HRM-1-0045 | January 21st 2016

Global Summit on
GSMC 2016, IIM Raipur
Management Cases

ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH: INTEGRATING

BUSINESS AND HR AT MD SOLUTIONS

“Growth itself is a big problem but a good problem to have”

- Manish Bhasin, Founder and CEO of MD Solutions

Sandeep Kapoor (Sandeep), Head-HR at MD Solutions, came from a long meeting with the top management
of the company – Manish Bhasin (Manish), Co-Founder and CEO, Avneet Gupta (Avneet), Co-Founder
and Head-Business Development, Jatin Das (Jatin), Co-Founder and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer,
and Renu Bhasin (Renu), Co-Founder and COO. The meeting was called to discuss the growth path of the
company. There were two primary agendas – challenges which lie ahead in terms of sustaining the remarkable
growth; and making preparations to handle the growth.
The management was primarily concerned with loss of some of the clients in the past and was seriously
contemplating on what went wrong – was it in their control or it comes with growth. The issue was not of
losing the customers alone but also of scaling up by inclusion of new customers and maintaining existing
customers. Manish was very much concerned about scaling but not at the cost of quality and profitability.
This meant, he was very serious about issues related to maintaining customers.
The other primary concern was to prepare the organization for handling very high growth. Management
wanted seamless integration between functional and people processes and stressed on human capital as primary
resource as a key enabler of growth without compromising on the quality. This required the HR function to
play a more strategic and central role.
How would Sandeep be able to integrate, align and prepare human resources to meet the growth demands
of the business? Would he be able to create value for the business by equipping HR for better customer
service, even at the times when organization was witnessing more than hundred percent growth (Exhibit I)?

This Case Study was written by Shashank Mittal, Anuj Gupta and Amit Kumar Pandey, Doctoral Students, Indian Institute of Management, Raipur. It
is intended to be used as the basis for classroom discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. The
case study was compiled from published sources.
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HRM-1-0045 | Organizational growth: Integrating Business and HR at MD Solutions

MD Solutions: About the Company

MD Solutions, a young company headquartered in Noida, operated in the niche area of providing a structured
curriculum on physical education and sports to the schools. This was in line with the existing system of
academic education in schools. The current focus of schools in India was almost entirely on academic education
resulting in the negligence of physical education among children. Manish realized this problem during a
conversation with one of his friends that his 6-year-old child was not engaged in enough physical activity.
He was instead getting hooked to TV and computers.
The root cause of the negligence was not that schools did not have programs for games and sports but the
problem lies elsewhere. These programs were usually unstructured and sporadic in nature including only few
students, leaving most of them out of the purview. Understanding this, vision and philosophy of the company
were laid (Exhibit II).

Exhibit II: Vision and Philosophy

MD Solutions would create a generation of Champions in Life – Healthier & Fitter children equipped with key life-skills –
all through the magic of sports. MD Solutions programmes help create 'Physically Educated' children while ensuring that
all stakeholders (Schools, Parents and Policymakers) were involved in the process.
MD Solutions programmes were designed around the philosophy that structured physical activity and sports can be
leveraged as a powerful teaching tool for experiential learning in a way which was visceral, engaging and fun for children.
The programme was based upon the core principles of:
• Activity as per age
• All child must play
• Specifically to work in Indian context.
The scientifically designed, structured MD Solutions programmes helped physical education and sports get the same level
of rigor, focus and stakeholder involvement that exists in academic subjects in schools. Similar to academics, the MD
Solutions programmes possessed a structured curriculum, age-appropriate assessments, performance monitoring and
reporting toolkit and trained/skilled resource support to help every child become 'physically educated'.

