Sitting in her corner seat at the Noida, India office, Sheetal’s job entailed; ensuring successful ticket query responses for a premier national retail client based in North America.In any other services organization, her key task and deliverable would be only to increase return orders and transactions.
A small spark one day encouraged her to go beyond, and suggest a shift in the customer life cycle management, and reduce packaging and delivery time of products from seven days to three. Her managers at HCL, and the customer lapped the idea.
The incremental change, brought around significant transformation - reduced return orders by 40%, saving multi-millions for the customer and an enhanced relationship for HCL Technologies.
Sheetal, and many like her are, slowly, but surely, contributing in our quest to becoming one of the world’s largest grassroots ideapreneurship - where everyday ideas, set a new business paradigm.
This is Sheetal’s story. And many like her (over 14,000 recorded ideating employees in the last year).
This is our story - The Employee at HCL Technologies.
Let us begin from a watershed moment at HCL Technologies’ transformational journey. It was the year 2005; we sat in a huddle waiting for possibly, another pep talk from our new CEO, Vineet Nayar.
It took us some time to grasp what was being said to us. This was no inspiration talk with growth chart PPT slides. Here was someone posing a challenge to us. What’s wrong? What’s wrong with your company? We were being challenged to think, to look within, look into the mirror, and look into the future, and confront the truth. Although, the company was growing at a healthy clip of about 30%, we were losing both market share and mind share. Our competitors were growing at 40% to 50% a year and the IT services industry was changing. And we were to ask the tough questions, and even fetch the tougher answers.
‘You can, stay put, and pray that someone will rescue you. Or you could leap – you hope – to safety.’
Here was the battleship, now in our control. Many of us young employees, then during those conversations, decided to leap. Leap into the future.
In-spite of an interim global recession, (where many of our contemporaries in other firms, were sinking in gloom), we, as a company (HCL Technologies) have grown more than four-fold since from US $ 976 mn in 2006, to become a more than $4 billion enterprise today, as on March 2012 by gaining market share against the competitors along the way.
How did this happen? No, it was not the CEO (as he would brashly admit), it was the collective passion of over 100 managers and 55,000 (growing in number, and today close to 85,000 of them) employees, who took the leap. We were part of a number of experiments. These were designed primarily, to get us employees to acknowledge the company’s need for positive change and then to empower and energize us to take the lead in making the change happen. We were, and often are, working, in an open, transparent, collaborative environment, which resembles that of a start-up. We have the license to ideate every-day, and the will to take assertive ownership of our ideas.
This start-spirit is not new, but has now been acclimatized institutionally at HCL Technologies.
In fact, going further back in history, at a time when India had a total of just 250 computers, Shiv Nadar, the founder of HCL, led a young team of eight who passionately believed in the growth of the IT industry. That entrepreneurial vision in 1976, born out of a Delhi “barsaati”, (akin to a Silicon Valley garage start-up in India), has resulted three and a half decades later into a global transformational technology enterprise, retaining one thing, the spirit of a start-up. Today, HCL is among India’s leading, and a recognized global Technology company; having 90000 employees worldwide, it provides IT consulting services to clients globally and has presence in 31 countries. Comprising two companies listed in India, HCL Technologies (www.hcltech.com) and HCL Infosystems (www.hclinfosystems.in).
(Note: this submission talks of the progressive innovation journey at HCL Technologies, and all data, information is relate to the same)
Employees First Customers Second (EFCS) has become the determining philosophy for us HCLites. And unlike many philosophies, this one is practiced, and entrenched in our DNA, it is our identity. By putting employees first, HCL Technologies has been able to activate the ‘value zone’. That’s the place that we frontline employees, exist or perform. That’s where we interact with the customers creating real value for them. And by putting us first, the company gives us the onus of responsibility to seek, initiate and grow new ways to create more value for customers, businesses and society. That’s some burden on our shoulders, but it’s worth it.
What is the Core Fundamental of a Business?
TO CREATE VALUE
Who's Creating The Value?
EMPLOYEES
So, what should be the role of Management?
ENTHUSE > ENCOURAGE > EMPOWER > EMPLOYEES TO CREATE VALUE
This sense of responsibility has triggered the innovation continuum at HCL Technologies which we shall talk of here. It has fired our imagination to think and ideate daily.
Here, innovation is not just an ivory tower initiative, (not that we don’t have our set of big thinking R&D trend followers and subject matter experts, but that’s not the core). The core is us. The employee innovators, who ideate in the real-time and in the “value zone,” embraced and inspired by the management. Every-day, we HCL employees work directly with customers’ employees to create solutions to customer problems, delivering IDEAS which enable collaborative, incremental change. It makes innovation an everyday habit. And, these every-day ideas - set a new business paradigm, with incremental gain.
