HANNOVER, Germany, NOIDA, India, and LONDON, March 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL), one of the leading global IT services providers, today announced that its Vice Chairman and CEO, Vineet Nayar, has been conferred with the prestigious 'Leader in the Digital Age Award' (LIDA) at the CeBIT 2011 show in Hannover, Germany.

The LIDA Award honours outstanding Enterprise 2.0 leaders and will be conferred for the first time at this world's largest trade fair showcasing ICT. The award recognises Nayar for pioneering 'the revolutionary corporate philosophy of Employees First, Customers Second, which acknowledges employees as the most important capital a company has.' The result of Nayar's vision is to bring together the three pillars of the Enterprise 2.0 management strategy: transparency, openness and networking.

HCL's Employees First, Customers Second (EFCS) philosophy is centred on the belief that organisational focus and structures should be inverted to focus on the 'value zone' - the place where frontline employees interact with customers and create real value for them.

Under Vineet Nayar's leadership and fuelled by the EFCS philosophy HCL Technologies had embarked on a transformation journey in 2005 during which the company's revenues increased by over 3.6 times, net income rose by 91 per cent, and Market Cap doubled. Its most testing validation however happened during the 2008-09 economic recession when HCL Technologies became the fastest growing IT Services company in the world. This path-breaking success of the company has been captured as a case study, which is currently being taught at the Harvard Business School.

Nayar recently took centre stage globally through the release of his book 'Employees First, Customers Second - turning conventional management wisdom upside down' which has been ranked No. 7 on Amazon UK's listing of 'Best Business Books of 2010' and also been rated amongst the 'Best Business Books of 2010' by the Library Journal of America. This Harvard Business Press bestseller has been welcomed with rave reviews across the globe by business leaders and scholars alike.

Mr Jorg Bode, Minister for Economy of the German county Lower Saxony and member of the judging committee said, "In the time of networking and Web 2.0 it is clear that networking and transparency are becoming critical issues for Top managers. As a visionary leader of HCL Technologies the CEO Vineet Nayar was able to use new technologies with an extremely positive effect for his company. This is why we awarded him with this prize."

"It is truly wonderful to be recognised and rewarded with this top industry citation. I would like to thank the jury for the privilege of being the first leader in the world to receive this honour," said Vineet Nayar, Vice Chairman and CEO, HCL Technologies. "The Digital age is powered by human knowledge and HCL's Employees First, Customers Second philosophy is a testament of this basic truth. We believe that organizations need to put humans back into business by unleashing their potential and passion towards value creation and innovation."

Through his blog (http://www.vineetnayar.com/) and other dialogues Nayar outlines his hope to take the principles of EFCS to the next generation in pursuit of 'new leaders' beyond the traditional corporate hierarchies.

The award will be presented at a ceremony during the CeBIT 2011 conference in Hannover, Germany on 2 March 2011.