MINDTREE: A COMMUNITY OF

COMMUNITIES
Case Study Analysis
As Part of CIA I for Leadership (MBA 633)
To be submitted to: Prof. Ram Mohan

Submitted By: Anindya Biswas

1527605, M1

CASE SUMMARY
The case study talks about MindTree, an Indian multinational information technology
company headquartered in Bangalore, India and in New Jersey, USA and is widely known
for its knowledge management practices. The entire case is circled around the 5*50
initiative undertaken by the management at MindTree to reach a target of $1 billion by the
end of the year 2014 from the stated current valuation of $278 million. The case discusses
the entire journey that it goes through to achieve this objective and what are the internal
changes that it has to implement within the company right from the Founders to the new
recruits. The case also discusses about the leadership styles displayed by the founders.

CASE CRITIQUE

The case starts off with the industry and company background in 2009, wherein we come
to know that the Indian IT-BPO Industry had an estimated revenue of around $71.7
Billion and accounted for around 5.8% of Indias GDP and was the source of livelihood
for around 2.2 million people. The case then discusses the two ends of this phenomena
low cost voice based services and the higher priced consultancy based customer services
and R&D.

We also look at why India became a prominent hub for IT in the past few years the
millennial bug, the availability of young and highly educated English-speaking
workforce, and the shift from BPO Services to Consulting, Business Analysis and System
Integration. We furthermore looked at the major market players Tata Consultancy
Services, Cognizant Technology, Infosys Technologies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and HCL
or the SWITCH, as they were collectively called. They were named so because of their
revenues being in excess of $1 billion and also because of their scale and reputation and
the ability to attract the best of the deals.

But the case goes on to describe how MindTree decided to stick out in their own way by
differentiating themselves from other mid-sized companies using its culture as the soft
differentiator.

We then move on the early years of the company as to how the company was started with
the value proposition of OneShore model blending the high caliber local feel of
consulting with the discipline and low cost of offshore software development. This was
highly beneficial as the Indian MNC were mainly back end driven with a majority of the

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employees having excellent technical skills whereas their US counterparts were mainly
concerned with significant front end interaction and business analysis.

MindTree decided to combine the authoritative, confident and articulate nature of the
front end consultants with the understated and deferential nature of the software
developers as a result of which it experienced early growth and was recognized as the
first Indian firm to earn revenues of $100 million within six years of its founding.
However, with the onset of the economic crisis the revenue inflow slowed down which
made the organization to recalibrate its priorities. MindTree as an organization had seven
different businesses IT services, knowledge services, R&D Services, testing,
infrastructure management and technical support, software product engineering and
wireless products.

The organization has a matrix structure with employees allocated to industry verticals.
Project groups were then formed from the industry groups and technology practices via
the delivery organization. The industry verticals were responsible for meeting the
customer requirements and profitability targets whereas the technology horizontals were
responsible for technology productivity, capability and knowledge level. The delivery
organization was concerned with creating project plans, assigning tasks to people,
ensuring process assurance and execution of day to day projects. The performance of
these three teams are measured on customer satisfaction metrics.

The case then moves on to the Value System in MindTree and how was it constructed.
The previous situation wherein the company had already a pre-developed set of values to
which the employees could not connect to which resulted in the development of a new set
of values which determined the type of company that MindTree envisioned itself to be.
These values were collectively called CLASS (caring, learning, achieving, sharing and
social responsibility).

Caring meant caring for fellow employees as well as the customers; Learning meant not
only self-development but also assisting in the development of others. Achieving meant
high performance with a focus on accountability, action orientation and high aspirations;
Sharing meant helping others and working in a team. Social Responsibility meant
integrity, corporate citizenship and building social capital.

The above set of values was highly prioritized within the company and was implemented
at all levels right from the recruit who were judged by asking questions based on these

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values that would help in the assessment of whether they are a fit for the organization or
not. At the senior levels, 40% weightage was given to values over performance.
Therefore, MindTree had set its eye on becoming a high-caring, high-achieving and an
emotionally bonded organization to the extent that it had also renamed the human
resources as people function.

