HCL's Digital Open Innovation: Enhancing Business Model Effectiveness through Talent and Customer Acquisition, Development, and Retention

by Solomon Darwin


This case study provides an illustration of how the intersection of new digital technologies--mobile devices, cloud computing, and online collaboration--is now transforming the way organizations will conduct business in the future. In late 2014, faced with the challenges of the inherent inefficiencies of operating within a $6.8 billion corporation--with over 110,000 employees located across 31 countries--and contending within the hyper-competitive $1 trillion global IT services industry, divisional executives at India-based HCL Technologies took the initiative to launch 'Starting Point,' an internal centralized digital platform, for two of its key verticals -- Life Sciences/Health Care and Public Services -- that made up 20 percent of the company's revenue. Realizing that many of its current employees were already leading 'digital lives' and were now almost always connected to their personal handheld devices, this new centralized digital platform had two key goals by making company data more readily-available on mobile phones and tablets: 1) to enhance the new hire on-boarding process and 2) to empower employees so that they could have more-effective customer discussions that would ultimately lead to more business-to-business sales. By making this transition from analog to digital, HCL Technologies executives believed that Starting Point would improve organizational agility, hasten internal decision making and increase employee efficiencies. This case tells the Starting Point story in three parts: Recognition of the need for a centralized digital platform and mobile strategy; execution of the initial digital platform over a six-week period; and an evaluation of the digital platform's benefits. The case also describes how the Starting Point project benefitted from HCL's entrepreneurial culture, which has been part of the company's DNA since its founding in 1976.

Learning Objectives


The purpose of the HCL case is to show how the concepts of technological change, open innovation, digital innovation, business model enhancement, company culture, teamwork, and project management can be applied to the information technology (IT) services industry.

Details

Pub Date: Jul 30, 2015

Discipline: Information Technology

Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Technological change, Teams, Employee training, Organizational culture, Sales, Business models, Work force optimization, Networks, Stakeholders

Product #: B5843-PDF-ENG

Industry: Information technology consulting services

Geography: United States, California, India

Length: 23 page(s)


Berkeley Haas Case Series
Berkeley Haas Case Series The Berkeley Haas Case Series is a collection of business case studies written by faculty members at the Haas School of Business. Cases are conceived, developed, written, and published throughout the year, on subjects ranging from entrepreneurship and strategy to finance and marketing. Each case includes a teaching note for use in the classroom.

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