How do you disseminate information to a group that contains over
100 diverse companies, and has more than one lakh employees across
the globe? How do you ensure that every employee shares the same
kind of cultural bonding even if individual companies are vastly
different in nature and profile? More importantly, how do you
ensure that knowledge embedded in every department or employee
percolates to the rest of the organization?
The top management at the Mahindra group contemplated such
questions. Their goal was to find out how they could enable two
way-interactive communication between the senior management and the
group employees, and between the employees of diverse companies
within the group.
As the Mahindra group has nine industry verticals ranging from
automotive, information technology, holiday resorts and financial
services, this diversity made it difficult to conceptualize a
common platform that could bring everyone together to exchange
views.
“Although
IT professionals and new-generation employees are well-versed with
using the Internet and other web-based platforms, this may not be
true for employees from the older generation. Our main challenge
was to bring everyone on the same platform, and break down possible
cultural barriers that existed between companies and
employees,” explains Arvind Tawde, Senior VP and CIO,
Mahindra & Mahindra.
While Tawde and his team contemplated the right technology option
to adopt, Tawde observed a major trend that was sweeping the
Internet—the huge growth and popularity of social networking
and Web 2.0 tools. Tawde sensed an opportunity of using social
networking tools within the enterprise to boost collaboration.
Cultural icebreakers
“For a group as diverse as ours, Web 2.0 tools were the
perfect cultural icebreakers. Our focus was on encouraging business
networking using the same ethos of openness and innovation that Web
2.0 tools encourage,” says Tawde. The team at Mahindra soon
began a series of evaluations on the type of Web 2.0 applications
that could foster business productivity.
|
The Mahindra group’s Web 2.0 toolkit
|
- MahiSpace: A
personal page where employees can display their profile and areas
of expertise
- Ask Mahindra: A
forum where Mahindra employees can ask questions and receive
answers from colleagues across the group
- Innovation Pad: A platform where users can put
forward innovative ideas and have the opportunity to have their
ideas implemented
|
After extensively researching popular social networking forums such
as LinkedIn, Orkut and Facebook, Tawde’s team zeroed in on
three applications that could deliver phenomenal results, if
properly harnessed. These applications include MahiSpace (a
personal page where employees can display their profiles and areas
of expertise), Ask Mahindra (a forum where employees can ask
questions and receive answers from colleagues across the Mahindra
group) and Innovation Pad (a platform where users can put forward
innovative ideas and have the opportunity to have them
implemented).
The group’s goal was clear—to position their Intranet
One Mahindra as a group-wide employee networking portal which could
help employees showcase their skills, expertise and domain
knowledge.
In a short span of six months since the Web 2.0 tools were
introduced, the company observed extremely encouraging results. For
example, once Satyam was acquired by the Mahindra group, several
Satyam employees were naturally keen to know more about the new
parent company. The One Mahindra portal and Ask Mahindra forum was
perfect for Satyam employees (now Mahindra Satyam) to seek answers
on any question they had about the group—and there was no
better option than asking peers. Soon Satyam employees became the
most active users of this forum, testifying that they felt closer
to the Mahindra group since its launch. This is a clear indication
of the success of the forum.
About Author
An award-winning journalist with more than 14 years of experience, Srikanth RP is Senior Associate Editor with InformationWeek India. Srikanth is passionate about writing on topics which clearly show the business impact of technology.
More articles by Srikanth RP