HCL TECHNOLOGIES LTD.

HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company, working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses. Since its inception into the global landscape after its IPO in 1999, HCL focuses on 'transformational outsourcing', underlined by innovation and value creation, and offers integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and BPO. HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 19 countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Aerospace & Defense, Telecom, Retail & CPG, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, Travel,

Transportation & Logistics, Automotive, Government and Energies & Utilities. HCL takes pride in its philosophy of 'Employee First' which empowers our 52,714 transformers to create a real value for the customers. HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, had consolidated revenues of US$ 2.2 billion (Rs. 10,591 crores), as on 30th June 2009.HCL Enterprise is a $5 billion leading Global Technology and IT Enterprise that comprises two companies listed in India - HCL Technologies & HCL Infosystems. The 3-decade-old enterprise, founded in 1976, is one of India's original IT garage start-ups. Its range of offerings spans Product Engineering, Custom & Package Applications, BPO, IT Infrastructure Services, IT Hardware, Systems Integration, and distribution of ICT products. The HCL team comprises over 60,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate from 20 countries including 500 points of presence in India. HCL has global partnerships with several leading Fortune 1000 firms, including leading IT and Technology firms.

HCL Technologies is one of the leading global IT services, solutions and product engineering companies. The company's mission is to leverage its technology partnerships on a global scale to deliver cost effective engineering solutions of the highest quality for the emerging network centric world. As such, the company provides value-added, software engineering led IT solutions and services in the areas of e-commerce and Internet, as well as a gamut of Enterprise solutions to large and medium scale organizations, across the world.In order to address distinctive market needs, HCL Technologies has structured its offerings around its specialized skills and processes. Leveraging its unique technology development services, the company focuses on developing software components that are either embedded into or integral to the functioning of hardware. Its software product engineering services are targeted towards software companies and focus on designing and developing applications based on emerging technologies. HCL Technologies also offers high caliber networking services to large multinational corporations, helping them develop, create and maintain global networks. Global implementation and roll-out support for technology deployment are some of the other areas in which HCL Technologies has strengthened its suite of offerings and the company has progressively built on its core strengths to cater to emerging IT needs. Empowered by its exclusive “Off sourcing” methodology and a dedicated, world-class offshore infrastructure comprising 12 Technology Development facilities, HCL Technologies offers its customers the salient benefits of superior quality, a distinct time-to-market advantage and scalability.

VISION STATEMENT “Together we create the enterprises of tomorrow”

Vision of HCL Technologies is to participate in core business of various customers and not just being complacent with peripheral role. In doing so, it advocates, "engineering led innovative participation" which enables it in "adding value to the clients’ business". Overall, the co. pursues four key business strategies to accomplish its vision:

1. Front run emerging technologies. 2. Exploit multiple growth windows. 3. Balanced revenue mix. 4. Earnings led growth.

MISSION STATEMENT

"To provide world-class information technology solutions and services to enable our customers to serve their customers better”

Their quality policy is to deliver defect-free products, services and solutions to meet the requirements of our external and internal customers, the first time, every time"

Their management objective is to fuel initiative and foster activity by allowing individuals freedom of action and innovation in attaining defined objectives.

The people objective is to help people in HCL Infosystems Ltd. share in the company's successes, which they make possible; to provide job security based on their performance; to recognize their individual achievements; and help them gain a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from their work.

BUSINESS STRATEGIES

HCL Technologies consistent and strategic focus on 6 key operating strategies has led to a further strengthening of its position in the IT sector. The key operating strategies are as follows:

Emphasis on a strong management team :

The creation of a global advisory board and technology advisory board should help in improving their geographical and technological strategy, this would help them in the acquisition of emerging technologies.

The organizational structure fosters an entrepreneurial spirit.

Independent Audit, Compensation and Related Party Committees have been formed. Audit Committee, headed by ambassador, Richard Burt, has formulated guidelines for insider trading and best practices. Compensation committee, headed by Robin Abrams, has approved of an Employee Stock Option plan to cover 91 per cent of the employees.

