Business Transition across generations – the challenges & opportunities!

A large IT services and product company approached us to relook at their overall HR function and to put in the required strategic and managerial processes. Before we realized, we found that the biggest need was to have an overall business transition / transformation effort that involved scaling the approach to business from being owner driven (single point of authority) to a corporate structure establishing different functions and reporting relationships.

The organization was a large Indian enterprise with some limited presence in the other geographies like the US, Japan, and Middle East. They employed more than 10,000 resources globally and had a turnover close to a billion USD. The Indian headquarters was fully controlled by the owner directly, involving a few trustworthy long timers within the organization on a need basis. In essence, the organization was run with a single point of authority. The result was running a rather unprofessional large enterprise, self-limiting their own growth prospects, disengaged people across critical organizational levels. All this needed significant clean-up and a full restructuring. We jointly developed a mandate to be achieved over a medium term, some of the key areas that we focused included:

  • Review HR processes – strategic – operational
  • Create a corporate structure to support organizational transition – from being owner driven to a more corporate entity
  • Bringing the different geographies together and aligning them to the corporate strategy
  • Redefine corporate strategy to propel growth – included review of business lines, sales strategy, and people strategy to support growth
  • Work closely with the owner of the organization to coach / mentor him in the process of change and helping him ‘let go’ with the confidence that the next level of leaders will direct the organization.
  • Work with the entire organization on managing this huge change – both functionally and culturally.

Over a 24-month period, we ensured that the organization was successfully transitioned with all the key HR processes in place and working effectively. The organization was recast with clearly defined responsibilities, accountabilities with clear performance metrics and a pay for performance model in place. The organization was further structured by product / service groups with effective matrix relationships at the business & functional leadership levels.

The results of the empowered leadership team were quickly evident in growth of business (both from new geographies and product lines), reduced employee attrition, lower costs and higher profitability, a solid pay for performance model that had a huge positive impact on employee engagement and morale!

The company was eventually acquired by a larger US entity and the post-merger integration was smooth and effective.

In assignments such as these, we get in with a limited scope, but quickly realize that the root cause is elsewhere, and we help organizations address those and benefit from the efforts – adding value every step of the way!