At Intel's campus in Bangalore, Naresh Sehgal, lead architect of the EPSD group, provided us with an overview of his group and IIDC (Intel India Development Center). IIDC is Intel's largest non-manufacturing site outside of the United States. Previously just a sales and marketing organization, Intel India has evolved into a research and development center due to the engineering talent pool in the country. Currently, Intel is one of the top ten employeers of choice in India. Intel's EPSD group works on developing unbranded server platforms (hardware & software) which it sells to channel customers and local OEMs. With the help of this group, channel customers can better compete in the market because most of the ground work and research is provided by the Intel team. These customers merely brand and sell the product without dealing with any of their own R&D costs. This program also provides a two-fold benefit to Intel. First, by supporting channel customers, Intel is able to dilute customer power. As described by Porter's 5 forces, by increasing the customer base, no one customer can squeeze Intel on prices. Secondly, since larger customers are slower to adopt new technologies, Intel focuses on getting their new technology to market through its smaller channel customers. This in turn forces larger customers to jump on the bandwagon. After the initial group presentation by Naresh Sehgal and his team, the students formed three breakout groups where they interacted with a few Intel managers and individual contributors. The key learnings of these sessions are presented below based on the feedback from the three team leaders. Challenges: Solutions: Group 2 (Team leader: Dang Nguyen) Topic: Work-life Balance and the global collaboration How does an Intel employee in India deal with time zone differences? Intel provides laptops and where possible home broadband connections to allow employees to reduce the impacts of both traffic and time zone differences.Intel also stated that they also try to share the pain by rotating the time when the conference calls occur. Why an MBA and what value does it have? Retention of Talent? The managers discussed ways to retain employees by ensuring employees saw the value in what they were doing. Even though it may mean changing some lines of code, they should know the impact of their work. The Intel manager also discussed how titles and positions are important in India, as employees are looking to fast track their careers. Also, Intel being a MNC, is more competitive from a salary point of view than Indian companies. Another challenge is that the sense of ownership is not as evolved in Indian workforce as compared to the US. Managers have to implement many checks, balances, and contingencies planning in to project planning. In addition to human behavior, environmental factors play a big role. Family obligations, traffic, and many other shortcomings interfere with task delivery. A manager needs to understand all the human and non-human issues and find a way to work through them to have a successful project. Currently, the attrition rate ranges between 15-20%. The average salary in India is 1/3 of the same role in US. If this gap decreases, it will not be worth it for global companies to come to India. Therefore, India needs to improve its worker knowledge and efficiency to ensure more than just a cost benefit. -- Ritu Manocha
Topic: Challenges and Solutions of Managers from an Indian Cultural Perspective
Similar to the structure of technology companies in the U.S.A., the career path for Intel India in Bangalore is like that of two rungs of a ladder where an employee can either follow a management or technical path
There are three types of managers at Intel, India:
First Level Managers – manage 9-15 individual contributors
Middle Level Mangers – manage first level managers
Senior level Managers – manage middle level managers
One of the challenges that first level managers face is that their individual contributors want to be managers after a short amount of time. This is due to peer pressure as the individual contributors from a small company like Intel, India compare themselves and the rate of their career growth to peers of much larger companies that can handle the infrastructure of having many managers.
The individual contributor in the group asked about the value of an MBA degree and if that has implications on reducing their technical abilities (i.e. reduced focus). The Santa Clara students gave multiple view points on this, including examples of the MBA improving their analytical skills and their ability to view technical issues in a different way. The Intel middle-manager, had a different opinion, as he believed technical contributors should continue to focus on their technical training.
Group 3 (Team leader: Shabnam Karimi)
Topic: Management Model
Two out of three Intel participants had management roles in US before moving back to India. The first challenge they faced was that the management model they we accustomed to in US was not applicable in India. In US, management by objectives is fully enforced as opposed to India where the focus is on relationships and feeling. Since the average age of the workers is relatively low, managers need to focus on coaching and developing their employees
Showing posts with label Bangalore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bangalore. Show all posts
Friday, September 7, 2007
Intel Corporation Visit
Group 1 (Team leader: Joan Simon)
Wipro CPG – Diversity in India
Mr. Manish Vyas, Marketing Controller for Wipro CPG, gave us an excellent presentation on the extreme diversity of India. Using Wipro’s Santoor soap as a backdrop, Mr. Vyas walked us through the challenges of marketing consumer packaged goods in a company as culturally varied as India, and how the advertisements for the product have changed as the country has developed.
Mr. Vyas gave us a quote that he felt described India well, “Politically one country, socio-culturally many countries in one”. He compared India to Europe, as far as the number of languages, people, and cultures found in one geographic area. He explained that even people from neighboring states such as Karnataka and Maharashtra are as different as trying to compare Karnataka to Italy when considering language, style of dress, cultural dances, etc. They say in India the language and culture changes ever 100 kilometers.
From a media planning perspective, Mr. Vyas explained that there are 5,600 daily newspapers, 15,000 weekly newspapers, and 20,000 magazines in 21 languages across the country that planners must negotiate through when planning their media buys. Along the same line, advertisements generally cannot be used even from state to state. Celebrities are frequently used to promote products in the country, as is done in the U.S. However, apparently movie stars and comedians from one state will not be easily recognized by those from another state. Mr. Vyas showed us two Santoor commercials that were identical, with the exception of the celebrity featured in the commercial, the language it was broadcast in, and the way the female protagonist was dressed. All of the actors, storyline, and product messaging remained the same.
