The Israeli High tech industry is facing a new reality, the paradigm that we will invent “kick-ass” products, get funded, and conquer the world is not valid anymore. It seems that delivering a release plan isn’t a matter of engineering capabilities but more of HR-related ones. What’s different from the last decades? Does the whole ecosystem experience the same level of difficulty? What can we do? In this session, we will use lessons learned from Andi grove the legendary Intel’s former CEO, the competition between Netflix & Blockbuster, and the Challenger’s crash disaster to articulate the real challenge and its magnitude and establish the means to face them and even create new opportunities.

1. What can you do when your release plan is
being concluded at the HR office
Hanan Zakai
Technology Division Manager
hananz@codevalue.net
http://codevalue.net

2. Intro video
2

3. About me
 Technology Division Manager @ CodeValue
 22 years of business positions @ the High-tech ecosystem
 Co-Author @ two patents (the latest with Alon Fliess)
 Former CEO & Co-Founder @ Bit2go (R.I.P)
 BSc. MBA. and a permanent student @ the School of life
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4. Once upon a client
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5. What’s going on?
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6. Haven’t we heard this story before?
6
Yes, but….
2000 2021

7. Multinational companies’ R&D centers
7
The Marker 6/6/21

8. Number of Israeli unicorns
8

9. Voluntary resignation
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2020 high-tech human capital report IIA and SNC
2021

10. Burn rate on steroids
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2000 2021
From startup nation to scale up nation

11. Not your business as usual crisis but Inflection point
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12. Netflix vs Blockbuster
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Digital
Streaming

13. Apple vs. Nokia & Blackberry
13
Apple
Nokia
Blackberry
iphone

14. The Israeli High-tech ecosystem - Broken fundamentals
 We will invent great products and then we’ll have the team to develop them
 We don’t compete over the same developers as Google/Amazon/Facebook
 We can retain our developers for years to come
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No, You won’t
Yes, you do
No, you can’t

15. We’re facing inflection point
15
Recruitment lead time per position
Average duration in position
Resources’ Gap
2021

16. Inflection point for all?
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0
2
4
6
8
10
12
MULTINATIONAL R&D
CENTERS
UNICORNS ESTABLISHED TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS DOMESTIC , FINANCE,
DEFENSE
Cost of Delivery failure Recruiting challenge

17. The O-Ring Theory
• Where production consists of a number of tasks all of which have to be
completed for the final product to have full value. If a mistake occurs in any of the
tasks, the value of the final product is reduced to zero ( Michael Kremer, 1993)
• When the production process becomes more complex, wage differences
increase between plants (Dalmazzo and co, 2006))
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18. What can we do?
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19. What’s not to do
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20. The Strategy Kernel
 A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge
 A guiding-policy for dealing with the challenge
 A set of coherent-actions that are designed to carry out the
guiding-policy
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21. Analysis
 Be true to yourself
 Snow melts at the Periphery (A. Grove)
 Look for the (right) signals
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22. Zero point methodology
Team Velocity
Decrease by 15%
Senior/Junior
ratio 1:8
Developers’
headcount
change (-2)
Zero point
Developers’
headcount
change (0)
Team Velocity
Decrease by 10%
Senior/Junior
ratio 1:6
One month earlier
Developers’
headcount
change (2)
Team Velocity
Decrease by 5%
Senior/Junior
ratio 1:4
Two moths earlier

23. Policies’ guidelines
One size doesn’t fit all

24. Potential policies’ guidelines - Financial
 Enhanced compensation
 Core team enlargement
 Acquisitions
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25. Potential policies’ guidelines - Operational
 Outsource development solutions and not developers
 Managed services
 “Chaperoned” bootcamps
 Strengthen your O-Rings
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26. Potential policies’ guidelines - Technological
 Microservices
 PAAS (Vendor Lock > VC Block)
 3rd party API’s
 Low code/No code (Citizen Developers)
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27. Take action
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28. Q
A
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29. Hanan Zakai
Technology Division Manager
hananz@codevalue.net
http://codevalue.net

30. Number of recruiting organizations
30
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
2019 2020 2021
Ethosia 2021 Q1 analysis report

31. 31