Coal India suddenly came to another point of inflection . The company which started its journey with thousands of splintered mines clubbed and clustered together by coal nationalization act 1973-74 to fuel the growth engine of the nation , redefining its energy policy for self sufficiency ,to fast recover from the OPEC sponsored oil shock gripping the whole world, now crossed a long way to put almost every feather attached to its crown any big organization will feel jealous of. The fact and figures this company generated in its existence nearing half century are not only huge but also humongous in its every parameter. The biggest single coal company in the world, almost debt free organization , one of the greatest employer in India with approximately 3 lakh employees working like warriors to win coal against all adversity under ground and over ground in almost four hundred mines spreading over eight states and nine subsidiaries (one with its tentacles expanded beyond India) sometimes topped in terms of market capitalization (in 2011) this company at its highest horizon sells more than one and quarter lakh as its turnover and created its bottom line of crossing 15000 crore as profit after tax not least to say it pay annual exchequer ,dividend etc with an consolidated amount of whopping amount of half a lakh Crore to GoI.
With such an outset ,the narrative of the SAP , the generic name with ERP across the world was never an overstatement when its India representative showed how much felt proud as well privileged to be partner of an PSU of such big size for the first time. For them to enable CIL to integrate , informate and tranformate it by its packaged suite of enterprise solutions was itself a huge honor rather than just a service . And for CIL it has been long overdue. The company as articulated by the chairman just overgrown itself through its hugely dedicated , committed workforce working at the frontiers of coal fields like those gladiators braving every odds it got by inheritance as well as intrinsic in coal mining by default. Be it semiliterate or illiterate workforce , the rugged terrain and rough surrounding loaded with innumerable working hazards of water logging , fire , gas and coal dust , roof fall , miners job has always been one of most hazardous job in the world since beginning. Specially coalmines are extra loaded with its more vulnerabilities of fire , inundation , explosion , etc which just kept our miners no less than at the commandos’ state of mind ,always alert, attentive yet assertive . That workforce sans any so called critical IT support , could have crossed the journey from 79 MT to nearing 600MT in the last four and half decades itself is no less self fulfilling. And today when the nation just looking for much more , 1 Billon Tn target to get its every turbines to be run to propel its high voltage growth, to illuminate every corner of the most hinterland o of the country ,the time was never more appropriate to go with ERP to stitch and smooth every business process with the seamless communication between them for real time delivery of report and resolution to run the company at its optimum potential ie maximizing customer care, minimizing cost , fastest cash cycle and so on. So when senior management of Tech Mahindra, the chosen System Integrator for implementation of SAP pan CIL talked about his company’s immense pleasure and passion to be designate enabler , facilitator of CIL ‘s forthcoming journey to help it to double its production and productivity both as part of nation of building the narrative never appeared to be overstated. The director technical was equally eloquent about the company’s expectation from the solution to get our age old (and tried and tested ) business processes to be reengineered with assimilation of global best practices.
In any PSU the hurdles start right from beginning when the documentation gets started to choose the right partner. Where spectres of all those vigilance and watchdogs breathe heavily on your shoulders you have very least scope to allow space for much creativity in your articulation of your need or stretching to your imagination in NIT and thus you end up in fortifying the whole framework of contract which sometimes appear to be entry barrier to the prospective bidders or the best bidders. Yet like any PSU , CIL being too constrained to be enough liberal or open minded having so many tenets governing the contracts , the team (which includes two consultants from MDI) while framing contract to finding the best just showcased their best of panache and performance which was worth praising . And the GM(MM) simply spared no adjectives and accolades to praise for this whole team and their wholesome toil. He appreciated the total due diligence for the finalizing contract of services and products mostly dealing with assimilation or dissemination of knowledge and its enabling technology was quite encouraging. While the conference room was completely charged with enthusiasm , excitement to enter the new territory of information driven , intelligent organization management and one of the initial consultant underscored that the time have been never more appropriate than now to go for integrated framework of enabling this company to share the incremental burden of nation building by doubling its fossil fuel production for the coming years, the CEO , has equally emphasized on the emotional part of the whole project apart from the technical manifestation. The best project , the finest manager , the proven technology all chosen and conforming to excellence only works to its full potential only when the people behind it or beside it will be passionate in its execution . Sheer passion complemented with best professionalism can only get any such journey which would impact one and all of the organization across peoples, place or process, practices to its desired destination ie transformation from a stoic , strong and stout company to a smart, svelte, sincere new age organization. And wish it captured the ultimate essence of such big ticket transformation which must be driven by our zeal and zest rather than just another job assignment.