They have a distinguished International Board of Directors. This international experience should be useful while making acquisitions.

Emphasis on front run emerging technologies :

The investment in Research and development (R & D) should provide accelerated growth.

9 per cent of their offshore manpower is dedicated to R & D. The company intends to add value to the customer's business rather than just

maintain systems. Thus there is greater potential for value based pricing. Their technology services continue to move up the value-chain. The company has placed an emphasis on Internet technologies development

with minimum exposure to dot coms.

Non-linear growth model :

This implies that the company seeks to push revenue/income further than the hours put in and supplement its organic growth through diverse avenues.

Joint ventures and strategic partnerships: The company's partnership with Perot Systems (50:50) has been a highly successful one. HCL Perot has a manpower of 1373 employees and has emerged as a leading outsourcing and systems integration company, with strengths in banking, energy, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing and telecommunications. HCL Perot added $ 4.1 million to the company's net profit during Q1 of FY2001. The company has also completed the acquisition and integration of Intelicent Inc. successfully.

Equity investments for value acquisition: HCL Tech is involved in developing cutting edge technologies along with some smaller companies, and may go in for a value acquisition to enhance shareholder value soon.

Mergers and acquisitions: Though the company has been actively evaluating M&A opportunities in the US and Europe, yet it has not finalized a deal as yet. They intend to acquire companies with strong technology, network services orientation and a quality client base. Mr. Shiv Nadar stated that the companies that they had targeted were going through a low phase, due to which their valuations were not correct. So the company could not go forward with their acquisition plans.

The company has invested $13 million in technology funds and other related areas.

The non-linear model can lead to better scalability through the creation of "softcores" such as the Bluetooth softcore, Modem software, 12C Software and Bluetooth Stack.

Emphasis on quality revenue mix through the following :

Increased contribution from high value and high margin services- however it must be noted here that revenue growth this time is lower than the last time.

72 per cent of the company's revenue's come from technology development services, software product engineering and networking services.

The company has a de-risked business model. The top 5, top 10, top 15 customers contribute 23 per cent, 35 per cent and

46 per cent of revenues respectively. The repeat business of the company from existing clients is of the order of 69

per cent.

Emphasis on earnings led growth :

The company has been focusing on moving up the value chain, due to which the bill rate has increased both for offshore centric (11.4 per cent) and onsite services (10.9 per cent) over Q1 last year.

Average revenue per employee during Q1 has also increased to Rs. 3.2 million per annum and gross profit per employee has also gone up to Rs. 1.5 million.

Margins of the company have also improved.

Employee Development and Contribution :

Human resources are the backbone of any information technology company and the long-term success of HCL Tech also depends crucially on their human resources.

Their total manpower stands at 4195 (inclusive of 494 people taken in during the quarter).

83% of their total manpower is established in India. The company's attrition rate is 11.6 per cent while the average training

duration per employee stood at 13 days annualized for Q1 2001.

Blue Ocean Strategy HCL Technologies, which bagged the Rs 1,500-crore contract from DSG

International, had worked out a three-pronged strategy in July 2005 to procure big-ticket deals in the international market.

HCL conceptualised what the ‘Blue ocean’ strategy and created uncontested market spaces. “HCL recognised the application outsourcing business was being increasingly commoditized and that it was coming under pricing pressure,” Mr Vineet Nayar, President, said.

HCL then decided to chase large deals that would bring a significant transformation, to move up the value chain, and go for multi-service deals with application and infrastructure components.

"Based on this strategy, we went about transforming HCL internally, and that has resulted in deals like Autodesk and EXA," he said. For the DSG International deal, 10 participants, including frontline Indian IT vendors, put in the Request for Proposals (RFPs). Three vendors- HCL Tech and two global companies were short-listed and at the end of nine months the contract came to HCL Tech.

HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGIES

Employee Wellness program: HCL Technologies believes that healthy employees miss fewer days of work, increases productivity and reduces health care costs. Employee Wellness program is seen as an added benefit that encourages employees to stay and work with efficacy. Work related stress is a major concern for the organization. Rather than spending ever-increasing expenses towards healthcare, and treating diseases only after they develop, HCL Technologies believe in creating healthy workspace for employees. They focus their resources and energy on preventing and / or reversing chronic diseases through engaging, targeted employee health and wellness programs, which

motivate employees to change their lifestyles. It is treated as a prime corporate responsibility.

