Onwards, Upwards towards 10x Growth for Allied Digital within the next 10 years
The Chairman in his recent address during the 40th year Celebration of Allied Digital set a lofty vision of 10x growth for the company. A vision that is exciting, aspirational, inspirational to act on, transformational from several perspectives, worthy of being embraced by the entire company, and demanding of joint action by everyone in the organization in a greatly collaborative manner.
Is such a vision just a dream, or can the dream be converted into a reality? Indeed a close study of the Top 100 companies in any geography, be it India, Americas, EMEA, Middle East, Asia, or Africa, provides real-life testimonies of such achievements by those who have Dared to Dream and Dreamed to Dare - and converted such dreams to a living reality.
And Allied Digital Limited has actually everything going for it to realize such a vision within the next 10 years, if not earlier. Some of the top world-class Fortune 500 companies of the world depend greatly on Allied Digital services for their functioning, not just in one geography but across multiple geographies, indeed across 40+ countries. If you are not having the basic capabilities of a world-class organization, we cannot indeed service such world-class customers. So the fact that we are serving world-class customers is evidence enough that we are indeed having world-class capabilities.
But to grow 10x we need to ensure that we amplify these world-class capabilities ten times more. This implies amplifying our world-class talent, world-class quality delivery processes, new software innovations, senior management capabilities, and new customer-centric offerings to achieve the vision.
Achievement of such a vision requires a sea change in the mindset of everyone in the organization.
First of all, it requires a Dare to Dream and Dream to dare Growth mindset in each of us, not just the Chairman of the organization. As the great Dr Abdul Kalam Missile Scientist and former President of India so inspiringly said “Dream Big and you will achieve great things. Dream small and you will be limited by your own dreams.” So every one of us should dare to dream big and have the self-belief that we can achieve it.
A Growth Mindset implies that every one of us should seek to grow the organization, identify new customer opportunities, and grow existing ones in whatever position they may be in.
We often limit ourselves and compartmentalize ourselves in various specific roles, finance, sales, delivery, HR, etc. But in every role is the opportunity for growth of an organization as every role contributes to the growth. For instance, when one is in a delivery role, one could see new opportunities in not just mining the existing account, but identifying new sales opportunities through the network of contacts one builds in the process, or observing where one’s competitors are penetrating that account which could be addressed by Allied Digital too. If one is in Finance and HR one could use analytics or data to see opportunities for higher growth, training, profitability, and productivity.
Collaboration, camaraderie, and selfless thinking, a spontaneous willingness and proactive approach to help others beyond one’s own sphere of work, are key to the identification of such opportunities and realizing them.
Secondly, it requires a continuous Raise the Bar and Reach your full potential mindset. If each of us reaches our full potential in terms of our capabilities the organization also reaches its full potential. This means a mindset of continuous learning, improved knowledge and abilities, and increased agility both at a personal level and team/corporate levels.
Thirdly we need an Entrepreneurial, Innovation-oriented mindset. Leadership is possible only if we imagine new offerings, new solutions, new ways of improving productivity, reliability of services, and enhanced customer experiences. This demands sharp, ingenuous, innovative entrepreneurial thinking by each of us, leveraging emerging state-of-the-art technologies and emerging business models to ignite innovation. Technology has now become affordable, available, advanced, and accessible giving us tremendous opportunities to innovate in each of the above-mentioned areas. But for this, everyone should be abreast of advances in technology and get self-certified and self-skilled in the same. Continuous adaptive learning is what differentiates great organizations from normal ones. We should not just be Good, but should be Great if we want 10x growth for the organization.
Fourthly Ability and Agility should be combined with data-driven Strategies and outcomes/goals-oriented Action Plans with a total Commitment to execute on the action plan mindset. Otherwise, our vision will only remain a pipe dream. Speed is of the essence in today’s world. And that requires Agility in achieving an outcomes-oriented milestones/targets driven Action Plan. Strategies should be arrived at by detailed data capture and analysis, and Action Plans should be arrived at aligned to the decided Strategies.
The Action Plan needs to be executed with energy and efficiency and should be continuously monitored for adherence to the plan with real-time course corrections as needed to achieve the same.
And finally, one needs a Meet Commitments made mindset. Meeting internal commitments to a dynamic plan of action and commitment to the achievement of targets set by the organization, meeting external commitments to our customers and partners, meeting commitments made to the company’s vision and goals, and meeting commitments made to oneself about one’s continuous growth in terms of skills and contributions to the company are key to the explosive growth of the company and achievement of its vision.
A larger purpose in life beyond one’s own personal requirements energizes one tremendously, and large visions stimulate such larger purposes. If our company achieves 10x growth, it means more employees get inducted and their families get benefited, the socio-economic status of the country grows, and more good can be bequeathed to society both from a company perspective as well as from an individual perspective.
The clarion call of John F Kennedy to put a man on the moon in less than a decade galvanized an entire nation to action in the 60s and pivoted the USA as the leader in space technologies.
A Yes we Can inspiring slogan of Barack Obama enabled the election of the first Black President of the USA.
In our own mythology, a Jambavan’s exhortation to Hanuman about his immense hidden potential made him leap across the oceans and lift mountains with ease. As the great Swami Vivekananda thundered “If you have belief in yourself and not just in a thousand gods and goddesses, there is no limit to what you can achieve”.
We all at Allied Digital, every one of us, need to put our shoulders to the wheel of 10x growth and move it confidently and steadily forward accelerating our speed with every turn of the wheel.
So let us all Arise to the Challenges of 10x growth, Awaken the latent talent and potential hidden in each of us and the organization and let us Stop not till our goals are reached.
Yes We Can !!!
Sincerely,
R. Ramanan
Global Head Strategy - Growth, Innovation, Partnerships
Allied Digital