So, just some proactive business thinking from Arpit,(who is no business school grad but a technology geek), changed the discounting patterns for a telecom customer helped save recurring losses worth $ 4 million.
In another instance, Kavita’s consumer insights (when her job is to program code!) helped a leading American financial services firm, serving the specialty military segment, to dramatically increase customer acquisition rates from 0.1 % to 15% within 3 months.
And lately, a bunch of us HCL employees, have developed a one stop solution that builds synergy between people, process and technology to deliver excellence in Hybrid Cloud Operations and Management.; which has become a business proposition for HCL, driven by employees.
These simple examples of proactive thinking, and implementation, are not big innovations, but everyday ideas creating intrapreneurial business value, for customers, and for HCL.
Here’s how it works.
Let us attempt to explain here how the ideapreneurship framework evolves, and how it has become an institutional culture. But let us submit first, that this is a work in progress. We are all trying, and believe we will get there, to become one of the world’s largest grassroots ideapreneurship. We will delve deeper into two of our key programs to showcase this in action and progressive measures.
It all starts with, what we have mentioned above, our belief in the core value systems enabled by the Employees First philosophy. There are four tenets to 'EFCS'.
- Mirror, Mirror, Confronting the Truth. That’s the shakeup call that Vineet gave us. What do you see beyond the mountains? And the correct answer is …we don’t know. But what we did know was something was wrong, and that we have to get some-where. We had to take that leap to get there.
- Using Transparency to Build Trust. By pushing the envelope of transparency - from open financial information, to the smart service desk of complaints, to 360 degree feedback to open and online planning processes, we began to believe in our management. Once we trusted them we were ready to jump.
- Invert the Organization Pyramid. By making support functions and executives accountable to us employees, rather than the other way round, we were dancing with the CEO. And taking ownership of change in our own hands. With power comes responsibility. Not only did this enhance the value, but also brought meaning and clarity to the structure.
- Recasting the Office of the CEO. This was the power-shift. The responsibility of change was now on us - we would ask and answer questions like the CEO. This increased the speed and quality of innovation and decision making at the value-zone.
As we internalized these values, gradually, we realized, that more often than not, change or value that we brought in had shifted its direction, from Management driven, Employee embraced to Employee driven, Management embraced ideas and initiatives. It was we who were now steering the ship. And something changed within us. Or rather, we were made that way, HCL had institutionalized that change. Brought it out. Made it into a behavior type, enabling Behavioral Patterns:
- Need to Seed, We are Anxious. Curious, indepndently seeking alternatives to the norm, generating and fostering ideas, that show incremental, progressive shift from the status quo
- Desire to Mentor, We are Ambitious. Aspiring to grow – enthusing, encouraging and guiding to up-skill talent, evolving ideas in scope towards implementation and garnering scale
- Commitment to Harvest, We are Real. Generating ideas to renew enterprise shift, bringing in measurable achievement orientation that recognizes and rewards entrepreneurial spirit
These behaviors help us deliver, both at an individual and organizational level. We have developed programs to support these behaviors at an institutional and decentralized level. Institutional level programs has five layers and are driven organizationally, while others through support, or at customer level. Let us showcase two of these main programs, run at the grassroots, and illustrate how they are ‘innovating innovation’ through a bottom-up approach at HCL Technologies.
Values - Behaviours - Programs - work in a virtuous cycle, building an ideas ecosystem emerging from the grass roots, making an organization of 90000 ideators. Not big innovation, but everyday innovation, collaborating with customers who prefer teams of maybe a 1000 ideators, everyone offering incremental business benefit rather than one big audacious promise. They gain more by $ 1 Million each in business impact from 1000 ideators Vs 1 program over 365 days which promises to have a billion $ impact on their business pain point, that may or may not suceed.
The institutional pyramid framework of ‘ideapreneurship’ thus creates an ideas ecosystem across the organization, working on FIVE multiple layers: at the base in the Value Creation Initiative, which functions as the interface between front line employees and customer stakeholders, followed by the Make a Difference Jamboree (MAD JAM) program which celebrates exemplary ideas implemented in the last calendar year.
Before we delve deeper into these two programs and how they have evolved. Here’s a snapshot of how the innovation continuum works here.
All this leading to outcomes outperforming competition, determining sustainable growth for HCL Technologies and enhanced value for customers.
Let us now talk about two breakthrough practices that complement each other to manifest this culture of innovation at HCL; The Value Creation (VC) initiative and MAD JAM
The Value Creation (VC) initiative provides a tool to manifest ideas at the intersection where we company employees interact with customer stakeholders; thus co-creating real value for customers. The need was to establish an enabling tool, which we employees could adopt to detail out our ideas and solutions.
