TERM PAPER 

OF
INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT
IN BUSINESS
ON
HERO HONDA MOTOR 
MOTOR 
LIMITED’S INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT

DEPARTMENT
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
ADMI NISTRATION
UNIVERSITY OF LUCKNOW
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my profound sense of gratitude to my faculty

guide Mr Sanj Sanjay
ay Medh
Medhavavii, facu
facult
lty
y memb
member er,, Depa
Depart
rtme
ment
nt of 
Business Administration, University of Lucknow, and my teacher 
of ‘Inf
‘Inform
ormatatio
ion
n Mana
Manage
geme
ment
nt in Busi
Busine
ness
ss’,
’, for
for his
his syst
system
emat
atic
ic
guidance throughout this term paper. I would also like to thank him
for giving such a topic for term paper which helped me to develop
a practical insight of whatever I had learnt in the class.

I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to my

family members and my friends, who extended all kinds of co-
operation to me throughout the course of this work.

2
 CONTENTS 

1.  Introduction-------------------------------------------------------------------4 

2.  Pre SAP Scenario-------------------------------------------------------------5

3. The IT Infrastructure---------------------------------------------------------6 

4. Enterprise
Enterprise Application---
Application------------
------------------
------------------
------------------
------------------
----------------7 
-------7 

5.  Supplier & Customer Relationship Management-------------------

Management------------------------9
-----9

6. eHR Implement
Implementation
ation---------
------------------
------------------
------------------
------------------
------------------
------------1
---11
1

7. Informatio
Information
n & IT security
security management
management---------
------------------
------------------
----------------1
-------12
2

8.  Benefits to HHML-------------------------------------------------------------20

9.  Bottlenecks----------------------------------------------------------------------22

10. Snapshots of IT setupat HHML--------------------------------------------23

11. Summary-----------------------------------------------------------------------24 

12. Bibliography------------------------------------------------------------------25

INTRODUCTION

3
 One of the biggest success stories in the Indian two wheeler segment, Hero Honda is a
household name today. What’s
What’s not so well known
k nown is the fact that the company has
 successfully used IT to help it reach the top.

What started out as a Joint Venture between Hero Group and the Honda
Motor
Motor Compan
Company y of Japan
Japan,, has today
today become
become the world’
world’ss singl
singlee larg
largest
est two-
two-
wheele
wheelerr Compan
Company y. Coming
Coming into
into existe
existence
nce on Januar
January
y 19, 1984,
1984, Hero
Hero Honda
Honda
Motors Limited (HHML) gave India nothing less than a revolution on two-wheels,
made even more famous by the ‘Fill it - Shut it - Forget it ‘campaign. Driven by
the trust
trust of over
over 5 millio
millionn custom
customers
ers,, the Hero Honda
Honda produc
productt range
range today
today
commands a market share of 48% making it a veritable giant in the industry. Add
technological excellence, an expansive dealer network, and reliable after sales
servic
servicee to that
that and we have
have one of thethe most
most custom
customer-
er- friendly
friendly companie
companies. s.
Customer satisfaction, a high quality product, coupled with the strength of Honda
technology and the Hero group’s
group’s dynamism has helped HHML scale scale new frontiers
and exceeds limits.
For New Delhi–based Hero Honda, success has brought significant
rewards – and some daunting challenges. The company, established in 1985 as a
 joint venture between Hero Group of India and Honda of Japan, holds a 50%
market share in India and has grown to become the world’s largest two-wheeler 
manufacturer. In the last six years Hero Honda’s sales volume grew by 400%, and
this
this year
year the
the compan
company y expect
expectss to manuf
manufact
acture
ure and sell more
more than
than 3 millio
millionn
motorcycles. It’s no wonder that Hero Honda has won accolades in the New Delhi
 business press. In fact, in 2001 Hero Honda’s chairman Brijmohan Lall Munjal
received the “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year” award for India, and in
2005 he was presented with the “Padma Bhushan,” a prestigious award from the
Indian government. But growth has brought unique challenges, too. Hero Honda
now supplies motorcycles through more than 500 dealers and 700 service points,
institutions, and overseas customers. In addition, the company calls on more than
240 suppliers for its parts and subassemblies. The challenge for Hero Honda: cut
time and waste out of its supply chain and add more flexibility in meeting the fast-
changing dynamics of the modern market in India

Hero Honda is a leader in the two wheeler segment in the country,

country, and even claims
to be the world’s largest two wheeler company in its advertising. To reach the
heights that it has, Hero Honda has successfully leveraged the IT advantage,
especially in recent times .

PRE SAP SCENARIO

4
 The company has a highly efficient and reliable network today. But till 1998 Hero
Honda depended on legacy systems, which had a high failure rate. The set up was
not in a position to cater to the expansion that Hero Honda went through and was
not suitably updated. Because it was obsolete, the management decided to revamp
the entire IT set up according to S R Balasubramanian,
Balasubramanian, vice president, Information
Systems, Hero Honda Motors. HHML had legacy systems working on different
  platforms, which were developed in-house and tailor-made to their method of 
workin
working.g. Since
Since the legac
legacy
y syste
systems
ms took
took care
care of data
data proce
processi
ssing,
ng, only
only some
some
operational reports got generated by the system. Real MIS resided on Excel sheets
along with different kinds of analysis. Information, therefore, was fragmented and
the authenticity was questionable. Over a period of time, the systems underwent
changes and represented a patchwork of several additions and modifications. They
were
were loose
loosely
ly integr
integrate
ated
d across
across functi
functiona
onall areas.
areas. There
There was
was duplic
duplicati
ation
on and
inform
informati
ation
on incons
inconsis
isten
tency
cy as happen
happenss with
with most
most legac
legacy
y applic
applicati
ations
ons.. It was
was
therefore important to migrate from this platform to something more stable and
futuristic.

MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE

At that point of time the management perception about IT was also changing and
they
they deci
decide
ded
d IT woul
wouldd be part
part and
and parc
parcel
el of Hero
Hero Hond
Honda.a. This
This help
helped
ed in
modernising the information systems at the company.
company. Apart from this, competition
in business and deployment of bandwidth hungry applications forced the company
to migrate from a slower legacy network to the new faster and more reliable
network. The management’s vision was to align IT with business. IT was to be
used
used as a stra
strate
tegi
gicc busi
busine
ness
ss tool
tool rath
rather
er than
than for
for a limi
limite
ted
d purp
purpos
osee of data
data
  proce
processi
ssing.
ng. An inform
informati
ation
on syste
systems
ms plan
plan was drawn
drawn up, which
which beside
besidess other 
other 
things, stated that the organisation would go for common systems across the
organisation. It would also achieve integration between all systems; emphasis
would be on improving business processes,
processes, to adopt best practices and to cover the
entire supply chain. HHML wanted to consider only state-of-the-art systems and
one which had a clear road map for the future including conduct of business over 
the net. Tired of in-house developed systems, they wanted a standard solution and
in particular, an ERP. Their idea was to partner with a technology vendor capable
of taking them forward as the business expectations increase.

