BAAN Culture - A Thriving Legacy

A company culture is often mentioned as an outcome of its business success .  The greater  the success  in terms of revenues and profits the higher is the tendency to  elevate its company culture.  Can the company culture survive the scrutiny of business success?  Can it outlive the original organisation and still exist in the minds and hearts of the people it nurtured.  Can it be carried to other organisations and still be talked about with pride? Can it make an impact on an individual outside work? Can it rally around and self-organise itself into a network?  

It does at times and that is when you feel like penning a testimonial, here is mine.

Picture this!  A small town in Netherlands having a software company with about 300 employees doing all its business locally.  One can imagine its founder thinking about expansion and seeking talent and innovation primarily in Europe or   in North America, surely not India and that too in the mid 80’s. Not many people had India on their map back then for software development. Yet the founder of Baan Company Mr Jan Baan thought differently, visited India in 1986 and could clearly sense its potential in software development.  

Quick to act, a short time later he deputed his dynamic VP of Business Development (Mr Kees Westerhuis) to visit India and forge partnerships for software development with emerging outsourcing firms. I am talking of 1987.  A new chapter began then in India’s young history of software outsourcing, this time not written by a big firm with lots of cash but a small yet visionary company from Netherlands called Baan, led by its founder and CEO Mr Jan Baan.  What others waited for to see clearly he could sense and wanted to seek and nurture.

My stars were perhaps in the right place. I got the opportunity along with a few colleagues to work in this initial phase of East meeting West for   software product development. This was when I got to meet many of my Dutch colleagues and also make many trips to Netherlands.  I got to experience the cultural amalgamation at close quarters.  Remember India was still not famous for its software industry back then and   only a few   Western companies were active in India. The challenge was even more as India had still not opened up its   economy. Risks were high, challenges many.

Working closely with Indian outsourcing firms the Dutch company began to see more strategic possibilities in India and took the plunge to set up its own subsidiary in 1989 in Mumbai.  

Making it work in terms of delivery was big challenge for all of us but I could feel the persevering   and stewardship leadership from the top to make it happen.   There was a strong belief in the long term potential of Indian software engineers.  This was   backed with the investments required to make people on both sides understand what it takes to overcome barriers of language, culture and expectations.  The wisdom of patience and acceptance of cultural differences was emphasised in tough times.    This laid the strong foundation for a deep understanding between India and Netherlands in the organisation and was led from the front by the CEO  Mr Jan Baan and supported more than ably by his trusted colleagues on both sides.

A deeper understanding of people and culture led to an increase in the scope and scale of the Indian subsidiary in Mumbai.  We set up a CoE and were able to provide top notch ERP consultants to serve the increasing demands of our global partners and customers   .  Soon we set up core product development and support functions in Mumbai.  Early 90’s we were one of the few companies which   could use its Indian subsidiary not as a cost centre but more as a strategic force multiplier for its global business. 

Working closely with my Dutch colleagues, was a unique experience. I noticed their deep passion for technology and products. They went deep into their respective areas and always talked about generic problems and solutions.  There was an important focus on modelling and architecture. Instead of bespoke solutions we had products that were able to meet diverse needs.  Releasing products to the market was a   critical process where we had to get so many things right and this was a great learning for all of us in India. Dutch colleagues who barely spoke English were open to share knowledge and coach their Indian counterparts, some of them often carrying their Dutch to English dictionaries with them.  This phase was crucial for there was a big gap then in understanding how to develop and implement   technology based products. Our Indian colleagues stepped up to this challenge and soon they took ownership of   several products.  The strategic intent of this venture was now being achieved in the early 90’s.

Our ERP products became very popular globally. Growth led to more demands on scaling the India operations. By mid-90’s we needed a new location to expand. The pioneering and risk taking culture of the company stood out once again when we decided on Hyderabad as our growth location. This was unusual at that time, for Bangalore was the obvious choice for many.  This was a bold decision. One that was taken because of a deep understanding of India. Taken by the senior leadership team of the company who travelled frequently to India and some who even relocated here for longer durations.  India by then was not anymore only a land of elephants and snake charmers and was seen as an emerging economy with its vast pool of talent and enterprise.

The government of Andhra Pradesh recognised this bold decision of the Baan Company and not only extended their full support but also based their marketing efforts on the famous words of Mr Jan Baan i.e. “I have bet my future on Hyderabad”.   We got off to a good start in 1995. Soon we had over 800 developers developing, maintaining and support old and new products, we had a global institute for training partners and employees on a massive scale.  We soon became one of the most sought after employers in this region and were able to attract a lot of talent to the company.  This was the original vision which now became a reality.

To support   this growth we needed larger office facilities.  A brief chat between me and my boss (Marcel Verhoeve - VP R&D) in Netherlands led to some very efficient straight through communication and soon this was discussed   with the EVP of R&D (Mr Laurens v.d Tang) and CEO. I did not expect such a quick response and was even more surprised to find that the CEO and the President were flying down to Hyderabad to discuss and decide.  The decision was quickly taken in late 1997 to have a campus in Hyderabad with significant investments.  This then was one of the largest private company investments in the city.   The speed of decision making really galvanised us in India to make it happen and the trust and support we received in the process of setting up the campus was perhaps the main reason we could do so quickly. By late 1999 the first phase of the campus called Vanenburg IT Park, was ready and occupied.  The management style here was   delegation and decentralisation.

Soon the Vanenburg IT Park in Hyderabad became one of the well-known landmarks in the Hyderabad IT industry.  When I look back at this, it was a great combined effort from our senior management in Netherlands and the India team, one that needed apart from competence a lot of understanding, trust, risk taking and vision.  Subsequently a lot of companies followed suit and we were the reference check for many of them.

