A BOOK OF SELECTED CASES

Volume XIX

STEEL AUTHORITY OF INDIA LIMITED

Management Training Institute
An ISO 9001:2008 Institute
Ranchi - 834 002 (Jharkhand)
Copyright Management Training Institute
Steel Authority of India Limited
Ranchi-834002 (India)

June, 2014

Cases have been prepared as a basis for classroom discussion. They are not designed to
illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of situations. Suggestions/ feedback on this
issue of "A Book of Selected Cases" may be sent to sandipdash@sailmti.com
Editor
'kf'k 'ks[kj egkUrh
funs'kd (rduhdh)
Sashi Shekhar Mohanty
Director (Technical)

Message
Continuous learning and application of learning for business results has been
the need of the hour for organisations to maintain sustainable competitive
advantage and succeed in this hyper-dynamic competitive environment.
Case methods, as a vehicle for learning has a significant advantage of
providing the readers with learning opportunity on multidimensional
perspectives of business and also applicability of management concepts in
real life situations. Cases involve the readers actively in a business scenario
challenging them with business complexities and as a result enhance their
capabilities to grapple with complexities to deliver results.
It is heartening to learn that the management case study contest “Anubhav”,
has received overwhelming response from different corporates and
academic institutions. The enthusiasm of professionals to document and
share their experience is a positive sign for Corporate India. I am sure the
cases will be providing lots of learning opportunities and management
insights to students and professionals.
I congratulate the organisers of “Anubhav” and the publishers of “A Book
of Selected Cases” for their contributions and wish them success in all their
endeavours towards achieving excellence in learning and development
practices.

(S S Mohanty)
 ,p- ,l- ifr
funs'kd (dkfeZd)
H. S. Pati
Director (Personnel)

Message
I am happy to learn that the nineteenth edition of “A Book of Selected Cases”
is getting published this year with cases selected from the management
case study contest “Anubhav” involving cases from different sectors
and functions. I am sure these cases will provide significant learning
opportunities both to students of management and to practicing managers
and expose them to different aspects of business dynamics and decision
making.
I wish the organizers of “Anubhav” and Management Training Institute,
Ranchi, the publisher of “A Book of Selected Cases” all success in their
novel approach in encouraging documentation and dissemination of
knowledge to aid in learning and development of individuals, institutions
and organizations.

(H. S. Pati)
johUnz flag
funs'kd (dkfeZd)] ,u-,e-Mh-lh-
Rabindra Singh
Director (Personnel), NMDC

Message
In the present business environment, capability of professionals to learn and
adapt is one of the crucial aspects of success both for the individuals and for
the organizations. As it is acknowledged universally, real life experiences
are the most effective means for learning. And cases are powerful vehicles
that provide a simulated real life scenario for the reader to envision and
learn.
It is heartening to know that “A Book of Selected Cases” coming of age
in its Nineteenth issue. A collaborative endeavor of Management Training
Institute of SAIL, National HRD Network, RINL and NMDC has resulted
in the publication of selected cases, pooled through “Anubhav” - the
Management Case Study Contest.
I congratulate the publishers of “A Book of Selected Cases’’ and wish them
all success in all such endeavors that encourage learning and development
in organizations.

(Rabindra Singh)
MkWú thch,l izlkn
funs'kd (dkfeZd)
jk"Vªh; bLikr fuxe fyfeVsM
Dr. GBS Prasad
Director (Personnel)
Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited

Message
Adaptability of managers in the fast changing corporate world is one of
the most critical factors in keeping their organizations competitive. This
provides the managers a challenge to shorten the learning period on
different issues of business. The managers need to develop awareness and
responsiveness in multiple domains in order to anticipate and adapt to
new scenarios.
Business Cases are powerful tools that provide the young managers with a
feel of real life corporate issues, dynamics and scenarios that they have not
encountered themselves and also provide them with opportunity to learn
appropriate responses under the comparable scenarios.
I am happy to know that the nineteenth issue of “A Book of Selected Cases”
is getting published with cases presented at “Anubhav” - the management
case study contest.
Collaborative efforts of Management Training Institute of SAIL, National
HRD Network, RINL and NMDC in organizing “Anubhav" and publishing
“A Book of Selected Cases” is worth praising.
I congratulate the organizer of “Anubhav” and publishers of “A Book of
Selected Cases” and wish them success in their endeavor.

(Dr GBS Prasad)

Rajeev Dubey
National President, National HRD Network &
President (Group HR, Corporate Services & After Market)
& Member of Group Executive Board
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Message
I am delighted that the NHRDN Ranchi Chapter is collaborating with
corporates to organize the “Anubhav” Management Case study contest In
this era of networking & knowledge management, creating a platform for
shared learning through Business Cases, will add great value to the learning
& development experience of both working professionals & students.
I commend the organizers of “Anubhav” & the publishers of “A Book of
Selected Cases” for providing this powerful learning opportunity, and
wish them continued success in their mission of promoting learning &
development.

(Rajeev Dubey)
ekul jatu iaMk
dk;Zikyd funs'kd (ek-la-fo-)
Manas R Panda
Executive Director (HRD)

Message
With the continual growth in the level of complexity of business, managers
today need perspective on multiple facets of management to take effective
decisions and implement them. Enhanced degree of dynamism in the
business environment makes it extremely challenging for managers to learn
and equip themselves to address issues, which have multidimensional
manifestation and implication. To a large extent, this learning challenge
can be addressed through business cases, which not only provide the
readers with contexts involving different aspects of management but also
put the readers in the decision making position in a simulated scenario.
Considering the importance of business cases MTI has been publishing "A
Book of Selected Cases" for last nineteen years.
For expanding the purview of the cases in terms of industry, functions and
geography as well as for attracting quality cases for "A Book of Selected
Cases" a novel idea of organizing a national level case competition emerged
last year and as a result "Anubhav" came to its existence. The interest and
enthusiasm evoked during the first edition of "Anubhav" and the quality
of cases received in the process for "A Book of Selected Cases" inspired us
to continue with the model this year as well and the response this year is
even more encouraging.
I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to all the participants
and management of their organizations for their contributions and
congratulate the finalists of "Anubhav", whose cases have featured in this
edition of "A Book of Selected Cases". I sincerely feel the readers would find
the cases useful and would be able apply the learning from these cases in
their professional domain.

(Manas R Panda)
 A Book of Selected Cases
Volume XIX

CO N T E N T S

1. How 5S Implementation Can Reduce Lead Time Drastically? 1

A Case Study on M/S ABC Bank Ltd
Smita Minz

2. Kayapalat - to a Resurgent Sinter Plant 20

Subhra Dhara & Somnath Kumar

3. Leader : A Gold Digger 43

Amitabh Jha

4. Long Hours or Intense Hours in DSIL 61

Deepak Roy & S. Shrivastava

5. Performance Appraisal System – A Cultural Shift..? 69

Angeet S Nair

6. Rolling Mills Division, Brandsteel 74

CRK Sudhanshu, Shipra N Hemrom & Rajakirubhakar B

7. Case Study on Stakeholder Engagement 81

Sonapalli: Mine or Minefield?
Indranil Mitra

8. The Eagle has Landed !! 91

Pritam Saha
 How 5S Implementation Can Reduce Lead
Time Drastically?
A Case Study on M/S ABC Bank Ltd

Most often, businesses focus more on production and sales and matters that appear very simple
like housekeeping are neglected. Usually, the mess becomes our comfort zone and inefficiencies
caused by them are usually overlooked just because they don’t bother us in current times. How-
ever, when these inefficiencies start eating away our productivity and threaten to disrupt the
normal course of activities, it’s often too late. This case study is about enhancing an individual’s
productivity by mere application and strict adherence to basic 5S principles. While most of us
live in the delusion that keeping workplace clean doesn’t help much, using 5S principles as an
everyday exercise pragmatically can clear away our delusion.
Veena Nair, the protagonist of the case study, joined M/s ABC Bank Limited’s Guwahati Com-
mercial Branch as Manager (Operations). The chaos of lack of role clarity and job responsibility
along with the lack of standardization and systematization ruffled her. She sensed the impend-
ing doom if actions were not taken immediately. Interacting with the team on a regular basis,
Veena realized that the basic issue faced by the team is that of disorder.
Veena didn’t have to do much. Just getting the workplace of each officer in order helped the team
performance improve by over 50% in just a day. At the outlook, it may appear unbelievable.
However, just by keeping basic stationary like paper, pen, stapler, seals, etc. at their proper
places, the officers saved a lot of time that they used to waste searching for the stationary. Not
only workplace organization but also a few other simple processes like process standardization,
proper job allocation, target setting, employee engagement and motivation, etc. helped the team
improve its dynamics and show remarkable improvement in performance.
Most of the times, these simple thumb rules are grossly overlooked which results in inefficien-
cies and ineffectiveness and this case study shows how the basics can strengthen teams and
organizations.

W hen Veena was posted in the

newly formed commercial branch
of M/s ABC Bank Limited at Guwahati
(Assam), which was still in its formative
state, she was completely lost. The bank
had started its operations but nothing
was in place. Corporate Business was
being diverted from the retail branch at
Guwahati and the commercial branch at
Kolkata and a sheer lack of organization
of workplace as well as processes made
operations chaotic and unproductive.
Veena had always been against staying
back late in the office but the mountain

This case is written by Smita Minz, Jr. Manager (Marketing),

Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP), Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)

1
 A Book of Selected Cases
of unfinished tasks forced her to stay
back late with the team. She realized that
the current system was unsustainable.
She had to act fast to restore order and
she fell back on the simple practice of
basic 5S tools.
The case study shows how
unproductive a business can be without
proper housekeeping. At the same
time, the case study also highlights
how 5S implementation can turn
around businesses. The case shows the
hardships of setting up and operating
a new business unit and how simple
concepts like 5S can help streamline
businesses, reduce wastages, increase
efficiency and productivity, boost
employee morale, etc. Adopting any
new management concept can be a
daunting task hindered by non-co-
operation and it requires a lot of effort to
bring about team consensus. However,
once the results become evident and
the cause is appreciated, things fall into
place. The case shows how Veena uses
different management concepts to ease
implementation.
Background
Veena Nair was working as a Manager
in the Mumbai Corporate Branch of M/s
ABC Bank Limited. After her marriage,
she applied for transfer to Guwahati
to be with her husband and in-laws.
Fortunately, a new Commercial Branch
of M/s ABC Bank Limited was being
set up at Guwahati and Veena Nair
was transferred to the new commercial
branch at Guwahati as Manager
2
(Operations). As Veena reached her
new office, she was welcomed with
enthusiasm by a young bunch of
subordinates. She was guided to her
huge cubicle. She was greatly impressed
with the spacious layout of the branch.
From the hectic schedules and small
spaces of work life in Mumbai, life in
Guwahati seemed like a picnic. Veena
was informed by her junior colleagues
that business was very slow in the
branch since it had been newly set up.
Veena enquired about Branch Manager
(Commercial) and Branch Manager
(Operations) and she was informed that
they were attending a conference call in
the conference hall and they will be back
only after noon. Veena decided to make
use of the time by familiarizing herself
with the branch and her colleagues.
Veena observed that the branch was a
very huge hall with two cabins and a big
cubicle on one side, a huge storage area
and six small cubicles on the adjacent
side, restrooms and pantry on the third
side and customer lounge in the centre
of the hall. Though the layout was very
spacious, she was not very happy with
the arrangement. She observed that
apart from the name plates in the cabins
MAIN ENTRANCE CABIN 1
BM (Comm.)
Pantry Area
CUSTOMER LOUNGE CABIN 2
BM (Ops.)
Cubicle 1
Veena Nair
Cubicle 7 Cubicle 6 Cubicle 5 Cubicle 4 Cubicle 3 Cubicle 2
Restrooms
RESTRICTED
STORAGE AREA
ENTRY
Fig.1: Branch Layout
of the Branch Managers and her own
cubicle, there was no way any customer
could have identified which cubicle to
approach for their requirements.
The strength of the branch was only
eleven which consisted of a Branch
Manager (Commercial), a Branch
Manager (Operations), Manager
(Operations) i.e. Veena, three Customer
Service Officers, three Business
Development Officers, an Office boy and
a Canteen Boy. The Customer Service
Officers (CSOs) were responsible for
providing all kinds of commercial
banking services to the customers while
the Business Development Officers
(BDOs) were responsible for getting
new customers and bringing customer
requirements to the CSOs. All the six
officers were graduates and about 24-
27 year olds with 1-2 years of working
experience with the bank. All the
officers were from the North-East India
who had been transferred from other
commercial branches across the country.
The commercial branch of M/s ABC
Bank Limited at Guwahati was the first
and only branch in northeast India. The
commercial branch of M/s ABC Bank
Limited at Kolkata had been servicing
the customers of northeast India and
they were to support Guwahati branch
till the new branch was fully setup and
ready to function independently.
When Veena was transferred to the
Guwahati Branch, she was sent with the
mandate to ensure branch stabilization
within one month of her joining. She
was happy with the young bunch
3
who were comfortable in handling all
operational issues and the friendly and
contagious enthusiasm of the team gave
her the confidence that one month was
sufficient enough to stabilize branch
operations. However, her happiness
was short lived.
The conference call was over and as
the two Branch Managers entered the
branch looking glum, silence overtook
the happily chattering team. She
was informed by a colleague that the
Branch Managers were old school folks
who had recently joined the bank after
quitting major public sector banks and
who behaved more like headmasters.
The two Branch Managers were deep
in conversation and they entered the
cabin of BM (Comm.) without even
glancing towards the cubicles. For a
while, Veena felt scared. At Mumbai,
the office was very different. It was
always crowded and noisy with
happy faced bosses interacting with
subordinates – smiling, greeting each
other, appreciating, etc. Suddenly, the
spaciousness and the quiet ruffled her.
However, she quietly walked towards
the cabin of BM (Comm.) and sought
permission to enter.
The Branch Managers looked at her
blankly. Veena began, “Good afternoon,
Sirs. I am Veena Nair.” The blank
faces looked slightly confused. Veena
realized she’ll have to say more, “I have
joined the branch today as Manager
(Operations). I have been transferred
from Mumbai.” The Branch Managers
jumped up feeling relieved and to an
 A Book of Selected Cases
extent elated. “O’ yes, yes. I remember.
It’s already 1st June. We have been
waiting for you. Welcome to the
branch. Come. Have a seat,” the Branch
Manager (Comm.) said.
Problem Scenario
During the one hour that she spent with
the Branch Managers, Veena received
multiple shocks. She was informed
that the branch was only a month
old i.e. the Branch Managers and the
six officers joined the branch on 2nd
May, when the branch was only a hall
without a single computer on the tables
and without a single piece of stationary.
The retail branch of the bank was in
the ground floor of the same building
and currently all security papers were
under its custody. All cash transactions
were being handled by the retail branch
and the commercial branch had no
intention of handling cash transactions
in the future too which was a good
move. The team of BDOs had managed
to open four accounts during a span of
two weeks and currently, the branch
Table 1: Deadline for Business Transfer
Sl. State
No.
1. Assam
2. Meghalaya
3. Nagaland
4. Manipur
5. Tripura
6. Arunachal Pradesh
7. Mizoram
was providing services to these four
customers. The branch was inaugurated
just a week back and operations had
begun since then. She was informed
that during the conference call it was
decided to transfer business of the
north eastern states from Kolkata to
Guwahati in a phased manner. It was
a humungous task that lay before the
team to move from four clients to sixty
in a week. Veena heard the figures and
deadlines and she realized that she can’t
lose even a moment. Given at table-1
First thing that Veena did after the
nerve racking meeting with the two
Branch Managers was to call up Kolkata
Commercial Branch and get vital
statistics regarding Assam operations.
What she learnt was still more worrying!
The base statistics that she received is
given in table -2.
As soon as she got the statistics, she
rushed to the Branch Manager (Ops.)
to enquire about the current status
of the branch and whether they had
formulated any plans for managing
Approximate No. of Deadline for Business
Existing Clients Transfer
55 1st week of June
34 2nd week of June
30 3rd week of June
27 4th week of June
15 1st week of July
12 1st week of July
10 1st week of July
4
 Table 2: Business Volume for Assam at Kolkata Branch
Assam (Kolkata Branch Status)
Sl. No. Activity Approximate Daily Figures (in Nos.)
1. Fund Transfer Requests 50
2. Bank Guarantees 10
3. Letters of Credit/ Bills 15
4. Foreign Remittances 20
5. Corporate Time Deposits/Drafts 50
6. Other Service Requests 75

the huge quantum of service requests
that would pour in once business was
diverted from Kolkata to Guwahati.
The reply from BM (Ops.) stunned her,
“The team is managing very well. Till
now, they haven’t approached me with
any critical issue. I think we’ll manage
well.” Veena knew that as of now there
were no problems because there was no
business to cater to but she had serious
doubts whether the team will manage
the huge quantum of service requests
if it was not prepared well in advance.
She said, “Sir, I agree that till now there
hasn’t been any critical issue but in a
week’s time we’ll be moving towards
more customer handling which will
be ten times the current work-load
and maybe even more. We seriously
need to prepare ourselves for that.”
BM (Ops.) replied, “Madam, I like your
enthusiasm but frankly speaking I have
no idea regarding the operations of this
bank. You have been with this bank
much longer and it would be better if
you discuss this with the team. You can
come to me for any critical issue.” This
curt reply shook Veena. She thought to
herself, “Isn’t this critical? What does
he mean by critical issue?” However,

Table 3: Business Volume at Guwahati Commercial Branch

Assam (New Branch Current Status)
Sl. No. Activity Approximate Daily Figures (in Nos.)
1. Fund Transfer Requests 5
2. Bank Guarantees 1 (in a week)
3. Letters of Credit/ Bills Nil
4. Foreign Remittances Nil
5. Corporate Time Deposits/Drafts 5 (drafts)
6. Other Service Requests 10 (in a week)

5
 A Book of Selected Cases

Table 4: Comparison of Business Volume for Assam at Kolkata Branch vs. Guwahati Branch

Assam
Sl. Activity Kolkata Branch New Branch
No. Status Current Status
Approximate Approximate
Daily Figures (in Nos.) Daily Figures (in Nos.)
1. Fund Transfer Requests 50 5
2. Bank Guarantees 10 1 (in a week)
3. Letters of Credit/ Bills 15 Nil
4. Foreign Remittances 20 Nil
5. Corporate Time Deposits/Drafts 50 5 (drafts)
6. Other Service Requests 75 10 (in a week)

she had no time to waste so she left the as given in table-5.

BMs cabin and called all the officers to
her cubicle. First, she enquired about
the operational statistics of the branch.
The figures made her laugh. Figures at
table-3
Comparison (at table-4) was hilarious
not only for In bigger branches, there
were specialists for each activity so
Veena had genuine doubts whether all
the officers knew all the activities. Her
doubts came true when she enquired
from the officers and found the detail
Veena was somewhat relieved that
at least there was one officer with
working knowledge of each activity.
She was also relieved that the branch
appeared capable enough in terms
of infrastructure support. Her prime
concern now was to chalk out a plan
for smooth operations. All the six
officers were reporting to her (Refer
Organization Structure at Annexure I)
and it was under her discretion how to
utilize them. Under any circumstances

Table 5: No. of operating officers with activity familiarity

Assam (New Branch Current Status)
Sl. No. Activity Familiarity
1. Fund Transfer Requests 3 CSOs & 3 BDOs
2. Bank Guarantees 1 CSO1
3. Letters of Credit/ Bills 1 CSO2
4. Foreign Remittances
5. Corporate Time Deposits/Drafts 1 CSO3

6
she required more than three CSOs
to handle the huge volume that was
impending. Veena’s urgent requirement
was multi-tasking officers as she had to
manage the branch with six officers till
the volumes increased and she could
request deployment of more officers.
So, she laid down the following strategy.
1) The BDOs were to function as CSOs
for the time being i.e. they were
to spend most of their time in the
branch. Only in urgent situations
they were to visit the customers or
go for customer acquisition.
2) The 3 BDOs were to take car e of all
Fund Transfer Requests
3) CSO1 was to look after all Bank
Guarantees
4) CSO2 was to look after all Foreign
Remittances, Letters of Credit & Bills
5) CSO3 was to look after all Corporate
Time Deposits & Drafts
6) At all times the specialists i.e. the 3
CSOs will be assisted by each other
& the 3 BDOs (as per availability) to
accelerate learning.
7) All matters of criticality were to be
brought to her attention immediately.
Looking at her strategy and the positive
response from the six officers, Veena
felt quite positive. She said to the
team, “So, what do you think, should
I call Kolkata Branch and okay them
for business transfer from tomorrow?”
The team responded positively and
Veena requested Kolkata Branch to start
business transfer. It was already 5:00 pm
and Veena asked the team to relax and
7
brush up the processes for the next day
to ensure that all cases are processed as
STP (Straight through Process) cases i.e.
without errors.
Just two days into the system and she
was completely lost. Important old
documents for existing North east
customers were stacked in the retail
branch after they had been shipped
from Kolkata. She was completely
unaware of it. While the filing system
could have been organized during
the past three weeks, no one had
even bothered to look at them. The
atmosphere was extremely chaotic. The
officers rushed from cubicle to cubicle
in search of basic stationary and seals.
For these two days Veena had to stay
in the office with her officers till after
11:00 pm to ensure completion of the
day’s tasks. Her phone kept ringing
with customer complaints regarding
delay in fund transfers and all customer
service requests. She was constantly
on her feet. Yet, the day flashed before
her like a nightmare and she found
herself unable to sleep. She knew that
her immediate requirement was to get
things organized.
Action Plan
Coming home every night after 11:00
pm was not a viable option. Veena got
up and chalked out her plans for the
next day. Before sleeping, she texted
her six officers to meet up for breakfast
at 8:00 am at Fancy Bazaar. She felt
positive and relieved when she got six
text replies.
 A Book of Selected Cases

At 8:00 am the next day, meeting was “Time Deposits and drafts?”
casual but intense. Veena was a leader “3 to 5 minutes”
with a purpose. She was a cool boss
“Okay, now let’s match our performance
who cared for the needs of her officers.
with what we call the maximum time
She was aware of her authority and
that the activity should take,” saying
responsibility.
this Veena turned the screen of her
She began, “Have you enjoyed the past laptop for the team to see, given at fig.2.
two days (pause), well, I haven’t? And
Veena continued, “Well, I have taken
I don’t intend to continue the present
20% additional volume of the northeast
trend, so we all need to work together
zone business volume for our target
to ensure smooth operations.” The team
but as you can see we are much behind
sipped tea quietly looking intently at
our own maximum time frames. We
Veena, when one officer said, “Ma’am,
have been wasting much of our time
but how can we possibly handle such
searching for stationary, seals, seeking
work load with such a small team?”
clarifications and so on. We need to
Veena replied, “I agree that our team
streamline our processes if we have to
is small and the work load is mounting
match our targets. We need to follow
but the main reason for our poor
some very basic 5S procedures and for
performance during the past two days
that I require every individual’s effort.
is chaos. Let’s take some statistics. How
It’s already 8:30 am and now I want
much time should it take to process one
all of you to organize your workplace
fund transfer?”
first. Make sure that you have sufficient
78 stationary and all that you require for
80
70 your tasks. Remove all unnecessary
60
50 things off your desk. For today I just
40
30
12 15
22.29
15.6 want that there should be no running
20 10.5 8
10
5
2.4 3 4 2.1 1.2 around the office for seal or stationary
0
Fund Transfer Bank LC/Bills/FR Time Other Service and that you match the maximum
Requests Guarantees Deposits/Drafts Requests

Review 1 Max. Target

activity time that you yourself
mentioned. You should also remember
Fig. 2: Time taken for processing activities that we have to find time for service
(in minutes) requests too because that’s also very
The team replied, “Maximum 5 important. Yesterday, after receiving
minutes.” Veena typed it in her laptop. complaints I took care of all the service
requests but if you manage your tasks
“Bank Guarantee?” Veena asked.
properly you’ll have sufficient time to
“15 minutes” cater to service requests.”
“LC, bills or remittances?” The team reached office at 8:45 am and
“About 8 minutes” organized their workplace as directed.