THE IT INFRASTRUCTURE

5
 The IT infrastructure of the company is connected over three major Local Area
  Networks (LANs). These connect the corporate office in New Delhi with two
manufacturing plants (Gurgaon and Dharuhera), and other zonal and marketing
offices. 21 locations are connected through its Wide Area
Area Network (W
(WAN)
AN) set-up.
Most of these locations are connected with the corporate office through VPNs,
leased lines, and at few places through VSAT connectivity. The motorbike major 
has a total of seven TDM/TDMA VSATs and two PAMA VSATs. As far as the
VPN set-up is concerned, it is still a closed-user group. For connectivity between
its Dharuhera and Gurgaon facilities the company uses a very fast radio link. The
company has installed the PAMA VSATs from Comsat Max as a backup facility.
The Hero Honda network spans 750 nodes across the country.

Hero Honda uses 10/100 Mbps Ethernet switched technology for data transmission
and is connected with both optic fibre and Cat 5 cables. Optic fibre is used for the
  bac
backb
kbon
one,
e, whic
which
h will
will also
also solv
solvee the
the futu
future
re band
bandwi
widt
dth
h requ
requir
irem
emen
ents
ts of the
the
company. The company has three Cisco routers. The company also uses a mix of 
switches from three vendors: Cisco, IBM and 3Com. For non-critical applications,
the company has opted for 3Com switches. “As IBM switches are cheaper than
Cisco ones, we will be going in for more and more IBM switches in the future,”
says Balasubramanian. All the switches and hubs at the company are managed
devices. Apart from this the company also uses an IBM RS 6000 server for 
running SAP applications, and other midrange servers for running Ingres and
Oracle. For Lotus Notes applications the company has opted for IBM’s Netfinity
servers. As far as other networking hardware is concerned, the Gurgaon plant has
two Cisco routers, which are connected to an IBM LAN Route Switch, and the
storage box is connected to the RS 6000 server. The company is also using a tape
library, which works as a backup device.

One
One of the the key
key feat
featur
ures
es of Hero
Hero Hond
Honda’a’ss netw
networ
orks
ks is that
that most
most site
sitess enjo
enjoy
y
excell
excellent
ent backu
backup
p facili
facilitie
ties.
s. For insta
instance
nce,, Dharu
Dharuher
heraa is connec
connected
ted direc
directly
tly to
Comsat Max’s PAMA VSAT main hub. The IT facilities at Gurgaon are connected
with two electrical sources, two MCBs, and two UPSes. The company has also
installed an extra server as a backup. It possesses a Network Attached Storage
system, with plans to shift to a Storage Area Network. For this Hero Honda has
gone in for an IBM Trivoli solution. The whole idea was that information systems
should be able to cater to 99 percent of availability. Even if a LAN or a switch
fails it should just take 10 minutes to switch to another LAN or switch.

ENTERPRISE
ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS
APPLICATIONS

6
A good and reliable messaging system was a long-standing need at Hero Honda.
When they first introduced messaging, it took off very well. To ensure its success
the management arranged training programmes at all the three major areas and
also invited the regional offices to join in. The success of the messaging system
was so good that people started overlooking the VSAT network. The company
messaging set up evolved around Lotus Notes. They evaluated both Microsoft
Exchange and Lotus Notes, and finally decided to go in for Lotus Notes. The
Lotus Notes application at Hero Honda evolved around those applications that
users are familiar with. This is done as a part of the information systems plan
along with the business plan to integrate information systems in the organisation,
inte
integr
grat
atee all
all the
the depa
depart
rtme
ment
ntss. As the management knew that the
implementation of ERP would take some time, they wanted to use that time to
introduce an IT culture in the company.

After the successful implementation of this system, the IT set-up faced some
 problems during the first Diwali after the introduction of the messaging system.
This
This happ
happen
ened
ed beca
becaus
usee of huge
huge numb
number
er of gree
greeti
ting
ng mess
messag
ages
es and
and card
card
attachments. This prompted the company to introduce a new greetings system on
the lines of Bluemountain.com. They opened up a car4.809 cmd’s library system
and asked the users to go to the card library and select a card and send it across.
By this, no attachment would go, but only the link. After this they were able to
avoid a considerable amount of traffic. And users were quite excited about having
a card
card appl
applic
icat
atio
ion.
n. Peop
People
le star
starte
ted
d enjo
enjoyi
ying
ng the
the use
use of IT appl
applic
icat
atio
ions
ns..
Subsequently,
Subsequently, the company put up an intranet and workflow applications.

ERP IMPLEMENTATION
The next move was to implement ERP in order to integrate various functions and
control its operations. The company went live with SAP R3 on February 1, 2001.
It uses modules like production, materials, finance, marketing, assets, quality sales
and distribution. Siemens Information Systems was the implementation partner for 
this rollout. The ERP implementation presented a high level of data integration.
“ERP
“ERP hashas help
helped
ed the
the comp
compan
any
y imme
immens
nsel
elyy. Today
oday nobo
nobodydy asks
asks any
any othe
other 
r 
department for information. One can log in and see reports online,” says Mukesh
Malhot
Malhotra,
ra, deputy
deputy genera
generall manage
managerr, Hero
Hero Honda
Honda Motors
Motors.. They
They were
were able
able to
implement better cost control measures. This had helped them in calculating the
cost
cost of cons
consum
umab
able
les,
s, tool
tool inve
invent
ntor
oryy cost
cost,, powe
powerr and
and fuel
fuel cost
costs,
s, and
and plan
plantt
overheads. Because of this they also became ready for future SCM and CRM
implementations.