Business subsequently hit turbulence. This was again a true test of the character and commitment of the company towards people. Downsizing happened in the most humane way and the process set us apart. The company helped the employees who were let go find jobs with other partners and in the process created a stronger bond with them. Many of them subsequently applied and joined back, remembering how they were treated during the process. Baan as a company was sold and another avatar of this culture was formed. Initially called Vanenburg this was later renamed to Cordys   headed by its founder and CEO Mr Jan Baan. A new business started and true to its product pedigree Cordys once again gained global attention as one of the leading BPMS and PAAS product vendor. It was another example of how a good company culture can create good products.

A lot more can be said about this journey, but when I put it all together  it was a great combination of  talented people in technology and product development working as one team,  envisioning  the future  , designing  innovative products and above all  forging  a bridge of deep trust and understanding  across the company . A lot could be achieved due to this, and a sum of these experiences at work can be termed as our company culture.

These experiences have changed me and made me look at people, business and products in a different way.  It has made me realise that it is the process that matters, success or failure is incidental.   I have learnt the importance of being able to spend time with people and try to understand them better. It’s important to create a culture of being open and transparent, one of integrity, innovation and initiative.  Good products will follow, the ones created by our team are still being used by several thousand companies worldwide and ex-colleagues with fond memories scattered all over the globe that still stay in touch.   The network is still strong and reflects the shared values in each of us. This is the legacy of the culture that was built and I can say this culture has survived the organisation that created it.

My Journey with a Visionary

“Guys ! Mr. Baan is coming to India in two weeks.” 

Once the announcement is made everyone knows what to do next. 
The teams become busy finishing and polishing the new features they are building; the product managers are preparing a demo script; the meeting room is booked for the Thursday and a full day demo session is planned for Mr. Jan Baan. Preparations are intense within the teams to articulate and position the work they have been doing in the best possible way. And the excitement is on ! We have been doing this for years and every engineer in the R&D centers both in India and The Netherlands will know what this means. 

I started one of the most stimulating and purposeful journeys of my life when I joined Baan in 1995 as a young engineer. After training for a whole 6 months in ERP concepts and Baan IV functionality, my batch mates and I got ready to develop the next version of Baan ERP. We started Baan V with a lot of excitement because the new release had a huge technology leap along with many advanced ERP solutions. The new tools version had innovative user interface capabilities and object oriented concepts introduced via a new data access layer (DAL). Baan Service modules were supposed to adapt the new tools capabilities first and I had the chance to be an early user of this great technology.

From the Hyderabad development center we were involved in developing many new modules of ERP with the guidance from the senior colleagues from The Netherlands. Learning was huge and being the first set of people who joined Hyderabad center we had to take a lot of ownership in understanding the concepts and delivering the ERP modules with quality. I was given the architect role and became responsible for all modules of Baan Service. We followed the then popular Baan Development Methodology which evolved internally with lot of best practices and standards. Team in India took the ownership of some of the ERP packages completely and it demonstrated the trust shown by the Baan management towards India. I had the opportunity to work in various capacities - as an engineer, an architect and also later as a Business Development Manager interacting with various sales units and customers in rolling out the Baan product world-wide. 

Two things that impressed me the most about Baan is the product vision and the work culture. On the product delivery side we were busy translating the vision into attractive solutions. Easy to implement and easy to use were the two key factors which drove Baan sales which in turn was the goal for the development teams. On the work culture front, Ramam practiced 'leadership with love' and Mr. Ramanathan was behind all the employee friendly policies. The Indian management paid special attention to create a trustful and friendly environment which was driven by some key principles of the CEO and  founder Mr. Jan Baan. The most profound ones, as I remember are:

• Ask for forgiveness instead of permission
• Focus on resolving the issue rather than finding out who did it
• Honesty and Integrity - the best policy

In every employee address he reinforces these key principles.

After working for 9+ years at Baan I had the opportunity to work more closely with Mr.Jan Baan on his next entrepreneurial journey, Cordys. That’s when I came to know first hand of his visionary ideas and saw the fire in him for creating new products and solutions . The first assignment he gave to me was to develop a solution based on the utility computing principles. Now it is popularly known as cloud computing with many variations and classifications like SaaS, PaaS, APaas, IaaS etc. We started with a very small team and the goal of the team was to create an attractive solution which can be consumed via the internet in a subscription model. We first attempted an application for approval and soon realised that we had to develop a framework which will have the ability to model an approval application. We had many demonstrations to Mr.Baan during his India visits. As a team we always put our goal to make the next big jump in our solution before his next visit. Within a year and with a small team we created an App Modeler which had the possibility to create simple workflow applications in the cloud.

The motivation and support that we received from Mr. Jan Baan was tremendous. Every meeting with him paved way for bringing new elements into our solution. He constantly challenged us with his views and ideas which resulted in growing the solution into a very attractive one. I had found it hard many times to comprehend his thoughts and translate them as features in the product. He was always many steps ahead. He was continuously showcasing the solution to several new audiences and bringing in new ideas and opportunities.

We demonstrated to many prospects & partners including the likes of Webex, British Telecom, KPN etc and the discussions were rewarding and motivating. Finally this utility computing initiative became the platform as a service (PaaS) solution of Cordys which was named Cordys Process Factory - a simple web based solution to model your workflow applications. It came with inbuilt multi-tenancy and a multi-tenant data store.

Mr. Baan took it to Forrester and they ranked the product next to force.com. We won a major deal at Valeo for this solution. More than 1000 workflow applications went live on this platform and they did an enterprise wide implementation with 30000 user on this platform. It was a story how Mr. Baan nurtured a team with a lot of support, encouragement and direction to create something special. I think It was not new for him as he had done it already many times. But for me it was a first and was most gratifying.

All nice stories don’t have a happy ending. Mr. Jan Baan had to stop this initiative despite the big customer win and analyst rankings as the Cordys Board decided to consolidate and focus on its core offering in tough market conditions..