MITR: an employee assistance program: Keeping the “Employee First” philosophy in mind, HCL has introduced MITR: an employee assistance program that would assist HCL employees and their immediate family members with comprehensive information, personal development and counseling services which is available 24x7, 365 days in a year. MITR is a phone call away for independent support, information and advice that is completely free and confidential.

Employee assistance provider (EAP): HCL has tied up with PPC UK LTD, a leading worldwide EAP service provider. PPC has its operations in the UK, USA, Canada, India , South Africa , China , Mexico etc.PPC covers 140 countries through its network of affiliates. MITR has been customized to make it convenient as per Employee needs. All employees can avail telephone counseling to provide immediate support and guidance on any issue - personal or work related issues including relationships and caring for loved ones; dealing with difficult situations; adapting to a new work or social environment; substance related disorders - alcohol and other drug abuse; abuse or neglect – physical or neglect of a child or adult; academic worries – exam stress or failure and underachievement; relationship issues - marital and couple, parent/child, sibling; phase of- life events - entering school, leaving parental control; adjustment disorders; mood and anxiety disorders; HIV and Aids support.Employees also have telephonic access to qualified lawyers for impartial telephonic advice and information on a wide range of legal issues - matrimonial, consumer, wills, power of attorney etc.

Medical camps: Others initiatives include medical camps or fairs for preventive health screenings- cholesterol, diabetes, asthma etc; expert lectures on allopathic, homeopathy, unani and other streams of medicine; disease awareness through observance of dates associated with specific organs and epidemics and smoking cessation. Wellness initiatives at HCL Technologies have been successfully implemented since January 2008 and have received good response from employees. MITR has been running throughout the organization for almost a year now.

The objectives of HCL’s HR strategies include:

To help employees learn the best-practices for enhancing quality of life To provide a forum for information-sharing on wellness and related themes To enable the like-minded people to connect and communicate with each

other in a meaningful way

To selectively capture and report the top health and wellness pursuits around the business world with tips, experiences and recommendations on how to achieve desired results

To improve the wellness index for the overall organization through measurement of individual employee wellness quotients

There are a few new initiatives are in the pipeline.

Amongst these is a global launch planned for Krav Maga. It is a self defence and military hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel. This would be exclusively available for all women employees.

HCL is also planning to hold Salsa classes for all employees within office premises. For this initiative, they are currently looking for trained salsa teachers.

Though HCL has yoga programs in some offices, they are planning to make yoga an all India based program and move it to all locations for HCL offices.

Apart from these, they would be providing discounts on memberships for various health clubs. This has been successfully launched in Chennai and would be implemented soon in all other locations.

HCL’S 5 P’S APPROACH

HCL’S PHILOSOPHY

HCL takes pride in its philosophy of Employee First which empowers its 54,216 transformers to create a real value for the customers.

The core values of the company can be summed up as following:

They will uphold the dignity of individuals. They will honour all commitments. They will be committed to Quality, Innovation and Growth in every

