Post Graduate Programme in Management

GROUP Assignment 2

Zensar: The Future of Vision Communities21st FEB-2015Subject HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENTTerm IIIProf. Patturaja SelvarajSubmitted by Section CABHISHEK YADAV2014PGP011

ANKITA VERMA2014PGP043

FAIZAL JALEEL MUHAMMED2014PGP117

KIRAN KUMAR M2014PGP162

NIKHIL RANJAN2014PGP229

PRACHI CHANDGOTHIA2014PGP255

RAHUL GARG2014PGP281

R P HARIHARA KARPAHA RAM2014PGP308

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYZensar Technologies Ltd. is a mid-size firm in the Indian IT industry. The firm has a collaborative and inclusive culture where relationship between employees are valued. In pursuit of higher growth across geographies, it has become increasingly difficult to include the opinion of employees in the strategic direction that the company has to take through its annual Vision Community (VC) exercise. They are grappling with the issue of being able to retain the culture of being large enough to deliver and small enough to care. The various viable options are evaluated based on different criteria and organizing a firm wide event by dividing into zones is found to be the most suitable option to resolve the issue. The solution helps Zensar focus on its strategic goals without losing focus on its culture. In other words, the growth model adopted is in alignment with its existing culture. Table of Contents

Sr. No.TitlePage no.

1.Executive Summary3

2.Introduction5

3. Problem Statement5

4. Options5

5. Criteria for evaluation6

6.Evaluation of alternatives6

7.Recommendation7

INTRODUCTION

Zensar Technologies: About the firm

Zensar Technologies is a mid-sized $200 million Indian information technology services (IT) services firm. The company has always prided itself on people and process innovation. It had a definite structure on and discipline on how the growth is to be modelled. It has an innovation-led strategy and differentiated itself on being more nimble and having higher level of executive involvement. They relied on a robust, proprietary development methodology, automated software tools, and rich, frequent communication.

Ganesh Natarajan: Man with the Midas touch

Mr. Ganesh Natarajan, the companys vice chairman and CEO has a forward thinking vision of making it one of the top 15 India-based global IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) by 2013. He is a visionary known for his performance and for his distinctive management style. He is credited with the turnaround of the firm in early 2000s by laying the foundation for a performance-based culture.

After being appointed as CEO in 2001, he set a tone of participation and involvement and focused on talent management and building a global culture. He also launched the first Vision Community program to engage the employees in setting the direction for the company. He got personally involved with people and treated them like an extended family. Despite his emotional connection, he remained performance oriented. He adopted a unique style to suit the situation and needs of the people. Making decisions at a fast pace and at the same time being collaborative and supportive were his strong points.

Culture at Zensar: Inclusive and People Centric

Zensars culture was a reflection of Ganeshs leadership. The focus was on relationships, love and building a connected organization. Zensars HR practices embodied the companys culture of responsiveness and caring. They get most of the work done through collaboration. Retention rate was 97 %, one of the highest in the industry and striving to keep the attrition 5% to 6% below the industry norm.

Multiple Forums for engagement Zensar had an open culture with a leadership group that sought to hear from employees at every level of the organization. Everybody Meetings held once a quarter, to share business updates, convey market and customer information and allays peoples concern. Another forum, called Durbar-e-Khaas was there to give individuals opportunity to reach out to a member of senior management team, discuss personal issues or grievances, seek guidance and offer suggestions

The Associate Relations FunctionZensars Associate Relations (AR) function came from a Vision Community idea highlighting the need for each employee to have an HR person whom he or she could relate to personally. ARs were responsible for associate from the day they joined the organization until the day they left. All the members of the AR function were evaluated on three metrics: retention rates of their associates, the motivation levels of their associates and the importance and volume of the issues that they raised during the process.Talent RetentionZensars goal was to retain each and every associate, thus formed a Different Strokes for Different Folks model, a set of goals, motivation and modules of engagement that were tailored to an employees position.

Vision CommunitiesA Vision Community was an inclusive forum for innovation and strategy formulation, based on a unifying theme. It was formed by the management to engage all the employees of the firm in the decision making so as to make them feel importance and also to leverage the talent pool of their organization. The VC had generated six radical ideas in areas such as attracting talent and motivating people to work on strategic initiatives outside their work areas.

