75% of 4.5 lakh TCS employees to WFH by 2025

India's largest IT service firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is looking to discard its 20-year-old operating model on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2025, TCS will ask a vast majority of 75% of its 4.48 lakh employees globally (including 3.5 lakh in India) to work from home (WFH), up from the industry average of 20% today. The new model called 25/25 will require far less office space than occupied today.

 TCS's chief operating officer NG Subramaniam stated, "We don't believe that we need more than 25% of our workforce at our facilities in order to be 100% productive.”

The decision came after TCS quickly moved 90% of its 4,48,000 employees post-lockdown to an operating model it calls Secure Borderless Work Spaces (SBWS). In a letter to employees, TCS CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan stated SBWS had seen 35,000 meetings, 406000 calls, and 340 lakh messages across TCS on the digital collaboration platform. The IT firm has invested in creating SBWS over the past few years and as per the CEO, it has come out stronger and ‘our model is more proven than ever before.’

Subramaniam further added that each employee should spend only 25% of his/her working time in office. This means, that of all the team members, only 75% of a project team may be in a single location and the rest will be dispersed across geographies.

The percentage reduction in the workforce in the office will also result in a decrease in office space. So, 25% fewer employees in the office may reduce the need for office space by 15%. Given that TCS is one of the leading firms in the IT sector, this would cause major changes in the entire operating model of IT firms. As a result, from a highly centralized model consisting of workspaces set in large delivery campuses capable of accommodating thousands of employees, the firm will be switching to the current form of distributed delivery as a matter of routine.

While it will take time for firms to adapt to the new model of working and set up the infrastructure in place to make it productive in the long run, the model ensures that organizations become more resilient in the future on account of the fully distributed nature and better suited for business continuity and agility.

Source: People Matters 27 Apr, 2020

Stepping into a Leadership Role? Be Ready to Tell Your Story

Stepping into a role as a leader — whether as a seasoned executive or a neophyte supervisor — is both challenging and exciting. How you handle this transition can have a huge impact on your career. You need to hit the ground running not only with your bosses and key stakeholders but also with your direct reports. Research shows that having a 90-day plan with 30-day and 60-day milestones along the way increases your chances of success. But while these plans are great tools, direct reports will evaluate who you are and what you bring to the table long before you hit those milestones. Indeed, they’ll make “sticky” evaluations of you from the very first conversation. That’s why I think you should have a “Day 1” plan, or what I like to call a “new-leader pitch.”

Just as entrepreneurs need people and institutions with money to invest in their start-up ideas, leaders and managers need people with social and human capital to back them. How much support they get directly influences their effectiveness. The good news is, your immediate boss is already invested in you (she knows your background and hired you). But your direct reports haven’t voluntarily made the same “investment” — at least not yet. And you should never assume that they’ll automatically follow your lead just because you have the title of manager, vice president, or even chief fill-in-the-blank (that is, formal power). You must win them over, and you should have a strategy for doing so that you can translate into a cogent set of talking points that guide — rather than script — all your early conversations with them. If the group you manage is large, these discussions will probably begin with an all-staff meeting at which you introduce yourself, followed by individual meetings with your reports over the next several days.

What Should a New-Leader Pitch Include?

To answer this question, I asked full-time professionals, via an online survey platform, what they would want to learn from their new leader in their first conversation. In total 278 people responded. Their average age was 36, and the group was approximately half men (53%) and half women (47%), made up mostly of college graduates (77%), and represented a wide range of industries, including telecommunications (14%), government (12%), health care or pharma (11%), education (11%), finance (10%), and manufacturing (10%). I purposely made the context a conversation rather than a presentation to allow respondents to offer what they personally would want to know — rather than what they think others or their group might want. In my framework, I also incorporate other research my colleagues and I have conducted over the past decade on work relationships and new employee onboarding.

The respondents in the survey broke down fairly equally into two groups: “warriors” and “worriers.” Each group had a distinct set of concerns. Chances are, you’ll have some of each type among your reports, so you’ll need to figure out how to address both in your pitch. Let’s look at what that entails:

Warriors evaluate your knowledge, competencies, experience (and whether it’s relevant), and leadership approach to see if they will support you. They want to know if you can handle the job and understand how to help them do theirs better — or will just get in their way.

