Here’s a story: One major oil and gas consultant had an office in shell I say, KL and another in, say Bangalore. The office in KL was swamped with work, having to hire (expensive) consultants to supplement their workforce.
The office in Bangalore was under utilised. So, in a fit of sheer blinding obviousness, the KL office started giving a lot of work to the Indian office, and said that the two offices operated as one entity. Everyone was happy.
I don’t know about you, but I would be unhappy. The Bangalore office seems have gone from equal status to receiving handouts. Why is the local office management team not getting enough work on their own? Which higher management decided that having an oil & gas consulting office in India was a good move? Do you even need Indian office management, or could you manage remotely from KL?
This is an example where having a partner doesn’t help you in developing your own skills and people. An even worse example is when you ‘second’ your experienced people out to your affiliate, and have a 100% non-return rate. Can you say ‘Malaysian body shop’?
Wata - Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineer 