Analysis of Leadership: Zensar Technologies

Maxwell (1999) defined leadership as the capacity of influencing people by providing purpose, directions and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.

With reference to the case study, though Zensar Technologies experienced a backlash in its operations, it took the focus, drive and commitment of a person with great leadership qualities to motivate the other team, to bring the organization back to its feet, increase revenue and maintain competition. The case study shows that a leader/ team without the right focus can never reach an organization’s goal.

Zensar Technologies did not make provisions for future upgrades/ plans and hence led to initial fall. According to Ferguson (2014), Successful leaders are visionaries and must look ahead and analyze each step via strategic thinking, in order to achieve long term success. However, Dilip Ittyera failed, as he wasn’t a visionary and didn’t make provision for future upgrades in the SBP, and resulted in the demands out weighing the current system, hence revenue loss.

Leaders can organize, partition and delegate work. By directing team efforts with vision, leaders become the heroes of flatten hierarchy Yakowicz (2013). Due to the motivation and commitment Dilip Ittyera provided as a leader to his team in the first year, when he resigned from Zensar Technologies, the employees lacked that motivation, dedication and drive as an attribute to be possessed by a leader and hence, over 30 staff also resigned within that year. Leaders who have the focus and drive tend to instill the same on their team members to achieve the organization’s mission, leading to increase in revenue.

Finally, a strategic thinker and good decision maker is what completes the chart for a great leader. With comprehensive SWOT analysis, strategic thinking and good decision making, Vijay Gaikwad who had the dedication and commitment of a leader, brought Zensar technologies back to its feet. This was done by comprehensive SWOT analysis, in-depth knowledge of the product (SBP), great decision making and good risk taking technique to realize that, placing SBP as an open source business, will however make room for rapid organizational growth an increase in revenue.

Maxwell (2010) asks question of who a leader is and what makes people want to follow a good leader? What will make two categories of staff of a company reluctantly follow one leader (without room for option) while the other exhibit passion following a leader to the end of the earth. According to Robson’s (2008) study, he concluded that a strong leader should be:

• A good planner
• A person with good Organization skills
• Firm, fair, reliable, dependable and strategic
• Strategic and a good decision maker
• As loyal to the customers as to the company

Qualities Zensar Technologies Should Have Adopted

Organization

Perrow (2016) placed emphasis on the fact that the mission of every Technology industry is to achieve success. Because the aim is to accomplish the mission, the organization sets a management by choosing leaders and managers who will do their best to help accomplish the mission. Organization that approach safety as a top priority build in adaptability and coping mechanisms in the face of adversity.

Planning

Every Successful leader has the attribute of a good planner. Without planning, we do not make room for future growth or hiccups along the way and hence the organization crumbles when such afflictions are met. If Dahil, according to the case study, planned well and perhaps had undertaken SWOT analysis of the system of what had to be done, the company world not have crumbled down, and would have doubled its revenue.

Strategic Thinker

The process of strategic thinking allows us to analyze situations and problems - and then prepare the plan that will take us to new levels or through a change. There is the difference between Strategic thinking and Strategic planning. Using Brary (2010) analysis, Strategic thinking involves the brainstorming of an actual plan, which is supposed to be put in action, and in line of the company’s vision. Strategic planning, then, is the implementation of the brainstorming from of where a company is, to where a company is supposed to be.

For a leader to qualify as a strategic one, he needs to adopt the principle of competitive analysis to lead the company ion competitive advantage. The best tool for this is a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis.

A typical example of a strategic leader in Ghana is Menz bank. With in-depth SWOT analysis, he did something different from what other finance institutions/ Banks are doing. To encourage and increase clientele base, he offers a pound of gold for every Ghc. 1,500 ($300) deposit. He also created another company called Brew Marketing consult, that is basically in charge of bringing clients and companies on board and also allocated some fair percentage. Since the introduction of the pound of gold marketing in 2016, the company has gained over 60,000 clients and counting and is currently in lead of competitive advantage.

Commitment

Sampson Jr. (2012) emphasized that committed leader always stays focused and dedicated in every situation no matter the hiccups on the way, because every company has challenges and it’s via those challenges that give the opportunity for better strategies and decision making. For instance, as when the company incurred cost in the second year, Dahil of Zensar Technologies couldn’t handle it and left elsewhere. On the Contrary, Vijay stayed and used the opportunity of the challenges of the company to derive a long term successful decision.