endeavour. They will be responsible corporate citizens

The service industry, from fast food to business consulting, has long lived by the mantra that serving the customer is the only thing that matters. As a result, customer need is placed above all others – often at the sacrifice of employees, managers and administrators. HCL Technologies, one of India’s fastest growing IT services companies, has embraced a new strategy – Employee First – that places the needs of employees before the needs of customers. This seemingly counterintuitive strategy has provoked a sea-change at the company, and greater customer loyalty, leads to better engagements and higher revenues.  Given the pace of industry growth and its dependency on headcount, attracting, retaining and motivating talent is the top challenge for the industry. The traditional approach viewed employees as commodities and placed emphasis deploying entry-level talent and a factory-like approach for project execution. There were no unique engagement strategies centered on the employee.  While the industry growth rate is impressive, and most analysts do not project a downturn, the question of whether this demand will sustain and business will continue as usual is beginning to become a concern. New automation-based technologies have emerged to challenge the need for mass labor and, as the outsourcing market has matured, both suppliers and customers are seeking ways to achieve innovative and transformational value that goes beyond simple cost savings. In many cases, outsourcing customers no longer view IT service providers as mere vendors, but as business partners whose work is intimately tied to the customer’s success.  That shift in working relationship requires a new kind of IT service organization – one focused on value and innovation, not just warm bodies to fill seats. At HCL, the company embraced a program designed to turn the traditional “customer above all else” model on its head. Called Employee First, the strategy encompasses a variety of elements with the objective of providing a truly unique environment to employees. By treating employees as partners and participants in the company’s success, every individual within the company becomes responsible for transforming, thinking and providing value to customers.  To make the Employee First concept work, HCL launched a variety of internal initiatives designed to both give employees more personally responsibility for the company’s service offerings and a voice with upper management. HCL’s enlightened approach to employee development focus on giving people whatever

they need to succeed: be it a virtual assistant or talent transformation sabbaticals; expert guidance or fast track growth; inner peace or democratic empowerment.

At HCL, they have a Five Fold Path to Individual Enlightenment. This ensures they are given Support, Knowledge, Recognition, Empowerment, and Transformation.  It’s about creating a new kind of corporation. It’s about empowering extra-ordinary individuals.

HCL’s PROGRAMS

SMT Program is a management program in HCL Technologies that provides a fast track program with the philosophy of ‘Catching them young and setting their minds on fire’. The program was formally initiated by ex-HCL HR and BPO Head, Sujith Bakshi in 1985 based on success achieved with IIM graduates by HCL in 1970s. The managers from the SMT batches have been credited with various successes over the years including setting up of NIIT, various JVs and transnational divisions.

ARM ATAP Program: HCLTechnologies joined ARM ATAP program. Expansion of design resources in India strengthens ARM's presence in Automotive, Networking and Consumer Electronics. There are currently 37 Partners in the ATAP program, with a resource of more than 3,550 engineers available to work on ARM core-based SoC designs in the ATAP network. ATAP design Partners must go through a strict qualification process to become an ARM Approved Design Center. This includes a design flow audit, training on implementing designs with ARM cores, tools, AMBA® interface peripherals and development techniques. Each Design Center must demonstrate its own unique skills in specific technology domains, as well as end-market expertise. The ATAP program also provides additional benefits such as geographic and time-zone locality and local language support.

HCL’S POLICIES

Long service awards policy:

The objectives of the policy are to recognize and reward long-serving employee contribution to the growth of HCL over a substantial period on a sustainable basis. In addition, to nurture the employer employee bond and reinforce a relationship of belongingness to the organization by facilitating deserving second-

generation employment in HCL. The policy applies to only permanent employees of HCL working in India and specifies the number of years of continues service and the corresponding rewards.

Continuous Service- The period from the employee’s last date of hire or re-hire into any HCL Associate Company in a full time position is counted as continued service for thepurpose of this policy

Length of Service- While computing length of service, period of continuous service in anyHCL associate companies would also be taken into account. In case of acquired companies, the association should be calculated from the date the organization entered into a relationship with HCL Technologies.

The company rewards all those employees who have completed certain numbers of years of continuous services with the organization on a continuous basis. The corresponding rewards would be as follows:

On Completion of Award

05 years - Certificate signed by CEO

10 years- Certificate signed by CEO Trophy

15 years- Certificate signed by CEO Trophy

20 years- Certificate signed by Chairman Trophy

25 years- Certificate signed by Chairman Trophy

30 years- Certificate signed by Chairman Trophy Employment of children scheme

The scheme is applicable to all employees of HCL fulfilling the following criterion:

1. Employees who have completed 25 years of continuous service (In HCL Group companies). He/she may be currently in service or may have retired

2. Applicable for a maximum number of two (2) children (each child can apply only once under this policy)

3. The children should be employable as per the local country/statutory laws4. HCL would intend to find a suitable employment for such children based

on their qualification, experience and also necessarily, on a relevant job existing and available in the organization at that point of time