Mr. Vyas then showed examples of the differences in product preferences across the country. In the south, the sandalwood fragrance is preferred in soap products, and Wipro’s Santoor soap is orange. In the north on the other hand, non-sandalwood fragrances are preferred, as are natural products, so the soap is instead colored white. Similarly, due to differences in climate across the country, consideration must be given to how the product is used regionally when creating advertisements. In the south, where the women are darker skinned, talcum powder is used as face powder for beautification to make their skin look lighter. In the northwest however, where the weather can be humid, talcum powder is used as a deodorant. Obviously an advertisement showing talcum being applied as a face power would be very confusing to women in the northwest.
To address all of these different demographics, Wipro typically conducts market research in at least 3-4 different regions in the country before launching any new products to ensure that it matches most of the country’s needs. This is definitely the key message of marketing to diverse cultures. You really need to do the extra research in the areas you plan on launching your product or service to understand the key differences between the populations. Wipro CPG for example makes new brand managers live in the region they will be supporting for at least two months to ensure that they understand the nuances of the culture before allowing them to manage a product line in the region.
The key learnings that Mr. Vyas described definitely apply in the U.S., and even more so for U.S. companies trying to launch in new countries. Taking for granted that a new cultural will easily accept and use your product just because it works at home can be a costly mistake. KFC made this mistake when launching in India without doing any market research beforehand. They failed to recognize that most of the population in India is vegetarian, and initially provided almost no vegetarian dishes on their menu. In addition, they didn’t realize that the country’s own home cooked tandoori chicken would be a major competitor in the region. Simple taste tests and consumer research could have prevented these fatal errors, and saved millions of dollars re-creating the menu and revamping their image.
- Eileen McSweeney
Mr. Vyas gave us a quote that he felt described India well, “Politically one country, socio-culturally many countries in one”. He compared India to Europe, as far as the number of languages, people, and cultures found in one geographic area. He explained that even people from neighboring states such as Karnataka and Maharashtra are as different as trying to compare Karnataka to Italy when considering language, style of dress, cultural dances, etc. They say in India the language and culture changes ever 100 kilometers.
From a media planning perspective, Mr. Vyas explained that there are 5,600 daily newspapers, 15,000 weekly newspapers, and 20,000 magazines in 21 languages across the country that planners must negotiate through when planning their media buys. Along the same line, advertisements generally cannot be used even from state to state. Celebrities are frequently used to promote products in the country, as is done in the U.S. However, apparently movie stars and comedians from one state will not be easily recognized by those from another state. Mr. Vyas showed us two Santoor commercials that were identical, with the exception of the celebrity featured in the commercial, the language it was broadcast in, and the way the female protagonist was dressed. All of the actors, storyline, and product messaging remained the same.
Mr. Vyas then showed examples of the differences in product preferences across the country. In the south, the sandalwood fragrance is preferred in soap products, and Wipro’s Santoor soap is orange. In the north on the other hand, non-sandalwood fragrances are preferred, as are natural products, so the soap is instead colored white. Similarly, due to differences in climate across the country, consideration must be given to how the product is used regionally when creating advertisements. In the south, where the women are darker skinned, talcum powder is used as face powder for beautification to make their skin look lighter. In the northwest however, where the weather can be humid, talcum powder is used as a deodorant. Obviously an advertisement showing talcum being applied as a face power would be very confusing to women in the northwest.
To address all of these different demographics, Wipro typically conducts market research in at least 3-4 different regions in the country before launching any new products to ensure that it matches most of the country’s needs. This is definitely the key message of marketing to diverse cultures. You really need to do the extra research in the areas you plan on launching your product or service to understand the key differences between the populations. Wipro CPG for example makes new brand managers live in the region they will be supporting for at least two months to ensure that they understand the nuances of the culture before allowing them to manage a product line in the region.
The key learnings that Mr. Vyas described definitely apply in the U.S., and even more so for U.S. companies trying to launch in new countries. Taking for granted that a new cultural will easily accept and use your product just because it works at home can be a costly mistake. KFC made this mistake when launching in India without doing any market research beforehand. They failed to recognize that most of the population in India is vegetarian, and initially provided almost no vegetarian dishes on their menu. In addition, they didn’t realize that the country’s own home cooked tandoori chicken would be a major competitor in the region. Simple taste tests and consumer research could have prevented these fatal errors, and saved millions of dollars re-creating the menu and revamping their image.
- Eileen McSweeney
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Azim Premji Foundation
The Azim Premji Foundation is a non-profit focused on improving Indian education by providing long term developmental programs to teachers, principals and schools. The Foundation begain working with the state of Karnataka, where it is headquartered, and has expanded operations to work with over 25 social organizations across the country and, to date, has engaged deeply with over 8,000 educators and 900 schools across 17 states of India. The foundation is named after the sole benefactor, Azim Premji, one of the wealthiest entreprenuers in India and Chairman & CEO of BPO heavy-hitter, Wipro Technologies.