8
Veena knew that the team had to
become self-sufficient because she had
to organize all the important old files
that were stacked in the retail branch.
The retail branch opened at 8:00 am so
she took the office boy and the canteen
boy to get the files to Commercial
Branch’s storage area. It was an urgent
requirement as the files contained
client history with the bank along
with the special terms and conditions
formulated for the clients which varied
from client to client. When she returned
about 15 minutes later, she was called
by her Branch Managers.
“There is so much work in the branch
and you are bringing files,” said the BM
(Commercial).
“Sir, these are important files which
we’ll be requiring on a regular basis.
Obviously, we can’t go downstairs
every now and then and search for the
required files,” replied Veena.
“Do you have any idea how poorly we
have performed in the last two days?
We had only 20% STP cases. I have a
conference call at 10:00 am. What do
you think I should say?” retorted the
Customer Records
M/s A M/s B M/s C
Fig. 3: Sample filing system
[The files are arranged alphabetically and a tape is stuck diagonally across the files for ease in returning
the file to its original location. The shelf is clearly labeled to recognize the location of specific file types.]
BM (Operations).
Veena felt irritated, “Tell the truth.”
BM (Operations): What do you mean?
Veena: Sir, it’s pretty natural. The team
is new. It takes time to improve team
dynamics. And on top of that we are in
the process of business diversion.
BM (Operations): Okay then, you
answer the seniors in the conference
call.
Veena: Sir, I would have but as you can
see there is too much to do to stabilize
operations. I know you can handle the
conference call pretty well.
BM (Operations) [sarcastically]: I can
see how busy you are bringing files.
Veena [irritated]: Sir, it’s our immediate
necessity. I am just trying to follow 5S
procedures to streamline our operations
so that we handle more business in
lesser time.
BM (Commercial): That we can see in
the 20% STP cases. Congratulations.
Veena realized that it was pointless
standing there and arguing with her
bosses who were least interested in her
approach.
M/s D M/s E M/s F M/s G M/s H
9
 A Book of Selected Cases

Veena: I am sorry sirs; I’ll have to excuse
myself. You can call me if required
during the conference call.
As Veena walked out of the BM’s
chamber, added pressure of non-
cooperative bosses overwhelmed her.
However, soon realizing that she didn’t
have time to ponder over the ‘boss
dilemma’, she got back to her own
cubicle and started organizing files
sorting them as per customer names.
She got the office boy and canteen boy
to stick labels that she typed out and got
them arranged alphabetically. Time to
time she kept glancing towards her six
officers who appeared calmer than usual
extending service with a smile. She was
pleased with the team and with herself.
A sample of her file arrangement in the
storage area is given in fig. 3.
To her surprise, Veena found six cheerful
faces standing around her cubicle at 5:00
pm with the day’s work done and filed
neatly. They thanked Veena for helping
them in streamlining their tasks. By
lunch Veena had finished labeling
the shelves for different file types and
the team had visited the storage area
during the lunch hour. They had also
labeled their working files and they
placed them in their allocated spots.
Since the day’s work was done, Veena
called the officers, the canteen boy and
office boy for coffee in her cubicle. As
they pulled extra chairs around Veena’s
desk, she updated her assessment chart.
She congratulated the team for their
efforts and showed them their progress.
The team observed that there had been
over 50% improvement in all areas.
The team informed Veena that without
trying to hasten things up they had
managed to finish their tasks before time
just by being organized and working as
a team. She was informed that all the
service requests were handled by one
BDO and two BDOs took care of all the
fund transfers. She was also informed
that all the tasks were actually over by
4:00 pm and they had taken time to file

80 78 55.00%
53.84% 53.85%
70 53.85% 54.00%
60 53.00%
50
52.00%
40 36
51.00%
30 50.00% 22.29
20 15.6 50.00%
12 10.29
10 6 7.2 49.00%
4.8
0 48.00%
Fund Transfer Bank LC/Bills/FR Time Other Service
Requests Guarantees Deposits/Drafts Requests
Review 1 Review 2 % Improvement

Fig. 4: Process improvement with basic 5S implementation (in minutes)

10
their day’s work since they had already
seen Veena’s file organization during
the lunch break. They would have
finished earlier but they took some
time as they were trying to learn new
activities as well. Veena was all smiles
as she congratulated the team. The
improvement graph is given in fig. 4.
Veena said, “I have been observing you
throughout the day. I am impressed.
You all took initiatives and ownership
of activities as well as your workplaces
and the result speaks for itself. Before
I continue I would like to hear from
you all about your day’s experience –
specific issues, problems, learning, etc.”
CSO1: Ma’am, I have been handling
Bank Guarantees (BG) for the past one
and a half year but I have always had
a team to work on BGs. Whenever I
had any issues with any BG, there was
someone or the other in the team to
handle it. I tried hard but still I made
few mistakes today. You were busy so
I didn’t disturb you. I am also happy
that I could learn something about
Remittances and Fixed Deposits today.
Veena: It’s ok to make mistakes at this
stage but you should remember that
you can approach me anytime. If you
make mistakes, the responsibility of
the mistake doesn’t lie with you but
with me. So, together we have to try
to reduce mistakes to zero. Well, I am
also happy that you all have learnt new
things today.
CSO2: I am also glad that I could learn
new things. I am sorry that I also made
some mistakes so my STP cases will be
11
around 80% for today. I will make it a
point to approach you Ma’am for any
issue from now on. There is one thing I
would like to highlight though. We need
to have some signs to direct customers
to the correct desks because I feel it’s a
waste of their time as well as ours when
they approach wrong desks.
Veena: Thank you so much for your
observation. It’ll be done just now.
[Veena immediately instructed the office boy
to get six label stands from the storage area,
typed and printed six labels and the labels
were ready in less than 5 minutes]
CSO3: I have nothing much to say, as
everything has already been said. I
just want to thank you Ma’am for your
efforts and guidance and for listening to
us so patiently.
Veena was overwhelmed. The ill feeling
she had about her non-cooperative
bosses vanished as she realized that she
had full co-operation of her team. She
just smiled and nodded.
BDO1 and BDO2 just shook their heads
and smiled.
BDO3: It was a wonderful experience
today. We realized that fund transfer
could be handled easily by just 2 people
so I started attending to other service
requests. Actually, we had decided in
the morning that whosoever remains
free will take care of customer requests.
Even then I had time to learn something
or the other about different activities. I
must admit that the only reason why
all of us could finish our tasks before
time without haste was because we had
 A Book of Selected Cases
organized our workplace and we didn’t
have to run from cubicle to cubicle in
search of simple things as stationary or
seals.
Veena: Very good for your initiatives.
Veena looked towards the office boy and
the canteen boy with a smile. However,
they just smiled and said ‘thank you’.
Veena couldn’t understand the reason
for their ‘thank you’ but she thanked
them in return.
Veena: All the storage organization
couldn’t have been possible without
your effort (she looked towards the duo
with appreciation). Thank you so much.
I hope that we all continue to work like
this improving each day so that we can
meet our targets when the volumes
increase. Meanwhile, I have something
for all of you.
She produced colored sheets that had
flow diagrams for all the activities and
she handed them over to the six officers.
Veena: These are the shortest process
routes for the activities that you are
performing now. I prepared them when
I was a trainee. I have made few changes
since then to make it more effective. It
helped me a lot in achieving 100% STP
on a regular basis and I hope these will
help you too. Just stick these to your
cubicles and follow them religiously
till it becomes embedded in your head.
You’ll be able to handle about 99% of
the cases with the help of these charts.
For the rest 1% unique cases, kindly
approach me.
The six officers left but Veena stayed
12
back as she busily prepared more lists
and charts for the benefit of the team.
She left around 7:00 pm, happier
than ever. It was 12:15 am when the
performance chart for the different
branches popped into her inbox. She
smiled as she looked at the 5th position
of Guwahati Commercial Branch with
74% STP cases. It wasn’t 100% or 90%
but it was definitely much more than
the 20% that they had achieved the
previous day. She had been unable to
sleep waiting for the performance chart
and once it was there, she slept like a
log. She realized that the team had
huge potential and she only needed to
channelize it.
Shitsuke and Results
Four days had gone by and though
the achievement had been incredible,
the goal was far. The team met in the
morning everyday at 8:30 am to share
the achievements of the previous day
and plan for the day ahead. Everyday
their processes got refined, their lead
times reduced drastically, their learning
increased and it was reflected in the
performance chart. Every evening the
team sat down at 5:30 pm to discuss the
day’s progress. Even on days when there
was nothing to discuss in the evening in
the form of issues or problems, the team
sat down for coffee. The team looked up
to Veena not just as a boss but a leader and
mentor, even as a friend. Even when she
explained theories like the PDCA cycle,
the team enjoyed because she made
things pragmatic. The team had seen
the benefits of the theories that Veena
followed so systematically that with time
their practice became an integral part
of their life. Thanks to Veena’s process
charts and team efforts, the team started
beating their own records.
Towards the end of the 2nd week, the
team achieved 100% STP cases for the
very first time and ranked 1st in the
performance chart. Veena was called
for the conference call and the national
head for commercial business of M/s
ABC Bank Limited congratulated the
team and praised them for their efforts.
Though the volumes were increasing
each day, the team managed to finish
their daily assignments on time and
they made it a point to continue
their morning and evening meetings
as it was a source of motivation,
encouragement and a hotbed for new
ideas and improvements. Occasionally,
the branch managers joined the team
during their meetings. For Veena, it was
like a dream come true. When Veena
got the news that they would be getting
three more CSOs, she kept it a secret
because she didn’t want the team to
slacken. The team improved each day
and now they were ready to take any
challenge head-on.

Discussion Questions
a) What were the main problems faced by Veena Nair?
b) What do you think were the major issues with the team of officers at the Guwahati
Commercial Branch of M/s ABC Bank Limited?
c) Identify the 5S tools used by Veena to streamline operations at the Guwahati Commercial
Branch of M/s ABC Bank Limited.
d) Discuss the leadership qualities that Veena demonstrated in the case study. What other
qualities are essential for a leader to command respect and co-operation from others?
e) Why do you think the team functioned so well?
f) Is 5S really useful in turning businesses around? Discuss how 5S can be implemented in
your work area.
g) Critically examine Veena’s role in stabilizing operation at the Guwahati Commercial
Branch of M/s ABC Bank Limited.
h) What do you understand by systematization and standardization? How are they used in the
case study to improve performance? Discuss the different ways in which systematization
and standardization can be implemented and their results and implications.
i) Why do you think ‘Role clarity’ and ‘Job responsibility’ are important for any team/
organization? Discuss.
j) Discuss the importance of ‘Target Setting’.
k) Discuss the benefits of ‘Employee Engagement and Motivation’.
l) What other management concepts can you learn from the case study? Discuss.

13
A Book of Selected Cases

Annexure I
Organization Structure of M/S ABC Bank Limited, Guwahati Commercial Branch (for One Year)

AREA HEAD

BM (COMMERCIAL) BM (OPERATIONS)

MANAGER
(OPERATIONS)

BDO1 BDO2 CSO1 CSO2

BDO3 CSO3

Normal Reporting Structure

Temporary Reporting Structure

Annexure II
Additional Notes
A. 5S Tools
5S stands for:
1. Sort (Seiri) - Sorting through the contents of the workplace and removing unnecessary
items. This is an action to identify and eliminate all unnecessary items from the
workplace.
2. Systematize (Seiton) - Putting the necessary items in their place and providing easy
access. This is an action to put every necessary item in good order and focuses on
efficient and effective storage methods.
3. Sweep (Seiso) - Cleaning everything, keeping it clean daily, and using cleaning to inspect
the workplace and equipment for defects. This is an action to clean the workplace daily.
4. Standardize (Seiketsu) - creating visual controls and guidelines for keeping the
workplace organized, orderly and clean. This is a condition where a high standard of
good housekeeping is maintained. The first three steps, or S’s, are often executed by
order. Seiketsu helps to turn it into natural, standard behavior.
5. Self – discipline (Shitsuke) - training and discipline to ensure that everyone follows
the 5S standards. This is a condition where all members practice the first four S’s
spontaneously and willingly as a way of life. Accordingly, it becomes the culture in the
organization.
Reference: http://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/5s/practical-approach-successful-practice-5s/

14
B. PDCA Approach to 5S Implementation

Step Content Explanation

Assortment of problems • Description of the problem, Gathering of

information, analysis of the actual state
PLAN and planning of • Formulation of objectives
improvement actions • Assessment of actions to solve,
ACT PLAN improve or optimize
Realization of concrete • Performing actions subject the time
DO actions to solve the and resource-plan
DEMING problem • Documentation of actions

Circle • Description and controlling of results

Validation of results and
CHECK • Adaption in case of aberration
controlling of aims • Comparison of results with objectives
CHECK DO
• Standardization of successful approaches
Improvement of actions, • Starting follow-up actions
ACT
• Reflectig of processes
of the situation, etc.
• Standardization of successfule results

Reference: http://www.cetcon.de/wps/fine/home/cetcon_en/focused_improvements/

C. Business Volumes for Different States, Time Targets & Current Performance Time
after 1st Review
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
State Clients Fund Bank Letters of Adding Foreign Corporate Other
(no.) Transfer Guarantees Credit/ col. 5 Remittances Time Service
Requests Bills and 7 Deposits / Requests
Drafts
Assam 55 50 10 15 35 20 50 75
Meghalaya 34 31 6 9 22 12 31 46
Nagaland 30 27 5 8 19 11 27 41
Manipur 27 25 5 7 17 10 25 37
Tripura 15 14 3 4 10 5 14 20
Arunachal 12 11 2 3 8 4 11 16
Pradesh
Mizoram 10 9 2 3 6 4 9 14
Total 183 166 33 50 116 67 166 250
Target 200 40 60 140 80 200 299
(Volume)
Time 2.40 10.50 3.00 2.10 1.20
Target
(in mins.)
Review 1 12.00 78.00 22.29 15.6 NA

Notes:
a) Target in terms of volume has been taken as 120% of expected total volume to keep buffer time.
Example: Target (Volume) for Fund Transfer Requests at Column 2 is 1.2X166 (i.e. Total find transfer
requests for the 7 states).

15
 A Book of Selected Cases

b) Processing Fund Transfer Requests (FTR) require 2 officers (1 maker & 1 checker). Cut-off to
process FTRs is 2:00 pm i.e. 5 hours (9 am – 2 pm). Time Target has been taken as [2 X 60 X (5-1) /
Target (Volume)] minutes. 1 hour has been taken from each officer’s working time to provide for
additional buffer time and time for Other Service Requests (OSR).
c) Since Letters of Credit/Bills/Foreign Remittances (LCBFR) are being handled by 1 officer, the
volumes of the two categories are merged at Column 6.
d) For Bank Guarantees (BGs), LCBFRs and Corporate Fixed Deposits/Drafts (CTDDs), total working
time is 8 hours. Time target has been taken as [60 X (8-1) / Target (Volume)] minutes. 1 hour has
been taken from each officer’s working time to provide for additional buffer time and time for
Other Service Requests (OSR).
e) For OSRs, Time target has been taken as [6 X 60 X 1 / Target (Volume)] minutes. 1 hour has been
taken from each officer’s working time to provide for additional buffer time and time for Other
Service Requests (OSR).
f) For current performance time i.e. Review 1, working time for FTRs is taken as 5 hours and for
other activities as 13 hours (9 am – 2 pm: 3 pm – 11 pm) and volume for Assam is applicable.
Current performance time for OSRs is not applicable as it was not handled by the six officers.
g) Important: The processing time per unit of activity is for the processing time by the CSOs and BDOs
at the branch desk. The actual processing time of activities like BGs, LCBFRs, etc. is longer and
processing method varies from bank to bank.

D. Business Volume for Assam, Time Targets, Maximum Activity Time & Performance
Time after 2nd Review
Volume Review 1 Max. Activity Target Time Review 2
(mins.) Time (mins.) (mins.) (mins.)
FTRs 50 12 5 2.4 6
BGs 10 78 15 10.5 36
LCBFRs 35 22.29 8 3 10.29
CTDDs 50 15.6 4 2.1 7.2
OSRs 75 1.2 4.8

78
80

70

60

50

40 36

30
22.29

20 15 15.6
12
10.5 10.29
6 8 4 7.2
10 5 3 4.8
2.4 2.1 1.2
0
FTRs BGs LCBFRs CTDDs OSRs
Review 1 (mins.) Max. Activity Time (mins.) Target Time (mins.) Review 2 (mins.)

16
Notes:
a) For Review 2, total processing time for FTRs is taken as 300 mins. Since only 1 maker and 1 checker
were involved, time for only 1 individual has been considered as opposed to Review 1 where 2
makers/1 checker or 1 maker/2 checkers could have been involved and 2 individuals time was
considered. Even for calculating Time Target for FTRs, the concept applied in Review 1 has been
used.
b) For BGs, LCBFRs and CTDDs, total processing time has been taken as only 360 mins. as the officers
had completed their tasks within 6 hours.
c) Since BDO3 gave his full 6 hours for processing OSRs, total processing time has been taken as 360
minutes.
d) For any other clarification, refer Annexure II (C).

E. Glossary of other Process Streamlining Activities Done by Veena Nair and

the Team at M/S ABC Bank Limited
1. Process Flow Developed by Veena & Team to reduce lead times.
In the beginning, the customers used to approach the service desk themselves. The
commute time from the customer lounge to the desk used to slow down operation,
so the team formulated the following process:
Step 1: Customers were requested to submit their requests in separate bins which
were labeled clearly and the documents were stamped ‘RECEIVED’ with
time/date/sl. no. by the Office boy.
Step 2: The Office boy and Veena (for initial few days) sorted the requests from
the bins onto red colored ‘in-trays’ which were given to the officers for
processing.
Step 3: The Processed Requests were kept in blue colored ‘out-trays’ by the dealing
officers.
Step 4: The Processed Requests were filed by the Office boy and Veena (for initial
few days) in respective activity files as and when the ‘out-trays’ got filled.
(The cut-off time for receiving any service request was 4:00 pm)
Step 5: After the LCs/Bills/BGs/CTDs were received by the branch, the Customer
Copies were put in envelops for dispatch/handover and the office copies
were filed in respective files.
2. Naming Convention of Files and Ownership
a. The activity files followed strict naming convention in the order: GCB/Activity/
FY/Sl. No. Example: GCB/BG/2014-15/01 (i.e Guwahati Commercial Branch/Bank
Guarantee/2014-15/first file.
b. There was a separate area allocated for each file type which was kept under lock
and key at all times and the activity owner was the key holder.

17
 A Book of Selected Cases

c. The activity owner was the file owner and it was the owner’s responsibility to
ensure proper documentation of the file.
d. Every file had a ‘back-up owner’ who was required to have full knowledge of the file.
e. The file owner and back-up owner ensured that the day’s tasks were properly
filed before going home in the evening.
f. In case, any one wanted to go through a particular file, one had to inform the file
owner and an entry was made in the file maintenance register for the activity.
g. This was to ensure responsibility, proper file maintenance and easy location of files.

3. Key Register Maintenance

a. All the key holders had to deposit their activity files keys with the Manager
(Operations) and maintain entries in the key register at the end of the day.
b. The keys and the key register were kept in a drawer which was locked and the
key was maintained with the Manager (Operations).
c. Every morning the key holders were to take custody of their keys.
d. A sample of the key register is given below:

Sl. Key 01.04.2014 02.04.2014 03.04.2014

No. Activity Holder
IN OUT IN OUT IN OUT
1. LCBFR CSO2
2. BG CSO1

4. Morning Plan & Evening Review

a. The branch timing was 9 am to 6 pm; however, the team met every morning at
8:30 am and every evening at 5:30 pm.
b. The morning meeting was to plan ahead for the day. The targets, major urgent
activities, plans etc. were discussed during the morning plan session.
c. The morning buffer time was also to ensure organizing workplace before start of
the office hours.
d. During the evening review, the team discussed the day’s achievements,
challenges and ways for improvement.
e. The Morning Plan and Evening Review meetings (or coffee time as the team
called it) was a major source of encouragement and motivation for the team.
5. Sample top drawer of officers
Keeping the stationary items on the desk at times led to misplacement and then
increased lead times. To reduce stationary losses, the top drawer of the officers was

18
fitted with a grid and separate compartments of the grid were allocated for different
items. A sample is given below:

Stapler Pins/Tapes Pens/Pencils

Post It Flags Rubber Bands Paper Clips Tags
Seal 4 Seal 3 Punch Stapler
Seal 2 Seal 1

6. Ergonomic location of printers, copiers, etc.

a. Initially, the printers, copiers, etc were kept in a location which required the
officers to leave their work-areas which caused time wastage.
b. The printers and scanners were used by the three CSOs only and therefore, they
were moved in spaces between the CSOs such that they could perform their
activities from their work-areas.
c. All copying was done by the Office boy and the copiers were placed near the
storage area. The Office boy made copies when required and kept them in
separate activity trays which could then be easily filed.

19
 A Book of Selected Cases

Kayapalat - to a Resurgent
Sinter Plant

During H1 of the year 2013-14, Sinter Plant was not able to meet its production target for which
Bara Steel Plant had to purchase Sinter from outside the premises. Because of this, profitability of
Bara Steel Plant got hampered and the only reason for this reduced profitability was Sinter Plant.
Sinter Plant became the only bottleneck in the steel making process of Bara Steel Plant because
all other shops/departments involved in direct production of steel met their respective targets
successfully. The utilization of Sinter machines was only 76.8% of available hours. If we dive deep
into the matter, then we can say that had Sinter not been purchased from outside, Bara Steel Plant
would have been able to achieve only 3/4th of its production target for steel. The impact of the
problem was so severe that we might not have been able to claim ourselves as the largest producer
of steel in India, which is the pride of our parent firm, had it not been dealt immediately.
It was recommended that Sinter Plant needed to reduce delay so as to achieve the production
target successfully. Apart from this, there were also other three solutions which could have been
implemented, but reducing delay was less capital intensive as well as less time consuming for which
it became the best option as per our research and study. In other words, this was the optimized
solution which consumed fewer resources as compared other solutions and gave maximum benefits
to Sinter Plant, which in turn helped Bara Steel Plant to meet its production target without
procuring Sinter from outside. It increased utilization of Sinter machines from 76.8% to 97.6%
i.e., a 27% increase in utilization of machines, and further stretching this to 100% wouldn’t be
cost effective for which this was the highest utilization factor which we could achieve.

S intering is the process

agglomeration of fine iron ore
particles into a porous and lumpy mass
of
by incipient fusion. In Indian scenario,
sintering is most common process
of utilising iron ore fines as Blast
Furnace feed economically. Bara Steel
Plant (BaSP) is equipped with 3 sinter
strands (designed and commissioned
by erstwhile USSR during 1970’s). It
had been observed that Sinter plant
was not meeting its production targets
on a regular basis for a few months.
And during these periods, each and
every other shop/ department of Bara
Steel Plant was meeting its respective
production target set by its top
management. Hence, it was clear that
Sinter Plant had become a bottleneck
in steel making process. It needed to be
dealt as soon as possible so as to meet
the demands of customers of Bara Steel

This case is written by Subhra Dhara, Assistant Manager, RDCIS Bokaro Centre & Somnath Kumar, Assistant Manager
(Steel Making), RDCIS, Ranchi

20
Plant. And this was the reason which
prompted for the investigation in Sinter
Plant. To investigate into the matter, a
problem statement had been defined
which was as follows.
After coming to a definite problem
statement, first point was to collect past
data to start analysis. After the collection
of data, second thing was to find weak
links with the help of analysis tools
from the past data. Third thing was to
do brainstorming with both blue collar
workforce (non-executives) as well as
executives separately so as to decide
which weak links could be attacked to
get maximum output with minimum
cost. And at last, the final thing was to
build pragmatic solutions to mitigate
the weak links optimally. These were
the four steps which had been taken
to strategize as well as implement the
solution.
The scope of this report was limited to
reduce delay only. The reason for this
is the fact that the need at that point of
time was to get a quick solution which
should be robust and cost effective.
And other ways of improvement were
increase in efficiency and productivity
of machines as well as to improve the
capacity of machines so as to assist
Sinter Plant in achieving its production
target. But these needed ample amount
of resource in terms of manpower and
capital along with significant amount
of time for which these things had been
rejected for further consideration. Hence
the scope was limited to reduce delay.
21
There is hardly any improvement
possible further in the weak link which
had been found and mitigated as per
this report because it already improved
the utilization parameter from 76.8%
to 97.6%. Further stretching this to
100% may not have much impact on
production. In other ways, it would
not be cost effective to stretch further
to achieve 100%. i.e., the limitation of
this report was utilization parameter
couldn’t be stretched more than 97.6%.
The reason for this limitation was the
fact that it would increase significant
amount of cost which in turn might
reduce the profitability.
Before starting the investigation,
historical evidence had been tried to
find out, whether any such instance had
occurred in the past, and if occurred,
had there any type of action been
taken to solve such problem or not.
There were two such things for which
no such historical evidence had been
found. First thing was that in case, even
if any group had taken the initiative
to solve the problem, the group had
not documented the findings and
solutions for which there was no such
report available in this matter. Second
thing was the fact that as there were a
few instances when multiple shops /
departments could not achieve their
respective production targets, for
which this problem in Sinter Plant had
been camouflaged and hence, nobody
thought that this problem needed so
much attention. It came to limelight
because of two reasons. One of the
 A Book of Selected Cases
reasons was Bara Steel Plant had to
purchase Sinter from outside especially
to meet the production target. Another
reason was this time, only Sinter Plant
couldn’t meet its production target
whereas all other shops/departments
involved in direct production of steel
were able to meet their production
targets, for which it grabbed the
attention of management. All data
had been collected from log books of
the required period, and information
regarding the ways to troubleshoot
the problems had been gathered
through brainstorming sessions with
non-executives as well as executives
in Sinter Plant. Before getting into the
body of the report let us have a look at
the flow chart as well as production
target of Sinter Plant in Bara Steel Plant
which had been shown in Annexure I
and Annexure II respectively.
The report followed a structural approach
which was explained as follows.
First of all, it explained about the crisis,
which was named as SANKAT. This
part elaborated two things. One was
how the problem caught the attention
of the management and the other
one was how the mind-set of the
workforce had been changed by the top
management to assist in overcoming
the problem. Then the second part
was named as ANUSANDHAN i.e.,
the inquisition stage, where bottom-
up approach had been followed to get
the root cause analysis. After that, the
third part was named as LAKSHYA,
where a vision statement had been
22
made so as to not to get carried away
in the mid-way while solving the
problem. The vision statement should
not only be understood by each and
every employee, but also build the
confidence among each of them to turn
the statement into reality for which
after LAKSHYA, there came the fourth
part i.e., SAKSHAM which explained
about how the above things had been
planned to achieve. Then, after building
confidence among the workforce, the
stage of KARMA came, which revealed
the process to achieve success and
threw some light on how 4R strategy
had been implemented in Sinter Plant
to make a vision statement into reality.
Then, it showed the results of all the
above efforts and at last it provided the
conclusion precisely.
SANKAT: Defining the crisis
• During H1 of 2013-14, 97.6%
fulfilment of monthly production
target could have been achieved.
But Sinter machines were running
only for 51.25 hours/day (There
were 3 Sinter machines running in
Bara Steel Plant for which ideally
the machines could run for 24
X 3=72 hours/day), resulting in
76.8% utilisation of available hours.
Reliability of age old equipment had
become poor, and breakdowns were
common in the shop floor. Figure.1
showed the fulfilment of for H1
of the year 2013-14 production
target and Fig.2 showed the daily
running hours of all the three Sinter
machines combined together for H1
 of the year 2013-14. of H1 of 2013-14 had been depicted
• Frequent strand stoppages took toll in Figure 4.
15.00 12.7 13
11.6
110.0 106.2 10.4