The result was that these efforts paid with the attrition rate being 3% to 5% lower than the
industry average and lowering the turnover.

The cases next point of discussion is the communication and decision making scenario
within the organization. We could see that the communication strategy in the organization
was built on three pillars emotional security to ensure transparency, systems for
simultaneous communications in an international organization and information presented
in a creative for easier absorption by the readers. Furthermore, the company had also
introduced the principle of 95-95-95 which stated that 95% of the people should have
95% of the information 95% of the time.

The company had a very clear process wherein at the beginning of the financial the
companys strategic initiatives including the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and the
threats are discussed which are then followed up every quarter to evaluate and understand
which target has been achieved and what has not been achieved and what can be done to
achieve them.

The management at MindTree followed a style of Collective Leadership where the

decision was taken not by a single leader but almost every member of the senior
leadership team who complimentary talents had their say.

The case then talks of the fact that as the company realized to achieve their goal of
becoming $1 Billion Organization, with it came the realization that it was important to
groom the non-founding members to assume leadership positions in the near future. With
this realization the vice chairman of the organization, Mr. Subroto Bagchi was given the
said task to groom the top 100 people at MindTree which he did by having a series of
one-one discussions that not only traversed the professional issues but waded through
personal problems as well which signifies the caring factor of the organization. The case
study likens the role of Mr. Bagchi to that of a gardener.

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The gardening process as the case defines has six steps Identifying the potential
leader, asking the 5 questions (Who am I?, Who am I, five years from now?, What
are my key professional concerns?, Why do I say these are my concerns? and What
do I expect from Subroto Bagchi?), guiding through the 5 questions in the 1 st Session,
reflection on Session 1 during the 2nd Session, Review of action Response in the 3rd
Session and Sense making based on Action Response in the last Session. This helped
them to shape a future for themselves in the organization.

The case now moves on to the core customer value providing sector that also supported
and contributed to the culture and values of MindTree. The general view was that
Knowledge Management (KM) described those activities, processes and technologies that
were aimed at acquiring, organizing, sustaining, applying, sharing and renewing both the
tacit and the explicit knowledge of the employees in order to improve the organizational
performance.

KM approach at MindTree is human centric, which helps people perform their jobs better
while developing themselves. This is achieved by enabling knowledge creation,
environment, processes, practices and systems, change, and shift in mindset. MindTree
encourages employees to self-organize and collaborate through communities of practice.

The effectiveness of MindTrees KM initiatives is commendable. For knowledge

management initiatives to be successful, employee participation is of utmost importance.
In MindTree's case the numbers speak for itself. A high percentage of employees
participating in communities cannot happen without the organization providing adequate
support for these communities to flourish. The ideas implemented by MindTree, which
were generated from Neuron, Community of Practices, and many other systems have
resulted in good amounts of cost reduction, re-usability, multiple patents, and process
improvements. The CLASS value system helped the recruitment team in selecting
candidates who are best inclined to the organizations objectives. This has in turn greatly
reduced the attrition rate of MindTree and made 90% of the employees perform in
compliance with the companys values.

In fact, due to this MindTree had received numerous awards for its KM Practices
including the 2009 Indian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) as well as the
2009 Asian MAKE award and even within the organization which in 2007 ranked KM the
highest among all the functions.

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The case then moves on to the evolution of the Knowledge Management within the
organization and how the KM Function came into existence since the start of the
millennium. The foundation of KM started when Raj Datta, while handling offshore
delivery for US customers initiated a study group on software design patterns as a result
of which the group at India ended up with rich deep knowledge which was deemed very
useful as the people in India were highly technical and it was essential to bind them to
their US counterparts.

The organization has envisioned KM to be a part of chief manifesto of the CKO who
would be regarded as a change agent, enabling a knowledge based culture and
building connectivity: people-to-people, knowledge-to-knowledge and people-to-
knowledge. It was considered about continuously building capital in all forms: human
capital, structural capital and relational capital.