The vision of the foundation is to significantly contribute to quality universal education as a foundation to a just, humane and equitable society through three principles, access, equity and quality. Their mission is defined as:
- Develop world class human resources in the field of education.
- Catalyze a national movement for Universalisation of Elementary Education in India.
- Achieve significant improvement in the quality of education as a sustained method for attracting and retaining children in the school
- Work with existing government initiatives and create new ones to improve access, content and delivery of education.
- Build active, sustainable partnerships with individuals, community at large, government and other organizations committed to the field of education to leverage the effort for optimum results.
- Enable schools to guarantee learning
Upon this basis, the foundation has implemented three key programs:
- Learning Guarantee Program - To build a voluntary spirit of accountability among schools, community and Government functionaries and study factors that influence learning
- Child Friendly Schools - To demonstrate comprehensive and sustainable quality of education in identified schools in partnership with the schools, parents, Government and UNICEF
- Computer Aided Learning - To create excitement and interest in children about school and learning and provide teachers with interactive material to supplement teaching of difficult subjects
This was the first of the NGO visits and provided a glaring contrast to the high tech companies we had visited thus far. Previously, the concern for quality education had been discussed by Professor Gowda and many of the executives, at the university level. This was the first exposure to the larger problem of primary education, principally from grades 1 through 8.The Indian public school system follows the British metric system where the equivalent of high school would be the 10 grade, or Metric standard. To provide a point of reference to the scope of the education crisis, 1 out of every 3 children in the 5th grade cannot read, and only 31% of children reach the 10th Standard, of which only 40% pass. Shocking numbers for a country that is being touted to rival China which boasts 91% literacy!
The largest challenge facing the Azim Premji Foundation is not how to increase enrollment, or disseminate best teaching practices, or even ensure quality eduation to each child. The largest challenge is actually scalability. There are many proven methods to improve education, but how do these methods actually work when the implementation scope covers 1.3 Million schools, 5.5 Million teachers and 200 Million students?
The Azim Premji Foundation takes a practical approach by partnering with the state government. Implementing change in each school one by one is impossible, instead, they take over government schools and deploy the three key programs, making adjustments as necessary for the local environment. Once they have proven the concept on at least 1,000 schools, the state government must agree to take back ownership of the schools, adopt the model and deploy it throughout the state.
The visit to the Azim Premji Foundation was sobering, but I felt it was a welcome dose of reality to temper the high-flying optimism and energy I felt the tech boom created in Bangalore.
-Juwayriyah Hussain
Maini Precision Products & REVA
On Wednesday, September 5, 2007, we visited Maini Precision Products in Bangalore. We had a very interesting and highly interactive discussion with Mr. Chaitanya Koranne, VP Marketing at Maini Precision Products. We had a tour of their manufacturing facility (machine shop) and we also had the opportunity to see REVA car which is an environment-friendly, cost-effective electric car specially designed for Indian urban conditions. Overall, the visit was very interesting, informative and a different kind of experience for most of us who rarely visit machine shops with metal turning lathes and machine tools all around.
The Maini Group started in 1973 in Bangalore as a small scale manufacturer of high precision automotive components exclusively for MICO-BOSCH. The Maini Group has evolved into a highly diversified manufacturing entity, and a major outsourcing partner for several multinational corporations including companies like GM. There are four primary companies that make up the Maini Group and the company that we visited (Maini Precision Products - MPP) is one of them. MPP manufactures over 1500 types of components specialized in engine application parts, sub-assemblies, casting & forging, material handling, shafts and axles.
The following are some of the main topics Mr. Koranne focused on in his presentation:
Maini Group, sub groups & Maini Precision Products
6 manufacturing units in India each focused on a specific product line
Sales performance of Maini Precision Products
Sales distribution for MPP (Industry wise from India)
Advantages for MPP based on experience & core knowledge in high-quality manufacturing, packaging, shipping etc.
Sales distribution for MPP (Customer wise from India)
Sales distribution for MPP (Region wise from India)
MPP technologies in the market (# of pieces Vs. Complexity in end-application)
MPP’s emphasis on high-quality
Mr. Koranne explained the importance of managing foreign exchange risk for MPP. Also MPP uses standard hedging techniques to offset price fluctuations of various metals needed for manufacturing by MPP. The futures market for metals is not very well developed/organized in India and this certainly presents problems to MPP.
The overall sales performance of Maini Precision Products has been very impressive with CAGR of 26% since inception and 51% for the past 4 years. In terms of the industry-wise sales distribution from India, the main industries for MPP components are as follows: material handling (15%), transmission (13%), assemblies (26%), hydraulic (17%) and automotive (15%). MPP components are also used in the Aerospace industry (6% sales). Mr. Koranne explained that the MPP products used in the Aerospace industry are essentially low-tech components. The high-complexity, high-tech products from MPP are mainly used in cars and other automobiles.
MPP has a very strong focus on quality and it has received several prestigious awards for quality and excellence. MPP has consistently maintained zero defect in products delivered to various customers (zero PPM). Mr. Koranne mentioned that their manufacturing yields are also high with an internal PPM of 1700 – 2600.
