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Sujata Agrawal, Candida Moraes, Cynthia
Rodrigues
Telcon, Tata Motors PCBU and Tata
Refractories broke into the 500+ league to win Active
Promotion Awards, while the Luxury Division of Indian
Hotels improved its score dramatically to get the
Highest Delta Award
Telcon
An excellent foundation
At Telco Construction Equipment Company (Telcon) striving
for excellence is a way of life. The largest provider
of hydraulic excavators in India is also working to
provide complete solutions that fit customer needs.
"The approach to excellence
has its pivots all around," says Mahesh Tripathi,
Telcon Improvement Group head. "Delivering ever-improving
value to customers and contributing to their success
through solutions that increase their competitiveness
are our main considerations. Also important is improving
our own overall organisational effectiveness and capabilities
through a robust performance management system."
On its journey to excellence,
Telcon has enhanced value to all stakeholders through
the deployment of the balanced scorecard and a zero-based
strategic planning process.
The company's Apex Business Excellence
Council ensures that knowledge is cascaded to the last
employee and that quality processes are embedded in
their day-to-day functioning. For example, a customer
complaint handling process has already been seen through
the TBEM lens, and has been evaluated and improved.
A strong link between the balanced scorecard and individual
KRAs ensures deployment of processes.
"In the process of making TBEM a way of life, we
have created a pool of internal and external assessors
who act as catalysts in driving excellence," informs
Mr Tripathi.
Assimilating best practices from
within and outside the industry is integral to the
company's
way of working. for instance, a team from Hitachi,
their JV partner, has been working with Telcon's shop managers
on improving manufacturing and shop floor processes.
For Telcon, benchmarking against
world-class enterprises is not an option but a strategic
imperative. "Due to the exponential growth witnessed
by the Indian construction equipment industry in the
last three years, most global players have a presence
in India," states Mr Tripathi. In order to compete
and set appropriate benchmarks, the company has identified
cost, quality and after-sales support as key areas to
be addressed.
With the goals clearly marked,
Telcon is leaving no stone unturned in its relentless
race to achieve business excellence.
Tata Motors
Even
more care per car
It all started as an idea, way back in the
early 1990s. Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata was convinced
that India could and should design and build its own
indigenous car. The Indian automotive industry, used
to borrowing technology from abroad, scoffed at the
idea. Mr Tata went ahead, undeterred. The rest, as the
old cliché goes, is history.
The passenger car business unit
(PCBU) of Tata Motors, which was set up to meet the
challenge, has more than fulfilled its brief. With the
unprecedented success of the Indica and the launch of
the Indigo and the Marina, the company has raced to
being the second-largest passenger vehicle company in
India.
Set up after business excellence
had already been institutionalised as a philosophy in
the company through TBEM,
this spirit was high on the division's agenda since
its inception. Besides, PCBU had the advantage of pedigree,
as its sister division, the commercial vehicle business
unit, or CVBU, already had TBEM well entrenched in its
DNA.
In the last two years, it has
been a significant progress on the journey to excellence.
PCBU won the Serious Adoption Award in 2004 for a high
score in its first year of adopting TBEM. This year,
it has crossed the 500-point mark to get the Active
Promotion Award.
Starting off by benchmarking
practises with leading car makers of the world, PCBU's
business excellence team launched a widespread interactive
communication programme to disseminate the mechanics
of TBEM among employees, and get a buy-in from all levels
in the company. People were encouraged to become internal
assessors.
The next step was an extensive
process mapping exercise. PCBU already had many processes,
but they were not visible to all. Employees now became
aware of the company's processes, and initiatives like
cost reduction came under the TBEM umbrella.
A two-day strategy workshop for
the senior management, with inputs from a Tata Quality
Management Services (TQMS) team and Group HR head Satish
Pradhan, helped chart a broad strategic direction. Nigel
Penny, a balanced scorecard expert, was then roped in
along with the Tata Strategic Management Group.
They helped refine the strategy, put it in a more accessible
form, and fitted into the traditional four perspectives
of the balanced scorecard. Strategic objectives were
individually defined for each division and department,
with specific initiatives and measures. That set the
ball rolling.
People were encouraged to become
external assessors, since it brought exposure to processes
and practices in other group companies. The exchange
of news and views resulted in people building informal
circles across companies and employees found value in
these relationships.
The necessity for global benchmarking
and its mechanics were demonstrated in novel ways. One
such activity that turned out to be an eye-opener was
a film on the Mercedes Benz factory and the practices
it followed.