Source: http://www.MDSolutions.co.in/ (Accessed Date: 08/10/14)

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Market and Industry

In India, a school’s focus is almost entirely on academics and there was very little attention to sports. But
slowly, this attitude was changing as all the stakeholders in primary and secondary education, be it parents,
teachers and children themselves started stressing on the importance of sports. There was ever growing need
for sports curriculum in schools in line with academic curriculum. Though schools understood the dire need
for structured sports curriculum in the overall education of children, they were not prepared to handle it on
their own because of inexperience and lack of expertise and focus in this domain.
Even after this awareness, schools were not sure of whom to look for and how to go about. Understanding
this latent demand, sports enthusiast and entrepreneur, Manish along with his colleagues started the venture
MD Solutions and created the first-ever market for sports curriculum products and services in 2008. At the
time, there were more than seventy-five thousand private schools and more than one million government
schools in India.1 They were the potential customer pool for this newly created industry of sports curriculum.
This pool included every school going child, right from pre-nursery till twelfth standard.
Newly created industry of sports curriculum, created by MD Solutions, was in nascent stage. With the
advent of some new players in recent years, the industry was growing at a fast pace. MD Solutions had
revenue in crores and more than four hundred schools in its kitty, whereas other players were relatively new
and small in their size with number of schools as their clients ranging from thirty to eighty (Exhibit III).

Exhibit III: Description of players in the sports curriculum industry

Players Year of Inception No. of schools Average growth in %
MD Solutions 2009 450 95
Leapstart 2012 85 110
Sportseed 2012 70 90
KOOH sports 2013 45 130
Sports Gurukul 2014 23 -

Offering for the Schools

MD Solutions offered products and services under eight different heads covering pre-school children, primary
school children and middle school children (Exhibit IV). The offerings were tailor made to meet the physical
requirements and interests of the age group of children. Offerings were scientific in nature, based on extensive
research data of thousands of students across hundreds of schools in India. These offerings were designed to
cater both within school and at-home physical education. Sports activities of children were done through all
round development and engagement of all the stake holders. MD Solutions rendered these products with
ample support by providing services for training and assisting teachers and parents in carrying out the curriculum
effectively.

1
As per the seventh all India school education survey report of NCERT

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Exhibit IV: Description of offerings by MD Solutions

Product/Service catego ry Brand Target Market Consumer Positioning
Health & Fitness Toddler Pre-nursery schools Pre-school children Understand the health &
Fitness requirement of kids
Health & Fitness Bubbly Schools Primary school children Tailor made health & Fitness
program for primary school
children
Health & Fitness Hope Schools Middle school children Tailor made health & Fitness
program for secondary
school children
Health & Fitness Healthy Parents/Schools All age group children Health & fitness check-up
based on scientific methods
Health & Fitness Active Children/Parents Parents/children Fun-filled sports and fitness
activities
Health & Fitness MD Solutions Parents/Children All age group children Coaching and professional
School of /Clubs support for sports person in
learning /Schools you
Health & Fitness Play facilities Schools Schools Design and execution of
sports facility for schools
Health & Fitness Camps Parents/Children All age group children Educational and fun filled
/Schools camps for children

Journey of MD Solutions
The journey of MD Solutions began in January 2008. Founders realized that schools and all the stakeholders
(students, teachers and parents) understand the importance of sports. However, due to constrains and non-
availability of any product or service they were not able to fulfil this demand. MD Solutions which understood
the problem, took this challenge as an opportunity to provide products and services catering to the demand
for sports curriculum in line with academic curriculum in the schools.
Using the prior learning and experience of members, complemented with the ground work done prior to
launch, schools were primarily targeted for such sports based product curriculum. This also included
development of effective sports-based product by incorporating the actual requirements of students, teachers
and parents. This initiative found many takers; physical educators and school leaders were extremely
enthusiastic and optimistic about the product. Such enthusiasm from all corners was the huge moral boost
for the company and thereafter it witnessed one and only one thing, that is touching new milestones every
year and passing ahead of its own expectations.
By the end of financial year 2008-2009, MD Solutions had 26 schools in its customer list. They were
catering to the physical education and sports demand of more than ten thousand students and had 65
members as part of their team. Another year passed and the company saw unprecedented growth and they
had 100 schools as their clients by the end of January 2010. By this time, the company conducted a survey
and released India’s first-ever national health & fitness survey for school children covering 4098 children of
21 schools across 15 cities. The result of the survey further increased MD Solutions’ resolve of continuing to
improve the fitness level through its structured sports and physical education curriculum.2 This increased
understanding guided the improvements in the design of the sports curriculum products.