The VC initiative is driven through a collaborative platform with the customer called the ‘Value Portal’. The Value Portal serves as the interface where we HCL employees can share ideas with customer employees, to create and co-create value.
To ensure a sustainable model, a Value Creation Council (VCC) is established as overarching body and enabling every HCL-Customer engagement which then governs the success of the initiative within their respective scope.
The Value Creation Council at HCL brings value creation ideas from the people who interact with the customers on a daily basis on the ground empowered with the right tools, framework and governance to make a difference. These employees have access to customer organization’s data (for decision making) and awareness of processes and hence are best equipped to suggest solutions that change the Status Quo. The Value Portal was developed, as a tool to support the Innovation framework (similar to what we are now referring to as the ideapreneurship framework).
The Value Portal is configured on a micro-site within HCL that can be accessed by all of us employees at HCL Technologies.
Innovation and ideas then become a part of our daily work life and not treated as a specific responsibility to be undertaken. Typically this initiative is rolled out with the purpose of getting ideas from the employees on the ground so as to address one of the following - can you do what you do faster, better or cheaper or a combination thereof?
Once the team gets into a habit of thinking how to add value to what they are doing, it automatically graduates to a higher level where collaboration between teams increase and they come together to address business issues/ concerns. Changes can be incremental or substantial. Let us narrate a few brief cases here.
Anirban, works at the helm of new technology. But somewhere within him is an ace marketer! A leading web browser’s self promoting application was configured within its own browser. He identified it. The market share of other browsers was high resulting in low impact on the end user thereby impacting advertising revenue for this one. Anirban suggested, we install HCL’s universal installer in all browsers to reach maximum user base. The simple solution, implemented in two months, had the browser show a higher annualized revenue of 4.7 million due to the enhance reach.
Jyotsna, is a technical support executive for a prominent home improvement company, but she could well be a systems specialist in business process improvement. The application team was facing technical back-up problem , where servers where getting backed up more than once which was not required resulting in maintenance cost of $1.5 million per month . Jyotsna, gave an innovative idea through the value portal to have a definitive scheduled structure for all the backups taken . The idea was approved by the customer and was then sent for implementation where all servers were moved to 1/10 scheduled , so that backup runs only once a day . A simple idea on process improvement helped the client to save $1.5 million which was wasted before due to duplication of backup jobs.
A few examples of both incremental and substantial cases driven through the Value Portal are attached.
(Refer Appendix II, Value Portal Images and Ideas)
These ideas are also made accessible across the organization through the same platform – Value Portal for others to get an understanding and probably replicate or get inspired. Top ideas are also shared in different forums and internal communication such as the VC Newsletter, Webinars.
(Refer Appendix II, Value Portal Images and Ideas)
Here’s how the Value Portal operates:
- Ideation stage: The generator keeps building on the idea. Once finalized, he submits for evaluation.
- Evaluation stage: The idea is evaluated by the reviewer, who by default is the Project Manager. Once reviewed it moves to the approver level, which typically comprises of account leadership. Once the approver approves and shares the idea with customer it needs to be approved by the customer. Once the idea is approved by the customer the team comes together to implement the idea which is called as the Creation stage
- Creation Stage: i.e. idea gets implemented. Here the idea generator has to upload a case study on the implemented idea. This is the proof of implementation that gets captured in the system.
- Assessment Stage: Post implementation, the ideas needs to get rated by the customer on the basis of quality, impact and value. This rating is the final step. Once the idea is rated, it is available on the portal for everyone to learn from.
Till now, at the portal Employees have generated more than 14000 ideas out of which 3000 ideas have been implemented.
As the Value portal began to spread, with time it was realized that the Value contributors are recognized and rewarded to motivate them to contribute and sustain the innovation momentum. The key was in associating inspiring rewards with this initiative.
This gave birth to the other key initiative; which forms the subsequent layer of the ideapreneurship framework.
Make a Difference JAMboree or MAD JAM is an American-Idol-style innovation competition in which teams of mostly young front-line employees present to a panel of judges solutions we have developed for customers. Taking the next leap from the VC initiative, these ideas are those which have already been implemented, and there is a visible proof of concept and testament of the scope of the idea.
The trigger for MAD JAM was felt from the need to reward ideators who were (or often were not) contributing to the Value Portal. A Reward & Recognition pilot in the first year brought to light the fact that more than REWARDS; organization wide RECOGNITION was what mattered as the key in keeping the momentum going. This created the need for developing of a central platform, MAD JAM.