A true entrepreneur never stops trying. I am fortunate to continue with him in his next endeavour Vanenburg Software where we continue to build innovative solutions. Mr. Baan has gone a step ahead in his interest to build products, by offering Innovation as a service. Many startup initiatives from the Netherlands are using the team in Vanenburg Software to build new innovative solutions in the area of Cloud Computing, Mobile Applications, Internet of Things, Data as a Service, Machine to Machine communication, Electronic Invoicing etc.  His passion to build products and solutions has not stopped and he continues to search for ideas and solutions which will benefit enterprises for the next 10 -15 years.

One of the initiatives within Vanenburg Software which Mr.Baan is passionate about is Collabrr. The idea here is to offer a document based collaboration for enterprises where users can capture information as structured documents based on templates. Social collaborative features around this document provides new way of information sharing within and across the supply chain. Developing it as a cloud based solution with mobile access makes the offering accessible from anywhere. Adding a workflow component to this solution provides process automation on the documents. We started this initiative some years ago with a young team and for me history repeats to see how Mr. Baan creates another interesting solution with constant encouragement and guidance. Mr.Baan believes that the enterprise solutions for the future need to be focused on improving productivity and should be simple and easy to use and that we need to kill the complexity. A slogan he often repeats!

I consider myself lucky to work closely with him and to have all those meetings and interactions with him on his numerous India trips. His passion is contagious and it energizes us to make happen his vision and ideas. He ignites my thoughts and my learning has never stopped. In my career of 20 years I have only worked with Baan companies. I have not seen the outside world. But Baan World itself is quite big which can offer learnings for a lifetime. I will always cherish the companionship of the brilliant colleagues that I have met here and worked with. All these learnings and experiences have made me a better person and the journey enjoyable.

The Baan Way, Built to Last

It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it’s the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.   – David Allan Coe

On the 10^th of June 1996, on a very pleasant day and on the first day of my first job, little did I know that I was walking into an organization that would heavily influence and shape me into who I am today. In later years I would tell my friends that I was so lucky to miss the first two campus placement jobs, for I couldn’t have gotten into Baan otherwise. Baan was the #2 ERP software company at that time, second to SAP. Although the company was #2, Baan was considered a technically superior product and won the hearts and minds of several technical people across the globe. By the time I joined the company, Baan was already hugely successful and a billion-dollar global company. It would be no exaggeration to say that to date several thousand people are still benefiting from the company either directly or indirectly.

One of the main lessons we learnt at Baan is to not be afraid to make mistakes. Jan Baan, our CEO, is a personification of all the values we learnt at the company. He would encourage us to come out of the ‘Mother, may I?’ mindset and ask for forgiveness rather than permission. His belief, which he inculcated in everyone, is that every employee should feel empowered to innovate without the fear of failing or suppression. He encouraged us to take the initiative to innovate with an uncompromising integrity. This forms the core of the values we learnt and Jan coined the term – 3Is, for Initiative, Innovation and Integrity. Jan carried a lot of energy and a strong display of his passion towards the product and the people. In our employee meetings, he never showed any interest in discussing the ‘numbers’ like a typical CEO does.  Instead he imparted his immense amount of energy and his passion through his speeches, outlining a vision which brought a common sense of purpose among all of us. Therein lied the source of motivation for every employee in the organization, whatever job they might have been entrusted with.

The leaders he chose to represent him, Ramanathan, Ramam and several others around the world, carried the same set of values and integrity in building the company. Ramanathan and Ramam were successful in building a unique culture for Baan India that was not only compatible with the culture of our Dutch parent company, but also strongly laid on the foundation of the values that were believed by the entire company, thereby marching everyone to accomplish the common vision set by Jan. Ramanathan is highly regarded across the IT industry in Hyderabad for the values he cultivated in the Baan company, especially the high level of integrity. Ramam was the people person and built an immense sense of loyalty in the company, so much so that even after 16 years of separation we still feel that we are all together. Baan company taught us that our coworkers play an important role in the overall success, resulting in us helping each other instead of ‘competing’ with each other. This not only reflected in the message from the management but also in our performance appraisals. We were also taught that family forms an important part of an individual’s success. I distinctly remember a time when all employees received Diwali gifts which their family would be able to use than themselves – for example, I got a necklace which I gifted to my Mom, making her feel proud of me and the company I worked for.

I was lucky to work in another company Cordys, also founded by Jan Baan, helping companies build and automate business processes through an easy to use interface and connect various business applications prevalent in an enterprise. I could just see the same culture everywhere and immediately felt at home. It is at this company I found my career's best manager in Mahesh Bhatija, who was also from Baan roots. Jan was admired so much that he was always able to surround himself with great people like Theodoor, Jan Hasselman, Henk de Man, Jan-Dirk and several others, who were very loyal and shared a common vision and purpose. It was at Cordys, that I had the opportunity to interact directly with Jan to negotiate. In both cases he made the first move, made me feel extremely comfortable and played to win. He always believed in win-win and was never hesitant to take the risk first putting the other person at ease. I found this to be a very valuable lesson in later years when I found myself in a similar positions.

Jan is a great source of inspiration to many people and especially to entrepreneurs. He taught many valuable lessons to budding entrepreneurs and strongly believed in Aristotle’s saying that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” He forged partnerships that would together deliver value that each couldn’t have imagined to deliver on their own. His investments reflect his foresight on the technology that change the business processes in a meaningful way and willingness to risk a huge bet on what he believed in - a couple of examples being TopTier (acquired by SAP) and WebEx (acquired by Cisco). Jan believes in building the right culture among the people, giving the freedom to people to innovate, giving equal merit to every idea and letting it shine without any preconceived judgment. He would say money will always follow once you have the right company in place. His main principle of business is to find how to make your partners and customers win. These are lessons that are very abstract and hard to teach in a classroom. He lived them and showed us the results first hand.

