Teknik Group of industries had businesses in different sectors ranging from manufacturing, construction, fish farming and hotels. These different businesses operated as semi-independent units managed by the unit level managers. Teknik’s management had an internal consultancy group called the Business Advisory Group (known internally as BAG). The 15 experts in BAG were hired personally by Mr. Teknikwala, the owner of Teknik, who wanted this core group of experts to help his organization grow fast without facing the typical growth hurdles. Most of them were specialists in fields like law, information technology, human resource management, and operations management. Almost all of them had experience spanning decades in the in dustry. Whenever any of the units faced any significant issues, it represented an extra workload for those who were involved. This coordination was required to understand the different work processes and the users’ requirements. This coordination activity was being extensively man aged by the old timers as they were familiar with internal processes and people in the different units. An external consultant was also hired for customization and implementation.
After two months, BAG teams had to fortnightly present their progress to Ms. Teknikwala’s team. In the last meeting Ms. Teknikwala was dissatisfied. She explained her thinking that since ERP impacted every aspect of the business, the roll out had to be done faster. She wanted Mr. Shiv to get the implementation completed ahead of schedule. In the meeting she asked Mr. Shiv to get the people in IT team to be more productive. Not willing to disagree, Mr. Shiv committed to a roll-out schedule of complete ERP system in 6 months instead of earlier decided 14 months. Next day, Mr. Shiv presented the revised project milestone to BAG members. He told them that in order to meet the deadline, the members were expected to work on week-ends till the completion of the project. Along with that, they were also expected to maintain their earlier standards of delivery time and quality for the normal trouble-shooting and internal advisory work. Mr. Shiv also pointed out that anyone whose performance did not meet the expectations would be subjected to formal disciplinary action. The meeting ended without any member commenting on Shiv’s ideas, although Mr. Shiv heard a lot of mumbling in the corridor. Over the week, Shiv noticed that the members seemed to avoid him and he had to make extra effort to get ideas from them.
After a fortnight Shiv reviewed the attendance register and found that Mr. Lal, an old time member, had not come during the week-ends and certain decisions were held up due to lack of inputs from Mr. Lal. Mr. Shiv issued a written reprimand to Mr. Lal. He was speechless on receiving the reprimand but kept silent. It has been three days since that incident. Some of the senior members had put in request for transfer to other business units. It was rumoured that four problems, the unit level managers would put up a request for help to BAG. The prob lems ranged from installation of internal MIS systems, to financial advice related to leasing of equipment, to handling of employee grievances.
Over a period of 20 years, Teknik’s revenues grew from 100 crore to 10,000 crore with guid ance of BAG and due to Mr. Tekinkwala’s vision. Given its reputation in the industry, many people wanted to start their careers in BAG. Often young MBAs fresh out of business schools would apply. However their applications used to be rejected by Mr. Tekinkwala, who had a preference for people with extensive industry experience. Things changed after the unfortunate demise of Mr. Tekinkwala. His daughter Ms. Teknikwali took up the family business. She was an MBA from one of the premier business schools, and was working in a different company when Mr. Tekinkwala passed away. She preferred that BAG developed new ideas and therefore inducted freshly graduated MBAs from premier business schools. She personally supervised the recruitment and selection process. Now the entire group constituted of 50 specialists, out of which 35 were the old time members. She also changed the reporting relationships in the BAG group with some of the older members being made to report to the new members. In IT team, Mr. Shiv, a newly recruited MBA, was made in-charge. For the older members it was a shock. However, as most of them were on the verge of retirement, and it would be challenging to search for new jobs while competing with younger professionals, they decided to play along. After one month, all business units were caught up in the ERP fever. This was an idea pushed by Ms. Teknikwali who felt the need to replace the old legacy systems with latest ERP system integrating all the units of Teknik. This was heavily influenced by her experience in the previ ous company where an ERP system was already up and running. Therefore she was not aware of the difference between installing an ERP system and working on an already installed one.
The ERP implementation in Teknik Group required extensive coordination with senior level managers of senior legal experts had agreed on an offer from a law firm. Other senior members would sporadically come in late to work, citing health reasons. Almost all senior members now wanted a weekly work-routine to be prepared and given to them in advance so that they could deliver as per the schedule. This insistence on written communication was a problem as urgent problems or ad-hoc requests could not be foreseen and included. Also normal services to other business units were being unattended to, and there were complaints coming from the unit heads.
