Category: Nothing New (either Wine or Bottle not both changed anyway as we have done it long back)

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.

 

Enterprise Resource Planning while always being touted with its generic name of enterprise solution , an integration across the processes  and so the practices  in any organization at the different layers and levels of the people and positions with the sole purpose of using them at their optimal level of effectiveness and efficiency never falls short of questions and queries it raises  since its wee hours of rolling out in mid nineties of last century. The big priest of IT evolution  Gartner , the erstwhile IT consultant firm  has first choose it  or rather coined it not with any finite explanation but with some articulation which spreads and stretches this single data defined softwares platform  beyond any single organization boundary ie to the enterprise level. Although genesis of the  solution  can be located to first manufacturing then material resource planning and ultimately enterprise  resource planning or ERP just expanding its(the softwares)  access and action areas  with  the advent of computing technology specially power of processing and potential of memory , the nomenclature of ERP never followed any strict  rule of lexicography. The word ERP at its initial stage got loosely coined and simply stuck in the world of integrated solution or enterprise solution , and then kept on defining and redefining its meaning over the years to morph itself to be the transformative tool for any organization.

 

In fact “Enterprise” by definition never abides by any intra company connotation rather it encompasses the whole supply chain ie in one side suppliers , sub- suppliers and in other end it is customers to next level consumers .So it is like a whole microcosm of integration. And here lies the utmost challenge in the this technical solution which sometimes being called packaged software , sometimes software suites, sometimes just ERP or enterprise resource planning .

Once the word “enterprise” denotes its breadth, the next two words try to explore some depth of it while putting it in force in any organization. If we see the genesis of management as a theory we will certainly appreciate that any management subject basically educates us for resource optimization , its mobilization and allocation according to the priority and across the departments and desks dealing with different processes normally called as business processes. So prioritizing the resource allocation is very much paramount to running any industry optimally. And here comes the two syllables “Resource Planning  “ which outline the relocation  and engages this scarce resources for maximum value addition. And while reallocating it we certainly put the human resources as the best or most valuable of all resources available (man, machine, money etc.) in any organization. Genesis of ERP was very much related with relocating this most valuable resources ie its employees  or the human brain in the best possible assignment  which could include designing , architecture , or orchestrating the org strategy , execution planning or feed back system rather than non value adding transactional work at the lower end of the company like keeping ledger of materials with its repository , replenishment in store or counting payroll in office with calculating incentives or increment in commensuration with payment  etc or even keeping score card of customers  of their preference of product of  style of payments  thus documenting  and deciphering huge data manually.

While reallocation of scarcest resource ie talent was initiator of the integration of process along the organization in a single database system, monolithic in structure and seamlessly transactional in function , over the time the whole definition permeated to other resources  like money , material etc . And today while generating huge data at the full length and breadth of any organization by first capturing them in its most rudimentary and raw form and then processing them as the next most valuable resources ie information ,  the next big thing which is fast getting traction is to decipher the same resources  to be most potent decision making tool with huge autonomy embedded  inside  the system through the Business Intelligence in particular or business intelligence in general . In fact it is thus the full cycle of definition of ERP is now going to be completed  when we see that with the evolution of organization from division to department to diversification of business , the resources allocation and relocation also have gone through different turn and churn  creating different timelines  to explain any company’  status quo first  simply digitalized then automated then autonomous  and further augmented in next stage of real time decision making  and so on. While coined very loosely at the beginning  the term ERP now consolidated its definition as huge transformational one , the platform of its also is transcending from intra company to inter company very fast by engulfing and encircling full enterprise and beyond through radicalization processes ,incremental growth  thus leveraging its strength of integration across the  whole ecosystem where the organizational boundaries with comparative advantages getting further blurred to generate wealth for everybody of the chain perpetuating a continuum of positive some game in geometric progression.

 

Enterprise solution is an integrated thought not any technical wonder and it never fails for any technical gliches rather than mental blockage or managerial grossness.

The enterprise solution is less technical and more managerial where the whole organisation gets changed in two directions simultaneously. While in bottom up direction it is about the evolutionary , the top down direction   must be simply revolutionary. In its structural change the bottom suffers less than the top because evolution is natural process whereas the revolution is not because it demands radicalisation ,a complete reengineering of the processes. While reorienting its thinking and visualising  the new environment the leadership can appreciate and accommodate its vision or goals in the new framework of solution , then only  solution will work because mostly the implementation of such softawares ultimately becomes more transformational and less tarnsactional.

Some basic premises this software beast (as it surely keep scratching each and everyone in the organisation once unleashed) are like:

1. Superimposition of the structure on the organisation structure and the establishing the gateways at ever layers and levels between the two for seamless and smooth communication.
2. ERP implementation must be in strategic vision of the organisaion and the the whole PMS or performance metrics must be reorganised with its (the solution’s)elements mapped  in each quadrant of the score card.
3. Job profiles will get morphed and every body will be impacted so it is very much required to get the guys at the desk  prepared for it both way culturally and technically
4. The clout or the hierarchy of implementation must be well established so that everybody must embrace with new environment , educate on this newer version of job design and try to exploit its full potential. The power structure must be redesigned to take the  challenge and tide over the conflict in real time otherwise the whole project will be surely bugged by common organisation blues like inertia, anachronism and aversion to change.
5. The data will be onwards highly loaded with information which impact with immediate change , the ease of working, realtime appraisal , spurt in efficiency and effectiveness. It will be more of less like photon particle in an atom which keeps moving adrift with Brownian motion till being pinned down and hit in sychotrone creating huge exothermic reaction . Here also till date the datas were moving mostly amorphous and achromatic and now onwards they are getting topped up with information and reloaded into the throughput in decision lines. So at every level and layers we must appreciate the new avatar of data and its singularity and sanctity departing from past duality /multiplicity while  defining the actvities in new way.
6. The knowledge osmosis between the developer and the client , the implementer and the process owners must be smooth and seamless so that unnecessary glitches or grudge (out of misinformation or misguidance ) must not create any hurdles in its super fluidity (knowledge , information ).
7. The interfaces everywhere must keep on debating , discussing and deciphering the meaning of anything concerned whether managerial or technical in a crystal clear communication.

In fact clarity and contunuity of coommunication as well as integration of objective are at the soul of software suite called ERP which simply cannot be let loose anyway. Any breach or boundary between the developer , intgerator and user will simply play havoc in completely distabilising the softwares which will end up being more problematic for the organisation rather than any meaningful solution .