A bout 26 months after Ramalinga Raju, the then Chairman of Satyam Services, confessed to overstating company accounts — a confession that disrupted the lives of its 50,000-plus employees — the entity is now able to look back and talk about the shame of the scam and its impact in a different tone.“The injury has healed but the scars remain,” says Hari Thalapalli, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief People Officer, Mahindra Satyam. Rebuilding and resurrection are the main drivers of the company today.

The trying circumstances of a couple of years ago made it necessary for the company to come up with a clutch of people practices that have fanned the winds of change.

The people policies vary from the usual initiative of reducing the average age of the leaders (which has come down by almost 20 per cent) to a more non-conformist action such as setting up a confession box where employee failures can be shared and he or she can be assessed based on the effort put in, to forming a game-changers group that strategises and motivates employees to start shooting from the hip.

Guns blazing

The erstwhile Satyam Services was ironically one of the most process-oriented companies in the Indian economy with exceptionally well laid out plans.

Thalappali said the non-confrontational attitude nurtured by most people in the organisation had to be done away with.

The new management realised that this would not work in the changed circumstances.

As Thalapalli points, employees had to move from good old farming to hunting with lightning speed lest they lose out on business.

“From a $2-billion company we were down to zero and, like Western cowboys, we had to start shooting from the hip.”

The right to question

Ridden with controversy, the newly formed Mahindra Satyam decided to make this the new normal.

“We were in start-up mode again and encouraged everybody to question the status quo. We created an environment where people were empowered to talk. Of course, there were some who chose not to deal with these new conditions and had to move out of the organisation,” he said.

The company had to reduce its workforce by 10,000 — the current headcount is about 28,800.

The company has created a shadow board comprising a select team from the organisation (eight people this year) who question every established practice inhibiting growth. They have even suggested new verticals and businesses that the company could get into to improve the top line.

The board has been running for two years. Its impact is reflected in the company's recent quarterly results, he said. The Q3 net profit doubled this fiscal (Rs 58.9 crore) from the previous quarter (Rs 23 crore).

About a year ago, change and disruptive innovation became a part of every activity of the company, excepting the core business.

The company also has a ‘game changers group' comprising 150 people at the most critical positions within the organisation. The team was created to bring in innovation at the process, account and unit level.

Thalapalli says the drive to bring in change is apparent even at the entry level.

About 90 per cent of the freshers who have joined the company from Ivy League campuses are now involved in the turnaround story.

From a company that was sliding downwards, Mahindra Satyam has managed to create a momentum of growth, but Thalapalli is restless.

“We have a long way to go and are determined to win back past glory,” he asserts.

comment COMMENT NOW