The Santa Clara, Calif.-based computer security and anti-virus vendor, has brought on Sridhar Jayanthi, VP of engineering, and Christopher Bolin, senior vice president of product development, to set up and operate a research and development arm in Bangalore. The Indian office is expected to open this June with approximately 100 engineers and support staff. The group will initially focus on engineering work on the McAfee anti-virus engine, but by next year will also participate in on-the-spot research combating virus outbreaks around the world.

24/7

Engineers in a ring of globe-circling NAI offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Holland, Austria, China and Tokyo will be able to pass along up-to-the-minute research to offices in India during a virus outbreak.

“One of the major advantages we get is we provide 24 by 7 coverage. Virus threats and worms can literally go worldwide in minutes these days,” says Bolin. “There (are) some follow-the-sun engineering practices that we can take advantage of. It basically means that once India is established, we will have McAfee teams operating 24 hours a day, and right now we are at 20. For our customers, we provide 24 by 7; it’s just that our engineers have to get out of bed first.”

After assessing other companies’ lack of success with Indian branch offices, Bolin hired Jayanthi last January to set up the India NAI office. Jayanthi, with a track record of software product development for companies such as Parametric Technology Corp., Emerson Electric Corp., and InteQ Corp., was experienced in setting up and utilizing offshore teams from both India and the U.S.

Born and raised in Bangalore, Jayanthi has lived on and off in the U.S. for 18 years, with multiyear stints setting up offices in India. Jayanthi and Bolin have already targeted several areas for special attention, most importantly, communications.

Is English English?

Even though English is a common language in India, that does not necessarily mean that employees will be able to communicate clearly between the U.S., the UK, and other areas. Context can be lost, according to Bolin. Already, incidents have hindered the process of setting up the NAI office, when something as simple as a single word can become a sticking point.

In one instance, an employee in England asked his Indian counterpart if a building was going to be “ready” by a set date, and was told it was. But an American employee on site in India could see that it wasn’t, simply because “what ‘ready’ means to someone from India is completely different than it is for someone from the UK,” according to Bolin.

“With India, the U.S. and the UK, we are three countries separated by a common language. Some of the basic understandings of how we use English is different,” says Bolin.

To combat the problem, NAI is requiring outsourced cultural training and internal employee training in all three locations.

Recognizing Offshore Value

Beyond the problem of simple communications lie the home office’s expectations.

“We’ve been trying to learn from the many cases where there were failures in setting up an Indian operation,” says Bolin. “The most common mistake would be to say [that] the first and most obvious benefit is the expenses benefit.”

According to Bolin, the largest cultural and business problem faced by companies that have previously set up offices in India isn’t management of employees half a world away from headquarters, but failing to understand that Indian engineers are more than a source of cheap labor.

“A common thread in the India operations [that have] failed is: you give them the dull and dirty work and expect it to work out. If you are going over there to just to do that work and don’t intend to integrate them with the teams, I wouldn’t bet on success,” says Bolin. “We’re making people directly responsible for the success of their equivalent operations. The ultimate goal for the India site isn’t to have a place to do the dull and dirty work.”

With these concepts in mind, Jayanthi is now immersed in the task of bringing in the right people for the job and setting up the office to easily integrate with other Network Associates resources.

“[By working out of Bangalore, we] are able to pick and choose the talent that we want,” Jayanthi says. “To be able to get into the AV product, we need people that are thorough in their engineering, very talented people in different areas. This [includes] operating systems, networks, and different applications, so the engineer needs to work with many different applications as well. We support Lotus Notes and Exchange and Web servers and so on, so we are looking for a diverse group of people.”

“Obviously we are not going to be able to find people with all the skills in one. But we are looking for people that are very good in various technologies, and we’re going to have to pick people or different areas of expertise,” he says.

Real Time

The Indian office will utilize a 1 Mbps (megabit per second) frame relay connection to the U.S. operations, as well as to the other international offices.

“I think a lot of people don’t invest in a frame relay network. They try to go through the satellite network, but those fail,” says Bolin. “You have to have the bandwidth so you have real-time visibility into the progress and status of your teams, no matter where they are in the world. If you are going thorough a satellite that is 643 kbps and updating databases, across the LAN with little latency, it’s almost impossible.

“[India is] 13 and a half hours away from Pacific Standard Time, and if you have an offshore development team that you are not constantly in touch with, obviously you will fail,” Bolin adds. Jayanthi also intends to have several back-up systems in place in case of failure of the frame relay connection or other systems.

“When we get into the critical part of the whole business, we are going to have a patch through more than one vendor, and a VPN and the ISP public network as a last resort,” says Jayanthi.

Following the installation of a redundant communications network with worldwide access, Jayanthi’s next project is voice over IP and video conferencing to cut costs of long-distance telecommunications and to improve discussion between geographically disparate groups.

“The number-one idea is being able to work as if we are right next door to NAI’s offices in Beaverton, Ore., or the UK,” Jayanthi says. “We have to build an infrastructure that ensures that we can talk as along as we want.”

From his new offices in Bangalore, Jayanthi also stresses the importance of support and understanding from headquarters.

“In the last four or five months, we “We have to build an infrastructure that ensures that we can talk as along as we want.”

From his new offices in Bangalore, Jayanthi also stresses the importance of support and understanding from headquarters.

“In the last four or five months, we had the entire McAfee engineers team onboard as far as India was concerned. I can’t remember the last time there was such excitement about something like that,” Jayanthi says. “I would say having a business objective, the need to expand the engineering capabilities and across-the-board buy-in from management and engineers are the most important things needed to succeed for any company.”