CSS Corp has been recognized as the “Most Admired IT Company of the Year” at the 9th edition of the Golden Globe Tigers Awards 2022. The awards gala was held in the Pullman Kuala Lumpur City Centre Hotel, Malaysia in the month of June. This awards program salutes remarkable business leaders and organizations for their continuing commitment to excellence by developing best practices and innovative strategies to help shape the Asian economy. The awards jury hailed CSS Corp for an array of admirable differentiators and achievements that hold the organization in high esteem.
Let’s break down each of the differentiators:
- Championing the employee-first culture: The industry-acclaimed RESILIENCE framework and CHEER framework exclusively developed for the New Normal has been instrumental in upping employee morale and positivity. The team launched employee assistance programs like mindfulness sessions, access to telemedicine services and dedicated 24/7 counselling support. CSS Corp rolled-out the SAFE framework to safeguard global employees and their families, an intra-company COVID-19 App, and round-the-clock Doctor-on-Call helpline service.
- Best-in-class people policies: The leadership has been instrumental in fostering a culture that promotes a flat hierarchy with a no-door policy. Employees are free to voice their opinions openly and often, irrespective of their gender, orientation, or generation. There is an elaborate rewards and recognitions program, 360-degree feedback mechanism, buddy/mentor for new joiners, zero-tolerance to workplace or sexual harassment and various other initiatives that help employees feel at home.
- Defenders of D&I: CSS Corpians are at the heart of the “most admired company.” The leadership has led the march in implementing several policies and frameworks that promote D&I.
- W25, a Women Leadership Mentoring Program that brings together budding women leaders and helps them become the leaders of tomorrow
- ASHP (Anti-Sexual Harassment Policy) with a zero-tolerance toward sexual harassment
- WIN (Women Initiative Network) promotes career development through mentoring, events & networking. Special policy for specially-abled people.
Inclusive hiring practices are leading the company toward a 50-50 gender balanced workforce.
- High on ESG: CSS Corp’s policies are designed to seamlessly integrate CSR and sustainability into business processes. Since 2014, the team has been committed to the ten principles of the UNGC by supporting its efforts to ensure business practices are built on equality, sustainability, and human rights.
In 2021, CSS Corp’s environmental strategies:
- Reduced GHG emissions across delivery centers
- Prevented axing of trees in neighboring vicinities
- Dropped electricity consumption across offices
- Disposed e-waste via regulated agencies
- Deploying new-age tech: CSS Corp has strategically invested in broadening digital capabilities. Cutting-edge digital technology solutions including AI led cloud-based customer experience transformation platform, CSS EDISON® and CSS Contelli®, AIOps platform, take an outcome-based approach and leverage best-in-class cognitive RPA, AI, Automation, augmented reality, and advanced analytics to revolutionize the IT support and services. The in-house enterprise insight system called COEUS increased employee productivity and improved customer support.
- Leveraging unique models: CSS Corp’s transformational business models entail innovative commercial outcome-based and gain-sharing models. While many IT services companies are hesitant to provide these models, CSS Corp’s unique engagement models take a skin-in-the-game proactive approach instead of a break-fix approach of traditional engagement models. Performance-based commercial models imply “paid” or “penalized” solely on the end outcomes.
The common thread running across success stories is the transformative outcomes of unique engagement models. It’s a shift from traditional FTE-based pricing to a managed services partnership model with outcome-based commercials. Take for instance the scenarios where payment is based on the number of monthly active subscribers of a service provider. CSS Corp’s models ensured a notable spike in the number of active subscribers.
CSS Corp scores high on a host of noteworthy achievements
- Accelerating the growth curve: CSS Corp stands as the only services company that can tout a robust growth rate during the pandemic. With new deals and logo wins under the belt, the growth journey is attributable to the company’s disruption of the CX landscape via a unique intersection of industry-leading proprietary solutions, resilient operations, and innovative business engagement models.
- Bolstering operational Resilience:CSS Corp’s enduring resilience was possible by proprietary RESILIENCE Framework, which helped implement work from home for all employees across 18 global locations by March 23, 2020. The proprietary CHEER Framework ensured employee wellbeing and sunk attrition levels to an all-time low. The leadership led CSS Corp to become the first service provider in the tech services industry to achieve a 100% productive WFH model within March 2020 for over 8,000 employees back then. The team follows a combination of hybrid and remote work model today.
While many IT services companies introduced pay cuts, CSS Corp rolled out annual increments, variable pay and promotions in April 2020.
- Driving uncommon biz outcomes: Apart from best-in-class people skills, CSS Corp brings the industry’s most powerful technology platforms to the table. Recently, the customer experience platform, CSS EDISON was ranked #1 in the world among all IT services firms by HFS Research. This unique capability guarantees outcomes for clients by fusing technology and services together. Through digital proprietary solutions, CSS Corp delivered superlative outcomes for clients.
Case studies include spurring customer demands for a global telecom provider and driving up revenue for a top OTT streaming provider.
- Ushering in next-gen CX: Recently, CSS Corp acquired OnDemand, a unique CX platform that taps a global network of gig experts through a unique freelance model.
Stellar Highlights of FY20
Despite the pandemic-induced disruption, CSS Corp chugged along a robust and competitive run rate. Here's a quick run-down.
- Crossed the 10K employee milestone by doubling the global headcount in the last 3 years; The current headcount (12,000+ as on writing this blog) continue to work-from-home.
- The team organized free vaccination camps, rolled out employee-friendly initiatives such as intra-company COVID-19 App, Doctor-on-Call (24/7) helpline service and employee assistance programs.
- Through comprehensive employee engagement initiatives, churn during 2020 and 2021 hit an all-time low.
- CSS Corp expanded operations globally by launching new delivery centers in two countries, Romania (EU) and Colombia (LATAM) in 2021.
- Global Strategic Partnerships are evolving and witnessing high traction over the years. Alliances with a host of leading partners continue to add value and contribute toward growth.
- Morgan Stanley and Onex Falcon invested in CSS Corp.
- Launched 3 new AI-led platforms. All proprietary platforms received industry accolades.
- The team pioneered innovative outcome-based and gain-sharing commercial models that were unexperimented before. The team delivered on the promise of these innovative models and received a flurry of appreciation from clients.
- Most awarded and recognized technology services company globally in its revenue range.
The year 2021 marked CSS Corp's Silver Jubilee. With over 2 decades of experience in IT support and services, CSS Corp is disrupting the CX landscape.
The Golden Globe Tigers award is a testament to CSS Corp’s best employee engagement practices, IT capabilities, innovative service offerings, and unique outcome-based business models that are disrupting the industry.
Kudos to the leadership for transforming CSS Corp as The Most-Admired Company of the Year 2022.