-5 mm in sinter, %
104.3 9.17 9.44
103.1
Target fulfilment, %

10.00
100.0
93.5 5.00
89.1 89.4
90.0
0.00

80.0 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 4 5 6 Months
Months
Fig. 3: -5 mm Sinter, H1, 2013-14
Fig. 1: Fulfilment of Production Target, H1,
2013-14 35689

External Sinter. Tons

40000

30000 27309 25465

19947 19174 19456
60.00
Daily running hours

55.20 20000
55.00 52.23
51.00 51.60 10000
48.60
50.00
46.44 0
45.00 1 2 3 4 5 6

40.00 Months

1 2 3 4 5 6 Fig. 4: External Sinter, H1, 2013-14

Months
• It was not only the visible under
Fig. 2: Daily Sinter Machines’ Running
Hours, H1, 2013-14 performance of Sinter Plant, but
also lack of any visible solution to
on sinter quality; -5 mm in sinter break the vicious circle which made
were hovering at 11.05%, which was employees low on confidence.
being shown in Figure 3. “Sinter Plant to Nahi Sudhrega”,
• It was necessitated to arrange “Naya Plant na ane se iska kuch nahi
external Sinter for feeding Blast hoga” was the statement made by
Furnaces. In H1 2013-14, external most of the workforce during those
sinter of average 24500 tons/month bleak days which meant that Sinter
was consumed, which acted against plant won’t change for betterment,
the profitability and integration of nothing could be done until new
BaSP. The amount of external Sinter plant comes in. Lack of hope was
consumed in each of the 6 months more dangerous than challenging

1
In a year, ideally there should be 365 X 24 X 3 = 26280 hrs. available for running all the three machines.
But on an average 27 days had been taken for capital repair and other repairs for each machine in a Year.
So practically, time available for running for all three machines = (365-27) X 24 X 3 = 24336 hrs. / year
But all three Sinter machines are running for 51.25 hrs. / day on an average.
Hence total running time for all three Sinter machines = 51.25 X 365 = 18706.25 hrs. / year
i.e., utilization of machines = (18706.25 / 24336) X 100 = 76.8% of available time

23
 A Book of Selected Cases
reality, and all symptoms of chronic
distress were evident in Sinter Plant
collectively.
• But it was the new GM (General
Manager), appointed from customer
department who saw the mounting
challenges as golden opportunities.
First and foremost action he took was
to instil confidence, “Jo nahi ho sakta
hai, WOHI TO KARNA HAI” i.e., the
thing which can’t be done, is what
we have to do. He was the person
who tried to change the mind-set
of the workforce of Sinter Plant in
order to build confidence among
them so as to get the production
back on track.
ANUSANDHAN: Inquisition stage
To delve deep into the problem, and
prepare pragmatic solution, first of all,
rigorous brainstorming sessions had
been done separately with executives as
well as non-executives to gather ideas
to improve the utilization of Sinter
machines so as to meet the production
target of Sinter Plant. After several
brainstorming sessions, it had been
found out that there were mainly four
areas which could lead to improvement
in utilization of Sinter machines, if
dealt carefully. These four areas of
improvement were:-
A. Increase the productivity of machines
B. Increase the efficiency of machines
(Reduce rejection of Sinter)
C. Capacity improvement of machines
D. Reduce delays
24
While considering all the above
solutions, it was evident that if these
solutions would be implemented, then
the mind-set of the workforce couldn’t
be changed. And it was very important
to change the mind-set of the workforce
by looking at the long term perspective
of the plant. So, it was like a challenge
which had to be converted into an
opportunity to kill two birds with one
stone. i.e., one solution would be found
out which could help Sinter Plant to
achieve its production target as well as
change the mind-set of workers (The
mind-set of workers was “Sinter Plant
to nahi sudhrega”, “Naya Plant na ane se
iskaa kuch nahi hoga”). This perspective
had been put up in front of the top
management of Sinter Plant, after
which it was decided that an alternative
had to be found out to solve this matter.
This time, rigorous brainstorming
sessions had been conducted, and after
a few days of hard work, a solution
came, which was to reduce delay. The
executives were ecstatic about this
solution, but there were also some
risks involved with this solution. The
risk was in case the solution failed to
achieve the desired outcome, then the
workforce of Sinter Plant would think
that they were always right i.e., “Sinter
Plant to nahi sudhrega”, “Naya Plant na ane
se iskaa kuch nahi hoga”. And in future it
would be very difficult to change this
mind-set, if the management would fail
by opting for the fourth option i.e., to
reduce delay. Again, the pros and cons
of this solution had been put up in
front of the top management of Sinter
 Table 1: Comparisons of available options thought of during brainstorming

Requirement Productivity Efficiency Capacity Delay

Capital High High High Low / Moderate
Manpower High High High High
Time More More More Moderate / More
Production Hamper Yes Yes Yes No
Change of Mind-set No No No Yes

Plant, after which the top management

51.25hrs. of 
decided to opt for the fourth option daily running 

as it was a situation like it’s now or

76.8% utilization of 
never. And the management was fully available hours 
97.6%  External 
committed to first craft a strategy which fulfilment of 
production 
Sinter in 
BaSP Blast 
target  Furnaces 
would be robust so that there wouldn’t Low Yield 
be any chance of failure. Hence, work
started on fourth option. 11.05% of -5mm 
Sinter 
To get a view of all the options, a small
comparison had been made which was Frequent Machine 
Stop

shown in Table 1.
Essentially the first step was to break
the complex topic of Sinter Plant delay
into smaller parts to gain a better
understanding of it, through data
collection and analysis. Number of
interdependent causes acted behind
the poor performance and any delay
in small parts ultimately led to overall
plant stoppage; hence root-cause
analysis was carried out. Figure 5 shows
the diagram.
Data Collection
Data from every available source were
collected, recorded and organized. Both
Quantitative as well as Qualitative data
were collected through customized
check sheetanswering the Five Ws,
Fig. 5: Root cause analysis of non
fulfillment of monthly production target
which were being put in Annexure III
and Annexure IV. The 5Ws are:
• Who filled out the check sheet?
(Operator, fitter, welder, shift I/c,
section I/c etc.)
• What was collected? (Start / stop
time for delay, reasons for delay)
• Where did the collection take place?
(machine, room, section)
• When did the collection take place?
(hour, shift, day of the week)
• Why did the data are collected?
(characterize and analyze sinter
machine delays)

25
 A Book of Selected Cases

Next level, inch arges of functional

37.83
areas e.g. Production, Mechanical, 40.00

Delay hours
30.25
and Electrical were required to fill 30.00
22.33
check sheet so as to enable 19.66 19.91
20.00
12.17
• To check the shape of the probability 10.00
distribution of a process 0.00

• To quantify defects by type 1 2 3 4 5 6

Months
• To quantify defects by location
• To quantify defects by cause Fig. 8 : Production Delay, H1, 2013-14
(machine, worker)
• To keep track of the completion of 200.00 179.58
steps in a multistep procedure (in
15.00 123.08 127.16
other words, as an SOP/SMP)
Delay hours
116.08
109.67
100.00 86.16
The occurring of delay due to each of
the factors had been shown below. 50.00

0.00
1 2 3 4 5 6
37.91
40.00 Months
31.66
29.08
30.00 Fig. 9 : Delay due to customer side, H1, 2013-14
Delay hours

23.08 21.08
18.66
20.00
120.00 107.09
10.00
100.00 84.16
76.08
Delay hours

0.00 80.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 60.00
39.16
Months 40.00
17.66
20.00 6.99
Fig. 6 : Electrical Delay, H1, 2013-14 0.00
1 2 3 4 5 6

Months
119.41 114.66
120.00
98.33 Fig. 10 : Delay due to supplier side, H1, 2013-14
100.00
Delay hours

81.66
74.66
80.00
55.91 Data analysis
60.00
40.00 Analysing data involved examining it
20.00 in ways that reveal the relationships,
0.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 patterns, trends, etc. that could be found
Months within it. By subjecting it to statistical
operations to find out what kinds of
Fig. 7 : Mechanical Delay, H1, 2013-14 relationships seemed to exist among

26
variables and to what level outcomes 500.00 100%
could be trusted. The basic objective
400.00
was to get an accurate assessment in 80%

Delay hrs.
300.00
order to better understand trends and 60%

its effects on Sinter Plant performance. 200.00

40%
100.00
The delay data so collected were first 20%
0.00
analyzed in graphical representation,
and Histograms were used to plot the Agency
density of data, and often for density
estimation: estimating the probability
Fig. 12 : Pareto analysis of Delays, June 2013
density function of the underlying
variable. BF (Blast Furnace) belt relationships underlying a particular
stoppage during July’13 is attached as problem. Application of the technique
Figure 11, showing the trend of small to determine high occurrence of
value but high frequency. mechanical and electrical delay is
presented in Figure. That encouraged
60 the troubleshooter to avoid assumptions
Frquency of stop

50
and logic traps and instead trace the
40
chain of causality in direct increments
30
from the effect through any layers of
20

10
abstraction to the root cause. The fifth
0
why suggested a broken process, which
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 was indicative of reaching the root-
Days cause level.
Fig. 11 : Histogram of daily machine delay The 5 Why technique had been depicted
due to BF belt stop, July 2013 below.
Problem : Mechanical & Electrical
Data from check sheets, plotted against
stoppages are very high
a Pareto chart, containing both bars and
a line graph. The chart highlighted the 1. Why? Frequent breakdowns,
most important among a (typically large) Machine reliability poor
set of delay reasons. Hence, the most 3. Why? Depleting manpower,
common sources of delays, the highest preventive maintenance limited
occurring type shown in Figure 12, or 2. Why? No condition based
the most frequent reasons for customer maintenance of equipment
complaints could be identified. 4. Why? Inspection schedule not
Besides the quantitative analysis, 5 properly maintained
why’s technique was also applied 5. Why? Poor house-keeping makes
to explore the cause-and-effect inspection impossible

27
 A Book of Selected Cases
LAKSHYA: Formulating vision
statement
After analysis of the delay situation, it
was evident that production target could
not be met with such high occurrence
of delays. So, it was clear that if delay
could be reduced then production
target could have been met in future.
And, if delay could be minimized each
and every time, then production target
would not have been missed even for
a single time due to delay. Hence, to
maintain the process for long term, it
was needed to make a vision statement,
so that even after getting success for a
few occasions in reducing delay to the
optimum level, people wouldn’t forget
to maintain or get carried away by
other responsibilities. Hence, a vision,
quite simply was being made and
Fig. 13 : Loss in productivity due to unplanned delays
28
communicated. The vision statement is
as follows.
Zero Delays
Zero Abnormalities
Perfect Quantity and Quality
SAKSHYAM: Capacity building
stage
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up
the men to gather wood, divide the work and
give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for
the vast and endless sea.”
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
In fulfilling the targets and realizing
the vision, first step was taken towards
capacity building. Building capacity,
that it could not only turnaround Sinter
Plant by then, but also during lasting
future too.
 Communication Brain storming
Communication initiatives had been Acting hands on the equipment,
taken to focus Sinter Plant team to employees could be the best judge of
achieve the overall objectives of their problems. Brainstorming sessions
department and organization as a were organized. Concerned people
whole. Objectives were broken down including executives and workforce
to identifiable targets in the audience were called, the situation/challenge
groups’ sphere of influence. Variety put forth and questions e.g. “HOW
of communications modes e.g., CAN WE?” were asked. Letting the
Public display boards in each section, possibilities come forward, discussed
presentation by sectional incharges about pros & cons, effective solutions
and closed group interaction were could be implemented on reality.
implemented, to hard hit all people
down the line.
In addition, top management of BaSP
e.g., CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and Excellence
ED (W) (Executive Director (Works)) Idealistic, Functionality,
Philosophy Space/Time/Interface,
started to visit the shop periodically,
Complete problem solving
interacted directly with employees and Method process

their concerns. Tool

Trend Analysis, Best Practice,
SOP, SMP, Knowledge Sharing

• Communicating crossing the barrier:

Informal communications at job Fig. 15 : Brainstorming to find out the
loca tions, to share concerns possible solution of problems

• Cross border communication: Morale boosting

Customers, suppliers and services Chronic under-performance mostly
units of BaSP were invited to attend eroded confidence of employees and
formal communication meetings attitude of no hope was evident. So the
and participate can–do approach was first traded to all
14393
of Sinter Plant. Through each and every
14194 interaction,pessimism of the future,
14194
12419
confidence on employees, trust and
12300
12000
mutual belief were traded.
12000

“No matter how bad things got, no matter

how anxious the staff become, the commander
Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar has to preserve optimism in himself and his
2013 - 14
men”
– Gen. D.E. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander,
Fig. 14 : Daily Sinter production target (in Tons) Allied Expeditionary Force, WW II

29
 A Book of Selected Cases
Instilling Confidence upon i.e.
front line managers by assigning
greater responsibility created
exceptional positive spirit. One-to-
one communication with senior
management level and problem facing
head-on inspired all to Win.
KARMA: Application stage
To attain the goal, emphasis was
given to Preventive Maintenance i.e.
to treat causes of breakdowns before
they actually happen. In realizing the
goal, 4R strategy i.e. Retrenchment,
Repositioning, Reorganisation and
Renewal were applied.
Retrenchment
The Retrenchment strategy included
wide-ranging short-term actions, aimed
to stabilize the delays and to work
against the root causes.
Improve upon House keeping
House-keeping was outsourced section-
wise, with specific mention to the quantity
in the payment terms. On contract to the
earlier practice of private supervision,
monitoring by Sinter Plant employees
was introduced. Cleaning being a hands-
on activity, people supervising during
cleaning the machines had the best
chance of detecting any failure. As they
touched and looked at the machine,
loose bolts shouted to them. Part of the
cleaning process was looking for ways
to make cleaning easier or maintenance
avoidable. In some cases, the source of
dirt could be isolated to reduce the need
for cleaning.
30
Cleaning Program Checklist
1. Cleaning main body of machine,
checking and tightening bolts
2. Cleaning ancillary equipment,
checking and tightening bolts
3. Cleaning lubrication areas before
performing lubrication
4. Cleaning around equipment
5. Treating the causes of dirt, dust,
leaks, and contamination
6. Improving access to hard-to-reach
areas
7. Developing cleaning standards
“This hand-on approach also increased
the person’s respect for the machine. This
process of cleaning, seeing, touching, and
respecting the machine was essential to
increase reliability”
– GM, Sinter Plant
Besides, keeping overall cleanliness
of area was another priority, scrap
removal and peripheral cleaning was
carried out in massive scale. This could
be ensured by systematic elimination
of sources of dirt and clutter such
as misplaced trash containers, lack
of proper storage, broken tools, bad
ventilation, inadequate lighting etc.;
which ultimately helped in spreading
positive mood and morale among
workforce.
Vigorous inspection
All three key aspects of an inspection
i.e. inspector competence, reliability of
inspection and quality of information
used and created by the inspector
were carefully enhanced. Inspector
competence in terms of skill, knowledge
and ability to assess risk; to recognize a
defect, while categorizing and reporting
defects reliably and quickly were
ensured. Inspectors visually inspected
the item and, where relevant listened to
it, felt it and possibly smelt it. Inspection
data were recorded and made accurate
comparisons from one inspection to
the next, thereby allowing defects to
be monitored and either repaired, or
replaced in an organized manner.
Besides, 3-tier inspection, by operator,
supervisor and sectional incharges were
introduced, which could seal any possible
leakages in single layer of inspection.
Autonomous maintenance practice
Reliability based maintenance system
utilizing proactive, predictive, and
preventative maintenance practices
focusing on the entire equipment life
cycle was established. Implemented
team-based (including all departments
e.g. operation, mechanical, electrical,
and instrumentation) activities aimed
at the organization-wide goal of zero
defects and zero breakdowns. A work
order system and equipment data base
maintained, to monitor and support
continuous equipment improvement.
Also it was ensured that maintenance to
treat root cause and not the symptom,
so that maintenance personnel could be
moved from the “fire-fighting” mode to
the prevention mode. Daily 2-3 hours
planned shutdown and immediate
liquidation of defects identified
(Schedule for monitoring is attached in
(Annexure V) was introduced.

Reacting Responding Prevention

Detecting Continous Continuous Rectification of
Detecting
Equipment Improvement improvement Reasons
Reasons for

Noise Vibration Deformation Loose Align

Heating Tightening
Lack of
Wear & Tear
lubrication Greasing
Misalignment
Cleaning
Jam Corrosion
Equipment leading Equipment Not Keep
to Filure 100% Equipment
T 100%

FIX IT FIX IT MAINTAIN IT

Fig. 16 : Autonomous maintenance parctic

31
 A Book of Selected Cases
Step Process name
1 Clean & inspect
2 Eliminate problem sources and
inaccessible areas
3 Draw up cleaning and greasing
standards
4 Conduct general inspection
5 Conduct autonomous inspection
6 Standardise through visual
workplace management
7 Implementing autonomous
equipment management
Repositioning
Repositioning is the strategy, to move
people for improved effectiveness and
incorporation of various managerial
and operational changes.
Job defining and placing people
accordingly
Job definition is the list that an employee
had to do with a position. The skills
required and expectations in terms
of quantified outcomes were clearly
spelled out. Accordingly, employees
were relocated as per requirement.
Some key position demanded people to
develop future plan and projections of
needs. Efficient utilization of available
resources could improve collective
performances.
Activities
CGT (Cleaning, greasing, Tightening)
Correction of dirt sources, preventing spillage,
improving accessibility and shorten time
Standards and schedule for CGT well
documented and reviewed periodically
Skill training and enhancing capabilities
Standard check sheets and standards for
inspection prepared and followed
Standardise all work process:
• Work area material flow
• Data recording methods
• Spare management
Improvement in everyday practices, maintain
reliable MTBF (mean time before failures) data,
analysis and using it for further improvement
Place Time
Mind
Fig. 17 : Right People, Right Job, Right Time
Gap analysis and revival strategy
Analysing the Gap i.e. comparison
of actual performance with potential
performance pointed areas where best
use of available resources was missing.
It involved determining, documenting,
and approving the difference between
requirements and current capabilities.
32
 Identify core  Internal  External data  Analysis  Change 
issues  baseline data  collection  Implementation

Issues Process Benchmark Compare and Implementation

overview questionnaire   contrast plan  
• Customer
demand Current benchmark
• Performance measures
data  
gap Other
• Problem areas departments

• Defined • Process flow • Other SAIL • Gap • Plan to close

benchmark mapping units • Process gap
area • Validate • Process reengineering • Actions
• Overview of • Target sister analysis, opportunities • Recalibrate
key process departments performance • New benchmarks
• Selected • Short term assessment o Flows • Additional
performance operational and measures o Policies analysis
measures improvements o Procedures
• Implementation
plan

Fig. 18 : comparison of actual performance with potential performance

Gap analysis also used to compare Technical interventions for recurring

existing processes to processes
performed elsewhere, such as those
obtained by benchmarking. In this
usage, each process was compared side-
by-side and step-by-step and actions
planned for differences (Annexure VI).
Step Description
1 Existing process identified
2 Existing outcome identified
3 Desired outcome identified
4 Process to achieve desired
outcome identified
5 Identify the Gap and document it
6 Develop means to fill the Gap
7 Develop and prioritize
requirements to bridge the Gap
problems
For system reliability study and
failure analysis, first Failure Mode
and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was
applied. It involved reviewing as
many components, assemblies, and
subsystems as possible to identify failure
modes, and their causes and effects. For
each component, the failure modes and
their resulting effects on the rest of the
system were recorded in specific FMEA
worksheet (Annexure VII). It helped to
identify potential failure modes based
on experience with similar products
and processes - or based on common
physics of failure logic. And through
this analysis, frequent failure of hot

33
 A Book of Selected Cases
screen could be identified. Accordingly,
technical interventions e.g.
• Heat shield modification
• Additional grease station for vibrator
• Changing grease quality to
withstand heatwere implemented
as per in-house design
“This power of thinking out and executing
is initiative, and freedom to propose and to
execute belongs too in a way, to initiative.
The collective initiative of all employees
represents a great source of strength of
businesses. Henri”
– Henri Fayol
Applying JIT in Spare Management
Applying Just-In-Time (JIT) in spare
management i.e.,‘the exact item needed,
when it is needed, and in the quantity
needed’. Weekly projection of spare
demand and managing supply chain to
ensure required items to be available on
site close to when they were needed and
not held in inventory for a lengthy time.
Extensive planning and scheduling
requiring highly responsive production
and supply systems were introduced.
Reorganization
The reorganization strategy introduced
some managerial changes in Sinter
Plant as:
Each section as value creation point
Here goal of each section clearly stated
so that every employee, working in any
section could relate to it. For example,
stock bin sections were given targets
34
Value Value Creation
Proposition How will you work
What will your with your customers
servic do? and supplier to
creat and deliver the
service?
Value Capture
How will you ensure that you
benefit from creating the
service?
Fig. 19 : Development of value creation point
of uninterrupted supply in required
quantity, flux and fuel crushing section
was given target to maintain crushing
index respectively at 80 & 85%. Each
section was defined as customer and
supplier to another, and ought to deliver
value to them. It was also a goal clearly
tied to the system output, a collective
overarching goal that subsumed
functional goals and depended upon
concerted efforts of people at all levels.
It created a super-charged atmosphere
in Sinter Plant whole, with people knew
what exactly their role in quantitative
terms and wanted to fulfill them. There
was a buzz in the workplace and a number
of small initiatives in every section began
to have a cumulative effect in terms of
better coordination and performance.
Teamwork at its best
“Talent wins games, but teamwork wins
championships”
- Michael Jordan
 The Integrated Team Development Framework

Performing
Storming

Norming
Forming

Task
Individual No
Opt Out? Agree? Yes
Group
Environment

No
Yes Storming

Norming

Norming
Storming
Understanding & acceptance
of issues associated with the
basic element by team
Members.
Yes
Acceptance and understanding
Agree?
of issues associted with the
basic element by some team
members.

No
Non-Shared assumptions about
issues associated with the basic

Fig. 20 : The integrated team development framework

Conventional concept of teamwork Renewal

development i.e. Forming, Storming, Renewals, strategy pursuing long-
Norming and Performing were term actions were supposed to end in
implemented in all new cross-functional a successful managerial performance.
(Goal Congruence) paradigms. Enabling The first step was analysing the existing
factors of teamwork i.e. focusing on the structures within the organisation.
goal, placing the right people, enabling This examination lead to enhancing
to working together were all provided innovative core competencies, concluded
on one hand; on the other teams were in an increase of knowledge and a
continuously challenged with one stabilization of the organisation value.
another. Improving Cross functional
collaboration conflicted at a number of Improve upon core competencies of employees
levels both up and down the hierarchy Core competency was the specific factor
and across functions andwork groups. that was seemed central for long term
In safety aspect, daily 10 minute safety sustainable performance. Technical/
talk before job distribution (by sectional subject matter know-how, a reliable
in-charges) and weekly safety meeting process and/or close relationships with
(by General Manager himself) instilled customers and suppliers were the core
a culture of safe working. competencies targeted for improvement.

35
 A Book of Selected Cases

Knowledge
Performance Skill up renewal
enhancement gradation

Improving core
competency
Mentoring Delegation
Resource
provision

Fig. 21 : Fish Bone diagram for improving core competency

Shown in fig. 21. For that, subjective Promoting innovative culture

delegation of authority to employees Challenging target demanded
and committing them resources were creativity, i.e. viewing existing facts
implemented. from a new perspective allowed
Nurturing young leaders individuals to come up with ingenious
ways to solve seemingly impossible
Nurturing young leaders through
Encouraging, Involving & Enabling problems. Experimentation based on
front line managers paid excellent reverse logic was encouraged, which
dividends not only in enhanced ultimately lead shaping many ideas at
decision making speed, but also competitive cost. Introduction of a ‘Flap
boosted confidence in long term. gate arrangement’ in sinter transfer belt
Shift managers were empowered to was classic example of such realistic
communicate with customer & supplier innovation, which actually reduced
department and resolve issues quickly. delay due to BF belt substantially.
Similarly quick shutdown for smaller
Development of human resources
maintenance jobs was authorized to
shift level executives. “Workshop on Sintering Technology”
was organized in Sinter Plant seminar
room, and shift level employees who
Degree of Empowered Lower

Enabling lower
management to
were otherwise left out in any such
take bigger training programs were covered. Basic
Involving lower
management with • Get closer to customer
objective was to update knowledge on
more responsibility • Get closer to Supplier sinter making and disseminate latest
Leadership

Encouraging lower • Increase service delivery

management to • Innovate continuously advancements in the same. Interactions
take more active • Enhance efficiency
and discussions on problems and their
BaSP benefit possible solutions were organised, which
Fig. 22 : Enable, Involve, Encourage lower helped in confidence building of each
leadership one.

