Microsoft Broadens Vision Statement Beyond PCs Responding to what Microsoft perceives as serious threats, the company changed its "PCcentric" vision statement to one that embraces the impact of the Internet on technology. Specifically, the shift is from "a computer on every desk and in every home" to "empower people through great software any time, any place and on any device". The most serious threat is the decreased need for windows' software and PCs as developers create programmes accessible via web browsers. While the number of developers writing for Windows is currently stable, the percentage targeting the web has increased from 21% to 38% in the past year. Microsoft has also introduced a pop-up notes feature in their online MSN, that is compatible with and competes with AOl:s instant messaging (IM) feature (Wall Street Journal, July 29, 19990). AOL has blocked Microsoft's "hacking" into their IM feature, as this technology is currently" closed". Microsoft and other Internet service providers such as Yahoo and Prodigy are pursuing AOL to work with them and create interoperable systems (Wall Street Joumal, July 26, 1999b). However, Microsoft continues to adapt its software to enable its Hotmail subscribers to continue instant communication over the Internet-in line with its new vision. The new corporate vision also indicates Microsoft's intentions to take advantage of new opportunities. Consumers are using their PCs and the Internet to share photography and sample new music. The Windows operating system will integrate digital photography and music, technology, and online services into Windows (Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1999c.) While the company is still under anti-trust scrutiny, they hope to position product integration as a competitive response to changing industries and markets. Clearly, their new vision demands such actions.

Mission MindTree, which was founded in 1999 in India by a group of IT professionals who wanted to chart a somewhat distinctive path. Today, it has a top line of $269 millions and is rated as one of the most promising mid-sized IT services companies. Creditable as that is, MindTree does not want to be just that. There is an element of serendipity about what it has been doing over the last year. In 2008, it designated one of its founders SubrotoBagchi 'Gardener', a gimmicky signal, intended to declare that he was moving out of the day-to-day running of the company to nurture talent which would run the company in the future. He has now a report card ready on a year as Gardener. During this one year, he has also spent around 45 days travelling round the world talking to clients and prospective ones which has yielded remarkable insights into what firms are doing in these traumatic times. Lastly, MindTree as a whole has spent the last year going through the exercise of redefining its mission statement and vision for the next five years. Quite fortuitously these three processes have come together with a unifying thread, presenting a coherent big picture. MindTree wants to seed the future while still young, and executive chairman Ashok Soota has declared that by 2020, it will be led by a non-founder. So a year ago the Gardener Bagchi set out to "touch" 100 top people in the organisation, with a goal of doing 50 in a year so as to eventually identify the top 20 by 2015. From among them will emerge not just the leader but a team of ten who would eventually, as group heads, deliver $200 millions of turnover each. That will give a turnover of $2 billions. To put it in perspective, only one VC-funded company, which has not closed or been bought over, has been able to get to $2 billions and that is Google. But to get there it has to periodically redefine its mission (why we exist) and its vision - measurable goals for the next five years. Its redefined mission is built around "successful customers, happy people, innovative solutions". Its new vision targets a turnover of $1 billion by 2014. It wants to be among the globally 20 most profitable IT services companies and also among the 20 globally most admired ones. Admired in terms of customer satisfaction (par for the course), people practices (creditable), knowledge management (exciting) and corporate governance (the Enron-Satyam effect). The really interesting bit about MindTree in the last one year is what Bagchi has been up to. He has been embedding himself in the 50 lives, working in a personal private continuum, making it a rich learning process "which has helped connect so many dots." Of the hundred who will be engaged, maybe 50 will leave, of them 25 may better themselves only marginally, and from the remaining 25 ten will emerge who will carry the company forward.

1. What were the main reasons behind the success of Mindtree?
2. Do you think that redefining the mission statement shows the lacunae on the part of the founder members of an organization? Why/why not?