Ideapreneurship
WHAT IS IDEAPRENEURSHIP?
At HCL, innovation is not just another word, it’s part of our organizational heritage and DNA - a journey that began in 1976 and continues to power us ahead even today. The culture at HCL Technologies – ideapreneurship™ as we call it - makes the license to ideate a distinctive organizational capability. We see a grassroot movement that has rallied the entire organization behind this innovation agenda, in a manner that leads to relationships that deliver value beyond the contract to our customers. ideapreneurship™ - is based on the fundamental belief of inverting the organizational pyramid and engaging, enabling and empowering the front line. This is because we understand that they are best placed to appreciate and understand the customers’ business and shape the roadmap to enhance the ‘value zone’ created in every interaction they have.
Ideapreneurs don’t run after success. Their quest for answers leads them there. Watch the video.
IDEATION ENABLERS
Ideapreneurship puts employees at the forefront of innovation where they innovate and collaborate with each other and with customers to seed, nurture and harvest ideas. This innovation and collaboration culture has given rise to a number of key enablers and tools to bring about a business impact.
Value Portal is a unique grassroot innovation platform that lets employees contribute their ideas across hierarchical structures. This platform truly brings alive the Employee First belief of giving an opportunity to employees at the grassroot level to generate value for the customer as well as HCL.
The Value Portal encourages, facilitates, manages, records, and shares customer-focused innovations at HCL. The application captures ideas in a structured manner, and enables internal review, approval and implementation for the customer. With more than 18,000 employees being engaged, the Value Portal has generated over 60,000 + innovative ideas for over 400 customers with 31,000 + unique contributors.
MAD Jam is the integral piece of the innovation engine at HCL that recognizes and celebrates outstanding, employee-led innovations for customers. It is a centralized platform for celebrating business-centric ideas that have been implemented.
To date, MAD Jam has helped many outstanding innovators share their best ideas for innovation and transformation. MAD Jam has seen more than 2,700 unique contributors till date. The platform has picked up in scale and interest within the organization with over 50,000 unique votes coming in.
The Good Practices Conference (GPC) is a strong platform to demonstrate the power of HCL’s ideapreneurship culture and ensures institutionalization across practices. Essentially, this conference encourages contribution towards business improvement for HCL and enables employees from all across the organization to put forth their suggestions, in the form of discussion papers.
The shortlisted ideas are shared in an annual conference and the contributors are recognized and rewarded. All selected good practices are then published in the conference e-book, hosted at kx.hcl.com/goodpractices where over 7,000 submissions and 2,700 + good practices are accessible to every employee at HCL.
Intellectual Property monetization (IPM) is a unique platform that encourages ideapreneurs to submit innovative ideas which they believe can be patented. The objective is to create a unified Patent Policy under the Ideapreneurship umbrella to reward and recognize employees for their work which they believe to be patentable and thereby participate in achieving patent status.
IPM defines IP opportunities that showcase Innovation as our core DNA and creates product design thinking for new products and platforms. Employees are rewarded at two stages, initially when the patent is filed and again when the patent is granted. Through this platform, the ideapreneurs have constantly innovated, ideated and have filed for more than 200 patents since 2015.
MEET OUR IDEAPRENEURS
Every day our employees - the ideapreneurs, innovate and collaborate with each other and with customers to seed, nurture and harvest ideas so that these ideas generate superior value for our customers.
Payal Baloni
Priyanka Galoth
Jatin Arora
Sanjeev Purohit
DHARMENDRA SONI
ANUPAMA GOEL
IMPACT OF IDEAPRENEURS
HOW
TARANGA PHUKAN
working with HCL Technologies as a Senior Technical Manager
ANUPAM ANAND
Project Manager with HCL Technologies
PREM SUNDAR
Senior Project Manager with HCL Technologies
BARUN GUPTA
Technical Specialist with HCL Technologies
RAMYA SUBRAMANIAN
Working with HCL Technologies as a Technical Lead
MUTHUKRISHNAN MARI
working with HCL Technologies as an Associate Project Manager
MITHUN SRINIVAS PRABHAKAR
Associate Project Manager with HCL Technologies
MONA JAIN
Working with HCL Technologies as a Deputy General Manager
NEHA BHATIA
Working with HCL Technologies as a Project Manager
SADIQUA AMIN
Working with HCL Technologies as a Lead Engineer
SHILPA KHIRBAT
Working with HCL Technologies as a Deputy Manager
Sathiyanarayan an Moorthy
Working with HCL Technologies as a Senior Technical Manager
RABIA SHARMA
Working with HCL Technologies as a Test Lead
SIMY CHACKO
Deputy General Manager with HCL Technologies
Took the Relationship Beyond the Contract
SITUATION
- The client is a global leader in printing product and services
- The client was looking to create a software-led solution to augment their new services business
- Taranga from HCL was helping the client in creating and testing the software
PROBLEM
- The client is a global leader in printing product and services
- The client was looking to create a software-led solution to augment their new services business
- Taranga from HCL was helping the client in creating and testing the software
SOLUTION
- Taranga and his team developed an effective concept of printer simulator that would allow the tester to perform various needed tests
- The stimulator printer saved the client time and money that would’ve spent in purchasing /arranging more and more physical printers for testing
IMPACT
- The idea capitalized on the time that would have spent in waiting for the printers to be delivered and installed
- It made up for the opportunity cost that the service would have taken to reach to the market
SITUATION
- The customer is an American multinational software corporation that develops,manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and servicesrelated to computing.