36
Reaping the results
• Drastic reduction in internal delay i.e. due to mechanical, electrical and production
stoppages could be achieved which had been shown in figures 23, 24, and 25
respectively.

Fig. 23 : Delay due to electrical stoppages, FY 2013-14

Fig. 24 : Delay due to mechanical stoppages, FY 2013-14

Fig. 25 : Delay due to production stoppages, FY 2013-14

37
 A Book of Selected Cases

• Delay due to BF belt stoppage reduced by around 50% (shown in Figure 26

180

130

80

30

Fig. 26 : Delay due to BF belt stoppage, FY 2013-14

• Supplier side delay also reduced substantially, to near ZERO in March 2014
(Figure 27)

Fig. 27 : Delay due to supplier side, FY 2013-14

• Daily running hours could be improved up to 58.23 hours during H2, 2013-14 while
68 hours of running was realised on daily basis, which was all time record (Figure 28)

Fig. 28 : Daily average running hours, FY 2013-14

38
• 101.5% fulfilment of monthly production target could be achieved in FY 13-14
(Shown in Figure 29)

Fig. 29 : %age of Fulfilment of production target, FY 2013-14

• Requirement of external sinter in BaSP reduced to 3893 tons/moth only, thus

improving productivity and overall cost efficiency of BaSP
• Operational stability as achieved could improve sinter quality. -5 mm in sinter
reduced by 20% (Shown in Figure 30)

Fig. 30 : 5 mm Sinter, FY 2013-14

Conclusion
This case study outlined the turnaround of an age-old sinter plant, from state of acute
distress to exceptional performance. Root causes for deterioration were identified
and analysed. The vision formed and well-marketed to have ‘Zero Delays’. First steps
taken were morale boosting and building capability of workforce. Then 4R strategy
was carefully designed and implemented in Sinter Plant. As a result, more than 100%
of targets could be achieved, just within 6 months.
The Steely Glitter in Eyes of Each Employee tells about the RESURGENT SINTER PLANT

39
 A Book of Selected Cases

References
1. www.LCE.com
2. www.cimaglobal.com/insight
3. www.globalturnaround.com
4. www.globalturnaround.com
5. www.insol.org
6. www.instituteforturnaround.com/default.asp
7. www.tma-uk.org
8. http://www.amazon.com/Autonomous-Maintenance-Seven-Steps-Implementing
9. http://www.implement-lean-manufacturing.com
10. www.tpmonline.com
11. http://bokarosteel.com/
12. Piotrowski, J., April 2, 2001. “Pro-Active Maintenance for Pumps”, Archives, February 2001,
Pump-Zone.com [Report online].
13. Arunagiri. P. & Babu, Dr A.Gnanavel, “Review on Reduction of Delay in manufacturing process
using Lean six sigma (LSS) systems”, International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications,
Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2013 1 ISSN 2250-3153
14. “Root Cause Analysis For Beginners” by James J. Rooney and Lee N. Vanden Heuvel
15. Gupta Desh & Sathye Milind, “Financial Turnaround of the Indian Railways: A Case Study”,
Faculty of Business & Government , University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

40
Teaching Notes
KAYAPALAT – to a Resurgent Sinter Plant
The case had been prepared after the implementation of a strategy to assist Sinter
plant in achieving its production target. It had been observed in H1 of the year 2013-14
that Sinter Plant was not able to meet its desired production target, but other shops /
departments which were involved directly with steel production, met their production
targets successfully for which Sinter Plant became the bottleneck in Steel making process
for Bara Steel Plant. A thorough research revealed that Sinter machines were being used
only for 76.8% of its available running hours. After getting this clue, the job was to how
to solve this problem. Various questions could be framed at this juncture which were:
1. What were the reasons for which utilization factor for machines was only 76.8%?
2. Was this the only reason for which production target had not been met or else apart
from this, there was/were other reason/s also, which was/were significant?
3. Was there any raw material issue like the raw materials procured for Sinter Plant was
having low quality during this period, for which it was like garbage in, garbage out?
4. If utilization factor for machines being 76.8% was the only reason, then what were the
causes for this problem?
Then, after having brainstorming sessions with executives as well as with non-executives,
the team found various ways to solve the issue of utilization factor to be only 76.8%.
These were:
• Increase efficiency of machines
• Increase productivity of machines
• Increase capacity of machines
Apart from these three solutions, one insight came to the team was that the mind-set of
people working in Sinter Plant i.e., “Sinter Plant to nahi sudhrega”, “Naya Plant na ane
se iskaa kuch nahi hoga”. This was the general sentiment among the workforce of Sinter
Plant. At this point various questions could come to any leader’s mind:
I. Should we solve all the three or only one or else any two among these options?
II. Should we upgrade all the three machines simultaneously and during these periods,
procure Sinter from outside temporarily?

Or else Stop the production during these periods, and start capital repair in all other shops/
departments so that all our guns will blaze after a few days even with high production
capacity to mitigate the production loss occurred during these days?
III. By following Step-II could we satisfy our customers (Were they ready to wait for that
period or else did we have enough inventories to satisfy their respective demands
on time?)?

41
 A Book of Selected Cases

IV. Should we upgrade one machine at a time so that desired production target wouldn’t
get hampered as extra Sinter could be procured from outside till all machines got
upgraded one by one?
V. Were any of the above steps actually right by looking in the long term?
VI. What about the mind-set of the workforce? If machines would be upgraded right
now, could the mind-set of workforce be changed?
VII. Was changing the mind-set of workforce important for Sinter Plant?
VIII. Which one would be better in long term? Upgrading machines or changing the
mind-set of the workforce of Sinter Plant.
After looking at the above options, the team decided that changing the mind-set of people
was more important than upgrading the machines of Sinter Plant, and it discussed this
important issue with higher authorities of Sinter Plant to find a way anyhow to solve the
issue as well as change the mind-set of the workforce. In other words, the team took this
challenge as a golden opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. After many days of
rigorous brainstorming the team found a way to solve the problem and the way was to
reduce the delay. Even at this point, the team faced many questions regarding the impact
of the solution which could be
1st. Would this solution help Sinter Plant to achieve the production target?
2nd. If this wouldn’t fulfill the target, what might happen to customer satisfaction?
3rd. Wouldn’t the credibility of Bara Steel Plant be at stake?
4th. If this solution would fail, then could the mind-set of workforce i.e., “Sinter Plant to
nahi sudhrega”, “Naya Plant na ane se iskaa kuch nahi hoga” be changed in future?
5th. Who knows if it would fail, workers would laugh at the leadership of the top
management and the grip of shop floor managers on workers would be lost. Even
because of the negative mind-set, workers would always have an excuse i.e., nothing
could be done without new machines.
The stakes were high, for which the executives planned to make sure that they would
make it happen because the situation was kind of it’s now or never. After careful
consideration, strategies had been crafted to turnaround the situation and the successful
implementation had been done with the help of 4R strategy, which helped immensely in
achieving the objective set by management of Sinter Plant.
This report tries to throw some light on how the management of a Sinter Plant overcame
from the problem of not achieving its production target. But, more importantly, it tries
to show the thought process of how the management tried change the mind-set of the
workforce by changing the way to achieve the desired objective for long term benefit of
its parent firm.

42
 Leader : A Gold Digger
“Keep your hand on thermostat. If the heat’s too low, people won’t make difficult decisions. It
it’s too high, they might panic”.
- Ronald, Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky in HBR, August 2013-January 2014 Issue
The Company & The Context:
E stablished in 1946,
Construction & Transportation
Corporation (RCTC) has made an
Roads
important contribution for the country.
More than 50% of the existing National
Highways have been constructed by
RCTC. In the last few years, RCTC
has started focusing on bridges
construction, railways, metro,and sea-
transportation and aims to emerge as a
global player in future.Thanks to GATT,
LPG and other market compulsions,
these (infrastructure) areas are now
being opened for foreign players. Today
the competition is changing the rules of
the game.
All these years, RCTC was almost in the
monopoly set up and the government
protection had in some way, helped
RCTC’s growth trajectory. Now with
the entry of Chinese, Korean, American
and Russian firms RCTC has started
facing the heat.
The company developed its Vision 2020
Document in the year 2009-10. The
This case is written by - Amitabh Jha, Sr. Mgr (HRD & Admin.) BHEL
43
RCTC Board of Directors identified five
areas as key thrust areas:
• Increase in R&D expenditure from
existing 4% to 12% in the next 5
years
• Technology transfer and
collaboration with Chinese firm
(Shanghai Transportation Limited)
and US based firm (Seattle Futuristic
Infrastructure Consultancy)
• Increased Focus in High Potential
Areas – Metro, Air-bridge
• Increased thrust in Technical and
Functional Training
• Succession Planning and
Leadership Development at Senior
Levels
As part of diversification strategy, the
Metro Division of RCTC was set up
in 1980. There was an excitement and
enthusiasm among high performers
to join this division. The division was
headed by the so-called ‘blue-eyed boys’
of the company in its initial decades.
Late 2000, saw a decline in the image
 A Book of Selected Cases
of Metro Division. Apart from top-line
and bottom line indicators, there were
other unpleasant signals emanating
from Metro Division –
o Fall in the number of new ideas/
patents registration,
o Increase number of absenteeism
cases,
o Increase in out-going transfer
requests,
o Increase in number of reported
grievance cases of conflict between
various teams.
Mr James Smith was heading this
division for the last few years. He was
due for retirement on 1stDecember
2009.
In the following pages, there are few
circumstances and conversations –
which conveys about RCTC, and its
problem.
“I have a bunch of fools………”
All the employees of RCTC had to
appear in an exit interview – be it normal
separation (retirement) or resignation.
Over the years – once benchmarked
activity – this exit interview had become
a routine activity. Generally this activity
was carried out by an HR Executive
of Sr. Manager level and the quarterly
reports were submitted to GM/HR.
Metro Division was in the news for all
the wrong reasons and in the month of
October 2009 itself (2 months prior to
James’ retirement) Mr Vishwanathan,
44
GM/HR had communicated to HR
team that he would personally like
to interact with Mr James Smith. Mr
Vishwanathan thought that he would
use this opportunity to understand the
real problem behind the downward
curve of Metro Division.
On 20th November 2009, HR team
arranged for a meeting between Mr
Vishwanathan, GM/HR and Mr James
Smith, Head, Metro Division.
Mr. Vishwanathan (VN) – Good
Afternoon, Mr James it’s great to see
you.
Mr James Smith (JS) – Good Afternoon,
thank you.
VN – How are you…..what’s happening
these days?
JS – Perfectly fit & fine. Nothing much.
Waiting for 1stDecember, when I can
say ‘good bye’ to this place…
VN – So you are waiting for your next
innings….
JS – Have not thought of anything so
far….but will do something. The kind
of competence and caliber I have, I am
sure I will do something extraordinary.
VN – Of course, you are a talented man
and that’s why you are heading Metro
Division of RCTC.
JS – Com’on! That’s a pep talk and I
don’t need that. But yes, RCTC could
not make use of my potential. It’s not
me, but the organization is the loser.
VN – Please tell me, how we could have
made use of your potential. In fact, if
you want, I can move a proposal for
your extension. We would certainly like
Metro Division to shine…
JS – Oh thanks for your offer….am not
interested. Today, you got this time to
ask….how to use my potential….all
these years, what happened?
VN – You are right. I have not met &
invited you formally to talk about
these issues but many a times, after
boardroom meetings, I have offered my
inputs to you.
JS – Forget it now. If you are hinting
that Metro Division is not doing well,
because of me then I have serious
objection to that.
VN – Mr Smith, I have not said anything
like that. These are your conclusions. I
am only trying to explore – how your
potential can be tapped, why it was not
tapped?
JS – It’s a long story…but let me
share with you few important
things. In the last few years, we have
submitted 3-4 proposals to the Board
for modernization of this division
but nothing has happened. What
happened to those proposals? Are they
my concern only?
VN – Mr Smith, I was also present in
those meetings every time you made the
presentations. And I vividly remember
that the Board wanted you to work
45
more specifically in terms of financials
and you never came back. Board also
wanted details, on how to we can
collaborate with our existing partners
and work out some kind of MOU for
modernization. And you never came
back on that count too.
JS – That’s not fair……if few persons
have closed their eyes and ears and
want a part of organization to work in
isolation then I can’t help it. Nothing
of this sort –what you are saying was
given to me in writing. What about the
quality of manpower I have.
VN – Quality of manpower? What do
you mean by that?
JS – Yes, the biggest block in Metro’s
success story is its basic manpower,
below my level. I have a bunch of
fools…..
Mr Vishwanathan, GM/HR was shocked
listening to ‘bunch of fools’ phrase. He
wondered where this conversation was
going. Unwillingly, he still continued.
VN -Mr Smith, you have the brightest
of Management Trainees in your team.
Five of them are from IITs/NITs. You have
one Manager from IIM, who has earlier
worked with ABB. In the supervisory
grade too, the people you have are so
smart. I remember awarding them few
years ago in ‘Quality Circle’ meet. And
you say, bunch of fools!
JS – Mr Vishwanathan, You are talking
of history. The persons about whom
 A Book of Selected Cases
you have referred are devoid of idea,
spirit and attitude to work. The less we
talk about them, the better it is. They
are not bale to meet my standards.
VN – Have you thought who will
succeed after you? Who can be your
successor?
JS – I don’t think anybody in my team
has the ability and commitment to lead
Metro Division. As HR head, you will
have to think of somebody outside.
VN – Any development with regard to
Technology transfer and collaboration
with Chinese firm - Shanghai
Transportation Limited and US based
firm - Seattle Futuristic Infrastructure
Consultancy?
JS – This Seattle had requested for a
meeting last week but I am so busy these
days that I have shifted that meeting.
VN – What??? You have shifted that
meeting with Seattle team…..?? They
are so important to us. Anyways, thanks
Mr Smith for your valuable time.
Mr Vishwanathan was clueless what to
do. The words, ideas, the conclusions
of James Smith was not indicative
of a person who has such a long
experience in the organization. But
then, age has never been a guarantee
for maturity in life. He was recalling
his college principal’s favorite quote of
Muhammad Ali - The man who views the
world at 50 the same, as he did at 20 has
wasted 30 years of his life.
46
Moments of Truth
After the exit of Mr James Smith from
his room, GM/HR advised his PA that
nobody shall disturb him for the next
one hour. Among the recent arrivals
for department’s library, there was a
book (Leaders at All Levels) by eminent
Management & Leadership Guru –
Ram Charan. He opened the book and
the first paragraph read - “Crisis may be
an overused word, but it’s a fair description
of the state of leadership in today’s
corporations. CEOs are failing sooner and
falling harder, leaving their companies in
turmoil. At all levels, companies are short
of the quantity and quality of leaders they
need.”
It came as a punch on his face. He was
just looking at the empty chair where Mr
Smith was sitting few minutes ago. The
downward spiral of Metro Division, the
Boardroom presentations by Mr Smith,
the HR reports (absenteeism, grievance
reports, productivity, idea generation
etc) about Metro team – all these things
were flashing before him. The Metro
team which used to be the most active
and the vibrant – not only in their work
but also in various organizational level
activities/projects – are they bunch of
fools?
Mr Vishwanathan started looking into
the Bio Data-Career File of Mr James
Smith. Before coming to RCTC, James
Smith was working with small start
up in IT filed. His technical expertise
was phenomenal. His interest lied in
research and development activities.
He had single handedly developed few
models for Railways Division – which
was highly appreciated by Director/
Technical too. However, he had not led
any team of even 10 persons in past and
here he was made in-charge of Metro
Division - Company’s one of the most
important focus areas, as per Vision 2020
Document. There was another paper in
the file – which caught attention of GM/
HR. Before taking over as head of Metro
Division in 2005 upon his promotion,
Smith was working with Railways
Division. It was an ‘Advisory Letter’
issued in 1998, from ED/Railways. The
bold & italics sentence in that letter was–
“I would like you to take care of your
subordinate, as we take care of our family
members. Be broad, open and flexible.
Micro-managing does not help. If you value
& respect your team, they shall value you
and will stand by your side. Today, you are
a manager. Tomorrow, you will be leading a
team. It’s important to think – what kind of
leader we would like to be.”
Mr Vishwanathan was seriously
thinking – as who can be the next man
in command for Metro Division. The
group is going through a rough patch,
bad morale and at the same time high
expectations from the organizations’
perspective.
That day evening, GM/HR met
Executive Director to discuss the issue
of successor for Metro Division. ED said,
47
“GM/Planning & Development from
Mumbai office is coming on transfer to
join our Unit. I know him personally.
Why don’t you meet him next week
in your office?” GM/HR was not very
sure…..and looed puzzled. Reading his
face, ED said, “What happened?”
“Sir, a P&D man for Metro Division?”
“Relax Vishwanathan. Meet him and
then we will discuss. Have I said that he
is the next person for Metro Division? I
am only asking you to meet him. That’s
all”
“Ok Sir, that’s fine.”
“I am a gold digger, just a gold digger..”
Mr Yajat Soham, GM/Planning &
Development had played an important
role in the Vision 2020 exercise for RCTC
as Deputy GM. Mr Vishwanathan
had never met him but was aware
that ‘YS’ (popularly known among
friends/colleagues) was quite famous in
Mumbai office. It was 28thNovember
2009, and GM/HR was eagerly waiting
to meet YS.
Yajat Soham, arrived in the HR
department few minutes prior to
his appointment with GM/HR.
Vishwanathan was surprised to see
YS interacting with new Management
Trainees (MTs) in the adjoining
conference hall.
VN – Mr Yajat, good morning! Have I
kept you waiting…am sorry.
 A Book of Selected Cases
YS – Very Good Morning Sir. I am
enjoying my time with young boys
– our tomorrow’s leaders. Was just
listening to the projects on which they
are working currently. I think they have
huge potential. Would like to talk to
their Mentors, if you can kindly arrange
for a meeting.
VN – Why not? May be tomorrow
morning. We have heard a lot about
the work which you did for Vision 2020
document.
YS - Vision 2020….oh yes, it was a
massive exercise….
VN – How did you manage it pull it
through?
YS – I didn’t do much after the initial
few months….
VN – What? What do you mean by that?
YS – Yes, that’s true. I had a great team
and they just did everything. I was just
standing behind them. After the initial
conceptualization and setting the broad
contours and guidelines, I delegated
task to different persons and then they
owned up everything. I just had a great
time. Yes, in between, I used to talk to
them and sweep away their difficulties,
dilemmas and differences. That’s all.
VN – What was the most satisfying
moment for you in the whole process?
YS – Of course, when the document got
approval from the board, we were quite
excited. But the most satisfying moment
was discovery of a gem in our team –
Ayushman Singh.
48
VN – Ayushman Singh……is he the
engineer who was transferred from this
Unit to Mumbai office? If I remember
correctly, his transfer was basically a
punishment posting. He was such a big
nuisance.
YS – Yes, the same boy. I think, you gave
us the most precious gift!
VN – Gift?
YS – Yes, he is asset to our P&D group
in Mumbai office. The detailing with
which he works and the energy what
he brings in the group is incredible.
VN – I can’t believe this. What he has
done or rather, what you have done?
YS – Sir, I haven’t done anything. I am
gold digger, just a gold digger….do that
job as loyal soldier. And, I love it.
VN – YS, I am not able to understand
your metaphor.
YS – Sir, I strongly believe in what
Andrew Carnegie once said, “Men are
developed the same way gold is mined.
Several tons of dirt must be moved to get
an ounce of gold. But you don’t go into the
mine looking for dirt. You go in looking for
gold.”
While YS was talking about Andrew
Carnegie, Mr Vishwanathan was
looking at the same chair, where few
days back James Smith was sitting. Mr
Vishwanathan was so grateful to his
ED. He was sure Metro Division would
see a new sunrise!
Action Speaks Louder than Words…..
(1) Prior to YS, the Metro Division
was headed by a man who was
known for his blend of autocratic-
bureaucratic leadership style. It was
not seen as ‘a happening place’. The
general feeling was that this place
has no future.
YS within a month had drawn a
5 year plan for the Metro division
in alignment with Vision 2020
and Unit’s Balanced Scorecard
and MOU targets. The plan -
‘Vision Ahead’ - talked in great
detail about different parameters
– infrastructure development,
modernization, new initiatives,
programs for the team, competency
development interventions,
special programs for new trainees,
benchmarking exercise with other
divisions of RCTC etc. All the
plans were backed by financials
and concrete plan to achieve in
the given time frame, with specific
responsibility and accountability.
When ‘Vision Ahead’ was
presented to the Board, there was
a big applause. Yajat Soham himself
did not make this presentation,
which he knew very well- was
going to be appreciated. Metro
Division was broadly divided into
two sections – Management Wing
and Workshop Wing. These two
wings were headed two DGMs,
who were always at loggerheads.
49
YS had selected his two lieutenants
to present this5 year plan. During
the hi-tea after the presentation was
over, YS observed that his two DGMs
were being congratulated by General
Managers and other senior executives
and both of them were enjoying their
moments of glory – perhaps for the first
time in their careers, in recent years!!
(2) In one of those visioning meetings,
YS observed that his executives
had the habit of quietly agreeing to
whatever the boss says. One day,
he said, “Just because I give an idea,
you need not buy it immediately
and blindly. Question my idea too –
as to how it is aligned with our goals
and targets, with our vision. I would
not like you to become ‘yes sir’
people. Heads of the Departments
like me will come and go, but your
commitment must stay intact with
your job, with your organization”.
It was an interesting process to see
how he developed that ambitious
vision. He talked to EVERYBODY
in the Metro division. His question
to colleagues was very simple – If
there’s no fear and no worry for
you, what kind of tasks would you
like to do? What are the new things
you would like to take up, if you
were the master of your area and if
there’s nobody to judge you? If you
have complete freedom, how you
would like to change this place?
What will be those 1-2 things?
 A Book of Selected Cases
Whoever used to come out of that
meeting, there was a new energy in
their walk, a new hope in their eyes.
(3) While doing the work allocation,
he told his DGMs – It’s important
to ‘truly’ believe in people
development. Before questioning
your subordinates, question how
you treat them. Are you fair with
them? Do you ever feel a sense of
pride in your people? How do you
plan and ensure their success? Do
they feel like coming to you, talking
to you? If your subordinates can
share their mistakes without fear
of punishment, then only you
can groom them. When you look
at your juniors, do you ever see
yourself in their eyes? I would
like you to think what Dwight
Eisenhower said – “When are you
a leader? When people follow you
where you want to go? Or when
people follow you where they
want to go?”
Using his networking skill, YS had
set up a small R&D Cell in the Metro
Division by collaborating with
Seattle Futuristic Infrastructure
Consultancy and a team of 3
engineers from their side were
deputed to work for the next 10
months, along with Metro team.
Epilogue
No prize for guessing, there was a
complete turnaround in the Metro
50
Division within a year and the beauty
was that – everybody said, they made
the difference. YS as usual, was the most
busy, yet the most relaxed man, sipping
his favorite cup of coffee and looking
at his desktop, which had an image
downloaded from Google. The image
was that of a rectangle. At the center
of it was written – Transformational
Leadership. The four corners had four
different phrases – knowing the self,
relating to others, making sense of
systems and the spirit to search for gold
in others.
26th January 2012 – In the Republic
Day function, Metro Division bags
the maximum award under various
category. Each time, Mr Yajat Soham’s
name is announced in the auditorium,
he does not come to podium to
collect trophy alone. In fact, his team
comes, along with him, and they lift
the trophy…..YS stands as one of the
members of the team, clapping and
cheering for them!
Case Discussion Threads:
• Who is a Leader ?
o The case provides few
characteristics in terms of style,
leadership and motivation
methodology. In discussion the
participants should first identify
the characteristics presented
in the case. Then present
alternative viewpoints and
perspectives which should be
opened up for debate.
• YS talk about gold digging.
How it relevant from leadership
perspective.
• Leaders are leaders if they have
followers.
o What makes leaders build a
following? What elements and
contrast do we find from the
narratives of JS & YS?
• What insights do you get as a boss
from this Case Study?
• Which phrase/conversation of
the case study, you found most
powerful and why?
Teaching Notes
The Case Study – Leader: A Gold Digger
– presents a factual story, with clear
focus on ‘leadership’. The story and
conversations have been presented in
such a simple, lucid & authentic way –
from real-life, that a reader (whether
management student or management
professional) will find it easy to remember
& relate. The Case Study has content &
depth, which generates quite rich and
meaningful discussion for any target
group. Author has used this case study
in MDPs with Senior Executives as well
as with MBA students and has found the
experience always - relevant, lively &
deeply enriching for the participants.
The Contrast
In the backdrop of RCTC, where Metro
Division is in the bad news; the case
brings out two important characters
51
– James Smith and Yajat Soham. Both
of them are technically brilliant in
their field but what makes the big
difference is their ‘leadership ability’. It
will be important to mention here the
conceptual definition & differentiation
given by Cyril Levicki, in his book
classification of Developing Leadership
Genius. Cyril in his book writes, “It is
useful to differentiate between quality
leaders who have strategic vision
from those leaders who have achieved
their position merely because of their
political skills. I call the former strategic
leaders. These are people who truly
understand how to create a mission
for an organization and then how to
operationalize it to effectively deliver
growth and value to all the stakeholders
in the business. I use the phrase
‘nominal leaders’ to contrast with
‘strategic leaders’. Nominal leaders are
those people who get the top jobs but
who shouldn’t be there. They have little
or no strategic vision, their operational
skills are usually confined to accounting
procedures or using acquisition
accounting tricks to cover their inability
to truly grow a business.….” In the
Case Study, James Smith emerges as a
nominal leader and Yajat Soham as a
Strategic Leader. While talking about
Prof Vikram Sarabhai in ‘Wings of Fire’,
Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam describes him as
“internally simple and externally easy” in
an internally complex and externally
difficult world. This metaphor aptly fits
on an outstanding leader!
 A Book of Selected Cases
The Classical Perspective
According to Burns (978): “Leadership is
one of the most observed and least understood
phenomenon on earth.” Different thinkers,
writers, experts have touched, dived
and researched on the theme of
leadership and we have different
models / approaches on the theme. Ron
Cacioppecin a paper in Leadership&
Organization Development Journal
nicely brings out the important models
– which gives us a rich panoramic
view about leadership. He talks about
Personality, Situational / transactional
and Transformational leadership since
these are the major themes that emerge
in the literature (Robbins et al.,1994).
Lets get a look into Ron’s comments:
Personality traits of leaders
Early research attempting to find
consistent and unique personality traits
that all leaders possessed showed no
definite pattern. More recent studies
(Kilpatrick and Locke, 1991; Stogdill,
1974) have found six traits that
differentiate leaders from non-leaders;
1. Honesty and integrity,
2. High energy level,
3. Ambition and the desire to lead,
4. Intelligence,
5. Self-confidence and
6. Task relevant knowledge
The results of a study by Kouzes and
Posner(1993) show the six highest
52
characteristics that people most admire
in leaders are:
1. Honesty
2. Forward looking
3. Inspiring
4. Competent
5. Fair-minded
6. Supportive
Situational/Transactional leadership
A second major focus of leadership
training and theory as a result of the
Michigan and Ohio State studies and
the contingency theory of Fiedler lead
to the situational leadership approach.
The theory of Ken Blanchard called
Situational Leadership II uses the two
dimensions of supportive and directive
to describe four leadership styles that
are most appropriate depending on
the situation and the developmental
level of the person or group. The major
advance of the situation approach
is there cognition that for different
development levels and different
types of situations, different leadership
styles are more effective. For example,
in an emergency or when someone
is learning a skill for the first time,
it is better according to situational
leadership to be highly directive (spell
out tasks and goals very clearly) and
less supportive. Situational leadership
is one of several “transactional”
approaches to leadership. Other
transactional theories like path-goal
theory and leader-participation theory
describe the major task of the leader to
guide and motivate their followers in
the direction of established goals and
to reward their efforts in ways that are
fair and valued by the follower.
Transformational Leadership
The third major approach goes a step
further and helps lift the follower
beyond personal goals and self-interests
to focus on goals which contribute to a
greater team, organizational, national
and world good. Transformational
Leadership communicates a vision
that inspires and motivates people
to achieve something extraordinary.
Transformational leaders also have
the ability to align people and systems
so there is an integrity throughout
the organization towards this vision
(Hughes et al., 1994). Transformational
Leaders have a vision and an ability
to inspire followers to incorporate
higher values. It pulls them towards
achieving an important challenge.
These leaders pay attention to the
concerns and developmental needs of
the followers, they change followers by
helping them to look at old problems in
new ways and they are able to excite,
arouse and inspire followers to put out
extra effort to achieve group goals. In
addition, the follower takes on and
understands the vision as their own.
If the transformation leader leaves, the
followers continue the effort to achieve
the vision.
53
The New Perspective
Dr. Pritam Singh & Asha Bhandarkar
in their book, “In Search of Change
Maestros” have presented case studies
of – Kumar Mangalam Birla, M
Damodaran, Sajjan Jindal, K V Kamath,
Sunil Bharti Mittal, A M Naik and Kiran
Mazumdar Shaw. The empirical backed
research and in-depth interview with
these CEOs bring out the attitude,
behavior, and style that charted them
toward success. Authors talk about
eight driving principles governing
these seven Change Maestros:
1. Contextual Sensitivity: An uncanny
ability to understand the context,
sensitivity, and intense concern
for aspirations and needs of the
masses.
2. Compelling Vision and Purpose:
Change Maestros being powerful
visionaries and dreamers with
focus on larger purpose for the
betterment of organization and
society.
3. Winning Streak: Change Maestros’
burning ambition and desire to
reach the goal faster than others.
4. People Connect and Engagement:
Actualizing their vision through
collaboration with stakeholders;
lion-hood lead leadership through
the power of grooming and
feedback.
5. Meaningful Contribution with
Speed: Obsession for larger
 A Book of Selected Cases
organizational, national and
societal goals with energized speed.
6. Creative destruction for
transformation: Born out of human
unlearning and experimenting new
ideas and approaches.
7. Evolving Self: Striving to actualize
their full potential; transforming
the “I”
8. Culture Architecture: Change
Maestros attempt to nurture and
build a robust organizational
culture that is difficult to emulate.
Something very close and similar
appears in the work of Stephen R Covey.
He talks about Principle-Centered
Leadership – which is an inside-out
perspective on four levels:
• Personal (my relationship with
myself)
• Interpersonal (my relationship and
interaction with others)
• Managerial ( my responsibility to
get a job done with others)
• Organizational (my need to organize
people – to recruit them, train them,
compensate them, build teams, solve
problems, create aligned structure,
systems & strategy)
Each level, Stephen points out is
“necessary but insufficient”. In other
words, we have to work at ALL levels
continuously and consciously – to
evolve as a leader. It’s like a pilgrimage!
54
It will be pertinent to mention here
the observations made by eminent
Management &Leadership Guru, Prof.
Ram Charan in his book – Leaders At All
Levels. Ram points that the conventional
wisdom about leadership is faulty and
having observed how leaders develop,
or fail to, over several decades, following
are his conclusive (and controversial, in
his words) observations:
• Not everyone can be a leader –
Leaders are different from everyone
else in ways that no amount of
classroom instruction can supply.
Smartest, quickest, best performer
– these and other superlatives are
not useful in spotting those who
have the raw talent for leadership.
Leaders think and act differently.
We can spot them if we know what
to look for and sharpen our power
of observation.
• Leadership ability is developed
through practice and self-correction
- People who have the talent for
leadership must develop it. Their
growth is accelerated when each
new job lets them build their core
capabilities and acquire new ones
and when feedback is timely and
precise. Repetitive practice of core
skills hones judgment and paves
the way for innovative ways to lead.
• The CEO job requires giant leap
in learning – Leaders will not be
prepared to lead large companies
 unless each job is much more
complex than the one before.
Leaders must be immersed in
complexity repeatedly in their
careers. As they practice sorting
through it, they learn to deal with
it.
Ram talks about a new approach in
leadership Apprenticeship Model.
“Apprenticeship may sound wrong
for business executives, but it isn’t.
Apprentices are people who learn
from doing, and that is precisely what
the Apprenticeship Model provides:
practice, feedback, corrections, and
more practice”, says Rama Charan. He
makes a contract between conventional
leadership development and
apprenticeship model:
Faculty may also engage the group
in looking at leading organizations’
leadership criteria. In fact, this can be
given as pre-course work to participants
/ students. For example, one of the
leading Fortune 500 companies – GE
looks at the following dimensions as
leadership criteria:
• Create an external focus that defines
success in market terms
• Be clear thinkers who can simplify