Innovators/transformers who implemented ideas for customers are invited to come on board a centralized platform MAD JAM (MAKE A DIFFERENCE JAMboree) where they have the opportunity to recognized at an organizational level, mentored by senior leaders including the CEO and their innovations percolated to all HCLites.
However, MAD JAM opens its folds to implemented ideas anywhere in the organization, even outside the Value Portal construct. It also entertains any ideas that are implemented for customers but are not from value portal, which include ideas implemented by employees as and when demanded in the project or at times directly implemented without entering them into value portal. Ideas might come from the solution teams and practice groups or from the Intellectual Property Management Systems for any innovations that were not implemented for a particular customer but have benefited multiple customers.
MAD JAM set up in December 2010 came to being with the core thought that - ideas fuel change, progress, evolution and sometimes, revolutions. People who come up with such ideas are often called MAD. Make A Difference JAMboree or MAD JAM stands to celebrate this very MADness, this all-consuming passion to Make A Difference.
(Refer Appendix III - MAD JAM Images and Supporting Material)
We believed there are many transformer HCLites who have Made A Difference and need to come in the limelight. MAD JAM focuses on doing everything to make sure they and their MAD ideas are showcased to all HCLites. The program thus enhances the culture of innovation in the organization. MAD JAM is focused on celebrating Innovation i.e. recognizing and celebrating the innovations which have already been implemented during a calendar year and the Transformers who have made it possible.
Before MAD JAM these innovations were happening in different pockets but there was no single centralized platform to recognize them and bring the Innovators behind them in front of all HCLites.
MAD JAM is currently in its third year, gaining in popularity.
- First edition – MAD JAM 2011, for any ideas implemented before December 2010
- Second Edition – MAD JAM 2012, For any ideas implemented between 1st JAN 2011 to 31st DEC 2012
- Third edition – MAD JAM 2013, currently running.
The ideas of the 19 semifinalists in the most recent MAD JAM round – including the ultimate winner, a cloud computing management framework called MyCloud – have already generated more than $33 million in savings or new revenue for HCL customers.
MAD JAM 2012 Winning Idea: MyCloud from HCL Infrastructure Division
HCL MyCloud is a one stop solution that builds synergy between people, process and technology to deliver excellence in Hybrid Cloud Operations and Management. This intuitive Cloud Lifecycle Management Framework enables organizations to achieve improved service levels and reduce IT Costs, besides increasing visibility and control over underlying hybrid cloud environment. The HCL MyCloud solution framework is designed and built with features that address multiple aspects of hybrid cloud management including assessment, orchestration, provisioning, security and chargeback.
Innovators’ MAD idea 2012: Optimization Technique from HCL Engineering and R&D Services Division
A solution that reduces memory and throughput utilization for embedded safety critical systems. At an aerospace client’s engagement there was a sudden client need-driven change, which necessitated an increase in the hardware support requirement (to support the application required). This risked project cost as well as timelines. A solution, developed by HCL Engineering Team, helped bring back the requisite memory and throughput utilization to within safe margins – thereby saving the program from cost and schedule overruns. The aforesaid solution is generic and is applicable in all industries that involve embedded systems.
(Refer to Video Links about the Program and Idea Videos in Additional Materials)
Here’s how the program evolved and the modus operandi of its workings during the 2012 season:
- Phase 0 – The ground work – Structure and planning of the competition, the 1st edition of MAD JAM was sponsored by the marketing team. The plan was then shared with all the Business Unit Heads to seek their inputs, followed by support teams. With direct inputs from the business line heads a panel of senior business leaders was created in every LOB to evaluate the ideas received from their respective LOBs. This whole process took around 3 – 4 months.
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Phase 1 - Program Launch –The phase was opened with the 1st communication going out from Business Line heads to all the Employees through internal mails. Along with that all communication mediums inside the organization were utilized for that which include HCLs intranet “My HCL”, the newsletter “HCL Today”, mailers and physical events were held at various locations with the help of HR team.
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Phase 2: Idea Invite – Idea whitepapers (in a case-let format) were invited from HCLites across Business Lines for any innovative business solutions that were implemented in the calendar year 2011. A generic e-mail id was created for each of the LOBs to which the idea owners were asked to send in their completed templates (white papers). Invite phase was kept open for 1 month for all the LOBs. Based on a Business Line Heads ratings of these cases, 2/3 ideas from each Line of Business (LoB) moved to the second round.
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Phase 3: Film creation and Voting: The shortlisted ideas were now converted into easy to understand idea films collaboratively with Marketing and the Business Units. These films were then put to vote in front of all the HCLites through the Intranet portal in HCL which is MyHCL. Idea films from every LoB were streamed on the intranet for 1 week and were open to vote. The idea which received maximum votes was taken to the next round.
