Syntel BPO: who won TriZetto deal?
By Pulkit Sharma

Over the last twelve months, Techgoss had published a series of exclusive reports giving details of all that was happening inside the BPO, KPO and IT divisions of Syntel.  One report showed how that in the recent past Syntel BPO was overly reliant on couple of key clients.  Techgoss had also reported on the exit of the CEO and senior HR people as well as recent salary hikes.

On May 27, 2010, Techgoss had exclusively reported that the entire Healthcare BPO team based out of Pune has been left leaderless ever since the VP and Healthcare BPO Head TN Shekar quit in March. His Deputy, who trained at IIM and was working as a Senior Manager, had also said goodbye after the IT and BPO Units were merged under one Leader. (See original article below)

Today, a Tipster gave us more details on exactly what happened at the Healthcare BPO a few months back

“
Syntel, despite all the recent happenings and some critical articles, has managed to renew its multi year deal with US-based TriZetto. TriZetto is a leading healthcare products company who claim on their website that their technology touches nearly half of the US insured population.

In fact, this was an extension of the contract that Syntel already had with their client TriZetto.  The interesting point to note is that the existing contract was for IT services while the new contract includes BPO services as well.

TriZetto was with Cognizant till 2007 before they switched their IT contract to Syntel.  From 2010 onwards, Syntel will be their BPO partner as well.

As it sometimes happens in big companies, the credit for winning the BPO contract has caused some heartburn.   The technology team has grabbed the credit for winning the BPO contract, leaving the BPO managers who worked on the deal seething with quiet anger. The story dates back to when Healthcare BPO Head, TN Shekar, was around.  Mr. Shekar can be credited for doing the ground work in winning the BPO contract.  Mr. Shekar worked closely with his IIM trained wunderkind Shachindra Rajavaram to work out the TriZetto BPO deal.

Mr. Shekar had to leave the organization midway due to ‘differences of opinion’ with the Healthcare technology head.  Shachindra soon followed his boss in leaving Syntel.

So, even though there were many key players in Syntel BPO who helped bag the TriZetto BPO contract, the Technology department is being credited with winning the deal.

Whatever the outcome of this turf war, Team Leaders and Agents are very happy that this new BPO contract will provide them a good learning opportunity and experience.
“

After leaving Syntel, Shachindra Rajavaram has become the Program Director at Gameshastra

(Tipsters, Big thank you for all your tips. If you need to speak to us in confidence or write for us on a long term basis, email us at techgoss[at]hotmail.com. Or use the Anonymous Tip form at the top of our website. Anonymity guaranteed. Unfortunately, we cannot use any tips which are not backed up by enough facts)

(Techgoss had published the following on May 27, 2010)

Syntel Healthcare BPO leaderless?
By Pulkit Sharma 

Over the last eight months, Techgoss had published a series of exclusive reports giving details of all that was happening inside the BPO, KPO and IT divisions of Syntel.  One report showed how that in the recent past Syntel BPO was overly reliant on couple of key clients.  Techgoss had also reported on the exit of the CEO and senior HR people as well as recent salary hikes.

A Techgoss report run on May 7, 2010 (republished at the end of this article) spoke about how the Syntel KPO Head Ashfaq Ahad has put in his papers.  Also, all recruitment and PDAC teams seem to have disappeared from Syntel. The article published on May 7 queried: Is Syntel reorganizing its HR Departments?

Yesterday, a tipster sent us the following information

“
First of all, please do not write highly regarded for everyone who leaves Syntel. Not everyone is highly regarded inside the organization.

You are right, Ashfaq Ahad has quit Syntel. And so has Dheeraj Jaggi, a Senior Manager and Management Consultant, who has been hired by Ashfaq only a few months back. According to office talk, Dheeraj joined from Infosys and found the utterly non process oriented Syntel culture hard to digest.  Especially because the working styles of certain Business Unit Heads of the Businesses for which he was managing the HR took all their decisions unilaterally.

Meanwhile, the entire Healthcare BPO team based out of Pune has been left leaderless ever since the VP and Healthcare BPO Head TN Shekar quit in March. Now, his Deputy, who trained at IIM and was working as a Senior Manager, has also said goodbye after the IT and BPO Units were merged under one Leader.

News is that more leaders in this team are getting itchy feet because of differences with their top leader. The previous CEO had a number of favourite projects one of which was the Healthcare BPO/KPO team.  But after CEO Keshav’s exit, there is much uncertainty among the people left at the Healthcare BPO.
“

Thanks Tipster!  Your point asking Techgoss to not describe some managers as being highly regarded is duly noted.  Whether you believe this or not, we have the highest regard for all the tipsters who make the time to send us facts to update our readers.  Thank your again.