Satyam Computer Services, Bangalore

We reached Satyam computers after the visit to Wipro. We were accorded a warm welcome by Satyam’s representative at the gate, even with a ceremonial guard. As we walked towards our meeting point, I was impressed by the greenery and the college campus like atmosphere. We were again welcomed by Anita Vasudevan from Satyam training center and Manu Kumar, Asst. Vice President, Media and Entertainment at the conference hall. After refreshments, we moved to a very impressive theatre with awesome seats. I wish I can have that as my home theatre! There, we got a glimpse of Satyam through a video of about 10 minutes.

Manu introduced Satyam and the business in general. Manu also talked about the opportunities and the challenges. As Satyam operates in the same industry and has fairly similar business structure with similar opportunities and challenges as Wipro, the earlier visit to Wipro set the tone and given the context for the discussion. Manu Kumar is the delivery head of one of the verticals. He covered the ‘right sourcing’ model Satyam uses, the organizational structure and the business structure in detail.

We were later joined by Pankaj Modi, Asst. Vice President – finance solutions, over the phone. Pankaj Modi was eloquent in his answers about the challenges on talent retention and account prospecting and planning. The lead time for account planning at Satyam is 45 days.

One of the challenges that consistently popped up during this visit to India was the availability and retention of qualified resources. Competency building is one of the focuses of Satyam to improve productivity and retention. They also established Satyam School of leadership to train future leaders and ensure leadership pipeline for the organization. While retention has been the focus, it was interesting to hear that Satyam believes in healthy attrition rate as a means of keeping the right talent.

One aspect of presentation that I would have liked to hear more about was the corporate social responsibility initiatives that the company has undertaken in a massive scale. During the last couple of weeks, I had the privilege of visiting a couple of villages that were served by the not-for-profit organization of Satyam – the Byrraju foundation. They are doing phenomenal job in providing drinking water and basic health services. I couldn’t stay long enough to look at their other services.

After the presentation, we were given a tour of their facilities including the Gymnasium. The head of Gym was very excited to see us and was rushing all over to show every detail. Outside the gym we saw some of the Satyam employees playing cricket. I had the pleasure of explaining the game and answering some questions from few of our team members. As I mentioned earlier, it looked like a college campus with good facilities rather than a corporate campus.

This visit ranks in the top of list of visits in terms hospitality and warmth.

- Srini Ayinaparthi