SAP’S ROLE

7
 HHML evaluated BAaN and Oracle. The overwhelming presence of SAP in the
automotive sector was one of the important reasons for selection. The customer 
references spoke strongly about SAPs ability to address the needs. The project
took off with a great start. It imparted one-day awareness training sessions to
around 135 managers and key users explaining the project and roles of core team
members and users.
There were hiccups in between because of staff turnover at the implementation
  partn
partners
ers’’ end becaus
becausee of which
which the project
project had to be extend
extended
ed by a month.
month.
However, they kept various activities on schedule. They were one week behind at
the last stage of Go-Live preparation but made that up in the last month. The
Steering Committee played a useful role and wherever some policy issues could
not be decided, the CEO intervened to resolve. End users were involved at various
stages and hence they adapted to the new systems well. The first few days saw
several problems but the help desk (available 24 hrs) attended to them promptly.
Every day thereafter saw lesser problems and the operations got streamlined in 15
days. The yearly closing ended on the 31st March 2001, (2 months from Go Live)
and was completed in 24 days. Year closing for the following
year was achieved in 11 days and HHML was the second company in India to
declar
declaree result
results.
s. This
This indica
indicated
ted the stabil
stability
ity of syste
systems
ms and the effic
efficien
iencie
ciess
achieved.

IMPLEMENTATION PARTNERS
Siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISL) were the implementation partners. They
imparted initial training to the users and core team members. They also helped in
redefi
redefinin
ningg variou
variouss proces
processes
ses based
based on their
their experi
experienc
ence.
e. They
They gave
gave valuab
valuable
le
sugges
suggestio
tions
ns for improv
improveme
ementnt at variou
variouss stages
stages.. In the Steeri
Steering
ng Commit
Committee
tee
meetings they clarified various issues and helped in convincing the management to
make various changes.

RECORD-BREAKING IMPLEMENTATION TIME

Hero Honda also profited from services delivered remotely by SAP consultants in
Singapore and software developers in Walldorf, Germany. This international
approach ensured that any issues were dealt with rapidly and effectively. The
speed with which technical issues were resolved was impressing. In some cases,
SAP’s
SAP’s German developers found answers overnight. Thanks to close collaboration
 between SAP and Hero Honda, the project was completed in a record three
months. Implementing the latest mySAP SRM and mySAP CRM capabilities in
such a tight time frame was an ambitious goal

8
 SUPPLIER & CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
Automotive – Motorcycles

Processing Orders Manually

They
They have
have a larg
largee supp
supply
ly chai
chain
n and
and they
they need
needed
ed accu
accura
racy
cy and
and spee
speed d in the
the
deliveries of raw material and components. Their suppliers were given a plan for 
the month but changes are often necessitated by market conditions – like changes
in the mix of models and colors. And there could also be increase or decrease in
demand. They wanted the ability to respond to these changes by aligning the
 production plan, supply schedule of components, and other resources to handle
this efficiently. Hero Honda had already been using the mySAP™ ERP solution
for its core applications but until January of 2004, the company continued to enter 
its customer orders manually – using a portal to communicate with suppliers. They
used to receive orders from dealers in the form of spreadsheets, e-mail, and phone
calls. It took a few days to bring in the customer orders and consolidate them.
Then they would get our material requirements plan from the ERP [enterprise
resource planning] system and post the information on their portal. This was done
through periodic updates – twice a day – and hence did not consistently give the
latest information to their partners. They had no visibility of materials in transit
and a lot of time was wasted on follow-ups. They also had to deal with incorrect
deliveries from vendors when they sent either less or more than the scheduled
quan
quantitity
ty.. For
For exam
exampl ple,
e, they
they migh
mightt have
have orde
ordere
red
d 100
100 unit
unitss but
but the
the supp
suppli
lier 
er 
delivered 110. This kind of error would slow down the receiving station while
thei
theirr peop
peoplele woul
would d seek
seek appr
approv
oval
al for
for rece
receiv
ivin
ing
g the
the extr
extraa quan
quantitity
ty.. Also
Also,,
mismatches like this meant that either they carried more inventory than needed or 
caused production holdups if the quantity supplied was less than ordered.

Automating Supplier Transactions

Transactions

In February 2004, Hero Honda began a pilot test, bringing in mySAP Supplier 
Rela
Relati
tion
onsh
ship
ip Managanagem
emen
entt (myS
(mySAPAP SRM)
SRM) as well well as mySA
mySAP P Cust
Custom
omer 
er 
Relationship Management (mySAP CRM), both solutions in the mySAP Business
Suite family of business solutions. For the rollout of its supplier portal, Hero
Hond
Hondaa chos
chosee its
its top
top 125
125 supp
suppli
lier
erss – toge
togeth
ther
er,, they
they acco
accoun
untt for
for 95%
95% of the
the
company’s supplies. Most of these suppliers now perform their transactions with
Hero Honda through the Web-based self-service portal, in real time. Suppliers can
now see the status of their orders, shipments, and invoices, and they can see new
delivery schedules as soon as they’re processed by the Hero Honda production
 plan. They can also use the portal to make confirmations along the way – for 

9
example, to confirm that they can handle a certain variation and to confirm that
they’ll meet the delivery schedule.

SAP® Consulting

It took three months to complete the rollout. Helping Hero Honda speed up the
 process – and helping implement some of the newest features in mySAP SRM – 
was SAP® Consulting. mySAP SRM experts, from both the Asia-Pacific region
and SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany, worked on the project and helped
Hero Honda develop some of its most complicated direct materials processes.
They
They assis
assisted
ted them
them during
during the entire
entire implem
implement
entati
ation
on proce
process
ss and transf
transferr
erred
ed
knowledge to them. Also, they unlocked some software features that were not
known even to be existing by people at HHML. For instance, they helped them
implem
implement
ent instan
instantt messa
messagin
ging,
g, which
which was
was helpf
helpful
ul in contac
contactin
ting
g the suppli
suppliers
ers
quickly in the event of a production scheduling change – say,
say, one that might occur 
 because of an upcoming holiday. SAP Consulting and the Asia-Pacific solutions
team also helped Hero Honda integrate a bar code– reading function into the
system, according to Balasubramanian. The bar code feature is used by those local
suppliers who make just-in-time deliveries several times each day. For them, it’s
faster and easier to process their deliveries via a bar code reader on the delivery
dock than it is to make constant updates to the self-service portal.

End-to-End Process Integration

Hero Honda also implemented a customer portal, as a feature of mySAP CRM.

With the two portals now in place, the company benefits from end-to-end process
integration. “Our dealers place their orders once a month,” he says. “Typically, a
dealer might order several hundred motorcycles, as well as spare parts. So every
Friday we get our orders in, we consolidate them on Saturday,
Saturday, and on Monday
morning our suppliers are all receiving our delivery schedules, directly from our 
 production planning system.”