To sharpen customer focus, PCBU
has strengthened market mechanism to track the overall
customer satisfaction index. Only too aware that the
company's future depends on the amount of care it puts
into each car, PCBU uses the level of overall customer
satisfaction and initial product quality as critical
success factors.
The Indica is among the
top three selling models. The Indigo range tops the
entry mid-size car segment in the Indian market today;
proof positive of its successful migration on the road
to excellence. Now, the company is expanding its international
presence. The South Africa operations have had a good
beginning and the company plans to replicate this model
in the Middle East. With its small car set to roll out
by 2008 — another ambitious target — PCBU
is certainly revved and ready to race into the future.
Tata Refractories
Turning up the heat
At Tata Refractories, things are moving at a
scorching pace. This Orissa-based manufacturer of basic
and high alumina silica specialities, dolomite and monolithics,
got a TBEM score of over 500 points to get the Active
Promotion Award in 2005. And it is now turning up the
thermostat to achieve higher scores.
India's sole commercial manufacturer
of dolomite refractories and one of the few companies
in the world to produce silica refractories for coke
ovens and the glass industry, the ISO 9002-certified
Tata Refractories is the country's leading refractory
producer, with a 20-per cent market share. Its impressive
roster of clients includes Tata Steel, Steel Authority
of India (SAIL), mini-steel plants, makers of mild, alloy and stainless steels, cement units,
petrochemical plants, as well as copper, zinc, glass
and hydrocarbon producers worldwide.
Managing director C. D. Kamath
has been keenly guiding the business excellence initiative
in the company. The first task was to gather the expectations
of all stakeholders and evolve a shared vision and mission.
"We then set the strategic direction of the company
in a way that exceeds stakeholder expectations,"
he says.
Corporate quality head Arunesh
Hyde explains the process, "We do a SWOT (strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. The long-
and short-term strategic targets are then defined, and
deployed to all functions. The targets set are communicated
to the respective departments, individual officers and
worker teams."
Tata Refractories has used two
processes extensively: the 'strategy map' for the organisation,
which is cascaded to various divisions and departments,
and the 'balanced scorecard'. The scorecard addresses
the expectations of all stakeholders, and sets detailed
five-year targets in the areas of finance, customer
focus, internal processes, and learning and growth.
Finance is the highest order perspective and is expressed
in terms of EVA (economic value added), and top line
and bottom line growth.
Quality guru W. Edwards
Deming said that profit in business comes from repeat
customers that boast about your project or service,
and bring friends with them. Tata Refractories ensures
this by systematically monitoring its customer profile
to increase the sales of its most attractive products
and pushing its exports and expanding sales through
new products and new customers.
The company pays considerable
attention to its people, not just to their work. It
emphasises training and personal growth, and guides
employees in their savings and investment plans, all
of which contribute to greater employee satisfaction
and improved productivity.
A comprehensive 'Millwright training
programme' trains employees in all aspects of production
and maintenance. Multi-skilled workers now take charge
of shifts in place of officers. Systematic job rotation
brings in the flexibility required to meet the fluctuating
demands of different qualities of products.
To fulfil targets, departments
need the support of other departments. So, supplier
and customer departments sign memoranda of understanding,
which are reviewed regularly to enhance 'internal customer
satisfaction'. "It promotes cohesion between departments,
and improves their alignment with corporate goals,"
explains Mr Hyde. These efforts reflect
in the TBEM framework. "All parameters are tracked
in the executive information summary report for senior
leaders, as well as in the monthly information summary
for review by the managing director, and for action
by departments," he says.
This is thanks to Tata Refractories
enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which runs
on the company's local and wide area networks —
through an optic fibre network locally and via VSAT
across India. "Ours is perhaps the only refractory
company in the world, and certainly in India, which
uses such a system. All our systems are on the ERP platform,"
Mr Hyde says proudly.
Another major IT initiative is
the company's intranet knowledge management site, which
systematically captures, validates and stores knowledge,
making it available to users on demand. Mr Kamath says,
"Knowledge sharing is also done by directly sharing
experiences in departmental meetings, divisional councils
and in share-your-knowledge forums."
The company has chalked
out a Rs 282-crore growth plan to modernise operations
and put the company on the world map. As part of this
plan, Tata Refractories is planning a new greenfield
plant in China. "The investment will lead to an overall improvement
in plant operations, in efficiency, quality, yield and
productivity, reducing costs and giving us a competitive
edge in the world market," says Mr Kamath. He expects
a revenue of Rs 1,000 crore and a net profit of Rs 100
crore in 10 years.