Gradually, the concept of KM grew within the organization as the number of members
grew as well. By 2010, the concept represented a community wherein the KM systems
manager and his 10 direct reports were responsible for working on the existing IT systems
as well as developing the new age knowledge platform for the future. A five-member
team supported MindTrees Kernel initiative on project management. The community
support manager provided essential support to the communities whereas the KM
operations manager was responsible for communication, branding and generation of
various metrics and the content manager helped in developing strategies for the
knowledge repository. Whereas there were others who were focused on encouraging
creativity, innovation culture and invention spirit within the organization also working on
the 5*50 initiative on the sidelines. Thus, we can that there are strong evidences of
collaborative leadership within the organization wherein each cast member is
supporting the other.

The case moves on to the role of communities within the organization. Communities were
self-organized groups who were not part of the official organizational structure but dealt
with learning, knowledge and personal development. They covered a wide range of
technical, nontechnical and role based areas. The case showcases few examples wherein
the concept of community became so popular that MindTree came to be known as the
community of communities thereby justifying the title of the case.

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One such example provided is a situation wherein the employee is able to give customer
feedback to the community and take back new concepts from the community to pitch to
the customers so as to understand the feasibility of the concept. Another similar benefit is
wherein an employee started the storage community which ultimately helped the
employees interested in the field of storage management gain sufficient knowledge
without having to go through the hassle of a professional training course. The concept of
community became so famous that today in the organization 75% of the employees are
now part of at least one community and there exists a 3% who serves as the community
leaders also called as champions.

Not only this, the community also served to be a path wherein the management could stay
connected to their employees who were geographically dispersed. The case then moves
on to how the communities are created for which the company had developed a
community maturity model.

Any employee can start a community of an interest, and he/she would have to find others
with the same interest to join the community. Once created, the company wouldnt look at
that start-up community as of value unless it is evaluated against a four-stage maturity
model. The first stage is a community of interest, where only knowledge sharing and
collaboration exists. Once physical interactions among the participants take place, the
community goes to the next level, competency building. The champions were self-
selected and every community would have multiple champions to avoid dependency on a
single person. These champions would then have a workshop with Datta to select the best.
These champions would then decide as to who would suitable to belong to which
community.

The competency building level concerns creating an impact by stimulating peer-to-

peer interactions in which concerned individuals would learn from one another in
face-to-face meetings which were driven by explicitly stated community objectives.

The highest maturity level, capacity building, is reached when a community gets
knowledge contribution from internal and external resources and is able to address
the companys pain points and is successfully able to build relationships with
communities and other organizational entities. Communities are developed and
sustained by their champions, as they set goals and ensure their achievements. Though it
is a challenging task for champions, the top management devotes time and support by

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setting quarterly feedback sessions, where champions meet other community champions
as well as the top management to discuss and exchange ideas.

These communities play a significant role in MindTree. Innovative ideas are at the top of
the list of benefits at the maturity level. It can also be seen in the 5*50 initiative, where
it wouldnt be possible without the existence of such communities. In most cases, the
communities of practice provide plenty of opportunities for brainstorming, problem
solving, techniques sharing, lessons learned, and keep up with the market trends.

The role of the champions should not be underestimated either which was the highlight
for the next part of the case. Their roles and responsibilities were evolutionary as they
progressed over time. In the starting they were the ones to bring people together, then
they were the ones who ensured that the community met its objectives while motivating
the people along the way and finally they were the ones to oversee how a community can
transition or merge into other communities as well.

There were objections to the theory of communities as well many thought that it took
time away from the productivity of the employees and there was a misconception that the
people participated in communities believing the organization would reward them for
doing so. Thus, to overcome these obstacles, the company organized the Community
Champions Meet wherein the community champions interacted with each other and there
were more insights as to what the people wanted. One such example given was that
Community Champions meet helped the senior managers realize that the Geek Gurus
who were the backbone for technical advancement were feeling anonymous and needed
more recognition and empathy from the management and thus this was rectified before it
became a huge issue.

