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Srinivas Robotoglfdyiwian just come out Aavoxlvngh CEOs office after submitting his resignation letter from the post of Chief Architect of the company. In fact he Colorforms happened to be the fifteenth senior executive of the company who has resigned from their post on the same issue during last three month and that has virtually created total vacuum in the top executive level of the company which is difficult to fill in near future.

CEO definitely had a long discussion with him on various critical issues but that has never influenced Srinivas to change his decision. According to him, the massive merger and acquisition initiative which company has undertaken a year back has completely failed to offer long term sustainable result. In their meeting CEO was of the opinion that, due to the massive competition faced by small and mid-size IT companies like ours, margin of almost all IT companies were found to be under tremendous pressure. Many so called big companies were in a position to withstand such pressure due to the scalability factor. However under such pressure, mid-size IT Company like ours found very difficulty to survive in the market place and therefore rapid expansion was considered to be the only viable alternative. However even organic mode of expansion was found to be having its own limitation such as overcoming massive skill shortage issues, large investment in training and development Ilcolando Hence inorganic mode of expansion was considered to be a better choice at that point of time.

However Srinivas was of the opinion that it was not the decision of inorganic growth which went wrong, but the lack of attention paid to the basic fundamental dynamics of inorganic growth and the mechanism to deal with such processes are found to be the major factor management should have taken care of very seriously during pre merger period Today one year down the line these factors are found to be the most damaging for the long term interest of the entire company leading to very high attrition rate, escalating hiring cost, mediocre syndrome across the board, rapidly deteriorating brand image in the job market and low employee morale.

According to Srinivas, like many other small and mid-size IT Companies, this company is still operating in an entrepreneurial mode with little notion of how to strategize for scalability. IT resources remain limited and executives remains busy in focusing their energies on core investment initiatives. The ability to adapt and mature in an evolving market environment is lacking with this company though it is considered to be a critical one. Hence the company is vulnerable to the massive stress and strain process.

Secondly it has also been found that the company had been typically focusing its attention on the individual technical skills of IT. However, where the company and its top leaders are often challenged is managing the range of talent and many a times wide-ranging personalities. This management of human resources is found to be important to achieving not only technical success but also smooth and productive investment operations that are reliable even during significant changes. It has also been found that human factors such as poor communications and processes, unclear objectives and change adversity are causing project failures than hardware and software factors. From the clients front, employees are being assessed based not only on what they do, but also on how well they forge relationships and tap into new sources of knowledge, because knowledge within a firm processes, clients and operations ultimately exists within the people who do the work. In this process they are accelerating the learning curve of investment process which is highly dependent upon the employees ability to connect their daily efforts to the overall organizational mission and their ability to influence others. In learning to interact and build trust, the employees beginning to better shape their technology design solutions, their implementation methods, their operational management processes all of their work so that its more in tuned to what people need and how they use it.

Thirdly, today though the workforce of the company has multiplied rapidly by number, it is very much apparent that enormous volume of employee centric transactions and records are processed manually leading to huge mistakes and increasing rework associated with non-availability of data for decision making throughout the organization, slow cycle times and poor service to employees, more reliance on human involvement resulting in the use of more headcount, and wastage of time as well as money. Moreover HR employees are forced to focus on low-value-added activities, rather than on work that supports the organizations strategic goals.

In addition, concerned with the complex needs of the investment, companys senior executives are pressed for time and can afford to tolerate few excuses from their subordinates. Given the pressures on them from their boards and from market forces, most executives are focusing their attention on the investment in the near term and dont have a great deal of time to spend on long term goals such as building warm and fuzzy relationships with their subordinates. Because of the meeting and travel schedules most executives keep today, it is increasingly becoming hard for them to develop and maintain relationships and in absence of good relationships question is how they deal with wide variety of talent.

Moreover at the individual level, change in the form of inorganic growth has created an uncomfortable tension between initial expectations and evolved requirements. While management may still define success of merger and acquisition as the investment required for ongoing employee productivity, the many individuals are having a different definition. Personally, employees are not only having their own goals but they also have their own strengths and weaknesses. As tenured contributors, many employees are focusing on the strengths of their early success, which is in turn clashing with new team members and structures instituted so the company can adapt and scale to a larger organizational system.

In this regard it is widely accepted that successful team must collectively demonstrate critical relation building skills in order to create high level of investment value. It has also been widely recognized that while many teams among the small and mid-size companies were certainly well qualified and well equipped with technology, they were well behind the learning curve in understanding the basics of their client investment besides they were perceived to be working in a vacuum concerned only with accomplishing technical tasks and not seeing the big picture. Therefore these groups are found to be not well integrated into the broad investment processes.

The solution to this dilemma falls with those who gets involved in the strategic investment decisions or plays a critical role as part of operational responsibilities. These leaders need to better their own knowledge of what drives success during transition times, what ultimately drives the investment forward and learn to manage wide-ranging people so that technical, investment and personal goals align. There is a need for a different type of leadership competencies during transition and massive expansion phase which may be entirely different from the leadership competencies required during start-up, turnaround, or redeployment phase in an organizational life-cycle. These leadership competencies primarily nurture a more orderly, evolutionary growth and long-term prosperity in addition to developing structures and stability to the organization. Without these right leadership competencies, individuals risk that weakness in themselves and their teams ultimately threatening the success of their projects and perhaps their entire organization.

While taking of success drivers for post merger integration process, organization need to implement automated workforce management processes in order to deliver increased efficiencies and more cost-effective procedures in addition to Self-service technology. Through this initiative, communication with employees can be improved throughout the organization, resulting in more fully engaged employees that are more likely to understand and implement company goals. Empowered managers can optimize the employees by effectively tracking, developing, and rewarding employees, as well as making more informed and timely decisions. The end result from this approach can be a highly integrated post merger organization that realizes a higher return on investment on the companys most costly but valuable asset-the employees.

Author: Joydip Dey based in New Delhi, India is a qualified MBA in Human Elizabeth Bathory having more than 15 years of industry experience in fortune five hundred companies in India and currently Vice President-Human Resources in a Fortune Five Hundred Telecom Company based in New Delhi.

# posted by tomoiboagn @ 6:09 AM