Another thing that Jan was very passionate about is charity. He setup a foundation in India, that is helping several underprivileged children to gain education and a better quality of life. He encouraged every one to spare what little they can to uplift the society we lived in and he strongly believed in the saying 'sharing is caring'. I have seen ups and downs in Jan's investments and businesses, but haven't seen a slightest wither in his passion towards charity nor his contributions. He felt overjoyed whenever someone inquires about his foundation causing an inspiration to follow suit.

Jan has created a lasting impression of his values and culture on the IT industry, especially in India, which is deeply ingrained in thousands of professionals turned leaders, who are in turn taking this to the next level in shaping the industry and the people. Jan’s contributions are profound, impactful and inspirational to everyone he ever touched directly or indirectly. The Baan Way, I can say for sure, is built to last.

Jan Baan - A Man of unbridled Vision, Passion and Compassion

The First Meeting: In mid-1999, more than a 100 of us joined the Baan Company. All of us campus recruited, just out of college, with lots of ambitions, raring to do something big.

Within a month of joining, we came to know that the CEO of the organization was going to visit our Hyderabad office and we will have an opportunity to listen to him during the employee meet. At that time, Baan being a billion dollar company and a top global player in ERP, we couldn’t wait to get a glimpse of its CEO and listen on how he wanted to take the company closer to #1. One of the topmost CEOs in the world, it would be a privilege to even see such a person from a far distance from the stage. We were literally counting our days to the event.

On that day, we were in for a surprise. We were informed that Mr Jan Baan would apart from the employee meeting, will also have an hour long special meeting for the freshers. “Oh wow !!” we thought, more than happy that we can see him twice !

When we went to the venue of the meeting in the company bus, we were dumb struck ! Mr Baan was standing at the entrance of the hotel, enthusiastically welcoming each of us with a warm hand-shake, a big smile, happiness written all over and a few words with each of us informing us how happy HE was that we have joined his Baan family !!

The hour long meeting was equally interesting, to say the least. He told us what is most important for him – the 3 “I”s – Integrity, Innovation, Initiative. With the 3 “I”s as the foundation, he gave us many advices and set rules for life:

• Very important to enjoy what we are doing. Else, stop doing it!
• Learn and never stop learning. Each year see if your knowledge is much higher than the previous year.
• Don’t ask for permission. Instead ask for forgiveness.
• Family is the most important aspect of our lives – don’t be a workaholic and remember to spend quality time with family every day/week.
• Its OK and nothing wrong to be #2 in the market !! Don’t take too much pressure to be #1, because, then you stop enjoying what you are doing.

We were only freshers, but we knew that we were looking at a totally different CEO who was not looking at things in $$$$ and discussing just revenues. We were looking at a person who was interested in each of our development, growth and well-being. Lot of people can communicate, but only a few connect. With his down-to-earth and genuineness, he had connected with each of us. We went into the meeting to meet the CEO of the company, and returned back meeting a great leader and a hero for whom people wanted to work for.

The famous 'Baan Culture': Working at Baan was one that was filled with respect for every individual, where fairness of treatment was very core in each and every aspect. It created an environment which was very friendly and trustful, nurtured talent,  brought out the best in people and created openness where the most junior of employees can meet any of his team mates or senior management with equal ease, discuss any topic and brainstorm any ideas.

In 10 years at Baan, I have never encountered anyone having “Monday morning” blues!! It was a place where people enjoyed their work. It was a place where people simply loved to come every morning.

Its hard to define what really is ‘Baan Culture’, but in brief, it was the essence of the above. If any Baanite is asked what his first thoughts on working at Baan, it would be the fond memories of the ‘Baan Culture’. This culture was directly a result of the consistent messages of Mr Baan and what he strongly believed, preached and followed.

Innovate. Share: This environment of enjoying the job, integrity, trust, openness, expecting initiatives, responsibility and accountability created the perfect settings where people could be very productive and come up with lots of ideas and work on them. Ideas were most welcome and encouraged and were one of the reasons why there were so many innovations happening in any of Mr Baan’s initiatives.

In the 1970s, Baan created the Baan 3G/4G technology – a platform independent, Rapid development technology layer for building ERP apps. It was such an innovative and productive technology that the modern tools such as Java and .Net will pale in comparison.

Innovations never stopped in the next 4 decades. Over the years, Baan / Cordys / Vanenburg Software were filled with dozens of innovations and it was all the push of Mr Baan and his visionary thinking. In meeting after meeting, he would discuss ideas with various teams, see internal demos of innovations, and not only encourage and provide constructive feedback but also teach and share his perspectives on what is happening around the world now and what will be useful in the future. Nothing interests Mr Baan more than seeing innovations. His passion towards innovation was unbridled.

When I joined Cordys in 2009 (from Baan), the product Cordys Process Factory (CPF) was already well in shape. It was a platform to build and run workflow applications on the public cloud. It was in already in development since 2005-06 and was the coming from Mr Baan’s vision of having workflow solutions on the cloud. Only that, at that time, the term “cloud” or the cloud concept itself was not yet known in the IT industry! Later, as the Product Manager for CPF, I had the good opportunity of showing it to many prospects globally. At Korean Telecom, Fujitsu Japan, Google Developer IO, Dubai Expo, Valeo France, several large IT vendors at Banglore, Mumbai and many more. It was when most companies where still on the drawing board on how to leaverage the cloud !! At each place the product was given demo, it enthralled the audience, because of what it could already achieve on the cloud and its advanced level in handling things in a purely public cloud, multi-tenant, self-service offering.  Clearly, it was years ahead of the competition and the market.

Within CPF, there were several components which were very innovative and ‘patentable’. We had to go thru dozens of patents of competitors to make sure that we were not infringing on any of them. But Mr Baan never encouraged us to patent our in-house innovations. He used to always say that thru innovations we have gained knowledge. And knowledge has to be shared and not protected thru patents! A CEO who has spent millions in fostering innovations didn’t want to keep its fruits for himself. He wanted everyone to know about it and use it and benefit from it!