2
As per the report published in Economic Times dated 14/08/13

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Another year, 2010-2011, and the company achieved some more milestones by increasing the number of
schools to 165, catering sports requirement of more than one hundred thousand students with around three
members in its organization. In addition, the company saw heavy buzz among sports enthusiasts, schools
and parents and got ample media attention for its innovative and extremely pertinent product. At this time,
company was exploring the possibilities of setting operations outside India.
By July 2011, the company went global with the launch of its programs in Western Europe and North
America. MD Solutions saw the number of schools as clients getting doubled to 270 from the previous year
and considerable increase in the strength of organizational members to 360. In the year 2013, MD Solutions
catered to more than 400 schools in 85 cities across India and three other countries with more than 550
employees.

Business Strategy for Growth

MD Solutions was primarily a service-based marketing company backed by product innovation. The company
was in tremendous growth path and happy to grow at a very fast pace. But, at the same time founders always
strived to create awareness for health and fitness among stakeholders and improving on service quality,
customer responsiveness and product and service innovation. The company followed specific marketing,
HR and customer service strategies along with product and service innovations as an overall business strategy.

Marketing
Way back in 2009, MD Solutions gained large scale attention it was looking for, from schools, parents and
children when it released its first ever survey of sports activities in Indian schools. The survey covered 3000
children, aged between 5 and 14 years pan India. Subsequently, the company published surveys on fitness
every year with each passing year increased the scale of participants covered. The 5th edition of MD Solutions’
survey of sports activities in Indian schools came out in 2013 which covered more than one lakh students
across 319 schools in 79 cities across India. The survey reports highlighted key fitness parameters, which
clearly indicated that large fractions of the school going children lacked in one or the other essential parameters
of fitness. Though, similar surveys were conducted on academic education of children by various government
and non-government agencies but there existed no such surveys in health and fitness of school going children.
As the MD Solutions’ surveys were first of its kind3, they gained attention and reactions from all the corners
of the society be it media, politics or social activists. These surveys could be credited to create awareness on
health and fitness among all the stakeholders, be it schools, parents and children. Jatin said, “Initially, we had
to pitch in bit hard for our services to the schools and the sales drive were also hard. Schools were bit
sceptical of our offerings, even some of them commented that they already had physical trainer. Somewhere,
we felt that there was lack of awareness for health and fitness in the lines of academic education. Though, we
were pitching through our sales and marketing drives but there was lack of base in terms of awareness of the
need of the health and fitness product at first hand. The surveys created this base for us. Subsequently, we
got many inquiries from schools and some of the schools even commented that the demand came directly
from the parents and children.”
The sales and marketing teams ran extensive drives for creating direct awareness. They did seminars and
presentations in schools. The primary focus of the business model was on private schools mainly situated in

3
As per the report published in Economic Times dated 14/08/13

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cities, though the company has covered tier two and tier three cities. In the long-run MD Solutions was
contemplating on including government schools also.

Customer Service and Responsiveness

At MD Solutions, Head of Customer Service and Delivery believed that superior service quality was reflected
in happy and less dissatisfied customers. The company was operating in the service space; therefore, rendering
superior service quality was necessary for retaining customers. He further observed that customer expectations
would increase over time. Customer service no longer included only what was promised but a faster response
to customer’s ever evolving requirements was the key. The company believed in anticipating and responding
to the ever evolving demands of the customer through better feedback mechanisms from frontline executives
and their improvised responses to customer requirements. There was stress on faster decision making and
adaption to the growing demands of customers. The Head of Customer Service and Delivery commented,
“We were not only carving products and services but also setting trends for the new market and industry
started by us. Therefore, it was challenge for our executives at the field to understand and act according to
the latent needs of customers which were ever evolving.”
Customer feedback was taken on a regular basis in the form of surveys and interviews. In addition, specific
instances of customer discontent or where customer expectations could not be met were not only resolved
but also included as case studies. These case studies had two benefits, first they were useful to train executives
and second they were used to improve product and service delivery.

