Godfrey Phillips is the second largest player in the Indian
cigarette industry with an annual turnover of over $265 mn and is looking at
becoming the leader in the global tobacco industry, with innovation. Its
products are distributed through an extensive India-wide network comprising 484
exclusive distributors and over 800,000 retail outlets. The company has one of
the highest productivity rates of workers in the entire country and technology
is one of the focus areas
What are the new technologies that will be deployed by Godfrey
Phillips to assist reducing cost and increasing employee productivity?
We have been working on creating architecture to mix-and-match functionality
specific to our needs. Now, there are domain specific application packages, ERP
and custom built systems, all working together. To increase their robustness, we
have deployed an enterprise service bus at the back-end and a workflow process
manager at the front-end. We have deployed a business intelligence solution to
improve consolidated reporting and analysis. All these are from Oracle. Another
project underway is the revamping of our portal. The vision document for this
project outlines the integration of sophisticated search, and access to content
and applications.
Can you elaborate on your experience with utilization of
technology in the process of tobacco procurement?
Tobacco procurement for the cigarette industry is controlled by the Tobacco
Board which conducts auctions simultaneously in several auction floors during
the season. There is a season in Andhra Pradesh and another in Karnataka. During
the auction, each bale is put for bidding and buyers have to make a spot
assessment of quality and decide on a price. This places a premium on the buyers'
capability to judge the leaf and assess the market demand for it. To help the
buyer, we need to consolidate information across different platforms and provide
an analysis that shows them market conditions, demand, performance against
target and budgets. This is where IT can play a significant role. Currently,
most of the processing is being done offline at the end of the day. We are
looking to speed up this process by applying handheld-based applications that
can talk to back-end servers. This project is still in its development phase.
Has IT platforms changed the face of the company?
The last few years have seen a transition from back-end processing to more
and more user driven applications that manage processes. IT is being used
extensively to drive process change in the company. Finally, users are being
given increased access to data for analysis. Yes, IT has changed many things in
the company.
What are your innovative technologies that can ensure better
customer experiences?
Our customers are our distributors. Our first level of activity was to
simplify the ordering and order tracking process. Integrating the order booking
with payment systems with a centralized tracking of despatches did this. To
improve information flow to the customer, we implemented SMS alerts every time a
payment is booked and a dispatch is made. Since most of our customers were more
comfortable operating their mobile phones than PCs, we made mobile computing for
them a thrust area. At the next level, we have provided customers with a
facility to query their account balances through their mobile phones. Currently,
we are extending facilities for them to simplify their reporting activities by
mobile enabling as well. So, using the banking analogy, it will be possible for
them to report by fax, website or mobile phone based on their convenience.
What are your investment plans for the IT infrastructure?
The next few years will be focused on process change and application
delivery; driving improvement on service delivery and building up a credible
business continuity plan.
What are the focus areas?
Personally, I believe the focus will be on driving process change and
ensuring a resource pipeline for the company. Godfrey Phillips has an IT team
with a strength of eleven people working on projects and another ten people who
provide support at each physical location. The former focus on process
automation, data center management and application management, while the latter
are located with users.
Your major concerns?
My major concerns are related to skill levels in the industry and efficient
access to skills. I believe that Indian service providers have a long way to go.
The key area is in smooth transition from requirements definition to service
delivery. Effective relationship management and project management is a need
here. Secondly, there needs to be a systematic program to manage the
relationship and drive continuous improvement. In a fast changing environment,
service providers who 'fill it, shut it and forget it' are inviting
customers to switch.
To improve information flow to the customer, we implemented SMS alerts every time a payment is booked and a dispatch is made |
What are your main concerns with bandwidth and efficiency, and
what are the solutions?
Bandwidth requirements are steadily mounting. A movement towards
centralized, browser-based applications, email spam volumes and multimedia
content is fueling this. Unfortunately, we have not been seeing a drop in
bandwidth costs on the lines that have happened in mobile telephony and consumer
broadband. So, efficient utilization has become critical. The starting point for
this is demand monitoring, which we have done for some years, but now we need to
understand bandwidth demand by type of demand and not just at an aggregate
level. To help with this, we have recently moved to an MPLS based network.
Godfrey Phillips has an aggressive outsourcing initiative. What
are your strategies?
Godfrey Phillips has followed an aggressive outsourcing policy. Starting
with basic services in facilities management, it now includes the end-to-end
networking, software development and implementation and even requirements
definition with our users. We believe that deep technical expertise is needed by
the business, but is not always best attempted to be kept in-house. So, a
program of identifying partners and building relationships with them has been
underway for several years. Currently, in terms of effort, we have probably
outsourced about 75% of our work.
How does the IT function ensure consistent service across all
channels-sales/marketing/delivery...?
We do so with our internal governance mechanisms. A committee consisting of
all the functional heads of the company meets monthly to review IT, security and
other business compliance issues. From the IT perspective, there are agreed
metrics for services being delivered that is reported and reviewed in this
meeting. Plans and business priorities for IT are discussed and set in this
forum.
How do you rate the quality of services provided by telecom
service providers. Do they deliver as per service level agreement?
Our experience with telecom service providers has been excellent. Airtel
handles our networking end-to-end. There are service level agreements that both
parties independently measure and monitor. We meet regularly to review
performance and make changes. Contracts have been structured so that payments
are linked to performance. We have found our engagement to help in resolving
issues, changing and moving with technology and improving our ability to deliver
to our users.
Baburajan K
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in