, and often in the context of bringing services back in-house.

Not feeling warm or fuzzy any longer...

Oh Dear, can it really get worse?

I worked with them for 18 months and I'm sure they created a square peg to fit a round hole due to "translation issues".

definitely agree with other posters, past experience says this is NOT a positive move.

I've used TCS a lot.
I've even outsourced development groups TO India, willingly, with them.


I wouldn't do it again...

Remember that "best-shoring" is them taking the route which is best for THEM. All TCS account managers (onshore and off) have a target offshore leverage that they MUST hit. This isn't about bonuses, this is about them losing their *jobs* if they don't hit it.

If you thought VS IT was bad to date, hold on - you're in for a hell of a ride while they "get up to speed". But don't worry, while everything is falling apart around their customers, TCS will be able to provide a graph that "proves it's x% better than before".

Well, I don't work for TCS or another Indian outsourcer, I have and would do so again, and I would contract such companies for development work in the future). But to say "cowboys" is IMO plain silly. VS has outsourced much of its IT development and support for years, it is plainly not the only airline, nor the only company in the world to do so, and it will get out of it what it puts into it. All outsourcing comes with risk and benefit. Just because work will be done in India to then equate that with crap is also very wrong. The biggest screw-ups in the world that I've seen in IT development have been delivered by UK and US based companies and people. Some of them would make your eye water (in humour as well as shock) - one for a beer conversation!

I still don't understand why VS don't just adopt the DL website and make it red.

Surely there are huge synergies around combining the IT infrastructure of both airlines?

clarkeysntfc wrote:I still don't understand why VS don't just adopt the DL website and make it red.

Surely there are huge synergies around combining the IT infrastructure of both airlines?

I think I said a longish time ago that that would be a good thing, maybe with a few curved edges and some red and purple - my guess is that there's a lot of difference in the underlying systems that makes this complex. Or rather DL has systems, VS has rubber bands and cogs .

All airline systems are rubber band and cogs, frankly, and it's their own rubber bands and cogs

And the market is too small and idiosyncratic for someone to come in and develop a standard system such as an Oracle Financials or Salesforce CRM - not that these don't have their issues. The recent wave of mergers in the US have proved how disastrous the IT integration piece can be (UA/CO was stunningly bad).

The only way to make it work reasonably well would be to literally fold VS into DL wholesale, IM/RM, awards, FFP etc etc. It may come to that I suppose, I'm just glad I booked myself onto a couple of VS trips before it happens

Having said that, I totally agree with Slinky on this one, there's a bit of misrepresentation of Tata going on. Their problem is size, IMO, in that large consulting shops tend to have objectives of their own (other than customer success) driving what they do, as well as a harder to assess, more diluted pool of skills to offer. They bring a name tag reliability that is a bit harder to assess with smaller consultancies. I've seen very similar issues with CSC, Deloitte and PWC, to name a few. Where they did their work seemed to bear little relevance to how they did it: big guys messed up even when they placed a whole bunch of people in house, TBH. And the cost of a big consultant bringing their people in your house for a project is eye watering.

Words fail me !

MarkedMan wrote:And the market is too small and idiosyncratic for someone to come in and develop a standard system such as an Oracle Financials or XXXXX.XXX CRM - not that these don't have their issues.

How very dare you? Anyway, as all modern IT consultants would say all you need is Hadoop, Cloud, engineered systems and a bit of BPEL.

MarkedMan wrote:Having said that, I totally agree with Slinky on this one, there's a bit of misrepresentation of Tata going on. Their problem is size, IMO, in that large consulting shops tend to have objectives of their own (other than customer success) driving what they do, as well as a harder to assess, more diluted pool of skills to offer.

Just watch for the LinkedIn requests from TCS for people with airline business experience popping up. When they were pitching for a contract against us they told the client "yes, we have a YYYYYY practice" and then the LinkedIn requests start appearing...

TCS are one of our SI's where I work..... So, VS IT could end up using our software. All good in that case :-)