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| Group Annual Day |
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| Rewarding and meaningful |
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| N Sankar |
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L to R: P S Jayaraman, M S Sekhar, M N Radhakrishnan,
N Sankar, B Natraj, Vijay Sankar and B Chakrapani. |
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| The Group Annual Day, held on December 23
and 24, 2002, spilling over to a second day to accommodate the
varied agenda addressing vital issues, was one of the most rewarding
and meaningful such occasions in the group in a long time. Much
thought and planning went into the event, and the high quality
of the presentations more than justified all the extensive preparation
that preceded it. |
| The introductory and concluding remarks by
N Sankar which flanked the presentations by the Managing Directors,
set the tone for the rest of the programme, giving a crisp outline
of the vision and philosophy driving the Sanmar group. These
were followed by a three-fold presentation by B Natraj and his
team, unveiling in all their details the hitherto unstated or
partially stated policies of the group in terms of the way it
deals with its people, its management philosophy and its ethical
foundation, for the first time addressing the ethical dilemmas
employees could be facing from time to time. |
| The second day’s programme featured a presentation
by a team led by V Ramesh on the performance culture that is
pervading the group and another, on the implementation of ERP
in the group by M N Radhakrishnan. |
| The recognition and honouring of exceptional
performers crowned the two-day long celebration of the group
annual day. |
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| In his address, N Sankar spoke at length on the
strengths and weaknesses of the group, the opportunities and threats
in its path, the “Imperatives of the Day,” the urgency of the need
for a performance culture, and stressed the need for execution to
be the main preoccupation of everyone, including the senior management. |
| “Corporate strategy, people strategies, the latest
equipment and techniques, hardware, software, top quality managers—all
these are available, and anybody who is interested can get them. What
will differentiate the winners is how you utilize them and how well
you execute your business plans and your people processes.” |
| According to Sankar, |
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Execution is a discipline, and integral to strategy
Execution must be a core element of an organisation’s culture
Execution is the major job of the business leader. |
| “Get your hands dirty,” was in a nutshell the message
sent out loud and clear to everyone at Sanmar. He closed his address
by saying the two critical issues for Sanmar today are: |
| 1. Instituting a performance oriented culture |
| 2. A culture of execution |
| Presentations by the Managing Directors |
| Chemplast Sanmar |
| In his presentation, Managing Director P S Jayaraman
(PSJ) gave an overview of the chemicals business of the group. |
| Some highlights of the Chemplast performance in
2001-2002 were full capacity utilisation of all products, high realisations,
reasonable fuel prices, and initiatives like strategic sourcing of
imported EDC, keeping capital expenditure under check, maximisation
of free cash flow, and replacement of high cost debt with low cost
debt. He related with pride Chemplast’s exceptional track record of
25 successive years of profitability and dividend payment. |
| PSJ gave an account of the activities of Cabot Sanmar,
including the expansion in capacity and commencement of a project
to manufacture treated grade fumed silica. The initiatives to widen
the application base for fumed silica, and cutting down dependence
on imports were covered. |
| Sanmar Engineering Corporation (SEC) |
| In his presentation, the SEC Managing Director,
M N Radhakrishnan, spoke of the impact of two major restructuring
exercises involving SEC—leading to the merger of FMC Sanmar with Sanmar
Alloy Castings and the closing down of Sanmar PTI Filters. Ownership
changes took place at two other JVs, with Sensortronics bought over
by the Vishay group of companies and Xomox being sold to Crane Co.
Another strategic merger was initiated in the case of Sanmar Engineering
Services, which absorbed Sanmar Industrial Services. |
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| M N Radhakrishnan |
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| To remain globally competitive, SEC went in
for a voluntary retirement scheme and outsourcing was introduced
at many of its units. Major capital infusions were made into
some of the companies. Some milestones achieved included the
completion of business process reengineering, and of ERP implementation
in two companies, besides achieving rollout in four others. |
| In its pursuit of Best Global Cost and Quality
Management, manufacturing facilities were upgraded and cell
manufacturing was introduced. New incentive measures were introduced
focusing on better responsiveness, cycle time reduction and
throughput increases. In service and engineering, the concepts
of onsite service for the Indian market and engineering services
for JV partners were initiated. Clear business goals in terms
of sales, PBT, exports and sizes of constituents were introduced.