- Company is a global leader that wanted to accelerate the usage of its search engine.
- Anupam Anand from HCL technologies is helping the software firm accelerate the usage of their search engine.
PROBLEM
- The software company was missing out on tremendous business opportunities because its search engine was configured only for its own web browser.
SOLUTION
- Anupam gave the idea of a Universal Installer that will install customer’s search engine as the default search engine in all web browsers.
- He created an application, which once implemented was expected to increase traffic to the customer’s search engine and thereby increase revenues
IMPACT
- Anupam’s ideas generated a business impact of $23 mn.
- Moreover, the Universal Installer fetched the customer 758 mn unique clicks globally, in just one year
SITUATION
- The customer is the world's largest aerospace and defense company.
- Its aviation electronic systems and products are installed in the flight decks of nearly every aircraft in the world.
- Prem Sundar from HCL technologies is helping the customer in optimising its database and improving database query performance
PROBLEM
- The captured data used to get updated on Objectivity, an object-oriented database
- It was time consuming as the limited query options of Objectivity compelled theuser to write a new code for each queryx
SOLUTION
- The captured data used to get updated on Objectivity, an object-oriented database
- It was time consuming as the limited query options of Objectivity compelled theuser to write a new code for each queryx
IMPACT
- The language saved $5.02 mn in just one year
- It is now customer’s intellectual property with plans of getting this idea patent
- Understanding the power of this idea, the customer also tried to sell the idea to Objectivity
SITUATION
- Customer is a Canada based telecom company in the business of unifiedcommunications, specializing in call center operations
- Barun Gupta is a technical specialist with HCL helping the telecom companyto make their system user friendly
PROBLEM
- Barun’s client functioned in the traditional way. That is, the user had to copy thenumber from the web on to the handphone to make a call to the toll-free number
SOLUTION
- Barun’s idea enabled users to make calls with a click of a button right there on theweb. It reduced the expense of placing the complaint and eliminated the discomfort ofcopying the number on the phone
- The idea allowedmaintaining of automated records of allthe conversations, so as a userif you speak to the call center more than once, you don’t have to run them throughthe information that you’ve already shared
- Apart from voice call services, it allowed users to choose multiple communicationchannels - a chat window to make a request and a video call with the call center agent
IMPACT
- Barun and team HCL created a generalized framework for WebRTC andshared it with other clients who use call centers
- This framework also got showcased at the Mobile World Conference inBarcelona in 2013
SITUATION
- The client is a major American Internet corporation, one of the world’s first email providers.
- Ramya Subramaniam from HCL was working closely with the client to make theirorganization function more systematically and effectively
PROBLEM
- Ramya discovered that a major part of the work within her client’s organization wasconducted on email, which resulted in communication lost across several platforms
- The client was missing an effective project management tool
SOLUTION
- The solution to the client’s problem was within the HCL framework
- Ramya created a project management tool that helped her client manageindividual projects
IMPACT
- The tool collated the entire communication at one point
- It eliminated the one big hurdle of using IM and email
- The tool also helped the manager look into the scheduled task and take careof the factors, slowing down the process
SITUATION
- The client is one of the world’s leading players in avionics and manufacturers of flight management systems to aircraft manufacturers and government agencies
- Muthukrishnan from HCL was helping the client as an Associate Project Manager
PROBLEM
- The communication between the flight management function and the actual displayat FGFP was recorded using a data analyzer in binary format
- Unfortunately, decoding that binary format was quite a difficult task
- It took an engineer close to 30 minutes to spot an error, 15 hours per requirement totest and another 150 hours to raise a problem report
SOLUTION
- Muthukrishnan and his team developed the ARINC 661 Decoder to simplydecode the binary data into a more readable format
- The tool readand converted the datain Excel format to spot the deficiency
- This allowed engineers to alter the test case environment and re-executethe test again
IMPACT
- The ARINC 661 Decoder brought down the time taken to identify failure toless than a minute
- By removing manual effort, the testing team added speed and efficiency toits advantage
- The success of the Decoder also resulted in using it for another project thatused ARINC 661 protocol for display
SITUATION
- The client is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for residential and commercial units
- Mithun from HCL was helping the client in developing a cost effective design
PROBLEM
- The client was installing high–efficiency motors in small rooftop air conditioners
- A problem, which needed a solution in a crunched deadline of 12 days
SOLUTION
- Mithun’s idea enabled him to prepare a design in just 4 days
- Redesigning the motor mount and filing a joint patent for the idea with the client, helped save cost efficiently