Because the ordering process is now fully automated, Hero Honda saves
approximately three days over the time it used to take to complete this process.
That translates into an inventory savings of about 10%, which in turn translates
into a substantial cost savings. The automation also increases Hero Honda’s
Honda’s own
ability to be responsive to its dealers. Even though dealers normally place their 
orders on a monthly basis, there are many times when they want to revise an order 
that’s
that’s already in process. They might do this to account for a sudden change in
customer demand – for instance, their customers might start asking for a new color 
or a different model. “For these revisions, we can get the change in on Friday and
 be pretty sure that the entire shipment will go out, as scheduled, the following

10
week,” says Balasubramanian. The customers appreciate this kind of 
responsiveness and it’s just what they, and they, need in order to continue to take
advantage of this fast growing market.” The system’s
system’s end-to-end integration pays
dividends in maximizing order accuracy,
accuracy, as well. They’ve greatly reduced the
chances of mismatched orders too. For one thing, it’s easier for suppliers to check 
their orders on the portal and they know that the portal’s information
information is both
accurate and up to the minute. Since the advance shipping notification created by
the supplier is derived from the purchase order, the chance of a delivery mismatch
with the order is almost zero.”

eHR IMPLEMENT
IMPLEMENTA
ATION
With technology touching all aspects of today’s business, there is increasing usage
of IT and Internet technologies in a company’s HR department. Suddenly HR 
managers are finding themselves in a whirlwind of technological changes, with
adoption of IT (both as process and tool) becoming a necessity for them. The past
one year has seen IT playing a key role in the Personnel/ People Development/ HR 
departments of companies, which are trying to make the best use of their systems
for storing, organising or disseminating information to their employees. All this
has resulted in HR professionals doing away with costly, time-consuming and
redundant processes and opting for IT-enabled HR systems, which according to
industry experts, marks the beginning of a new era in the functioning of HR 
 professionals

Hero
Hero Hond
Hondaa has
has opte
opted
d for
for a SAP
SAP HR modumodulele.. S K Bala
Balasu
subr
bram
aman
ania
iam,
m, vice
vice
 president-information systems, Hero Honda, informs that the company is in the
  process of starting an ESS system which will enable employees to assess all
information about their salary, tax, leave loan, etc. For its knowledge management
requirements, the company is planning to set up a portal where employees can
access information, exchange ideas freely and read articles compiled by the HR 
department and all employees. Later, they also plan to use the intranet for external
and internal recruitment, assessment and appraisal purposes

11
 Information and IT Security
Management
 Enterprise security may not be as critical in a manufacturing organisation as in
the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector. Nonetheless, it is
import
important
ant,, especi
especiall
allyy when
when it comes
comes to a manufa
manufactu
cturin
ring
g compan
companyy like
like Hero
Hero
 Honda, which is extremely dependent on its computer systems and networks for its
operations. A disruption in IT infrastructure could spell disruption in business
operations. Taking all this into consideration, the company has been constantly
evolvi
evolving
ng its informa
informatiotion
n securi
security
ty set-up
set-up to keep
keep pace
pace with
with its expand
expanding
ing IT 
infrastructure. Today enterprise security at Hero Honda has reached one of the
most critical junctures as the bike major has recently created a comprehensive
information security policy.
policy.

  Ent
Enter
erpr
pris
isee secu
securi
rity
ty at HeHero
ro Hond
Honda a goes
goes beyo
beyond
nd IT secusecuri
rity
ty to enco
encomp
mpasasss
complete
complete informatio
information n security
security.. The company
company identifi
identified
ed the need for complete
complete
information security with IT security as one of the aspects within this whole
conc
concep
ept.
t. IT secu
securi
rity
ty will
will take
take car
care of only
only some
some intr
intrus
usio
ions
ns.. But
But for
for any
any
organ
organisa
isatio
tion
n there
there is a need
need to have
have a clear
clear identi
identific
ficati
ation
on of author
authorisa
isatio
tions
ns
thr
through
ough info
informa
rmati
tion
on clas
classi
sifi
fica
cati
tion
on.. The
The need
need was
was to find
find out
out what
what type
type of 
information was there, who should access it and who should not in order to ensure
complete data integrity

Along with business growth, Hero Honda has also grown on all fronts. It has set
up two manufacturing facilities at Dharuhera and Gurgaon in Haryana. These
facilities now churn out over 3.5 million motorbikes per year. This growth is also
applicable to the company’s employees and their business needs. As is the case
with any other large organization, Hero Honda has nearly 1,600 desktop users. E-
mail is a backbone of today’s business
business and justifying that the company has created
approximately 2,000 email ids for its users.

Security set-up so far

The year 1999 was the inflection point for the entire IT set-up at Hero Honda,
including information security. The company undertook a complete revamp of its
IT infrastructure with a new architecture, expansion of its network, IT assets and
applicati
applications.
ons. The security
security approach has been evolutionary
evolutionary,, in line with these
these
growin
growingg requir
requireme
ements
nts.. Connec
Connectin
ting
g the entire
entire organ
organisa
isatio
tion
n during
during 1999,
1999, the
company put its mailing system into place. This, however also led to the import of 
viruses into the system, thereby warranting the need for a complete anti-virus
soluti
solution.
on. Before
Before this,
this, there
there was
was anti-v
anti-viru
iruss softwa
software
re instal
installed
led only
only on a few

12
desktops. The company chose McAfee for its comprehensive features and good
installed base. Hero Honda has now implemented the complete suite, covering the
desktop, servers and mail gateway.

The company first deployed the Total Virus Defence (TVD) system, which was
later upgraded to the Active Virus Defence (AVD) system around two years ago.
Under AVD, Hero Honda is using Group Shield for Lotus Notes mailing system,
 Netshield for NT and Window 2000 servers and Virus Scan for end-user desktops.
The AVD works under the ePolicy Orchestrator agent, which is an agent installed
on each
each and every
every deskto
desktopp and delivers
delivers the means to contro
controll the anti-v
anti-viru
iruss
applic
applicati
ations
ons.. Accor
Accordin
ding
g to Balasu
Balasubra
braman
manian
ian,, it gives
gives the compan
company y power
power to
enforce its anti-virus policy, to update the policy on end-user desktops and to
monitor update progress through graphical reports. ePolicy has made it easier to
enforce any anti-virus policy in the company in just two hours in all the offices.

As part of the AVD architecture, Hero Honda has three AVD servers at the head
office in Delhi, and the Gurgaon and Dharuhera plant. The AVD server at Delhi
takes care of all head office-based servers, desktops and all zonal and area office
desktops. Likewise, with the Gurgaon and the Dharuhera AVD servers. All the
three servers are connected to the McAfee Internet site through the Net. As a
result, whenever McAfee releases any new anti-virus DAT files, all three AVD
serv
server
erss get
get sync
synchr
hron
onis
ised
ed with
with McAf
McAfee
ee serv
server
er and
and down
downlo
load
ad the
the DAT
DAT file
file
(incre
(increme
mente
nted)
d) immedi
immediate
ately
ly,, which
which are then
then distri
distribut
buted
ed to all the
the serve
servers
rs and
desktops. In case of a virus attack on any of the servers and desktops, the ePolicy
agent updates the AVD server about this new virus.

