Category: Invading New Management Milieu

In the post Marx world the type of addiction  and their turf  of controls are unlimited. Gone are those days  the intellectual , the common, the  educated , the emancipated  or the endangered and the enamored all were   under the booze of the most prevailing drug  (more than Marijuana ) in the world  and i.e. Marxism. Now anything and everything just take control of  your grey cells, make you think the way it designed its content,   make you speak the way it writes its  script or sing the tune it created and composed of its own. It may be the smart phone , it may be the hot money , it may be the rare bred racing horse , it may be the deep attachment to collection of antique, connection with celebrities . It may be the weed , work or the word jugglery . The addiction  is no longer a bad word neither creates any inhibition to be accepted in greater stretch of modern society . But overwhelming the all pervasive addiction across the community , country and so corporates is the addiction to chaos . An unadulterated , pure and pristine chaos. Defined , distinctly identified the chaos just runs its magic once it take its stakeholders in its ambit. The greater world has always  its part of chaos in very functional condition , but never contemplated seriously . The corporate ,the company the community or country every entity in fact comes sometimes in near or future under its(the drug called chaos) long protracted spell. Specially more in eastern side than its western counter part where organization , management or science  could easily connect the bigger mass . But the developing world , the emerging world or the recently upcoming world eagerly to be clubbed inside the elite group developed ones  are anyway never falling short of chaos. Somewhere the chaos is by product of functional anarchy , somewhere it is just the direct result of deeply flawed system intelligently and intentionally developed  with so many grey areas over the years with unscrupulous stakeholders. Chaos with its complementary components of crisis just work to the interest of a very small part of  any entity(whether its company, corporate or community) while forcing the most of the other part to work at suboptimal level. And the most irony is that being inside the chaos for so long , the  residents inside simply got used to it , start enjoying it and then entrench it further in their system with a very strange type of skills developed to thrive on it. While being exploited at day in , day out the whole population just forget its true worth yielding to an illusion of exploiting it to their interest instead of being exploited  themselves by the wrong system. 

A company like ours also was not an exception to the above anyway. With its genesis deeply rooted to a transition from a litany of ownership  companies very much characterized by out and out  private , professional and profiteering motif to a nationalized coal behemoth where all those feudal and autocratic psyche been inherited sans the ownership the same entities always cherished in their heart in those pre-nationalized era. The power got shifted (from owners to the their managers) not the sense of belongingness. The pay roll got changed from ownership company to the public sector of semi Govt company without any major change of governance pattern. Yesterday’s employee cum manager became today’s project officer cum owner which simply created a huge churn in the psyche of the organization. The complete control over the  assets created over the century whether the mine , mechanism or machine all just were not only pampering but also unprecedented wind fall in the hand of those transition force who were subordinate to ownership (which were disciplined and organized by default to skim the optimal gain from their assets).a just a few years ago. Added to it the exponentially increasing demand for power and so the fossil fuel along with consecutive five years plan to build a new India (specially reemphasizing the energy sufficiency after the great oil shock) suddenly take over the competitiveness , efficiency or efficacy of our work force. The almost fully protected market with price leverage in its disposal , a sedentary  monopoly circumvent its imagination or innovation , confine its mobility and create a situation where every thing could be taken as granted. And till the economic liberalization got kicked off in early nineties , the productivity as well as production both were just  company set target rather than demand driven vision. Undercutting the production target and overpricing the product was just complementary twin to give rise to an obese , outmoded organization overtly indulgent in everything a monopoly  detests , competition, efficiency, innovation. While we were feeding on our own complacency , and the energy value chain were trying to find its way out of the confinement of overdependency on us. Thanks to our overindulgent ministry we just got sometimes fell short of production but never of profit. With liberalization came up the call of captive route , decentralization of coal blocks, a restricted and regulated path of opening up the sector too half hearted in prosecution  and half baked in policy formation, the real challenge never took off. The organization just kept growing in isolation inspired by huge push for production but never any pull for productivity. The corollary :we kept crossing the milestones of achievement, moved from one number to next higher numbers whether coal production , coal sales or profit booking , but all were in absolute number , not in those indices which could speak of our  professionalism or sprouts our efficiencies . The perception simply never changed of the outer world , specially the whole energy value chain members(customers , consignees, and other stakeholders) although we got changed from one laurel to another . While we became from just PSU to Navartna and post market shoot out with block buster IPO, Mahartna with touching all time high market capitalization and reigning top players in the year 2013 , the financial benefits we could skim never gets reconciled with the economic benefit the nation aspired for. It was sometimes win-loose situation  normally yield to a zero some gain , making profit at the cost of somebodies revenue loss , were never revered as a great company.  

As mining company we grew much more laborious, chivalrous , expert  , but managing the same we just never grew in real sense. It was always an absolute growth on production , never ever on productivity as thanks the overemphasis by GoI on numerator (how much tons produced)  rather than denominator (how much cost incurred) to put a check on forex hemorrhage through the widening fissure of coal import  just picking up its third position after gold and oil. And that also while India can easily boasts of third richest in world in coal reserve  , to feed our turbines for next few hundred years. As the best cash cow with huge dividends , exchequers and off-loadable or buy back share value , contributing  almost half a lakh crore annually we have just been let on our own sans some occasional rapprochements mainly on production quantity rather than cost  incurred. 