His support for students and freshmen were equally enthralling. He encouraged us to visit colleges and universities and spread the knowledge actively. He happily sponsored several advanced labs at colleges and entered into programs where employees from VS will regularly have knowledge sharing sessions with the professors, PhD and engineering students on the latest topics and innovations. The colleges and universities showed enthusiastic participation and gained immense knowledge from those programs – all of it sponsored by Mr Baan due to his passion of sharing knowledge.

Family: I have had the great opportunity of listening to Mr Baan in the last 16 years - at employee meets, during team meetings, demo sessions, lunch and dinners.  His messages have always been consistently same as our first meeting. Employee and their family well-being have been at the core of Mr Baan’s concerns. Everything else was next.

Few years back, my wife had lost her cousin brother in a tragic road accident and I had applied leave to attend the funeral. Within hours, Mr Baan had come to know of it, and he had written a long mail conveying his condolences and asking me and wife to remain strong. He narrated his personal experiences as well and guided us on how on to keep the perspectives in troubled times. It meant so much to me and my wife at that moment. He called up a few days later to know how we were doing and during his next visits also used to enquire about how my wife was coping up. 

Within our family, we discuss what Mr Baan advises during our various meetings and my parents have always had high regards for him and his messages. Periodically they check with me to know if I am making my best possible contributions to Mr Baan’s organization. Their connect and affection for Mr Baan is so much, that probably there is more pressure on me from my family to perform well for the organization than even what expectations are set by the organization!

Loving every bit of it: Knowing Mr Baan over the years has been one of the most satisfying, motivating and learning experiences. It’s difficult to meet another person who is a globally respected IT leader, having such a far-sighted vision, so much passion for innovation and new ideas, yet down-to-earth, one who is genuinely interested in the well-being of employees and wants to share all the learning and knowledge. 

I had the good opportunity of joining a “Mr Jan Baan” company for the third time (Baan Info, Cordys, Vanenburg Software) and I am loving every bit of it.

The Banyan that is Baan

The name BaaN entered my life as a light in a dark auditorium. I was a wide eyed student listening to the placement pitch from a new company with a very foreign sounding name. For unknown reasons it had made an impact deep inside me, stepping out of the auditorium I told my wife to be "This is my Company!". Destiny also seemed to have had the same decision and I was one among the chosen few to be selected by BaaN. Little did I know at that time that BaaN is the foundry which is going to shape my ethics, principles, believes, skills, dreams... in short shape me as a person for 12 whole years!

In ancient Indian way of life, we believed in a unique educational system of “Gurukul”, coincidentally this was also the name of the training hall of BaaN development center in India. This cultural handshake was forged by Mr. Ramanathan Subramanian, the guru from whom I learnt how a leader should be rooted in culture and compassion.

A key to a successful company is rooted in the people who imbibe its principles and in turn incubate every new member with the same principles. Ms. Agalya Kitherian is an embodiment of that person, the guru from whom I learnt steel like loyalty in leadership towards both the company and her own team.

Extreme passion is the source of energy that turns raw skills into product of value. I was fortunate to be tutored by a guru of this extreme passion towards products born out of one’s skills - Mr. Theodoor van Donge

There was one common thread which stringed all my three gurus and that was that they were chosen disciples of Mr. Jan Baan. I realized that the name which entered my life as a light had an extraordinary person behind it. Throughout my career, I had been fascinated by Mr. Baan and what he has created. An inspiration for so many capable people, a guiding force for many companies, an embodiment of energetic passion, a wizened master, the guru of my gurus!

In Indian tradition one of the most respected trees is the Banyan tree. A tree which spreads its mighty shade over a wide area and keeps spreading through its own vines which take root. A tree which spawns such strong vines and whose vines in turn form an ever stronger tree. The tree is respected for it embodies strength, virtue, charity and immortal legacy. For all those who built their career through BaaN, Mr. Jan Baan is that mighty Banyan. I only hope that I can be a worthy vine which has spawned under his generous legacy.

My Roots

I started in Cordys as a Software Engineer and grew to be a product architect working on several technology layers and designing model driven systems for cloud computing, business process management and service oriented architecture.

At Cordys, the work culture was very very good.  All employees were treated equally and with respect.  Top performers were always appreciated, discussions were encouraged at workplace and there were many team building activities to bind the employees together. I enjoyed my work every bit and I got a number of opportunities to learn and contribute.

Jan Baan is a role model who has touched a lot of people. For the fortunate ones like me who got to work in his company, he stands so tall as an innovator, visionary and an icon who pushed people by example and purpose. I loved the way Mr Baan would push the bar forward every single time professionally and personally. I like his passion, his vision and dreams for a great product which can make a difference to the business community.

To me, Mr. Baan meant as much as my father meant to me. Soft at times, hard at time, always pushing and always helping. It was team work really, with a great driving force on the top. I cherish his every single visit to our campus guiding us through the journey, inspiring us with his little dreamy visions and sparkling eyes. My family loves him for all his support throughout my career. Most of the important events of my life wouldn’t have been possible without Mr. Baan. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Baan for whatever I could grasp and adapt from him.  

Even though we are not directly interacting with Mr. Jan Baan right now in OpenText, I still feel connected to him every single day, as I work on the Business Operations Platform. We still feel we carry his vision forward and feel gratitude for everything Mr. Baan gave us. Sometimes, we just sit and reflect why we are not associated with him anymore, which is very very unfortunate. Well, maybe everything happens for a reason. And whatever the reasons be, longing just brings us more close together. We cherish the memories, the learnings, the mistakes and the happy moments we always had with Cordys. Hope to meet and greet Mr Baan one day, and say all that needs to be said.

Cordys Days ... Most Empowering

My first day in Cordys was exciting and there was positive energy flowing all around me. It was my first job. Out of the 1500 candidates who attended, 13 candidates were finally shortlisted and I was one of the fortunate. I was impressed with the rigorous selection process.

