Shakti of ERP at a Gas Distributor: A Case of Shiv Shakti (SSG) Gas Agency

Nityesh Bhatt1

After six months of SAP implementation at Shiv Shakti Gas Agency of Bharat Gas, its
Director Harshad Kumari was very happy that she belongs to an only agency in India, which
was selected for pilot implementation of SAP package. She felt that it was the recognition of
her dedication, customer focus, hard work and loyalty of her employees. In this small period,
SAP had been instrumental in smooth transaction processing, better record management and
faster report generations for her agency. However, she realized that many things needed to be
done in SAP and other software provided by company for getting optimal results.

Introduction:
Shiv Shakti Gas (SSG) Agency of Bharat Gas2 was established on 14 November 1984
in Ahmedabad city of India by Smt. Harshad Kumari Amarnath, wife of renowned cricket
player Mr. Surender Amarnath. In May 2011, it had 20000 domestic connections, 789
commercial and BMCG3 (gas cutting) connections. It owned the transport facility also and had
two Lorries. Its marketing area included Jeevraj Park, Paldi, VS Hospital, Ambawadi,
Vastrapur and Gujarat University area in Ahmedabad. Total 10 employees worked in office
and one worked at its godown. According to Harshad, all actions of SSG aimed only at
customer convenience, customer service and customer satisfaction.

Priorities of customer satisfaction and quality service coupled with fair practices adopted
by SSG had resulted into patronage of its customers, higher sales and appreciation from BPCL.
From very beginning, stated promises of SSG were “Refill delivery within 24 hrs, correct
quantity & quality with bill, Pure for sure: Suraksha4 in every house and Smile of satisfaction
on every Bharat Gas customer’s face”. BPCL also recognized the persistent efforts of SSG in
following ways:
 1998-99 Consolation Prize
 1999-00 1st prize best LPG distributors award
 1999-00 Best customer service for implementing innovative ideas
 2007-08 1st prize best showroom award

According to one of its customers, “Harshad Kumari was highly creative and innovative in
her work and she always came out with different ideas of serving customers in a better way”.
In recent years, SSG had also received certification of ISO 9001:2008 for the distributorship.
Once in a month, SSG had to send its Planned Delivery Plan (PDP) of next month to the
nearest company plant in Kheda in Gujarat. Later, PDP was divided into whole day plan for
which payment has to be made in advance through RTGS. Delivery was made twice a day to
each Distributor. At the time of delivery from plant gate, each distributor received a SMS from
company for necessary planning. Routine customer related functions of any gas distributor
including SSG were enrollment of new customer, regular refill (cylinder) booking for
customer, transfer of customer (in & out) and termination of customer. Each distributor also

1
Professor, Information Management Area, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad,
nityesh@nirmauni.ac.in
2
Refer Annexure 1 to get brief overview about Bharat Gas.
3
Bharat Metal Cutting Gas is an innovative product which is an efficient and cost effective substitute for
Acetylene used for the cutting and brazing industry.
4
Hindi word for Safety
had to frequently interact with company for order booking and matters related to payment,
promotion etc. Normal order lot between a distributor and company was of 300 cylinders.

IT Implementation at SSG:
In year 2000, BPCL first time introduced DOS based software named as WBP LPG for
all its distributors. Since then, software was modified many times including the change from
CUI to GUI. SSG also wholeheartedly implemented WBP LPG for faster booking and better
management of records. At this time, SSG provided basic training of computer operations to all
its employees. From beginning of 2000, SSG hired software as well as hardware consultants on
call basis and this continued for many years. Later, BPCL introduced another consultant for
which payment was made by SSG. In addition, officers of BPCL, who visited SSG frequently,
were also competent in various modules of WBP LPG for any sort of technical or functional
support. For performing transactions of ‘Beyond LPG5’ products, BPCL had provided access
of portal www.ebharatgas.com to SSG and other agencies. For 24 hours refill booking across
all agencies of BPCL, two initiatives had been undertaken. These were ebharatgas portal and
SMS Booking. PDP generation took place through separate software called e-Biz. SSG had its
own dedicated website called ‘www.shvshaktigas.com’, which provided information like the
properties of LPG, its uses, conservation tips and the most useful part for the customer-refill
booking facility.

