Tata Ryerson, the country’s largest steel processing and distribution company, would be extending its SAP-based enterprise planning solution to other centres in a bid to further enhance its competitiveness against the unorganised sector players in the industry. 

The company, a joint venture between Tata Steel and Ryerson Tull of the US, would extend its network in the first phase to Faridabad, where it plans to set up full-fledged operations including a third processing plant to supplement existing processing units at Jamshedpur and Pune. 

“SAP’s solution has enabled Tata Ryerson to grow rapidly in the past six years and would be the main enabled in the company’s plans to cover a dozen location by next year,” said C S Murthy, chief of the information management function at Tata Ryerson. 

The company intends to grow to 50 locations by 2006 and sustain its rapid growth in revenues over the next 2-3 years. Since 1997-98, the company’s revenues have almost doubled every fiscal to the level of Rs 180 crore worth of sales in 2003-04. 

“SAP has acted as the differentiator for Tata Ryerson in the industry,” he said. 

Murthy said the fact Tata Steel, the principal customer of Tata Ryerson also used SAP ERP solution, helped rapid absorption of technology. In fact, Ryerson implemented the SAP package before Tata Steel and upgraded its system in 2003 ahead of the latter as well. 

“The sales force can today accept orders because they can check out the raw material position using the system,” said Murthy to illustrate how it had speeded up the decision making process in the company which has only 284 employees.