GROUP ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION

Section A: Group Details:

Assignment No.: Batch: Session Day & Time: Group Colour:

A2

E.g. A1 / A2 / A3 / A4 E.g. SCMLD E.g. Mon I/ Sun II E.g. Green / Fl. Pink

IIMP

Thrus-I

Black

Section B: Assignment Details:

Assignment Topic: Training Topic & Session: Submission Date & Time: p.m.

Selling the brand inside

E.g. Functional Matrices E.g. Negotiation - I E.g. Tuesday - 01:00

Problem Solving-I Wednesday- 1:00 p.m.

Section C: Group Members:

No.

Name

Div. & Roll No.

PC

PN

AB

Grade

1. 2. 3.

Nikhil Avinashe Simranjeet Wahan Prajkta Bamane

A-05 C-56 B-01

Y Y Y

A A A

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Priyanka Ingale Priyanka Lahoti Preeti Deshkulkarni Ajay Pathrudkar Nilesh Khamkar Ravi Patel Dhanashree Ambekar GopaKumar Menon Mohammad Qasemzada

A-33 C-28 B-07 B-47 B-36 B-46 A-04 C-30 C-61

Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

A A A A A A A A A

Remarks:

VERTEX SOFTWARE PVT. LTD.

COMPANY VISITED: Vertex Software Pvt. Ltd Person Meet: Mr. Sanjay Khorate.( Vice President) Branch: Aundh Date and Time: 24th February 2011, 3.00pm The scope of this project is to know a) How does vertex sell the brand inside? b) If we were the managers, how would we sell the brand inside the company? c) How to utilize physical places in our college emotionally to connect the student with Indira Institue.

Company Profile
Vertex is the offshore division of one of the worlds largest and fastest growing IT services firm NTT Data from Japan. Vertex blends North American innovation with Global Capabilities and Japanese Quality. Vertex has a vast pool of talent and infrastructure to support their goal of being one of the largest IT services firm in the world. It provides the services in Product development, Mobile technology, SAP services, software testing, etc.

Part A
Application of the article
Before jumping to the application of the article by the company its noteworthy to consider a brief overview of the working environment within the company. Considering the emotional connection of the employees toward the company we need to consider the values the company stands for. Openness, Trust and Transparency, are the three values of the Vertex, which the company upholds

Openness
Vertex tries to maintain a hierarchy less organization i.e. they try following a flat organization. The merit for the same is that it allows employees to be freer with their top management and power for the employees is not majorly derived from the position they hold in the organization. This has helped Vertex to have an open door policy in their organization. So

every employee can directly approach to every person in organization at any point of time. This helps in building the emotional connection with the employees as they dont feel disconnected with the top management just due to the position they hold in the organization and secondly they can address their grievances without much hesitance.

Trust
Trust is another value of the company and it also helps to build an emotional connection for the employees. This can be said because of "EnVision" - A committee with representation from a cross-section of vertex employees that has taken on activities as developing salary structure with variable performance based component, coordinating training programs and various other critical initiatives. Through this committee employees are themselves empowered to take decisions such as the number of days they would not want to work. Thus the management in turn shifts the locus of control towards the employees themselves and they are made to feel as the stakeholders of the company. This all in turn helps to build trust with the employees towards the company.

Transparency
Transparency is the third value on which the company stands and this value in turn feeds the level of trust among the employees. Transparency is manifested through the declaration of the quarterly financial performance of the company to the employees in their meeting. Thus as many organization never disclosed their financial status to their employees, the employees of vertex company feel more emotionally connected as they are more aware of the financial health of the company and this in turn makes them feels like the stakeholder of company. Whenever they would take any decision they would consider the financial implications of it. There is also a question answers session with management after the declaration, which helps in clarifying all doubts of employees. They increase the awareness towards the long term plans of the organization. These three values are pillars of the vertexs work culture. This helps employees to build a strong bond with Vertex.

Opennes

Transparency

Trust

The application of the 3 principles.

