Mr. Rajan Bedi, Director and Head Business Acquisition Hi-tech and Communication Engineering Services Business, HCL Technologies interacted with students of TAPMI on 9th July,2014. Mr Bedi has done his Engineering from MIT Manipal and has done his MBA from IMT Ghaziabad and is a distinguished Alumni from IMT.
An Industry Professional with a rich work experience of 25 years with 10 Years is in the Manufacturing industry with the Global MNC Yamaha Motors in the Supply chain and Vendor Development and 15 Years in the IT Industry with HCL Technologies , Microsoft Business Solutions , Commerce One , Ramco Systems in the Presales , Alliances, Corporate and Operations functions .
Mr. Bedi has demonstrated Skills across Business Acquisition, Building High Performance Presales Teams, Processes, Winning Large Outsourcing Deals, Customer Relationship Management, CXO Level Clients Visits management and Strategic Projects for the CEOs Office .
Mr. Bedi has been associated with HCL Technologies for the last Ten years and apart from his rich professional experience, he enjoys mentoring young minds. Owing to this initiative, he delivered a Guest Lecture on ‘Sales in Information Technology/Engineering and R&D Services (IT/ERS) Outsourcing Industry’ at IMT Ghaziabad.
The Guest Lecture began with Mr. Bedi speaking about HCL Technologies and its clients. HCL Technologies is a 5 Billion USD Company is present across 31 countries and has a workforce of 95000 Employees with a diverse portfolio of verticals and Horizontal service lines. The Industry verticals include Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail and CPG, EU and Public Services, Telecom, Manufacturing, and the horizontal service lines include Engineering and R&D Application Services , Infrastructure Services , BPO Services. He spoke about the value system followed at HCL Technologies. Trust, Transparency and Flexibility, Value Centricity are the three core values which act as guiding principles at HCL Technologies. It also follows an exclusive management philosophy of ‘Employees First, Customers Second’ and has recently launched the Relationship Beyond the Contract Campaign on a Global basis .
After a brief introduction of HCL Technologies, Mr. Bedi discussed as to why IT and Engineering Services outsourcing is important to Global MNC organizations as the Focus on primary areas, reduced costs , handling technology changes, ability to scale , Leverage Global best Practices and savings for investing in Core competencies , Accelerated Time to are the main reasons for outsourcing.
This was followed by a discussion on Process of outsourcing providers by clients for which the starting point is the Business case which is created by the Client / Sourcing Advisory firms and put forward to the client Core Team and Management which is followed by the Agreement and need for the same to define the scope and Roadmap for Outsourcing and Potential benefits along with the savings
This is followed by identifying the potential service Providers with the help of the Sourcing Advisors Like TPI or Global Analysts like Gartner , Forester the creation of the Request for Information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP) processes takes place which are responded to by the shortlisted service Providers / ESO players like HCL T.
The best practice for devising an evaluation document is to determine the right vehicle for fact finding and to maintain commitment against timelines and norms set. The steps for developing a VEM is to determine and define the key evaluation criteria, scoring system, weightings, create relevant RFP sections, analyze scores, issues and risk management plans and contract negotiation.
Vendor Evaluation reference checking, oral presentations and site visits, identification of final list followed by completing due diligence/final pricing processes takes place after which the final service provider is selected and this involves a lot of Planning and strategy.
Mr. Bedi threw light on the organizational structure of a typical IT company using a case study and elaborated the above steps that are followed in the Sales Cycle of an Outsourcing Deal .
The responsibilities of an IT/ERS Salesperson were covered by Mr. Bedi in detail which include Business planning, Account management, organization mapping, relationship building, business creation, managing deals, RFI and RFP due diligence, client visits, contract closure and meeting quarterly revenue targets and competition intelligence/replacement to name a few .
Significant focus was drawn to the necessities required to win a large outsourcing relationship. Apart from maintaining a good client relationship, it is essential to have the right information and understand the customer business / Industry in depth. This can be achieved by studying the annual report, investor report, M&A of the customer. It is important to identify the needs of the customer to align the approach taken to address customer needs. It is vital to understand the channel ecosystem and also be aware of the key decision makers in the customer organization. A good coach, advisory, client references, risk and mitigation factors are the other key requirements for acquiring an outsourcing relationship.
The Guest Lecture reached its end with Mr. Bedi touching up on career opportunities at HCL Technologies – Sales, Pre-Sales, Marketing and Corporate Office Strategy. The floor was open for questions from the audience, which was actively carried forward by both the speaker and the audience.
Queries from students ranged from areas like presence of sales team in verticals and horizontals to product versus service sales, advertisements having an impact in the service industry, career progression, identifying untapped spaces and potential determination, effect of cultural and regional differences in sales.
Mr. Rajan Bedi kept the audience engaged throughout his address with role play and interactions .This Guest Lecture ended successfully with a large number of students showing enthusiasm and keen interest in working in the Sales and Pre-Sales domain after their two year Post Graduate Diploma in Management program .
The students from TAPMI who had done there internship at HCL Technologies also shared their experience and benefits with the rest of the students .
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