In Cordys, every employee is treated equally. I had complete liberty to express my views and I was always made to feel like an indispensable part of the organization. It was an environment of trust and freedom that always kept employees motivated to do more. There was a passion for innovation and it was driven by the strong vision of Mr. Jan Baan, the autonomy given to the leader in-charge for driving innovation and a healthy work culture of satisfied and productive employees. Mr. Jan Baan is an excellent entrepreneur. He takes care of his company, product and employees very well and he fosters innovation. I very often refer to my family and friends that Cordys is the best company and I'm very proud and fortunate to be part of it.

The experience and learnings, I've gained in Cordys  puts me in forefront in most of the  discussions and the things that I do on a daily basis in my current job. I got many opportunities at Cordys, at the relevant time, when I was ready to take up the challenges. And I always did my best (of course, with the strong support from the team and leaders). Focus and the sense of usability (understanding user mind set) are the key things that I learnt which still keeps me in good stead in my role.

I’m proud to have been part of the team that has done successful roll out of the "Cordys Process Factory "at Valeo. This experience shaped me into a true professional that induced business sense in me and provided learnings to deal with tough situations. In short, I have to admit, what I'm today is due to all the learnings, I've had during my tenure at Cordys.

A Good Beginning

My first day at Cordys was very motivating and inspiring as I got an opportunity to see and listen to Mr.Baan's speech. He was in Hyderabad that day and was addressing the employees. I was surprised to see his energy level and how he interacted with all the engineers gathered there.  One of the motivating line from his speech I remember still is "Every cloud has a silver lining.” 

The culture in the company was friendly, one can reach anyone irrespective of which level they are and share ideas or problems one has. Ideas and thoughts were considered and given respect irrespective of the experience one has. I worked in the Cordys Process Factory team. I enjoyed the way we used have the discussions/brainstorming sessions on ideas/problems/requirements, which used to pump up the energy, motivation and provide a context for me. The sense of ownership on a component or product given to me always made me think, this is my product and my company. There was a positive environment (no politics, helping and encouraging each other) which was always supporting and motivating me at all the times. The most valued and practiced principles were: 

1. Sense of  ownership given to the employees

2. Freedom to share and discuss ideas/thoughts

3. Freedom to experiment ideas or concepts without fear of failure 

I got the opportunity to contribute and learn the entire product lifecycle for Cordys Process Factory from the early stage of development to early adopters, and then seeing real good customer in production like Valeo. And personally I could play various roles from individual contributor to leading a team and managing project and product release.  This exposure is now really helping me in my current role as Product Manager to take any decision or making right things in right way.

Mr.Baan always treated employees as family members or key stakeholders of the company.  Cordys respected the Indian culture, celebration of festivals or distribution of gifts & goodies on festive occasions. His personal touch like spending time with employee team meetings in watching demos and sharing his feedback and ideas around the demo, regular visits & sharing his vision, casual talks during dinner times with employees created a bond with company and made us think like it is our company not like we are working for salary. We always treated his success as our success and wished/hoped always that company should succeed.  These attributes are above all technical/statistical calculations (hikes and promotion  ...) which influenced the retention of employee. We often talk about this with friends and colleagues.

We really took the product as our own and gave our best to that and saw our growth also in the product (dreaming it will be a big success). Whenever we see Cordys Process Factory, feel happy and proud , every piece of functionality in the product makes me remember the way we discussed, debated and built, especially on UX part as we built it with so much care.

The most important thing that I learnt was to give importance to User Experience and to be practical at all times and think different. I chose Cordys from the four offers that I had in hand, as a fresher and now I feel proud and confident that I made the right decision to choose Cordys as my first company.

It All Started from Here...

Baan Company is where a world class, enterprise grade software was built. What could be a better place to start one's career than here? I was fortunate enough to be one. Having graduated with Electrical & Electronics specialization I didn't learn Software engineering as part of my academics. I learnt it in practice at Baan, building many releases of ERP products. Whatever I'm today is attributable to my first employer - Baan Info systems.

Talent acquisition & skills development were the foundation stones on which the company was built. High quality trainings with focus on organizational/individual development was one of the key practices here. I was trained on Software Engineering practices by SEI of Carnegie Mellon University. Had a face to face interaction with the Quality Guru Mr.Watts Humphrey himself. I attended many such short term trainings in our Company HQ in the Netherlands. Such an investment & exposure I could get here, early in my career. One can't deny the importance of it. Ever.

I was from the first batch of employees when Baan started the Hyderabad operations. I've seen the growth of these early adopters such as myself all along and also the colleagues who joined subsequently. The way the company was built itself was quite different. More than 90% of the hires were fresh from universities. The work environment was so vibrant and happening that even during weekends we used to hang around in office. People reluctantly leave on saturday night as Sundays were a strict no-no to work or business travel. The office would be locked down - literally.

This group grew to be leaders in various domains, architects, technical experts, functional experts etc., contributing in their own ways to the organization and themselves. I had my fair share being part of ground up development of "Service & Maintenance" package initially and moved on as one of the initial members of the Centre of Excellence. Had the opportunity to work with marquee customers such as KPN Telecom, Boeing, Snapon tools, and RollsRoyce - to name a few.

I experienced the best work culture while working for Baan (and later on at Cordys). A flat hierarchy with access to the top business leaders within the organization. Strong software engineering foundation & process was balanced well with innovation. Colleagues were considered as extended family members. Policies were employee friendly. 

Mr. Jan Baan is a dynamite with youngsters. He connects instantly with youngster through his sheer energy, enthusiasm and presentation. I've known him for a little over 20 years now and I've not seen him change even a little bit. I've read somewhere that "the greatest calling of leadership is to unleash the potential of others". Mr Baan has many such living examples. Many organizations are run by leaders today with his leadership style as undercurrent. He and his management team provided such a solid ground for career & individual growth. If he gets a nickel for every successful person (directly or indirectly because of him), he will be a million dollar richer :-). There are many org heads, entrepreneurs, free-lance consultants, CTOs and non-profit orgs that have leadership styles echoed from his personality.

