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IT Solutions Improve Business Processes for HCC|
- By Abhinna Shreshtha, Oct 10, 2007 1520 hrs IST
- Tags : IT Solutions Improve Business Processes for HCC
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Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), a construction and infrastructure company, specializes in large-scale infrastructure development. It manages and executes technically complex projects across segments like transportation, power generation infrastructure, marine projects, oil and gas pipeline constructions, etc.
Speaking about the role that IT plays in HCC, Satish Pendse, CIO of HCC said, "We at HCC believe that IT can be used effectively to improve efficiencies of business processes, whereby the costs as well as cycle-time can be reduced, ultimately providing us the competitive advantage."
In the past 4-5 years the company has witnessed substantial growth and they expect this growth to continue in the future too. Efficient management of the workload and the need to outpace the competition were the main challenges confronting the company.
Moreover, the company had its projects spread across the country, such as in Kargil, interiors of Assam, etc. Hence it was crucial to make on-time allocation of resources for its smooth functioning.
In a bid to overcome these hurdles and to provide it with a competitive advantage in the market, the company decided to deploy SAP-ERP solution.
When quizzed about the reason for selecting SAP, Pendse said that HCC had evaluated potential vendors based on some criteria like functional fit, technology fit, implementation history (in India as well as abroad), vendor's financial strength (must be able to support for 7-10 years), etc. However, after careful evaluation the company zeroed in on SAP's solutions.
The SAP-ERP solution and the SAP BI solution - BW are the primary IT solution deployed by the company to efficiently manage its far-flung branch locations and offices.
Post-implementation, the company, with the ERP solution, is able to effectively manage its far-flung assets in real-time. Besides, the solution allows the status and progress of each project to be monitored constantly, maintain just-in-time inventory, and permit course correction or draw support as needed to meet project completion targets.
For managing documents some departments at HCC use SAP's Document Management Software (DMS). The DMS solution enables the company to store its documents in an easily accessible, centralized, and secure environment. Also, the project details needed to be stored at least for 15-20 years - after the completion of the project. The documents and files are converted to digital form and are then stored using the DMS.
Even though the company had concrete plans for IT deployment, yet it faced hurdles during the implementation process. Operating IT in the remote corners of the country was in itself a major challenge that called for the need of a strong, scalable IT architecture, with enough redundancy built-in.
According to Pendse, the major challenge while deploying a new IT solution is 'change management'. This would facilitate end-users to start fully leveraging the potential of IT applications that organization has invested resources into. "There is always a gap between the pace at which the IT gets deployed and the pace at which the human being adopts the same. It requires dedicated efforts to reduce the gap so that the true potential of the IT can be realized," he stated.
Also since this was the first time that an ERP solution was being deployed on such a large scale in the infrastructure and construction segment, the implementation partners didn't have any prior experience and the necessary domain knowledge was limited. This caused a number of technical hurdles while implementing the solution.
The implementation was done in 2 parts - the first phase (beginning in August 2006), covered HCC's head office in Mumbai and a few other branches and the second phase covered most of its other branch offices.
Currently, HCC is planning to extract maximum quantifiable business value from the IT investments already made. However, it has drawn up a long-term plan for IT deployments in the future, which include exploring areas like employee portal, supplier side automation connection to SAP using devices such as smart-phones, PDAs, etc.
Related Links:
Grindwell Norton Moves to SAP from Customized ERP
D.S.Constructions to Deploy SAP
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