Conventional Leadership Development and the Apprenticeship Model

Conventional Leadership Development Apprenticeship Model

Focus on Inputs: classroom hours, money Focus output: are we getting the leaders we
spent, “our own Crotonville” need?
“Our own pool of CEO succession candidates”
Required resources: mostly money Required resources: mostly leaders’ attention
and emotional energy
Development resources spread thin Resources focused disproportionately on a
smaller, high-leverage group of leaders
HR in charge of developing leaders HR as trustee of leadership development;
bosses play central role in developing leaders
Universal set of competencies and traits for Defining each leader’s individual talent,
all leaders skills, and personal traits
Incremental linear upward moves Leaps up several rungs or level of complexity;
some horizontal moves
Emphasis on classroom training and Emphasis on “deliberate practice”
“exposure”
Waiting for jobs to open and charting Creating or resigning jobs tailored to each
standardized career tracks leader’s development needs

55
 A Book of Selected Cases

strategy into specific actions, The Measurement Tools

make decision, and communicate Along with Case Study and the
priorities conceptual background presented
• Have imagination and courage to here, the Faculty/Facilitator may like to
take risks on people and ideas use following measurement tools for a
• Energize teams through increased effectiveness and encouraging
inclusiveness and connection with the self-reflection in the participants
people, building both loyalty and (management professionals / students).
commitment There such tools are in Appendix A.

• Develop expertise in a function or “Be not afraid of greatness: some men are
domain, using depth as a source of born great, some achieve greatness and some
confidence to drive change. have greatness thrust upon them.”
- William Shakespeare

Appendix A
The Measurement Tools
During the course of discussion of on Leadership, any target audience (whether
MBA students or working professional) always wants to have some kind assessment/
measurement tools – which gives them an opportunity to reflect and develop an
action-plan based on the score.
Three such tools are presented here from ‘Developing Leadership Genius’ of Cyril Levicki.

A. First audit of Leadership Potential”.

Ask yourself the following questions:
• Are you always ready to take a free and independent view?
• Do you master new tasks easily?
• Do most people consider your judgment to be objective?
• Do most people perceive you as dignified?
• Are you always well mannered?
• Do people sometimes consider you have too much self- respect?
• Do people find it easy to respect you?
• Do you find it easy to respect people for their particular skills?
• Do you get on easily with bad managers?

56
• Do you get promoted every year or so ?
• Do you enjoy learning new things?
• Do you really think happiness in your private life is as important as your business life?
• Do you make friends easily?
The more affirmative answers (honest & authentic responses) one gets, the
higher is the possibility of leadership potential.

B. A measure of leadership skills

It’s self rating tool on a scale of 1-10, where 1 denotes the low score and 10 denotes
the high score. The dimensions and their meaning are explained in simple words.

Skill Meaning Self-applied rating

1 (low)- 10 (high)
Tenacity Capacity for sticking to difficult to achieve
tasks
Stamina Ability to stick at a job when the occasional
career slow down takes place

Long-term The ability to forecast the future of the

wisdom industry, the development of one’s colleagues
and the probabilities of success of strategies
Emotional Having a range of insights which explain
intelligence profoundly the personal motivations of
people around you
Judgment about Evaluating the business issues that are
priorities most likely to torpedo the business, if left
unresolved
Equanimity The capacity to remain calm in the eye of the
storm
Character Having values and beliefs that are sound and
which guide you at all key decision points
Capacity to inspire Do people enjoy being led by you?
followership
Love for fellow Do you generally like people more frequently
human beings and more easily than you dislike them?
Add your total score

57
 A Book of Selected Cases

Interpretations:
 Scores<50 mean you need to develop more skills fast
 Scores between 51 and 69 indicate a good base but needing development
 Scores>70 mean you are well grounded to evolve or be a leader
C. A Detailed Self-Assessment Questionnaire ( Using concepts from the FIRO-B,
Belbin and MBTI )
Study the statements and then assess yourself on a scale between 1 and 10
• 1-2 means you do it very little;
• 3-4 means that you do it a li ttle;
• 5-6 means you do it moderately;
• 7-8 means you do it a lot;
• 9-10 means you do it a great deal.
Then apply the multiplier and put the final score in the last column.

Number Statement Your Multiplier Final

score score
1 When confronted with a problem or a decision x4
your first instinct is to produce a list or a
schedule.
2 When you attend a meeting with a group of x7
people, you tend to be the person who clarifies
the group’s objectives and sets it agenda You
enjoy coordinating the team’s efforts to meet
goals and targets.
3 You tend to focus strongly on achieving each x3
of your tasks and you are reassured only
by results. That is a strong driver of what
motivates you to work.
4 When meeting with a group of people, trying x1
to solve a problem, you tend to be the person
who comes up with original ideas, suggestions
and proposals. However, you sometimes find
it hard to get your ideas across.
5 You make friends easily and have masses of x3
outside contacts. You like people and find it
easy to get them to give you information.

58
6 You like to mull things over and give people x7
objectives truth. You usually get it right but
find, quite often, that you are not appreciated
by people when you do.
7 You enjoy being a friend to all members of your x1
team. You believe it is your duty to promote
unity and harmony and counterbalance the
atmosphere caused when others are driving
the team very hard.
8 When the rest of the team is pleased that it x2
has completed a task you feel it is your duty
to remind them they have failed to complete
important details. Then you nag them to
finish the job properly.
9 Your social skills come relatively easily and x5
you get on well with people. They want to be
in your team
10 Having given your time to people at work, x2
when you are completed your day, you
prefer to keep further social interaction to a
minimum.
11 As a leader you feel a strong need, because of x5
your ability, to be in charge of others
12 Although you are the leader, you feel no x3
problem in letting others guide you whether
they are above below or at the same level as
you in the organization
13 You find it easy to express genuine, close x3
friendship to people both which and outside
the organization.
14 You like people to express their genuine close x2
feelings of friendship to you both within or
outside the business
15 Most weeks you need a fair proportion of x2
time on your own to recharge your batteries
16 You find all types of people easy and x4
interesting to work with, no matter what their
skills or style.
Add your final total score

59
 A Book of Selected Cases

Evaluation
0-99 Possibly not destined for leadership
100-199 Potential competence but needs a lot of work
200-249 Competence beginning
250-299 High level of competence or, possibly, high drive with medium competence
300-349 Potential to be a find leader
350-399 Probably always a fine leader
400-449 Moving close to top levels in major corporation
450-499 Destined for top levels in major corporation
Over 500 Should already be leading a large organization

Appendix - B
References
Cyril Levicki, (2002), Developing Leadership Genius, Mc Graw Hill
Stephen R Covey, (1991), Principle Centered Leadership, Franklin Covey
APJ Abdul Kalam & Arun Tiwari (2001), Wings of Fire, Universities Press
Pritam Singh & Asha Bhandarkar (2011), In Search of Change Maestros, Sage Publications
Ram Charan, (2008), Leaders At All Levels, Wiley
Ron Cacioppe (1997), Leadership Moment by Moment, Leadership &
Organization Development Journal
Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky (2009), Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis,
Harvard Business Review, August 2013-January 2014

60
 Long Hours or Intense Hours in DSIL
6:30 PM: General Manager (MM)
Office
I t is 6:30 PM, as Shri S. Sahay, General
Manager, Mechanical Maintenance;
DSIL gets ready to go home. Shri
B.K.R. Reddy, Dy. General Manager
and Technical Assistant to the General
Manager could not help noticing the
frown on Shri Sahay’s face, “What’s the
matter sir? I think we have successfully
disposed-off the day’s work, you look
a bit concerned”. Shri Sahay replied,
“No, things are fine Reddy, I was
thinking about some other matter”. The
matter on Shri Sahay’s mind was the
conversation that he had with his wife
yesterday on reaching home at 6 pm,
“What’s the matter darling? You are
home early, I hope you are well?”
“Early? “What do you mean by early?
You should know that the general shift
gets over at 5” there was an edge in Shri
Sahay’s voice.
“Now that’s a news ladies, in my
married life of 18 years, I haven’t seen
even the shadow of my dear husband
before 9”. Mrs Sahay was in a jolly
mood, as she was having a lucky run in
the party.
The kitty party ladies supressed a
chuckle.“I hope it does not become a
permanent feature, otherwise our kitty
This case is written by -Authors Deepak Roy, AGM, PEB, Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro &
S. Shrivastava, Manager, PEB, Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro
61
parties go for a toss”, said Mrs Singh,
thinking that Mr Sahay was out of
earshot.
Shri Sahay went back to his chair.
“Reddy you go home, I have some work
to finish”.
“What’s the matter sir; tell me, I can stay
for some time, even though I have an
appointment with Dr Patel”.
“Dr. Patel? What for Reddy? I hope
things are fine?” Shri Sahay sounded
concerned.
“It’s the ulcer sir”,the very word seemed
to bring a pain in Shri Reddy’s face.
“Thank you, Reddy I won’t need your
help, you go and meet the Doctor”, Shri
Sahay said as he lifted a file. Mr Reddy
quietly left the room.
Shri S. Sahay, 50 years of age, had
never found himself in such a situation.
He had a reputation of hard work in
Steel Melting Shop, over the years
his dedication earned him rapid
promotions and many rewards. He
enjoyed his work. But all that changed
when he was promoted to the post of
GM, Mechanical Maintenance.
Mechanical Maintenance department
operated in a different manner. Work
was mainly done in the general shift.
Senior officers left at 5pm and Mr Sahay
 A Book of Selected Cases
was uncomfortable with this culture.
He could not understand the eagerness
to leave work at 5 pm. He thought that
the Mechanical Maintenance collective
was not sufficiently engaged with their
work. He decided to hold meetings
after 5:30 pm and get feedbacks about
the work carried out during the day.
He hoped to slowly turn the tide and
engage his team to contribute that extra
bit. He wanted them to enjoy their
work to the point where people lost
track of time. He wanted his people to
experience the joy of work. He didn’t
know what lay ahead. He looked up
at the watch it was now 6:30 and he
decided to head home.
The next day he asked Mr Reddy
to inform all HODs of Mechanical
Maintenance to gather at his office at
5:30 PM for a meeting.
4:00 PM: Mr. Reddy’s office
“Hello Mr. Reddy, What’s the meeting
about?” Mr. M. L. Singh, HoD of Bearing
Maintenance cell, asked eagerly.
“I am not sure about the agenda, but
the meeting is at 5.30 pm.”
“Not being sure about the agenda, I
thought it would be better to check it
out and get relevant information on the
topic.” Mr. Singh said pulling up a chair.
The door opened once more to
admit Mr. B. N. Das, HoD of General
Maintenance Mechanical and Mr. L.
R. Nayak HoD of Heavy Maintenance
Mechanical. The old sofa in Mr. Reddy’s
room creaked under the combined load
of the entrants.
62
“Mr. Reddy, what’s the idea of having
a meeting at 5.30 pm, I hope there is
nothing to worry.” Mr. Das sounded
more bored then concerned.
“Reddy, first of all order some coffee
and then enlighten us on the mystery of
this late evening meeting.” Mr. Nayak
requested.
Mr. Reddy promptly ordered coffee
over the intercom. Then turning to Mr.
Nayak, he replied “The mystery of the
meeting will unfold at 5.30 Sir.”
Over the coffee and some general
discussion the time slowly dragged to
5.30 pm.
5.30 PM: Mr. Sahay’s room
“Good evening Gentlemen, please
make yourself comfortable. I have called
you all for a general discussion on the
day’s progress and how to increase the
working hours of our section, I want
some meaningful work to continue
after 5 pm.” Mr. Sahay sounded firm.
After minute silence when everybody
was seated Mr. Nayak replied, “Sir
the day’s progress is discussed in
the morning meeting unless there is
something urgent.”
Mr. Das added, “The important points
of the day’s progress are communicated
to your office at 5 pm every evening.
What do you say Mr. Reddy?”
Mr. Reddy nodded in agreement.
Mr. Sahay replied, “I want from now on
to have this meeting daily, it will save
our time in the morning and we can
plan and tackle issues in a more efficient
manner. Your reports please.”
The HoDs presented the day’s progress.“I
hope you realize that there are so many
activities that could be completed if
only we were ready to put in few hours
of extra work.” Mr. Sahay steered the
meeting towards the second point.
Mr. Das replied, “In case of exigencies
we and our team overstay and see to
it that the task is done. But we don’t
have enough officers to post after 5 pm
and it would be unfair to ask people to
overstay on a regular basis.”
Mr. Nayak and Mr. Singh were also of
the same opinion.
“It’s a matter of mind set, few hours
of extra work will help our section to
complete pending tasks, you all are
aware that we fail to complete 30% of
our repairs on time ” Mr. Singh sounded
a bit annoyed.
“That’s right Sir but we depend on
others for spares and logistic support, so
to say that we are solely responsible for
the delays won’t be proper. For example
today we received only two bearings
instead of six” Mr. Singh argued.
“That’s ok, but how you will defend
the delay in machine no. 4 of Sintering
Plant. So let’s not get in this argument
and think of what best we can do. We
have to change our mind set.” Mr.
Sahay stressed.
Mr. Reddy excused himself to make a
phone call and walked out of the room.
“But Sir this is the way that we have
63
been doing for the last so many years.”
Mr. Nayak argued.
“I know, I know, but things have
changed, now the company is paying
a good amount of money in terms of
performance related pay and how do I
justify higher grades with 30% delayed
repairs topped by two first aid cases.”
Mr. Sahay said impatiently.
Mr. Reddy looked worried as he
walsked back in the room.
“What’s the matter Reddy?” Asked Mr.,
Singh.
“It was the Doctor Patel and he was
clearly unhappy that I had missed my
appointment today. When he heared
that I was still in office he told me that
my habits were responsible for the
ulcer” replied Mr. Reddy.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had
an appointment? One should never
neglect such matters. You may leave
Reddy. For that matter I have expressed
my views and I am sure we will work
to increase the working hours. Ok
good night gentlemen, we meet again
tomorrow at 5.30 pm and the morning
meeting is cancelled. You can utilise that
time to focus on the day’s activities as
discussed.” with these words Mr. Sahay
concluded the meeting.
After a fortnight
5.30 PM: Mr. Sahay’s room.
The silence was heavy in Mr. Sahay’s
room. Mr. Reddy was admitted in the
ICU for post-operative complications.
 A Book of Selected Cases
Mr. Sahay started the meeting with
these words, “As you all know Mr.
Reddy is recovering in the ICU. Few
minutes back I had a talk with Dr. Patel,
he was concerned about the infection
that has complicated the matter.”
“I too happened to cross Dr. Patel in the
market, he said that Hurry, worry and
curry lead to peptic ulcer and off late we
seem to have lost all balance between
our work and personal life. If the trend
continues Dr. Patel will not run short of
patients” Mr. Das was louder than his
usual self.
“What do you mean Mr. Das? Be direct
with your words.” Mr. Singh smirked.
“Ok, I will be direct. I hope you have
all heard about work life balance
and with these late meetings and
meaningful work beyond working
hours, all balance seems to have gone
for a toss. The result is hurry, worry and
stale curry, the perfect ingredients for
king size ulcers. So Mr. Singh I suggest
book an appointment with Dr. Patel in
advance.” Mr. Das retorted.
“A true balance between work and life comes
with knowing that your life activities are
integrated, not separated.”
-Michael Thomas Sunnarborg, 21 Keys to
Work/Life Balance: Unlock Your Full Potential’
Mr. Nayak intervened, “Let’s not blame
long working hours for the ulcer, I
recently attended a seminar on stress
management and it was pointed out
that one gets satisfaction and happiness
from a work life integration rather
64
than viewing work and life to be
two mutually exclusive entities to be
balanced. Stress is more often a result of
misplaced priorities.”
Mr. Sahay stepped in, “I would go
even further and say that the greatest
happiness that a man can find is by
being in the flow. Mr. Das, I suggest that
you Google flow theory and spend some
time forming your views. Sometimes
we are reactive and that causes stress.”
Mr. Das was quick to reply, “The
suggestion is accepted, but I still think
that there is a connection between Mr.
Reddy’s ulcer and our new zeal for
overstay.”
Mr. Sahay turned the meeting with
the following words, “I suggest we
better devote some time to study topics
like work life balance, flow theory,
mindfulness etc. then only we can have
a more meaningful discussion. Now
let’s discuss our day’s progress.”
The day’s business was discussed and
future plans were chalked out.
“There is no such thing as work-life balance.
Everything worth fighting for unbalances
your life.”
-Alain de Botton, Swiss-British writer
The next day
5.30 PM: Mr. Sahay’s room
Mr. Sahay started the meeting, “Good
evening, Mr. Singh what progress you
have made in bearing replacement job?
I have already got two phone calls from
the Executive Director (Works). You
must realize that my insistence on work
carrying on beyond 5 pm has resulted
in more comfortable situation. Even
ED (W) was aware of our increased
duty hours. A youngster had raised the
matter in CEO’s interaction in which
ED (W) was also present.”
Mr. Singh replied, “You are right Sir, we
have the manning and the work is most
likely to get over by 7pm.”
“Earlier also we used to overstay
and get emergency jobs done, the
only change is now that we have this
publicity of Face Time. Unfortunately in
our organization people don’t see how
effectively you are using your time.
They are more interested in how long
you overstayed and this also becomes a
measure of your PRP and promotions. ”
Mr. Das jumped in.
“Well Mr. Das, have you gone through
what I had suggested yesterday? I think
true happiness comes from complete
engagement with the job. PRPs and
Promotions are just a by-product.” Mr.
Sahay was louder than usual.
“Yes, I spent whatever little time that
I had yesterday night studying flow
theory on the net and the little that I
could understand suggested that, a right
match of challenges and skill produce
flow. But presenting Face Time and
spending hours on mundane meetings
is most likely to generate apathy or
boredom.” Mr. Das responded calmly.
“Why do you call the additional hours
as Face Time? You will certainly be bored
and stressed if you are not engaged.
65
Devote that time on job improvement,
and innovative changes. At the end
of the day you will get the pleasure
of having made a difference. In short
make your work intense”
“I am agree with what you say but
meetings with no agenda, work which
doesn’t require supervision is very
difficult to be anything but boring.”
“The point is taken from now on I will
see to it that my meetings will have a
fixed agenda and there will be at least
one topic which won’t be mundane.”
Mr. Sahay conceded.
Turning towards Mr. Nayak, Mr. Sahay
said, “Give me the latest on Mr. Reddy’s
position.”
“I had rang up Dr. Patel in the afternoon
and he said that Mr. Reddy is stable and
results of blood tests are awaited and
full recovery will take time.” Mr. Nayak
stated.
“Ok let’s have the day’s progress. We
will start with Mr. Das.” Mr. Sahay
steered the meeting.
The meeting continued for an hour and
then dispersed.
The next day
5.30 PM: Mr. Sahay’s room
“Good evening gentlemen, I hope you
had time to go through today’s meeting
agenda.” Mr. Sahay started the meeting.
“Yes Sir, besides the day’s review today
we discuss the recurrent problem of
gear box shaft shear in crane no.3 of
Cold Rolling Mill. In fact I have with
 A Book of Selected Cases
me the last three year history sheet. We
have noticed that there is a co-relation
between increased bearing temperature
and shaft shear. If we can reduce the
bearing temperature, I am sure shaft
failure rates will come down.” Mr. Das
was excited.
“That’s it Mr. Das, your engagement
with the job today is a source of
excitement rather than boredom. The
more you engage the more satisfied you
are, because work forms a major part of
our life.”
“Learning best occurs when people engage
in activities that are at the peak of their
abilities, when they have to work to their full
potential to accomplish a task.”
-Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist
(1896–1934), and Jean Piaget, a Swiss
psychologist (1896–1980)
Mr. Das quickly added, “Thanks to
a fixed and meaningful agenda, my
whole team was engaged and a number
of suggestions have come in.”
Mr. Nayak joined the conversation, “I
came across a book on mindfulness, wife
had got it from her friend and I found
it quite interesting, I think mindfulness
is the key to job engagement and
satisfaction.”
“Mr. Nayak is a lucky man, to have such
a supportive wife. The role of one’s
family cannot be over stated.” Mr. Singh
joined.
“Ya, you are right, I am indeed lucky.
Behind every successful man there is a
66
woman. She is an excellent home maker
and mother. There is no role conflict
between us.” Mr. Nayak replied.
“Avoiding role conflict is important, both
at home and work. I also feel that we
have been conditioned to have a dislike
for work. Work itself provides meaning
to our life. So make work interesting to
make your life interesting.” Mr. Sahay
said.
And the meeting continued…
After a month
5.00 PM: Mr. Sahay’s room
“Good evening, today I have a
surprize.”Mr. Sahay was in a playful
mood.
The door opened and smiling Mr.
Reddy stepped in.
“Hey, you said it will take another week
to join.” Mr Das couldn’t suppress his
excitement.
“Your best wishes and love pulled me
through and Dr. Patel gave me fitness a
week ahead.”
“You have certainly made a remarkable
recovery, you look far better than I last
saw you.” Mr. Singh said with a smile.
“I too have noticed remarkable change
in our section. People seem to be more
vibrant and energetic. What’s the
secret?” Mr. Reddy asked eagerly.
“The secret is Intense hours instead of
prolonged hours.” Mr. Das looking up
at the clock, said.
Teaching Notes
Case Study Synopsis
The situation:
The peace and tranquillity of a particular
section of a central maintenance group
of the Giant Steel Making Company
DSIL is disturbed by the arrival of a new
General Manager. The characters in the
case study suddenly find themselves
out of their comfort zones. The new
General Manager is not only a human
dynamo but is bent upon teaching his
team the joys of working. He often says
that you are most likely to experience
“flow” on the job than in free time. In his
view work is very much a game which
well played has many rewards besides
it tends to encourage concentration
and prevent nagging distractions of
free time. He firmly believes that dislike
for work is a mental block created by
the historical disrepute of work, which
each of us learn as we grow up. Pay
attention to your job and the job will
pay attention to you is his mantra. Just
change the angle and ask yourself how
the job can be done faster, better and
more efficiently. Feel the unmatched
novelty of your mundane job and enjoy
the joy that it gives.
But all of these make little sense to the
other members of the team as they
find their working hours expand much
beyond anything that they have ever
experienced. One member of the team
is being treated for ulcer of the stomach
and often hears about the connection
of such disorders with stress from
his doctor turned friend. While one
member of the team, is eagerly waiting
for an opportunity to enlighten the
seniors about the concept of work life
balance. For him work fast and party
hard is the path to bliss.
An exigency in the plant forces the team
headed by the General Manager to
revisit their view points. In the process
few long held views are broken and
some important questions are raised.