IMPACT
- Mithun and his team introduced a cost- effective design, which brought downthe cost of unit by $10
- Considering the cost benefit, the client allowed Mithun and his team to makea design’s prototype
SITUATION
- The client is one of the world’s largest software manufacturers
- Mona from HCL was helping the client as a development manager, specializing in technology
PROBLEM
- One of the client’s product required multiple releases over a period of time
- This release required undergoing a mandatory set of tests and therefore therewas a need of a testing team
SOLUTION
- Mona suggested the Test Lab model with ‘core and flex’ team arrangement
- The idea allowed to assign flex engineers, based on need, and charge themfor the number of hours they have worked
IMPACT
- The idea allowed the work to be done with full ownership
- This also encouraged the client to use the same model for differentprojects, bringing more value to HCL
SITUATION
- The client is one of the world’s largest software manufacturers
- Neha from HCL, and her Quality Assurance team was helping the client infinal sign off from QA
PROBLEM
- The client had 20,000 test cases in their system, which they were running manually
- The client also had new releases every three months, which, for the testingteam, became a never-ending job
SOLUTION
- Neha offered the client a more robust and efficient automation system withscripts that could free up client’s precious time
- Team alsocreated adaptorsthat enabled the teamto test the blocked testcases
IMPACT
- Right after this idea was presented, the client agreed to give the team4800 test cases to automate
- Neha’s team created 5 adaptors, which indeed is a huge step for any vendor.
SITUATION
- The client is in the field of testing chipsets, mobile devices and network infrastructure for telecom companies
- Sadiqua Amin from HCL was helping the client in developing the test cases and run the tests
PROBLEM
- There were thousands of test cases running every week
- The log files based on passed and failed test cases took more than 2 hours to get segregate
SOLUTION
- Sadiqua gave the idea of automation, which helped in sorting the files in a meaningful folder in just 2-3 minutes
IMPACT
- Sadiqua’s idea saved the client a lot of valuable time and money
SITUATION
- The client is the second largest provider of mobile telephones and the largest provider of fixed line telephones in all of United States
PROBLEM
- The client wanted to alleviate user experience and therefore improve their Net Promoter Score and Customer Satisfaction
- There were employees who were constantly serving 116.6 MN customer sround the clock, which became an expensive proposition
- The client was getting a huge number of calls and was incurring huge costs for live chats
SOLUTION
- Shilpa gave the idea of an elevated experience of self-support section of the website called e-support
- The idea enabled the customer to go online and get their queries self-serviced through the portal
IMPACT
- The idea reduced the number of complaints reaching the customer care team
- E-support also helped reduce call volumes, request to call back, and the turn-around time to find solutions
SITUATION
- The client, headquartered in California, is the world's leading public listed company that designs and manufactures networking devices.
- Sathiyanarayanan from HCL was managing the testing teams and was responsible for every testing function that his team undertook.
PROBLEM
- The client was looking at optimizing the costs and overcoming the difficulty of managing the resources
SOLUTION
- Sathiyanarayan's idea was to shift the price model from Time & Material mode to Fixed Price Proposal
IMPACT
- The idea helped save huge cost as the client converted all their existing projects to Fixed Price Proposal
SITUATION
- The client is a public listed New York based corporation, creating system software that runs in the mainframe, distributed computing, virtual machine and cloud computing environments
- The client took over a leading software company dealing in domain monitoringproducts, which added more products to the client’s portfolio
- Rabia from HCL, was helping the client in transforming the current application into a web-based one
PROBLEM
- The client had to transform a desktop-based application into a web-based one with strong architecture and feature enhancement
SOLUTION
- Rabia suggested the use of automation tools like Selenium for the web and Perl for the database validation
IMPACT
- The idea reduced the manual effort and saved a great amount of time
- The framework’s powerful and adaptable design allowed easy validation of future enhancements in the product
SITUATION
- The client is an anti-virus vendor
- Simy from HCL, as part of ERS Practice group, was helping the client inimproving the malware detection rate
PROBLEM
- Working particularly on product sustenance and support service, Simy reckonedthe need to better the quality, time to market of the product and productivity of engineering team
SOLUTION
- Simyand his team put together two dynamic tools called IntelligentSustenance Engineering (ISE) and Intelligent Tech Support (ITS)
- The ERS team saw another opportunity and created a tool called iPlanwhich is conceived as the panacea for business pain points
IMPACT
- As a result of 44% improvement in the malware detection rate, client’sproduct became one of the top 5 in terms of detection rate
- ISE and ITS helped HCL in winning a valuable business in sustenance,testing and support
- iPlan accelerated the rate of product innovation by 25% and reducedcustomer support overheads up to 45%