One warrior technical professional for a large high-tech firm, for instance, said that what he wanted to know from a new leader was “… have they actually done the job, or do they just think they know what the job requires. How willing would they be to get in the trenches and try out our job themselves?” Another warrior who was a nurse said her biggest concern was whether the new leader “really knows how to do my job. It is offensive to me that people who don’t know my job try to make judgments.”

Some new leaders might interpret this line of questioning as an attempt to undermine them, and although that’s possible, warriors’ general intent is different. Employees’ reactions to a new leader usually are based on their experience with the most recent leader. While a warrior direct report might be happy to be rid of a less-than-stellar leader, he or she may still be rightly on edge about whether history may repeat itself with you. Indeed, the nurse went on to explain that “all of this is important, because it has been a problem in the past.”

Warriors also want to know if you will be an active, hands-on kind of leader. Ultimately, they want you to (as one professional put it) “jump in and take responsibility to make sure the team is kept up-to-date, while shielding the staff when there are issues with upper management.”

Worriers, in contrast, are more focused on whether you’re a “safe” investment. One sales professional summed it up well when he said he wants a new leader to “make us feel secure in our jobs and in the company.” How can you set these reports at ease? Many of them ranked “clarifying job expectations” as the primary task of new leaders. Deep curiosity about the leaders’ plans for the future and next steps was also common (particularly in turnaround situations). “I would like to know if they plan to make any changes, especially what changes would affect me,” said one worrier. Last, the worriers also wanted insight into the new boss’s leadership approach, but their concerns were slightly different from warriors.’ They wanted answers to questions like: What is her supervising style? Does she have an open-door policy? How does she want us to approach her with problems?

To address both groups, make sure your pitch provides information on competence and change, experience and expectations, and your overall leadership approach. Jonathan (a pseudonym), a global product development associate at a pharmaceutical company based in the Caribbean, described how a recently hired leader did all this in an initial conversation: “The new leader reviewed his past accomplishments in significant detail. It was impressive. He laid out his approach to learning the priorities of the various departments. He also told me that although he would restructure the organization to support the business, jobs and opportunities would expand. No one would be fired, but everyone would need to interview again for positions. That first meeting left quite an impression, and I was excited to see what was to come.” Although it’s true that the prospect of interviewing for positions might have alarmed some worriers, setting clear expectations settled the future for them.

Don’ts but Dos

The survey respondents also pointed out ways that new leaders can get off on the wrong foot — and what they should be doing instead.

1. Don’t overshare, but do relate to reports on a personal level.

Relationships with supervisors can be powerful motivators. Research shows that when a direct report has a strong connection with a leader, the report is more likely to identify with the organization, engage in creative behavior, and help others at work. As one professional said, a good connection with the boss “helps with morale and teamwork.”

Interestingly, another respondent, an IT consultant, provided nuanced guidance on how to create a productive connection. New leaders, he said, should “tell me a small bit about their personal life; nothing too revealing, but enough to make them feel like an actual person.” In short, do not get overly personal. Another professional went a bit further: “I would like to know them more, not just about where they worked…. If they could do anything in life besides what they are doing now, what would that be?” Others said that sharing personal details helps a new leader be “more relatable” and “to bond.” It also may help lay the groundwork for later presenting your vision for change and continuity. And while it may seem as if relaying that vision right away will help you get your reports excited about you, you may not want to rush in. One professional underlined a preference for the new leader to wait to “give the vision for the department once they know us, the staff, better.”

2. Don’t just share your résumé, but do tell them your “story.”

While warriors may be examining your experience and worriers may be wondering how it influences your approach to them, both groups want to know about your work history. However, they both want you to stake your claim as the new leader through your career “story,” or narrative. They want to know, for instance, why this particular job makes sense for you at this time. As one warrior said, “I would like to know what led my supervisor to get into a role like this. We help hospices manage their patient care, and our company is only medium-sized and not wealthy. It takes a certain kind of person to give up money and work for a good cause.”

Jonathan’s boss was able to provide a powerful and personalized career narrative. As Jonathan recalled, “The new leader expressed his excitement with being here. He took the opportunity to share a bit about himself. He highlighted that his previous college athlete days provided him valuable lessons for his career and his daily drive. He related past successes in a similar role that he thought would translate to our organization.”

