Alok Agarwal

The year 2000 belongs to Tata Steel: In July this year it became the first Tata company to win the JRD QV Award; soon after came the Prime Minister's award for the Best Integrated Steel Plant; and now it has bagged the most prestigious award in India that a company can receive for business excellence, the CII-Exim Award.

Tata Steel has been in the reckoning for the award since its inception in 1994. It was commended by the jury for the award for its ''strong commitment to TQM (total quality management) on the journey towards business excellence" four times in the past -- in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998. Clearly, the 93-year-old company has been steadily forging ahead on the road to business excellence since a long time

''Early in the last decade, we realised the importance of becoming globally competitive and took major steps to become cost effective, agile and lean,'' explained managing director J.J.Irani (see interview). ''We leveraged Internet technologies to create effective intranets within the organisation that link up employees at different levels and locations. We are also in the forefront of providing our customers the benefits of connectivity through the worldwide web. I am proud to state that Tata Steel has successfully made the transition to becoming a bricks and clicks enterprise, determined to serve the needs of its customers with agility and aplomb, even as we enter into the realm of even newer technologies in the 21st century."

Mr Irani's is not an idle boast. The CII-Exim award is presented to a "role model" organisation which is perceived to be the most successful exponent of total quality management in India and judged to be the best of prize winners in each of the three categories -- large, medium and small. Instituted jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Export-Import Bank of India (Exim), the award is comparable to the European Excellence Award and the Malcolm Baldrige Award of the United States.

Administered by the CII with technical support from the European Foundation for Quality management, the award is based on a comprehensive model focusing on the organisation's practices and performance under nine different criteria, which are further divided into 32 parts. The nine different criteria categories are leadership, policy and strategy, people management, resources, processes, customer results, people results, society results and key performance results.

The award is not given for specific products or services. To be a winner a company must demonstrate excellence in results with respect to its various stake-holders such as customers, employees, society and shareholders. The award was established to promote the awareness of business excellence as an increasingly important element in competitiveness. Not only does it recognize excellent business, it also increases the understanding of elements critical for business excellence. To accomplish this, the award promotes information sharing of successful performance strategies and the benefits derived from pursuing these strategies.

Tisco, as Tata Steel is popularly known, has cut costs, added value to its operations and used technologies from the new economy to remain globally competitive, as evident in its increased profitability. It's sales jumped by 9.5 per cent (Rs 1,870.34 crore) and net profit rose by 75.91 per cent (Rs 115.03 crore) in the second quarter ended September 30, 2000. In fact, in the first half ended September 30, 2000 Tisco has posted a 14.80 per cent rise in sales at Rs 3,598.61 crore and a 138.89 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 216.43 crore. Reflecting on the results, an analyst commented, "I am not sure whether these results are that of a steel company. They sound more like those of an IT company!"

Tisco, however, is not resting on its laurels. It is already planning ahead to ensure that it retains its position as the lowest-cost steel producer in the world, while steadily and substantially expanding its market share.