INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, NIRMA UNIVERSITY

MBA-FT (2021-23)

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT – 1

Case Study:

MAHINDRA AND MAHINDRA

Date of Submission: 16TH DECEMBER,2021

Submitted To: Prof. Deepa Sanghavi

Submitted By: Tanuj Bohra (211149)

Section-B
 SUMMARY
Mahindra and Mahindra a steel turned automobile company was facing hard days post-LPG reform in 1991.
Years of protection from the foreign competition have made the company complacent. After struggling initially
till 2002, the company was able to apply the correct transformation strategy and expanded its business. In
2008, the company in order to give itself and its employees a distinct identity started a corporate branding
exercise under the name Rise. Rise started working internally with an initial focus on the development of
employees. It worked on the belief that an employee is the best promoter of a company and no amount of
advertising can meet the positive feedback to outsiders from an employee.

(114 Words)
 CASE SITUATION
Mahindra and Mohammed started as a steel company in 1945 in Mumbai. Post partition one of its founding
partners left the company and the company changed its business operations to automobile manufacturing and
was renamed Mahindra and Mahindra.

The company was growing and got listed in 1956 on BSE. However, having worked in the protected
economy for years has made the company complacent. By 1990, Company’s productiveness has reduced.
There was huge corruption in various departments and the work culture was bad. A high level of labour
unionism was there. In 1991, when the LPG policy was introduced, the company found it very hard to
survive the foreign competition. Efforts were made to improve the situation but they didn’t work. The worst
time came when the company was dropped from the BSE 30-share Bellwether Index.

Mr. Anand Mahindra took over the leadership of the company and focused on reforming it. Along, with a
team of top 50 professionals of the company, he developed a plan to bring financial discipline to company
and to make it a global company. After 2002 the company saw tremendous growth, did a large number of
acquisitions of companies, and diversified its business structure.

A survey was being conducted by the company in 2008 to find out the values of Mahindra in their
employees. It was found that along with the company’s legacy value of integrity, now, dynamism has also
paved its way in the company. In response to the changing profile of the company and its business, the
company decided to initiate a corporate branding program under the name Rise to give a distinct image to the
company and its employees. Rise covered three things- to be limitless, encourage out-of-the-box thinking,
and drive positive change in customer’s life.

Company instead of starting from the external environment and doing external marketing of the company
considered internal updating necessary. The company worked upon its employees, provided them training,
improved communication with the employees and within the employees to improve their performance. The
company motivated the employees through rewards and recognition. It tried to bring diversity to the
organisation through effective recruitment and talent management. The main aim behind all this was to make
employees imbibe a good image of the brand Mahindra and Mahindra.

Various programs were being conducted under Rise to bring a positive attitude in employees about the
company. The HR policies were being updated to enhance the philosophies propounded in Rise. Apart from
the external recruitments, good importance was being given to internal promotions. It acted as a great source
of motivation for the employees.

Thus, the whole policy of corporate brand building strategy revolved around the employees of the company.
Unlike other companies, the company didn’t follow it as a purely external thing. It gave due importance to
the internal reconstruction. Corporate strategy was being blended with the HR strategy and the company
worked on the idea that its employees are its true assets. No amount of advertising can match the positive
feedback given by the happy employees to the outsiders. Employee as a promoter is the best promoter.
The company worked upon the above strategy and even conducted an Employee as Promoter survey to find
out whether they were successful in imbibing the brand image of the employees.
 CASE QUESTIONS

QUESTION-1

What connection do you see between Mahindra’s corporate strategy and HR

Corporate strategy refers to a corporation's actions to attain its goals while gaining a competitive advantage.
Whereas HR Strategy is a business strategy that tries to integrate fundamental human resource factors such as
the organization's culture, workers, partners, training, incentives, and overall system by coordinating a series
of activities to achieve the desired business goals.

Mahindra and Mahindra's corporate strategy was to improve the brand image of the company in the eyes of
the customers. It wanted to improve customer satisfaction by not only providing goods and services but by
creating possibilities. It wanted to be limitless, creative, and competitive.

To achieve its corporate strategy, Mahindra came with the idea of Rise. Rise was a corporate branding exercise
that aimed at giving the organisation and its employees a distinct identity. Rise was the connection between
the corporate and the human resource strategy of the organisation.

Rise aimed at fulfilling the corporate goal of brand building of the organisation through its employee as the
tool. It was focused on improving the performance of the employees, improving their skills, improving the
diversity in the organisation through effective talent management and recruitment. Employees were being
motivated through rewards and recognitions. Promotions and changes in the leadership framework too worked
as a motivator. Work designs were being improved to make work of the employees engaging.

All these HR management tools were being employed to achieve the corporate goal of improving the brand
image. Employees were being made to promote the organisation naturally by improving the image of the
organisation in their heads. Thus, it was a good mix of corporate and HR strategy that was used for improving
company brand value.
Question-2

What values is Mahindra’s HR strategy aiming to inculcate and institutionalize?

The values that Mahindra’s HR strategy is aiming to inculcate and institutionalize are as follows-
• Diversity- Mahindra has about 113,000 people working in it of which approximately 5,000 are of
foreign origin and 8,500 are Indian expats. The company’s HR strategy is trying to inculcate
diversity in the organisation. Diversity leads to improvement in the performance and creativity of
the organisation. It gives organisation a multidimensional perspective of looking at problems.
• Integrity- Diversity is just the first step. Any organisation can bring diversity to its workforce.
However, the core element is to bring integrity to the organisation. People must feel equity.
Integrity has been in the DNA of Mahindra for years and it has inculcated it in itself. The
company’s aim is to increase that feeling of integrity and inclusion in the organisation.
• Devotion- Mahindra’s HR policies want to inculcate a feeling of devotion among the employees
towards the organisation. It wants to create such a brand image of the company in the heads of
employees that they feel being an undetachable part of the company. It wants employees to
promote the company naturally by giving positive feedback to others. In order to achieve this, it
had worked on its HR policies.
• Passion- The company is trying to inculcate a feeling of passion in employees. The company is
motivating employees through rewards and recognitions to inculcate a passion in them to work.
Also, an internal promotion strategy is being used rather than recruiting from outside to motivate
the employees.
• Creativity- The company is trying to bring the utmost creativity in employees. It is working to
make employees do out-of-the-box thinking, come with creative and effective solutions to the
problems. For this diversity is being included in the workforce.
• Innovation – The company's HR policies are working to empower its employees and make them
more innovative. The company from being an automobile company has diversified its operations
in various sectors like IT, Infrastructure, Finance, Hospitality, etc. Innovation is much needed for
the sustainable growth of such a diversified company.