One of the highlights of our visit to MPP was the REVA electric car that we saw there. In 1994, REVA Electric Car Company, based in Bangalore, was established as a joint venture between the Maini Group and AEV LLC of Irvindale, California, USA. The REVA car is India’s first zero-polluting electric car for city mobility. It was commercialized in June 2001 and is specially designed to cater to the Indian urban conditions with potential for city commuters across the globe. Currently, REVA car can go up to 80 kilometers in a single charge. A full charge can be attained in 8 hours while 80% charge can be attained in 2.5 hours. The battery-pack has a life of 2-3 years. In the future, REVA is expected to offer ranges of up to 200 kilometers in a single charge with reduced charge-time.
The tour of the manufacturing facility was also interesting. It was a typical factory environment with several machine tools and metal-turning lathes for manufacturing Maini’s precision products. Mr. Koranne mentioned that the average wage for the factory worker at MPP ranged from $3 - $6 per hour. We also saw MPP’s classroom training facility and the packaging facility.We concluded our visit with good south-Indian lunch hosted by MPP on the top floor of the office building with a nice view of Bangalore city from the balcony.
- Satish Salagame
Accenture
At Accenture, we were privileged to meet with their Managing Director of BPO, Delivery Center, Mr. Pankaj Vaish. Similar to what we saw from Cisco and other multi-national companies who have opened locations in India, Accenture strategically brought over many of their core top leadership from the U.S. in order to ensure that Accenture's corporate culture was ingrained in the new organization.
Unbelievably, Accenture has experienced purely organic growth in headcount - that is, growth that is not acquisition-based. Accenture India grew from just 100 employees in 2000 to over 35,000 employees in 2007. In fact, Accenture India has the most headcount of any office in the world for Accenture. This staggering number of employees was reinforced to us by the multiple floors of cafeteria and U.S. mall-like food courts we walked through to get to the conference room where we were hosted.
Accenture was the first international consulting firm to open in India, and is currently focusing on managing and optimizing their clients' networks, without ownership of their networks. Accenture India recently handled the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines. Mr. Vaish discussed that Accenture's talent strategy is highly centered around specialization of skills, as their clients are beginning to demand more risk from Accenture - asking that they not just bill time, but more importantly to deliver extraordinary results in highly specialized and senior outsourced roles.
In addition to the presentations by Mr. Vaish and several of his esteemed collegues, we were given impressive demonstrations by various Accenture specialists on R&D projects focused on human health diagnostics, network diagnostics, and videoconferencing that highlighted the advanced and specialized skillsets available at Accenture India.
-- Eileen McSweeney
Unbelievably, Accenture has experienced purely organic growth in headcount - that is, growth that is not acquisition-based. Accenture India grew from just 100 employees in 2000 to over 35,000 employees in 2007. In fact, Accenture India has the most headcount of any office in the world for Accenture. This staggering number of employees was reinforced to us by the multiple floors of cafeteria and U.S. mall-like food courts we walked through to get to the conference room where we were hosted.
Accenture was the first international consulting firm to open in India, and is currently focusing on managing and optimizing their clients' networks, without ownership of their networks. Accenture India recently handled the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines. Mr. Vaish discussed that Accenture's talent strategy is highly centered around specialization of skills, as their clients are beginning to demand more risk from Accenture - asking that they not just bill time, but more importantly to deliver extraordinary results in highly specialized and senior outsourced roles.
In addition to the presentations by Mr. Vaish and several of his esteemed collegues, we were given impressive demonstrations by various Accenture specialists on R&D projects focused on human health diagnostics, network diagnostics, and videoconferencing that highlighted the advanced and specialized skillsets available at Accenture India.
-- Eileen McSweeney
Heyy Babyy Bollywood Movie
After two grueling days of visiting companies, we were in desperate need of a well deserved break. What better way to unwind than with dinner at the mall and a Bollywood movie like the locals do. We purchased Gold Class tickets to “Heyy Babyy” which came close to $10 USD, the same price for a movie in the US without the student discount. Unlike home, I ended up misplacing my movie ticket while I was roaming around the mall. After digging through my pockets profusely, it was to no avail and I was not able to locate my lost ticket among the few rupees held together with a paper clip. Leave it up to me to be the one to lose it.
Fortunately, the nice manager did not charge me for another ticket. There were only 32 seats in the gold class theater and we struck a deal where I would leave my seat if another customer purchased a ticket. So I was not allowed in until 5 seconds before the movie started. Upon finally being able to enter the theater, I noticed that all my classmates had kicked their feet high in the air while they lay completely flat in their individual la-z-boy recliners. Now that is what I am talking about, that is the well deserved break we longed for and we need to move these la-z-boy recliners over to AMC Mercado. I also noticed that waiters were coming around to take drink and food orders, this was included in the gold class tickets we purchased. When I sat down, I was lucky enough to select a seat that was broken. Given my good fortune thus far, I decided to sit still and make do with what I had since I did not have to pay twice. The movie started with the 3 main characters at a dance club. Within 10 minutes it was obvious that this was the Bollywood version of “3 men and a baby.” Then the waiters delivered the food and drinks about 15 minutes into the movie. Please refer to the following link (http://heyybabyy.erosentertainment.com/) for a synopsis of the movie and to view the trailer. I do not want to spoil the movie for those yet to see the film. I will however say that the movie did incorporate many dance routines and the sound system was at full blast throughout the whole movie.