And just in such stage when we keep growing like hydra more on size less on suppleness , when we need badly to shed the extra fat or shred the extra flab, to keep our shape better rather than bigger to accommodate any forthcoming churn or change in the market (like shrinking fossil fuel bucket and swelling alternate energy stocks) we are hailed with the new messiah in our system  and that is SAP. 

Suddenly regime of departmentalization, domain domination or functional supremacy in isolation and individualization just got threatened and rule of integration along with process raj with an institutional logic rather than individual one just took to center stage. The data will no more be captive to so many bastions of interest who keeps on manipulating them to their convenience . Like quark in quantum theory data starts moving thick and fast before getting processed as an information. With its emancipation of dubiousness and captivity to plural and duplicity , data starts speaking the truth ,the single truth powering it as the most potent decision maker in the organization  when processed and placed with others in different control table. The planning for processes , sequencing them and assigning its each components with its resources (whether man ,material, machines or marketing) along the cost incurred and time engaged , the system never been so smarter , so sophisticated to capture every detail of the operational efficiency , the variance between what we aspired for and what we achieved. Benchmarking against standard cost parameters suddenly we will start discovering our lethargy and laggardness  in the system  where whole focusing on the denominator in the indices the cost which was long overdue. Realtime delivery of information  with much more realistic figures will just keep us alerted 24X7 hours , 365 days ,  every moment across the nook and cranny of the organization. With a panoptic design, the organization will take the view of each and every process from , keep vigilante on its all operations not in isolation but in totality or holistic way to facilitate its decision making process from an integrated , informed rather than intuitive or instinctive approach. 

 Welcome the world of SAP , single source of truth nothing else. 

 

ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning ,the much touted integration software package hardly warrants success without a lot of factors intertwined to work together and in proper synchronization .These factors  which are normally called Critical Success Factors at different phases of implementation and  are very much inter connected with each other in a dynamic way(one gets changed with others). While in beginning selection of best people as project leaders or project champions are as important as to select the right software vendor or knowledge partner as well as system integrator for successful roll out. Top management ‘s support with committed time and attention (qualitatively and quantitatively )are as important as the organized and pure and clean data while migrating to such a monolithic environment at one go or in staggered phases. Change Management just prevails at the core of any such all pervasive software suits which plays the most important role to resolve the conflict or remit the opposition which will be followed as a natural  phenomenon  with such total transforming technology. But amongst all those factors the most critical one which just spins the cobweb to sensitize every end of the PAN Organisation implementation of such integration is the designing and developing robust training infrastructure with customized delivery of knowledge bites of ERP at different layers and levels of the organization. May be it on appraisal or appreciation  by the top management , may be it is adoption and adaptation at users, process owners or module owners , may be it is  on coordination and  supervision at the level of project leaders ,  laying infrastructures  , networking , making a full scape training  or  learning layout at different phases and stages of implementation is of foremost importance. Amongst all those data, people and leadership , the people issue simply is the most predominant as the whole ERP deals more on integration of mindset rather than integration of some servers or applications where the departments , desks or the divisions will be ready to share the platform, share the information and that also in real time  for faster and better decision making. Training  in ERP is not just about acceptance of the new technology or system , it is about acclimatization with it , growing deep association with it and ultimately proper appreciation of its benefits  , tangible intangible both.   In general training must precede even conceptualization of any new initiative for first information report or first appraisal , best awareness to comprehend the investment as well as impact in its best possible views. So is in the case of ERP implementation also where training plays much more critical role considering its complexity and all pervasive effect on the industry. As it is called a big beast which keep scratching scraping  and then scrubbing every entity whether its process, project or people to get the dirt off, to shed the flab off otherwise age old obese and outdated  system to make it a smart , sleek ,svelte and sophisticated one, the preparing of mind , apatite both, honing the aptitude and attitude both all these  are very much necessary for ERP implementation.

In the organization like ours where the age old activities have been quarantined  for decades in its own territorial boundaries or departmental diktats and which never ever got tried or tested in its  new avatar being process centric the much aspired change which will set fast at the core of the design of the integration software will be surely looked as a paradigm shift supposed to be occurred  more in mind rather than the mechanism.

The business processes will be suddenly viewed as assets of the organisation . The treasure trove of these reinvented and to a great extent reengineered functional processes will be ready for  further expedition and exploitation to its full potentials . This concept of building up process vault with its automating software simply cannot come out of blue rather than very well structured , sincere organizational learning exercise to further percolate it , permeate it across the industry demanding more and more intense training of the people associated with the system.

As the complexities of the system multiplies with process configured , customized or reengineered as the case demands , the stakeholders of it like user , process owners even technical staff needs complete clarity of transition , confidence in use and the concrete rationale behind the whole transformation. So a training needs much more about whys , wheres , whosabout the business processes  not only howsof the system. While taking cognizance of the fact that ERP implementation is much more managerial and people issue rather than the technical or application architecture , the right training with right resource people equipped with both right style and substance  can only warrant better implementation. There is every chance that being in the industry for quarter a century , some ERP implementer(third party or system developer themselves) normally  goes in automode with a standardized version of the training and push it down the organization pipeline even before understanding the psyche of the company which got a huge vulnerability of repulsion and rejection by the users. So customization of training according to the level of information or technical literacy is precursor of any effective training. Just paying a lip service will certainly defeat the whole purpose of the training which is at the core of success of implementation any such complex modular software suite.

So what a training must aim for in ERP implementation ?

While introduction to acronyms or taxonomies are the foundation course  of any enterprise software training , appraisal of the underlying architecture (three tier ), the level of integration and depiction of post implemented process flow as well as system with changed impact (enhanced efficiency , faster business cycle , global visibility , deeper understanding of customers etc) are the primary motif of such intense training.