CORE CRISIS
Messaging systems form the frontline for any organization. The external mail
server forwards corporate mail to the internal mail server that is deployed on our 
LAN over SMTP. The internal mail server is a central mail repository from where
all the employees pop their individual mails. All the employees based in New
Delhi, Dharuhera and Gurgaon plant, POP their mails from the local mail server.
They have ISP level security which consists of a firewall, spam filter and anti-
virus. However, they soon realized that ISP level security was inadequate for the
task at hand.

The company was facing difficulties vis-à-vis messaging and there were Internet
access
access and secur
security
ity issue
issuess relate
related
d to spam,
spam, onlin
onlinee and spam-
spam-rel
relat
ated
ed malwar
malwaree
attack
attackss and choke
chokedd bandwi
bandwidth
dth.. Moreov
Moreover
er,, the
the compan
company y wante
wantedd to filter
filter Web
access.

13
The company receives an average of 26,000 e-mail messages per day, which
translates to almost 1 GB of storage space. Of these at least 70 percent were spam.
That used to work out to around 18,500 pieces of spam per day. The ISP was able
to filter out about 50 percent of this. Still, almost 9,000 messages hit our internal
mail server everyday.
everyday. They tried out a few standalone, software-based spam filters
with little success.

Apart from a vast number of employees, HHML also has a vast chain of dealers
and service stations spread across the country. So mails exchanged between these
office
officess often
often got lost in the maze of spamspam and the busine
business
ss suffer
suffered.
ed. Often
  busin
business
ess corres
correspon
ponden
dence
ce was incorr
incorrect
ectly
ly class
classifi
ified
ed as spam,
spam, a case
case of false
false
 positives, and deleted while spam continued to pour in. Mailboxes were clogged
with spam. Having close to 9,000 spam messages hitting the local mail server on a
daily basis was something that was not acceptable as, downloading legitimate mail
along with the torrent of spam that dodged the ISP’s filters from the external mail
server to the local one was a painfully slow and, quite often, frustrating process.

Emphas
Emphasizi
izing
ng anothe
anotherr side
side of this
this crisi
crisis,
s, Bandwi
Bandwidth
dth consum
consumpti
ption
on did not just
just
increase, it shot through the roof and to keep adding bandwidth was not a viable
solution. Once the messages reached an individual’s mailboxes, they had to be
checked and deleted manually. Many a times the recipients were tempted to read
the spam and the mail processing time kept increasing at the cost of productivity.
Legitimate e-mail messages were often lost in the maze of spam.

The management began questioning the IT department regarding the extent of 
spam,
spam, which
which was
was mostly
mostly unansw
unanswera
erable
ble,, despit
despitee the IT team’
team’ss best
best effor
efforts
ts..
Employees stationed at remote locations such as Gurgaon and Dharuhera were
worst hit. For them, the mail was first downloaded to the local mail server and
then had to be POPped to their remote individual mail boxes. The download time
of an individual message was very high and this was particularly frustrating since
at least 50 percent of the mail was spam.

Need for firewall

The need for further beefing up the security set-up beyond an anti-virus solution
was felt as the company further opened up its systems to external access. Around a
year-and-a-half
year-and-a-half ago, apart from providing Internet access through the proxy server,
the company also decided to provide connectivity with dealers and vendors for 
information sharing, i.e. they could directly log in to the Web server. This required
the deployment of a firewall to guard the systems from possible hackers and virus
attacks. This was the first time that they were really connected to their partners.
Earlier they only had a mail gateway through which they exchanged mail. So,
there really wasn’t a need for a firewall at that time. But now, since they are

14
allowing people to log in and with people accessing the Internet there is the need
for a firewall.

Firewalls deployed at Comsat Max: Hero Honda has a perimeter firewall that
serves as the Internet gateway for both the plants and head office. It has chosen
Checkpoint as its firewall, which runs on a Nokia box and is managed and
monitored by the service provider, Comsat Max. The company’s IT security
architecture divides the network into zones, based on the function of the
infrastructure contained therein. The zones created are:

• DMZ zone
• Third-party zone
• Application servers zone
• Critical servers zone
• Security management zone
•  Network and system management zone
• LAN & WAN zone

Unauthorised Internet access

Restriction of access to unauthorised sites is taken care through the proxy server,
which was deployed around two years ago for Internet access to internal users.
The rules for access control have been defined in the server itself. It defines factors
like which PCs have access to the Internet, the sites that can be accessed, time
 period during which only certain users can access the Internet, etc.

The company has taken various measures to ensure data integrity during internal
acce
access
ss as well
well.. It has
has depl
deploy
oyed
ed PGP
PGP soft
softwa
ware
re on the
the crit
critic
ical
al desk
deskto
tops
ps and
and
notebooks within the organisation for encrypting data. While the software was
deployed around two-and-a-half years ago, it keeps on identifying and adding
critical notebooks and desktops. The information on the desktops and notebooks is
kept in a folder and is encrypted, which requires a user name and password to
access it.

Furthermore, Hero Honda has built in integrity in the application itself, which is
well documented with profiles for each user.
user. Depending on his/her profile, the user 
gets
gets the
the righ
rights
ts for
for acce
access
ssin
ing
g the
the data
data.. The
The auth
authen
enti
tica
cati
tion
on is done
done thro
throug
ughh
 passwords.

And the answer was …

15
The spam included a good smidgen of Phishing which slipped through the primary
securi
security
ty layer
layer at the ISP’
ISP’s end.
end. Malwa
Malware
re enteri
entering
ng throug
throughh the messa
messages
ges and
Internet browsing was also a major source of concern. Several messages contained
a malici
malicious
ous payloa
payloadd of viruse
viruses,
s, spywar
spywaree and Trojans
rojans.. Once
Once these
these entere
entered
d the
network, they promptly began consuming bandwidth and causing system crashes.
Unprotected and unrestricted Internet browsing also left gaping security holes. The
lack of filters on browsing left the organization wide open to attack from malware,
tracking cookies, spyware and keyloggers.

Digvijaysinh Chudasama, Vice President, Sales, Cyberoam said that Enterprises

are repla
replacin
cing
g best-o
best-of-br
f-breed
eed secur
security
ity soluti
solutions
ons in their
their networ
networksks with
with Unifie
Unifiedd
Threat Management solutions. Cyberoam’s all-in-one security platform aids the
transition without compromising the feature granularity of standalone solutions.
Cybero
Cyberoam’
am’ss identi
identity
ty-ba
-based
sed secur
security
ity empow
empowersers admini
administr
strato
ators
rs to proact
proactive
ively
ly
defend the enterprise network against both internal and external threats.”

