Zane Safrit- New Age CEO in the Flat World !

Hi,

When i decided to blog i thought that i'll not talk about people... not even my own CEO - Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani. I used to hate blogs who used to discuss people... for a simple reason - they sounded like an image building PR exercise and i wanted to avoid it.

Then one day my perspective changed, rather, it became rational. And i owe this to Zane; Zane Safrit, CEO - Conference Calls Unlimited. I found his blogs to be very stimulating and realised that blogging has to be different than lectures on a specific subject. Zane has written a post on my blog after i included his blog on the list of my favourite blogs.

Thanks for the favour Zane !

I am, relatively, new to blogging and your blogs were quite inspiring for me to enter into this new dimension of the 'Flat World'

I am sure that there's a lot that India can offer and i can share with you when it comes to outsourcing. India is undergoing a change and this change has come much faster than expected. Our infrastructure is not in place to handle so much of load. People need to keep up with the pace but the roads are being built (even after that they wouldn't move faster than 90 miles per hour); there are not enough flights and you never get train reservations at short notice.

The biggest challenge in changing india is the pace of delivery as we need to have this much needed advantage over other developing countries. People need to co-ordinate with peers, clients, vendors in real-time.. all sitting at different locations worlwide. This calls for something radically different a new dimension of The Flat World and I won't be wrong if i may call it CT - 'Convergence Technology'. It is CT after IT, that, perhaps is the next big thing in Indian market.
An year back i read 'The World is Flat' from Thomas L Friedman on outsourcing. Mr. Friedman has beautifully explained how the world is becoming FLATTER with each passing year... how call centre agents sitting in bangalore talk to customers in Texas and talk about expected rains next morning. At that time i wondered if the distance and, thereby, delays in co-ordination will actually result in savings (for Non-IT businesses). But the world is moving at a much faster pace and the allied industries grow much faster to give conducive atmosphere to mainstream business.

Few months back, i realised that Allied businesses are the most profitable businesses of the flat world. These are businesses which serve a number of other mainstream businesses (which operate in 1 industry only) across industries and improve efficiency of a particular function. All the jobsites can be termed as allied businesses as they augment only 1 part of other businesses i.e., recruitment.

Zane's business is also an allied business which helps a number of businesses improve efficiency/pace-up/save/grow. These allied businesses have a few similarities in them

a) These are young organisations... with average age of 30-35. And these are low revenue - High profit businesses.

b) All of them have very young people sitting on the TOP.

c) These allied businesses are large (in headcounts) but nimble and quick in spotting new business opportunities.

d) Biggest of all - Most of the Allied businesses are first generation entrepreneurship ventures. Older businesses tend to stick to the old-world industries and young people working for these old businesses spot new businesses; leave jobs and start their own businesses - An allied business.

e) Allied businesses grow at a much faster pace than the mainstream businesses they serve. In a span of 5-6 years they grow bigger than most of their mid-size customers in terms of profitability.

Talking about Zane, he's the new age CEO who blogs, and blogs a lot. (this could be another commonality in CEOs of Allied businesses as Sanjeev Bikhchandani has also taken up blogging). Zane belongs to the 'Flat World' because he/his business enables businesses, people, ideas, minds converge at a single place in real time.

His thoughts on Sales, lead management, internet advertising (my fav topic) and internet economy are very appealing. It is good to know you Zane.. thanks for sharing your views through your blogs.

We'll talk more about CT 'Convergence Technology' scenario in India !!!