Introduction: A Software Product Company , founded in 1993 which is catering to Financial ,Telecom ,Health care and automotive industries in India,UK,South Africa and USA was helped by Quantum from designing to implementation of Balanced Score Card. The company is based out of Pune,Noida and Bangalore in India and has overseas offices in London,San Jose, Singapore and Vietnam. They also have a Quality testing Unit which was an acquired entity with this company.
Size of the company: 1500+ people across the globe out of which nearly 1000 people located in India ( As on 2012)
Turnover: USD 300 Million
Product Line: Following are the key products of the company:
- Core Banking System for Banks in compliance with RBI Norms
- SMS Getway for Banks
- Security Products for On line Banking
- Technical Analyser for Derivative Trading for Stock Broking and arbitrage houses
- Under writing value validation for insurance industry.
- Supply Chain Management for Automotive companies.
- Credit Risk Management for Telecom Companies
- Mobile Broadband Management for Telecom companies
The above mentioned products give way to 200+ Modular Products as well which are components of these bigger products.
Challenges: Following were the challenges the company was facing:
- Customisation on the go for Financial and Insurance Solutions Products due to regulatory and statutory requirements.
- Hard pressed deadlines and QC paradox as stringent quality norms and paucity of time from healthcare product lines.
- Ambiguous Supplier data with Supply Chain Management from various automotive clients
- Shift of locations for Telecom clients
- Talent Crunch due to attrition specially in Engineering and QC departments
- Islanded information with no clear strategic goal communicated by Senior leadership to people
- Legacy issues with the tax authorities as well as suppliers
- Heavier on the top with a lot of bureaucracy in the teams
- Poor financial discipline and extravagant spendings by senior management
- Inability to scale up the operations due to lack of forecasting.
- Centralised Decision Making
Steps Taken: Following Steps were taken by Quantum in order to provide solutions and bringing the best out of the company’s values.
- Stage I: Interview and Diagnosis: In this stage , interviews were scheduled with the key stake holders of the company followed by the department heads and then with mid level management. Each of them were asked certain questions in person as well as a written questionnaire . In this step a detailed analysis was carried out with the company using following tools:
- SWOT Analysis
- PEST Analysis
- 5W 1H Analysis.
After this exercise was done some more findings came in which were:
- Modification of some internal processes
- Efforts for managing weaknesses
- People focussed reward and recognition program
- Skill Gap Analysis
- Stage II: Analysis and Assessment: In this stage a detailed analysis of the appropriate plan to implementation of Balanced Score Card was chalked out. This was done in the following manner:
- Re visiting the Vision of the company with senior management.
- Making the management and the key stakeholders understand the strengths and the development areas .
- Creating a new vision for the company
- Getting the commitment on the vision by the management.
- Creating Mission Statements in line with the Vision Statement of the company
- Defining Values
- Getting the understanding of Strategy blue print
- Stage III : Designing the Balanced Score Card: In this stage a detailed Strategy Blue Print was drawn and the same was divided into:
- Financial
- Customer
- Internal
- Learning and Growth Area
The areas were distributed with the key findings and against the same , what could have been the ideal situation along with appropriate long term,mid term and short tern goals were defined per department, per team. This included the following:
- Constructing Balanced Score Card for the Organisation as a whole.
- Creating Balanced Score Card for each department
- Creating Balanced Score Card across levels
- Defining Lead and Lag Indicators
- Creating quantifiable and understandable measurements for the same
- Creating Targets for each area in line with the Vision,Mission and Values and mapping to the strategy blue print.
For each of these areas, the key strategic objectives were defined . Here’s a small sample of the Level I design table:
| Objective | Metric | Target Rate | Initiatives | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial | Department should be self-sustaining | Total software revenue ≥ 2 x (total Full Time Equivalent1 Employee salary + benefit costs) | 25% year 1 100% year 4 | Provide marketing with benefits analysis of product and support Monthly review of sales with marketing |
| Customer | Deliver complete solutions | Number of customer requests for new or missing features | <25 per release year 1 <10 per release year 2 | Review and analysis of requirements with marketing |
| Deliver timely solutions | Release date to marketing | ±1 week of plan year 1 ±1/2 week of plan year 2 | Review and analysis of requirements with marketing Schedule creation and review with marketing | |
| Deliver timely support | Days answer to customer inquiries to customer’s satisfaction | 1-3<1 day 1-3<3 days 1-3<2 weeks | Review and analysis of issues with marketing Team defect analysis | |
| Operational | Increase quality of delivered software and support | Number of customer requests for bug fixes | <25 per release year 1 <10 per release year 2 | Design review process Code review process |
| Streamline development process | Reduce average time for defect repair | 25% year 1 50% year 2 | Team defect analysis | |
| Reduce defect density | 25% year 1 50% year 2 | Design review process Code review process | ||
| Learning and Growth | Increase C programming language knowledge | Code review defects found | <90% year 1 <99% year 2 | In house system training in C Code review process |
| Increase software process knowledge | Number of engineers using the Software Engineering Institute Personal Software Process | 25% year 1 50% year 2 100% year 3 | PSP training | |
| Educate sales and marketing on our software’s value | Number of sales agreements showing separate software revenue line items | 25% year 1 100% year 4 | Training of sales and marketing personnel on the benefits provided by our software |
The new targets were set. A detailed plan of phase wise implementation was rolled out along with the implementation plan .
- Stage IV: Testing with the Key Stakeholders: Once designed the testing was done using the following methods:
- Defining and aligning key stakeholders’ personal goals with the departmental and organisational goals.
- Creating the buying in with the key stakeholders doing it with their reports and colleagues
- Bringing deviations to notice in case any
- Commitment to the finally tested Balanced Score Card
- Stage V: Implementation :
In the implementation a detailed training was conducted where in the training about the concepts of Balanced Score Card, its benefits,etc. was communicated to the people and a few exercises were done where they conduct the same for their teams
- Stage VI: Testing:
In this phase, the implementation was tested after periodic reports were gathered and the same were tested against the lead and the lag indicators.
Conclusion: The total implementation of Balanced Score Card was done with the system of assessment and reviews. After the implementation, it was found that the company was progressing towards the goal. Some of the indicators for the same was:- Happy and Motivated workforce
- Good Turn Around Time
- Lower rate of attrition by 5% in the first year and 7% in the second year
- Client acquisition was up by 9.5% per quarter as compared to the previous years same quarter
- The Escalations of grievance matters were drastically reduced
- Earing Per Share and ROCE was better.
- Company’s Net Profit was up by 20% YoY