Originally based in India, HCL Technologies is a large international company providing digital business solutions in fifty-two countries worldwide. The uniqueness of this organization lies in the enterprise structure, which includes a focus on innovation, introduces the patented concept of ideapreneurship, and places talent at the center of the most valuable resources (HCL Technologies, 2022a). HCL’s strategy reflects a three-pronged development and service approach that provides growth opportunities for enterprise customers and a sustainable revenue growth plan with loyal customers (HCL Technologies, 2022b). The emphasis on human resources realizes the scientific and applied potential in implementing technology in, for instance, the doctor-patient relationship in medicine (HCL Technologies, 2022c). In this regard, HCL Technologies is of interest from the point of view of talent management methods, the policy of which is one of the determining success factors for several reasons, which will be presented in this paper.
Company Overview
This company was founded in 1976, and over time its enterprises have diversified into various industries, where the use of information and technology products was born, one of which was HCL TalentCare. The creation of subsidiaries and the absorption of potential competitors accompanied the organization throughout its existence and made it possible to remain a leader in its market. Such horizontal diversification has contributed to a deeper approach to each of the business industries where HSL provides its services, starting with medicine, and the expansion of capabilities in automation and other promising areas of information technology has influenced the international presence, significantly expanding the geography of the company. On this basis, it has become easier to implement the development history, create advanced and flexible products, and adapt technologies to market requirements.
The organization entered the international arena in 1991 and, since 2008, began a series of acquisitions of companies worldwide in the automation, SAP, CRM, and many other information technology services industries (HCL Technologies, 2022a). Now the company’s activities include various services for servicing information entities in the energy, manufacturing, retail, banking, and many others. The activities for clients are also widely diversified: from primary and effective services for the most common business processes in these areas, through analytics, security, and the Internet of things, to the creation of unique products for the needs of the company (HCL Technologies, 2022b). The company’s positioning in the market can be considered in terms of breadth of capabilities and completeness of vision: in this case, HCL is recognized as a leader in this field, as seen in Figure 1.
The success of the company can be traced for several reasons. The first of these is reflected in the financial performance of HCL: from year to year, the critical indicators of liquidity, relevance, and market value of the company are growing, along with revenue at a high rate, as can be seen in table 1. The organization increases revenue and optimizes processes, reducing costs to produce more products, which shows the gross profit. Only return on equity, and EBIT margin indicators demonstrate negative dynamics. However, ROE may decrease if the company invests heavily in its development, while the EBIT margin reflects a lower operating income growth rate relative to total revenue (Utami, 2020). The second reason lies in the value creation model: HCL is constantly working on innovation, technology adoption, and international expansion through investments in partner ecosystems in all promising areas of IT, including blockchain, AI, and cloud computing (HCL Technologies, 2022a). Accordingly, the path to such success at the international level is dictated by some specific management factors that shaped these results.
Table 1. Key Financial Metrics
Way to Success
First of all, HCL owes its own patented ideapreneurship approach, which is the basis of the company’s strategy. The methodology of each employee’s ability to contribute ideas for improvement is not new; however, it is in this company that it has been brought up and structured at the highest level. Modular idea platforms include four areas: customer, workflow, business innovation, and actionable (HCL Technologies, 2022f). Employees have the opportunity to submit an idea, which will automatically be shared and available in each of the fifty-two countries where the company operates. Periodic rewards have been introduced to motivate, and exceptionally memorable stories are posted on the HCL website (HCL Technologies, 2022f). As a result, the company has a strong base of talent, each of which can test their idea globally with instant speed. The best reflection of the method’s effectiveness is financial indicators, but there is also scientific evidence of high levels of employee satisfaction (Kumari et al., 2019). Figure 2 reflects the reasons why HCL respondents value the company.
