Bev Modi was an entrepreneur who turned into an intrapreneur due to demands of the environment he worked in. Modi
was instrumental in formation of Ecly Ltd. (EL), a company that was established to manufacture and sell computing
devices. EL built personal computing kits amongst other computing devices which were initially hand built by Wizzy
Kiwanuka. As one of the founders of EL, Bev Modi stewarded the company as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from
1976 to 1980 before he was fired by the Board. He returned to EL five years later in the same capacity.
By the time of his death, in the year 2015, Modi had transformed EL, a company that was in a very weak financial
position into the most profitable technology company in the region. Modi practised pacesetting style of leadership and
many are the times he could be heard telling his employees to keep up. He rewarded his top 20% performers highly
while at the same time let go of the bottom 10% of the employees. This created a high intensity environment in the
organisation. Modi was a proponent of getting involved in the job of employees who were capable and competent.
Unlike founders of most technology companies, Modi had neither engineering experience nor business training. After
all, he dropped out of college after only one semester. During his first stint as the CEO of EL, Modi was just a figurehead. He was a CEO without real power since the company was run by other executives and investors. The lesson
he learnt after watching his replacement run down EL was to trust his own beliefs and values and completely disregard
the conventional views on how to run a company, including the traditional duties of a CEО.
Modi delegated a lot of his duties to members of his executive team, most notably his second in command and eventual
successor, Paul Rop. This enabled him to focus on what he was best at; creating products, recruitment of new staff and
marketing. In one of the many interviews with the media, Modi commented that he spent most of his time on forward
looking issues while his top executives assisted him with non-strategic assignments. In addition to being a strategist,
Modi was effective as a transformational leader.
Modi had a hands on approach to product design which was arguably the favourite part of his job. He often went to the
industrial design lab to spend time with the design team and would give his opinion and guidance on their prototypes.
Product review sessions took up most of his workday. He tested new products and gave imperative feedback to the
development team.
During his second tenure as the CEO of EL, the company experienced transformational change due to the implementation of guiding principles for change in the organisation as well as breakthrough in new technologies. Modi
was a leading change management proponent and he significantly contributed to EL's alteration of business model,
philosophy and business approach. As a transformational change agent, Modi introduced an executive development
program where prospective executives of EL were trained on interpreting their surroundings and reacting when their
power or safety was challenged. At EL, it was generally agreed that what differentiates leaders is not so much their
philosophy of leadership, their personality, or their style of management, rather, their internal "action logic" - how
leaders interpret their surroundings and react when their power or safety is challenged.
Required:
(a) (i) Bev Modi turned from an entrepreneur to an intrapreneur. In the context of the case, explain the term
"intrapreneur".
(ii) Before starting the business, Bev Modi and other founders had to generate a business idea which
resulted to manufacturing and selling of computing devices.
Examine six methods the founders might have used to generate the above business idea.
(b) In his second tenure as the CEO of EL, Bev Modi used the pacesetting leadership style to steer EL towards
achieving its goals.
Required:
(i) Explain the term "pacesetting leadership style".
(ii) Describe three prerequisites that had to have been put in place at EL for the pacesetting leadership
style to work well.
(c) Using five of Mintzberg's management roles, discuss how the managers of EL could improve their
performance.
(d) At EL, prospective executives went through an executive development program.
Examine six ways of leading and action logics that could have been included in the program's curriculum.
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