While considering the core problem and sensitivity of the issue for Hero Honda,
Tarak Technologies, business partner of Cyberoam, suggested a plan to secure the
company’s e-mail. Jose Kurian, COO of Tarak Technologies said after examining
the proble
problemm they
they unders
understoo
tood
d that
that respon
response
se time
time was crucia
crucial.
l. The messag
messaging
ing
application cannot go down for a long period of time at a company such as Hero
Honda. They offered them Cyberoam’s anti-spam software. Rather than going out
for point-to-point solutions we suggested that the company go in for Unified
Threat Management (UTM).”

Kurian added that the Cyberoam UTM solution sits at the gateway level. It is an
appliance through which mail gets routed, filtered and forwarded to the local mail
server
server.. In the absenc
absencee of Web filter
filtering
ing and access
access accoun
accountab
tabili
ility
ty,, the
the little
little
 bandwidth that was left was consumed through unrestricted surfing. This proved
detrimental to organizational productivity. Lack of Internet usage accountability
led to malicious sites being surfed, which in turn infected the network with a host
of spyware.

As a remedy to slow browsing and other bandwidth problems, the company was
forced to upgrade its initial 64 Kbps Internet connection to a 4 Mbps pipe. Yet,
Yet, the
complaints persisted even after this quantum leap in bandwidth availability. They
  pur
purch
chas
ased
ed four
four Cybe
Cyberoroam
am appl
applia
ianc
nces
es,, thre
threee 250i
250iss and
and one
one 100i
100i.. One
One 250i
250i
appliance is deployed at our corporate office in New Delhi, and one each at
 production plants in Dharuhera and Gurgaon. A 100i appliance is deployed at their 
upcoming facility at Haridwar. All Cyberoam appliances have been deployed in
 bridge mode. The entire mail and Web traffic passes through Cyberoam.

The changed scenario

16
 Post-implementation,
Post-implementation, Internet access is productively focused. This is amply
reflected in the bandwidth usage. Once insufficient, bandwidth availability
availability is now
quite satisfactory. Total bandwidth consumption fell sharply and the ISP bills also
took a nose dive. A clean network, safe and responsible surfing and spam free mail
 boxes have all culminated in a drastic reduction in calls to the IT helpdesk.

Information security policy

While the company had some documented policies relating to various aspects,
including IT security post-1999, they were not comprehensive enough to cover all
areas.
areas. Increasing
Increasingly
ly expanding
expanding connecti
connectivity
vity warranted
warranted the need for a complete
complete
 policy, defining the security issues both from within and outside the organisation.
The company’s plans for connectivity with business partners included rolling out
the second phase of its supply chain solution, allowing dealers and vendors to
interactively do transactions with the company on the Net. (It already provides
dealers and vendors one-way access to the Web server). Furthermore, it is also
trying to allow employees access to applications like instant messaging and SAP,
especially for field staff and mobile workers. In such a scenario, which required
opening up its systems to partners, the need for a robust policy was imminent.

A few months ago, Hero Honda started working on its new information security
 policy with HCL Comnet as the consultant. The policy broadly covers around 17
domains. These domains include networking and telecommunication, back-up,
softwar
softwaree purpurcha
chase,
se, use and mainte
maintenannance,
ce, incide
incidentnt manage
managemen ment, t, e-mail
e-mail,,
Internet, access control, password control, anti-virus, notebooks, information
disp
dispos
osal
al,, acce
acceptptab
able
le use,
use, syst
system
em de deve
velo
lopm
pmen
ent,t, de
desk
skto
top,
p, info
informrmatatio
ion
n
classificat
classification,
ion, training
training and physical security. HCL
physical security HCL Comn
Comnet et carr
carrie
ied
d out
out the
the
vulnerability assessments and outlined the areas requiring improvement. These
included recommendations for patch upgradation on various operating systems
and for netwo
networki
rking
ng device
devicess as well
well as physic
physical
al secur
security
ity—s
—spec
pecifi
ifical
cally
ly for the
server room. The consultant also recommended the removal of modems provided
to users for directly accessing the Net from their PCs. Though the connections had
 been removed, the modems were left behind, which, the consultants pointed out,
crea
create
ted
d vuln
vulner
erab
abil
ilit
ity
y as the
the user
userss coul
couldd plug
plug them
them in andand star
startt usin
using g them
them..
According to Balasubramanian, based on the recommendations of the consultants,
the
the comp
compan anyy fixe
fixed d up the
the loop
loopho
hole
less in its
its secu
securi
rity
ty set-
set-up
up,, incl
includ
udining
g some
some
recomm
recommendendati
ations
ons regard
regarding
ing the firewa
firewalls
lls and the protec
protectio
tion
n of serve
servers.
rs. The
comp
compananyy has
has alre
alread
ady
y carr
carrie
ied
d out
out pre-
pre-vu
vuln
lner
erab
abil
ilit
ity
y asse
assess
ssme
mentnts,
s, fixe
fixedd the
the
vulnerabilities and then conducted post-vulnerability assessments.

On the other side, Hero Honda also worked on the information classification part
of its inform
informati
ation
on securi
security
ty polic
policy
y, which
which didn’
didn’tt exist
exist earli
earlier
er.. This
This involv
involves
es

17
  parti
particip
cipati
ation
on from
from the
the top manage
managemen
mentt with
with user
user repres
represent
entati
ation
on from
from all the
functional areas. The present exercise of classification of information is being
done
done depend
depending
ing on confid
confident
ential
iality
ity,, critic
criticali
ality
ty and availa
availabil
bility
ity.. Apart
Apart from
from
information classification, the access rights to various classes of people are also
 being defined in the policy. The functional heads are made responsible for their 
departments and endorse the classification of information being done.

The RoI Factor

Accord
According
ing to Avnes
Avneshh Jain,
Jain, “The
“The Cybero
Cyberoam
am UTM has maximmaximize
ized
d return
return on
investment. It exceeded our expectations before the implementation.” The anti-
spam feature effectively stops around 9,000 bits of spam each and every day.
Employees were pleasantly surprised to find spam-free inboxes. However,
However, we also
saved time and our legitimate e-mail was no longer buried under.
under.