 

The next mission of ERP training is certainly to understand the relationship between the data, people and the application /system the main three vertices of such solution. So at every point the readiness is basic prerequisite of flagging off ERP implementation. Missing any timeline to prime or prepare the incumbent(data, people or system) will just end up in nothing a recipe of failure or disaster. The comprehension of this bondage which is any case is very much mission critical and which is only possible by well scripted training programme.

 

The erp system which fast becomes the digital nervous system of the whole company (with suppliers and customers aligned on common platform) needs a robust support system , which hardly be outsourced once the go live or and ultimate sign off occurs by the consultants. Whether its about the maintaining server , running application or occasional trouble shooting for users , the knowledge osmosis is just indispensible.

 

Training enlightens mind , it smoothens the rough edges of any machine or mechanism, system or solution. The change management which writes preamble of any enterprise system omnibus  hugely owes its vocabulary from training manual designed distinctively for different layers/stakeholders of the system . The otherwise die hard resistances deeply entrenched in any organization culture gets its first upheaval by meticulously designed , deftly delivered knowledge bites in a slow but steady inception of psyche individual as well as organizational.

 

The science of management has never been so triumphant over the art of managing. Suddenly the Coal India in its 44 years of existence started getting the warmth of cohabitation and collaboration  of hundreds of processes this industry has been dealing with or even exceling in just started feeling a huge level of solidarity  and get togetherness an close knit relationship , an extended  family with  deep bond gluing all members together. The HR, The Marketing, the Production , the Planning , the Finance all the process members just  started feeling a strong pull ,  an community connect between themselves . Some were well organized and got its patting on back , some lacked coherence or consistence some again just never congruent with the definition Champy & Hammer once espoused 25(incidentally the same year ERP name coined by Gartner to enable these process flow) years back. Those all and others who are till the other day were so indulgent to feel self centred , self aggrandizing and self glorifying are suddenly feeling urgency of communicating in-between , conniving together and , cocreating the best possible outcome . It is the emancipation of process from its claustrophobic  self obsession of compartmentalization . It is long awaited release from its quarantined , cocooned , cloistered life inside the four walls of the departmental activities which just  keeps growing along  with the organization while never falling short of its  share of narcissism nor  ever ready to  reconcile with other departments instead of  the fact that all of them are supposed to tread with same mission , same vision , same goals set forth by the organization at its early years of foundation .  Till date the infighting between any two departments were quite intense which sometimes snowballed to the  level of face off. Till today the only way out in extreme of divergence  or dithering on the issue across the departments is to put them under ages of one  Sr management (at director  level)  who may pull them together  by his or her post or power most of which  sometimes yields nothing apart from reluctant obligation of warring departments . Till the other date the marketing  deptt was never ready to buy in the production people’s logic of seasonality or slump in production due to sudden hazards or  hurdles very much natural to mining under the earth  arguably toughest profession in the world . The HR people always were in their automode to decide and derive any rule to be followed by just giving least heed to the account department ‘s capacity or constraints. The material department was simply obsessed with their custody of materials affording full indulgence in their  own style of rationing and rationalizing the issue or indenture of materials without even caring to be in sync with production scheduling or machine maintenance. And yes with so much disintegrated thoughts or non communication , organization  have been surviving like anything and testing some success although at sub optimal level. Thanks monopoly , this suboptimal level performance yielded no  less return with huge price leverage. And this monopoly dividends just created another complacent , condescending environment which could easily defy and deny any logic of market design which believes in developing  competence and competiveness. So being complete devoid of such rationality , the  vicious loop created with these process owners  or the process users just let them  be allowed to be more disintegrated and disoriented anyway. A downward spiral appeared to become too tough to  be stopped over the years of operating in such protected and so distorted market design.

Not any more. The suddenly reinvented processes seasoned (rightly or wrongly) over the years just bridged the gap amongst the departments , across the departments  and inside the departments being the linchpin of communication and connection. A process concept is itself a fluid one which never allows any single activity to be left in the lurch. It symbolize the flow or conduit of activities sequencing them , synchronizing them , standardizing them ultimately setting them free from people centric  or place centric performance  where process once captured  and contoured in right way will always deliver the same at any condition. Individual style or say of department has no place in its workflow which gets refined and refurbished depending on the customer’s or consumer’s (of the output of that process) demand. In other ways here the process descends on our company to bid adieu to all those islands of works or

 

So the jobs across the discipline or desks suddenly got huge momentum to get redefined , rechristened in the new taxonomy . The production planning , project monitoring , E-auction or recruitment just moves beyond its four walls of departments of origin and  started touching upon the others’ fiefdom as well. As the system integrator started to take the stock of the process inventories and its existing design (the work flow, flow chart, schematic diagram ) the truths are being further revealed. There were more blurred areas  than the bold ones , there were so many disconnect and so many inconsistence all of which made the whole process enough vulnerable to be exploited by human intervention .Simply enabling these activities with IT will not rout rather reinforce the incoherence or incongruence already spread their tentacles all over the years. So it was the time to capture the As-Is , means business as usual(read Process as usual or in existence flow and features) . To decipher any process in its constituent activities  has never been less challenging and so less  exciting. Challenging because every process  must have its  chained lines of the activities which are rarely present in our company and where there are so many missing links in between  thus creating so many fissures  and fertile ground for manipulation or meddling by any unscrupulous process stakeholders which unfortunately includes a section of our management also. Exciting because the first time ever the organization is now getting the scope to decipher it , dissect it, design it and if needed redesign it which is called Business process reengineering in the enterprise language. The variance , the expectation the gap analysis and the delta analysis  before final blue printing all which come in  the taxonomy of SAP implementation , suddenly started working as the oracle of business process catharsis  of CIL. And whole litany of the force got intoxicated with fluidity of the processes.