After about an hour and a half, the movie suddenly halted with an intermission break. It was then that everyone took the anticipated washroom break and I searched for a working recliner. Not everyone ran to the bathrooms, there were a few individuals who were found sleeping in the recliner. I was able to locate the 1 empty seat in the front row of all places, but who was I to complain. I did check to see that it reclined and I could kick my feet up as my fellow classmate had for the first half of the movie. Now that I was ready to relax, the waiters came back around to take orders for the last half of the movie. Again, they delivered the food and drinks about 15 minutes into the second half. I was so relaxed in the working seat that 15 minutes before the movie concluded, I noticed that my wallet was no longer in my back pocket. I was certain that I had it when I moved locations.
Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong … it got worst. My credit cards, driver’s license, and most importantly, my SCU student ID were now engulfed by this recliner. I sat there anxiously waiting for the movie to finally end. After, what felt like a 30 minute long final dance routine number, the lights finally turned on. I quickly dropped to the floor in search of my wallet and given my luck, it was not there. I looked around and was ready to tear this recliner apart. After searching for 15 minutes with no luck I was ready to give up. It was then that a fellow classmate found my wallet in one of the crevasses in this recliner. This day finally ended and I was glad to reach the hotel without misplacing anything else. Thereafter, the day captain was responsible for my plane tickets and the roommate check now included my wallet.
-- Eugene Cabanban
Fortunately, the nice manager did not charge me for another ticket. There were only 32 seats in the gold class theater and we struck a deal where I would leave my seat if another customer purchased a ticket. So I was not allowed in until 5 seconds before the movie started. Upon finally being able to enter the theater, I noticed that all my classmates had kicked their feet high in the air while they lay completely flat in their individual la-z-boy recliners. Now that is what I am talking about, that is the well deserved break we longed for and we need to move these la-z-boy recliners over to AMC Mercado. I also noticed that waiters were coming around to take drink and food orders, this was included in the gold class tickets we purchased. When I sat down, I was lucky enough to select a seat that was broken. Given my good fortune thus far, I decided to sit still and make do with what I had since I did not have to pay twice. The movie started with the 3 main characters at a dance club. Within 10 minutes it was obvious that this was the Bollywood version of “3 men and a baby.” Then the waiters delivered the food and drinks about 15 minutes into the movie. Please refer to the following link (http://heyybabyy.erosentertainment.com/) for a synopsis of the movie and to view the trailer. I do not want to spoil the movie for those yet to see the film. I will however say that the movie did incorporate many dance routines and the sound system was at full blast throughout the whole movie.
After about an hour and a half, the movie suddenly halted with an intermission break. It was then that everyone took the anticipated washroom break and I searched for a working recliner. Not everyone ran to the bathrooms, there were a few individuals who were found sleeping in the recliner. I was able to locate the 1 empty seat in the front row of all places, but who was I to complain. I did check to see that it reclined and I could kick my feet up as my fellow classmate had for the first half of the movie. Now that I was ready to relax, the waiters came back around to take orders for the last half of the movie. Again, they delivered the food and drinks about 15 minutes into the second half. I was so relaxed in the working seat that 15 minutes before the movie concluded, I noticed that my wallet was no longer in my back pocket. I was certain that I had it when I moved locations.
Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong … it got worst. My credit cards, driver’s license, and most importantly, my SCU student ID were now engulfed by this recliner. I sat there anxiously waiting for the movie to finally end. After, what felt like a 30 minute long final dance routine number, the lights finally turned on. I quickly dropped to the floor in search of my wallet and given my luck, it was not there. I looked around and was ready to tear this recliner apart. After searching for 15 minutes with no luck I was ready to give up. It was then that a fellow classmate found my wallet in one of the crevasses in this recliner. This day finally ended and I was glad to reach the hotel without misplacing anything else. Thereafter, the day captain was responsible for my plane tickets and the roommate check now included my wallet.
-- Eugene Cabanban
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
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
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
Wipro IT – Realizing Opportunities
Wipro in my opinion has an extremely intriguing story. Mr. Girish Paranjpe, President of Finance Solutions, presented to us the company history of Wipro, which has managed to successfully transition from a consumer products company selling sunflower oil and laundry detergent to a highly respected global IT services provider.
Started in approximately 1947, Wipro focused on selling Indian consumer products for over 35 years. In roughly 1985, legal regulations passed by the Indian government required that all public companies operating in India have less than 51% of the company owned by individual shareholders, and subsequently large computer companies such as IBM immediately exited the country. As a result, an enormous number of Indian companies that had invested in computers were left with without any support network, creating an enormous gap in the market.
Capitalizing on this opportunity, Wipro quickly decided to focus on this new market and invested in an R&D team. This R&D team designed and developed new computers, including motherboards, operating systems, compilers and other required components. While there was an extensive installed base of clients, few other companies wanted to make the R&D investment required to enter this new market at the time. In Mr. Paranjpe’s words, “Wipro built its IT business from the ground up.”
