MICS

"KISS is out, MICS (make it complex stupid) is hot"

Great Article by Toon Koppelaars.

If you are more than 21 then this will be an interesting read. Everyone else, stick to the PS3 /PSP tonight!


Many of you will have heard of Jonathan Lewis - http://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com/
who has some great quotes on his front page, check them out

My favorite is:

Niels Bohr: An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made, but in a very narrow field

Brilliant

The brilliant, yet undiscovered talent that is Christian Berg finally launched into the blogging world

http://hekatonkheires.blogspot.com/

Good luck with that Christian.


News UPDATE.

Final details are being put to the announcement which will be out very soon now.

Can you guess what it is yet?


Market Update

Who do you believe? We recently advertised a role in OBIEE. We got three applicants. It is well paid interesting work throughout the UK and Europe.
I spoke to an agent last week who said he had 60 applicants for his OBIEE role, many of whom were good for the work. The rate the client wants to pay is well below 500 per day, because, he said, there are dozens of skilled workers who have been unemployed for 6 months desperate to get into a project.

Now, as far as I can tell there is plenty of OBIEE work for properly skilled workers, with the right visa for Europe, but clients have the usual cost pressures.
Those pressures normally translate into 'Day rate' savings. So a client prefers to take someone on 400 per day instead of 800. OK, seems simple enough. And the agent is happy because their margin increases.

BUT the client pays more in the long run, and the OBIEE project suffers a poor image. A great consultant can implement a really useful system that can be expanded and upgraded and part of the future for BI in the organisation. A cheap consultant who is gaining experience can make a dead end.

Who do you believe? the agency, the salesman for an offshore organisation, or the leading experts in OBIEE?
I challenge any client to compare the costs and benefits of a cheap outsource vs more expensive on shore consultancies.
I also challenge Oracle to set some benchmarks for a skilled OBIEE consultancy and consultants. Just because you reply to simple questions on OTN does not make you an expert.

What Occuring

As usual I have been keeping an eye on the Jobs Market, checking out the availabilty of consultants and roles.
As you will see from previous posts I have been guaging the state of the Oracle BI / Siebel Analytics market by the number of jobs advertised, and number consultants I know who are looking.
With the current doom and gloom being propogated by the BBC among many others it has been noticable how much the BI market is being talked up, but what is th real picture?

We have certainly been kept busy, and could be on two or three more projects now, as well as doing all the marketing stuff, playing with the new technology and writing updates for the book. And of course there is the conference presentation to finish up.

I do know of a couple of contractors that are at home waiting for the phone to ring, and some projects are closing soon (particularyly a big govenment bank one), but this level is not unusual.

The biggest issue I can see is the lack of roles being advertised in the UK for OBIEE and Siebel Analytics. I can't remember the last jobserve advert for Analaytics, and there is only one in the whole of Europe right now.
OBIEE has fared only slightly better, with 2 roles out there right now. But there never has been too many adverts anyway. This may be due to more direct networking, particularly using LinkedIn, and maybe due to an increase in the number of consultancies advertising themselves as Oracle BI experts. However, 2 is down from the peeks we had last year.

Beware the Squeeze

In the past downturns the agencies have strugggled to maintain their income and have therefore squeezed more from the margins. They do this by telling clients that good consultants are hard to come by as they do not look for new projects in a recession, and are therefore still expensive. At the same time they tell the consultants that the rates have come down due to the recession! Always ask the agent what margin they are on, anything more than 15% is taking the mickey.


If you are looking then do get in touch I can possibly point you to opportunities my network (and no I dont charge!).


BIG NEWS

Look out next week for some BIG NEWS which we are all excited about here at Majendi.

A.