 

 

Success word is one of the most ill defined word in the lexicon of our work place , our life and of the world we live in. Most of the time it simply gets camouflaged  or cocooned inside the veil of relativity  rather than absoluteness as with different perspectives, the parameters of success get changed its meaning or corrected its course . In fact with the moving timeline also the same parameters get further refined or redefined  so also the word success  shifts its explanation. It is not so surprising while taking any new drive or starting new project , implementing new scheme or working on any new solution , steering forth a new initiative  or settling down a new deal,  the bigger tranche of study ,survey and scholastic exploration simply dedicated to capture the timeline as well as trueness of success achieved as set forth at the beginning of the activity. Very far reached tangibility, or elusive measure as correlation between investment and impact have never been direct enough just put the entity claimed to be successful one(may be project or person whoever) always in dilemma to declare when it can raise the toast for its  achievement as success.

Nothing is more truer when it goes for the implementation of modular software packages called ERP in any organization. In an Enterprise Solution (which includes all the extended family of ERP like SCM, CRM, Sales automation and so on)market highly consolidated rather than fragmented where SAP, Oracle, Sage, Infor or MS rules the maximum roast, the most  sought after word if any by the clients are when they can call it success while implementing it. Just googling the success rate of ERP will bring forth more harrowing stories rather than helpful ones which may be enough to upset any organization to further contemplate to stich and smoothen its process by any such packaged suite of solution most of which(the stories or allegories) are always half truth because whether you celebrate it as your achievement or  condemn it as failure  all these narratives depend on how you conceive it at first instance , contour it at the beginning of its journey.

Defining an objective framework for any such all pervasive solution which scratches at every nook and cranny inside the organization once unleashed has always been seen to be the first critical factor or determinant of future success of such complex software. These objective may vary from highly tangible and short term or operational one like  faster cash cycle or business cycle  to intangible  and long term or organisational ones like empowerment  etc which may be summed  as follows:

1. Operational:cost reduction/cycle time reduction/productivity- efficiency improvement/quality improvement /responsiveness improvement/ Supply chain frontiers improvement
2. Managerial: Better resources or optimal utilisation/ sustainable/ improved decision making/performance improvement
3. Strategic: support for business growth/business alliance/business innovation/cost leadership/product differentiation/customer focuses, networking etc.
4. IT infrastructure(Building business flexibility for current and future change/IT cost reduction/Increased IT infra capability
5. Organisation benefit; Changing work pattern/org learning/ KM/empowerment/sharing and sticking to common goals)mission vision and strategy.

And all these objectives whether defined by tangible or intangible parameters or else by time lines (long term , short term or intermediaries) are the result of running the best business processes as professed by the developer with real time data delivery on a monolithic system architecture.

Indisputably these all are transforming parameters (rather than just automating as normally known ERP as) of any organization to make it a smart , sleek new age company  has to face inevitable collision with anachronism prevailing in the company till the other day. All these refined, renewed or newbie processes will go under the constant scrutiny and scanning of the employees who had been invested in their old , conventional ones for so long and that’s also to their satisfaction so far. While the system world got hugely invested in  to know what actually any user, the end customer of such complex solution wants , the first break through came from Mcleane Delone in their scholastic article to articulate what an user desires from  new system. The mostly cited paper so far on success measurement  so far  in any system research.  The duo authors  in fact reoriented their most discussed  findings on success measures in another decade  to squarely focus on individual impact and organisational impact  of IS system  in general which surely  includes the entry of e-commerce  or ES at the later stage of information revolution. The framework of these measures very aptly fit with the broad definition of success which trifurcate well accepted perception about success of ERP as

1. How satisfied the user is . The basic idea of success is always about the satisfaction of user who are supposed to get over to new environment from the conventional one. It should certainly help him or her to work with more ease , further functionality , more reliability , flexibility of system , portability , integration and importance of it as well as data quality. The attribute is called in breadth System Quality

 

2. Once convinced about the system quality , the System-Use the next attribute of success would be followed naturally with the frequency , time , dependency , pattern of use of the system by user .

 

3. Information qualityplays another role to declare whether the implementation is successful or not. While switching over from legacy or silo system to integrated or modular one , the data plays the major role to create enthusiasism or excitement. Pure , pristine data  when processed creates hugely valuable information helping to take the faster decision . So the  accuracy , timeliness, completeness , consistency and integrity  of data is what an user gets assured of while shifting to new system. This quality data actually decides the quality of decision again.

 

4. In such a new environment the best incentives to attract the users are always derived from efficient and effective knowledge transfer or more precisely knowledge osmosis between the SI or Software Developer with the client organization. So Service Qualityof these complimentor as normally the System Integrator or solution providers called is another index of success .The empathy, the assurance , the competency to transfer knowledge  all these are the most desired from the service providers for the users to feel content with the new environment.

So the “net benefits” comprising of all the above ultimately lead to user satisfaction which may warrant the success the organization set forth because of achievement of predefined benefits , tangible and intangible both.

