Case Studies

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Case Study - 1:

Implementation At Department Of Atomic Energy, Anushakti Bhawan, Mumbai


Introduction: The Department of Atomic Energy is responsible for overseeing the nuclear initiative of the Government Of India. This includes the production of nuclear energy at plants spread across the country, Heavy Water production and sale, mineral exploration, mining and processing, spent fuel re-processing, and associated R & D covering also the building of reactors. The administration of the activities and personnel is overseen by the DAE headquarters located at Anushakti Bhawan, Mumbai. In 1992 it had 9 sections or groups, each responsible for a segment of the Department's activities. The two sections responsible for Public Sector Undertakings and Cadre affairs were identified for automation and evaluating its impact on the administration. The sections reported to the Department hierarchy.

In 1992 automation of administration was non-existent. Many paperless office initiatives had come to nought as personnel rarely adopted the IT tools available. For reliability of data capture, adoption had to be 100% from the 10-20% that was commonly achieved. No model had been defined for the pilot automation of the daily unstructured decision processes but it was meant to achieve more than elimination of paper. Tata Consultancy Services and Computer Maintenance Corporation, the leading IT Consultants, had submitted concept papers. Both assumed self-organization by the personnel to overcome the unpredictable work flows and a culture to assure supply of input data and adoption. The Department readily adopted my model of a single process to conduct the daily work and interaction. The capture of data and delivery of efficiency and effectiveness would be a by-product. Adoption would be assured by the compelling means offered for performing the daily work and conducting interactions. My voluntary offer of a performance guarantee after award of the contract was finalized was gratefully accepted as it would assure a fair evaluation of the value of automation to the Department.

The contract was completed within the scheduled one year delivery period. The switch over to the automated system was completed within days. Section personnel were computer illiterate but had no difficulty in adapting to the smart and intuitive interface. All work within the sections was performed on the system. Reports of file movement that had earlier taken days were produced at the push of a button. There was total control on the movement of a file. User education problems were experienced among senior members of the hierarchy. They found it difficult to apply their analytics to the data on the screen and were reluctant to use it to record judgments. However, they were quite comfortable in performing the same tasks through their Personal Assistants who operated the interface on their behalf. The ability to swiftly view the issues pending and drill down to the important ones was appreciated.

The automation was delivered on schedule. 25 personnel sat around a long table to debate on the delivery. It was concluded that the system delivered had met its objective and guarantee of total adoption for release of the guarantee payment. However, it was felt that the cost of automation did not justify selection of automation over the existing method of personnel assisted by computers. It was noted that there would be the additional expense of migrating to a mature operating system.

The satisfaction letter is attached as Annexure-1

 

Annexure-1: Prototype's Satisfaction of Guarantee for Adoption and Delivery

Department Of Atomic Energy

 




Case Study - 2:

Implementation at Share & Secretarial Department Of Indian Hotels Ltd.

Indian Hotels was and remains a blue chip company in the Indian Stock exchange. It was always very conscious of customer service. This was evident during the attack by ruthless terrorists on November 26, 2008 when the hotel staff displayed exemplary 'service before self' behavior and won over the admiration and gratitude of its guests.

In 1996 Indian Hotels wished to extend Five Star services to its shareholders. Share accounting had been automated but service to shareholders was unsatisfactory by hotel standards. The Secretarial Department was impressed by the offer of a turnkey contract to automate the department with the goal of lowering the high anxiety levels among the department personnel and giving prompt service to the shareholders on all their interaction. They appreciated this would also include automation of secretarial functions, interaction with the Accounts Department and cross team interactions. Since the offer appeared unbelievable they requested a performance guarantee for adoption and satisfaction. The terms of satisfaction were not clear as there was no precedent. The ambiguity was accepted in agreeing to the performance guarantee. A time period of six months was accepted for delivering the turnkey solution. The use of MS DOS Foxpro, outdated even in 1996, was overlooked for performing the automation. The focus was on the high value of the delivery.

Team conduct is the same across different systems and operations. This was the basic premise in offering to undertake a turnkey contract. The system developed for automating the unstructured team interactions at the DAE was adapted for Indian Hotels. Additional systems were developed to automate the structured workflows of the department. Exceptions encountered in these structured work flows were transferred for action to the parent system for unstructured interactions. Links were provided to access the database of the structured system from the interaction system for pre-defined queries. Personnel were encouraged to write down their opinions/customer interactions in context.

The system was up and running on schedule. There was total automation. Training time was in half hours. Since all procedures were conducted by the system there was total mobility in assignment of personnel. There was considerable increase in productivity. 300% increase in productivity was common, going up to 700% in some cases. The one-step-at-a-time logic of the system enabled the automation of solutions to work sequences and events that induced anxiety. This assisted in warding off anxiety inducing events. The load of personnel was unambiguously known for action to reduce bottlenecks. All it required was re-assignment with minimum training so long as personnel could make the judgments required.

The biggest beneficiaries of the system were the shareholders and the management. There was prompt response to their queries, whether across the counter or over the phone. Relations between the Accounts Department and the Secretarial Department eased considerably because of the precise unambiguous data, customer feedback and opinions recorded in context. The senior management was delighted by the follow up on decisions and exactitude of the information for making commitments (The knowledge flow was not fully activated at the time). The Department easily managed the new issue issues that followed. Personnel began keeping regular hours. Perhaps, most significant was the fact that two went on simultaneous marriage leave after being paid bonuses to postpone their marriage in the past. The service to the shareholders came in for special appreciation at the Annual General Meeting.

The report submitted by the Department to the Chairman for his information is attached as Annexure-2.

 

Annexure-2: Results of Prototype in Mission Critical Operations

Share and Legal Department of Indian Hotels Ltd.




Note: In 1996 Indian Hotels was a blue chip $100 million turnover company in the hospitality business with Five Star properties across the world.

 

Case Study - 3:

 

The Projected Impact On The Enterprise Scale

 

Roberto Setubal, the CEO of Brazil’s Itaú Unibanco was aware of the hidden power of teams. Desirous of maintaining his company's edge over the competition he decided to unlock the hidden power in his organization. The following interview provides an insight into the goals, milestones, problems and impact of enterprise scale transformation to an open culture. The key requirement is vision at the top. Given that, it requires great driving energy, persistence and follow-up. We can confidently state that assisted by our infrastructure Itaú Unibanco would have gone twice the distance in half the time, with IT providing much of the organizing and driving energy apart from assuring the culture base.

 

Transforming a high-performing company: An interview with Roberto Setubal

As reported in The McKinsey Quarterly, dated April, 2009

 

Direct Link: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Change_Management/Transforming_a_high-performing_company_An_interview_with_Roberto_Setubal_2312