- Phase 4: MAD JAM FINALE – HCL INNOVATOR’s CONFERENCE. One idea from every LoB was taken to the FINALE. 8 ideas were showcased to the CEO, jury members, a panel of internal experts. The conference also provides enriching experience to the Innovators with sessions on Innovation, Business problem articulation etc from senior leaders in HCL. The CEO himself spent time with the idea teams to mentor them and help them in taking their idea to transformation.
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Idea teams are provided with 8 mins each; 5 mins to present their idea and 3 min for Q&A session with the jury. The final is attended by the top teams from every business line in HCL, the CEO, domain experts from within HCL to conduct sessions on Solution articulation & Innovation, Chief delivery officer, chief cost officer and chief human resource officer.
The jury members rate the idea on a set of parameters basis which the final MAD Idea is decided.
Also, Innovator’s present in the conference vote for their favorite idea out of the final entries. The idea that receives highest votes from the innovators is declared as the Innovator’s MAD idea of the year.
Composition of Jury
- Mr Prithvi Shergill, Chief Human Resources Officer
- Mr R. Vaidyanathan, Exec. Corp Vice President and Chief Cost Officer
- Mr Ram Krishna, Sr. Corp Vice President and Chief Delivery Officer
FINALE Composition:
3 sessions to add value to Innovators; on Articulating an Idea/solution, Innovation in IT, Go To Market strategy for an idea from senior leaders in HCL
The CEO took a mentorship session of 5 hours listening to the idea teams and sharing his inputs with them.
(Refer Appendix III, MAD JAM Images and Support - The Entry template and Evaluation rating sheets)
For us employees, MAD JAM in 2013 is making the next leap towards incubating the intraprenurial spirit and talent.
The Leap Forward – Idea Funding
MAD JAM is an integral part of the innovation engine in the organization. Business lines have realized the value in the initiative and are now taking charge of sponsoring MAD JAM. The second edition of the program was funded by the business lines and the amount has been doubled for the third edition which is running currently.
Not just that, the scale just got bigger in MAD JAM 2013 and the rewards have also got grander. Not only will the innovative ideas get recognition in MAD JAM 2013, they will also get funded. If an idea has made a big difference for HCL’s customers or for HCL, it can win at the MAD JAM Grand Finale. And if it has the potential to scale-up and create a big business impact for HCL, it can get funding for it from the MAD Venture Capitalist fund.
This is the direction and scope of ideapreneurship. A self-sustaining, self-inspired, innovation engine that drives us forward. A company of many incremental ideas, a company of many start ups.
We always knew, Ideas are everywhere, but often hidden in narrow lanes, desktops, hard-drives, and mostly somewhere in our minds. Both the Value Portal and MAD JAM attempt to do just that, seek and encourage ideas from the peripheries and the bunkers, and make ideation a daily part of our jobs, like checking mail.
For the Value Portal, one of the key challenges was to encourage various accounts to look at value creation as part of their job. This was overcome by defining an index, called the VC Index (Value Creation index) that was an indication on the culture and outcome (and extent) of innovation within the account. This was calculated and circulated monthly to keep the focus on innovation. In addition, larger accounts were given value targets as a percentage of revenue generated – in other words, a percentage of revenue generated had to be passed back to the customer as value created for them. This sense of competitiveness and urgency encouraged participation.
We also created a reward and recognition mechanism around this initiative which aimed at getting higher participation from the individuals as well as motivate the account to drive this continuously. The initiative got linked to HCL’s internal point based reward program called “Xtra Miles” and the employees and accounts were recognized through various platforms, right from internal communications to mementoes and certificates for individuals and trophy for the accounts.
At another level, the MAD JAM effort; faced a slightly different problem. Technology ideas were being judged by business folks. To evaluate the technical veracity and impact of the ideas, a panel of senior delivery leaders was created in each of the LOBs to evaluate ideas. This also helped the primary cause of encouraging participation from every quarter.
An optimal scale marketing effort complemented the initiative, events and road-shows organized in collaboration with team HR encouraging interest and finally drew participation.
There are several, challenges that still face us on the overarching ideapreneurship vision. There are challenges of scale, challenges of talent, challenges of acceptance to the norm. What lies beyond the mountains, we don’t know. But we know in many-many small ways we are trying to make a big difference. And slowly but steadily we will get there.
The VC Index is an important metric that was defined and used:
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Innovation Culture
- %age of ideas generated on average employee base
- %age of ideas processed internally (review / approval stage)
- %age of ideas implemented
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Business Impact
- %age of ideas implemeted at advanced zone
- %age actual revenues delivered as value for all customer shared ideas (YTD)
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Quality of Ideas
- % of ideas rated 3 and 4 star
Another metric that was used, is the total value generated.