The company had a pyramid structure when it came to the hierarchy of KM Systems with
knowledge sharing systems at the bottom, collaborative systems in the middle and
systems that helped with innovation at the top. Furthermore, MindTree was building its
next generation systems also with the goal of connecting and linking people through
distributed touch points, building on the latest trends in social networking such as
tagging, live streaming and microblogging.

The case moves forward with the Kernel initiative. While MindTree had good project
management practices it suffered from setback such as:

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 Too much emphasis on process and not enough focus on knowledge and experts
Recurring problems such as not getting sufficiently detailed specifications when
delivering to multiple geographies.
How best to reduce people dependency
Provide knowledge consistency when individuals changed assignments
Enable the customers to collaborate on an ongoing basis throughout the life of a
project.

Thus, came the Kernel Initiative which was declared the solution to all the above pain
points. With the help of the Kernel Initiative, which strove to improve productivity by
promoting collaboration within teams; encouraging the reuse of software, learning and
enterprise; and stimulating systematic innovation. One such example given is that of K-
Map (Knowledge Map) which helped teams to identify the requirements for a project in
terms of areas of expertise needed. It then compelled the members to identify the sources
of knowledge that they can leverage upon as well as any gaps between needs and sources,
which the teams filled by charting out a time bound action plan.

The benefits of adopting KM systems was immediately noticed as the efforts overrun
when using KM systems was lower by 2.3% alongside schedule overrun which was
lowered by 3.0% and the gross margin which increased by 4.6%.

The case moves forward with the critical success factors that helped KM, wherein
peoples approach to KM and eventual shift has been discussed. The authors of the case
study say that within MindTree the people realized the value of KM as a strategic
initiative and the company thereby adopted a human-centric approach that highlighted
the importance of socialization and communities. The authors have also opinioned that
KM has done a world of good to MindTree as it has helped in creating the digital
infrastructure, generating content, building momentum through the community
movement, contributing to MindTrees awareness and helping the senior
management to appreciate KM.

The final steps of the case study discuss how MindTree decided to become a $1 Billion
Company post the announcement in April 2009. To achieve the same, the company
decided to take up a three-pronged approach, wherein the heads of the seven heads would
have to collectively grow their revenues from the current $275 million to $500 million. To
achieve this target the company then decided to use the Trojan Horse strategy.

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MindTree decided that it would use its expertise in an area to establish credibility and
expand its reach within a client organization - sometimes by providing high end services
and other times providing the lower end services. Another $250 million would come from
$80 million to $100 million companies and growing their revenues to $20 million and the
final $250 million would be generated by the new initiative of 5*50.

However 5*50 initiative alters the role of KM from organizing and collaborating function
to supporting and assisting function. KM would help in ideation process and would
provide critical IT support. It will now focus on building a culture of ideation in the
company and improve the delivery process. Assisting with business planning as opposed
to just qualitative approach.

I feel that it is time for KM to mature and move toward next step and 5*50 initiative is a
way to go forward. However it should not be limited to 5*50 initiative and should not just
be a supportive function alone. It should continue to bring out new ideas and innovation
which can be implemented based upon the success of 5*50 initiative. KM should be
developed to give MindTree an intangible advantage against its competitors which will
help in achieving MindTree from moving from Mid-sized IT company to 1 billion $ IT
company.

Thus, the case study ends with the future of KM in MindTree. Thus far, KM has focused
on building the culture of ideation in the company and improvising on the delivery
process. The organization hopes to start facilitating direction with the 5*50 approach.
With this they would able to assist in business planning and moreover, their contribution
would become quantitative and stringent as some amount of forecasting would be
involved.

CONCLUSION

Thus in short, we can say that not only this touches upon the leadership styles it also
looks at various other aspects of leadership and what instigates leadership within the
organization and how a leader should work and how should he lead others by example.
The case also discusses the importance of a collaborative leadership style and how
important it is to make sure that people in an organization are empowered and motivated
to be self-driven so that not only can they themselves can learn but they can help others to
learn as well.

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