SAS Institute: Respect and Empowerment

With a team of more than 600 technology and domain experts, SAS Institute has been in India since
1997 working with organizations across industries and offering them critical enterprise intelligence to
fuel innovation and meet their business objectives. Ranked #10 in the Great Place to Work Institutes
Study, SAS Institute is also ranked #4 in the Industry Category of the IT sector. Over the past decade, the
ITeS industry has not only mushroomed but enjoyed a dominant position in India. Ask Sudipta Sen, CEO
& Managing Director, SAS India what the companys competitive advantage is and how he attempts to
differentiate as an organization, and he replies confidently, The past decade has been quite exciting for
our industry. Not only has it developed but incurred significant positive changes for us. As an
organization, we attempt to differentiate ourselves by focusing on three key elements which are People,
Product and Process. If you talk about our competitive advantage, I will have to say that SAS provides its
clients with high-end, domain specific analytical solutions, which are industry definite and give us an
edge over other organizations.
In an industry where retention is perhaps one of the biggest challenges given the wide socio economic
as well as cultural factors prevalent in India, it has not been easy for Srinivas Rao K, Head - Human
Resources, who comments We are an organization which looks for individuals with domain specific
knowledge. There is challenge sometimes to find people who have both, the professional knowledge
along with the analytical bent of mind we look for. This may be due to paucity of workforce in the
market. Retention is a most challenging task across the industry. However, SAS as an organization
believes talent retention is one of the key instruments for our business success. Hence it is important for
us to provide a work environment that breeds a result driven culture, mutual respect and
empowerment.
We quiz Sen and Rao to know more about their organizations way of functioning and the reason behind
their success.

SAS India strongly emphasises on employee learning and development, how do you ensure that it is a
continuous process with no stagnation?

Sudipta Sen: Rightly said, the process of learning and development is continuous and ongoing; we at SAS
India believe that this is critical to our success. Learning needs to be not only in the functional areas but
also to develop soft skills of our associates. We have trainings in house as well as outsourced to keep up
to date with the latest industry practices. We receive a lot of inputs from our headquarters as well as
locally to certify the same.

According to you what are the top three reasons for your organization to be a great workplace?

Sudipta Sen: One of the primary reasons for our organization to be a great workplace would be mutual
respect for each other, regardless of the position held in the company. We do not have a typical
manager-subordinate relationship prevalent in our company. We hold each others decisions and
opinions in high esteem. Secondly, we truly believe in empowerment. Employees are encouraged to
make their decisions which are then supported by us; this gives them a feeling of exuberance and the
will to perform better. The third reason is that we believe in a result driven culture. We are not stringent
regarding work hours or time; the focal point revolves around the outcome.

What initiatives does your organization take to ensure work-life balance?

Srinivas Rao K: I can categorize the attempts made by us in four parts, first being our flexible work hours.
An employee is given freedom to choose his/her work hours as long as the performance is delivered.
Secondly, we have work from home arrangements. Thirdly, the assistance programmes like counselling
for employees, employee concierge services etc, that we provide. And lastly, employees also get an
option of reimbursement of child day care facilities, which proves beneficial to many of our associates.