We attempt to quantify each and every idea based on the value it generated for the customer. This is also vetted by the customer and only once the idea is implemented, the value gets recognized. The total value is summation of individual values associated with the ideas.
In the period July 2011 - June 2012, a total value of $48 million was generated and passed on to the customers.
Till now, at the portal Employees have generated more than 14000 ideas out of which 3000 ideas have been implemented , generating $130 Million of value, the portal impacts more than 400 customers by giving extra value to them over and above base value.
The MAD JAM program till date has been run twice and has received 647 innovative solutions ideas that were developed and implemented successfully at the customer end from of business lines across HCL. The solutions were explained in a case study format.
These 647 entries were then rated by a panel of business leaders on parameters ranging from revenue impact, innovation, and team work among others.
Basis the panel ratings and their own inputs Business Line heads shortlisted 2-3 ideas from their LOBs. Shortlisted ideas were converted into films and showcased to seek votes from fellow HCLites. In total 37 idea films (See Youtube links of winners as additional material) have been created till date for ideas across the business lines.
These films were screened across the organization with 43,000 HCLites voting for their favorite ideas on the company intranet. The idea with the maximum votes from each Line of Business made it to the Finale.
MAD JAM FINALE was organized as HCL INNOVATOR’S CONFERENCE in which final idea teams present their ideas to the jury consisting of the most senior leadership of HCL. Teams also present their ideas to the CEO during the mentoring session with him.
MAD JAM with its vision to celebrate the Innovators and recognize them has seen success at various levels with:
- Engaged 43000 HCLites
- Recognized 647 ideas from 1800 innovators
- Created 37 idea films
- Constituted panels of 70+ senior leaders not just to rate the ideas but mentor the idea teams
(Refer Appendix III - MAD JAM )
The overall, benefits of Ideapreneurship work at several levels. But the biggest achievement has been in the enterprise shift that it has been able achieve, giving HCL technologies, a competitive advantage by developing alternative propositions that have become sustainable solutions for our customers.
What gets measured gets done. Having an organization level framework helps in a consistent measurement which leads to positive results. So, here’s the five step mantra we have for you from our experiments in innovating innovation and making it a culture at HCL.
- Handout the License to Innovate – work on innovation bottom up, make every employee inspired & accountable to ideate and implement – through creating value system by inculcating behavioral change and by introducing programs that support these, evolve a system shift from the grassroots of the organization. Cause, that’s where the core value resides - in your employees.
- Facilitate Collaboration With the Customer – Let the customers tell you their business pain points, collaborate to innovate. The value portal scores maximum points with the customer because it goves them access and power to decide and reason with our ideas.
- Get the Infrastructure In Place– build sustainable platforms to facilitate co-creation and innovation, including the right technology and marketing support infrastructure. Make certain groups accountable for this infrastructure. For example, the Value Creation Council manages the Value Portal, the Marketing Team manages the MAD JAM award.
- Celebrate the Champions – do not forget to recognize the best in breeds in your organization. And plan to scale up and support in organization entrepreneurs. Allow them to take the risk, mentor them to perform better, and harvest the goods they deliver for organization change. If, possible develop a funding base to encourage ideas from Initiative to Finitiative!
- Do it Every-day! – Small is the new big.
Welcome the culture of ideapreneurship, let’s make it a new management movement!
The innovation framework has been developed by and for every employee at HCL Technologies
- Additional Material 1 - Ideapreneurship Pyramid
- Additional Material 2 - Value Portal
- Additional Material 3 - MAD JAM
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Links to You-tube Videos
- MAD JAM 2011 Program - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1VW1-fFoqc
- MAD Idea 2011 – (Jury Winner) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bTaqaVj-9E&list=PLDGgSXFgPJZmhXoDn7v68czjXZY8gp8d5&index=2
- Innovator’s MAD Idea 2011 – (People’s Choice) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBKhqdPNoJo&list=PLDGgSXFgPJZmhXoDn7v68czjXZY8gp8d5&index=5
Love, love, LOVE this story!!!
I am a big fan of intrapreneurship and this one hits not just innovation, structured approach to capture at all levels, celebration of shared knowledge but also embraces a cool delivery method that appeals to all generations of workers. Well done!!!
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The customer delight “WOW” is dependent on the quality of services provided. Customer doesn’t just buy Good services but also buy good feelings and solutions. In today's competitive edge customer not only buy services but they want to collaborate with a "Value Organization".