In the other case success may be attributed to the implementation of the whole system as desired (with integration, control ,tables and reports ) by simply automating  the process where the integrator gets signed off showing how the packaged software enabled the system  not showing how effective or efficient  it has been benchmarking with the best in the industry. Success here is defined by the project time lines  not the  performance metrics (normally in state run organization which are bound by norm and obsessed by nature  most of the time with the cost of any project rather than the benefits from it)

While declaring the success of the integrated software like ERP , we must not  forget that this type of implemenation has been always an irreversible journey. Once switched over from the legacy to this monolithic , single data defined  technically three tier environment , it will be disastrous if we leave in between or stop at the middle as  any retraction ,retreat or reversal from such project where huge amount of resources  like time , money  etc invested will  surely dent deep in the financial health of the organization. And once the stability or robustness of the software are unsettled because of the reluctant implementation or half baked integration, the whole decision support system of the company will collapse or get a huge jolt creating a sense of entrapment in the industry from which recovery or reverting back to past process or system will be a tremendous challenge. As we know the half information or fractured knowledge does more harm than help, so once abandoned  in the midst where information won’t be federated with centralized control and coordination  the same solution  which promised the moon will just end up in creating a huge crater in the industry from which the recovery will be just next to impossible. Whether the failure comes in objectives unfulfilled , project (and so cost)over run , or just unaccepted by the users (due to organization or cultural misfit ) , it ultimately cost the company very high  specially when a transformative change have already set in and the company is at the cross road to get over to a completely different environment. Unlike normal information technology of any stand alone software or net working solution ,which gets built up from the scratch , the shared software like ERP just impound its knowledge from its deep and wide process-ware and system-ware in existing environment by further configuring them , customizing them and if needed changing them totally which by default is unidirectional in nature creating very fast the point of no return.

And finally we must appreciate any organization keeps running on so many new initiatives, schemes and strategies  of which ERP is one of them  which basically works on management of data transfer , data processing and decision making with equal human intervention. Now espousing  or evaluating a direct correlation between the investment and impact of a particular solution  in the form of rate of return, net profit after tax or any  increase in turnover or any such change in all those  efficiency indexes is quite difficult when captured all the activities in an interdependent and dynamic state. Studying any of them in regard of success in a mutually exclusive way is susceptible to lots of error and misinterpretation at any point of time. So continuous vigil as well as valuable time of the top management , close monitoring by project team backed with with change management plan along with seamless knowledge transfer from SI  must ensure the strategizing , restrategizing , course correction whenever required not to allow any ERP project to be converted to another money sucking black hole in any organization .  The org. transformative traits  of this type of project demands containing the failure at any cost rather than claiming success which normally keep elusive for long.

 

Habits die hard , the adage not only goes with stubborn or the superstitious . It is equally true for the rational and the reasoned mind also. The example are in galore why every new initiative  however scientific or effective it may be first  poses the immediate threat to anybody however unreal or imaginative they might be. By instinct we see anything which does not conform to our age old practice although tried and tested (and yes successfully also) with critical and many a times cynical views . And here comes the necessity of narratives , the right narratives with its distinct and defined target groups which may be process owners , users or even the project champions.  So while creating narratives the focus areas may be as following :

 

(1)It must pinpoint the benefits, the advantages in an unequivocal language. There must not be any hushed tone or hidden agenda  and whatever is expected or already experimented by so many  past implementors must be made loud and clear . If needed their evidence passive or active ,  immediate or future must be fed in information throughput of the organization to reach different layers and levels.

In the corporate snobbery against the IT to look at it as less strategic and more supportive , it is always  the case of everybody to ask for moon from any software or service which must be rightly tackled right at its beginning. While the general perception about IT to be a wonder tool or magic wand , it is very crucial for the ERP project team to tame this unbridled imagination and aptly manage  the unrealistic expectation . Otherwise the whole project will backfire or boomerang with deep frustration (mostly not getting inferred and that also immediate result) fast setting in the organizational psyche drawing flaks from the general users with the looming radar of vigilance and surveillance agencies to transform the whole project a very live source of scam. So buy-in at every level with rational expectation from the software suite is very much needed. The best proposition is always to bifurcate between the low hanging fruits ie immediate  and visible benefits and some long term or protracted change with a transformative continuum not immediately observed but immensely felt or convincing  for every stakeholder in the industry.

 

(2)After ‘know- why’  permeates across the veins and arteries of the organization  the next explanation  is about the knowhow ,  a full scape description of the this integrated solution on how it works  articulated in a convincing and crystal clear way with simplest language sans any jargons or business terminology too hard to be understood by the user , module owners , process owners etc. It is all about how the system works , specially process modeling or mapping or its reengineering  and its automation with decision making capacity demystified  and deciphered in the simplest way. The conflict will be obvious as  here the process owners’ possessiveness about their age old tested and tried working style will not easily go way. While they had been used to their practice or the job profile  so long , sudden radicalization  of it , or impounding knowledge in it from outside  however better they may be ,will not settle comfortably with these veteran employees. A strategic fit along with organization fit of the incumbent system and their  legacy process or their reengineered version  has to be  not only created for their conviction but also well choreographed to get them rolled in seamlessly without any major glitches. While for the top management cultivation of effective business proposal for the system implementation is important , for the lower level employees the conforming  to ease of using system, its quality, impact on individual and organization and ultimately quality of information is of utmost importance.

