This
is one topic which catches my eyes and attention pretty fast. These 2 factors –
Culture & Strategy have always been, in my opinion, the critical factors
for success in any organization. They become all the more important if a
company is under crisis and is looking for a turnover or for a successful
acquisition. Here is my story of an organization that reported to have taken
major steps around 2005 to turn-around the company and bring it on a
success-path – HCL Technologies.
It
is pretty interesting to note that as I am writing this, many investors &
analysts are opining that HCL Technologies is the company to be invested in,
atleast amongst the top 5 Indian IT players – TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro
and HCLT. Through my MBA, or probably
before that too, turnaround strategies have always enticed me, and when I was
selected to HCLT fresh from my college, I wanted to know about this
revolutionary concept called – Employees First, Customer Second. There is
something special (read catchy) in the name itself.
I
was curious and genuinely interested to read this book before I join the
company and so did I. Not everyone who joins would do so. In all honesty, that
book had all the ingredients to actually turn-around a company, and the
references made to historical companies are also interesting to know. Companies
like Southwest airlines, who hired people based on attitudes, are proof to the
point that employees are the differentiators for most companies in the service
space. There have been anecdotes that pilots of Southwest airlines assisted the
on-board staff so that they could reduce turn-around time and in-turn increase
efficiency.
Coming
back to my previous point – there is something special (read catchy) in the
name itself. What makes it so? Clearly, if it was called Employee First, it
would not have caught much attention, almost every company knows the employees
are key (though treatment & implementation is a different topic
altogether), it is the “Customer Second” which caught the attention. People
around started wondering about the guts of a company which told Customers are
Second in an industry which was ruled by philosophies like – Customers is the
king; Customers are always right; Customers come first. This makes the name
special.
I
am sure, most of you reading would also be wondering that how is it possible for
a company which banks on customers, say they are second and yet make an impact
and grow. So here is the key difference – EFCS (Employee First Customer Second)
is not really a philosophy; I would put it across as a strategy for a company. This
is a very well thought off strategy. For any sales guy, a dream run of a client
meet would be to get the maximum attention to what he says – and this is
exactly what EFCS facilitates – When you say your customer that he is second –
you have grabbed his attention, now how you utilize this is on your capability.
So in this sense, this makes a great tool and strategy to crack conversations.
But
EFCS at the core signifies something more than a strategy. It is essentially
empowering an employee without any fears of hierarchy to contribute to
customer’s growth and development. It ideally creates an ecosystem for an
employee where one can focus only on the value addition for client, and not
about the peripheral activities. So an employee’s support system is to be more
effective and efficient in order to fully realize the effectiveness of this
concept.
With
so much about EFCS and high aspirations, I stepped into this organization, to
really be part of its success story. In the initial days itself, I realized
that EFCS was known merely as a name and not many people in the lower and
middle management were actually able to confidently address the topic, and
explain its importance in the company’s strategy and how it has been able to
grow based on it. This put me in a fix. What are company strategies for? Are
they limited to only senior management and the key decision makers? Isn’t
important for people working at the grass-root level to be aware of them and
realize the value of the same. But one
thing was very clear – the top management was putting in all the efforts to
actually spread the word of EFCS and its benefits, key pillars of the strategy
through various communication media internally.
This
was the point when my focus shifted to another element called the culture of an
organization. If this company deserves applause for one thing, my first choice
would be the fact that it has actually survived for 36 yrs. Companies with such
a history would definitely have developed a long standing unique culture for
itself. In the first few days of me joining and interaction with people, I
predominantly found only 2 types of people – either they are company veterans
(like 8 -15yrs exp in the company) or just fresh in the system (like 0-3 yrs exp
in the company). Seldom had I found someone in the mid-range. That made me
realize that there is a strong force within the company who are highly
experienced and seen the company grow through the times. These folks would
probably form the core of the culture in this company. These guys have had the
mentality of the erstwhile Indian industry where bosses were made from
predominantly experience, and sub-ordinates were expected to do what the boss
says (atleast in most scenarios). I could now see how tough was the job of
actually fitting the strategy of EFCS into this culture and actually make it
work. Invariably top-down approach was the better choice to get this down to
the bottom. And the management chose so. There were only minor changes that was
made in the culture, for e.g for any IT issue, instead of calling the support
team, we were supposed to raise a request online, which made tracking lot more
easier.
This
is probably the best thing that the management has done right - They did not
force a cultural change in order to ingrain the strategy. They made minor
tweaks here and there, but even today it is essentially the company of yester
years. They leveraged the fact the managers are made of experience and chose high-
experienced managers to actually propagate the concept downstream (how many
were good is another aspect).
Even
today, this strategy still remains to me as an exceptional one only on 100%
implementation. It is upon individual companies to understand the culture and
fit the strategy with minor tweaks.
For
me the biggest lesson was – Never estimate a company based on its strategy,
because invariably, culture trumps strategy every time!!!
P.S: All the information written above is purely opinionated, and cannot be held for any discrepancies of perception and/or understanding. This post is my own and don't necessarily represent HCL/any other individual's positions, strategies or opinions.