HCL's EFCS philosophy helps the customer in partnering with thought leadership of HCL. Value creation culture provided an extra mile to HCL’s customers.
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HCL has industrialized innovation by putting its employee first. Employee is at the forefront of any client engagement and by empowering them to think & ideate, clients benefit with innovation on the ground. This is truely a remarkable management philosophy to bring out the best from your employees.
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In HCL, Value Creation (VC) Portal has been an increasingly popular initiative amongst the employees encouraging them to log in ideas which result in substantial and measurable VALUE being delivered to the customer in the end. This helps the customer to perceive HCL as a business partner rather than merely being an outsourcing vendor!
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While new product, new market and market extension remain as the top 3 strategies for any enterprise, it's time to focus on a fourth pillar - getting the best out of an employee. And it's not a just a management theory but a financially critical decision as well which has an impact on the top line as well as bottom line. A significant investment of an enterprise goes into employees and leveraging their true potential is as much of a strategic move as any of the above mentioned options. It is in this domain that the idea of an ideapreneurship works brilliantly. Seeding, Nurturing and Harvesting of Grassroots Innovation stemming from the culture of keeping your employee first through value framework which includes tenets of Trust through Transparency, Looking at yourself in the mirror to realize the need for change, destroying the office of the CEO and so on have helped HCL run past the competition and survive tough economic times. It's about time enterprise start taking a notice and believe in the power of the single most strategic asset they own - the employee !
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Innovation creates wonders as this part of HCL EFCS philosophy.
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Innovation is always found at the roots of the organization! This is a great example of the nurturing capability that we should all aspire to!
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The 'WOW' Factor comes only through innovative ideas...! ‘Ideapreneurship’ leads to 'Entrepreneurship'...!
Mr. HCL born to throw ideas and to lead...! Kudos...! :-)
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Every employee has freedom to propose and implement their idea. Having such portals makes Transparency across org from bottom to top level. MAD JAM showed a wide surface for entrepreneurs to showcase their new ideas which is unique with HCL DNA.
MEME is an excellent innovation which breaks the traditional office culture and brings all employees together.
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In HCL, Value Creation portal really helps the employees to comeup with the innovative thoughts that - emerges out with positive changes, progressively evolving and sometimes leading to revolutions.
A future insight to the methods & processes with innovative aspects...!!
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Delivering beyond the written agenda - value as it used to be termed by outsourcing industry - is no longer an addition but a necessity now-a-days. The traditional methods of creating value are thus no longer relevant. Best practices are fast becoming a norm in this highly competitive industry. Thus there is a need to redefine value, something that I believe MADJAM mentioned above is trying to do. The need to co-create the idea (idea generation is a teamwork) and to take that idea to next level is increasingly being felt in the industry. It is a long journey and while "innovation days" concept may not work in service industry but MADJAM and Value Portal are trying to provide a apt substitute to the concept.
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When INNOVATIONS are not just confined to R&D centers and VALUE is not just from CORNER offices, it creates an infectious environment where everyone is wanting to do more! At HCL we think differently everyday and BE the change we want to see around us.
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Value is the way to show the maturity....today everyone wants value for anythign they do...In HCL we understand this thing well and well implemented to deliver the value to our customer..
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This has always been the uniqueness of HCL, every innovation / solution / idea that has evolved in HCL have always been a realistic and implementable one, which shows a direct contribution to the customer value chain. Kudos to HCL !!!!!
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In order to retain EE, EN business, it will give more confidence for the customer about HCL on the services aligning DOMAIN & Technology Strenghts. Climbing up in the ladder of Value Chain will become more consistent with more visibility to customers and also directly & indirectly provide pointers to HCL on where do we stand with respect to our services among the other Vendors.
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A perspective of HCL’s Ideapreneurship is also about co-creating newer possibilities and transformation for the customer. It enthuses and instigates employee entrepreneurship by providing every employee an opportunity to model new or improved customer outcomes. It also one of the forums where “Next Big Idea” as potential game changer shall unfold, not to forget these ideas originate from the transformer i.e “employees”. HCL being a 90,000 employee organization, such employee inclusive initiatives truly unwinds great potential. In way this is a reflection in what we belive at HCL. "HCL envisions creating a culture of innovation driven by its employees, bottom up".
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Successful organizations understand that the purpose of any business is to create value for customers and in HCL it is a Key Strategic Initiative...
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Value creation is all about striving to deliver more over a long period of time. HCL succeeded in sparking the Innovation and creative capabilities of its employees in value creation for its customers and organisation at large. What is key for success here is it ability to sustain momentum of idea creation and increase in Y-o-Y value delivery over last many years.