5. The maximum eligible age for a child to qualify for employment under the policy would be 30 years.

Policy on Employee Benefits:

The objective is to convey the organization’s best wishes to the employee during the important occasions in their lives. The policy outlines the process of the celebrations during the special occasions such as wedding and birth of their children. The policy is applicable to all employees of HCL Technologies Ltd; working on the India payrolls. The policy details are as follows:

1. On occasion of the wedding of an employee, an amount of INR 5,000/- will be given as a gift to the employee.

2. Similarly, on the occasion of the birth of a new born baby, an employee will be presented with an amount of INR 2,000/- as a gift.

3. The gift of INR 2,000/- will be applicable to two children only.4. The amount given as gift for the wedding or birth of a baby will be

added to the employee’s income for purpose of taxation.

Teachers Win : A recognition policy for Internal Trainees:

This policy has been formulated with the following objectives:

1. To unleash the potential and power of people in teams for the common good

2. To promote a culture of knowledge sharing & capability building internally3. To encourage people from within the organization to come forward and

participate in building a knowledge-rich organization4. To acknowledge the effort put in by employees towards building such an

organization

This recognition policy aims at promoting internal trainers. The sub-schemes that are part of this policy are:

I. Trainers of the quarter announcement: T2ID to send a mail of appreciation marked to all employees, announcing the names of the employees who conducted a minimum of 16 man hours of training during the quarter, with the highest number of programs with rating 4 or above.The second criteria to take precedenceMail to be released by the 5th of the month following the quarter end

II. Reward Points Accumulation per quarter for Trainers who have billed for 250 hours in a quarter: This is a quarterly reward mechanism only for those internal trainers who have billed for at least 250 hrs in a quarter, the reward points are accumulated in each quarter (these can be carried forward to the next quarter) and the trainers are awarded as per hours invested in training and the participant rating for the same.In addition to the above rewards, there are certain milestone-based rewards, in which points are accumulated over a period, and can be redeemed at reaching certain milestones for the grade-wise equivalent specified in the company’s annexure.

III. Certificates and trophies to be given to all trainers who have accumulated a minimum of 2000 reward points: All trainers who have accumulated a minimum of 2000 points of training in an year, as per the criteria mentioned under milestone based awards policy, would be given certificates of appreciation and trophies at the end of the year.

IV. Faculty Development Program for new internal trainers as per the requirement: Internal Trainers approved and listed as trainers in the Internal Faculty Database of the T2ID DepartmentOnce internal trainers are identified , they might need to undergo a Faculty Development Program, as per requirement, before they can begin imparting trainingInternal trainers may also get a chance to attend The Trainer (T3) certification workshops. Those who undergo this program need to commit to take 3 workshops in the area in which they have undergone T3 training. For these 3 Workshops the trainer are not compensated under this recognition scheme.

Spot the Star: Employee Referral Scheme:

The objective is to make employees partners in organizational growth and incentives referrals. All employees, on rolls of the company up to the E4 band. However, this would not include employees in HCM Department & Resource Management Group (RMG).

The general guidelines are as follows:1. The referee shall not be on the Interview Panel for the referred

candidate.2. A candidate can be considered referred only if a detailed resume is

submitted by the referee.

3. A resume/profile shall be considered as a reference only if it does not exist in the

4. Active database of RMG or referred by any other employee/Agency.5. A referred resume is considered ‘active’ for a period of 3 months, on the

expiry of which it shall no longer be treated as a reference.6. Acceptance of reference and payout referee fee shall be on ‘first come-

first-serve’ basis.7. All referrals sent and acknowledgement received shall be honored only if

recorded on email.8. Referral Fee is a taxable income.9. In case of planned walk in interview, the referee has to send the profile at

least 24 hours prior to the interview date.

