Syntel: IT Vs BPO
By Pulkit Sharma

Over the last few months, Techgoss has published a number of articles on the Syntel Healthcare BPO.  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. There was also some heartburn that the Technology team had grabbed all the credit for winning the TriZetto deal when much of the ground work was done by the BPO team (See original articles below)

A Syntel Tipster updates us on what is happening at the Syntel Healthcare BPO

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Mr Healthcare Technology successfully booted out all the old Healthcare BPO leaders after he took over the BPO business.  First to be nudged out was TN Shekar and then the screws were tightened for his deputy Shachindra, who quit in disgust. Now, Mr Technology could remove the lone Shekar loyalist Biswas by asking him to leave for no reason.

Biswas has very ably run the two operations that Healthcare Bpo leaders Shekar and Shachindra brought in. This uncertainty has caused lot of heartburn on the floor as Biswas, with a GE background, is a very popular leader. Now Mr. technology is running(or ruining?) the BPO unit with his IT henchmen and integrating both BPO and Technology units by asking people from technology unit to work in Bpo and Bpo people to work in IT. The floor is shocked with such kind of weird requests since it is common sense that bpo and technology cannot be run the same way.

The CEO seems to trust Mr. Technology at the moment and has given him a free hand. 
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(Techgoss had published the following on July 2, 2010)

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

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

(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

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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.
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