Nitish @ Solutions Unlimited

Revised 2009

Nitish @ Solutions Unlimited

Nitish was sitting in the coffee room of Solutions Unlimited mulling over the happenings since his interview with Solutions Unlimited in September 1999. When Meena (the senior Operations Officer looking after the Human Resource function-- Exhibit 1)) came into the coffee room, Nitish found himself avoiding looking at her. Nitish felt very uncomfortable with his own behaviour especially because he believed he was an outgoing and friendly person. It occurred to Nitish that Meena was the first person with whom he had not been on talking terms for more than a day. Nitish was disturbed about the recent meeting with Mr. Alagu, Director Operations, who had been on the offensive in the meeting, even though he himself had agreed that Nitish was not to be blamed for the mix-up regarding relocation payments--Mr. Alagu had asked Nitish to tell him in a day's time what he would like Solutions Unlimited to do with regard to settling the dispute over payment of severance to his previous company. Nitish thought no matter what decision he made, he would end a loser.

BACKGROUND

Nitish had done his BTech and MTech from IIT, Madras in Computer Science. After that, he joined Infosys in Bangalore and worked there for two years as a senior programmer, during which time, he gained exposure to some cutting edge technology in the banking sector. Infosys had clients in various parts of the world and he was on teams working for clients in Dubai, Paris, and Washington. Nitish soon got bored of endless hours of programming and decided to do an MBA in Finance so as to improve his future. He joined XLRI, Jamshedpur (Bihar). Nitish had at that time the option of either joining IIM, Lucknow (rated number 4 in a national ranking of business schools) or XLRI, Jamshedpur (rated number 5). One of the reasons he had chosen XLRI was because his father, who worked in the Income Tax Department of Central Government of India, was posted in Jamshedpur at that time. As part of his summer training he worked for a multinational consultancy firm that had set up an office in Jamshedpur to service a very large customer located in the city.

At the completion of his MBA he was offered a salary of Rs 2 lakhs p.a. by the consultancy firm, which was less than what he was making in Infosys two years ago. In this consultancy firm he would be required to make business plans and help in preparing bids for various future projects in the Eastern region of the country. Nitish was also approached by HCL technologies offering him double the salary he earned at the consultancy firm but for the same kind of work that he had done at Infosys. The decision regarding which job to take was not very difficult for Nitish for two reasons. One, he was planning to get married in the summer of that year to Pratima who was in the middle of her masters degree in Sociology at a school in Jamshedpur and Nitish did not want her studies to be disturbed. Second, he had quit Infosys to get away from programming and the consultancy firm allowed him that opportunity, while at HCL he would beinvolved mainly in programming again. Nitish also thought that since he and Pratima would live with his parents they could live a fairly comfortable life on a salary of 2 lakhs. Once Pratima had completed her MA he could look for another job and they would move to some other city. The consultancy firm itself could place him on projects in other cities in India.

In the two years in Jamshedpur with the multinational consultancy firm Nitish gained a lot of experience in preparing bids for projects for other clients, in preparing business plans. He also gained insights into business processes. He particularly cherished his experience of preparing technical reports for undertaking restructuring of the electricity boards of various states of India. Nitish worked with a very senior partner of the firm and gained insights into the intricacies of collecting data and analyzing it. Nitish was liked by all his colleagues and was perceived as a happy-go-lucky, cheerful, and friendly person. His boss liked him very much and was quite sad to see Nitish go when he had decided to take up a job with Solutions Unlimited. Nitish and his boss had worked together since Nitish had joined the firm as a summer trainee.

THE JOB AT SOLUTIONS UNLIMITED

After working for two years with the consultancy firm Nitish began to feel that he was not learning much on his job and it was time to move out of Jamshedpur. He emailed a number of his classmates from XLRI and IIT, Madras, with whom he was in constant touch, to inform him if there were job opportunities in their organizations. He explained to them that he was looking for a job where he could leverage his experience in IT and Finance. Change of location was also one of his needs at that time.

Arvind, a classmate of Nitish from IIT , who was working for Solutions Unlimited responded to his mail almost immediately and asked him if he would like to work for Solutions Unlimited. Nitish and Arvind were good friends and had kept in touch even after they had passed out from IIT in 1994. Though Nitish had stayed on at IIT to complete his M-Tech, Arvind had joined Wipro after completing BTech. Arvind got married to his colleague, Vidya, a year after joining Wipro. In 1995 Arvind joined IIM, Bangalore and Vidya took up a job at Solutions Unlimited in Boston. A year later when Solutions Unlimited set up office in India, Vidya was transferred to the India office and was the second employee of Solutions Unlimited, India (See Exhibit 2 for information about Solutions Unlimited). Manish Chawla, the Managing Director of Solutions Unlimited, India, was the first employee of the India office. Vidya was now working as Senior Consultant 4.

Arvind had also joined Solutions Unlimited after passing out from IIM and was doing very well there. In two years time he had risen to the level of Senior Consultant 4. Arvind and Vidya both informed Nitish that Solutions Unlimited was an interesting place to work. They felt that Nitish would like the informal culture and opportunity to grow in Solutions Unlimited.

Arvind and Vidya were very enthusiastic about the leadership of Manish. They told Nitish that Manish Chawla was an engineering graduate from Stanford and Solutions Unlimited, San Jose was his first job. He had worked in the San Jose office for two years from where he was deputed to start and head operations in Netherlands. Manish was in Netherlands for two years before he set-up and began to head operations in Hyderabad, India. They told him that