In year 2010, BPCL developed web based SAP ERP package for better tracking and
communication within the company as well as with its distributors and customers. Before
implementing it at all its distributors, it was necessary to test all its modules at some
distributor. Harshad Amarnath was very glad to hear the news from BPCL in October 2010
that SSG was the only distributor selected in India for pilot launch of SAP. SAP package got
Go Live status on 26 November 2010 at SSG. GM-LPG India, Mr. Sharad Sharma inaugurated
the pilot at SSG. In May 2011, except for refill booking purpose, which was still done through
WBP LPG, all other distributor functions like LPG Next: purchase, sales, new customer
enrollment, complaint, complaint records were performed in SAP. SSG was provided with one
login account for SAP. Two employees and Harshad worked on SAP through this account only
and therefore, Harshad had demanded for one more login account.

Before Go Live of SAP, BPCL extracted old WBP LPG data, records and transaction
history from SSG. Data migration was done at company level and was later transferred at
distributor level. Training was given to employees for 5-6 days by the Sales officers and
technical professionals of company, who were present for whole week. From very first day of
SAP implementation, previous software was deactivated. During training, all transactions
happened in SAP only. Mostly, entire operations went smooth during this week, but in few
cases where customers suffered due to technical problems in SAP, documents were delivered
at their home. Entire cost of hardware and internet was borne by SSG but development cost of
SAP was incurred by BPCL only.

5
It is the value-added service of BPCL to assist the distributors to earn additional revenue by selling leading
consumer brands in the areas of FMCG, home appliances and kitchenware. Distributors could offset the challenge
of slow growth due to rising competition from piped natural gas (PNG) offered by few government and private
companies through this initiative. With convenient shopping option for housewives for low-involvement products,
it provided lot of value to customers also.
 Main menu in SAP offered four options- Transactions for Consumers, Transactions for
BPCL, Transactions for Distributors and Report. Other options also existed but SSG
employees were not allowed to click on them during pilot stage.

Transition from Old to New Software:

 Impact of SAP had been tremendous for SSG. Its documentation process had become
very much smooth. Each distributor frequently generated documents like Subscription
Voucher (SV) for new customer, Termination Voucher (TV) for terminating
connection, Transfer and Transfer Advice (In and Out) with unique number for each
document. In old software, if the documents were not generated smoothly, then it had to
be prepared manually but in SAP, ‘Reprint’ option was given. With the unique
document number, it was easy to reload the document and reprint it.
 In old software, each distributor had the authority to block customer who were not
active from six months. In SAP environment, this authority was shifted from distributor
to the respective Sales officer (SO) of the territory.
 In old software, navigation from one field to another field happened through TAB key,
but in SAP, it happened through mouse click which was much easier.
 Against the old software, SAP had lot of validations for amount, residence address, new
customer enrollment, store number and blue book. All major parameters were set for
better checks and balances. For example, each new customer enrollment required a fee
of Rs. 1250. In SAP, if one entered any other amount, it was rejected but in previous
software, it was allowed.
 Old software allowed the employees of the distributor to modify the mistakes
committed by them, but SAP did not allow the modification. For example, if an
employee entered incorrect name of customer, then it was not possible to correct it at
the level of distributor. Such request had to be corrected at the level of Sales Officer of
BPCL. Company changed this rule with introduction of SAP due to the fact that in the
name of mistake, lot of malpractices prevailed at lot of agencies.
 With SAP it became very easy and less time-consuming to complete the Day End and
Month End activities. Some of the activities included refill selling, cylinder delivery,
stock adjustment etc.
 For enrollment forecast for next month, a distributor had to make payment in advance
with SAP environment. Previously, distributors used to pay the amount after a day but
at times payment settlement even took place after a month also. For example, if SSG
had forecasted for 1000 new connections for next month, then it had to pay Rs.
12,50,000 in advance. Further, forecast could not be changed in SAP. Old software had
provision for this malpractice according to company sources. However, after 900
enrollments, distributor could give fresh order for emerging requirements. This
emphasized the need for proper planning by every distributor as BPCL did not want
distributors to wait till last cylinder was finished. All payments between company and
distributor took place through RTGS6 only.

