Solution framework for Brainbox:

Brainbox has been a leading business conglomerate for years and investing in business
opportunities on time. Given the speed of digital transformation in the industry, the
company is not alone in playing catching up with agile methodology in running
business operations. To initiate the transformation at Brainbox, Mr. Sankalp can focus
on four key areas: people, structure, process and technology
1. People – Hire dynamic, flexible people and invest in training resources for
existing employees. Instead of building teams with specific skill sets, Brainbox
should work on bringing creative, collaborative people on board, preferable
with experience in startups, or companies such as SAP and Oracle, young
graduates from IT and management. Also, investing in training material for
employees and building a learning center with cross functional teams from
different business units working on transformation projects will help the
company address dynamic changes faster.
2. Structure – A decentralized business structure with flatter hierarchy, thus
empowering employees to take up innovative ideas and projects and
incentivizing them will boost the intrapreneurial culture in the organization.
With people allowed to take responsibility and take informed decision requires
flow of information across divisions thus reducing the decision- making
process and the company more responsive to external changes.
3. Process – The company has already been running for 35 years and have
processes in place but the company can adapt agile framework in project
development to improve collaboration and accountability.
4. Technology – An efficient use of ERP systems integrated with business
intelligence, can help Brainbox figure out gaps in their current offerings and
address changes more quickly. Using tools like Power BI or similar
dashboards, will provide executives with visual data tools to understand
processes better. Using cloud-based software for all employees will not only be
cost efficient but also help with better integration and collaboration among
employees as everyone can work on same softwares and technologies.
Focusing on these key areas, and integrating current practices with better
technologies, Mr. Sankalp can build teams that can work on addressing the strategic
challenges that TechPro is currently facing.

The company’s cloud and open source strategy will be governed by following key
objectives:
1. Stay competitive in terms of pricing as compared to low cost IT solutions given
by startups
2. Maintain its unique value proposition of catering to Indian organizational
culture and processes
3. Cater to the lower end of market – SMEs
4. Introduce mobile applications for TechPro to service mobility of IT solutions
Since the company already has an on-premise solution, to cater to the new markets
and address mobility, I recommend a hybrid cloud strategy for TechPro.

Most of the SMEs are constrained with IT budget and investments and prefer
cloud and open source technologies and ERP Systems to licensed or on-premise
solutions. Also, given TechPro’s expertise in Indian business practices it is already
at a competitive advantage to cater to the SME market as these firms are generally
less organized than larger firms and have few business processes. A cloud-based
solution specifically for such organizations with fewer, simplified modules will
help the sales team of TechPro in bringing such companies as clients. Let’s call
this new product TechPro X. Keeping TechPro X entirely on cloud will allow
users to access applications and components suitable to their specific business
needs and save time and money on implementation.

The original TechPro can also simultaneously take on a hybrid approach. The
company’s current client base may not be acceptable of cloud solutions
straightaway as they have already invested in on premise solutions. Therefore, Mr.
Sankalp should adopt a hybrid cloud approach for bigger firms and existing clients
wherein the organization specific modules stay on-premise but mobile applications
are developed on cloud and integrated with existing solution. Since, mobility is
one of the variables in decision making, cloud-based content management and file
sharing modules, dashboard access modules can be added to the TechPro solution.
Such modules will allow clients to access the software solution and data while on
the go and since it is entirely on cloud, they can be accessed via specific
applications developed for computers, mobiles and tablets accessible over the
internet.

Since TechPro is new to cloud technology, adoption of cloud softwares and

technologies in building its own products will help familiarize the company
developers and project leaders on what their clients’ requirements will be. Their
core offering of understanding of Indian business due to their own diversified
portfolio can be translated in cloud as well. This will help them sustain their
competitive advantage and give them a unique position in the market as against
other ERP solution providers like SAP and Oracle who provide boxed solutions to
the companies. Thus starting their own projects on cloud for eg for their
manufacturing division will help them envision how to better service their client.

With the open source raising the question of Intellectual property vs greater access
and community development, the decision depends mainly on the company’s
resources and competition from the market. As TechPro is facing heat from low
cost IT startups, keeping the entire source code as copyright will eventually drive
its clients away. Mr. Sankalp can though develop an open source community
allowing flexible lesser General Purpose licenses to mobile app developers and
existing firms who can build mobile applications on the existing source code and
publish them on the community platform to be used by existing customers of
TechPro. This will allow for faster updates and innovative mobile solutions
available for the clients and thus also lock in the existing clients of both TechPro
and TechPro X to continue using their solutions since the mobile applications are
already available and integrated. Also, TechPro X can be open sourced under
General Public Licenses, wherein the open source community can build on
additional functionalities for their private use but cannot license them to others
without involving Brainbox. This will prevent the software revenue from
completely siphoning off. The company can then direct its own resources to come
up with better modules for the two products that are more dynamic in nature and
outsource the usability testing to the opensource community.

In conclusion, a hybrid cloud and a restricted open source strategy will allow for
differentiated products of TechPro which will give it a competitive advantage over
the startups. Additionally, its focus on its key competency – exploiting its own
diversified business to learn and develop products along with investing in agile
frameworks and business intelligence frameworks will make Brainbox more
responsive and flexible to external changes in the market.