Product and Service Innovations

At MD Solutions, the product and service innovations were based on two aspects, first was on the use of
technology and customer expectations and feedback to develop new products and improving existing ones
and second was on improving through quality standards in sports products and services according to the best
practices in the world.
To achieve first objective, product and service innovation teams follow the lead of frontline executives from
marketing and product and service delivery on the regular basis. For second objective, there were quality
experts in the field of sports education who regularly work to improve the program to international quality
standards keeping in mind of Indian requirements.
MD Solutions worked with schools to implement a best-in-class Physical Education and Sports programme.
The programme was designed to offer the same rigor in sports and physical education as in academics. This
ensured the children learn holistically through physical activity and sports in addition to helping children
improve their health and fitness levels dramatically.
The MD Solutions programme was implemented through the SOLUTION platform – India’s first integrated
school sports and physical education platform4. The MD Solutions’ SOLUTION platform had different
modules specifically designed to address the critical needs of schools, physical education teachers, parents
and children for a 360 degree high quality learning experience.
The SOLUTION tools draw inspiration from globally accepted tools and standards. The Assessment modules
were based on standard methodology. These tools were adapted to suit Indian conditions.

4
The background technology behind product and services of MD Solutions

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Sustaining Growth – Balancing Quantity and Quality

MD Solutions considered growth as the positive change to their business which also boosted their confidence
and shareholders’ trust in the business model of the company. The company at the same time believed in
sustainable growth which stressed on no compromises on the core business value of superior quality. As the
founder and CEO of the company, Manish’s vision for the company was based on MD Solutions’ underlying
values and philosophy that guides the top management’s decisions on growth.

HUMAN RESOURCE – AS AN EVOLVING STRATEGIC BUSINESS PARTNER

The entire senior management in MD Solutions believed that HR had had an important role to play in the
implementation of above business strategy based on the simple assumption that retaining customers through
superior service quality was the key to sustain growth. In turn superior service quality and customer
responsiveness was almost entirely the result of superior human resource used as capability. For this, HR had
evolved as strategic business partner.

Organizational Culture and Values - An Entrepreneurial Organization

The culture at MD Solutions bore the founders’ blueprint about the organization. Manish believed in the
healthy culture of co-operation and teamwork with minimum aristocratic structures. This was reflected in
the organizational structure which had minimum hierarchies. He believed in empowerment of the employees
through freedom to take decision, experimentation and open culture of communication. At the same time,
there was clarity on the expectations and accountability of every position and role.
The open culture was reflected in the pattern of communication in the organization, which happened freely
across functional domains. Even the top management of respective functions kept in regular touch with the
front line executives and there were frequent bottom-up communications.
At MD Solutions, vision, goals and values were not just hung on walls but play very important role in
guiding the organization at the time of growth. Growth created confusion and sometimes greediness. But
when values, vision and goals reflected the intent of the founding members these become the guiding
principles even in times of turbulence. One of the co-founders commented, “First level of thing is to have
people aligned with goals and values of the company. To manage very high growth one is always helped by
one’s values and goals. See first thing is to have objectives clear as an organization and made clear even to the
lowest level in the organization. Once you have the goal and the objective in the mind so you know what
you are heading into and in what direction you are heading into. As an organization I am into sports and
physical education so my aim is ensuring kids are healthier and fitter. So if this is the goal of my organization,
I cannot hire a person who is not from sports background however easily available. I have to hire only sports
person. So the most important thing is, as an organization we have to keep goals and objectives set. Once
that is in place, there has to be a vision which will not change, at least will not frequently change. Then only
it is possible to align the directions. When in confusion you can refer to your vision and do the course
correction. Then comes organization’s values. To name it in our organization these are play, trust, sincerity
and responsiveness.”
In MD Solutions, top management had clearly formulated vision, goals and values of the business and
through open and informal culture of clear and connective communication, the same passed on to every
layer of management.

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The thrust in MD Solutions was to set the alignment of professional goals and values of employees with
company’s goals and values. Earlier, company faced some quality problems at the customer-end. There were
complaints regarding service delivery. Company started making them the instances of cases and figured out
that the exact reason for such behaviour is employee disengagement. If the purpose is not aligned, employees
will get disengaged. This is even more difficult to handle. In the growth stage, organization should be more
focused in getting people who have their vision and values aligned with organization.
In the words of Sandeep, “So there have to be enough right people who will buy up to your vision. In our
case it was extremely difficult to find the people as it is a new idea which is coming forth. Where will I find
these people who are inclined towards this work? Once the pool is identified then all the whys come into
play. Why one should come join your organization. Once you align the purpose of MD Solutions with
employee’s individual purpose, you answer the why. I have the vision of ensuring that kids will play, the
moment this purpose is aligned with employee’s purpose of say as an employee I want to coach people in
basketball. This is very clear alignment of purpose. The moment you have these two in tandem half the
battle is won. Then HR can tweak employee’s requirement and align him/her to the objectives of the
company.”