As spam disappeared, inter-office

inter-office connectivity benefited greatly.
greatly. Employees at the
remote site no longer have to wait indefinitely for their e-mail to be downloaded.
Bandwidth used to connect remote offices was also saved. Cyberoam’s anti-spam
solution not only blocked spam, but also proved effective against any type of mail-
  base
based
d threa
threat.
t. The solut
solution
ion used
used Recur
Recurren
rentt Patte
Pattern
rn Detect
Detection
ion techno
technolog
logy
y. It is
content-agnostic and equally effective against image based spam. Pattern detection
techno
technolog
logyy ensure
ensured
d a minima
minimall windo
windoww of vulner
vulnerabi
abilit
lity
y, provid
providing
ing zero
zero hour 
hour 
 protection to the HHML network.

The cost involved in getting Cyberoam’s

Cyberoam’s UTM solution at Hero Honda was around
Rs 12 lakhs. It took almost a year to deploy this solution at all locations because
they went in for a pilot and gradually scaled up from there. However, the actual
deployment time was very less.

Cyberoam’s anti-virus solution scans SMTP, IMAP, POP3 mail traffic and HTTP
and FTP activity as well, leaving no security gaps unattended. As all the Web-
 based traffic is scanned for spyware and malware, clean and secure Web surfing
has become a reality. Cyberoam’s identity-based Web filtering ensures employee
accountability, which in turn leads to a reduction in unproductive surfing. The IT
department has created groups and assigned Internet access rights based on their 
 business profile in HHML. Cyberoam’s HTTP client is used to authenticate the
user.
user. As the Web
Web filtering rules are implemented on the user’s
user ’s identity and not just
on the IP address, IP spoofing has been curbed.

FUTURE PLANS

18
 Now that Hero Honda is readying itself for the second phase of its supply chain
initiative of connecting with dealers and vendors, it is planning to build more
components on top of its existing security set-up. While in the first phase, the
company had allowed dealers and vendors only one-way access, in the second
 phase it will allow them to interactively do transactions with the company on the
 Net. Once the second phase starts rolling out in April next year, the company plans
to deploy additional features like an intrusion detection system, user authentication
and single-user sign-on.

As part of the new information security policy, the company will be outsourcing
the monitoring of all its external access, hacking and intrusions to third-party
service providers with SLAs. “We
“We will outsource primarily because the third-party
service providers have the expertise and resources to monitor 24x7,” explains
Balasubramanian. Also, as a policy, Hero Honda will initiate regular half-yearly
audits to check compliance with the security policy and also to check whether the
 policy needs a change .

19
 BENEFITS TO HHML
ERP helped in improving quality, access and usage of transactional data and
suitab
suitably
ly elimin
eliminate
ated
d multip
multiple
le entrie
entries.
s. Beside
Besides,
s, there
there was
was no need
need for manual
manual
reconc
reconcili
iliati
ation
on any more
more and operat
operation
ional
al proces
processes
ses were
were improv
improveded at vario
various
us
stages.
stages. Order
Order processin
processing
g was Standardi
Standardized
zed across
across all functions
functions.. And real-time
real-time
information on product cost, profitability analysis, and dispatch and production
status was made available too.

One of the main reasons for the success of their SAP project was that the project
was perceived as a business project, and not as an IT project. And different
functional heads and module leaders were also involved in the project. Apart from
this,
this, the deploy
deploymen
mentt of relati
relationa
onall datab
database
asess like
like Oracl
Oraclee and Ingres
Ingres helped
helped in
consolidating data at one place and made it accessible to all authorised users

GREATER RESPONSIVENESS, FEWER ERRORS

Foll
Follow
owiningg go-l
go-liv
ivee in June
June 2004
2004,, Heroero Hond
Hondaa imme
immedi diat
atel
ely
y saw
saw mark
marked ed
improvements. On-lineOn-line interaction
interaction enhanced
enhanced order execution
execution efficiency
efficiency thereby
thereby
improv
improvinging the respon
responsi
siven
veness
ess.. Their
Their old sales
sales orders
orders proces
processs was
was very
very time-
time-
consuming. Now dealers enter orders directly into the system. This accelerates
delive
deliverie
riess – preven
preventin
ting
g loss
loss of busine
businessss due to delays
delays.. Hero
Hero Honda
Honda has
has also
also
streamlined its transactions with suppliers, making for better inventory planning
and reduced inventory carrying costs. Improved information exchange guarantees
that
that the
the righ
rightt good
goodss are
are deli
delive
vere
redd at the
the righ
rightt time
time.. The
The comp
compananyy has
has also
also
signif
signific
icant
antly
ly reduce
reducedd error
error-pr
-prone
one,, manual
manual data
data entry
entry.. Suppli
Suppliers
ers now create
create
advanced shipping notifications in the system, and when the shipment reaches
Hero Honda, the company’s employees simply have to confirm receipt .

AMBITIOUS PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

Building on the success of the project, Hero Honda is now planning a range of 
new SAP initiatives. These include adding additional mySAP SRM and mySAP
CRM functional
functionality
ity,, implement
implementing
ing the SAP Strategic
Strategic Enterpris
Enterprisee Manageme
Managementnt
applic
applicati
ation
on of mySA
mySAP P ERP Financia
Financials
ls and integr
integrati
ating
ng it with
with SAP Business
Business
Information Warehouse (SAP BW), and rolling out SAP Enterprise Portal (SAP
EP)
EP) to allall user
users.
s. The
The SAP
SAP BW compcompononen
entt is prov
provid
ided
ed in SAP
SAP Busi
Busine
ness
ss
Inte
Intell
llig
igen
ence
ce (SAP
(SAP BI).BI). SAP
SAP BI andand SAP
SAP EP are
are comp
compononen
ents
ts of the
the SAP
SAP
 NetWeaver™ platform. “Our new SAP solutions have enhanced our competitive
edge.
edge. We are confid
confident
ent that
that we’re
we’re on the right
right track
track for contin
continued
ued succe
success,
ss,””

20
concludes Bala. HHML is in the process of making continuous improvements and
changing configuration to add more functionality to the existing systems. They
have
have impl
implem
emenente
ted
d the
the ‘Pla
‘Plant
nt Main
Mainte tena
nanc
nce’
e’ modu
modulele in Sept
Sept,, 2002
2002 and
and are
are
implem
implement
enting
ing the ‘Human
‘Human Resour
Resourcece’’ (inclu
(includin
ding
g India
India Payrol
Payroll)
l) module
module.. The
Supply
Supply Chain Manage
Managemenmentt projec
projectt is about
about to take
take off
off too.
too. Propos
Proposed
ed future
future
applications are CRM, BW, SAP Portals and ESS. HHML has upgraded from 4.6
B to 4.6 C. They are also putting in organised archiving of data on SAP and
depl
deploy
oyin
ing
g live
live reor
reorga
gani
niza
zati
tion
on of data
datababase
se usin
using
g a ‘Que
‘Quest
st’’ tool
tool.. They
They have
have
implemented the Solution Manager and are now looking for certification as a
customer competence center .

