It may interest you to know that all man’s greatest achievements started off as questions. It was this single observation, single thought and single flow of electric impulse in the human brain that was used to spark various milestones throughout evolution. Each and every idea has its own value, and the ability to materialize this value into the real world is the skill set for the future. Harnessing this unique set of skills has been the achievement of an elite group of individuals at HCL Technologies known as Ideapreneurs.
HCL Technologies has flourished basing their company off this culture of “Ideapreneurship”. This giant in the field of technology has offered countless innovative digital solutions to businesses and ideas. Being around for decades, they have now grown into a network of over 153,000 such ideapreneurs based in more than 50 countries.
In today’s digital age, technologies such as analytics, automation and IoT play a crucial role in the success of businesses. Recognizing this, HCL knows where the future of enterprises lies; and have specialized their service into three major operational units – IT and Business, Engineering and R&D, and Products and Platforms. To date, HCL has filed more than 200 patents and receives its royalties through their Intellectual Property Monetization (IPM) program.
What makes HCL’s ideapreneurs unique?
HCL takes pride in its biggest assets – the ideapreneurs themselves. The success of HCL can be narrowed down to the direct interaction of its team of ideapreneurs with customers and their ideas. In doing so, the company has flipped the organizational pyramid and empowered their frontline employees; reaping the rewards in terms of the numerous globe-changing initiatives that HCL has helped facilitate as a result. By helping customers focus on their problems instead of solutions, the question-based strategy of HCL’s ideapreneurs has helped set the company on a pedestal like no other.
Here’s how a few of them have taken customer relationships beyond the basis of a contract:
● Anupam Anand (Project manager)
An American multinational software company was equipped with Anupam’s idea of a universal installer that latched onto customers’ web browsers and diverted traffic to the company’s search engine. Prior to this, the company was unable to seize multiple business opportunities that arose as a result of their search engine only being affiliated with their own web browser. In doing so, Anupam’s idea accelerated the company’s search engine performance and brought in a revenue of US$ 23 million.
● Rabia Sharma (Test lead)
Rabia was involved in helping a public listed New York company, which bought over a domain monitoring enterprise and needed to transform their existing desktop-based system into a web based one. Moreover, the client also expected the addition of new features to the old system. Rabia was able to reduce manual effort, allow easy validation of future enhancements and save many hours of work with the suggestion of automation tools like Selenium and Perl for their new system.
● Taranga Phukan (Senior Technical Manager)
A global printing products company approached Taranga with regard to assistance in creating new business services through a software led solutions. Taranga and his team had developed an accurate printer simulation that would enable the company to perform various tests prior to the procurement and installation of new physical printers, saving thousands of dollars in investment.
HCL’s global tools for success
We have now learned that HCL’s ideapreneurs are an integral cog in the company, and are the true drivers behind the company’s innovation. But how exactly do they operate? Two of the main strategies used by the company to push its employees to think outside the box are its Value Creation (VC) Initiative and MAD JAM.
The VC initiative provides a platform to help employees develop and improve their ideas through interaction with customer stakeholders, ensuring growth for both parties. The platform, known as the Value Portal, functions through a process of four key stages:
● Ideation: Each employee (also known as the idea generator) forms and develops and idea for evaluation.
● Evaluation: The project manager the reviews the idea and shares it with the customer. Following customer approval, the idea is passed to the next stage.
● Creation: The idea gets implemented and case study is uploaded to the portal by the idea generator.
● Assessment: Key attributes such as quality, impact, and value of the idea are evaluated by the customer post-implementation and is made available on the portal for anyone to learn.
In addition to this, the second approach by HCL to inspire innovation pits its young employees against one another in a competitive reality tv-show like environment known as Make A Difference Jamboree, or “MAD JAM”.
This reward and recognition initiative sparked an overflow of ideas from both within and outside the VC portal. MAD JAM opens doors to its young competitors by connecting them to professionals from some of the biggest companies in the respective country. Since the beginning of the initiative in 2010, MAD JAM has attracted the attention of sponsors and investors alike. For renditions following 2013, the winning idea has also received complete funding through a separate fund which had been set up as the MAD Venture Capitalist fund.
HCL in Sri Lanka
After enormous success overseas, HCL finally kicked off its operations in Colombo, Sri Lanka in March 2020. The company has big plans for the country, aiming to create over 1500 jobs throughout the next 12 months, ranging from school leavers to experienced professionals. Emphasizing on the “3C” key values from the global company, HCL Sri Lanka’s recruitments will have to demonstrate the courage to dream big, while collaborating to find solutions with utmost care to the environment.
As one of its first initiatives, HCL Sri Lanka together with ESOFT have developed a fee-based recruitment program, where school leavers undergo a 12-month training program, eventually leading to a trainee level software engineer or IT analyst position at the company. At this point, the student will be given the opportunity to pursue his undergraduate studies while being employed at HCL Sri Lanka.
Moreover, the company mimics the Employee First Customer Second (EFCS) principle that has played a crucial role in getting its parent to where it is today. This makes HCL Sri Lanka an ideal workplace for anyone looking to explore the field of entrepreneurship while maintaining job security and other perks of a traditional job. Hence, it’s now your turn to ask the questions, and get paid for it.
Do you have what it takes to join a team of idea movers? Are you ready to make changes that drive Sri Lanka forward? Are you ready to name yourself an IDEAPRENEUR? For more information, visit https://hclsrilank.com/career-opportunities/