Talent Acquisition
The company faced challenging situation of hiring. When asked about the biggest impact of growth, the
manager said, “In our industry it is hiring. You have no other option but to add people. If you add people
first of all you need to add right people.”
The primary talent for the company were sports coaches, physical education teachers, and fitness trainers
who are basically highly skilled graduates from sports background. There was also high requirement for
specific skill-based trainers. In the long-run there will be requirements for specific experts in player development
and persons specialized in skills for matches. The company had three levels of managers – one is school-level
manager, second is delivery manager and third is relationship manager or regional operations manager. These
three require technical domain knowledge. Until and unless one knows the nitty-gritties of business one
cannot be promoted or hired for these three levels. So these three roles are promoted up the rank and no
lateral hiring at upper positions take place for these roles. Moreover, there are some departments which need
to have the subject expert. For instance, Product department is the brain behind all the programs so there
only subject expert is needed and promoted. There are roles of sales or business managers which is not
domain specific so for them hiring is mixed-lateral as well as promotion up the ranks.
Managing growth and learning with growth made MD Solutions’ HR shift its hiring strategy in tandem
with the growing demands of business. Earlier they followed the strategy of hiring right at the source. This
strategy began with the requirement that to hire large number of people one need to have bigger pool for
hiring. How you generate bigger pool. Initially, they visited the source itself. But, then they realized this
didn’t work as some good people didn’t come and join. Moreover, quality was not as expected. Then they
revised their hiring strategy accordingly.
Sandeep pointed out, “We tried the model of referral program. First of all it is learning. First time we have
to hire close to hundred employees. From our past experience we have seen 1:9 is the ratio so if we have to
hire hundred employees we have to interview nine hundred people. Where one can get these numbers of
people? What we did was, we went to close to some thirty sports colleges and universities. But, we couldn’t

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get the quality resources so we did referral program. Today close to sixty-five percent of the people are
recruited through referral programs. So from zero percent focus on referrals now it is sixty five percent and
from hundred percent focus on campus hiring now it is only fifteen percent. It [Referrals] is already a hit and
we have been doing it for three years. Moreover, referrals stay longer than direct recruits from college.”

Talent Management and Development

There are mainly three types of talent required by the company – technical executives, techno-managerial
executives and business support like marketing and sales.
Initially, HR made promotions for techno-managerial positions based solely on performance. Immediate
supervisor’s rating and feedback was the basis of performance appraisal. The performance appraisal system
focused mainly on technical aspects of the role. HR selected the top performing guys and made them
managers. Those promoted as Managers were the people who were executing MD Solutions program very
well. The assumption was that they were the best guys who have executed the program well and they were
worth promoting. But they didn’t become right managers. Later, the performance appraisal system included
the feedback from the schools (customers) and team members. It included customer satisfaction, inter-
personal skills, and team building skills as well along with technical aspects of the role. Earlier the appraisal
was done annually, but later on it moved to bi-annual appraisal system. In the updated performance appraisal
system, the focus was shifted to competencies from technical skills. General framework for these competencies
was based on behaviours guiding customer handling, inter-personal and team behaviours, decision making
and leadership. This general framework forms the basis to tune competencies according to requirements of
specific job roles.
Now, HR has solved this problem well and evolved as a function which can better manage growth by
recognizing whom to promote; recognizing their training and development needs; and by providing training
and development. Apart from initial technical training given to technical executives, their learning mostly
happens in teams from actual assignments in the field at customer end. But for techno-managerial positions,
recognizing the importance of managerial skills, which mainly includes people’s skills and decision making
skills, is the key for development of techno-managers. Sandeep remarked, “Till today we are trying to figure
out these are my best performers and to make them better managers how do I work around. I have to
identify interventions of training and development. Technical executives are good in field works but will
they become good managers. There, this point of managerial training came into picture. So how do you
address this? So we have a training program in place which is evolving. We have deployed it and now we are
trying to put framework over there.”
He added, “To quote the data we have sixty-eight percent of those who are promoted to managerial level
from first line executives. So in order to handle the growth you need to have initial hiring correct. In the
service industry we don’t have bench. Now when I add fifteen people I need to have one techno-manager. To
manage these fifteen people I need the person who gets promoted. I cannot hire the manager from outside
so I have to invest in the team which is there. Throughout the year what I am trying to do is to recognize the
future manager, so continuous performance evaluation is going on. We took the decision saying that in the
service industry we are not going to have bench. Whoever is in the parking lot type of thing is going to be the
team support and will be among the senior most members in the team. If there are ten persons in the
regional team so I am going to have one person who will act as back-up for the team members in field. These

