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Post Graduate Programme in Management

GROUP ASSIGNMENT 2

Zensar: The Future of Vision Communities


21ST FEB-2015

SUBJECT HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT


TERM III
Prof. Patturaja Selvaraj
Submitted by Section C
ABHISHEK YADAV
ANKITA VERMA
FAIZAL JALEEL MUHAMMED
KIRAN KUMAR M
NIKHIL RANJAN
PRACHI CHANDGOTHIA
RAHUL GARG
R P HARIHARA KARPAHA RAM

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2014PGP011
2014PGP043
2014PGP117
2014PGP162
2014PGP229
2014PGP255
2014PGP281
2014PGP308

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Zensar 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.

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Table of Contents
Sr. No.

Title

Page no.

1.

Executive Summary

2.

Introduction

3.

Problem Statement

4.

Options

5.

Criteria for evaluation

6.

Evaluation of alternatives

7.

Recommendation

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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

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The Associate Relations Function


Zensars 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 Retention
Zensars 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 Communities
A 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
VC Launch

Idea Generation

Idea Short listing

Implementation

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

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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. No
1

Criteria
Generation
of
credible
new
ideas(based
participants' talent and quality of discussion

Enhancement of networking of an individual

0.35

Impact on interactive and collaborative culture of the


organization.

0.35

on

Weights
0.3

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
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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
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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
In order to choose among the alternatives we are going to rank them in order with 3
Criteria/Options

Idea
Generation
Weightage(0.
3)
Status Quo
1
VC
process 2
online

Networking
Weightage
(0.35)
2
1

Impact
on Aggregate
culture
Weightage(0.
35)
1
1.35
2
1.3

Organize a firm 3
3
3
3
wide event by
dividing
into
zones
being the best and 1 the worst. The alternative with the highest rating will be
chosen

So 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.

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