Bahwan CyberTek in 2017 and Beyond

By Robert Burgelman, Sheila Melvin
2017 | Case No. SM276 | Length 34 pgs.

Bahwan Cybertek (BCT) was an IP-enabled technology company founded in 1999 by Sheikah Hind Bahwan (Hind) and S. Durgaprasad (DP). Over the years, it had grown into a global provider of innovative software products and services and become a $242 million company with more than 2800 business and technology professionals. BCT was privately held, based in Chennai, India, with operations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. BCT had worked with more than 550 customers, including Fortune 500 companies, and delivered its innovative software solutions to companies in North America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

In 2016, BCT created a holding company for capitalizing on the great and growing amount of IP it had created. The move seemed a natural progression for the company. “From day one we were building our IP,” said Hind, “and that is why we are moving all our IP to the separate company, and that is the company that will go public or get investors: BCT Digital. It is already registered as a separate company. So now we need to restructure and move.”

One year later, in late 2017, BCT Digital had been established and BCT’s top management was considering the strategic and organizational challenges they confronted in further developing and leading the newly-formed company.

Learning Objective

The company founded by Sheikha Hind Bahwan and co-founder S. Durgaprasad is transitioning from a services delivery-orientation to a software product and intellectual property orientation. The case provides the opportunity to examine the strategic leadership challenges and opportunities associated with this transition and with developing a profitable global growth strategy to capitalize on it. To that end, the case also asks students to think about the ways in which the company should re-organize to pursue the new growth strategy.
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