Compassion-Contribution-Communication in Crisis

Unlike the dates of personal life especially my marriage anniversary, wife’s birthday, and

son’s birthday, I seldom remember the dates and days in my professional career. The only

date that never fades away from my memory line is May 5th, 2017. I remember the date, as it

happened yesterday, on May 4th, 2017 as SVP -Supply chain I traveled down to Ranchi from

Gurgaon along with the Executive director of FCI and our company Group CFO to celebrate

a key achievement of our Government procurement team in Jharkhand.

Being sandwiched in the middle seat of Air India flight with Our Group CFO and ED FCI on

both sides. Like a film reel, the last 90 day activities started playing in my thoughts, it was

nothing less than a horror movie with all shades. Intermittently, I was listening to the praise

of a senior official of FCI about our performance in Jharkhand and his acumen of selecting us

as a befitting private partner for the Jharkhand project, it sounds like music to my ears. But,

the observation of our Group CFO about the recovery of 200 crore dues from FCI and review

on cash conversion cycle after the event grounded me before the flight got landed.

The event was the celebration and motivating awards to hard-working employees on the eve

of completion of the record of 1 lakh Mt paddy procurement within 90 days by 300 member

team, opening 200 centers in Naxal infested areas of Jharkhand. This assignment was very

prestigious not only to our company, to the Government of India, and the Government of

Jharkhand. It was unheard previously in Jharkhand about such thing that the private

organization procuring paddy from 25000 poor farmers at government-stipulated support

price which is 40 to 50 percent higher than local traders pay to farmers and effecting

payments for purchase within 48 hours in farmers bank accounts.

People in the company call me SAMURAI (incidentally my nickname in my school days) for

taking up such difficult projects of handling multi-stakeholders and multifaceted activities.

This PPP project in Jharkhand is not different from all others I handled working 12 years in

the company. This too involves multi stakeholders’ farmers, rice millers, state government

machinery, and the Food Corporation of India. Though the process looks very simple on

paper. Purchase paddy from poor farmers at government support price and get procured

paddy milled at rice mills and supply milled rice to Food corporation depots for Government

Schemes. In execution, it is very complicated because of terrain, massiveness, uncertainties,

and involvement of 72 rice millers with sub-contract agreement for rice milling and dealing

with age-old process and people of Food corruption of India (FCI). Though our SOP’s are

very apt for seamless operations, local leaders, Naxalites, and NGOs make it very difficult

each day with their agenda.

The event was a grand success and FCI want to replicate the same project with us in other

downtrodden states where FCI infrastructure was the concern and Food Secretary of

Jharkhand want our company to handle state procurement also in the next year (election year)

and effect payments to farmers in 48 hours. State in charge FCI Jharkhand assured

streamlining the approval process and clearing pending dues of 200 crores of the company in

one month.

On request, our Group CFO canceled his return flight to Delhi and stayed back that night for

dinner and the next day meeting with FCI local officials on seamless payment clearance. As

our meeting convened at 3 PM, FCI state in charge called for divisional managers

meeting at 10 am on that day for the status report. One of the depot managers who were

from the tribal region of Jharkhand had an altercation with the district manager and

consumed rat poison and committed suicide and died on the spot. A suicide note was

found mentioning work pressure from seniors for procurement work and

documentation.
Mob, NGO’s and leaders thrashed all the FCI officials and ransacked the office premises. The

public has taken a rally in Ranchi city with the dead body and demanded a CBI inquiry. One

of the newspapers published ‘heavy pressure on FCI employees to benefit Private party

involved in procurement’. One more newspaper published ‘Pilot project of FCI Privatisation

taken the life of tribal’. Suspension of all FCI officials of Ranchi office and closing FCI

depots for 7 days.CBI inquiry was the last nail in the coffin.

Collateral damage was huge to the company. 15 crore worth of rice struck in transit with rice

millers and 200 crores payment struck with FCI. 300 employees on roles in Jharkhand for fag

end operations of paddy season. With the advent of CBI in Scene, every government

machinery state, as well as central, started distancing themselves from our company.

In the first step, we cleared all farmer payments and salaries of 300 employees (recruited

locally). All of them become our ambassadors in the crisis.

Recognize and accept the crisis. Don’t Panic. 2. Get a crisis team in place with relevant skill

sets, and communications experts. Appoint a Chairman. Appoint a spokesperson. Prepare a

legal record of all discussions. 3. Appoint a Devil’s advocate to challenge groupthink 4.

Determine what gaps in info and understanding you have and put a process in place to get

info. Separate facts from opinion. 5. Remind yourself of core values and core strengths which

you will NOT compromise 6. Identify your vulnerabilities. Response to the crisis as a threat,

AND explore if there are opportunities. Do not compromise business continuity, but keep an

eye on recovery after the crisis. 7. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Update

Communication frequently 8. Take action and ensure flawless implementation. Know what

you will NOT cut or sacrifice. 9. Study lessons learned and redesign your processes. Fix the

problems, not the people. 10. Prepare BEFORE there is a crisis. Do regular simulations and

scenario planning