Many of the company's business
excellence initiatives have matured over time; while
others are still young and need to be further refined.
Mr Kamath is confident that once they mature, it is bound
to improve the company's business excellence score.
Given his management's determination, that day should
not be too far into the future.
Indian Hotels
Consistently creating customer
delight
Behind the serenity and plush splendour of a
five-star hotel there is a fierce battle raging, as
employees soldier on bravely to keep it running smoothly
and seamlessly. There is no room for error or mismanagement
in the campaign for consistently creating customer delight.
"In the past,"
says Rustom Vesavevala, director, business excellence,
Indian Hotels, "we looked at improving quality
for its own sake. The focus today is on linking it to
the performance of the organisation." The company's
interpretation of TBEM enables employees to focus on
the elements that are crucial to its business.
"We've been through many
assessments over the past five years," he explains,
"and from each assessment we've learnt, improved
our systems and built a stronger organisation."
This process of learning has earned the company the
Highest Delta Award for the maximum improvement this
year.
For customer delight, Indian
Hotels creates quality standards for customer interaction
in every little area — how the phone must be answered,
how the room must be made, how food must be served in
a restaurant, or in a guest room — because it helps
employees understand what is expected of them. The company
invests significant resources in training and re-training
its people to achieve these standards.
International
benchmarking helps to hone
these standards. Besides hiring consultants,
the company encourages its chefs and general managers
and others to travel abroad and study new trends in the hospitality
business. Mr Vesavevala feels this is the only way to counter
competition from international and local hotel chains.
The company's STARS (Special Thanks and Recognition
System) scheme recognises, on a daily basis, the achievements
of people across all functional areas. Employees are
rewarded if they excel at their jobs, and guests or
colleagues compliment their achievements. A committee,
comprising the general manager, HR manager, training
manager and the department head, evaluates compliments
as well as suggestions from employees each day, to gauge
exceptional performance.
STARS has been so effective
that it won for the Taj Group the prestigious Hermes
2002 International Hospitality Award for the Best Innovation
in Human Resources. Recently, the company extended the
STARS programme to cover contract workers, reasoning
that guests neither know nor care about an employee's
terms of employment. For them, every employee is a brand
ambassador. This was one of things learnt from last
year's TBEM assessment.
The GSTS (Guest Satisfaction
Tracking System), which measures the satisfaction levels
of guests staying, eating and holding conferences and
banquets in Taj hotels measures quality on the basis
of customer perceptions. It also offers immediate feedback
on how employees or departments are functioning. Guest
feedback is critical for the hospitality sector. In Taj
hotels, it is continously sought and used extensively to
define and refine standards. Says Mr Vesavevala, "Many companies only look at how much
money they make daily. We spend a lot of time and effort
in quantifying how our customers feel every day."
General managers, executives
and the staff can view their GSTS scores on a daily,
monthly, quarterly and annual basis. These scores feature
in the balanced scorecard and the key result areas (KRAs)
of more than 80 per cent of the employees. Consequently,
says a proud Mr Vesavevala, "Each employee asks himself
or herself one very important question each day: 'What
else can I do to delight our guests?'"
Around two years ago, the TBEM
assessment revealed that while the company had systems
for listening to customers, the learning was not integrated. This led to the design of the Customer
Feedback System (CFS). The GSTS is numbers driven; the
CFS is more qualitative.
In a group that has 70
hotels, over 18,000 employees and serves millions of
customers every day, everyone receives feedback, across
levels and locations. The CFS helps the Taj management
to understand what really matters to its customers at each
location as well as at an enterprise-wide level. All
feedback becomes part of a corporate database, is
analysed,
and made available to frontline staff. "Respect
for the brand," Mr Vesavevala declares, "is created
and recreated by people in frontline positions every
single day."
The launch of a knowledge management
(KM) system on the company's intranet will allow employees
in one hotel to learn from and implement best practices
of other hotels in the group. "We have 70 food
and beverage managers across different locations, many
of them struggling with the same issues. We want to
help them learn from one another's experiences,"
says Mr Vesavevala.
Mr Vesavevala is
pleased with the award but not content. "The best
organisations in the world are the most dissatisfied,"
he says. "We have miles to go before we sleep."
Uploaded
on March 9, 2006
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