Continental Telecommunications

As stated in the case, WWT and the joint venture (JV)- Sub continental Telecommunications Solutions faced a lot of problems not in the main task of developing quality software, but in managing the operations of the JV. The main problem was the lack of management in the JV and people not having clearly defined roles.  Natoli, Gupta and Kuma were the main people handling all the operations and they (especially Natoli) were trying to handle everything. There was no division of labor amongst the managerial staff- so much so that every employee had the same agreement/contract and no customized contracts were issued which specified the roles and duties of each person. During the formation of the JV, proper due diligence was also not carried out and no one on the team had actually ever worked with an Indian firm before, to lend valuable experience. To elaborate on the problem with instances, there was no single person in charge of human resources. No one was assigned the task of figuring out the backgrounds of new employees, forming their specific contracts, deciding their salaries (the compensation of Bajibah, hiring of Dev) etc. Since there was no one responsible for HR, no action was taken against Dev for sexual harassment- instead Wright had to face consequences back at WWT. No one was in charge of figuring out new business partners (carrying out due diligence) and negotiating deals with them- on the recommendation of Dev (based on one positive experience his cousin had with the company), the JV went ahead with Suriyapa Computers (SC) without comparing it to others and without doing a background check. There was no one designated exclusively for dealing with litigations and other legal problems like following up on cases with SC and Ritcher Bank or for suing Dev. Natoli dealt with everything from technical to infrastructural to legal to human resourcing to financials. Even though she was not an expert in all these areas she had to deal with all of them without any expert’s assistance. Despite of knowing that there were many problems in India (lack of effective protection for intellectual property rights, male dominant society) WWT didn’t pay much heed to the problems. No expert was hired who has expertise or prior experience in forming a JV with an Indian company. Although they had heard enough about piracy (even with non disclosure agreements in place), they did not really think of other measures to control it. Another threat that the company faced was the extremely slow and corrupt Indian judicial system. The labor laws in India were also very pro labor and hence this too might have been a potential problem for the company if they ever wished to fire someone quickly. WWT wanted some experts from USA to go to India; so another potential problem might be the work permit approval from the Indian government- since the government discouraged foreigners to come after some years of the JV being formed. There was also the issue of reluctance of WWT employees to go and work in India.