Though I share my experience here, I'm confident that I voice out for many. Concepts that we built were just taken for granted (like multi-company, OS/DB independence, shell abstraction, character based debugger, VRC concept etc.) were path breaking which I realized much later. The space that was provided for freedom, down to earth attitude of the local & HQ management were all new which again could be compared only later when I moved to other organizations. Small yet strong, no boundaries yet disciplined, ascii based yet forward thinking - these were some of the incomprehensible combinations that proved to be a great learning ground for me. “Believe in your people and their free will can do a lot more than one can imagine” – I learnt this in my first company and it is worth following.  Anytime. Anywhere.

My Days with Mr.Baan

I’ve been a software enthusiast for over 3+ years during my college days, and that was the year of the bubble burst (2000). When people were moving in the other directions I went towards software for my own passion. I am a civil engineering graduate so getting through interviews was difficult too. But the one thing I had (apart from passion) was the courage to get what I “like”. Apr 19 was my last college day and I didn't get the job I liked so I’ve got myself a computer teaching job at one of the coaching centres. And then Vanenburg Business IT solutions came for the interviews on Apr 20, and I got selected. 10+ years later in Cordys (previously Vanenburg), I was offered a Support Head position and I took it with the same passion and courage that I had 10 years ago - because I know I do well wherever I am into, and also because now I have had a wealth of experience the company gave me.

I had a career that started as a documentation engineer, writing comments. The interests and the enthusiasm I showed didn't go unnoticed, and I was brought into Development organisation writing Visual Basic based installer. I released the 1st web version of the product I am supporting now (15 years later), not to mention the first query builder I wrote is from this company. I was a developer, a technical lead, an engineering lead - and then head of an organisation - the opportunities were all most enticing but over the period, I became humble, I was conscious and most importantly, I owned what I did - and all of these were due to the opportunities I got in here.

There are many memorable events - the best things were always there before you know it :-) One of the very few events that I can still remember is the CEO sitting next to us, patting my shoulder and encouraging me to talk about technology - how many companies promote or even provide such a face-to-face opportunity? When Mr. Baan’s appreciations always come unannounced, and in 2013 was an event which he was presiding when he suddenly made me stand up and told how great I am handling the Support organisation - this kind of appreciation, individual attention is not something you can expect from a CEO, and yet he knows me!

Mr. Baan is always straight-forward, from appreciation to correcting the mistakes - it always came straight from him; it was never filtered or altered. He did not manage things, not at least at the floor level - he lead people. He not only listens to your suggestions, but also ensures he tries and lets me know the outcome. He showed empathy to his employees, and always provided freedom, opportunities and ownership to everyone. Mr. Baan greatly respects an individual’s privacy - especially their family. Cordys had a culture of working only for 6 days, and taking break for 1 day which he considers a great need to connect to family and catch-up with themselves. This was even at a peak of having 200+ customers supported on a 24x7 basis.

People associate my personality to “leader”, not a “manager”. They respect my working style of connecting to each employee and asking the simple question “let me know if I can help you in any way”. I appreciate the individual when it comes to success, and in failure, I let the team own it (including the job of ensuring the individual knows his/her mistake). I realize the most important thing is to nurture talent. All of these qualities, some might say it as mine - were actually shaped up by the environment and the opportunities provided by it. And I am proud to say I learnt, experimented and later practiced all of this in Cordys. Everything I learnt in my professional career - most importantly everything I practiced in my professional life, came from here. It made me a leader that I am now, not just a manager.

The Untold Secret of Success

“For every complex problem in this world, there exists a simple solution. The secret to success is to have a passion to find that solution” – in a nutshell, this is what I learnt by working in Cordys.

Baan was my first Job. Being a mechanical engineering student, my software knowledge was negligible when I joined. My transformation into a BPM engine architect for Cordys within the next 10 years was only possible because the leadership team believed in me, allowed me to capitalize on my strengths while I continuously worked on the weakness to eradicate it. The culture encourages everyone to try new things. Failures were considered as learning steps. Trust and complete ownership was given. In Cordys, I learnt to be a leader instead of following in someone else footsteps. I was involved in the complete life-cycle of Luminous product development and BPM product suite development and this gives me immense satisfaction that I have produced something highly innovative and worthy in the global market.

I have learnt many things from Jan Baan who is the founder of Cordys. He is a real leader with whom I have interacted many times. I learnt the following lessons from him: Follow your passion, Wealth will follow you. There is really nothing called success and failure, it’s a perception. Only in failures we learn more. He says, ‘never measure your success with money’ and I like this very much and it has made a big impact in me. We talk about Mr.Jan Baan many times in our family and my family has a very high opinion of him. I am also proud to mention the role played by the then CTO of Cordys, Mr. Theodoor van Donge in shaping my professional carrier. He identified the talent in me and converted me into a fine machine from a raw casting.

The culture, the leadership team and the motivation given by them made me what I am today. What I am today is because of Cordys Company and I am proud of what I am today.

BaaN - Gave me 3 more eyes- Innovation, Integrity & Initiative

I arrived in Hyderabad on August 15, 1999 – incidentally the independence day of India.  I joined Baan Institute the next day. I was curious on what software development actually was.  My visualization had taken me so far to only imagine that software development was writing bunch of complex algorithms, but to do exactly what? I was nervous about the work.

The next 6 months was a dream run.  These 6 months of work in Baan, had changed me – No, but not exactly changed, it actually showed me the real world of computing. The view of an ERP that was given to me for 6 months still mesmerizes me with enough knowledge, kindles my curiosity and enthusiasm in addressing mission critical applications every day.  Baan Institute could be one of the best premier educational institutes of that time. While it helped to churn skilled professionals, it was a hot bed of research and intellectual debate. At one end we saw professors, leaders from defense sector, academicians, great programmers and the other end there were young minds from college working under some of the best industry leaders of our time.