Just a few years later in the early 1990s, in an effort to liberalize the economy, the Indian government removed the restrictions it had previously put in place and companies such as IBM and Compaq began to return to India. Wipro had a difficult decision to make – should they decide to face global competition despite their lack of global technologies, or should they shut down their IT business completely?
Wipro adapted their business model to a partnership strategy. Wipro continued to focus on their clients and the local support business, but decided not to make everything in house. Rather than build, they would import. Rather than produce, they would integrate. They would help their partners do research and development, and never put themselves into a position where they competed with their own clients.
By consistently focusing on quality and process, they have since become the vendor of choice for a number of large equipment vendors such as Alcatel and Nortel. They have grown from 300 to 15,000 employees, and continue to help their clients support their products throughout the product lifecycle.
In addition to their numerous awards for quality and process, Wipro has an amazing reputation as a preferred employer. In an industry that is many times considered a “sweat shop” industry, their BPO call center business was ranked number one to work for by their employees in the 2007 Hewitt survey. After touring their training facilities, I can definitely understand why. An entire section of the Wipro campus is dedicated to several large lecture halls. New hires are put through two months of training, and must pass competency tests on a number of subjects including cross-cultural understanding in order to continue their employment. Wipro also partners with a number of prestigious educational institutions to support employees who wish to work towards additional academic degrees on campus.
I was extremely impressed with Wipro’s ability to identify new opportunities, focus their investment, and successfully execute on their strategies. It seems to me that the most critical decisions that they made involved a significant element of risk in entering new markets or competing with much more established companies, and each time Wipro made the required investments in capital, technologies, and people to realize these opportunities. This visit to Wipro reinforced to me what I have learned through the many case studies and companies I have studied throughout my time at Santa Clara - that it is not just about correctly identifying an opportunity but rather how you focus, invest and execute on the opportunities that matter.
- Eileen McSweeney
Started in approximately 1947, Wipro focused on selling Indian consumer products for over 35 years. In roughly 1985, legal regulations passed by the Indian government required that all public companies operating in India have less than 51% of the company owned by individual shareholders, and subsequently large computer companies such as IBM immediately exited the country. As a result, an enormous number of Indian companies that had invested in computers were left with without any support network, creating an enormous gap in the market.
Capitalizing on this opportunity, Wipro quickly decided to focus on this new market and invested in an R&D team. This R&D team designed and developed new computers, including motherboards, operating systems, compilers and other required components. While there was an extensive installed base of clients, few other companies wanted to make the R&D investment required to enter this new market at the time. In Mr. Paranjpe’s words, “Wipro built its IT business from the ground up.”
Just a few years later in the early 1990s, in an effort to liberalize the economy, the Indian government removed the restrictions it had previously put in place and companies such as IBM and Compaq began to return to India. Wipro had a difficult decision to make – should they decide to face global competition despite their lack of global technologies, or should they shut down their IT business completely?
Wipro adapted their business model to a partnership strategy. Wipro continued to focus on their clients and the local support business, but decided not to make everything in house. Rather than build, they would import. Rather than produce, they would integrate. They would help their partners do research and development, and never put themselves into a position where they competed with their own clients.
By consistently focusing on quality and process, they have since become the vendor of choice for a number of large equipment vendors such as Alcatel and Nortel. They have grown from 300 to 15,000 employees, and continue to help their clients support their products throughout the product lifecycle.
In addition to their numerous awards for quality and process, Wipro has an amazing reputation as a preferred employer. In an industry that is many times considered a “sweat shop” industry, their BPO call center business was ranked number one to work for by their employees in the 2007 Hewitt survey. After touring their training facilities, I can definitely understand why. An entire section of the Wipro campus is dedicated to several large lecture halls. New hires are put through two months of training, and must pass competency tests on a number of subjects including cross-cultural understanding in order to continue their employment. Wipro also partners with a number of prestigious educational institutions to support employees who wish to work towards additional academic degrees on campus.
I was extremely impressed with Wipro’s ability to identify new opportunities, focus their investment, and successfully execute on their strategies. It seems to me that the most critical decisions that they made involved a significant element of risk in entering new markets or competing with much more established companies, and each time Wipro made the required investments in capital, technologies, and people to realize these opportunities. This visit to Wipro reinforced to me what I have learned through the many case studies and companies I have studied throughout my time at Santa Clara - that it is not just about correctly identifying an opportunity but rather how you focus, invest and execute on the opportunities that matter.
- Eileen McSweeney
Monday, September 3, 2007
Cisco “Globalization”
The theme of our Cisco visit was growth, innovation, and talent, or “India as a platform”. Cisco has decided to create a second “global headquarters” in Bangalore, and attempt to truly implement the concept of a 24 hour company.We met Syed Hoda, Director of Operations, Leo Scrivner, VP, HR and Mrinalini Ingram, Director of Finance. When we were in the new campus, we also were lucky to hear from Aravind Sitaraman, VP and MD (Indian Engineering Operations) who had just then moved to India from San Jose.
Cisco considers Bangalore the correct choice for their second headquarters for three primary reasons. First, Bangalore is just a 5 hour direct flight to 70% of the world’s population, and as previously mentioned by Professor Gowda has a highly educated, young population with an entrepreneurial spirit. Second, legislation around IP protection was of critical importance when comparing against other potential locations such as China. Finally, the fact that India speaks English as the official language eliminates language challenges faced by other countries that were considered.
