The software giant from Redmond makes a stunning entry into BT's Best Companies to Work for in India list at #1. Quite a feat for a corporation that runs six different units in India. If you want to know what it feels like to work for
Microsoft's India Development Centre in Hyderabad, just ask Ravi Jaiswal. Six months ago, the software design engineer quit another IT multinational and joined Microsoft. And for Jaiswal, it was love at first sight. "I walked into this building and the reception was expecting me.
I had a cabin, my e-mail was already configured, a 'buddy' had been nominated to help me assimilate, and there was a real estate consultant on the campus to help me look for a place. All that was a pleasant surprise," says Jaiswal.
A starry-eyed newcomer? Perhaps, but don't be too sure. Sreenivas Simhadri, a Microsoft veteran of 12 years, will tell you that Microsoft India really rocks. "I only just relocated to Hyderabad from Redmond, and I honestly feel that the buzz and excitement around this place right now is similar to what I experienced when I joined Microsoft in 1995 at Redmond," says Simhadri, a General Manager at Microsoft IT (MIST), which makes software for the technology giant's own use. "I will work with Microsoft as long as it will have me," quips Nagender Vedula, also a GM at MIST.
Such gushing testimonials are in sharp contrast to the image Microsoft has in the US. There it is seen as a monolithic and unexciting company that has been outdone by newcomer Google (on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work for in 2006, Microsoft featured at #42). But visit Microsoft's facilities in India, and it is a very different story.
The Hyderabad campus, which accounts for more than half of the company's employees in India and houses three of its six business units (Microsoft Corporation India, Microsoft Research India, Microsoft Global Technical Support Centre, Microsoft India Development Centre, Microsoft IT and Microsoft Global Services Centre India), has a college campus feel to it, with new recruits sporting long hair and carrying musical instruments or sports gear.
On a recent Wednesday, the campus' two large cafeterias are noisy and busy, since the centre has just inducted several hundred fresh graduates. "I like this company, it still has a college campus feel to it, I don't think any other large company is like this," says one of them. Over the last four years, when Ravi Venkatesan joined as Chairman of Microsoft's India operations, the software giant has grown at a frenetic pace.
Headcount has quadrupled to over 5,000 and revenues have jumped five times (Microsoft does not publicly disclose India-specific financial numbers). "Growing the company is not a challenge, but growing the people inside the company is," says Venkatesan, who has played a key role in unifying Microsoft's disparate business units in India and giving them a common corporate face. "Because of our growth rate, the thing I worry about is that the job a person does is growing faster than they can handle it."
Coping with Growth To be sure, that's not a problem unique to Microsoft (other Indian companies, not just in IT, are faced with a similar problem), but some of the solutions it employs to deal with it are unique. "Many companies claim to have a mentor system, but ours works," says Srini Koppolu, MD, MSIDC, who predates Venkatesan at Microsoft and set up the Hyderabad development centre. Not surprisingly, the IT tools for the mentoring system were developed by MSIT at Hyderabad. More About MicroSoft