In your narrative, you can and should project your story into the future. Indeed, several respondents wanted to know about a new leader’s goals for the leadership position itself. A health care industry professional commented: “I would like to know what their vision for the position entails and how this vision affects me personally.” Employees also appreciate it when you explain why your new position is integral to your story and, most important, how your direct reports play a critical role in that story.

After all, everybody likes to be part of a story — especially a success story. And if, as a new leader, you put some thought into how to make a good first impression on your reports and win their support, you can help them be part of yours.

Sourcce: HBR Apr 16, 2020

A Survival Guide for Startups in the Era of Tech Giants

Startups and established companies all face a dilemma when building new technology products.  If they hit upon something innovative that has high potential, they invite the scrutiny of large technology companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Big Tech has the money, technology, data, and talent to replicate and enhance any technological innovation that is not fully protected by patents — which encompasses most digital products.

Recent episodes have shown this copycat behavior to be quite common and life-threatening to startups. The copying comes in various flavors. Sometimes tech giants simply copy innovative features. When Snapchat was doing well with stories that disappeared after 24 hours, for example, Facebook retaliated by introducing the same feature to its products, including Instagram and WhatsApp. Subsequently, Snapchat’s usership stalled. It has had trouble regaining momentum, and its stock price went down dramatically.

In more egregious cases, whole “form factors” (in Silicon Valley jargon) have been copied. After years of growing its user base at nearly 5% per month (!) Slack’s adoption rate has slackened and started to show signs of decline. The pivotal event? The introduction of Microsoft’s knockoff product, Teams. Microsoft did what it does best: waited to see signs of success (four years, in this case) then copied the offering and later integrated it into its other products.

A third approach is to copy a niche product. Allbirds acquired a cult following by developing a line of wool shoes sourced in an environmentally responsible manner. In response, Amazon copied the top-selling product almost point-for-point and sold it online for nearly half the price.

Despite this predatory behavior — and the resulting reluctance of some venture capitalists to invest — a few startups have managed to survive beyond their early stages and become sizable players in the same space as the tech giants. On the surface, it looks as if they succeeded due to luck or lack of interest on Big Tech’s part. In reality, though, these challengers succeeded by using the companies’ strengths against them. This strategic move, although counterintuitive at first, can lead to copy-proof innovation.

Consider Wayfair. Today it’s the largest online seller of home goods and furniture. Back in 2014, a Harvard case I co-authored described how the company had just merged more than 200 niche product websites into the Wayfair brand. When I spoke with its co-founder and CEO, Niraj Shah, it was clear that Amazon was the constant threat. Over the years, Wayfair had implemented many features that it had seen work for Amazon, and Amazon developers also copied features from Wayfair.

One thing that Amazon did not replicate — and that worked remarkably well for Wayfair — was taking its own pictures of and measurements for the furniture and home furnishings that it sold. This additional detail helped consumers visualize the home decor they were planning, and it helped Wayfair to differentiate itself and get traction. (Its five-year revenue growth has been an astounding 49% [CAGR], compared to Amazon’s 26%.)  Yet, Amazon continued to show only the pictures provided by the manufacturer.

Why? I suspect it’s because Amazon has 3 billion items for sale, whereas Wayfair offers 14 million. The infrastructure and added cost that Amazon would require to take unique pictures of products is daunting, particularly given that more than half its sales comes from the marketplace listings that are managed independently by third-party sellers. And it’s not just about costs. To succeed with Wayfair’s approach, Amazon would need longer lead times for adding new products, reducing the speed of growth at the “everything store.” Plus, it would cause the website to load slower and be more visually cluttered. Amazon could have copied Wayfair, but it chose not to, as that was not in its own interest.

Zulily, which sells women’s and children’s clothing online, found another approach to competing with Amazon in a way that the giant retailer chose not to emulate. Amazon is relentlessly customer-centric: Shoppers tend to get lower prices, quicker delivery times, and great customer service. However, in retailing, catering to the shopper above all else comes at the expense of the supplier — and Amazon’s suppliers put up with a lot. Amazon routinely withholds or delays payment, often arbitrarily. Worse, it copies suppliers’ products and undercuts them, often putting the supplier out of business.

So it made perfect sense for Zulily to offer suppliers high-quality service, commit to volume purchases, and offer fair purchase prices. As a result of Zulily’s approach, many suppliers accepted exclusive supply deals with the startup instead of selling on Amazon’s much larger marketplace. This, in turn, allowed Zulily to offer novel and unique items not available elsewhere. The company grew revenues tremendously — from 2009 to 2014 at a CAGR of 161% — until it was acquired by Qurate, owners of QVC and HSN, in 2015 for $2.4 billion as this Harvard case study shows.