 

(3)The next factor followed after right appraisal  of know- why and knowhow is  who will be your change agents to orchestrate this transformation. Here need to locate the influential group or the effective power nodes in the organization which not necessarily follow the formal hierarchy. Depending on the defined scope and workflow design  or process mapping the whole exercise may be radical with wholesome change in every job or work profile spreading across the full span of enterprise with a big  bang approach or it may be incremental , restricted to some pockets or units with phased progress. Normally any organization goes for the middle approach ie hybrid one which means first implementing in some lead units or areas with limited modules and then scale up to the bigger areas and more modules leveraging the experiences it gains specially managing the ensuing conflict the new work environment will inevitably brings with it. The influencer group , opinion makers or the effective power fulcrums(which may not necessarily follow the formal power structure) in the industry come here very handy to push the project forward and smoothen  the rough edges of the technology which normally creates those friction points. Normally in any industry this group does not have the colors of post , position , cadre of the employees  neither they need to be restricted to the boundary of the organization(in fact opinion leaders may be outside the company also) . They may be any stakeholder who not only supports but also  are passionately ready to promote the application packages across the department, desks or divisions. Because of their strong clout inside  the industry , they may create a compulsive as well as impulsive urge amongst user levels which can easily negotiate with any upcoming conflict or challenges.

 

(4) Any organization along with its concerned industry while passing through different phases of its journey or evolution creates lots of histories , collects lots of allegories which must be saved and stashed in its knowledge bank as its learning bites  or legacies. These all lessons from the past experimentations whether they triumphed or tanked or simply keep treading for long without any meaningful yield must be treated as treasure trove which can be redeemed  in the later years  of taking any new initiative in the organization. Leveraging the learning from both past successes or failures are always best knowledge resources for the next big ticket reforms in the company irrespective the  domain of experimentation (IT, Operation, Marketing or HR etc ). The scale and scope of implementation is much more important than the specific genre or field of project. Specially in the company like ours  with so much diversity and difference in style of functioning spread and scattered across huge geographical as well as demographical dispersion we must not put our experiences to be quarantined inside its parent department rather reuse and retrofit whenever necessary in the other field of application also. Whether it is of PAN organization implementation of personnel management system (like PRIDE)or risk assessment plans in hundreds of units or establishment we are working with (as in SIMTARS), the basic tasks and  its associated tenets of tackling the initial resistance or managing the expectation and so the aspiration (or in some cases frustration)are all the same. Documenting the  today’s experience to decipher and decode tomorrow’s experimental glitches needs cultural  attestation by the top management . It always helps to smoothen the change management process .

 

 

 

(5) The change management is not any informal or casual manifestation of any project. Specially implementing a transformative project like ERP , change management is itself a big  project in its own which must be conceived , executed , monitored thus controlled and coordinated in continuous basis. The best integration of the milestones or the deliverable of this project “ change management”  with the organization milestones will be only passible if the whole exercise is drilled down to its different doable at different levels and layers in the organization then incorporated in the executive evaluation report of performance score card with the moving targets (as changed with phase of implementation of ERP)assigned to the individuals involved in it.

 

(6) The last but not least as we must appreciate change management in not any mere managerial job of coordination and much more than that , it must be treated as precursor or precondition of ERP implementation. Once the proper perspective could be established about the implementation then only we must promulgate the technical or managerial roll out of application-packaged-software in that particular process , people or place. Any effort in reverse (ie first roll out and then impose it ) may boomerang and backfire which is not warranted at all. So know-when or timing  ie trigger point is very much important and that also in the precision of surgical operation to get one of the most expensive roll out of  project like ERP .

 

On the whole we must treat the change management of any big ticket reform(and so the ERP) with its complete embodiment of another management project a visible , tangible full scale implementation which is not any second fiddle but dwell at the core of ERP roll out. And for this  adaptation best knowhow must be preceded by convincing  know-why and precise know- when with its detailed and distinct narratives put in with proper  context befitting with every stage of implementation..

 

(How important the Chairman’s speech is in any company? New Chairman’s Speech and how it matters for the company like CIL)

Every company is basically an identity workspace  , a space where the employee feels recognized with, an identity she or he heavily borrows from , again an identity which itself gets assimilated , consolidated over the time with the collective identities of these employees where organization always looking towards the excellence of the individual and to be known by the same. Now while reinforcing the extant or established identity or reengineering the newer experimentation, it is very much important to understand the psyche of the company we are constructing(or reconstructing) this identity. Normally when leadership grows from inside, his version or view of identity will be always different from somebody who enters from outside (industry or company). Even if the industry is generically characterized by any special trait or type of service /product it caters to or creates  , the identity and its interpretation will again vary. The insider who goes through the gruelling and grinding  of any company which may be entrenched with some specific process like mining , steel , FMCG  or entangled with specific  purpose  to be served like welfare , non profit , NGOs . The insider views are dotted with so many storylines , allegories of chivalry , valor  and achievement but equally punctuated with experience traps of hindrance, blockades , resistance , red tapes and such others. So scripts of speech of any insider must reflect these experience, exposure and decision making capacity of the incumbent whereas the outsider never has that past baggage to show case all these blues or bugs while speaking. The outsider always comes with some different perspective may be new and fresh to the company  but very much in vogue in the outside world where the incumbent worked.

