I started in soft-wear and ended up in software," laughs Raja
Sawhney, European president of outsourcing giant
HCL, talking about a not entirely
obvious progression from high fashion to high technology that he's
going to have to explain in more detail.
But for the moment there's a more important topic of
conversation: Slumdog Millionaire, the smash-hit movie that
has captured the imagination of audiences around the world. There
are those who have argued that its image of India is not
necessarily as inspirational as the marketing blurb would suggest,
but Sawheny sees it very differently.
"It's reflection of the Indian race," he enthuses, demanding to
know if I've seen it yet. "It shows the adversity that creates the
desire in people to reach out and create. You know, you find that
by and large the entire Indian nation is full of people who have
lived through very hard times, but during those hard times their
aspirations have only increased in proportion to their adversity.
With each adversity they face, there is a greater desire to reach
out and do something more. India is a nation that has fought
back."
But back to Sawheny's rag trade origins: how does someone get
from there, to heading up a major outsourcing firm? "My working
career started with high fashion garments," he recalls. "The reason
I got into the fashion industry was that it was at its boom, an
industry where you could get into it and get a boost to your
career," recalls Sawhney. "The time I spent in that industry gave
me a lot of insight into areas such as manufacturing, client
service and all the business elements that go into the manufacture
of high fashion garments."
But the fashion world was not a place for Sawhney to stay for
long, especially as its nature changed. "Other counties came along
as competitors, such as Thailand and the Philippines," he says. "It
only takes a few bad apples to destroy an industry. I found that
the garment industry started to go downhill rapidly. That all
happened as I saw an advert that was looking for people to hire in
computer manufacturing.
"It all sounded very interesting, but I realised that I didn't
have the skills or the academic qualifications to understand what
the hell a computer could do. I took tutorials on the subject and
realised that I didn't actually need to be a computer whizz-kid.
What I needed was to understand the applicability of computers. I
concentrated on that aspect."
Indian economy
The technology market in India was not then as it is now. "At
the time, the Indian economy was a very closed one. Companies were
necessarily self-reliant and did their own research and
development. We couldn't get access to US technology, so we wrote
our own operating systems and our own device drivers and we
marketed them and all the applications software around them," says
Sawhney. "There were only two computer companies in India at the
time, ICL and IBM. The Indian government introduced a regulation
that said that any company had to include Indian stock
participation or they could pack up and go. IBM packed its bags,
while ICL diluted its capital. IBM's withdrawal created a vacuum in
the market."
Starting point
HCL's origins lie in a move by Hewlett Packard to enter the
Indian market in 1990, which resulted in a joint-venture called HCL
HP. "The economy had opened up and we could now get access to
world-class technology and the best processes," says Sawhney. "This
was a very successful joint venture for HP. Nowhere else in the
world was HP the number one vendor. India was the only place they
got to be number one in the market. HCL was a well-respected name
in India. It had the highest unaided brand recall. Children go to
school and play with HCL computers, use them at university, all the
government and public sector businesses use HCL. It was all
pervasive in the market."
The HP joint venture was limited to a five-year period and
around 1999 HCL went global. "We found ourselves as a relatively
young global IT services company, but with a very, very rich
heritage," notes Sawhney. "I moved to the UK in 2000, to a small
office in the back of beyond in Maidenhead. We had two customers,
single digit revenue and 1.5 salespeople. That's when our grind
began, when we started to build up brick by brick."
HCL's culture
Entrepreneurialism is a key tenet of the HCL culture, argues
Sawhney. "HCL started with a bunch of five entrepreneurs who set
out to build microcomputers that would do the same thing as
mainframes," he notes.
"You can still tell an HCL person from a mile off. I think there
is a particular DNA for an HCL person. It includes a very high need
for achievement and very persuasive skills. HCL people are very
energetic, they want to do lots of thing and to take risks on
behalf of the company."
Presumably there's more of demand for computer skills than there
was when Swahney got into the market? "The proportion is
different," he suggests. "At the time when I entered the market, we
were still selling the concept of computerisation, which you don't
need to do now. You need consulting skills to be able to look at
business and see what the needs are there. You need some commercial
acumen. You need computer engineers to manufacture and design
stuff.
"At the high end, you don't need to be computer literate as much
as business savvy and be able to see the business pain points. But
at an operating level, understanding what technology can deliver is
a base level requirement."
Sawhney says there is little backlash against offshoring despite
the seemingly never-ending stream of polls of the Great British
public that seem to show the contrary. "Fujistu is a Japanese
company operating here, IBM is an American company operating here -
do people look at them differently?" he asks.
"We happen to be a company that has an origin in India, but our
global delivery centres are in Ireland, China, Malaysia, Krakow and
so on. We have capacity and presence across the globe. We have
demonstrated our commitment to the UK. We have set up in Northern
Ireland, where even UK businesses haven't flourished and we have
made it flourish. We've got people from Northern Ireland working
there who were scared they were going to lose their jobs
previously. We are creating jobs there. In Carolina, we are
creating jobs. We create local and global employment. Some 75%-80%
of our staff is locally-sourced."
Apart from the success of Slumdog Millionaire, India has
been in the news of late due to the scandal surrounding the
financial mismanagement of Satyam, which some commentators argue
could cast a long pall over the entire Indian outsourcing
industry.
Sawhney is phlegmatic. "Satyam happened in India; Enron happened
in the US," he says. "It's very sad when these sorts of things
happen, but they are about individuals, not about an industry. Even
today, Satyam has some wonderful people. In some ways, it can be
good for the industry. The whole thing has been debated in the
Indian parliament - there's been a tightening of corporate
governance and public disclosures have been made. It is
unfortunate, but some good can come."
But going back to his comments about the arrival of countries
like China and the Philippines coming in and damaging the fashion
industry, does he not worry that the same may happen to India and
outsourcing, especially on the back of such a scandal? "Fashion,
like music, has no language. You can speak Chinese and manufacture
clothing, it doesn't make a difference. Unfortunately - or
fortunately for us - you do need language in IT and most businesses
are run in English. India has a distinct advantage and that makes
all the difference for us."
New opportunities
Sawheny also adds that rather than fearing the impact of Indian
offshoring, UK firms ought to be exploring the opportunities of
themselves moving into India. "I regret that UK businesses don't
seem to be seeing enough opportunity in the relationship that the
UK has with India," he says.
"UK businesses ought to be out there and selling themselves into
the re-building of parts of India. There is so much work to be done
in service areas where UK firms could be seriously benefiting.
There's a great opportunity for UK businesses to seize, but they
need to make the move to do it."