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At HCL, the focus on employees comes from the top and percolates down to all levels of the organization - ‘Employees First’ – HCL’s unique management philosophy. Value Creation has been a great driver in aligning the organisation strategy to execution. Value creation is imperative in today's business, but in HCL doing it consistently by inverting the Pyramid of responsibility is the amazing part where the Employees owns and Delivers the Value. I am glad to be part of team in nurturing the Ideapreneurship.
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In today's scenario.... Co -creation is the way forward to have long term business relationship .
We need to understand the customer pulse as well as need to explore innnovative ideas at individual employee level.
Value creation approach lead to create the uniqueness to the solution we deliver & ensure WOW from customer .This is now an institutionalised practice at HCL & surely adding value to our customer's business
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Yes. In the current scenario, customer is looking for value in every dollar that he spends. It is important for any organization to inculcate 'value' culture in every employees' mind. If 'value' needs to be created, it is very important to understand what 'value' means to you. This is very well done in HCL.
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This great initiative is required today to survive in current business. This gives complete satisfaction to both employee & customer. This will also help to grow new business by getting strong reference from a satisfied customer.
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This is a great example of harnessing the power of 50000 employees directly working on customer engagements for both incremental innovation as well as radical ideas. This has had a positive impact on both the employees whose ideas are being heard as well as the customer who can see value from each individual working as part of their extended team. Really proud to be part of the team managing this wonderful initiative.
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As a customer of HCL, I saw an interesting culture in contrast to some of the Indian origin companies we had worked with..A visit to the delivery centers with 50 consultants gave you a feeling of meeting 500..and vice-versa elsewhere...the licence to ideate, ask tough questions and challenge status quo seems to be genetic..and honestly..that's what makes me come once a quarter to get a reboot through straight talk..
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Had been reading HCL's MIX entry including some of the comments below. My simple response to which is - WOW!!
The idea of creating "ideapreneurs" is an amazing way to drive innovation inside an org. But I kept asking myself a simple question: who funds these programs?
It is intuitive to think that most such programs are funded top-down from a central team as it happens (perhaps) in many organizations.
But, lo behold! HCL's Ideapreneurship programs have actually begun to be funded by individual business units, starting this year, 2013.
What a stupendous achievement for this program in my opinion! In a way, more than any central team, its the individual business units who are seeing value in this program. Way to go!!
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an example of continuous value creation process....
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Grass-root innovation often carries the potential to transform the business of tomorrow. HCL has taken the initiative of encouraging and institutionalizing these innovative ideas. This speaks volumes about their people (employee) centric management philosophy. Truly, Democratic!
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In my opinion, one of the world's toughest challenges every management faces today is to bring out the best in every individual employee - "the individual enterprise", as they say.
Top-down mandates, reward & recognition, streamlined processes etcetera can only go so far. Unless something can be done to transform the individual enterprise at a grass-root level, no transformation can be considered to be complete & sustainable.
And it is here that Make A Difference JAMboree (MADJAM) hit the nail on its head by creating the world's largest "ideapreneurship" of sorts.
In essence a very simple concept, far removed from ivory-tower management thinking or high-placed b-school pedagogy, that brought about far-reaching changes at HCL when seen in aggregation.
Kudos!!!
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A very effective methodology adopted to bring value to customers and to keep them delighted at all times.
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perfect example of how a 'human' network can make a difference
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The MAD JAM initiative has created a revolution inside HCL by handing over the reins of innovation into the hands of the frontline employees
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Ideas-Small or big-One can be rest assured; would be heard & encouraged which lays down the foundation of innovation at HCL.
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HCL is a company that highlights the wonders of what a strong, innovative management philosophy can do for a company, in terms of growth, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. The facts speak for themselves in HCL's case.
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we understand all level of needs of our customers and to fulfill all the needs we use a approach of Value management framework which consist of Value creation Council, Mad Jam , Transformation Board/white space . we innovate on regular basis to give value added services to our customers .
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Nice!! No idea should go away without getting noticed as that small and everyday idea could be the game changer one!!!
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This is an excellent way to seed, nurture and harvest ideas in an organization.
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"Everyday ideas" is an amazing concept. It can (and has already done) do wonders!
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Yes, in the humdrum of everyday work, and the search for the big idea, we often forget the value we bring to the table with small incremental gains. Ever so often, I have felt that being valued here, small ideas that cumulatively account to so much more. As we often say and believe, a thousand ideas worth a million each value a lot more to you and your customer than one worth a billion (which may or may not succeed).
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I feel very proud to be an employee with HCL, they encourage employee to innovate and share their ideas in internal forum....
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Well!! they say INNOVATION is the key to CHANGE.. indeed, it truly is. :)
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