Having the power and responsibility to leverage new innovation and make changes for the benefit of people and the business, Lila Benhammou, Managing Director of Humans4help, is an eminent tech maverick mobilizing and engaging complex and transversal teams, to make the change happen for customers. She holds extensive knowledge of leading innovative projects across borders and into new markets.
A business leader with high energy, commitment, and trustworthiness, Lila is a serial entrepreneur passionate about DATA and value creation. She has spent 20 years in big corporations before launching her own unique venture, Humans4help. In all of her roles, the inspiring lady has built and fostered relationships with customer decision-makers to unlock revenues.
Humans4Help, an End-to-end Automation Solution
Humans4Help offers strong value-added advice focused on two strategic areas: IT Service Management et Robotic Process Automation (RPA). It drives values that go beyond people and focus on how technology can augment people in a way that drives their upskilling abilities along with bringing them operational efficiency. The firm is based in Paris with a global presence in Montreal, Dakar, and London.
Humans4Help is a team of talented people seeking to get the future of work better. They are focused on changing the game! Their purpose is to get the best of the technology from people. Technology can be complex and without a business driver, it is useless.
Lila has decided to focus on the DATA LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT. Her initiative offers end-to-end solutions for changing the data, optimizing it, and making the data speak.
We optimize, automate, predict and visualize the data to get to the future of the work state.
Further, the leading lady apprised, “When it comes to understanding how to help business, the question is tough. Within H4H, we decided to start with the business pains and understand them well in a way that technology can answer the needs. Each company is different and we get it. There is no off-the-shelf solution for each need. Companies seek custom build solutions that fit their needs at their fingerprint. Solutions should be designed for citizen developers, businesses that have no clue about the IT world, solutions should be low-code, no code to make sure the businesses can embrace the technology in their daily routine.”
The clientele includes big companies as well as Small and Medium Businesses. The team believes that faith comes with trust and transparency. To maintain trust among customers, they got a code of conduct that they signed with the clients and core values like transparency, excellence, trust is part of their DNA. In the near future, the company is all set to work on the product factory, from front to back services, verticalization for insurance or retail business.
Major Hurdles on the Way
Cash management and scale-up in a hypergrowth environment were one of the primary challenges”, said Lila.
“We did focus on a niche market which is the DATA Life cycle management where clients are kind of either well equipped or completely lost. We help them understand their legacy and walk them through the data journey in order to create value and bring new services to businesses where data is vital to their sustainability”, she further added.
The Driving Force
Lila Benhammou met many people that inspire her, but most of it has been an internal force that drove her to always exist in her comfort zone. She hates settling with what she gets, always having a goal that is achievable. She did her MBA in Kellogg when her boys were 7 and 4, going back and forth from Europe to the US (Chicago).
When graduated, she was fully equipped to drive a business her way, and having mentors that already went through that path was instrumental to her.
Suggestions for More a Balanced and Equal Industry
Companies need to learn to work with different generations of baby boomers, gen X, gen Z, GEN X and GEN Z: They see the world differently, are very connected, born in the internet world, always and super connected, they need to get their work-life balance set before choosing to engage themselves in a company.
While the previous generation could have spent their whole professional life in one company, gen X and Gen Z don’t even imagine this, they would rather go up to 20 companies in their career to feel balanced. Needs are different and diversity is a game changer to any company…Be open to change!
From the CEO’s Desk
When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut, so I studied physics. Then I decided to move to the business world. H4H was born in 2017. At that time, data awareness was low and companies were not inclined to make their digital transformation.
Covid has accelerated that for 5 years ahead and now, many companies are into their data transformation but have no clue how to start. Whether they don’t have the internal skills or don’t know where to start…. That is where my passion came in, helping our clients understand and getting the most of the data. The data world is fascinating. GAFAM got it right many years ago, investments banking too, traders have been replaced by High frequency trading, people replaced by high-performance computers that can compute many data sources, data very quickly and better than humans. That is how technology can empower people.
Favourite Books
- Small GIANTS by Bo Burlingham
- How I moved your cheese by Deepak Malhotra
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Dare to win, be fearless, and never give up. Here are the 3 levels of money that help you launch your business.
- Customer money: Cheapest money ever! It only costs you time and creativity to sell your goods. Talent will do the rest.
- Bank money: higher than customer money but are here to accelerate and your equity is safe, you won’t open your capital, only debt that you can handle as long as you can be profitable and have a good profile.
- VC money: stay away from it as long as possible! Too costly in terms of freedom and constraints. But would oblige you to trade-offs and open your governance to people you might not choose… when you sign it is generally for life!
Start with the customer money, then comes bank money, then VC money. VC money is expensive! Stay away from it, every time you get the choice.