Sunnyvale, CA and Noida, India – November 13, 2013 — HCL Technologies, a leading global IT services company, was named both a Diamond and a Gold award winner by the IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), the leading marketing association for technology, communications and professional services providers.

HCL received a Diamond award for its “CIO Straight Talk” initiative, recognizing it as the industry’s best-in-class program for driving business with thought leadership. Additionally, HCL won a Gold award for enabling sales channels through its Game Changer Forum (GCF), honoring its standout performance in improving marketing performance. HCL received both awards during the 20th ITSMA Annual Marketing Conference on the evening of November 5, 2013 held at The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass.

In today’s Digital Age, it is customary that successful companies or brands move a notch above Customer Relationship Management and practice Community Relationship Management. A classic example is HCL’s “CIO Straight Talk” which is a twist in traditional thought leadership and HCL’s way of nurturing a community of IT professionals through a multi-channel approach. The content platform – including a magazine, a website, webinars, a LinkedIn community, events and a Twitter feed – showcases how HCL is engaging with this community across different channels. This platform enables businesses to connect and collaborate as well as source for new ideas. The “for CIOs, from CIOs” program helps create and deepen customer relationships, while meeting IT professionals’ appetite for peer-to-peer, experience-based insights.

Another such example of HCLs’ Community relationship management is the GCF that was launched in 2011 to strengthen account management expertise of sales team responsible for HCL’s 25 largest clients. The GCF is tightly linked to strategic input received from HCL’s clients. These inputs included fostering an exchange of ideas and best practices on account management, bringing robust governance into client engagements, and increasing strategic engagements that create opportunity for early adoption of new initiatives and direct mentorship from CIOs and CTOs from HCL’s Customer Advisory Council.

Lauding special achievement in business-to-business marketing programs, the ITSMA Marketing Excellence Awards are open to all companies that market and sell technology, telecommunications, or professional services or solutions. The awards program jury, consisting of members of ITSMA’s senior executive staff, advisory board and outside industry experts, evaluates organizations on innovation, execution and business results. Now in its fifteenth year, the ITSMA award is a highly-regarded honor for companies that market and sell technology-related services and solutions.

“Receiving two awards from such a prestigious organization and longstanding program affirms the significance of HCL’s investment in customer insights and it also validates our commitment to delivering customer-centric marketing services.” said Krishnan Chatterjee, Head of Strategic Marketing for HCL Technologies.

“Each year, we receive a wide array of impressive submissions for the thought leadership category, and this year was no exception," said Dave Munn, President and Chief Executive Officer, ITSMA. “HCL’s CIO Straight Talk program is truly innovative and demonstrated impressive results in connecting with CIOs, making it a standout initiative.”