The Cisco leadership we spoke with emphasized that Cisco was not moving to India because of cost advantages, and cautioned against the short-sighted perspective of companies who move to India or do business with India for pricing reasons, as the cost of labor and doing business is rising rapidly. Instead, Cisco is focusing on cultivating the engineering talent in India through “skills incubation” and “smart sourcing”.
Cisco’s vision is to hire and retain top talent that can be trained at Cisco and subsequently deployed on projects throughout the world through virtual teams. Dubai, Singapore and Saudi Arabia as examples are all expanding their infrastructure rapidly, and in some cases need over 1000 engineers to design and implement these infrastructure projects. Cisco intends to be the company to handle these next generation network programs.
One of the key elements that Cisco is banking their success on is their leadership team. Cisco has purposefully moved a group of their senior leaders from San Jose to Bangalore to ensure that the corporate culture and vision is translated to the 2nd headquarters.
Their goal is to open a campus where people are proud to work, specifically based off of the Googleplex in Mountain View. The India team is not being looked at to outsource existing accounts, but rather to create new beachhead accounts that can be incorporated into the global business and managed in India. In addition, the India team aims to uncover two new global verticals that will be managed by the India team.While Cisco’s vision is a lofty and innovative goal, some challenges instantly come to mind from an execution perspective. Having worked for companies that outsource application development and product engineering to India, my experience has been that the cons have tended to outweigh the pros of this model. While the hypothesis is that the costs of the project will be reduced by outsourcing development to India, in many cases it seems to dramatically increase the overhead required to communicate and manage the projects remotely.
Perhaps this is an implementation issue, but in my experience the perceived gains in productivity by having 24 hour development fall apart when requirements are not precisely communicated, or documents are delayed by a few hours. As an example, when a design document is not completed by end of business on Monday in San Jose, even if there is just another hour of input required the next morning before the document is complete you have already lost a full day of development work in India, causing the project to slip by an entire day, rather than just a couple of hours. The end results I have observed have been significant project delays, and code that had to be rewritten multiple times due to miscommunication of requirements across teams.
On top of these consequences, there is a serious impact to the employees on both sides of the globe from a work-balance perspective. When project managers have to extend their days for conference calls to India that extend to 10pm or later, and remote teams have to begin their days at 5am to participate in headquarters meetings, the days of a “normal workday” are over. Eventually both teams get burned out, as they end up working 15-20 hour days, which is not sustainable over the long-term, leading to higher levels of attrition and knowledge loss.
Perhaps the idea of the 24 hour company could work if each division truly operated independently. But if the whole premise of the opportunity is that we are becoming a global economy that is interdependent on each other, and that the workforce will exist as virtual teams deployed throughout the world, significant obstacles in terms of work hours and communication standards must be addressed. Cisco demonstrated their impressive global video conferencing capabilities, but in the back of my mind I wondered what time all of the employees were at work across the U.S., India, Europe, and Australia to be part of the revolutionary experience they showcased?
- Eileen McSweeney
Vidhan Saudah, State Capital of Karnataka
Our India study abroad experience was kicked off by a trip to the state capital of Karnataka, Vidhan Saudah (legistlative building), hosted by Dr. Rajeev Gowda. Dr. Gowda is a professor of economics and public policy at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.
Professor Gowda’s family has been extremely active in politics in Karnataka. His father, Mr. M.V. Venkatappa, was the Chairman and Speaker of Karnataka until 2004. Mr. Venkatappa is part of the congress party, and served in both the assembly (equivalent to our state house of representatives in CA), and the council (state senate). His mother was a social worker, and is the former president of the Family Planning commission.
Professor Gowda had arranged a truly special treat for us – not only were we able to meet his esteemed parents, but we were privileged to be able to tour the assembly and council chambers, as well as the private office of the chairman. We were later informed that very few delegations are granted access to these areas of the legislative building.
Professor Gowda gave us a presentation on the current state of the economy, political and social situation in India. India became independent from Britain in 1947, and swiftly decided to become a democracy. India is an extremely diverse country – nearly all major religions are represented; Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others have places of worship throughout the country. There are hundreds of regional and local dialects throughout the country, subsequently English is the only language that is universally spoken and understood in India. The rupee, we discovered, has the word “amount” written in 14 different Indian languages on each bill.
India has been experiencing 8% growth in GDP, and is anticipated to surpass 10% GDP growth in the near future. It is the 10th most industrialized country in the world, and is the 4th largest economy as measured by purchasing power parity. By 2030, India’s population will surpass China’s, and by 2050 India will be the 3rd largest economy after the U.S. and China.
In contrast to the aging populations in the U.S. and Europe, 50% of the Indian population is under 25 years old. This is seen as a significant advantage in the coming years as the global economy grows and an educated young workforce is needed. However, a significant challenge must be quickly addressed as India’s educational system is not currently capable of catering to the over 500 million youth in the country.