The Vision Community Process

Steps involved in the Vision Community Process are

PROBLEM STATEMENT

With geographical expansion and employee growth on the horizon, what can Ganesh do, so that VC continues to play an important role in strategic implementation and driving innovation at the same time retaining its culture of connectedness and employee involvement?

OPTIONS

To continue with the current VC Process

Though effective, the existing process could capture and develop only a small number of ideas. Being held at Pune proved to be a limitation in terms of geographical hindrance. There is a high probability that good ideas will be discarded without giving it due importance.

To put the VC process online and extend it to Zensarians across the globe

The option would broaden access and reach and is designed to accommodate for a continuous flow of ideas. It did not however address the issue of the collaborative culture that the firm has.

To organize a firm wide event by dividing into zones

Two to six person teams from offices around the world can be encouraged to develop ideas that emerges out of recent client engagements and formalize them for presentation at a regional conventions with senior manager and clients as attendees. The proposals will then be evaluated and due diligence will be done to ensure the feasibility. The employees will be given an option to participate in a virtual manner.

CRITERION FOR EVALUATION

Sr. NoCriteriaWeights

1Generation of credible new ideas(based on participants' talent and quality of discussion0.3

2Enhancement of networking of an individual0.35

3Impact on interactive and collaborative culture of the organization.0.35

Reason for assigning weights: In the scenario that Zensar was in, the main role of VC was to engage new talent and make them feel responsible for initiating and being a part of strategic decisions. Generation of ideas was a secondary concern as is reflected by the fact that most of the VC meetings were based around a theme and were moderated. Thus we have assigned generation of new ideas a relatively lower weight. The quantification of data will be done based on a feedback form filled by the participants.

EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES

1. To continue with the current VC Process

The existing process, though effective, cannot capture the bulk of ideas that can be generated primarily due to two reasons. First, the number of participants are limited as there are only so many people that one can fit into a single room. Second, interested participants may not be able to contribute ideas due to geographical barriers.

The networking of an individual will not be enhanced as the number of participants in the VC meeting remains the same. The satisfaction derived from networking will remain the same for an individual participant as before.

The interactive and collaborative nature of the organization will suffer as employees who find it difficult to participate in the VC discussions/meetings will end up questioning the cultural fabric of the organization. The employees will develop a feeling that enough efforts are not being made by the organization to include them in the strategic decisions of the organization. It will me more or less akin to an ordinary firm where most of the strategic decisions are taken by the corporate headquarters without involving the employees in deciding the direction of the firm.

2. To put the VC process online and extend it to Zensarians across the globe

The number of participants in the VC meetings/discussions will increase dramatically but the quality of interactions will go down drastically as it will be very difficult to manage such a huge participation at a single point of time. Also there will be a lot of chaos and it may be extremely difficult to convey your idea. It will be highly improbable that we will be able to achieve the same level of productive brainstorming as before because the quality of interaction on a virtual platform will be worse off as compared to face to face.

The networking opportunities for the individuals would be affected adversely. Relationships are better formed when you interact one to one as compared to thousands on an online platform.

Perception regarding the interactive and collaborative culture of the organization will be high as everybody is given a fair chance to contribute to the strategic direction the organization should take.

3. To organize a firm wide event by dividing into zones

A greater number of ideas that are of the highest quality will be generated. The possibility of missing out on ideas that could otherwise be left out due to the earlier mentioned constraints can be minimized. Participants from different perspectives will be able to give their opinion in an objective manner that will enhance the quality of discussion.

Depending upon the extent of progression of a teams idea, there is an increased scope for networking for the individuals. One is able to have interaction with diverse set of people from different geographies that can be leveraged for achieving both personal and organizational goals.

The interactive and collaborative culture of the organization will improve as every employee is being provided a fair chance to contribute to the organizational strategy, be accepted and gain recognition.RECOMMENDATION

Criteria/OptionsIdea Generation

Weightage(0.3)Networking

Weightage (0.35)Impact on culture Weightage(0.35)Aggregate

Status Quo1211.35

VC process online 2121.3

Organize a firm wide event by dividing into zones3333

In order to choose among the alternatives we are going to rank them in order with 3 being the best and 1 the worst. The alternative with the highest rating will be chosenSo we have chosen the third alternative of organizing a firm wide event to improve the quality of ideas generated and at the same time remaining true to the collaborative and inclusive culture of the firm.VC Launch

Idea Generation

Implementation

Idea Short listing

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