GMR Group

SAP ERP PAVES THE WAY FOR EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FOR GMR GROUP, A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE INDUSTRY. The way you cannot survive today without a mobile phone, in the same way your business cannot survive without an integrated platform like SAP.
Mr. A. Subba Rao CFO of Corporate Integration Group.

QUICK FACTS
Summary
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Name: GMR Group Location: Bangalore Industry: Infrastructure Products and Services: Agri business, Airports, Energy, Highways and Urban Infrastructure Revenue: About INR 40000 million PA Employees: About 3,500 www.gmrgroup.in

Implementation Highlights
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Implementation period of seven months. Pilot Go Live of 5 entities during first week of February, 2008. Rollout to 14 entities during first week of March, 2008. Second rollout of 23 entities during first week of April, 2008. Human Capital Management Go Live in April, 2008. Implementation Partner SAP Consulting. Global industry leader in ERP space. Choice of many Fortune 500 companies. Possesses the required scalability and flexibility. Faith in SAPs products, solutions and services. Overall suitability of SAP for infrastructure business, particularly for airports. Availability of continuous real time information. Seamless information flow across various business verticals and entities. Uniform MIS and Legal or Operational reporting framework. Standardized policies and procedures with defined roles and responsibilities. Embedded controls with company wide risk management. Disparate stand-alone systems working on different platforms. Susceptibility to inaccuracies. The inability of the existing system to keep pace with the growth of the Group. Implementation partner SAP Consulting Hardware IBM

Challenges and Opportunities

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Why SAP
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Need for a strong technology platform to rest as a growth enabler. Need for state-of-the-art systems to provide world class customer information and services in airport Standardization of the best in class business processes. Need for a single view of real time information across various business verticals and entities. Need for seamless information flow impacting core strategic decision making. The exponential growth of the Group. For better mitigation of operational risks. To implement the best in class ERP system and place the business on a solid technological foundation, capable of supporting the Groups growth strategy and safeguarding the organization from operational risks and releasing the management bandwidth by automating the business processes. ECC 6.0 (FICO, MM, SD, PP, PM, PS, TR, HCM) GRC, EP, BPS

Benefits
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Objectives
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Existing Environment
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SAP Solutions & Services

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Third Party Integration

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SAP ERP Success Story GMR Group

GMR Group

SAP ERP PAVES THE WAY FOR EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FOR GMR GROUP, A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE INDUSTRY.

Nine business verticals and over 3,500 employees GMR Groups exponential business growth was threatened by the absence of a solid integrated technological backbone.

Using stand-alone systems running disparate processes across its many business entities, the Group was plagued by the absence of real time information visibility, susceptibility to inaccuracies and the lack of a reliable and meaningful information structure. SAP ECC 6.0 provided the Group with the requisite technological foundation, and the scalability to steer future business growth.

companies in India. However, the Groups existing technological base was incapable of keeping pace with the rapid strides the Group taking. With every step towards expansion, the operational complexities increased. The more the Group pushed towards breaking growth limits, the more the technological drawbacks acted as speed-breakers. Exponential growth track demands focus,

implementation across five entities in seven months.Choosing SAP was not a tough call. The preferred choice of Fortune 500 companies globally, SAP is clearly the industry leader in enterprise resource management. Moreover, only SAP has the scalability and flexibility that GMR Group requires , explains Mohan Rao. The organization was guided by the same logic in choosing to partner with SAP consulting for project implementation. In addition, Subba Rao explains, Nobody can care for a child better than a mother. It is but obvious that since the solution belongs to SAP, its features and strengths will be best understood by SAP itself . The implementation kick started in July, 2007. Building the team was a major challenge as it not only involved hiring people externally with expertise in enterprise resource management, but also borrowing employees internally from business units. It was particularly difficult to ensure that the day-to-day work does not get affected even in the absence of certain employees for the duration of the project implementation. The project management team finally came out to be a hybrid a mix of 120 people chosen internally and externally. Change management included setting up a dedicated training center where people were trained in three stages Level 1 & 2 before Go Live and Level 3 after Go Live. With major international accounting and

