Page 40 - DCOM506_DMGT502_STRATEGIC_MANAGEMENT

Strategic Management

Notes

Case Study Mission MindTree

indTree which was founded in 1999 in India by a group of IT professionals who
wanted to chart a somewhat distinctive path. Today, it has a topline of $269
Mmillions and is rated as one of the most promising mid-sized IT services
companies. Creditable as that is, MindTree does not want to be just that.
There is an element of serendipity about what it has been doing over the last year. In 2008,
it designated one of its founders Subroto Bagchi 'Gardener', a gimmicky signal, intended
to declare that he was moving out of the day-to-day running of the company to nurture
talent which would run the company in the future. He has now a report card ready on a
year as Gardener.
During this one year, he has also spent around 45 days travelling round the world talking
to clients and prospective ones which has yielded remarkable insights into what firms are
doing in these traumatic times. Lastly, MindTree as a whole has spent the last year going
through the exercise of redefining its mission statement and vision for the next five years.
Quite fortuitously these three processes have come together with a unifying thread,
presenting a coherent big picture.
MindTree wants to seed the future while still young, and executive chairman Ashok Soota
has declared that by 2020, it will be led by a non-founder. So a year ago the Gardener
Bagchi set out to "touch" 100 top people in the organisation, with a goal of doing 50 in a
year so as to eventually identify the top 20 by 2015. From among them will emerge not
just the leader but a team of ten who would eventually, as group heads, deliver $200
millions of turnover each. That will give a turnover of $2 billions. To put it in perspective,
only one VC-funded company, which has not closed or been bought over, has been able to
get to $2 billions and that is Google.
But to get there it has to periodically redefine its mission (why we exist) and its vision -
measurable goals for the next five years. Its redefined mission is built around "successful
customers, happy people, innovative solutions". Its new vision targets a turnover of $1
billion by 2014. It wants to be among the globally 20 most profitable IT services companies
and also among the 20 globally most admired ones. Admired in terms of customer
satisfaction (par for the course), people practices (creditable), knowledge management
(exciting) and corporate governance (the Enron-Satyam effect).
The really interesting bit about MindTree in the last one year is what Bagchi has been up
to. He has been embedding himself in the 50 lives, working in a personal private continuum,
making it a rich learning process "which has helped connect so many dots." Of the hundred
who will be engaged, maybe 50 will leave, of them 25 may better themselves only
marginally, and from the remaining 25 ten will emerge who will carry the company
forward.
Questions
1. What do you analyse as the main reason behind the success of Mindtree?
2. Do you think that redefining the mission statement shows the lacunae on the part of
the founder members of an organisation? Why/why not?

Source: www.businesss-standard.com

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