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Create a Clear Vision: Partnership leaders must have a clear understanding of each company’s respective culture; it is important to remain authentic to your corporate foundation. With the individual corporate identities as a basis, a partnership team must analyze the structure and nature of its joint relationship, assess the priorities, and draft a joint vision statement and create a cohesive working model. The vision of the alliance that I worked with was to gain customer affirmation of “the partnership and the solutions to be the most effective for solving their strategic and mission critical priorities.” The key to this vision was to drive value for customers by joining Wipro and the partner’s efforts to create better results for business issues. This vision is further solidified by the strategic intents or pillars which include marketing, competency development, and governance among others. Understand the Value: It is important for each partner in the relationship to feel as an equal contributor and understand the value that the joint effort is going to drive. For instance, one partner may have a reputation of strong technology platforms, but without an innovative solution and relevant use case from the other partner, the platform will generate little value to the customer. When both sides of the relationship understand the value of each other, only then can they put aside individual biases and develop the best proposal for the client, utilizing the greatest offerings the joint team can create. Set Process Goals: In addition to the tactical goals that work teams set, it is also important to identify process goals. Process goals can also be understood as group norms or shared agreements among members about the expected behaviors and shared values. Process goals form the basis of how a partnership team should work together and merge two independent corporate cultures into a cohesive group, creating synergies and value for clients. Investment in training and defining team norms increases commitment to the partnership. When partners feel strongly about a defined process, normative power is created and deviations will rarely occur. Most people want to be liked by team members and will comply with norms. This also applies to the parties in a partnership. Such processes to strengthen existing partnerships may include: Communication: Through what medium and how often is the partnership team expected to communicate? Communication style is often a by-product of team structure. Globally dispersed teams have difficultly engaging in in-person discussions; time zones present conflicts for connecting at convenient times of the day. However, there are many ways to overcome these challenges. Video conferences can be a substitute for in-person interactions. File sharing and online collaboration tools such as Microsoft OneDrive or IBM Connections can create a joint working space without the concern of document version control. Don’t let the culture of your partnership be a by-product or a side item. By establishing a culture and work style, the joint forces are more likely to be successful and generate the most value to the client and the parties involved. Decision-making: Will your team make decisions based on group consensus or will the leader have the final say? Decision-making styles are often deep rooted in the culture of a society. This can pose issues when companies originate from different parts of the world. Setting a process in advance will help avoid unnecessary conflicts that could be damaging to relationships. Evaluating Client Deliverables: The final hours of a client deliverable deadline can be very stressful, especially when there are many opinions about what a successful end product looks like. A partnership team should set clear guidelines for evaluating deliverables including topics such as quality standards, preferred deliverable format, and branding. This will ensure that the submitted client proposal meets the standards of each party and has the best chance of success and satisfying the client. Don’t let the culture of your partnership be a by-product or a side item. By establishing a culture and work style, the joint forces are more likely to be successful and generate the most value to the client and the parties involved. Be thoughtful about relationships and act with intent, establishing values and norms that will carry you across the finish line in proposals and client wins. At the core of business are partnerships and people, and the culture of these interactions drive your ability to predict customer needs, outdeliver competitors, and ensure the future success of your business. 24 | LPS Quarterly
Should culture change be attempted? Smithal Shah Senior Manager, LPS, Wipro @smithalshah Culture is an organization’s operating environment. It is an implicit form of behavior, attitude, and activity. It is a system of shared assumptions, values, ideologies, principles and beliefs which govern how people behave in organizations. It gets formed over years, becomes an organization’s DNA and a critical determining factor in an organization’s success. It is also difficult to change. While challenges like change in current business environment, emergence of exponential technologies and globalization are creating new business avenues, they also are the reasons for some organizations to go bankrupt and become extinct. Past success will not guarantee success for the future. In today’s world, in order to remain successful, it is imperative for organizations to adapt with speed and agility to compete with changing business environments that is increasingly digital and disruptive. Organizations in the face of such challenges typically lookout for options to adapt and succeed. The most common prescription suggested is –“fix the culture”. However, the views of corporate leaders who have led major transformations successfully in the past argue that culture isn’t something you “fix”. Also, changing culture of any organization is an uphill journey; a difficult task which may not see light at the end of the tunnel. In many organizations, culture change initiatives have become cliché. Senior leaders get attracted by this new prescription for dealing with the challenges of an organization. Most often they overestimate the potential of culture change and underrate the difficulty in implementing it. Leaders need to be watchful and not get swayed looking at the business case of “culture change” put forth by lucrative consulting companies since such assignments can fetch them high returns. 25 | LPS Quarterly
Page 1 and 2: LPS Quarterly, 3rd Edition, May 201
Page 3 and 4: 05 Culture Change through Genuine L
Page 5 and 6: Culture Change through Genuine List
Page 7 and 8: Culture Due Diligence - Looking Bey
Page 9 and 10: Table 1: Illustrative aspects to lo
Page 11 and 12: An Employee’s Perspective: Alex
Page 13 and 14: Overcoming Culture Differences Laks
Page 15 and 16: Culture Change in the Digital World
Page 17 and 18: Building a Sustainable Culture at A
Page 19 and 20: On the Couch with Saurabh Govil Sau
Page 21 and 22: How people learn new norms of behav
Page 23: The Power of Culture in Partnership
Page 27 and 28: Leading Culture Change at SAP Labs
Page 29 and 30: How did you go about changing the c
Page 31 and 32: How should leaders drive change in
Page 33: About Wipro Ltd. Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:W

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