Innovation

Global view

By Erik Cassano

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Syntel Inc. was about to be left in the dust.

It was about 10 years ago, during the technology boom of the 1990s, and everything in the technology solutions field was going global. Local IT shops were drying up, replaced by large, well-connected companies with the clout to provide their customers with a wide array of technology services.

In much the same way that neighborhood five-and-dime stores were being pushed out by big-box retailers, small companies like Syntel were finding their share of the market growing smaller and smaller each quarter.

Bharat Desai, Syntel’s co-founder chairman and CEO, faced a decision: Stay small and hope the market would still find a place for his company, or ditch the small talk and begin to rapidly scale the company’s capabilities.

It didn’t take long for Desai to come to the conclusion that a complete corporate makeover was the only way for Syntel to survive.

Launching a global expansion plan, quite obviously, doesn’t happen overnight. At first, Desai’s plan was to phase in a few new offerings here and there while still keeping the old business model intact.

It didn’t take long for Desai to realize that riding the fence between old and new wasn’t going to work.

“We figured out that the two business models have very different success factors,” he says. “Some of them were actually at odds with each other. You can only drive one culture successfully in a company, so we decided that globalization was the future.”

It was at that point Desai realized exactly how radical of a mindset shift such a move was going to require. In any overhaul, the momentum has to start at the top. If those in upper management don’t believe in what is about to happen, they can’t expect anyone else in the company to buy in.

Desai began by laying out the need for change to every employee, presenting statistical evidence that showed in what direction the market appeared poised to move.

“I showed them how the services economy would globalize and what that meant, why our clients were going to embrace it, what some of the macro drivers were that are compelling businesses to move in that direction and how our roles would change as a result of that,” he says.

During the first year to year and a half, Desai and his leadership team tried to get as many people on board as possible. In any change situation, there will be people who jump on board right away, others who need some more convincing and some who just aren’t going to budge.

When the leader of a company thinks employees aren’t going to want to hear what he or she says, the temptation might be to dance around the topic, use vague language and avoid definitive statements.

Desai says that’s the worst thing you can do, especially in a time of change. If you aren’t straightforward with your employees, you will lose their trust. And if you lose their trust, you won’t have much else.

“The fundamental and most important thing a leader has to have is trust,” he says. “If you cannot inspire and win trust, you cannot be effective as a leader. It doesn’t matter what the message is. People will see right through it if you aren’t telling the whole truth.”

In the months after announcing Syntel’s new direction, Desai embarked on a series of town-hall meetings across the country where he reinforced the need for change. He augmented his in-person communication with a series of print and electronic messages.

“My goal was to meet every single employee in some form or another,” Desai says. “We sent out communications, we built posters, rolled those out. We did e-mails; we did focus groups. They had to hear it from me, and they had to have the chance to ask questions and internalize the methods.”

Change can be a complicated, and sometimes messy, process. Any time you steer your company into uncharted waters, a degree of trial and error is going to be involved.

It’s the biggest reason why Desai wanted to make adaptability a permanent part of Syntel. He and his leadership team spent many months trying to find employees and managers who could spur change.

Syntel has successfully performed its transition to a global technology solutions provider, with more than 10,000 worldwide employees and $337 million in 2007 revenue. But Desai wants to see to it that Syntel is never again in a change-or-die situation like it was a decade ago.

HOW TO REACH: Syntel Inc., www.syntelinc.com