Significantly disconcerting is the Indian education system’s focus on rote learning. Teachers focus on teaching facts and the answers to upcoming test questions, rather than practical application of the topics they are teaching. As a result, students simply memorize exactly what has been taught, without understanding how the concepts apply in life. As an example, a student might be told that the exact equation 20-3=17 will be on a test, and subsequently pass the test. But if asked how much change they will get if they buy a 3 rupee toy with a 20 rupee bill, they would not be able to answer how much change they should expect from the merchant.
In contrast, India has many prominent and highly respected universities for management and technology. Those who are successful in their primary and secondary education can go on to receive a bachelor degree for the equivalent of just $100 US. Similarly, an MBA from a prestigious university costs approximately $5000 US.
Inequalities still exist for both women and those of the previously named “untouchable” class. Recently affirmative action plans have been put in place that assign quotas to the number of women and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds that universities musts recruit and accept to reduce discrimination and encourage higher education for these segments of the population.
It is interesting to see how closely many of these struggles mirror those in the U.S. Issues of discrimination, segregation, gender inequality, and educating a widely distributed population of young people are topics we have battled with and in many cases still have not fully resolved at home.
Rapid urbanization and migration of the population from rural areas to the large cities have amplified the infrastructure problems that exist. Bangalore is in the middle of building a raised highway to avoid displacing the permanent and temporary homes of many city residents. Commuting just a few kilometers in the city takes 1.5 to 2 hours as our bus contends with auto-rickshaws, construction trucks, public buses, scooters and stray cows on the un-delineated two lane roads.
In spite of all of this, India seems to have an amazing culture of entrepreneurship, which has fueled the growth of the economy over the last ten years. I look forward to watching the company develop both economically and socially over the next ten years.
- Eileen McSweeney
Professor Gowda’s family has been extremely active in politics in Karnataka. His father, Mr. M.V. Venkatappa, was the Chairman and Speaker of Karnataka until 2004. Mr. Venkatappa is part of the congress party, and served in both the assembly (equivalent to our state house of representatives in CA), and the council (state senate). His mother was a social worker, and is the former president of the Family Planning commission.
Professor Gowda had arranged a truly special treat for us – not only were we able to meet his esteemed parents, but we were privileged to be able to tour the assembly and council chambers, as well as the private office of the chairman. We were later informed that very few delegations are granted access to these areas of the legislative building.
Professor Gowda gave us a presentation on the current state of the economy, political and social situation in India. India became independent from Britain in 1947, and swiftly decided to become a democracy. India is an extremely diverse country – nearly all major religions are represented; Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others have places of worship throughout the country. There are hundreds of regional and local dialects throughout the country, subsequently English is the only language that is universally spoken and understood in India. The rupee, we discovered, has the word “amount” written in 14 different Indian languages on each bill.
India has been experiencing 8% growth in GDP, and is anticipated to surpass 10% GDP growth in the near future. It is the 10th most industrialized country in the world, and is the 4th largest economy as measured by purchasing power parity. By 2030, India’s population will surpass China’s, and by 2050 India will be the 3rd largest economy after the U.S. and China.
In contrast to the aging populations in the U.S. and Europe, 50% of the Indian population is under 25 years old. This is seen as a significant advantage in the coming years as the global economy grows and an educated young workforce is needed. However, a significant challenge must be quickly addressed as India’s educational system is not currently capable of catering to the over 500 million youth in the country.
Significantly disconcerting is the Indian education system’s focus on rote learning. Teachers focus on teaching facts and the answers to upcoming test questions, rather than practical application of the topics they are teaching. As a result, students simply memorize exactly what has been taught, without understanding how the concepts apply in life. As an example, a student might be told that the exact equation 20-3=17 will be on a test, and subsequently pass the test. But if asked how much change they will get if they buy a 3 rupee toy with a 20 rupee bill, they would not be able to answer how much change they should expect from the merchant.
In contrast, India has many prominent and highly respected universities for management and technology. Those who are successful in their primary and secondary education can go on to receive a bachelor degree for the equivalent of just $100 US. Similarly, an MBA from a prestigious university costs approximately $5000 US.
Inequalities still exist for both women and those of the previously named “untouchable” class. Recently affirmative action plans have been put in place that assign quotas to the number of women and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds that universities musts recruit and accept to reduce discrimination and encourage higher education for these segments of the population.
It is interesting to see how closely many of these struggles mirror those in the U.S. Issues of discrimination, segregation, gender inequality, and educating a widely distributed population of young people are topics we have battled with and in many cases still have not fully resolved at home.
Rapid urbanization and migration of the population from rural areas to the large cities have amplified the infrastructure problems that exist. Bangalore is in the middle of building a raised highway to avoid displacing the permanent and temporary homes of many city residents. Commuting just a few kilometers in the city takes 1.5 to 2 hours as our bus contends with auto-rickshaws, construction trucks, public buses, scooters and stray cows on the un-delineated two lane roads.
In spite of all of this, India seems to have an amazing culture of entrepreneurship, which has fueled the growth of the economy over the last ten years. I look forward to watching the company develop both economically and socially over the next ten years.
- Eileen McSweeney
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Touring Bangalore, Taxi for Ten!!!!
Sunday morning, nine students hired a car for a tour of the sights of Bangalore.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Arrival In Bangalore
Saturday night, the last of the SCUMBAGS arrived in Bangalore after 32 hours of travel from San Francisco.
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