GMR Group is a Bangalore headquartered global infrastructure major with interests in Airports, Energy, Highways and Urban Infrastructure. It has successfully employed the public private partnership model to build a portfolio of high quality assets including the modernisation and restructuring of Delhi International Airport and development of a Greenfield international airport at Hyderabad, the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. Agribusiness is another focus area of the Group, with Sugar as its main product line. The Group deals with diverse businesses and their inherent challenges. While GMR Holdings Private Ltd. is the holding company of the GMR Group, its two subsidiaries GMR Infrastructure Ltd. and GMR Industries Ltd. are listed on the Indian Stock Exchange. Challenges: Absence of a holistic view of business across verticals; No access to seamless information flow. The width and depth of GMR Groups activities can be gauged from the fact that not only does it have several legal entities under its fold, but is also one of the fastest growing infrastructure

aggression and strategic planning. However, none of this is possible without a robust integrated technological base, says Mr. M Mohan Rao, Vice President, Corporate Integration Group. A holistic view of businesses across verticals is crucial for formulating strategies that will not only harness the strengths of all the Group companies, but will also impact them positively. But stand-alone IT systems using disparate processes lacked synchronization while seamless flow of information across verticals was non-existent. Explaining the implications in terms of the larger picture, Subba Rao explains, A robust information system is not only required for consolidating the existing businesses, but also for integrating companies to be acquired in the future. Basically, the GMR Group wants to capitalize on the immense opportunities in the national as well as international level, and establishing a solid technological base is perhaps the most crucial step in that direction . SAP Consulting orchestrates seamless

Exponential growth track demands focus, aggression and strategic planning. However, none of this is possible without a robust integrated technological base,
Mr. M Mohan Rao Vice President, Corporate Integration Group.

consulting firm KPMG as project advisors to GMR, almost each module was assigned one representative to cross-check the various plans and business processes put forth by SAP Consulting. Weekly meetings, flawless coordination and the involvement of top management aided the deployment. Mock run-ups of the actual Go Live played a crucial part in making the final event a big success. The cutover data for each module was extensive. The trial run revealed a number of loopholes that would have jeopardized the final run, had they remained undetected. In fact, the number of days in between account closing and Go Live was brought down from 18 days during the trial run to just three and a half days during the final run. This was a great achievement as the lesser the number of days for cut over, lesser is the amount of data to be managed manually during the cut over period and the easier is the transition. Therefore, during the actual cut over, the account closing took place on the 31st of January 2008, and the system was in place by the 4th of February. However, that day was completely reserved for proof checking the system and the final Go Live took place on the 5th of February, 2008.

place on 17th March and for 23 more entities in April, using the same operational guidelines. Benefits: Seamless information flow across verticals; Standardized policies and procedures; embedded controls with company wide risk management. Reiterating the fact that it is too early to track the tangible benefits, Subba Rao says, The power of information gives the power of decision making. Benefits apart, the SAP platform is essential for running the business itself. Managing such diverse interests without a platform like SAP was impossible. Intangible benefits have been many such as streamlined information flow, transparency and risk management. Since accounts of many companies have been consolidated, we now know where we really stand in terms of growth . The Way Forward We trust SAPs capability in providing us with the requisite support as well as the guidance, as our business grows. As and when challenges arise, we will depend on SAP to provide us with the appropriate solutions , says Mohan Rao. GMR will be implementing new generation

Usually, in Go Live scenarios, people get extremely overworked, missing out on sleep and proper rest. But in this case nobody was stressed. In fact, the day before the Go Live, everybody logged off the office by around six in the evening. This just demonstrates how well we were prepared for the final transition , says Mohan V, Project Manager, SAP Consulting. Thereafter, Go Live for 14 more entities took

modules in Phase II of their SAP implementation. This would cover BIW, SRM, CRM and SEM along with Real Estate & EHS.