Changing the Wheel of the Car

by JSW Global Business Solutions
2 1158 5.0/5

The backlogs were mounting for the vendor payments and for PO releases. There was lot of noise, that "the head count available is not adequate to meet the input volumes". This opinion was fuelled by the fact that head count was not released from the plant locations (parent company), during inception of our company, as per the pre-transition study done by an external consultant.

Also, the volumes have been continuously increasing since inception and are more than the volumes estimated before transition by about 25%. The opinion thus created, is that due to this lot of backlogs are being created in the process resulting into emergencies and firefighting. The overall situation looked unmanageable. The employees were spending extended hours in office to make the ends meet, and a stage had come, where the entire team had got highly frustrated, and had started complaining that their health and personal life is getting out of gear.

Above all this, the company’s Annual Operating Plan (AOP) required an increase in productivity by 20%, (as management expected some benefits from transition to take place), which at that time looked as an impossible task.

Considering AOP as the “Voice of Customer”, and in order to find a resolution to mounting pressures, our CEO, Navneet Bansal, set a challenging goal to save the situation from failure. He floated the idea of undertaking this project, across the Procure to Pay process.

A cross-functional project team was selected including stakeholders from plant locations and all verticals of the process. Persons from IT were also roped into the team, so that they can help where technology can be of use. The best of the talent was chosen, to ensure that no stone is left unturned to bring the desired change.

The project was launched and:

  • Monitoring through data was started at granular level to control the process fully
  • Standardisation and simplification of the processes was done
  • Where possible, technology and digitisation was used
  • Communication processes were strengthened, by installing help desk, portals
  • Governance was strengthened through VCs and personal visits
  • Load balancing and concepts of mass production were used.

In-view of the criticality of the project to business existence, the CEO took keen interest in its success.

The results were widely unexpected, as these were against the common belief that the situation cannot be managed without adding headcount. The project team was rewarded in the Quarterly Rewards function, and the success story was also published in the JSW group news-letter.

Lessons Learned

  1. The old learning was reinvented that “Where there is Will, there is Way”
  2. We should spend some time in “Changing the wheel of the car”, rather than showing our expertise in managing to drive it through
  3. We should use our best talents in re-engineering and initiating changes, rather than making them our best operators
  4. Adopting advance technologies is essential for improvement
  5. Monitoring helps to bringing quick-wins and is must
  6. A happy Employee makes a happy Employer
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Comments

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24 October 2017 by Mihir Semwal
Truly, the saying, "where there is a will there is a way", proved right once again as it always has from times immemorial.
JSW GBS had the "desired will" to achieve their seemingly impossible goals through ways viz. innovative technologies, methodological data analysis, improved communications & governance, which were well thought out & executed from the budding state to fruition by the team.
Kudos to team JSW GBS for showing us all the proverbial path to success.
21 October 2020 by Nishant Mankad
"where there is a will there is a way", proved right once again
GBS had the "desired will" to achieve their seemingly impossible goals through ways viz. innovative technologies, methodological data analysis, improved communications & governance, which were well thought out & executed from the budding state to fruition by the team.
Kudos to team JSW GBS for showing us all the proverbial path to success