Take Castrol, the U.K. oil company. A year ago it was using some 17 software programs to produce materials safety data sheets (MSDSs) and other trade documents to comply with regulations in the 132 countries to which it exports motor oil. Sitting on a single PC, these were little more than glorified databases. Staff had to key in regulatory information manually but had no way of pooling research. As a result, it took an average of half a day to create an MSDS from scratch. A year later, after a companywide decision to standardize on ClearCross's suite of application tools and global regulatory content, Castrol staff can complete the same task in about 15 minutes.
The application can also incorporate regulatory elements into product design. Chemists, for example, can run what-if scenarios to explore the consequences of adding a particular compound in terms of where it can be sold. This should translate into shorter product cycles and increased sales. Castrol's parent company, British Petroleum, is convinced, recently signing a $9 million deal with ClearCross to bring similar efficiencies to cross-border trading in the 150 countries where it operates.
Website Recycling
Second Shot at Success
Many businesses that need desktop computers, servers and networking hubs and routers — especially businesses in Asia — already buy recycled rather than pay retail. But what else might be available secondhand — intranets? Online shopping carts? Advanced site searches?
The Website Recycling Company (WebReCo) in the United States offers the wares of defunct or cash-strapped E-tailers, portals, and content publishers; most of the sites come complete with domain name and software, as well as hardware. Users who don't want to pay list price for source code can browse each site and access detailed site evaluations and technical reviews, or they can shop a la carte.
Gabriel Fried, WebReCo's vice president of sales and client development, says the company has received "considerable interest" from Asian entrepreneurs looking for information on assets for sale, "but we have yet to consummate a transaction with an Asia-based buyer." He expects that to change as the company — still less than a year old — spreads its wings. "Eventually we will be looking for both Asian- and European-based sales representatives who are capable of bridging the distance and language barriers that currently exist," Fried says.
Web sites on the brink can also turn to Recognition Group, a New York advisory and investment firm that, among other things, helps E-businesses recycle their assets. Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, a Recognition Group managing partner, has seen a few ups and downs himself: He's the former CEO of govWorks, whose rise and fall was chronicled in the documentary film Startup.com.
While struggling to unload its intellectual property and proprietary hardware, govWorks hired a small firm that worked on restructurings. "But they had no exposure in the technology marketplace," says Tuzman, "so there were a lot of questions about how to market the assets." Valuing those assets raises some questions, too; before you buy, a little tire-kicking is in order.
Virtual Employee Testing
Skill Drill
The severity of Asia's IT skills crisis and brain drain tends to depend on whom you ask. Whatever the prognosis, a solution may lie closer to home than harried IT recruiters think.
It is not unusual for companies to administer a battery of psychological tests to rate prospective employees. In theory, psychological testing enables companies to match the right applicant to the right job. It can also help employers steer clear of slackers and malcontents — or worse.
Less common is the practice of administering pre-employment examinations to current employees to identify untapped talent. Experts say that as the IT function grows in importance, a wide-angle lens becomes even more crucial. "The most common mistake employers make is to hire someone just on technical skills," notes Joy Hazucha, senior vice president with Personnel Decisions International, a U.S.-based human resources company that opened an office in Hong Kong last year. "These days, IT workers need more."
Even proponents admit this is at best an inexact science — and one that is time-consuming and costly. An emerging breed of technology tools present a happy middle ground, with a handful of U.S.-based companies launching virtual services aimed at measuring what people know.
New York-based Bookman Testing Services, for one, offers a skills assessment tool called TeckChek. The online service features more than 150 Web-enabled proficiency exams, including tests for Java, data modeling, and telecommunications support and service. Other web-based skill analyzers include U.S.-based SkillDrill's BrainBuzz and Kenexa's Prove It.
On the whole, these Internet-based assessment tools tend to be less expensive than traditional pre-employment testing methods. Depending on the vendor, the cyberexams may cost anywhere from $10 to $150 per applicant. Placement specialists say that the low costs make these virtual tests particularly useful for weeding out underqualified applicants early on in the hiring process.
The online and in-house approach worked for Riverside County in California. Last year, the HR department administered an online, pre-employment IT test to nontech staff such as clerks, typists, and office administrators. The exam, from ePredix, measured cognitive ability, vocational and mathematical skills, and verbal reasoning. Guided by test scores, Riverside — with additional training — was able to fill some 20 of 60 tech vacancies.
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