HCL’s PROCESS and PRACTICES

HCL’s business lines include:- Business Process Outsourcing Custom Application Services Engineering and R&D Services Enterprise Application Services Enterprise Transformation Services IT Infrastructure Management

At HCL, challenging jobs are created for its employees to extract maximum output. They believe in interactive superior-subordinate relationship. Open dialogue is an essential part of HCL’s culture and the focus is on trust and transparency. Active interaction among management is also propagated through dialogue with CEOs. Apart from CEO blogs, once a year CEOs’ meet is also organized. At micro level, head of the department addresses the employees once a month. The company follows the Employee First philosophy and an organization wide standard Rewards and Recognition portal is applied effectively. Employees are involved in the processes and are encouraged to put up relevant questions.

HCL Quality Process Consulting is a niche service offering as a part of the suite of Transformation Services. HCL Quality Process Consulting offers process improvement services that span the entire continuum ranging from Process definition, implementation & training to Process assessments for Model and non-model based improvement initiatives.

Current state analysis helps organization to understand the “As-is” state of various IT practices. It also finds out gaps vis-à-vis desired model/standard or with the selected inputs. Key inputs for current state analysis include Business/IT

objectives, Best practices, and selected models/standards, in addition to the practices that are being assessed. Under Gap Analysis we discover the improvement opportunities for the organization and the recommend changes.

Process Improvement Planning (PIP) is a key phase of the process improvement initiative. The PIP methodology used by HCL comprises of 3 key phase – Strategize, Prioritize, and Plan

Measurement is the mechanism by which an organization gains insight into its performance. HCL proposes the “Goal-driven Software Measurement Framework” approach to define and deploy the right measurement framework in IT organizations.

Training is a critical element of deployment phase of any process improvement initiative. High Quality of training reflects on team’s ability to ramp-up on required skills and deploy the new practices. It plays a key role in Organization change management of deploying new processes or getting compliant to a new model. HCL’s consultants have been trained as trainers to impart professional process training.

Audits and assessments reflect compliance and effectiveness of process, people, tools and their interactions. They serve as qualitative indicators of practice implementation across the IT organization. HCL’s consultants have multiple years of experience in conducting Audits and Assessments. They are certified to conduct audits and their credentials include Certified Lead Auditors, Certified Lead Assessors, and Auditors Registered with IRCA.

HCL’s consultants help client organizations manage change, by deploying appropriate proactive measures. This included steps like obtaining senior management commitment, communication campaign, success stories, FAQs and Web-pages etc. Organization change management is a key aspect of focus in all transformation initiatives.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT MODEL

According to our research, HCL Technologies Ltd., has adopted the Harvard model of Human Resources Management. The Harvard interpretation sees employees as resources. However, they are viewed as being fundamentally different from other resources - they cannot be managed in the same way. The stress is on people as human resources. The Harvard approach recognizes an element of mutuality in all businesses, a concept with parallels in Japanese

people management, as we observed earlier. Employees are significant stakeholders in an organization. They have their own needs and concerns along with other groups such as shareholders and customers.'

The Harvard Map or model outlines four HR policy areas:

Human resource flows - recruitment, selection, placement, promotion, appraisal and assessment, promtion, termination, etc. Reward systems - pay systems, motivation, etc. Employee influence - delegated levels of authority, responsibility and power Work systems - definition/design of work and alignment of people.

These, in turn lead to the HR policies that have to be achieved: Commitment, congruence, competence and cost effectiveness.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

While HCL Enterprise has a 30-year history, HCL Technologies is a relatively young company formed, nine years ago, in 1998. During this period, HCL has built unique strengths in IT applications (custom applications for industry solutions and package implementation), IT infrastructure management and

business process outsourcing, while maintaining and extending its leadership in product engineering. HCL has also built domain depth through a micro-verticalization strategy in industries such as Financial Services, Hi-tech and Manufacturing, Retail, Media and Entertainment, Life Sciences, and Telecom.

HCL has created the ability to distribute value across the customer's IT landscape through its well-distributed services portfolio, significant domain strengths, and locally relevant geographic distribution. HCL has the widest service portfolio among Indian IT service providers, with each of its services having attained critical mass.