Coming Next: Improved Collaboration, Analytics

Analytics
As valuable as Hero Honda’s supply chain automation is, in many ways the new
system represents only the tip of a much larger iceberg. They have just upgraded
to a later version of mySAP SRM and this will usher in added functionality. It’ll
help them to do more strategic sourcing by evaluating the suppliers and forming
strategic partnerships. They’ll also implement self-service procurement for indirect
materials and will extend the supplier portal by implementing a vendor-managed
inventory function, as well as improved analytics through the data warehousing
capabilities of SAP Business Intelligence. Hero Honda expects steady growth in
motorcycle demand in the future, as well as a steady increase in the complexities
of manufacturing the two-wheelers. The motorcycle market in India continues to
  be strong. For one thing, many people who used to ride scooters now prefer 
motorcycles. For another, that the economy is strong and financing is readily
available. Balasubramanian
Balasubramanian points out that the spectrum of motorcycle models and
colors is also growing. His company averages about three new models each year 
and, with the current selection of models and colors, Hero Honda is responsible
for producing about 150 variations of motorcycle – not including accessories. But
now they’re well equipped to handle the growing market and product mix and at
the same time, they’re more responsive than ever before to dealers and other 
customers, thanks to mySAP SRM and mySAP CRM.”

21
 BOTTLENECKS

Till date, the IS department has not faced any major bottlenecks. “With a proper 
 plan and proper implementation of those plans, we have overcome all hurdles,”
comments Balasubramanian. The only major problem the IS team has faced till
date was management perception of ERP. They were of the opinion that ERP
implementations were mainly failures. Many felt that instead of going in for ERP
they should implement an e-business solution. Balasubramanian had to tell the
manage
managemen
mentt that
that one could
could not run e-bus
e-busine
iness
ss withou
withoutt a stable
stable inform
informati
ation
on
systems structure within the organisation.

“Today, IT has taken off very well, especially with support from management.
There has also been very good user support, which helped us in experimenting
with
with new
new tech
techno
nolo
logi
gies
es,”
,” says
says Bala
Balasu
subr
bram
aman
ania
ian.
n. “Tha
“Thank
nkss to the
the stab
stable
le IT
infras
infrastru
tructu
cture
re the compan
company’y’ss busine
business
ss analys
analysis
is has becom
becomee very
very sound
sound and
credible,” he adds. The company is now one of the reference sites for SAP, and
only one of ten companies in the Asia Pacific region selected by SAP for this
honour .

IN THE IT PIPLINE

In the nearnear future

future the compan
company
y is planni
planning
ng to introd
introduce
uce video
videocon
confer
ferenc
encing
ing
fac
facilit
ilitie
iess and barbar codi
oding systems
tems at the
the asse
ssembl
mbly secti
ection
on and store.
ore.
Balasubramanian also has plans to implement some more modules of ERP like HR 
and production management. For dealers and distributors, Hero Honda has plans
for Web-based standard connectivity.

The company is also is planning to connect some of its vendors through a process
called direct online. By this the vendors will supply directly to the stores and there
will no quality check, rather it will be self-assuring.The whole idea is to make
things completely automated.

22
Snapshot of Hero Honda’s IT set-up

•  Number of servers – Over 35 servers (All IBM)

• Proxy server – For providing Internet access to internal users.
• Web server – For providing access to dealers and vendors.
• Wide Area Network 

Between Gurgaon plant and Dharuhera plant – Primary link is a 2 Mbps leased
line from Bharti with RF and VSAT being secondary back-up links.

Between Gurgaon plant and Delhi head office – 2 Mbps leased line as a primary
link. Another
Another 2 Mbps link from Gurgaon plant to Comsat Max and then to the
head office is a secondary link.

• Connectivity for marketing offices with plants and head offices – VPN
connectivity between 20 locations through 64 Kbps leased line with ISDN
as a back-up.

Internet connectivity through leased line from Comsat Max

23
 SUMMARY
Faced with growing market demand and inefficiencies in its supplier order 
 processes, Hero Honda – the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer – 
chose
chose the mySAP™
mySAP™ Suppli
Supplier
er Relati
Relations
onship
hip Manage
Managemen
mentt (mySAP
(mySAP SRM)
SRM)
solution to integrate and automate its large and complex supply chain.
Key Challenges
• Supplier order processing not well synchronized with production planning
• Proprietary supplier portal provided no transactions, only information
Project Objectives
• Speed up and automate supplier order processing
• Synchronize customer orders with supplier schedules
Solutions and Services
• mySAP SRM
• mySAP Customer Relationship
Management (mySAP CRM) solution
Why SAP® Solution
Ability to integrate the new supplier portal with the existing mySAP ERP
Solution
AT A GLANCE
Implementation Highlights
• Three-month initial rollout covered 15 of the top 125 strategic suppliers;
over 50 suppliers have since been covered
• Implementation included training Hero Honda suppliers as well as buyers
Key Benefits
• Faster supply chain order processing – cut three days from old schedule
• Improved accuracy of deliveries from 98% to 100%
• Better responsiveness to customer changes
• Online communication with suppliers integrated and traceable
• Inventory planning improved – 10% reduction in inventory carrying cost
• Transaction costs reduced because of fewer discrepancies to handle
• Overall lower process and transaction costs
Implementation Partner: SAP® Consulting

24
Existing Environment: mySAP ERP
Database: Oracle
Hardware: IBM
Operating System: AIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBSITE ADDRESS

http://www.expresscomputer
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20031
online.com/20031124/appsspecial10.shtml
124/appsspecial10.shtml
http://www.networkmagazineindia.c
http://www.networkmagazineindia.com/200412/coverstory04.shtml
om/200412/coverstory04.shtml
http://www.networkmagazineindia.c
http://www.networkmagazineindia.com/200410/coverstory01.shtml
om/200410/coverstory01.shtml
http://www.expressitpeople.c
http://www.expressitpeople.com/20020415/cover1.shtml
om/20020415/cover1.shtml
http://www.expresscomputer
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070917/management01.shtml
online.com/20070917/management01.shtml
http://www.tceworld.co.in/i
http://www.tceworld.co.in/index_files/tmm/kma/hr/pm/HR_pm_051
ndex_files/tmm/kma/hr/pm/HR_pm_0511.htm
1.htm
http://www.expresscomputer
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20020701/ebiz2.shtml
online.com/20020701/ebiz2.shtml

25