Case Discussion Questions

1. Do you think that work life balance is a valid concept? Give reasons.
2. Keeping work and family separate, makes it easier to manage work? Discuss.
3. Many organizations implement family friendly policies such as flextime. Do you think it
can improve productivity and job satisfaction?
4. Technology has made the boundaries of work and family permeable. Discuss implications.
5. The business environment has become more complex and uncertain. Information flow too
has multiplied. Mindfulness is required to navigate the commotion. The commotion itself
makes mindfulness more challenging. Discuss the paradox.
6. Discuss the characteristics of jobs which can be cultured and accentuated in order to help
employees experience flow on the job.

67
 A Book of Selected Cases

Learning Points
1. Life and work to be viewed as an integrated whole.
2. Technology has made the boundaries blurred between work and family.
3. Personal success is deeply related to achievements in the organization.
4. Emotional and practical support of spouse is essential for work and family
integration.
5. The onus of making the job engaging primarily lies with the individual.
6. Overstay is not necessarily harmful. The important point is work should be
stimulating.
7. Face time culture is harmful for the organization as well as individual.

Relevant Theories
1. Work life balance
2. Work life integration
3. Flow theory
4. Work-family border theory
5. Work-family boundary theory
6. Concept of mindfulness

68
 Performance Appraisal System –
A Cultural Shift..?
A s the first showers of monsoon
brought in cool breeze, Dr.
Ramachandran looked up from his
desk and Turned towards the window
to savor the mellow smell of the freshly
rain soaked earth “Its time I took a small
break”, he said thinking of applying
for a leave. Apart from a scheduled
meeting with all department heads in
the evening, Dr. Ramachandran did not
have much to worry that day, but for a
new appraisal system based on the bell
curve which he was going to address
in the HOD meeting today, which had
to be implemented by 30th May 2014
i.e. within 2 months of receiving the
Circular from Sky Hospital Head Office.
Dr. Ramchandran a resident of Indore,
MP, was a MBBS a MBBS & MD
(medicine) and had done his Masters in
Hospital Admininstration (MHA) from
IMS, Indore. Dr. Ramchandran started
his career as a Resident doctor at a
reputed hospital in Bangalore and later
on decided to get into Administration.
After completing his MHA he joined
Vision Hospital, Bangalore as a Trainee
in operations and in consecutive
years from an executive to being a
General Manager Operations and
Administrations at Vision Hospital.
Within a span of 16 Years. Vision
This case is written by Angeet S Nair, NMDC
69
hospital was a well established hospital
chain which had various hospitals
across Southern India. Vision Hospitals
approach was as per the current industry
standards in the hospital sector. They
had clear cut protocols and set structures
and a lot of emphasis was given to
strictly adhering to these protocols
and it was made possible through role
clarity and unity of command across
the hospital and judiciously practiced
both intra- and inter departmental level.
Dr. Ramachandran was very much
influenced by the policies and working
culture at Vision hospital and was a
strong believer that these practices are
the need for the future and he strongly
advocated that this is very necessary for
sustaining in the current competitive
environment and was confident that he
would be able to practice the same in
VSH also.
The Background: Vidya Hospital, Indore
Headed by Dr. Vishnu Das, Laproscopic
surgeon, started the hospital at his
residence as 30 bedded Nursing Home
in 1994. He started the Nursing home
with few colleagues who studied with
him and 10 employees. Dr. Vishnu was
a pioneer in the field of Laproscopic
surgery as he was the first to introduce
laser surgery method which not only
 A Book of Selected Cases
reduced the stay of the patient but the
recovery was also faster than the old
surgical procedure. Soon the fame of Dr.
Vishnu Das, had reached new heights
in and around Indore. Within a decade
of starting the Vidya Nursing Home, Dr.
Das and his team who were with him
since inception, with their hardwork
and skills, set up a 150 bedded hospital
in 2004 at a new location in Indore,
with specialties like Laproscopic
surgery, Orthopedics and General
Medicine. With the core of the Vidya
hospital remaining the same including
the management, the staffs that were
with Vidya Hospital since inception
(excluding those new staffs recruited to
cater to the increased bed strength), the
systems and protocols that were being
followed as a 30 bedded Nursing Home
continued in the new set up.
The day to day operations from the
inception was handled by Mrs. Vidya
Das, wife of Dr. Das. While the clinical
administration was looked after by Dr.
Das, Mrs. Das looked after the non –
Clinical administration. Mrs. Das was a
Railway employee in finance department,
who took voluntary retirement to look
after the hospital operations after the
expansion in 2004. She served Railways
for a period of 25 Years.
Sky Hospitals:
Started as Single Specialty Cardiac
Centre in 1998 in Delhi, The Sky Group
of hospitals has grown leaps and bounds
in terms of setting new standards health
care and a model organization in terms
70
of the way medicine was practiced i.e.
through Team spirit, Support and most
important of all Transparency. Sky
hospitals grew from a single specialty
group to a 10 hospitals chain across
India, before the tie up with Vidya
Hospital in 2007. Their core strength was
the patient focus and their strong value
system which was build around good
Medical professionals, transparency
and their humane approach towards
patient care. By 2013 it had 15 hospitals
across India. Sky hospitals had its vision
very clear of reaching out to people
regardless of their class and location
and this was ensured by means Sky
foundation a non- profit entity, which
worked in rural areas and for needy
people who could not afford quality
healthcare facilities. Sky Hospitals thus
had very clear Vision and its core focus
on Quality Patient Care.
The Vidya Sky Hospital Story:
Hierarchy of VSH
Vidya Sky Hospital (VSH), Indore a
multi specialty hospital with a bed
capacity of 250. a joint venture between
Vidya Hospital Indore, and Sky Hospital
in Delhi. The MOU was signed in 2007
April. The management of the hospital
was primarily handled and controlled
by Dr. Das and Mrs. Das as shown in
the hierarchy (1.1). The patient flow was
stable over the years since its inception.
One of the major strengths of VSH was
its old patients, who were their most
valued base as they had strong belief
in Dr. Das. VSH after its tie up with
Sky hospital Delhi was much focused
and always wanted to give more for
its patients and did so by adding new
specialties every year.
MD
Mrs. Das CHA
Non-Clinical Clinical
Department Department
2008 - Neurology, Neurosurgery,
Cardiac Surgery
2009 - Gastroenterology
2010 - Oncology, Onchosurgery
2011 - Pediatric Cardiology &
Pediatric Cardiac Surgery
2012 - Pulmonology
2013 - Hematology, Neuro
Interventional Radiology
All these specialties, was boosting the
reputation and patient numbers of
VSH hospital. The journey for VSH was
more or less stable till 2011 where the
average occupancy was between 95%
to 98% per month, but soon the other
big hospital chains like NH, Apollo
and Fortis who were established a few
years back started to some extent affect
the business of VSH. Although the
occupancy was still close to 90% but the
rising fixed cost was impacting the VSH
business performance as it was growing
71
at a rate which was higher than the
business growth.
“My strength is my team of Medical
Professionals and my Intensive Care
Unit and its team”, Dr. Das quoted these
words addressing a HOD meeting.
The USP of VSH which gave it an edge
was always its medical professionals as
patients from across the state came to
VSH for this reason.
VSH was the first hospital in Central
India to have NABH Accreditation
and the leading hospital in Indore and
promised to deliver quality patient
care. Dr. Vishnu had always advised his
team to have a good working culture
in the hospital so that the associates
feel ownership of their work and have
belongingness to the hospital and thus
staffs approached Dr. Vishnu directly for
all routine issues. Dr. Vishnu was very
liberal to his clinical staffs especially
Consultants, Residents and Nurses as
he felt that they are the backbone of
the hospital and giving them a good
environment to work would ensure
better service delivery and thereby
improving quality. Hence he catered
to all their demands and the associates
started surpassing their department
heads to go to Dr. Das and get their work
done. This was not very well accepted
by the department heads as they felt
that this was disrupting the harmony of
the organization. Many times when the
department head and administration
did not sanction either their leaves or
an out of period increment demand
 A Book of Selected Cases
overtime or allowance Dr. Das would
intervene and sanction the same Hence
this had become a regular practice.
The clinical and non clinical staffs who
were under consultants would enjoy
special privilege as Dr. Das was directly
approached by the consultants Dr. Das
would approve these demands.
VSH in December 2013 roped in Dr.
Ramachandran because of his vast
experience in Administration and
operations. Dr. Ramchandran was
appointed at Sky hospitals head
quarters and was instructed to primarily
focus on the operational issues and
set the systems in place. Dr. Das and
Mrs.Das were strongly against this as
they did not want to let go of their old
practices. Hence a situation of Chaos
and haphazard management was very
much in the climate of VSH Hospital.
Mrs. Das had major role in decision
making in almost all operational matters
of the hospital i.e. Finance supply chain
Purchase, Billing Human resources and
also to a large extent indirectly on day
to day administrative functioning.
Dr. Das and Mrs. Das where strong
believers in their old management style
as it was the base because of which
they grew from a 30 bedded nursing
home to a 250 bedded hospital. The
10 % out of the 800 employees, who
were associated with the hospital since
its inception, strongly believed in Dr.
Das and his administrative style and
did not welcome Dr. Ramchandran’s
way of working. The patients were
72
regularly complaining about the non
availability of doctors in the hospital
for seeing the patients and complained
about the long waiting hours to consult
a doctor. Despite several efforts by Dr.
Das to address this issue to the medical
professionals, the problem was still
persistent. This period also saw the roll
on turnover rise detailed as under:
2009 : 28.2 %
2010: 27.2 %
2011: 33.3%
2012: 34.3%
2013: 35.3 %
The associates were not happy as there
was adhoc recruitment various posts
at higher salaries not considering the
existing staffs. The issue was raised
by the HR Head in many meeting
to the local management about the
dissatisfaction caused due this and
the impact that it having on staff
satisfaction. The performance appraisal
was also not able to address this issue as
Mrs.Das felt that it does not require any
systematic discussion with the associates
and feedback for staff performance
would rather create disharmony in the
department and hence the appraisal
should be a confidential process and
hence it was done by Mrs. Das and
Dr. Das at their discretion with some
discussion with department head.
Dr. Ramachandran and HR head were
aware of this lapse in protocols and the
adhoc decisions in terms of increments,
Recruitments allowances etc. was
hurting the HR cost which was on
the rise and compared to the business
growth the HR cost was growing at
a faster pace. Dr. Ramachandran in
his evening meeting introduced this
concept of Bell Curve PMS system
where he told the department heads
that 10 % of staff should only fall in the
outstanding category, 80% should be
Good or Average, performers and 10%
should be poor, on whom the decision
should be taken that they should leave
the organization or trained to upgrade
the skills.
All the department heads immediately
opposed the system and said that
their departmental performance and
employees morale who fall in the 10 %
poor category Dr. Ramachandran now
had an uphill task on his hands because
he knew that all the department are
not meeting the business expectations
as was very clearly reflected from
the business performance and on the
other hand the department heads feel
that in every department this cannot
73
be followed and even the poorest
performers contribute a little Hence
Dr. Ramchandran and HR head started
thinking about the approach of going
about to implement this PMS system.
Points to Ponder:
1) Strategies that Dr. Ramchandran
can implement to face these
challenges to overcome and
implement this new Performance
appraisal System?
2) What according to you are the
pre-requisites before applying an
appraisal system based on the case
study?
3) How will Dr. Ramachandran and
his team make the management at
VSH Hospital to understand the
importance of the implementation
of this Performance Appraisal
System and have the buy in of all
the staff for the new Performance
Appraisal System?
4) Can a PMS system related to
business performance. Site points
related to the case study.
 A Book of Selected Cases

Rolling Mills Division, Brandsteel

As new head of Rolling Mills division, Ravish faced a daunting task. The production of rolling
mills division was on the decline and the Board had been adamant on meeting production targets
by all means. However there was increasing consternation among the team and employees on cer-
tain policies and target priorities. Can the new head of rolling mills, strike a balance and salvage
the production downtrend while addressing employee concerns without it getting backfired…

R avish took off his glasses, and

rubbed his eyes in exhaustion. The
clock in his study read 7.30 p.m. Over
the past few hours, Ravish had been
pouring over the monthly reports
making notes in his diary.
The picture was anything but
encouraging for the new head of rolling
mills department. Over the past 16
months, there had been a steady decline
in the sales of CR coils of rolling mills
division. Even though there had been
an overall decline in the market share
of all of brandsteel’s products, its rolling
mills felt the pinch more acute. Being a
premium product, high accumulation
of unsold coils and rejections had
the top management concerned. To
raise production, management had
tried to push production at the cost of
maintenance cut backs and introduced
a new manpower policy for increasing
labour productivity. Despite such efforts
by rolling mills, production levels kept
falling down and new issues such as
safety bypasses, breakdowns, concern
among section of employees and
mistrust etc., to name a few, cropped up
that threatened to be counter roductive
in the long run. In his first meeting
with the Director (O) & Director (T) as
new GM, Ravish had felt the heat in
the boardroom. They had collectively
stamped their feet that production
targets must be met at all costs. His
predecessor Manoj Kumar had tried
his best to push production levels and
Ravish knew that his selection at this
juncture implied that his actions will be
monitored closely.
Looking back
Things weren’t testy for rolling mills
department in the past. Rolling mills
division was instituted in Brandsteel
in the early 90s to produce premium
grade CR coils. At that time, Brandsteel
boasted as the lead supplier of CR coils
in the market. Its CR coils had a huge
demand and market value. It was a
golden era for rolling mills.
Ravish was surprised at the sharp
contrast the present position of rolling
mills depicted. The success of the

This case is written by CRK Sudhanshu, Manager (Pers-Rectt.), Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro, Shipra N Hemrom,
Jr. Manager (Pers-W/HSM), Bokaro Steel Plant & Rajakirubhakar B, MTA (Pers-W/CRM), Bokaro Steel Plant, Bokaro

74
department. had been a steady one,
but with the passage of time the Rolling
mills market share had dipped and
other firms were beginning to pick off
from Brandsteel’s revenues. The over
concern for production and overlooking
all other issues had backfired. Ravish
reflected his meeting with the marketing
group the other day. The marketing
head, Rajkiru had shared his concern
over the recent dip in market position of
rolling mills. “We had lost out to Terata
over the last three quarters. If we didn’t
act in time, our losses would spread
further”. He had bemused in despair,
“How can we retain our brand position
with all these rejects?”. Terata was the
only rival competitor to Brandsteel in
the premium segment. It had squeezed
down Brandsteel’s market share due to
better quality product output and short
cycle time to market. To make matters
worse, other players’ were adopting a
price cut strategy and pulling down the
profit margin. The market had turned
competitive. Clearly, rolling mills dept.’s
performance needed a boost.
Meeting with the team
The next day, as Ravish walked to the
conference room, he had a feeling
that the day was going to be a stretch.
His predecessor Manoj Kumar had
weighed upon him all the details. He
however had cautioned Ravish, “See... I
can give you a general picture, but you
may like to measure the facts on your
own about rolling mills – its problems,
people and ops. You would soon figure
out what will work for rolling mills
and what won’t.” Ravish’s thoughts
75
got distracted as he plunged into the
conference room.
All the senior members of the
department were eagerly waiting
for the new GM. Ravish greeted the
group and settled in his chair, rubbing
his chin. Pulling out his conference
folder, Ravish’s gaze alternated with
the meeting group and his notes. Soon,
Ravish noticed some anxiety in K Surya,
DGM (O)’s face. Surya seemed wanting
to break in.
“Go ahead.” Ravish nodded.
“Its about our week’s production report.
To meet our targets.., I think we should
postpone our scheduled maintenance
plan by two days”. Ratan, DGM
(Maintenance) raised his eyebrows
annoyingly. Before he could interrupt,
Ravish interjected, “Well, why couldn’t
we meet the targets.” Pausing a moment,
Surya opened up, “Ravish, due to some
breakdown in unit one, we couldn’t run
the scheduled load and had to go slow
on our schedule. However, we used the
existing inventory to keep the other
units running. ”
“UmHmm., Ravish nodded and
turning towards Ratan Ravish asked,
“Ratan, Surya wants to go ahead with
production plans What are you going
to do about it?”. “Are you asking me or
telling me?”, Ratan reverted sharply.
“No. I am not telling you anything,
but I expect you to sort out things with
Surya..”, Ravish smiled back.
Ratan took a breath and explained, “The
fact is that our section has a very tight
schedule to keep and we have already
 A Book of Selected Cases
planned for overtime. So I am afraid,
we can’t postpone our schedule. ”Ratan
was typical of the line managers. His
knowledge of services and maintenance
commanded respect and he felt
intimidated by Surya’s proposal for
pushing production without discussing
prior. Sensing the disagreement, Ravish
started, “Well... there’s no question
that we must work for meeting our
production targets. At the same time,
we have to meet all mandatory aspects.
Please measure your work - I mean..
everything. Once you do that, you can
figure out how to streamline between
competing operations”. The meeting
ended with the group tentatively
agreeing for carrying out the production
activities for the week. Before leaving,
Ravish swiveled back, “Tell you what...”,
he said, “I would like you all to meet
individually with me and Surya for the
production review in my office.”
Policy frictions
As he left the conference hall, Ravish
wanted to stretch his legs and started
towards the shop floor. As he moved
along he saw the unkempt shop floor
and which bypassed many safety
measures.“The JUGADH culture was
very well practiced in his department”,
he thought. As he was striding forward
towards the shop area, his thoughts
were interrupted, “Can I speak to you
for a moment?”. It was Pallav, his HR
Manager, a young and dynamic MBA
grad. who had completed 3 years in
the company. Ravish asked, “What’s
the matter, Pallav? You look troubled”.
“Sir, I wanted to discuss the manpower
76
issues with all sectional heads, but no
one seems concerned about it.” Ravish
was taken aback with such blunt remark
but he calmly listened. Pallav showed
a note and continued “ Sir, we do not
have enough people to man in the
critical positions , 50% of skilled people
will retire in the next 2-4 years and our
replacements would be at entry level and
will take atleast 2-3 years to pick up the
trade. It seemed that Pallav desperately
wanted to make a point. Ravish listened
with attention. Pallav continued that
even though there were vacancies in
rolling mills- middle cadre, he could not
get candidates from the feeder cadre as
they lacked the trade skills and were not
eligible for promotions. A handful of
skilled people were managing the entire
Rolling Mill, which further added to
the problems that the department was
facing. Ravish thoughtfully enquired,
“what have we done to solve this
problem”. Pallav jumped back, “We did,
Sir. It’s the new rotational policy that
our department had introduced. But it’s
causing some tension now”.
Ravish was aware that the new
rotational policy was introduced by
Manoj as the average age of Brandsteel’s
rolling mills division was steadily rising.
And it posed serious implications for the
company. Manoj had the brilliant idea
to initiate a rotation policy. He justified
the policy stating, “What happens,
when our employees start retiring in
droves?” and “How we can fill the ranks
with skilled people? “It was the long
term view.” Manoj had explained, as he
circulated an order to rotate all ranks of
rolling mills division.
Rehashing the history, Pallav said,
“Before the policy was introduced, there
had been a lot of grapevine among the
old timers on incentive cuts...”. Trouble
started with introduction of rotation
policy and there was resentment among
the older ranks, while the younger
generation welcomed it enthusiastically.
“It’s Sitaram now, and I sense that there
may be more such refusals if we don’t
act fast. Can you have a word with him?”
Sitaram had been in the company for 38
years. He had joined as a Khalasi and
has worked his way up through the
ranks to join as Supervisor in-charge.
Ravish asked Pallav to meet him along-
with Sitaram by lunch time.
Stirring the nest
At lunch time, Ravish received Pallav and
Sitaram in his office. When Ravish spoke
with Sitaram, he was convinced about the
shaky ground of the new rotation policy.
Sitaram sounded belligerent, “I have
been here a long time, Sahib. I know my
work inside out and there is no problem
in the department. Why should I change
to a new section. Management is doing
this, just to weaken our union. This
rotation policy is not beneficial either to
me or to the department. Moreover, no.
of workers are coming down, so we get
more workload but our Incentives are
going down.” “What have you planned
for this?”
Sitaram changed his tone, “With all
due respect Sahib, before we talk about
production improvement and rotation,
you ought also to think about us.”
Ravish though intimidated displayed
77
a sense of emotional intelligence. He
assured back, “I will review the policy
immediately.” As Ravish bade well a
relieved Sitaram, he suspected that this
unpleasant interaction was just the tip
of iceberg. Reading his mind, Pallav
pointed “Sir, unless we resolve this
issue amicably, others too like Sitaram
shall start their self-declared strike.”
Ravish responded with purpose,
“Look, I want you to devise a plan for
smooth implementation. I want you
to rework on the policy using 10 year
forecasts. Can you do that?”,Ravish
added in a challenging tone. “Sure,
will work on it. We have also tried to
address their issues by organising an
interaction with them but none of the
seniors from the department could find
the time to attend it. So their queries
remained unaddressed”. Pallav had
credibility as an efficient HR manager.
But he had never designed such policy
independently. “Can he work this out”,
doubted Ravish. Yet he said, “Good. Go
ahead!”, trying to be constructive.
The power struggle
After lunch, Pallavmet Ravish to give
a detailed explanation of the policy.
Around 4.30 p.m. as he got up to leave,
there was a knock in the door. The
secretary ushered in Surya and Ratan for
the production review. Ravish motioned
Ratan and Surya to the chairs in his
office. As Pallav left he overheard Surya
remarking, “too young to understand
the complexities of operation”. “What
can HR do anyways?”, Ratan shot back.
As they took their seats, Ratan
explained to Ravish about his detailed
 A Book of Selected Cases

maintenance schedule. As he began only one week capital repair schedule

to walk through capital repair plans,
Surya interrupted him, “Why on earth
would it take 20 days for Capital repair,
and you already have a large team with
you?”. Ratan replied tersely, “Because
the technology is deep and complex,
and maintenance had been bypassed in
the past on many occasions”.
When Surya insisted on reviewing his
higher service time, Ratan shot back,
“Excuse me, Surya. I have about 20
year experience and this is my area of
expertise. These schedules may be a
little off, but they are the best that can
be done”. He angrily defended, “Have
I ever questioned you on how you run
operations, Why are we wasting time
here? “Sorry Ratan. I was just trying
to help”, Surya defended awkwardly.
“No. you are not.” Ratan retorted.
Surya wanted to enquire about a report
on capital repair prepared by three
managers of Mech. & electrical section
who had visited a nearby new plant
early this year, but decided to keep
quiet. He was told that they having
for every year.
The situation was tense. To cool down
things, Ravish broke in. “Ok”, he said
soothingly, “We have spent enough time
on this today. Ratan has made his point,
Lets continue this some other time”.
As Ratan left, Surya said appallingly,
“They are all crazy”.He continued, “The
way they run the division, doesn’t add
up to the whole. They are putting the
company’s future at risk. This is setting
us back on targets”.
After briefing Ravish on pending issues
in operations, Surya left the room.
Ravish was left thinking on how to
salvage the production targets while
resolving the people’s issues that have
come up. Ravish knew that the board
was clearly growing impatient. While
leaving for home, Ravish was provoked
with the problem of shoring up
declining production with work culture
change now. His glance glazed past the
placard placed near the aisle “Perform
or Perish”, as he walked to his car park.