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| Sanmar Speciality Chemicals Limited (SSCL) |
| SSCL Managing Director M S Sekhar traced the growth
and development of the company from 1987, when the group made the
decision to go in for the manufacture of speciality and fine chemicals
to date. He touched on the various milestones, taking the audience
through the commissioning of the aroma chemicals plant at Berigai
in 1991, and concluding with the events that have followed the acquisition
of the Alathur facility in 1999 and the commissioning of the Sanmar
Speciality Chemicals Research Centre, to do research as a business
activity. |
| Today, the business segments of SSCL are: |
| Segment |
Products |
| Pharma chemicals |
APIs, intermediates |
| Phytochemicals |
Intermediates |
| Performance chemicals |
Wide range of products |
| Research |
Contract research
Custom synthesis
New chemical entities |
| Outlining SSCL’s future
scenario, Sekhar stressed global positioning as the company’s imperative.
He announced that there were ten new projects under active consideration
or evaluation. |
| Sanmar Shipping |
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| Capt N J Nair |
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| The Sanmar Shipping presentation was made
by Managing Director B Chakrapani. He described shipping as
a special business, truly international, and freight-rate driven,
subject to high levels of standardisation and a plethora of
inspections. “The company cannot entirely regulate the field
staff who enjoy independent rights conferred by the Merchant
Shipping Act.” He spoke of the linkages of the freight rates
with several economies and products. Characteristically, the
demand-supply elasticity is difficult to predict, and a company’s
assets represent a significant component of its business. |
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| Sanmar Management Philosophy |
| B Natraj’s team then made an illuminating presentation
on the Sanmar management philosophy, which they defined as a core
set of values driving “all our actions and policies.” These policies
are followed by everyone at Sanmar without exception and they go to
make the Sanmar culture. |
| The essence of the Sanmar management philosophy
according to the presenters was that our policies should be simple
and easy to comprehend and implement. They should be logical, and
the logic stated clearly, open and accessible to all employees, and
flexible, with provision for the policy to be changed with changing
circumstances. The Sanmar management philosophy, they told the audience,
drives the management process every step of the way. Examples are
the way we treat people, make decisions, supervise and execute management
decisions, review performance, reward people and deal with the external
environment. All the various aspects were dealt with in detail, with
specific examples. |
| People Philosophy |
| In the session on Sanmar’s people philosophy, the
presenters, unveiled the first compendium of the personnel practices
developed and improved over the years by the group, in its pursuit
of excellence. In the words of N Sankar, the policy is a distillation
of the “fair, transparent and objective management of all employees,
superscribed with the practical realities of people management in
a typically Indian cultural background.” The formalised Sanmar policies
required paradigm shifts on fundamental principles such as an all-cash
remuneration package, an incentive system that tackles the problems
of a diverse group with different market challenges and closed shareholdings,
the need to retain talent in the face of competition, the need to
balance uniformity and fairness among managers in different industry
groups, and identifying the value of employees and developing them
to reach their potential. The idea is for Sanmar to have cutting edge
HR practices in line with global standards. |
| The presentation showed how the personnel policies
of the group cover integrity and transparency, career development,
the performance culture, the group’s compensation philosophy. |
| Policies on Ethics |
| The presentation on the Sanmar policies on ethics
was a highlight of the annual day, clearly making a statement to the
world on how the group wants to make a clear difference with its ethical
business practices. The formalisation of the policies was born of
the group’s deep commitment to do things in a more right way, we were
told. The ethical policies cover important issues such as conflicts
of interest, nepotism, 100% commitment to the job or 24 hour-employment,
transparency in all our dealings, professional respect for one another,
and avoiding “any semblance of impropriety” at all times. We need
to be ethical but also must be seen to be ethical. |
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| B Natraj unveiling the Sanmar policies on ethics. |
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| Sanmar’s ethical policies led to the group’s
vision statement being revised, from the old “Prosperity to
all stakeholders, through people involvement, leading to customer
delight on a continuous basis” to the new “Combining integrity
with excellence to ensure prosperity to all stakeholders, on
a continuous basis”. The short form of the vision statement
“Where integrity meets excellence” could well be adopted as
an official slogan. |
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| Ombudsman |
| The new office of the Ombudsman would provide clarifications
on ethical dilemmas, facilitate grievance redressal and receive complaints
against violations of Sanmar policies. |
| Excellence is now a creed, prosperity on a continuous
basis continues to be our objective, ‘combining integrity with excellence’
proves our strong commitment to integrity and the ethical values that
we follow. The excellence that we achieve is not at the cost of integrity.