Their five mature lines of business are R&D and Engineering, Custom Applications, Enterprise Applications, IT Infrastructure Management, and BPO Services. In addition, HCL has recently launched its Enterprise Transformation Service offerings comprising of Business, Technology, Application and Data Transformation – the four broad needs of any enterprise. Their ability to synergistically integrate these service lines across the entire IT landscape creates new zones for value creation. Additionally, HCL has created unique service leadership in each of these areas through best-of-breed unique propositions. HCL’s leadership in these service areas has been recognized by several leading independent analysts.

WEAKNESSESAt HCL Technologies Ltd, work is compartmentalized into different departments. There is less inter-department interaction and sharing of information, which can sometimes hamper the smooth functioning. Further job specialization is required in the company.

OPPORTUNITIESHCL is the fourth largest IT company and still has scope for improvement.It can use its offsourcing methodology to effectively cater to emerging IT needs globally.

THREATSImmense competition from rival companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services

THE IMPACT OF RECESSION AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF HR

The global meltdown experienced by US and the global economy has had a cascading effect in India, which has resulted in a massive setback of all growth plans for most business houses. HCL is witnessing pricing pressures, reduced profitability, (much) less growth compared to golden times and an imperative to deliver tangible business value to customers. HCL technologies saw an 11 percent revenue growth, boosted by acquisitions. Net income was down 9

percent and total employee count was almost flat. HCL stated that "the pricing environment is quite bad and customers are saying that we should contribute and help in reducing their spend on IT". Thus HCL came up with various strategies to counter the effect.

EMPLOYEE FIRST CUSTOMER SECOND

Employee First, Customer Second (EFCS) is a radical new philosophy of HCL Technologies. Through this philosophy the aim was to create a unique employee organization, drive an inverted organizational structure, create transparency and accountability within the organization, and encourage a value driven culture.HCL realized that the key to customer satisfaction was with the employee. Today, in an industry like software, which is knowledge intensive and relies heavily on manpower, this has become a powerful strategy. 'Employee First' - a pioneering strategy envisaged by HCL places the needs of employees before the needs of customers and has provoked a sea-change at the company level, and, in turn, greater customer loyalty, better engagements and higher revenues.'Employee First' is an employee focused program that gives people whatever they need to succeed - be it space to grow, time to think or tools to use. Its about maximizing personal potential rather than monitoring professional performance.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

HCL is committed to helping its staff gain the qualifications that will help them most throughout their career. Today, 60 percent of staff have graduate qualifications and 20 percent have achieved postgraduate qualifications. To develop employees further, HCL has a comprehensive training and development programme. HCL also uses its international infrastructure to develop staff. For example, HCL's Business Exchange Programme has enabled employees from the Belfast Apollo contact centre to go to India for up to a year and vice versa.

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT POLICIES

To be in a position to attract the best talent, companies must align their people management policies and procedures with the right corporate culture. HCL's emphasis on empowering staff at all levels within the organisation especially is impressive, Having recognized its commitment to help employees proactively build their skills and achieve to their full potential.

SUGGESTIONS AS TO POSSIBLE STRATEGIES

The war for talent does not go away during downturn, it only intensifies. Current economic climate is forcing organizations to increase output and productivity

without significantly adding headcount. Under such circumstances, the customer’s expectations also change radically and it progressively becomes difficult to retain talent and keep motivational levels high. This is the time when a high engagement level is required by providing clarity and direction. Non performance is a cost and more so in times of downturn.

HR Strategies to handle a downturn: converting threat into opportunity

Put your employees first, after all they are the only assets that you can rely on to pull through

Prioritizing Learning & Development by strengthening leadership competencies of business leaders in supporting individual contributor’s skill development.

Accepting imperfections as catalysts for transformation Seeding trust by stretching the envelope of transparency Reversing accountability by bringing bottom to the top Decentralizing decision making Collaborating to create value Developing in-house trainers, thus cutting external training cost, Manpower redeployment and job enrichment as per the skill fit in order to

avoid new hiring and will enhance the skill set of the existing manpower Motivate employees to do multi tasking, taking up new responsibilities, will

prove beneficial in the long run for the employee as well as the organization.