Questions
1. As the HOD of Rolling Mill Department what course of action would you take to make things work?
2. Was Surya’s emphasis on increasing production above rest of the issues justified?
3. Design a program / exercise to engage both age extremes of the workforce across the ranks and make
them accept the rotation policy.
4. What would have been your priority “long term and short term” in the current situation? Justify
your statements.
5. What would have been the saving grace in this situation (Give reason for the choices)
a. Changing business process to customer needs
b. Technology transformation
c. Restructuring jobs
d. Redeployment of manpower
e. Flexible line of Promotion

78
 Exhibits
1 : Production Status
Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
APP target (Tonnes) 320000 335600 321200 334000 325000
Coils production (Tonnes) 299000 314000 275000 273000 257500
% Fulfilment 93.4 93.6 85.6 81.7 79.2
Sales in Tonnes 265900 276000 226100 216200 206300
Unsold in Tonnes 33100 38000 48900 56800 51200
Rejects 13500 16890 20280 23670 27060

2 : Man in Position
1-1-2014
Dep_name Exe Nexe Total
Rolling Mill 144 420 564

3 : Grade-Wise Manpower
Executives
MTT REG
Dep_Name E1 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8

Rolling Mill 25 24 18 2 3 11 14 16 1

Non-Exe
Regular
Dep_Name S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 S11

Rolling Mill 31 28 30 52 15 31 33 49 20 70 61

4 : Separation Status
Exe Nexe
13-14 14-15 15-16 TOT 13-14 14-15 15-16 TOT Total

Rolling Mill 3 8 5 16 8 36 42 86 102

79
 A Book of Selected Cases

5 : Age Mix of Rolling Mills

Rolling Mill <25 25-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-58 >58 TOT
Executive 16 26 16 11 17 25 12 13 8 144
Non-Executive 30 32 27 24 71 58 61 40 77 420

6: Breakdown Schedule
Breakdowns 5 4 6 8 11
Loss of Manhours 3356 5724 8092 10490 12830
Damaged coils % 11.07% 12.10% 17.78% 20.81% 19.88%

7: Brigade setup (Dept. Shift hierarchy)

Rajkiru Reddy AGM

(DGM- Marketing)
Sr. Manager
Pallav Singh K Surya
(Jr.Mgr- Personnel) (DGM- Operations)
Manager
Ravish Kumar
(GM)
Ratan Bose Jr. Manager
(DGM- Maint.)

Shift I/c
Sumeet Shukla
(DGM- Elect/Mech.)
Non-Exe

80
 Case Study on Stakeholder Engagement
Sonapalli: Mine or Minefield?

Heavy Infratech Ltd., a company with a strong presence in the infrastructure sector, had been
awarded its first-ever mining project at Sonapalli, a coal block in Jharkhand, about 90 km.
from Hazaribagh. The top management of the company was very keen to get into the mining
business, as they sensed a huge business opportunity in the sector. Moreover, HIL was known
for its sound project management and efficiency of operations, and had a reputation of delivering
on schedule.
However, Sonapalli was dogged by problems right from Day One. The initial land acquisition
for the project itself hit a roadblock as the local landowners refused to part with their land.
Efforts of the projectmanagement were of no avail as the villagers regarded them with suspicion
and mistrust. The local MLA and an influential NGO working in the area were also against
them.The Head of Project who had let matters slide to this extent had been transferred out,
and his replacement could not communicate effectively with the external community as he
was unfamiliar with the local dialect. Further, the area earmarked for the mine fell in the Red
Corridor of Maoist activity, due to which employees hesitated to go to site and preferred to
work from Hazaribagh or District Headquarters, thus deepening the sense of alienation of the
villagers. Although the project was spending a lot of money on community development in the
area, these efforts failed to generate any goodwill among the locals.
Since Sonapalli was not making any headway but manpower was required at site, the Corporate
Management started posting people there who were not wanted at other units of HIL. In this
way, the project became a dumping ground for non-performers. In the meantime, Corporate HR
came out with a policy to give additional benefits to staff posted at coal mines, with the logic that
this would motivate them to work with greater commitment. Of course it did not, and Sonapalli
people were quite happy to receive additional benefits without doing any substantial work.
The CEO of HIL knew that it was only a matter of time before his Company earned a bad name
in the market on account of Sonapalli. This could lead to loss of investor confidence and possibly
a drop in the share price of HIL. He sent Mr. Gopal, GM(Land Acquisition) to Sonapalli with
specific instructions to get the land acquisition work started, along with Mr. Kanwar, GM
(Mining), who was going as a replacement for the present Project Head. They had carte blanche
as to expenditure; at all costs, the project had to be brought back on the rails. But how?

This case is written by Indranil Mitra, AGM (HR), NTPC Ltd.

81
 A Book of Selected Cases
Case Narrative
M r. Anand, the CEO of Heavy
Infra Ltd., was a worried man.
He had just unfurled the National Flag
on the occasion of Independence Day,
and made the obligatory speech to the
employees at HIL Corporate Office.
He had talked smoothly about the
reputation of the Company for timely
delivery of projects and the promising
growth ahead which would also imply
career growth of employees. Now,
however, at the informal gathering of
senior executives after the function, he
let his uneasiness show:
“What is the latest on Sonapalli? Why
don’t they get cracking over there?”
he asked Mr. Swamy, his Director
(Projects).
“No progress at all, I’m afraid. With land
acquisition stalled, there’s no way we
can move forward”replied Mr. Swamy,
grimly.
Sonapalli was the first mining project
of HIL, which the Company had
successfully bid for over two years ago.
Located in Jharkhand , it had enormous
estimated reserves of coal that would
not only be sufficient to meet the
needs of HIL plants, but could be sold
to other users as well. The Board of
HIL had been very keen to enter the
mining business, and had in fact drawn
up plans for getting more coal blocks
which could be mined. However, even
after two years, land for the project was
yet to be acquired by the Company.
82
“Come to my office and let’s discuss it,”
said Mr. Anand. He smiled and nodded
politely at the other senior executives,
took his leave and went with Mr. Swamy
to the lift lobby to take the elevator up
to his office on the sixth floor.
“Good morning, sir” said someone. He
turned around to see the smiling face of
Mr. Gopal, GM (Land Acquisition), who
had recently been transferred to HIL
HQ from another project on promotion.
“Good morning! You’re just the person
I wanted to see. I would like to discuss
something with Director (Projects) and
you in my office. Could you round up
Mr. Kanwar, GM(Mining) and bring
him along? Swamy sahib and I will be
waiting for you upstairs.”
“Right away, sir” replied Gopal, and left
in search of Kanwar.
Anand and Swamy went up to the
CEO Office, and made themselves
comfortable.
“Sooner or later, the Company’s image
is going to take a beating because of
Sonapalli,” began Anand without
preamble, “Ever since we went public
five years back, all our actions are under
a lens. This could lead to loss of investor
confidence in HIL, which would in turn
have an effect on the share price. I can’t
let that happen.”
Swamy nodded in agreement, and just
then Gopal and Kanwar knocked and
entered. Anand smiled at them, and
said:
“Please join us here on the sofa,
gentlemen. I was just sharing my
concern about Sonapalli with Mr.
Swamy. It’s turning out to be a black
spot on the reputation of HIL.”
“Indeed it is,sir. Two years and even
the land for the project has not been
acquired; it’s a shame,” replied Kanwar.
“That is why we have to do something
about it right away. Now, Gopal, I
remember you talking to me about
Sonapalli a few days ago. Could you
spell out the problem there, for the
benefit of Director (Projects) and Mr.
Kanwar also?”
Gopal took a deep breath, and said:
“The crux of the problem is stakeholder
engagement, sir. It’s simply not
happening, and without that we cannot
get a notification under Section 7 of the
Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition) Act for
acquiring the project land. Initially, the
earlier project head had managed to
locate a few landowners in the project
area who were willing to part with their
land, and these were paraded before
the District authorities as an example.
But the majority of the landowners
remained unconvinced. “
“Matters became worse when the NGO
ARA- Action for Rural Aid- came to
the area shortly after Sonapalli was
announced. They actively brainwashed
the villagers that HIL would hoodwink
them with a paltry amount of
compensation, and that their land
would prove to be of inestimable value
83
to them later, if they held on to it. Even
the local MLA became hostile to HIL
when site did not award contracts as per
his choice to his favourites, and actively
canvassed among the villagers against
HIL. Neither was there any effort by
the project management to counter this
propaganda.”
“I know” said Swamy, “The project
head let matters slide to such an
extent that we had to transfer him and
bring in Satish, who is a seasoned and
experienced hand.”
“Yes, sir, but he is not familiar with the
local dialect spoken over there, and is
thus unable to communicate effectively
with the villagers or with the District
administration. Another problem is
that the project area is within the Red
Corridor of Maoist activity, and so the
project people hesitate to go there,
preferring to work from Hazaribagh.
Therefore, on the ground, there is little
contact or communication with the
villagers from whom the Company
needs land.”
“But I thought we were funding a lot
of community development work in
that area,” said the CEO, “As I recall,
Sonapalli had the highest CSR outlay
among all HIL projects.”
“Yes sir, but the projects which have
been funded have been identified as per
the assessment of the site management,”
Gopal replied, “All of them fall outside
the Red Corridor and hence will impact
our villagers only marginally.”
 A Book of Selected Cases
“And there’s another problem,” Swamy
interjected, “Our own employees over
there are a disgruntled lot. People were
not willing to go to Sonapalli, so we
started sending thosewho were not
wanted by other sites. Many of them
have low levels of motivation, and are
thus not unduly exerting themselves
for HIL.”
Anand sighed and said, “I know.
The Board was keen on getting into
coal mining in a big way, and made
us introduce a scheme for providing
additional benefits and facilities- mostly
in monetary terms- to employees
posted to the Company’s coal mines.
Their expectation was that it would act
as an incentive for them, and that their
productivity would improve as a result.
This scheme came a cropper in the very
first mining project- Sonapalli. The
people there are quite content to stay
put and receive extra benefits without
exerting themselves.”
“Sir, money and perks don’t create
motivation by themselves; they
only remove dissatisfiers. The
biggest motivator is the work itself,
as management theory, backed by
research, teaches us” said Gopal.
“That’s your HR background speaking”
quipped Anand. He knew that Gopal
was an HR professional, who had
servedwith distinction as Head of
HR at four HIL sites before his recent
elevation.
Gopal smiled in acknowledgement, and
continued, “So you see sir, the core issue
84
at the heart of Sonapalli is stakeholder
engagement. Even our internal
stakeholders- the site employees are not
truly engaged in the project.”
“But in their case, it is an internal matter
of the Company, and can be sorted out
by us even at a later date. The situation
is far more alarming when we consider
the external stakeholders; the local
community, the elected representatives,
the District Administration, the local
media. Unless we seriously engage
with them and get them on board for
the Sonapalli project, there’s no way
in which we can secure an agreement
on compensation and get a Section 7
notification out of the Government for
acquiring the land.”
“That is precisely why I have called all
of you here,” said the CEO, suddenly
serious again, “I intend to send you
and Mr. Kanwar to Sonapalli to get
the project back on track. You, Gopal,
will initiate the process for stakeholder
engagement and see it through to
its logical conclusion. You will use
whatever means you think necessary;
as far as money is concerned, there is a
limit to what we can offer for the land
rate; however, the total expenditure
envisaged can be discussed with
Director (Projects) and let me assure you
we would like to be very liberal in this
case. You, Kanwar, will replace Satish
as Head of Project, which will take care
of the language problem. You will also
assess the employees posted there in
terms of their ability and willingness to
deliver the goods and advise Corporate
management as to how many need
to be replaced, training required to
be given if any, etc. If you want to get
any particular people from other sites,
you can have them. After Gopal gets
us the land, I need your people to start
delivering on the project. Is it OK with
you, Mr. Swamy?’
“Yes, sir” replied the Director (Projects).
“Good! So, Gopal and Kanwar, you can
leave for Sonapalli tomorrow morning.
Keep either me or Director (Projects)
informed, and don’t hesitate to ask for
any resources you need. You are both
seasoned and mature campaigners who
have been handpicked by me to get
Sonapalli out of the woods; if anyone
can do it, the two of you can. Good
luck!”
“Oh, and one other thing; I don’t have
much time here. I’m dreading the day
when people start asking awkward
questions about Sonapalli. I need to see
some definite results in three months.”
----------------------------------------------------
Late at night the next day, Gopal and
Kanwar sat in the Guest House of
Sonapalli site office at Hazaribagh,
reflecting on the events of the day. They
had been to the District Headquarters
and met the District Magistrate Mr.
Choubey, who had bluntly informed
them that the projecthad no hope of
getting the required land as the present
project head was not interacting with
the locals at all and only barely with
him. They had visited the site office and
met Satish and the HIL team; barring
85
a few capable people, the employees
looked listless and lethargic. They had
gone to the ARA office, and it was
made clear to them that they were not
welcome there.
“Let us plan our strategy” said Kanwar
to Gopal, “What would you say are the
issues facing us?”
“Well, in order of priority:
Communication with the external
stakeholders, building our credibility
through focused community
development work, and making a good
offer for compensation. Finally, we have
to motivate our own team and instill a
sense of urgency in them.”
“We had discussed the compensation
with DM and he was of the opinion that
we should enhance the earlier offer,
and add annuity component to the
lump sum amount. Also, he said that he
could organize an open house meeting
with the land owners at the site under
police protection. Of course, we would
take care of the logistics,” Gopal said.
“Let us have a meeting with him
tomorrow and fix the date for the open
house within a week” said Kanwar,
“We can ask Corporate Centre for the
DVD on CSR work done by HIL, and
show it before the open house, so that
the villagers can see for themselves the
kind of development that takes place
near HIL projects.”
“Good idea!” Gopal said, “That will also
help negate the influence of the NGO.”
“The gram pradhans will also come
 A Book of Selected Cases
for the meeting,” he continued,
“We can ask them what community
development work needs to be done
in their villages, and take up CD work
as per their requirement. Further, DM
had mentioned that, in addition to
enhanced compensation and annuity,
we should announce some schemes
for improving the employability of the
locals. We can think of offering training
courses for electricians, carpenters,
mobile repairing, etc. For womenfolk,
we can organize sewing classes and
give them sewing machines at the end
of the course.”
“Excellent!” said Kanwar approvingly,
“ And the subcontractors and local
agencies can be impressed upon
to employ those who have passed
through our Skill Development Centre.
But what about the main thing; the
compensation?
Gopal replied, “We will propose a slightly
enhanced amount initially, taking the
DM into confidence. Seeing the response
of the locals, he will revise it upwards.
Then, as a gesture of goodwill, HIL
will announce the additional annuity
component as well as the opening of the
Skill Development Centre. If there are
any women landlosers, we will propose
to get their bank accounts opened and
pay the compensation in the form of
monthly income.”
----------------------------------------------------
The open house meeting was held at
the proposed site under heavy police
protection. HIL took care of all the
arrangements, cleaning up the area,
86
erecting a large tent, providing folding
chairs, tables, PA system, computer with
projector and screen for showing the
CSR DVD, refreshments, etc. Initially,
the villagers assembled at a distance
but refused to enter the tent; but when
the DVD was screened, curiosity got
the better of them, and they flocked
in. They seemed to be quite impressed
with what they saw, and whispered
excitedly amongst themselves.
The DM called the meeting to order and
introduced the HIL team. Mr. Gopal
took over and informed them about
the Sonapalli project, and the benefits
it would bring to them. He asked the
gram pradhans about their pressing
community development needs
and announced that they would be
fulfilled by HIL. A host of community
development programmes, each with
a definite time frame, were announced
on the spot.
When it was time to discuss the ticklish
issue of compensation, they adopted
the strategy discussed earlier. The
villagers were by now participating
wholeheartedly in the meeting, and many
of them raised their concerns, which
were all patiently and comprehensively
addressed. After 3 hours, when the final
compensation rates were announced by
the DM, the villagers looked happy and
responsive, though the younger ones
appeared despondent because they
did not get a guarantee of confirmed
employment with HIL. However, there
was no opposition to giving up land for
the project.
After they had dismantled everything
and were on the way back to
Hazaribagh, Mr. Kanwar fell asleep
in the hired jeep. He dreamed that he
could see the brand new infrastructure
of the Sonapalli mine.
Case Discussion Questions
1. Do you agree with Mr. Gopal’s analysis
of the issues coming in the way of
achieving stakeholder engagement at
Sonapalli? What could be other issues?
2. The state of affairs at Sonapalliwas due
to its being neglected by HIL Corporate
Management. Comment.
3. If you were Mr. Gopal, how would you
proceed further to win the confidence of
the external stakeholders:- the villagers,
the District authorities, the local media?
4. Suggest other ways in which Mr. Gopal
can neutralize the threat posed by ARA
and the local MLA.
5. Comment on the approach of
Sonapalli project for doing community
development work.
6. Sonapalli project has to submit an
application to the Central Govt. asking
it to issue a Preliminary Notification
under Section 7 of the Coal Bearing
Areas (Acquisition) Act declaring its
intention to acquire the required land for
the project. To do this it must convince
the villagers that it is offering them a
fair compensation and that it will offer
them alternatives for livelihood that will
improve upon their existing quality of
life. How should it do this?
87
7. If you were Mr. Kanwar, the GM at
Sonapalli, what would be your strategy
for getting the mine on stream?
Teaching Notes
Case Synopsis
The case relates to the first mining project
of HIL, a company with an established
presence in the infrastructure sector.
The project located in Jharkhand was
not able to get off the ground due to
resistance from the landowners who
were not ready to give up the required
land. The local MLA and an NGO
were also hostile to the company. The
project site Sonapalli lay in the middle
of Maoist territory, and because of
this the employees hesitated to go
there and worked from a camp office
at Hazaribagh. The Head of Project
was unfamiliar with the local dialect,
and thus was unable to communicate
effectively with either the villagers or
the District Administration. Over the
years people not wanted at other HIL
sites had been posted to Sonapalli,
with the result that the entire site team
lacked morale and motivation.
Even after a lapse of two years, the
Company was yet to acquire the land
needed for the mine. Concerned,
the CEO of HIL sent his GM(Land
Acquisition) and his GM(Mining) to
Sonapalli for acquiring the land and
getting the project started. With the
help of the District Administration,
they organised an open house meeting
with the villagers at the project site.
 A Book of Selected Cases
They announced a host of Community
Development programmes and skill
development programmes for the
benefit of the land losers. They gave
a patient hearing to the villagers and
addressed their individual concerns. For
compensation, they adopted a strategy
worked out earlier in consultation with
the DM, and were finally able to get the
assent of the villagers for acquiring the
land.
Learning Objectives
• Achieving external stakeholder
engagement
• Importance of focused
communication
• Building a winning team
• Dealing with negative perceptions
• Systems approach to tackling issues
Case Analysis
Who are the Stakeholders?
The basic issue has been correctly
identified as lack of stakeholder
engagement. Here, the biggest
stakeholder is the top management of
HIL, which is ultimately responsible
for the success or failure of the project.
From the project point of view, the
external stakeholders in this case are:
The villagers, the District authorities,
the local media, prominent members of
the local community such as the gram
pradhans, school principals, etc. The
MLA and the NGO are also stakeholders
who have become hostile to the
proposed mine. Internal stakeholders
88
are the HIL employees posted to site.
How to Engage them?
The first thing is to communicate
effectively with them using all means
of communication; oral, written,
multimedia, open house, etc.
• Showing DVD of Community
Development work in the vicinity
of HIL projects.
• Engage Sociologists who will go to
the villages for one to one interaction
with prominent persons/opinion
makers of the local community.
• Call a press conference of the
local media and highlight good
work done by HIL for the local
community and the benefits of
the proposed Sonapalli project for
bringing about socio-economic
development of the area.
• Establish a Public Information Centre
(PIC) at site with details of land
records, Community Development
and Skill Development Schemes,
for the benefit of the villagers. Set
up Village Development Advisory
Council (VDAC) chaired by DM,
with representatives of State Govt,
HIL, Gram Pradhans to advise
on Community Development
Schemes.
• Hold meetings periodically with
the Gram Pradhans to gauge their
concerns, and to get feedback on
implementation of CD schemes.
• Regular liaison with District
authorities.
• CEO of HIL could consider
addressing employees at Sonapalli
project site, followed by an open
house session.
• At Head of Project/Head of
Department level also, regular
meetings should be held with
employees. Additionally, they
should interact informally on social
occasions.
Establish credibility by delivering on
commitments, e.g.,
• Prompt disbursement of
compensation.
• Opening Bank accounts and
starting annuity schemes.
• Implementing CD schemes in a
time-bound manner.
• Special Incentive to employees for
meeting construction targets
What Can Top Management do?
• “Get the right people on the bus.” If
the project is so important to the top
management of HIL, they should
ensure that they have the right
people at site. The key positions
should be filled by experienced
people possessing the requisite
competencies.
• People with negative mindset
should be weeded out.
• Close monitoring of progress;
weekly at the level of
Director(Projects) and monthly at
the level of CEO.
• Assistance in dealing with issues
89
where Corporate HQ can help, e.g.,
taking up with Govt., etc.
Dealing With Negative Perceptions
• Communication with the villagers
is important to counter negative
perceptions spread by other interest
groups. Deployment of Sociologists
as suggested above, will help to
make a case for the bonafides of
HIL among the villagers.
• Transparency in dealing also inspires
confidence, e.g., establishment of
PIC.
• Participative approach through
VDAC.
• Focused Community Development
work and setting up Skill
Development Centre to train the
local youth, will also establish
credibility of HIL in the eyes of the
villagers.
• Efforts should be made to convince
the NGO that HIL is also working
for socio-economic development
of the region and for improving
the quality of life of the locals.
Meetings can be arranged between
the NGO and the new GM to iron
out differences in perception. If
HIL is able to enlist the services of
the NGO in doing its Community
Development work, it would be the
ideal win-win solution.
• Similarly, efforts should be made
to meet the local MLA and politely
explain the stand of HIL. However,
to counter the influence of the MLA,
 A Book of Selected Cases
it is more important to work at the
ground level among the villagers
and establish credibility of HIL in
their eyes.
Approach to Community Development
• It is best to adopt a systematic
approach. Start with a Need
Assessment Survey (NAS) conducted
by a reputed third party, to find
out what are the pressing needs of
the villagers. (Rope in the NGO for
doing this?) The survey should take
into account the views of the Gram
Pradhans and other prominent locals.
• Based on the results of the NAS,
take up specific projects in the
Project Affected Villages in
critical areas (For example, NTPC
focuses on Health, Education and
Infrastructure).
• After the projects are completed,
get a Social Impact Evaluation
(SIE) study done, again through a
reputed third party, to assess the
impact. Based on the findings and
a fresh NAS, further Community
Development work can be
undertaken.
Alternatives to Livelihood
• HIL should set up the Skill
Development Centre, as committed,
for training the local youth for self-
employment/employment through
petty contractors. Trades that
can be thought of are Electrician,
Carpenter, Mobile Repairing,
90
Sewing/Dressmaking for ladies, etc.
• Since education is the key to
development, Adult Literacy classes
sponsored by HIL is an option that
can be explored.
• A long term measure for providing
employability would be to set up
an ITI in the neighbourhood in
association with the State Education
authorities.
• Address of CEO to Sonapalli
employees followed by Open
House. This would indicate to site
employees that they are important
to HIL, and so is the job that they
are doing.
• Putting experienced people with
the right competencies in key
positions, and weeding out the
disgruntled and demotivated
employees.
• Comprehensive and effective
external and internal
communications machinery.
• Rigorous Project Monitoring
System to be put into place with
fixed timelines and responsibility.
Monitoring at project level as well
as Corporate level.
• Special Incentive scheme for
Sonapalli employees for meeting
project construction milestones.
• Recognition and appreciation for
individual accomplishments.
• Challenging assignments to the site
employees.
 The Eagle has Landed !!
F or a long time to come there wouldn’t
be such a flurry in structural steel
market, namely construction steel,
popularly known as TMT! A new
player had dramatically swooped into
the marketplace since about a year back
and had already made deep inroads in
the market share of Branded TMT.
Not without cause Mr. Sajid Naqquash
was a worried man. As the Regional
Manager (Retail), North,of one of the
leading TMT Brands of the country
(branded as SIL TMT) the tall dapper
and graying Naqquash knew that
he had a big battle brewing in the
extremely competitive and cut-throat
market. SIL TMT market share over
the past several months was dipping
steadily,- and that fact had not been
digested very kindly by the Chairman.
What worried him more was that
the competitor had moved with such
verve, speed, cunning and dynamic
certainty that it had left almost all the
competitors feeling like lame sitting
ducks. What was more dampening
was that Naqquash knew who the man
behind such a series of deft moves was!!
It was none other than Varun Mehta, an
erstwhile colleague, who had left SIL in
a grudging huff for not being promoted
as the Head of Marketing. Despite all
his defects, Varun Mehta was known as
This case is written by Pritam Saha, DGM (M-Retail) Nr, CMO, SAIL, New Delhi
91
the Demi-God of Steel marketing in the
country,-ruminated Naqquash ruefully.
Mehta knew his steel, like Tendulkar
knew his batting. Moreover he had
the uncanny knack for predicting the
highly fluctuating Steel market months
in advance,-a knowledge which was
almost like lottery in the large stakes of
the steel industry.
Mehta was brilliant. But so was
Naqquash. With a background in
Metallurgical Engineering from IIT
Delhi, a post – graduate diploma from
the famous IIM Ahmedabad, and a 25
year experience in the marketing of
Steel he was determined to fight Mehta
move for move, tooth for tooth, nail for
nail. He would use all the skills that he
had learnt, the tools of marketing that
he had imbibed, and the hundreds of
contacts that he had nurtured to halt
the juggernaut unleashed in the market
by a brand called The Eagle. A brand
that excelled in skillful subterfuge and
frontal attack, effortlessly and without
copybook precedence.
What were Eagle’s brilliant and
innovative moves in the market?? How
did it suddenly capture a large chunk of
the Construction Steel market? How did
Naqquash and his team assess and weigh
these moves? What were Naqquash’s
 A Book of Selected Cases