So any speech from any body specially taking the reign of it or working at it’s helm must not miss or mesh with all the above narratives which has been duly processed over the past tenures of decades and so is very much expected to be put forward whenever given the chance to deliver. Industry like ours which always reels under the hardship of rough and rustic adversaries of all most all kinds like   natural hazards , oddity in working , confronting unions (although militancy was very past these days) etc always discounts any rhetoric or  dialogue from dais or playing to gallery  with sheer cynicism , apathy and anger. An industry grown on its own with scanty regard to any modern management theory (although being incubator of almost all of  them but in very crude way too silent and too shy to be advertised!! ) , CIL just gives a damn to any so called corporate culture and expects the people on the top must be plain speaking rather than weaving the cob web of words. There are industries where the more informed and erudite participants expects their head must be so called sauvé , savvy and sophisticated as well as erudite ,educated and enlightened enough while delivering their speech to connect with them. But not in our organization which by default overindulges in overtly more hazardous rather than just harsh environment  and believes in facts to be presented in its utmost lucid form. And people in command must speak their mind rather than spin the cobweb of jargons, gimmicks being obsessed with style of communication  bereft of substance of communiqué .

In the above pretext we must appreciate the first lecture of Mr. AK Jha the new chairman -elect  who while being contestant was always considered the underdog in the high profile grand prix(long protracted selection process culd not have any better name) for the post lying vacant for almost three quarter of the year. More aptly be described being a dark horse  in the chairman race as there a few other heavyweights’ names were round the corner , the man on dais simply has spoken his mind , confessed his passionate and protective personality as he described himself an ordinary but honorable man and narrated his realization in simplest term which suits best with the character of field we work.Never boasting of huge baggage of qualification, pedigree , charisma normally any chairman brings with his appointment ,he clearly felt enough humbled to be described a man with difference by some of his colleagues , he was more appreciative about the coal people at large rather than himself  and thanked the audience in the sprawling, soothing corporate auditorium  and the employees in the  scorching, rugged field all of whom have inspired him enough for their genuine worth and cause to be approved for their last pay hike. He very much rightly proposed himself to be a facilitator, a man in such post as always is desired to be rather than just the chieftain of the company. He was honest enough , he was frank enough and he was fair enough while admitting his indebtedness to almighty God and Goddess (Lord Jagannath and Ma Kali) with whose blessing he could have reached such height, he was grateful enough to the people of CIL who gave him chance to serve them. The man on the dais never spoken what he never practiced. The simplicity was blatantly unarming. No playing with words, no spinning the cobweb of inflated claim (about one self) and ingenuine promise (for others), Mr. Jha spoke long as much his inner self wanted. Yes sometimes he appeared to go overboard when he showed his concern for the employee and loved to address it one to one basis. Yes, it always needs much more panache to place employee first rather than just power, position or predilection to promote their cause. However emotionally charged these words may be, there was truth in his admission, there his heart and soul poured fully on what he uttered in those few moments of his love and respect for the people. A rarest cult in this industry who never forgets every bit of comfort anybody enjoys in elsewhere(HQ or office premises) apart from the hazard and hardship of the field  is always sweated out by our coal miner pitted against all possible odds in working zone (best be called war zone or winning zone of of king coal) , the man on the dais kept on reminding otherwise forgetful audience , about the sacrifice , sweat and suffering  our colleagues , or coworkers are exposed in real time in our workfields.And it was not  then at all surprising that the last claps  he desired after his emotional pitch from the audience is for those brave hearts , the strong warriors ,the resilient fighters in the frontiers called coalfields fighting against all odds in real time to fuel almost every turbine of our nation to kindle the light in every house hold and every shop floor.

 

Why you need to take an arduous journey to discover yourself, when there is a huge colourful crowd across your doorstep?

It is really a pity, that we when got tired and tardy being pressed inside the daily ordeal of our assignment, aspiration and exasperation, we get desperate to find an escape route. A long arduous journey to find a solitary island , an exploration in deep and dense forest to locate the lone cottage or to more strainful walking on a troughs of trail on high altitude terrain normally frozen and forgotten not being trekked for long past. We spend our so hard-earned leisure much more precious than our normal time, shell out huge cost, and engage our all those neural network to find the right-most resort or recluse places. And every time we took the pain to find out exit route of the mental baggage, the burden of office tension or home unrest , they all keep moving with us there in the peak, inside the jungle or in the lonely hut in distant island. It is as if we just took all these pain to rediscover that the dissociation from busy mind or bustling work is simply impossible.

Not any time more.

Let us get ourselves crowdcharging.

