Opinion Benchmark to Surpassmark

Here’s a terrific example of an individual’s deliberate urge to build capability. Fifty years ago,a young African American had the guts to dream of becoming the greatest in the world. He overstretched himself,running 6 km per day. Having fixed a 4-km fitness schedule,his coach reprimanded him for running more. With steely conviction he told his coach the extra kilometres were to fulfill his ambition. This is the story of Cassius Clay who became Muhammad Ali,the world’s No. 1 heavyweight champion (boxing era 1960-1981). He achieved Surpassmark by building his capability,the most important active agent in human life.

In India,managers tend to hide capability but overexpose good spoken English and educational degrees from so-called high-end MBA & engineering institutions. They’d rather not discuss their own function,but point out defective practice in others. Industry leaders lend an ear to street smart subordinates who can express themselves,often promoting them over those who have strong capability. This prevalent,unhealthy HR practice rarely takes into consideration the kind of delivery capability customers positively talk about. Unfortunately this attitude of mistakenly valuing extroverts over real performers results in not building capability in management and operation levels.

An enterprise aiming for Surpass Practice has to train people to develop competence without complacency. At all levels,people must have a high level of common understanding. I’ve regretfully experienced the reverse when some clients have advised me to lower training levels citing mismatch with their people’s capability. Tailoring a training process to a lower level of capability actually defeats its very purpose; the enterprise pulls itself down instead of up.

A pertinent example of discounting capability building is India’s IT business that’s focused on the demand-led market. Global clients need low-cost services,so go net in fish without much effort. That’s probably why IT service has linear growth. There’s no capex investment to get an order,just hire more people for profitability. Manpower size counts,as do high profitability and share market results. Initially India’s engineering cream from IITs was hired,now basic graduates are adequate,making it evident that the skill level required is not high. No Tier 1 Indian IT company has tried to make an outstanding difference by creating global Surpassmark,save for one that’s galloping up right now.

In 2010,while on some global research across four continents interacting with top business leaders of billion plus dollar companies,I found Cognizant,an American Indian company,had become a buzz with outsourcing customers and industry advisors. Whether or not they worked with Cognizant,they appreciated that Cognizant had invested to understand a client’s future requirement as per its specific industry,helped shape the client’s business strategy,and also did so during recession time. They commented that Cognizant’s key client-facing personnel were of higher standard and generally younger than other Indian IT service providers. This would mean that Cognizant invested in developing people capability too. When I shared this point with Indian IT biggies and predicted Cognizant’s quick growth,everybody said it was a smaller company. But that’s exactly what happened. In 2013,Cognizant is No. 2 after TCS.

Cognizant’s ascent just proves that a highly demand-led market like IT service can be transformed to surpass in value if the process of delivering outstanding customer value can become perpetual. This is Cognizant’s corporate Surpass Practice leading to exceptional business results. I’m sure Cognizant will encounter the global biggies to establish that this Surpass Practice can become their Surpassmark worldwide.

Everything boils down to how differently from competitors an enterprise understands customers. There’s a scale of four levels—basic,average,superior and unbeatable—to understand customer requirements. To establish the market reputation of being a high value business,look at unbeatable level delivery. It will automatically impose that your employees have a high level of business understanding and delivery capability. Such capability does not appear on waving a magic wand. The whole enterprise has to first recognise its necessity,accept and adhere to the change required to live up to the unbeatable platform. Willingness of the workforce is essential for raising the learning curve.

When people reflect on my Surpassmark examples for individuals,of Charlie Chaplin in entertainment I wrote last week,and Muhammad Ali from sports now,they enjoy their delivery capability. The crux of delivery excellence for an enterprise is such Surpass Practice that establishes Surpassmark.

What is the perceptible code of Surpass Practice? It’s the working process of an enterprise that repeatedly delivers surpass value that’s perceived by customers. That means employees have such a high level of common understanding that they empower themselves to reject delivery that does not meet the Surpassmark. As Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle,who lived in 384-322 BC,said,“You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event,it is a habit.”

Shombit Sengupta is an international consultant to top management on differentiating business strategy with execution excellence (www.shiningconsulting.com)