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[team support] are the people who are experienced, have seen at least one life cycle at school, they are best
performers and highly motivated. So these highly trained and highly motivated people are not in the school
but they are outside the school as team support. First we identify team support, who can take the lead role.
Then we gradually move them to managers. Layer which is your team support is the catchment area for
identifying managers. So, instead of identifying manager from the pool of hundred and fifty people, we
have reduced the pool. Now, we have fifteen people [among team support] from whom we need to identify
as manager. In the first year what we did is these are best performers so make them managers. From there we
shifted to – these are the best performers so move them to the band called team support, where they already
do partial job of managers.”

Triple E Model of Engaged, Enabled and Energized Employees for Empowered Decision
Making
Earlier the company faced some quality problems at the customer-end. There were complaints regarding
service delivery. Company started making them the instances of cases and figured out that the exact reason
for such behaviours is employee disengagement. If the purpose is not aligned then what will happen that
employee will get disengaged. This is difficult to handle. In the growth stage, organization should be more
focused in getting people who remains engaged and motivated. Now, company has dedicated manager who
takes care of implementation of three E’s. This shows how much company is serious about three E’s model.
Engagement is the state of cognitive and emotional engagement. Company has detailed engagement plan
which is actually a detailed “ask” list. HR introduced two steps to address this situation. First is the introduction
of employee engagement survey and second is providing opportunities for individual growth through mastery.
Employee engagement survey helps HR to identify disengaged employees, reasons for disengagement and
possible measures for making employees engaged. For second, mastery over sports is always the objective of
technical and techno-managerial employees being the sports persons. HR provides them enough avenues to
master their sports and align this with business objective of playing with children. This keeps them engaged.
Enabling is done by facilitating managers to take decision. As Sandeep explained, “There are three things for
manager to take right decisions at right time – first, he needs to have domain knowledge, second, you need
to give him adequate training to decide which is correct and which is not and third is to give him right and
space to make choice. You extend your step and say how the decision is to be taken. Over the period of time,
managers will be enabled to take those decisions and his productivity and performance will increase. This
becomes extremely important at the time of tremendous requirement to grow. Taking decisions to tweak
service requirements are must for responsiveness to customers’ ever evolving requirements.”
Third is keeping employees energized, so that they take one extra step and are happy to contribute to
business. This is done by creating happy employees through sense of belongingness and sense of contribution
to the organization. MD Solutions keeps its employees energized by creating comprehensive award mechanism.
Speaking about the mechanism, Sandeep explained, “People need to be appreciated. We created an atmosphere
wherein people are appreciated and they are good for each other. We developed a comprehensive award
mechanism which is in line with business. It is not that somebody appreciated you, and you take this award.
So that award has to be in line with the business goal. Therefore, we developed the comprehensive star
awards. We call it star awards. The moment, person is appreciated and told he did these-these things; this
creates the culture of appreciation which is contagious. But one has to be objective and specific in terms of

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what job the appreciated person has done. Unless this is specific and quantifiable, appreciation will be
looked upon as biased.”

Way forward
Accepting the challenges of growth, MD Solutions look to maintain and grow its customer base and employee
base. Five years down the line, company aims to more than triple its customer base. Founders know that
aligning business strategy of growth with requirements of external customers (clients) and capital of internal
customers (human resource) is the key. Although lot has been done for aligning business with HR, still lot
needs to be done; this is where the challenge lies for Sandeep.

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