Principle 1: Choose your Moment.
The article spoke of using a turning point to bring in new change initiatives. As a matter of fact just recently two of the founder members of the company quit the organization. This did create some uneasiness among the employees and also increased the receptivity of the employees towards the next move of the employee. Vertex did handle the situation fairly well. They held a meeting with the employees and conveyed the reason behind as to why the founder members quit and assured to help them in any situation. Further, the message conveyed to different levels of management was unified. The company especially made the retiring founder members have a chat especially with the older employees as they were more emotionally connected to the organization. Also as the receptivity of the employees was at peak levels at this time they considered it wise to convey to the employees to have a more inclusive leadership development among the employees. However the company did miss the bus in some matters such as reinforcing their values or communicating and selling a new growth strategy of the company. However this will be discussed latter. Vertex does not do anything to create an artificial momentum on a similar scale as did happen when the founder leaders did quit from the organization however they do a yearly performance appraisal cycle to bring a change in work force. They assess each and every employee on the basis of various parameters. The low performer employees are requested to quit organization happily. This keeps the employees always on their toes for performance. In this process 1-2% of employees are churned out of the organization. On the basis of these performance reviews, the improvement programs are designed. Because of this yearly appraisal cycle, there was no layoff in the recession period. One noteworthy point from the preceding

discussion is that an artificial momentum is created on a subliminal level where after such performance appraisals there is an increased receptivity towards what the company is actually heading.

Principle 2: Linking internal Marketing to External Marketing:

Vertex extensively uses the marketing team for internal communication with the employees. Due to this there is no gap between customer requirement and expectation from employees. Every employee knows the costumer requirement through their marketing team. The promises which are made to their clients are also communicated to employees also. Vertex also ensures that the same message is heard by both the employees and the client. For example, the company once had delayed in their project for a north airline company. The delay was by 10 days. However the company got the employees and the client under the same roof and told about the problems the company was facing and also requested for any solutions from their side to solve the problem. However the future expectation after the meeting by the client was clearly communicated to the employee and the delivery performance of the employees was also made known to the client. This also helped to reduce the conflict between the company and the client. Vertex is also trying to achieve a relatively new line of business by selling the idea to their employees. They have recently ventured into the business of Quality Assurance and by selling the message to the top management as well as the middle level management they have been able to create a team of 70 members within a span of 1 year which is a high achievement for the company in such a short duration of time. It is has also become a differentiating point of company from its competitors. They are also in the process of increasing their budget for quality assurance from $25 billion to $153 Billion. When asked about the tagline of the company so that there could be a way to link both the customers and the employees of the company, the company's response was dismal as they did not have a tagline for themselves. The company does not have an advertisement through the internet or through journals where they target both the employees and the customers through such advertisements. They also dont create a gap between the expectation of the client and the delivery by the employees. This is not so advisable a practice as it is better to have a slight gap between the two as it will make the employees strive more in their delivery to the clients.

Principle 3: Bringing Brands alive

As this principle is more concerned about making the brand more pronounced to the employee's through internal campaigns, Vertex's performance in this area has not been very satisfactory. They do not have a specific campaign aimed at selling the values of the company or the strategies to the employees. For e.g. Vertex does not have a vision and mission. They are in dilemma whether to go with the Vision and Mission of Data NTT corp. (parent company) or to develop their own. Vertex does however have messages communicated through posters and digital display but extent to which it sells the message is poor. Following are some messages which are communicated to employees through internal media. The company just launched the Go Green campaign, in which the paper usage within the company is reduced. Instead of paper they use electronic media to communicate with employees. For this purpose they have very strong intranet facility within the company. Another initiative taken by the company is Walk The Mile, in which the employees are encouraged to walk as much as they can. This will use to create awareness about air pollution. To induce the positive thinking within the employee they have a weekly wall post called as Positive Thought. Every employee has to come up with motivational and encouraging thought. They also have the weekly photography competition. The theme is selected for every week on the basis of that photographs are assessed. This leads to healthy competition within the organization. Once in year, they organize the Vertex Premier League. This is a cricket competition like IPL, in which the owners of the company owns the teams of employees. They have cricket matches between them. This helps to create emotional bond with employees and it also enhance the sportsmanship within the employees. Vertex also conducts satisfaction surveys for its employees twice a year where they probe into the problems faced by the employees not only in the area of their work but also as to how they are managing their work and life balance. Through such survey help to design better strategies for more employee satisfaction they are not however focused on selling their brand in terms of values and future growth to the company. For e.g. they do not rate their employees as to how are they conforming with the values the company stands for. Following the survey there is no specific campaign being designed as is specified in the article. However they do make use of technology for feedback purposes. For e.g. they make use of intranet where employees can be open about their problems and their issues will be addressed to the top management. Also in terms of personal contact from the top management Vertex's performance is quite satisfactory and they have been able to achieve this through the use of technology like the intranet.