Outside of e-commerce, in its early days Dropbox took advantage of Microsoft’s massive enterprise software sales prowess. For years, Dropbox was a tiny startup with only a few dozen employees and no salesforce to sell cloud storage to enterprise CIOs and CTOs. Instead, Dropbox offers its service for free to individual consumers. As people adopted the service and it grew, Dropbox got this network of people to start using its product at work. Over time, those users lobbied their bosses, CIOs and CTOs, to purchase and offer Dropbox for Business, the subject of a Harvard case study. In other words, they used personal consumption as a Trojan horse.

This judo-like approach, in which a smaller challenger leverages the opponent’s larger size and strength, is promising, but it’s certainly not guaranteed to work or to be sustainable over the long haul. If they don’t copy you, the giant you’re challenging might opt to build a standalone competitor and still copy point-for-point what you built. That said, it’s generally easier to compete with a stand-alone spinoff than the “mother ship.” When TikTok offered a video-sharing app that allowed users to share music snippets, it appealed to younger users who thought Facebook was for their parents and grandparents, and it quickly grained traction. In response, Facebook launched a nearly identical stand-alone app called Lasso, which thus far has not gained traction.

Source: HBR Feb 21, 2020

One success, one winner can pay for dozens and dozens of failures: Jeff Bezos

During a fireside chat at the Amazon Smbhav in New Delhi this week, Amazon's CEO –and the 

world's richest man, Jeff Bezos was asked by Amazon India Head and Senior Vice President Amit Agarwal: "Did you think Amazon would be so successful?"

Bezos replied that he had no idea that Amazon would be such a success. He also called his company "the best place in the world to fail," adding that they have "lots of practices" in this respect.

Expanding on this idea, Bezos outlined the two kinds of failures in business. "Experimenting, trying to figure out something that's not been done and failing - that's a high-quality failure," he said, adding that he and Amit had failed together "many times" over the past two decades. According to Bezos, these "learning failures" are essential because "you're trying to figure out something new, maybe that nobody in the world has done before."

The second type outlined by Bezos was "operational excellence failures," - those embarrassing, wasteful let-downs that the Amazon CEO said we ought to avoid wherever possible. Bezos used the example of his company opening a new fulfillment center - a tried-and-tested operation his people know very - stating that "if we fail at that, it's just bad execution. That kind of failure should not be celebrated."

While he acknowledged these failures could also be learning experiences, they should be avoided at all costs and certainly not celebrated when they do occur. Rather, such occurrences are a time to be "self-critical."

 "Nobody likes to fail," Bezos emphasized, "it's embarrassing. It doesn't feel good. We're all human. We had a good idea. We thought it was a good idea, and nobody came to the party. That happens."

Of course, there is a risk involved, and you never know for certain if your experiment will pay off. For that reason, Bezos says, organizations must "have a culture that supports failure."

There is also the issue of how leaders identify what type of failure they are embarking on before we begin a project. Many variables are within our control, but at a certain point, we have to take that risk and jump into the unknown uncertain if our experiment will pay off.

We tend to think of success and failure as opposing ideas -- the first we aspire to and the latter we are conditioned to avoid at all costs. We learn from our mistakes, though, and this leads me to wonder if success can even truly exist without an initial defeat (or two).

When it comes to failure, there are two types: learning and occupational. Should such endeavors be encouraged -- or even celebrated -- in the same way, we celebrate and encourage success and, if so, should we set aside a budget to allow for such failures to take place? After all, as Bezos says, "one success, one winner can pay for dozens and dozens of failures." It's crucial, therefore, that leaders allot their teams space and time to fail - that single, lucrative success is on the horizon, but cannot exist without failure.

Ultimately, Bezos was upbeat about his career trajectory: when asked where he would be if things hadn't worked out with Amazon, Bezos replied: "I would be an extremely happy software programmer somewhere." Perhaps, then, "failure" is also a case of mind over matter. It's not so much a question of avoiding it altogether, but is bouncing back, starting again, and using our losses to learn.

In your journey as a people leader, what are some of the "failures" that led you to success?

Source: People matters 16 Jan, 2020