Crowd is more pure and pristine than the solitude which always suffer from the unwanted adulteration from the unprecedented disturbances. Your old acquaintance may invade your solitude. You may find another disturbed mind in your next door neighbour came with equal enthusiasm to get himself or herself sanitised from those contaminated and corrupt daily life of real world entangled with unsolicited threat, unreal target, and unpredicted mood of his or her office seniors or unyielding juniors. So your ambition of exclusive recluseness is never warranted. Now you just try to get the taste of the crowd outside your closed and claustrophobic life. The crowd is much more pure at its heart with complete heterogeneity. Crowd is much more colourful with its intrinsic character of variety of minds and variation with their vast spectrum of their ambition and aspiration. Just put your own aspiration(and that is to enjoy the crowd being one of them) inside the diverse nature of it and see how to really get your catharsis as well as cleansing by this warm and wonderful mass of people while you are contributing to the same spectrum of vastness and varieties of which you are also a part. In a crowd , you have nothing to lose rather than to add your part of warmth and wit if you participate in it by compulsive de-egotisation. In a crowd you have nothing to fear about if your purse and pocket are just protected enough not to be pierced by another partner of the crowd conventionally wrong enough for careless you but equally right enough for the colourful a part of the crowd to enrich its heterogeneity. Just imagine yourself, the otherwise boss in your office ,you always boasted of high attitude and higher aptitude with continuous showcasing intelligence and diligence creating an iconic image while passing the corridor of your office building. You are so accustomed with adoration and adulation while leap frogging every hurdle of achievement, you simply take everything (your post, position, promotion, personality) ,virtually everything which have been making what you are as granted. In fact being opiated with your success and stream of achievements sometimes you miss the yesterdays’ row of listener, or cue of learners of which you are a very committed part not long ago. This continuous struggle to excel in what you do today and exceed what you achieved yesterday has its collateral damage. You are getting awfully consumed with your quest for the best and the embedded struggle for success is leaving you a more android and less human followed by string of other imbalances in family, in society and so on. A full recharge is immediate, a refuel is already impending and you are desperate for an escape for sometimes. Just in a crowd you will see all those thing clubbed together. You put yourself inside a crowd , you ride a public bus stuffed with most common people, the daily labourer huddled on the engine room like cattle , the petty suppliers stretching the tolerance of other passengers by loading the floor with their big sacs and office going babus sweated out all stories of public apathy towards their office infamous for inaction and incompetence. You being part o fthem can just test your tolerance physical and mental both. While not getting any seat to sit you are lsitening all those stories spoken loud and may be lewd with least eruditeness expected from the common man. The level of de egotisation , deleveling certainly introduce you to new perspective of life till undiscovered , infuse your new thought process till unexplored. You will see the crude yet chirpy life surrounds your otherwise stale and stagnant world of supremacy , smugness and snottiness. Being first thrown and then challenged outside your comfort and coziness , you will pick up so many lesson of survival , struggle from there itself. Suddenly you feel very much mobile, dynamic and strategist while fighting the compulsive war on the street. While being a part of it you will own it too. In fact now you are no more in a recluse silo to skim and sip the spill over of life rather you are deep inside its vim and vigour to be the part of its full vibrancy. And that is the way we can really enjoy the life to its hilt. Charging ourself in this pure pristine crowd to mak eus complete more and more.

It always amazes me when we see in companies, especially in PSUs contractual people delivers best not the permanent employees. Thanks insecurity, thanks demand constraints in job market (even in skilled one because of the absence of right alignment ) the contract workers or outsourced service personnel always deliver the best possible goods or services. Especially in sectors which work in monopolistic environment has always susceptibility to complacency syndrome and a laze faire atitude in each and everything whether in planning or execution simply eats into its energy or excitement. The most unfortunate thing is that instead of the fact so prevailing that the difference of commitment, creativity between the both (own and outsourced) sometimes so blatantly exhibited whether you are enjoying the best blend of coffee in cafeteria or the full flowering in the garden we just don’t even give a cursory look to these guys in desk, dining room or on how they are performing in their job. It is simply at the six sigma level at some places. In one of such places where corporate training being imparted for quarter century , we have observed while the quality of the knowledge and training gets stagnant if not staggered for long (as expressed by the stakeholders) the service quality just gets evolved to huge extent . Service of food, gardening, copy printing, course material collating or compiling (not the content which got decorated hugely) such other everything outsourced got improved a lot. And any glitches there also(in contracted works) just can be rooted to the inordinate delay or indecisiveness of the company (stuffed with slow coaches anyway) just too evasive in everything they do. It is the very lively case study of explaining that the good work must be credited to the engagement and excitement of the contract labours and the discredit certainly be attributed to the laggard leadership.

While joining any new office, every aspirant have so many things in the mind, what is expected, what is committed, how the people will be and ultimately how the job profiles must be. While consciously we keep on seeking answers for each of these question, subconsciously we just keep scouring for our next icon, the role model, the mentor or Guru who will certainly tute us, train us or tag us with their philosophy. It is not necessary these all process have been instituonalised (although great companies embed the exercise in their system itself), sometimes passively the new incumbent find out its role model over the time, over the year or over the tenure. The search is always there inside you and so also the setback when you do not find anybody as such big personality in your eyes. In Public sector specially where the dragging on the same lines are the norm while crossing or breaking it always faces stiff resistance if not complete rejection, failure to find your future personified in some body or person of your aspiration is simply very disappointing. You may try to console yourself with the appreciation of the better of the lot if not bad of the so many worse choices but they cannot be the best matching with the ideals and norms you set for you especially at the beginning of the career. The most tragic part of it while searching your hero, your disappointment (of not of finding anybody such) will dampen your urge to find anybody and gradually denigrate you to be a seasoned pessimist, cynics if not a pseudo performer anyway. In fact in a company enjoying protection ,preserve, privilege by the Govt whether by default or by design of some hidden agendas (a sustaining cash cow, a money minting monopoly etc.), you will always find the mediocrity rules the roast as this type of company needs the smartest compliance master marshalling the best tricks to manage, manipulate everything to retrofit with the demand regulated and restricted.

Now you just extend your boundary of exploration and expedition. The board room may have despaired you, disappointed you but surely the corner room will not. The reception desk will not. The huge sprawling lawn spreading riots of colour and spawning feast & fusion of vusual pleasure with its leaves ,flowers , trunks so meticulous in organisation will not. Just step outside your office corridor or campus gate you will find a big litany of the people , personality in the different domains life beyond any corporate or company culture normally being roped in to design every case study or derive new management theories…………………. to be contd..