Part B
This part would consider the changes we could implement if we were the mangers of the company. The changes mentioned below have been for each principle and would encompass the things which are ignored as of now by the company along with new ways to deliver messages.

Principle 1: Choose your moment

Under this principle, we can consider the following points: The company has not created a artificial momentum on the same scale as when the founder members had left the company thus it could create an artificial moment which may be considered a turning point and at the same time bring in a new tagline or logo that would resonate with the staff views. This can be done through Kotters Eight step process, as follows:

1) Create Urgency

2) Form a powerful coalition

3) Create a vision or change 4) Communicate the vision 5) Remove obstacles 6) Create short term wins

7) Build on the change

8) Anchor the changes in corporate culture

In the case of Vertex a turning point was presented a few days back, due to a change in the leadership. Two co-founders of the company are shifting base and have played a positive role in maintaining the employees faith within the organization. In such a situation, as mentioned in part A the company has not exploited the situation to a on a higher scale. Making use of the situation, the company can introduce its own set of Vision and mission which are lacking to-date. The introduction of a new tag-line with the vision and mission will give a new sense of direction to the employees, also boosting their morale. The introduction of the above mentioned changes can be best undertaken in the following ways: Face to face interviews / discussions with the management where it could be done in groups of 3 this would have a direct impact in giving them a sense of direction and encouraging the employees to adopt the values of the organization. Extracurricular by the employees this can be done by manifesting those principles in a game. For e.g. as Vertex already conducts a photography competition among the employees, the theme of the photography could be one where it would resonate with the companys growth and values. This would have the involvement if the employees on a subliminal level.

Vertex, as a company has grown tremendously in the past few years. Similarly, it is expecting a higher growth rate in the future years to come. As of now, in comparison to the base levels, the company has had a growth of almost 300%. The company currently portrays a turnover of Rs. 400 million, and plans to achieve a growth of Rs. 1000 million in the future. The company has vastly expanded from a small size company to a middle size company, and is now in the transition phase from moving into a big size firm. This transition phase if used effectively can be successfully converted into a turning point for the organization. The same can be used to effectively market the core values of the company, effectively to the employees. They can be converted from employees to the brand employees of the organization. Vertex could use the time when it has its quarterly results as a time to create a momentum which would increase receptivity to change. This can be done if the company does have a long term goal and the quarterly meetings are to review the progress and the future strategies to achieve the long term goal. The progress could then be first communicated to the employees through quantitative terms through use of internal media such as posters or digital display (television) within the organization. The posters communicating the progress should tell the amount left to be covered and must express the happiness over

the progress made in the in the previous quarterly result. Thus the poster would then claim We are only 30% away from our goal (long term goal)". The future changes and strategies to achieve the remaining could again be communicated in a creative way. For e.g. The company could have posters on the floor and a step wise strategy to achieve the goals they want to achieve could be depicted on the floor from the main priority to the least as the employee walks to his cabin for work. However care must be taken to withdraw at the right time. Another way to create an artificial moment could be by introducing an employee reward system every once a year. In this employees who have made good progress and conformed to the values of the company could be rewarded and their success could be communicated to the other employees who in turn would try to emulate themselves to such rewarded employees. In such times the company could also take the advantage to sell its future goals and the ways to achieve them. Such a reward system may not warrant a momentum for change on a major scale but could do so on a subliminal level with the employees who would wish to emulate themselves, along with those who have been awarded.