Many times I was left puzzling because I struggled to see a bigger picture of an ERP with its depth and breadth for the first time. Like Mr. Baan says, every cloud has a silver lining, the very notion of a ‘Solve All’ ERP concept put one in an extreme state of thinking to connect the dots between every known touch point.

It is incredible that Mr. Jan Baan had seen the evolution in various business domains, predicted enterprise problems, started writing solutions for the problems of the millennium by connecting dots of these sitting in his desk in year 1975 and I am amazed by this vision and leadership.  The world of enterprise computing is indebted to his contribution as a key thinker and mover of 20th century enterprise computing.

One may think that Mr. Baan had a vision of about 30 years ahead while he started to build the world's Top #2 ERP. How wrong can we be!  I realized this in early 2000 when I had the opportunity to join the core team led by Master Architect Theodoor. I remember vividly the discussions on developing something using browser, running everything in a browser, doing everything in a web browser, what we call as the ‘cloud’, today.

It is just an overwhelming feeling that the vision of Mr. Jan Baan has been far ahead, and what he sees in the horizon of future could very well be several waves of evolution ahead which would happen over a century.

Joined just then, grappling with this huge ERP stuff, having No knowledge of internet domain, why the heck I was selected to work with the legendary team of creators to develop Cordys ? Call it luck, blessed or whatever.

Cordys was an incredible journey. In a hi-tech sector, predicting the evolution and staying ahead - is a dream. Mr. Baan did that for next 10 years  and gave opportunity to every one of us to be part of it.

One could see what Ray Kurzweil means when he says ‘As any technology becomes an information technology, it starts advancing exponentially’. The customer cases such as Embraer, Ertan Smart Metering, Interpay, Valeo, Google, Cisco, ING are evident proofs and it is a delight how  IT can enable a technology to grow multifold.

In Mr. Baan, I realize that technology   by itself is not a foundation.  Mr. Baan lived trust, respecting people, encouraging and motivating, supporting to overcome many mistakes and lived as human sponge absorbing so many things. This humaneness is the base I see behind Mr. Baan’s vision and he is one who understands the problems at micro and macro level.

I am deeply humbled by his gestures in meeting my family members, in giving an opportunity to stand together with him to talk to a great audience.  As a leader he went beyond professional boundary, and I saw my father was inspired by Mr. Baan and he was so happy to exchange ideas- A true leader beyond textbook definitions.

Every colleague of Baan or Cordys talks about its great culture, passion, innovation and many many things. True, it is a collective reflection of the persona of Mr. Baan.

It is a co-incidence that I arrived in Hyderabad on India Independence day to start my journey with Baan company, and when I look back, that day could very well be defined in my life for freedom of thoughts, innovation, experience and  to live curiously.

Thank you Mr. Baan.

The Model of Trust and Freedom - A Baan Legacy

One of the best things that happened to me in my life was knowing Mr. Jan Baan and working for him. I completed my engineering course and directly joined Baan Info Systems as a fresher. I had no understanding of the real world then. I was full of spirit and passion but was equally rigid, with a black and white view of things. There was so much for me to learn and Baan turned out to be my second school and the finest school at that.

The Baan School ran on Mr. Jan Baan’s principles and he taught us some of the best lessons.  The team in India loved and adored him.  He would visit us frequently, and talk with us, motivate us and give us guidance. “Don’t ask for permission, you can ask for forgiveness instead” - he would say. Simple words, but they were powerful and they set the crucial working culture, a culture that facilitated innovations in Baan and later in Cordys too. It liberated us, particularly in the Indian context, where we don’t often challenge our elder’s opinions openly and where, after college, we start treating managers like professors. Those words, “…you can ask for forgiveness instead”, gave us the necessary courage to take risks and to try new things at work.

Jan Baan interacting with students

In Baan and in Cordys, we followed some of the best leadership principles. The management team in India which was lead by Mr. Ramanathan, believed in recruiting and training fresh and young people and in giving them challenging tasks to prove themselves. Employees were encouraged to take initiatives. There were always opportunities for everyone in some area or other.  By means of grooming, challenging and mentoring, a top-notch engineering force, that excelled in product and solution development, was built from the ground up in both these companies. This approach benefited hundreds of engineers in India. To be trained by experts on the latest technologies and business solutions, in an accountable and friendly environment and later to be entrusted with big responsibilities, will certainly fire and motivate any individual and push them to strive for their best. It was the best way to inculcate passion, ownership and loyalty  in every employee.

During my years in Cordys, I had the good fortune to have Mr. Jan Baan as my mentor. The trust and respect he showed motivated me to execute several initiatives in a fruitful manner. I learnt many valuable lessons from him. During my moments of success, he would call me to congratulate; during the moments of despair he would call to encourage, help to get the right perspective and bring me back on board. When there were disagreements in the management team, he would always advice us to 'give more than to receive'. It was from him that I learnt to focus on the positives of people and work with it rather than obsessing with their negatives. While teaching me how to be flexible he also taught that it is OK to be 'black & white' when it comes to one's core principles.

Jan Baan inaugurating the Cordys Process Factory R&D center in Coimbatore

If the success of an entrepreneur is measured by the happiness and eagerness with which his employees work for him, then Jan Baan can be called a very successful person. He not only touched the hearts of the Indian team but there is an equal number of excellent dutch colleagues and people from around the globe who cherish their association with him and are ever willing to work with him again when there is a right opportunity.  

Many of my colleagues who started as freshers are now good leaders in other companies, or managing their own companies, trusting and mentoring teams and creating beautiful things. The same "Baan Culture" is carried forward in Vanenburg Software too. I believe that the legacy which Mr. Jan Baan would be leaving for us in India, is a model of trust and freedom, where young minds are nurtured and are provided with a fearless environment for innovation, so they can continuously grow and contribute.