alternative Game-plans to fight back? competition. Steel was a controlled

And which of these would most suit the item then and the Government had
scenario? not started to hand out production
licenses dime to a dozen. However the
The Eagle indeed had landed!
Nineties had seen the much awaited
One (Friday April 11, 2014) liberalization of the Indian Economy
and the steel industry was no exception.
The 8.40 am Spicejet flight from Delhi
The Government had started to believe
to Srinagar was air-borne for nearly
that the Steel Industry, amongst others,
one hour and Sajid Naqquash was on
required no protection, and therefore
it, pondering on the crucial mission
other players were free to walk in.
ahead of him – primarily to understand
Those were the days when many
the reasons for the depletion in SIL
Steel Products including TMT Bars
TMT market share, and secondly to
or Construction Steel, had begun to
know how Eagle had established itself
morph from a commodity to a Brand.
so soon as a primary construction steel
Since then the market for Steel Products
brand. Naqquash could see the snow-
and especially for construction TMT
capped mountains coming in view
was on a spiral growth spree, with both
from his window seat, as he mulled
project orders (like Highways, Bridges,
over the history of SIL TMT ’s market
Factories, Ports, Railways etc) and Retail
share in the Valley some 20 years back.
Orders growing voluminously.
It was then a seller ’s paradise, recalled
Naqquash, with SIL TMT ruling the He looked at the comparative market
roost in the Valley, and there was scant share sheet wistfully:

Comparative market share sheet TMT (Construction steel) Then and Now: Kashmir Valley
1994 Sales of Tmt in the 2013-14 Sales of Tmt in the Kashmir valley
Kashmir valley
Producer Projects Dome- Total Share Projects & Dom- Total Share
& Govt. etic (In % Govt. estic (In tons) %
Contra- Tons) Contra
Ctors Ctors
SIL 2000 400 2400 18 3600 4000 7600 6
TIL 1500 300 1800 14 3000 3000 6000 4
Other Primary 420 180 600 5 1800 4200 6000 4
Eagle 0 0 0 0 5000 5000 10000 7
(JPL Group)
Secondary 5740 2460 8200 63 29000 75000 104000 78
Total 9660 3340 13000 100 42400 91200 133600 100

92
The market had grown from 13000 Mts
to 1,33600 Mts. Although the loss in
market share was a 12% , in terms of
volumes the local secondary producers
had made a killing. But what was
more worrying was that amongst the
premium brands, that made its steel
from raw materials like iron ore and not
from melted scrap,- Eagle had etched
out a market of its own!
The airplane had started descending
now andas Naqquash watched the
approaching valley in all its regal late
April ethereal charm he chose to forget
his gloom for the time being.
Two (Saturday, April 12 , 2014)
There were two reasons why Sajid
Naqquash had chosen Srinagar for
his little research. One was that he
belonged to the place and there was
always so much comfort to return to
the place he had grown up in. And
secondly, he knew that the market here
was closed, composite, un-complicated
and easily decipherable.
Therefore close to 10 AM he had
already made his way to Yaqoob Steels
at Hyderpora By-pass. Naqquash knew
Mohd. Yaqoob for quite some time now,
ever since the days he was at college
and his father had deputed him to
collect construction steel from Yaqoob’s
shop which was then located at the
famous Lal Chowk. Yaqoob was now
40 years into the business of retailing
Construction Steel , and had a turnover
of more than 500 tons of TMT of various
brands per month. What was important
93
to Naqquash was that Yaqoob had
almost stopped retailing SIL TMT for
past one year,.. and was now retailing
Eagle TMT to the tune of nearly 100 tons
a month. One feature that stood out at
the retail shop was the Eagle Brand,..
it stared down at him from the storage
yard where it was festooned on a large
menacing banner,.. high-lighting the
product properties, its strengths and
specifications. The entrance to Yaqoob’s
office was highlighted by an artificial gate
announcing proud schemes for visits to
Thailand, Malaysia and Las Vegas,.. on
sales of various quantities of Eagle Steel.
Inside Yaqoob’s small office as well,
various poster’s proudly celebrated the
strengths of the Eagle Brand.
The two gentlemen were genuinely
pleased to meet each other , especially
after a hiatus of so many years,- and
fondly shook hands.“ Today is indeed
a lucky day for me Naqqash Saab, that
you have chosen to step into my humble
little shop”, remarked Yaqoob, deftly
stroking his flowing white flowing
beard with his left hand.“ I cannot
decide, Yaqoob, whether your business
is more flowing or your luxurious
beard”, stated Naqquash jovially, and
both the gentlemen laughed gently.
Naqquash lost no time in coming down
to brass tacks, and he bluntly questioned
as soon as the cup of customary Kahwa
was in place..”Tell me Yaqoob, though
I am very happy with your prospering
retail sales, I am worried about the fact
that you have almost ceased to lift any
SIL TMT, and at one point of time you
 A Book of Selected Cases
were our best Dealer in the Valley.”
Yaqoob had probably sensed the
question, because he did not ponder
much before phrasing his reply, or
probably he desired to speak about the
almost broken relationship and was
waiting for a long time for someone to
hear him out. “Saab, Allah is witness,
that I tried my best to continue retailing
SIL TMT, but the world has moved fast
and we have failed to keep up with
the modern times.” Naqqash was a
little perplexed at the short quizzical
reply so typical of this valley, but he
had the wisdom to retain a gentle
smile which goaded Yaqoob to carry
on.“ There is a litle problem with the
dimensions and the weights that you
have to offer respected Naqquash Saab,
each piece TMT that you sell varies in
length and weight. The times Saab,
have changed . These are not the times
when you kept coming back to me for
TMT for constructing your father’s
beautiful house again and again and
I had kept staggering supplies. Then
you were happy with any length and
did not even check the weight. But
today the customers are clever. The
advertisements have made them clever.
So many brands promise today delivery
by piece and price by piece also,.. you
can look at this paper announcing
per piece prices for each dimension of
Eagle TMT. The customer is asking for
Eagle, or TIL in the primary segment.
And the local TMT, Jhelum, is much
cheaper than yours.”Yaqoob appeared
to be almost in tears in deep imaginary
sorrow, and wringing his hands
94
despairingly he continued excitedly“,
today Saab, the customer does not wait
at my door. You are witness that in
your youth there were only four retail
counters at Srinagar, but today you can
find a TMT Retail Counter every several
metres down this road. Many still ask
for the SAIL Brand , but most times the
key 8-16 mm sizes, so important in the
building of a house is not available. And
how many times shall I return an eager
customer,..is it not my duty to feed my
children and family??”
And Naqquash had no answer to that.
Non-availability of the ever so popular
8-12 mm TMT in all sizes, at all times
and all Branches of SIL North, had
become a chronic issue for the past
several years. The company had been
established nearly 50 years back , and
the essence of the economy then was
to build roads, bridges and the broad
infrastructure, and therefore SIL’s plants
were designed to produce in bulk in
the thicker TMT sizes viz. 16-32 MM in
bulk. The thinner sizes were produced
in coil form by the plants and were then
transported to the warehouses, which
in turn had to hire decoiling contractors
to de-coil ,straighten and bundle the
TMT. More often the de-coiling and
bundling activity tended to suffer due
to faults with machine or unavailability
of labour. Also the Company had also
appointed Conversion agents to convert
its raw material i.e. Billets at local Re-
rolling Mills at Kanpur, Ghaziabad and
Jammu to 8-12 mm tmt. Conversion
had its own problems in terms of
erratic availability of raw materials or
conversion agent being tardy in the
rolling of requisite end products. Of late
there had emanated complaints in the
market that some Conversion Agents
were mis-utilizing the situation and
rolling spurious SIL TMT from cheap
raw materials available locally, and
selling it at a price lower than SIL TMT
but higher than local secondary TMT.
Over the years, although the project
demand of construction steel had
continued to grow , with the effects of
liberalization creeping in there had been
a sudden massive surge in the demand
for retail TMT in the housebuilding
sector. It was as if the whole of the
country had begun building pucca
houses, more so in rural India (which
had in the yesteryears largely resided in
Kuchha dwelling units).
And yet Naqquash chose make a point
for his company and brand.“ But
Yaqoob, you have been my dealer, and
should it not be my expectation that you
shall market my product, convince the
customer at your door to buy SIL TMT,
wait for a few days for the arrival of
fresh stocks, and bear a little difference
in the weight and lengths. After all,
we are priced quite reasonably in the
premium segment”
There was a wry smile on Yaqoob’s
countenance as he countered almost
as quizzically like he had done earlier,
”Saab, If SIL does not believe in
marketing its TMT how can it expect its
dealers to market the same?” “What do
you mean Yaqoob?”, asked Naqquash
95
with a degree of annoyance, “You
are aware that we not only have a
permanent Branch Office Here, but we
also maintain an expansive warehouse.
Had we not believed in marketing our
products here why would we continue
to invest in such infrastructure in the
valley?” Yaqoob responded“ Saab,
you have done that but where are the
customers? Maybe one out of 20 walk
in customers demand the SIL Brand,
they normally insist on TIL or of late
more frequently the Eagle Brand, and
the rest are price conscious and would
rather purchase the locally popular
Jhelum, or Himalaya Brands. You see all
around you,.. and you will see the Eagle
brand,its in my shop, across hoardings
and wall paintings in the Valley, and
even on the TV Channels. To some
extent you see the other brands as well,..
but we hardly get to see the SIL TMT
advertised professionally. Till last month
your policy had asked us to advertise
the product for which you would
reimburse us @ Rs. 100/- per ton. But do
we really have time or the knowledge
for professional publicity?? And why
would we take the trouble when other
brands are doing the jobs themselves?”
Mr Naqquash’s visit to the rest of the ten
dealers in the valley during the course
of two days yielded similar , if not more
disheartening information!
Three (Monday April 14 2014)
Monday wasn’t the best of days to travel
to office, especially after a weekend at
pleasant Srinagar.
 A Book of Selected Cases

Although physically rested Naqquash (Long Products) Mr Devinder Khanna

wasn’t able to forget the tough but and Regional Operations Manager, Mr
straightforward words of Yaqoob. Rajender Sharma. He shared in detail
The meeting was an eye-opener, and the feedbacks received from the dealers
Naqquash wanted to bring in major of the Valley pertaining to the sales and
changes in the marketing of SIL TMT marketing of SIL TMT and requested
in the North so that the threat posed to the house for an apt strategy to counter
SIL TMT market share by competitors, the threat from Eagle and bounce back
especially by the Eagle Brand, could be in terms of Market share vis-à-vis the
countered effectively. competition.
Naqquash studied the market share for The opinions of his various colleagues
North India for 13 -14, and the figures were however quite different from each
here were as dismal as they were in the other:
valley. The problems were the same
everywhere concluded Naqquash with Regional Business Manager, Mr. Vinod
a degree of apprehension. Eagle had Gulati
indeed stolen a chunk out of the market The Soft-spoken and dapper Mr Gulati
in just one year of operations. There was a very practical gentleman. He
had to be solutions somewhere. had little faith in what he called “HI-
But first he called for a small interaction FI” business strategies until the brass
with his Regional Business Manager tacks were in place. He enunciated
Mr Vinod Gulati, Regional Manager upon the requirement of making
Product Total Sales during the Month of Apr Mar 13-- 14 (in mts) Total
SIL Eagle JIL TIL RIL Secondary
(Local)
8mm TMT 250854 10867 19055 18170 17057 18308 221110 250854
% Share 100 3 7 6 5 6 73 100
10mm 257006 13239 19205 18377 16808 19130 229587 257006
% Share 100 4 7 6 5 6 73 100
12mm 277302 15015 16210 19880 18865 19067 249987 277302
% Share 100 4 5 5 5 5 75 100
16mm 243423 20158 12619 19178 16902 18388 216687 243423
% Share 100 6 4 7 5 6 72 100
20mm 200322 16536 13262 15856 15010 17903 168737 200322
% Share 100 6 6 6 6 7 69 100
Total 1228907 75814 80351 91461 84642 92796 1086108 1228907
% Share 100 6 7 7 7 8 88 100

96
available adequate quantities of TMT
stocks in the range 8-12 MM so that
requirements of retail could be satisfied
all the time. “We have about a thousand
dealers, but at any point of time only
about 200 are active each month, which
means that nearly 80% of our dealers
remain inactive about all the time. The
Northern Region shall easily be able
to sell between 50-60000 MTs of 8-12
mm TMT every month”. “But that is
way beyond what we produce for the
whole country every month” observed
Mr. Devinder Khanna, the Regional
Manager Long Products.
Mr Naqquash knew that what Mr Gulati
had stated was intrinsically correct.
But where would he get so much TMT
from? And even if the Coiled TMT
and the requisite Raw Materials for
the Conversion Agents were made
available, there would still be problems
in Converting or decoiling the product
in larger quantities. Would the company
agree to vacate the market for the rest of
the country for TMT 8-12 MM?
Regional Manager (Long Products) Mr.
Devinder Khanna
Mr Khanna was quintessentially the
marketing manwho wished to be
perennially seen, heard and talked
about. He had definitive views about
almost everything and for him no
problem remained a problem for a long
time. The nattily dressed Mr Khanna,
had only one view, and that view was
Branding. He firmly believed that the
97
Company wasn’t doing enough to
promote the brand image of its products.
He argued that the SIL TMT tagline was
too jaded and had remained around for
nearly twenty years. Product highlights
like earthquake resistance, grand quality
(produced from Iron Ore and not Scrap),
and genuinely high tensile strength had
to be orchestrated and presented to the
public on a platter. Mr Khanna further
opined that the Company hardly took
responsibility for advertising in the
retail premises with hoardings, posters,
OTCs, pamphlets, wall paintings. He
stated SIL TMT required a crisp and
well planned advertising blitzkrieg that
would contribute to making the brand
popular and draw customers to its retail
outlets. Mr Khanna believed that once
the company had established its brand
it would easily be able to sell its existing
products like 8-32 MM TMT at a much
better revenue and little inventory.
Regional Operations Manager (Mr
Rajender Sharma)
Mr Sharma was an operations man who
read too many books on Marketing
Strategy and about leaders in Marketing.
He had a Matchstick-like built, a deep
somber voice and a philosophical air
about whatever he stated. Mr Sharma
was of the view that not a single kg of
demand for SIL TMT ought to be left
un- serviced be it in the 8-12 segment or
in the 16-32 MM segment. Mr Sharma
believed that if the company was unable
to produce adequate SIL TMT at its
 A Book of Selected Cases
various plants in the range 8-12 MM, it
should resort to franchising the same to
local re-rollers to be rolled from locally
available pencil ingots . Such SIL TMT
could be branded differently from Plant
produced superior TMT. Such Branding
could be like “SIL House-builder TMT”,
with a rider “For use only in Domestic
dwelling Units not higher than 2
storeys”. Mr. Sharma argued that in this
scenario the company could easily gain
Market share, Reach Material on Time
to its customers across the country,
Plan differently for different locations
in terms of material to be rolled, Offer
a very competitive rate, and thus make
deep inroads into the secondary market
share. More importantly, the company
would be offering its products at a
differential pricing in the market and
thereby be able to maximize market
share at different price points.
Epilogue (Monday April 14 2014, 5 PM)
There was considerable excitement
on the 20 th floor conference room of
Eagle Towers located in a posh locality
of Gurgaon Haryana. Varun Mehta
had called for an emergent meeting of
the eagle think tank, and everybody
knew what that meant. The wily Mehta
was quite notorious for pulling the
most unconventional tricks from his
marketing hat, and his team comprising
of Regional Manager (North), Brand
Manager (North), All India Brand
manager, and All India Retail Head,
awaited the next moves eagerly.
98
Soon the well dressed, rather short and
bespectacled Mehta took his chair at the
table, and in his clear rather thin high
pitched voice, placed his cards very
quietly and determinedly:
(1) Eagle would now on attack the
8-12 segment, and reduce produce
considerably in the 16-32 segment.
(2) Eagle would start a housebuilder
TMT portal, which would be
advertised in popular media.
This portal would enable the
housebuilder to order his 8-12
MM TMT right from his home,
and make payments as well. Such
online orders would be serviced
within 6 hours.
(3) Eagle would appoint civil engineers
to offer free advisory services to
online house building customers.
Such engineers would visit the
customers site if required for a
marginal fee. The balance would be
subsidized by the Company.
(4) Eagle would now be launching
in neighbouring countries like
Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri lanka,-
for which fresh officers would be
recruited and trained.
(5) Eagle would explore the franchising
options statewise for an alternate
brand called Eagle 2, which would
sell at a cheaper rate and cater to
the lower segment of users.
Questions
1) What solution would you like to give to MrNaqquash so that he can retain his market
share and deal with the rising sales of his competitor the Eagle brand?
2) Is branding an Integral part of any retail product , or should a product have certain com-
petitive advantage qualities before it should be chosen for branding by a company?
3) What are the disadvantages of not branding a product aver a long time?
4) How can Yaqoob and his contemporary dealers be convinced to return to the SIL fold??
5) Should a company market its own products or should it resort to franchising in order to
carve out a larger market share for itself?
6) Why do you think SIL lags behind in Branding and some product features despite being
in the industry for a very long time??
7) Is the concept of differential pricing acceptable for a large well reputed company ??
8) What would be the Impact of Eagle’s five point fresh surprise Strategy on the market?
And would you characterize Eagle’s frequent shift in marketing strategy as an asset or a
liability? Why?

Teaching Notes Bars. Whenever there is a fillip in

This case study is about the efforts of
its protagonist Mr Tahir Naqquash to
resuscitate the fortunes of its SIL TMT
Brand especially versus the branding
onslaughts of Eagle brand TMT .
The Case Study is meant for Marketing
Management Students, Working
Marketing Professionals, Students of
economics and commerce, Employees
of Steel Plants as well as Dealers in Steel
Products.
Background Study
• Economic Scenario and Steel
Requirement: Steel is in-fact
a thermometer of economic
prosperity of a nation. This is true
for Construction Steel like TMT
economic activity of a country more
goods and services are consumed
by the nation. Thus more revenue
is generated in the economy. This
leads to a requirement for more
goods and services for which
capacity expansion is required as
well as more employment needs
to take place, which leads to more
salaries and wages, leading to
more consumption. And thus
the upward spiral continues. The
reverse is true whenever there is a
contraction in aggregate demand
for goods and services in a country.
Obviously whenever there is
greater employment and resultant
greater wages, the demand for

99
 A Book of Selected Cases
construction and expansion of
dwelling units take place, which
also leads to a rise in the demand
for retail construction TMT in
the 8-12 MM segment primarily.
However incase large multi-storied
constructions are made it may lead
to demands for some 16-32 mm
TMT Bars as well.
• The economics of primary and
secondary steel making: Primary
Steel is Generally produced at
Integrated Steel Plants right from
scratch raw materials which
is basically iron ore and coal.
Integrated steel Plants take out
the ore from the Iron Ore at the
Blast Furnace level to get Iron.
Further the Iron is converted to
Steel at the Melting shop Level By
additions of various inputs like
Silicon, Phosphorous, Zinc ,Etc
depending upon the type of Steel
Product required to be finally made.
The Steel, which may be in the
form of Billets, or Slabs are rolled
in the rolling Mills for the finished
product. Secondary mills do not
have to go through painstaking
process of making steel from
scratch. They buy a product called
pencil Ingots which is a raw form of
steel and roll the same to derive end
products of steel like TMT bars. In
India however secondary producers
normally source pencil ingots from
furnaces that melt ship breaking
and other scrap and then produce
the pencil ingots. Such ingots may
100
not be chemically sound and have
all the properties of the end product
as prescribed by BIS Standards. End
products like TMT Bars rolled BY
Secondary Producers are therefore
between 3000 to 7000 rupees per
ton cheaper than those offered by
Primary Producers of Steel.
• The historical Perspective of not
rolling adequate thinner dias at
yesteryears steel Plants: Yesteryear
Steel Plants like SIL TMT Steel Plants
were constructed to create the
Infrastructural Framework of the
country just after Independence.
They specialized in producing such
steel that would contribute in the
construction mega projects like
dams, Bridges, factories, Railroads
etc. Thus such steel plants had lower
capacity for producing thinner dias
of TMT bars like 8-12 MM. Further
the Steel Plants were tonnage
oriented and their performance
was judged based on that. Lower
dia TMT Bars however yielded
lesser tonnage to steel plants and
were therefore not very popular.
• The Steel Retail Channels in
Perspective : In the Steel Market
several models of Retail Channel are
present. The Secondary producers
are nearest to the customer and
have rolling mills normally within
200-400 kms from the market
place. Some primary producers
have a 3 tier Retail Channel,
meaning thereby that the material
is transported to their Warehouses
 from the manufacturing plants
from where it is further transported
to Distributors or Service Centers
for onward transportation to
Retail. SIL However transports
the material from its plants to
its warehouses from where the
material is transported directly to
dealers premises. SILs steel plants
are largely in the eastern part of
the country thereby increasing the
average transportation costs to the
market place.
• The History of Branding in Steel
TMT Bars in India: The concept of
Branding TMT Bars is fairly new in
the Indian Steel Industry. It started
as late as 1998 when a brand called
Rathi Tor started its exclusive Rathi
Tor Shops in and around NCR Delhi.
Shortly thereafter the Kamdhenu
Brand of TMT made major inroads
in TMT Bar branding by seeking
prominent advertising time on
television between 1999-2002.
• A Grasp of the Steel Industry: The
Indian Steel Industry is currently
producing appx. 95 Million Tons
of Steel Annually, out of which
nearly 25 million tons is only TMT
bars. Nearly 90 % OF THE TMT
BAR MARKET IS IN SECONDARY
HANDS. World Steel production
currently stands at nearly 1.6 billion
tons. India is likely to grow to 300
million tons of Steel production
and utilization by 2020. A major
increment is likely to be in TMT Bar
101
Production and Consumption. This
case study bears added importance
in this context.
Lessons to be learnt
• When Commodities Change to
Brands: This case emphasizes how
How Steel TMT Bars changed
from a commodity to a brand. The
circumstances of such change needs
to be understood by the students.
• The Importance of Branding in
Retail : This case clearly defines
the advantages that a strong brand
can command in terms of recall,
increased demand, and better
revenue generation
• Franchising as a means to retain
and increase market share : The
case study explores the concept of
franchising as a means to enhance
market share without getting
involved in production per se’.
• The impracticality of marketing
without the product : The case study
also highlights the impracticality
of having a large dealer base and
inadequate product volume to
cater to it.
• Keeping up with the Joneses: Here
the Joneses are your Competitors
and their products. This case study
teaches its students that a product
and allied services requires to be
consistently upgraded to be able to
remain popular with the customer
and thereby retain market share.