6
Real-Time Gross Settlement can be defined as continuous (real-time) settlement of funds transfers
individually on an order by order basis (without netting). 'Real Time' means the processing of instructions at the
time they are received rather than at some later time while 'Gross Settlement' means the settlement of funds
transfer instructions occurs individually (on an instruction by instruction basis). RTGS system, in operation since
2004-05, facilitates faster movement of high value transactions.
  Unlike the old software, SAP did not allow the distributor to start the next day’s
activities before the day end takes place. Day end included online updation of stock,
refill, new connections etc.
 Previously, SSG printed its own pre-printed stationary for SV, TV and TA having
unique numbers for each distributor but in SAP these vouchers were generated with
unique number across the country. Therefore, from old stationary, pre-printed numbers
needed to be manually crossed by employees. Unique number across the country for
each document helped the company to track each transaction in a better manner.
 In old software, employees had lot of troubles during month end. Creation of End of
Month Report (EMR), equipment movement return (receipt & return) and equipment
return note (ERN) for exchanging empty cylinder for the filled cylinders required 2-3
days as they had to be compiled from large number of documents (SV, TV, Invoice,
ERV, Domestic pressure regulator(DPR)). During this time, one or two main
employees used to remain occupied and other employees used to manage the operations
but customers used to suffer. In SAP, all transactions were online and all databases
were interconnected, therefore, it took only few minutes to prepare and print EMR and
ERN. With automatic generation of EMR and ERN, director as well as employees were
highly relieved.
 In old software, if a customer used to visit the distributor on last day of month for TV,
he was asked to revisit the next day due to hectic work of month end. With integration,
such transactions were possible and saved customers’ valuable time.
 Earlier, with offline software, distributor used to inform the business facts to the
company. With online access of each transaction of distributor with BPCL, now it had
been reversed.
 Old software had four digit numbers for each document while SAP had unique eight
digit numbers. At present, SSG was continuing with both numbers for old and new
customers. It was likely that in due course, old numbers will be migrated to SAP based
numbering system. Each Consumer number was also unique in SAP.

Change Management:
Employees of SSG had no anxiety with each change in version in old software as well
as SAP because their opinion was that these changes were for improvement of company as
well as distributor work. However, employees found SAP little hard initially in comparison
with WBP LPG. After learning, they appreciated its functionality and the resulting
transparency. During implementation, whenever they faced any problem with SAP module,
facility was provided to call the Sales officer and other senior officers at Mumbai and Chennai.
In almost six months of pilot implementation, company officers based at Ahmedabad, Mumbai
and developers based at Chennai regularly took feedback from SSG.

Future Potential of SAP at SSG:

Current modules available to SSG in SAP covered enrollment of a new customer,
generation of subscription voucher, transfer voucher, termination voucher etc. Harshad felt that
company should immediately add new modules like Refilling of cylinder and Accounting in
SAP. Later, module for Beyond LPG could also be added.
As discussed earlier, PDP was generated through e-Biz software and Beyond LPG
transactions took place through ebharatgas portal. For SSG, PDP happened through both e-biz
(available to all distributors) and SAP. Due to lack of interface among multiple softwares,
synchronization was not possible. In future, PDP module could be developed in SAP itself.
However, in the meantime, there was an urgent need to develop some interface for different
software. As of May 2011, SSG was provided with an interface (Syncmf from Server SAP) for
SAP and WBP-LPG software for refill booking.
e-Biz software took care of PDP only. It had a potential to be further modified to take
care of demand for extra loads also. Through ‘LPG Next’ feature available with SSG in SAP,
invoice could be seen before an hour or two which was of great help in planning. Harshad
Kumari wanted statement of accounts (SOA) to be part of LPG-Next. In SAP, all master data
were available but transaction data were available from 28-11-2011 only. For better
functioning of distributors, transaction data before this date needed to be migrated to SAP
system soon. In GUI based SAP, navigation only took place through click. Company needed to
enable navigation through keys like ‘Enter’ and ‘Tab’ also.

Questions:
1. What were the advantages of SAP to SSG and BPCL?
2. What BPR initiatives do you see in this case? Are these initiatives justified?
3. Will other distributors accept it wholeheartedly? Why or Why not?
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Annexure 1
An Overview of Bharat Gas:
Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a household cooking fuel was introduced by
erstwhile Burmah Shell under the brand name “Burshane” in mid 1955. This journey
continued with Burmah Shell until the Government of India nationalized the Company Burmah
Shell to become Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL). “Bharatgas” from BPCL has
dominated the LPG market in India for over three decades. It was indeed a great challenge for
Bharatgas to replace Burshane as a brand name since “Burshane” had become a generic name
in the country for LPG.
(Source: http://www.ebharatgas.com/pages/About_Us/About_Us_overview.html)