Principle 2: Linking internal and external marketing

As said before the company does not make use of advertisements in the internet or in journals where could target both the employees and the client i.e. follow a dual branding strategy. This could especially be done through the internet where the websites could portray the employees photos and a brief testimonial about the company. The company could even go a step further and have a competition (like in photography) to get an image for an ad in the print media which would be then be advertised to clients. Along with the recommendation of using advertisement as an effective medium to link the internal and external advertisement, Vertex should also have a gap between the expectation of the client and the delivery by the employees. This gap is so suggested so as to make the employees strive more to achieve that level a higher performance of delivery to clients. To ensure that the same message can be heard by both the employees and the clients, Vertex could bring the employees who actually develop the software and the clients under one roof and at that point of time communicate what is the proposal by the company towards the clients and make sure that the expectation from the client point of view is made clear to the employees and vice versa. Further along the ppts or handouts prepared which will chart out the plans by the company to deliver to the client could be

prepared (at least a major part of it) by the actual software developers themselves with some assistance by the marketing heads. This would then be presented by the marketing salesmen. This would also reduce the chance of false promises being exchanged.

Principle 3: Brining the brand Alive.

The vision and mission statement of Vertex as told to us is still a work-in-progress and currently they are following the vision and mission statement of NTT Data Corp. However we are of the opinion that they should have their own visionary goal to look up to. Also it should comprise of the three core values Openness, Trust and Transparency, which is presently in practice at Vertex. As these values are already deep rooted in the minds of their employees, framing the brand vision on these fronts would strengthen the purpose. This can be a part of the internal campaign the company could launch and communication of the material of the same like posters could be blazoned on the inner walls of the company. As part of their surveys the company presently does not rate the employees on the conformity to the values they hold. The three values practiced at Vertex, can be used as a parameter to mark ones performance during an interval of about a month or the tenure of a project. The individual or the team as a whole could be rated on these values and the best performers could be rewarded. This would help to make the insights of the employees and better execute the branding campaign Micro blogging/ Networking Platforms would also enable people to interact and network with the other employees in the organization with whom they wouldnt otherwise get to interact. This could serve the purpose of exchange of ideas and socializing. The contribution to blogging could be a medium to exhibit ones talent and also give a spur to brainstorming sessions. Various issues or queries can be posted here. At the same time appreciation and recognition to ones achievement can be put up. Thus this could in a way act as the execution of the branding campaign.

Additional inputs:
After analyzing the working within Vertex and how the company culture works we have related the workers motivation with Maslows Need Hierarchy model. If we relate our findings to the model we will notice that the first 3 needs of the employees of Vertex are satisfied. It is the 4th need which is not and suggestions for the same have been found out. Basic need: this need is satisfied through the basic salary provided to employees Security need: this need is also satisfied as there is no sense of job insecurity in their work culture. In fact it was absent even during recession. Social Need: this need too is satisfied and the same is manifested through the events such as photography competition and also through the use of intranet as a tool for feedback. Esteem needs: this is the area where Vertex is lacking. We were also notified during our visit that Vertex is facing a problem creating different levels of performance where after one level the employees can go on to the next. Further little evidence was known about the self esteem of the individuals. The recommendation for the same is that they could start making case studies of their past successful projects and distribute it over the internet or even in B-schools. This will boost the morale of the employees on whom the case study is made. Further employees could be made to write for columns in newspapers magazines where they could explain their cause of success.