In addition to ideapreneurship, the company’s success has been driven by a broad diversification of enterprises, carried out almost from the beginning of the company’s history. The emphasis on hardware at the start of the journey gave HCL Technologies the necessary experience to create excellent and effective software in the future. The distribution of functions to subsidiaries immediately included the spin-off of a separate research and development enterprise in 1991, which was a pivotal decision to maintain innovation policy (HCL Technologies, 2022a). After that, another essential step is highlighted by another aspect of value creation for economic efficiency: entering the global market. Acquisitions are taking place in countries including the African continent, the US, and Europe, and partnerships with companies such as Google, Dell, and Temenos pave the way for integrated systems that benefit multi-sector customers (Sudharshan Prabhu & Vaikunth Pai, 2018). Therefore, talent management under the ideapreneurship brand and the proper development strategy at the organizational level are the main success factors of HCL Technologies.
Talent Management
Talent management is becoming increasingly complex every year, which must consider a wide range of aspects necessary for its high-quality application. Career prospects, salaries, and various social benefits can serve as the basis for recruiting motivation, but they are no longer enough for modern requirements. Consequently, the company must offer a supportive physical environment, social responsibility code, sustainability blueprint, mission, and vision for job applicants to ensure critical messages resonate (Kravariti & Johnston, 2020). HCL Technologies is working on each of these points, even establishing an extraordinary venture HCL TalentCare, which will later merge with HCL Training & Staffing Services (Sudharshan Prabhu & Vaikunth Pai, 2018). The company’s sustainable development is ensured by compliance with the requirements of social and environmental responsibility (HCL Technologies, 2022g). The study above confirms that a large proportion of employees are satisfied with each of the aspects considered in Figure 2.
Ideapreneurship promotes employees’ severe involvement in the company’s processes at the most global level due to openness to ideas and transparency of the ideas themselves. Engagement, in turn, has a positive effect on job satisfaction, which is the key to success in efficiency (Riyanto et al., 2021; Storey et al., 2019). Given the rapid development of information technology, staying relevant is an essential factor in competitiveness. The speed and implementation of technologies in innovation policy are entirely consistent with the ideapreneurship approach, which positively affects the company’s development. The core of this technique is precisely people who contribute to the constant emergence of new ideas within the framework of their professional activities. The presence of a motivational component and a unique strategy affects the high competition for vacancies and a detailed approach to recruiting – the selection of the best specialists who are provided with training and development prospects (Kravariti & Johnston, 2020; Sudharshan Prabhu & Vaikunth Pai, 2018). This model’s consequence suggests rearranging the typical values in priorities: employees become higher than the client. If a company vouches for its professionalism and ethics and can provide operational performance and emotional well-being, then this approach is bound to succeed (Kravariti & Johnston, 2020). In the context of a constant race for highly qualified IT specialists, talent development becomes a factor in the company’s sustainable development, not only HCL.
In addition, another management practice is investing in talent. The support of the ideapreneurship module in the case of HCL Technologies, the implementation of the same approach in all four directions of the ideas channels, creates an exceptional basis for human supremacy over the system. The company actually contributes to the comprehensive development of each of its components in the form of operational functions of enterprises, while the development mechanism is precisely talents. In other words, incentives and awards within the framework of the approach are not the only items of expenditure on human resources: absolutely all expenses on ideapreneurship go precisely to professional development and various benefits to employees. The uniqueness of the method explains this fact: ideas are immediately patented for a particular employee, but at the same time, they become the property of the entire international company in every part of the world. It turns out that only fractions of a second can pass between the idea and the possibility of its implementation, and its author becomes a more significant employee of the company, which increases involvement, satisfaction, and efficiency.
Conclusion
HCL Technologies is a company that has been successfully operating for almost half a century in a rapidly changing market and, at the same time, constantly increasing revenue. The rapid development of technologies, sometimes completely changing the usual business processes, is not an obstacle to such a development of the company. Success can be seen in financial performance, breadth of social and environmental activities, geographic expansion, and a long history of sound management decisions and acquisitions. Such promising development is explained by the unique ideapreneurship approach, which is the reflection of talent management, and broad diversification of subsidiaries that provide the company with innovative solutions, necessary personnel, and core products in various business sectors. Human resources are the principal value of the organization and, as practice shows, provide the lion’s share of HCL Technologies’ success in the international arena, financial indicators and reputational aspect.
References
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