How to make your business technology-centric

Technology is the great equaliser between small startups and industry giants, and it’s changing how business in the 21st century is being done, says Matt Preschern, Executive Vice Pr esident and CMO of HCL Technologies

As a fast-growing global IT services company with a strong Indian heritage, HCL Technologies is something of an innovator in the technology industry. Founded in 1991, the company is now worth around $7bn dollars and operates in 31 countries around the world. Executive Vice President and CMO Matt Preschern has more than two decades of leadership experience in marketing and strategic business development, and is responsible for leading all marketing functions, including global business and strategic marketing, sales enablement and corporate communications.

He describes HCL as “a very employee-centric company with core values of trust, transparency and flexibility.” The company’s management mantra is ‘employees first, customers second’. Matt explains: “If we can create an environment where our employees are empowered, and they’re the ones who feel it’s their own business and can take action with respect to their relationships with clients, we firmly believe that this will create a different set of relationships with our customers.”

HCL is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, with significant presence in Chennai and Bangalore in the south of the country. Matt makes regular visits to India from his base in New York and describes his experience of the businesses and workforce there.

“There is a tremendous skill set in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) area. If I look at HCL for example, we have a really strong engineering background and a highly skilled workforce. When it comes to technology and innovation I believe the UK and India are growing at speed. These are some of the underlying foundations that allow an entire country – as well as HCL – to participate, collaborate and innovate with many European and other Western nations.

“We’re seeing many businesses which are really focusing on innovation, on business transformation, but at the same time lowering costs. I’m very encouraged to see how technology is becoming an underlying and really pretty pervasive element of innovation and business transformation.”

DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS

Behind HCL’s innovative approach to business is its creation of ‘digital ecosystems’ with its clients and partners, described by the company as ‘service offerings and solutions across industry verticals that are strengthened by alliances with global technology vendors, customers and niche service providers.’

The company recently acquired Point to Point Products, a leading cloud solutions design company, and in 2008 acquired Axon, the key FAP consulting company. “There are so many areas where we either partner with companies or we bring them into the fold,” explains Matt. “It’s a core element of our effort to grow in the UK and to partner, whether in the digital space or in the IT space, and to help companies on their specific transformation journey.”

MANCHESTER UNITED

One such organisation is Manchester United Football Club. HCL recently signed a ground- breaking global partnership with the club to transform the digital experience of its worldwide fan base. The club has over 650 million global followers, 99 per cent of which will never set foot inside the stadium. Consequently, HCL is developing a United Xperience Lab housed within Old Trafford Stadium that can be used to explore ways in which technology can create a unified fan experience for supporters. “From a fan perspective you will see the start of specific efforts in the mobile space,” says Matt. “We’re working closely to improve the experience that fans can have through the mobile app. Three out of four fans who attend a football match use a mobile device during the game for additional information such as player stats. Interestingly, two out of three people who watch a football match at home use a device, whether mobile or otherwise, to look up information online while they watch the game on television.

“Whether you’re a 14-year-old fan in Australia, South America, or in Singapore, just because you can’t be in Old Trafford there still needs to be a possibility to experience Manchester United and Old Trafford in a different way. So you’ll see a lot more posts on the website and in the mobile space, but also with the entire ecosystem of its partners.”

SPORTS VERTICAL

Matt believes this is an exciting new area in sports technology. “The sports vertical, this notion of how you experience something if you’re not physically able to attend in the stadium, transcends various sports,” he says. “Tennis is clearly one sport where you see a lot more technology being embedded. “We’re increasingly starting to see sensors embedded into racquets that allow you to measure racquet speed and contact points. Technology is being used to create higher performance with the underlying analytics and also revolutionise the experience. I went to the US Open and one of the very first apps I downloaded was the US Open app to ensure I get all of the player stats, their ranking in the world, the records for the year, as well as other things. For now we are 100 per cent focused on Manchester United to make this a resounding success for the club, its fans and other companies, but I do think there will be opportunities to do the same for other sports and clubs.”

HCL’s partnership with Manchester United is based on more than digital transformation. “We’re very proud and humbled to have been chosen to work with Manchester United, and we’ve been proud to demonstrate our ability in the digital space and to also develop and run things at scale on a global basis, which was ultimately one of the key differentiators,” says Matt. “The other thing we found is that our belief in an employee-centric and value-based culture was a very good fit with Manchester United. I met with the team in New York; I’ve been to Manchester multiple times and met various team members there as well, and found the cultural alignment is truly complementary.”

CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

HCL is innovative not only in the technology it produces, but also in the ethos of the company, and how it is structured with its ecosystem of employees, partners, customers and niche markets. A banner headline on the HCL website reads: “Technology is allowing new-age start-ups to overcome the domination of established industry behemoths, ushering in the era of the 21st century enterprise.” And this is something at the core of HCL and how it operates.

Matt quotes Yale Professor Richard Foster’s study into ‘creative destruction’, which looks at how large companies are being crushed by innovations elsewhere:

“Half a century ago, the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company was roughly 50 years. By 2010 that average lifespan had been reduced to 18 years,” explains Matt. “At the same time, the number of ‘unicorn’ companies valued at $1bn or more have grown from 45 to 105 in the past decade. So some projections say that by 2020, roughly three quarters of all Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies did not exist in 2000.”

He believes this happens for a number of reasons. “New technology is levelling the playing field and reducing the barriers of entry. There’s a significant change in customer expectations and how you need to adapt to the digital age. And now there’s new competition from these nimble, blend digital companies which are causing widespread disruption.” How does business compete with this?

Matt explains: “First, you have to provide a consistent experience across all touchpoints, physical and digital – whether the customer visits a webpage, accesses social media, receives a bill or calls an 0800 number. Second, make sure your underlying infrastructure and technology are agile and lean enough to allow you to develop and create digital apps and services at the rate and pace that’s required. “Third is the notion of ecosystem – a new level of collaboration between employees, suppliers, providers and smart assets. And last, is a really strong focus on outcomes. If you’re a traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ company, you have to rethink your approach to customer experience. Are you agile and lean enough to truly compete? We believe that for companies, technology becomes the truly great equaliser, and it can help you make these changes in 21st century enterprise.”