Part C
More involvement of the students:
To develop an emotional connection with the students the college could have more involvement of students in their course. This does not mean only making rules and students following the same. Involvement would mean a broader concept. For e.g. the top management could tell the whole batch of MBA students to have a logo and tagline for themselves. They could have students who will voluntarily prepare the same for a period of 7 days and the most among them could be chosen. However in doing so the original logo of Indira College may not change (considering the importance of brand recognition for the external world). The logo selected could be then be used on their sweatshirts or other places. Such kind of personal involvements will make students feel like being in a world they have created rather than imposed on them

Participation by all levels of management in events.

While the above method may not guarantee participation by everyone another way to build on an emotional connection with the college could be by having some events like a cricket match or a photograph competition every month or so on weekends and where it would be required by almost all to participate. It would also require the top, middle and lower level management to participate in the same events. This will help to reduce communication barriers by the students between the different levels and also help one to be more empathetic to the other parties perception (e.g. Students being more empathetic to the top managements views) through a greater flow of information through informal channel that will build up from such events.

Birthdays on Central Notice BoardBirthday is very special day for everyone. Birthdays of students if any on the day can also be displayed on central notice board, so as to make him or her feel special. This activity can seek students attention. This will make a personal impact on students. It will certainly help students to get emotionally attached to the college.

Alumni Interaction
Interaction with Alumni at Classroom level, for at least once in 4 months. Alumni should be from several sectors so that it helps student to know growth in various sector, by sharing their experiences, current situation, and future scope of that sector in corporate world. This will also help in reducing the yawning gap in what knowledge we get from class and what the modern day industry requirements. Alumni interaction will also help in promoting the brand of college; as well bring those companies to our campus for placements in which the alumni are working. Alumni interaction

provides a basic platform to meet with their batch mates and thus helps in strengthening their lost contacts. Alumni will also be enthusiastic to meet their teachers, how have in past bestowed knowledge and wisdom upon them.

Use of articles
College should provide articles of alumni who performed in the college really well and have added some values during their MBA program and also who are performing good in their respective organization. The articles should be on what these people have done in their curriculum as well as what they are doing in their respective organization.

Student Magazine (e-book or print)

Student Magazine is one of the best ways of blossoming talented writers, poets, creative photographers, artists to portray their talents. Student magazine can also give a preview of events taking place in our college along with its schedule. Students magazine is best way of knowing students of other colleges of Indira as it may not be possible to get along personally. Its a magazine where lifes and achievement stories of leading entrepreneurs, strategist, CEO, etc. can be portrayed which will certainly help students to think in broader terms and apply values and thoughts of famous personalities in their own life. Student magazine should at least be published once every month or in each semester. The cost for it can be earned through advertisement of fast food chain near the surroundings of college in the magazine. Provide News of Companies visiting to Campus with their required criteria and profile offered to students by using Bulletin Board, SMS, and E-mail etc. So that it gives base to student for seeking the knowledge of that company and profile, it helps them to plan their Career Path. Create profile of each student on college Website. Update this profile every year by providing the info about student occupation, profile, salary etc. Thus it helps to maintain the alumni records easily.

Reception
At the entrance of the building we can have a big LCD screen. On that screen we can display the various AVs, Advertisements, pictures created by the students. The students will asked to make advertisement on any topic or product, and the advertisement will be displayed there on screen for whole day. Along with that the Indira AV can also be displayed there. As the student advertisement will be displayed, it will help to create emotional relationship with college. That screen can also be used to display the business news, notices in the form of the flash news etc. Motivational videos can also be displayed. The problem faced by management in implementing any process or setting up new rules and regulation can be displayed over the

digital screen and can ask students to come up with the solution for that problem. The best possible and feasible solution can be implemented by the management. After that the responsibility of implementing that idea will be given to that student. It not only will solve the problem of management but also give the feel of involvement to students.

Amphitheater
The open spaces in Amphi Theater can b use to build a room called Sadhna where the students can meditate, relax themselves. We can play the soft music there in the room and sometime we can use the other techniques of stress release like Power dance, Yoga etc. So that student will get relax from the daily hectic schedule. This will help to students deal with stress related problems. This will not only help to make student the good human being but also will help to emotionally attach them to Institute.