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If you can envision an idea, invent it!
C P Gurnani
CEO-Mahindra Satyam
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Mahindra Satyam (BSE: 500376), is a global information, communications and technology (ICT) company. Headquartered in Hyderabad, Mahindra Satyam is a part of the $15.9 billion Mahindra Group and has a market cap of Rs. 13,759.39 crores.

Every company needs to innovate to stay competitive. It can be an innovation in product offerings, packaging for goods, process planning and execution or service delivery. The primary focus area of innovation for the IT industry so far has been on business models and processes (project management, development, recruitments, client servicing, training).

India currently holds a strong market position with almost 60 percent share of the total global offshore IT services market. However, we still need to grow , exceed and excel in the products arena, the way we have in services. Our IT industry has to cultivate and harvest its product status. Either we make use of the available opportunities and scope or we will be restricted to services and left behind in the innovative product markets, which today's competitive world of opportunities has to offer. This potential is highly being recognized by the Indian IT companies and there has been a gradual shift in their innovation strategies from services to product innovation.

We are doing a few things in this direction:

Enhancing our customer IP through joint patents

Our complete product development capabilities with special focus on products for emerging markets enable us to expand the global footprint of our customers and help them capture the rapidly growing product demand in developing countries. Some examples of our contribution in this field are:


A 'business to consumer' mobile application for O? customers

Consumers of the mobile service provider O? can now download their bill as a PDF and access them offline. They can get contract details and account information by sending an SMS from application, through the O? portal, search for O? shops etc. More than 10,000 downloads have been registered so far and the momentum continues.

A 'hot spot' and 'open zone' finder for BTFon

In order to help BT customers to find the nearest hot spots and open zones, we have developed and launched a system of Auto Login and Auto Dialling to nearest BT Hotspot and BT Openzone. 1,40,000 downloads for this and it is truly a great service for the consumer on the move.

Mobile services 'on the go' for Omantel

The application developed for Omantel aims at providing mobility solutions to their customers by providing them services on the go. We have registered 815 downloads for iPhone 549 downloads alone!

Workplace as a Service (WaaS)

WaaS is a hosted or managed virtual desktop computing solution that allows the benefits and flexibility of shared, dedicated, and pooled resources of virtual desktops and applications to organizations globally. This is running successfully across several desktops of our customers, globally.


Innovation cannot be taught!

While leaders and associates in a company can be taught the skills that can contribute to enhancing their innovation quotient, I believe it cannot be taught. Good leadership always helps in fostering the capacity for action, stimulate creativity among subordinates and motivate new ideas along with work as a control for scanning, prioritizing, developing, investing and implementation of innovation. Leadership therefore is critical to moving from innovation to product development to execution. This leadership is provided by the abundant human potential we have in our company. Innovation initiatives tend to depend heavily on collective knowledge, expertise, and commitment as key inputs in the value creation process.

The new normal emerges

The global economic downturn has given a completely new outlook to the way businesses seek to sustain, optimize profits, boost revenues, and discover new scope for enhancing their strengths and business models. But this economic downturn has also brought us back-to-basics models and core competencies which lie at the roots of organizational efficiency and success. A growing number of companies are now recognizing that their employees are far more than just an overhead; they represent intellectual capital with immense value to the business.

I would like to focus on creation of our CEO FORCE – a model of distributed leadership comprising home-grown leaders and young talent within the Organization, who work collaboratively and interdependently to achieve the purpose of our Mission 2015 (and beyond). Unlike heroic models of leadership, which rely on the capabilities of one person, the CEO FORCE concept of distributed leadership encourages all members to contribute their knowledge and expertise and ensure growth.

India needs human capital which is motivated, agile, aggressive, developed and mature is required. Comprehensive human capital development integrates three essential elements: Talent Optimization, Learning Agility and Innovation Capabilities. At Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam, we stand strong with the agility of a behemoth and the maturity of the Big Boys theory, yet guided by the spirit of a "start up". Our 'human capital' served as the key aspect that pushed us through the 2009 storm heralding our three-year transformation journey.

During this period (at Mahindra Satyam), we continuously challenged the status Quo to induct freshness, making it personal with our meet and greet programs, and followed a structured approach. We executed and still continue to deploy this framework by seeking inputs at every stage through our Freevoice system, creation of the Game changers club, innovation awards, Leadership council, shadow board and our Global leadership Cadre programs.

We leverage Tech Mahindra's leadership and expertise in Mobility, System Integration and delivery of large transformations to optimally penetrate the opportunity presented by Mahindra Satyam’s diverse set of clients across multiple verticals. Likewise Mahindra Satyam’s expertise in Enterprise Solutions will enable a more complete value proposition to be delivered to Tech Mahindra’s clients. Our forays into new trend areas are being bolstered by our unified business transformation platform called NMACS (Network, Mobility, Analytics, Cloud and Security).

Our core purpose is to challenge conventional thinking and innovatively use all our human resources to drive positive change in the lives of our stakeholders and communities across the world, to enable them to Rise. Teams within Mahindra Satyam have formed champions for RISE and are living the concept with passion and pride.

Let me sign off by saying, invent when possible, else innovate!

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