The vision statement addresses several stakeholders and aims at professional
excellence to meet or exceed customer expectations. The ethical policies
enable employees to enhance their skills and give them opportunities
to grow in a safe and hazard free working environment. |
| Performance culture |
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| V Ramesh |
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| Two other presentations had vital significance
for the future of the organisation. The first stressed the importance
of the performance culture taking root in the group and detailed
the various initiatives and imperatives that would make it possible.
The performance culture would demand commitment that was “necessary
and appropriate”, and delivery on time, every time. “Do not
do what should not be done” and “Do well what should be done”
were the two key messages. |
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| ERP: an Enabler |
| According to M N Radhakrishnan’s ERP presentation,
ERP should result in an operation that is fully automated, with the
least manual intervention, enabling structured decision making, based
on factual data, entered once at the origin, with continuously updated
decision support tools, perpetually driving towards attainment of
definite business goals, without sacrificing the desired business
process. |
| The presentation covered the topics: Understanding
the Management Business Processes, the Implementation Process – difficulties
and ERP capabilities. The processes were divided into two categories,
i.e., the management process which is uniform across the group (Guiding
principles, management, people and ethics policies, accounting policies
and an enabling structure, decision making process and performance
culture) and the business process which is division-centric (Strategy,
resources, implementation process and implementation). |
| Employees of the year |
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| All present took a pledge initiated by M N Radhakrishnan
to do everything in their power to take Sanmar to greater heights. |
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| The Employees of the year awards ceremony
and Open House were the other highlights of the annual day.
The citations read out were carefully worded to bring out the
special nature of each awardee’s contributions to the company,
and even contained a word or two of advice as to the future
course of action the employee should follow to improve on his
or her performance. Open House served to demonstrate the all
round commitment among the employees to the group’s policies
and performance culture. |
| It could be stated without a murmur of contradiction
that the annual day was an unqualified success. The dinner on
the second evening was a memorable occasion, too. |
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| Employees of the year 2002 |
| Saurabh Jha, General Manager - Marketing, Chemplast
Sanmar Ltd, Delhi |
| J Suresh, Executive Manager - Sales, Chemplast Sanmar
Ltd, Chennai |
| K S Supreeth, Executive Manager - Sales, Cabot Sanmar
Ltd, Mumbai |
| J Ramdas, Senior Manager - Accounts, Sanmar Shipping
Ltd, Chennai |
| V R Venkataraman, Executive Vice President - Operations
(Berigai), Sanmar Speciality Chemicals Ltd, Chennai |
| V Ramasamy, Manager - Production, Sanmar Speciality
Chemicals Ltd, Berigai |
| C Sankar, Manager - R & D, Sanmar Speciality Chemicals
Ltd, SSCRC, Chennai |
| P B Janardhan, Executive Manager - R & D, Sanmar
Speciality Chemicals Ltd, SSCRC, Chennai |
| S Duraipandi, Senior Engineer - Production, Sanmar
Speciality Chemicals Ltd, Berigai |
| Amaresh Kumar Nayak, Senior Engineer - Maintenance,
Sanmar Speciality Chemicals Ltd, Alathur/ Chennai |
| S Sunderraman, Executive Officer - R & D, Sanmar
Speciality Chemicals Ltd, SSCRC, Chennai |
| Supriyo Bhowmik, Executive Manager - Sales, Flowserve
Sanmar Ltd, Kolkata |
| K Sattanathan, Executive Manager - QC, Tyco Sanmar
Ltd, Viralimalai |
| K Deepesh Nanda, Manager - Branch Sales, Flowserve
Sanmar Ltd, Chennai |
| Special Award |
| Lavanya Venkatesh, Manager - Accounts, Chemplast
Sanmar Ltd, Chennai (Head Office), who topped the first batch of MBAs
to pass out from the Academy for Management Excellence (ACME), Chennai. |
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The employees of the year (all standing L to
R):
J Ramdas, P B Janardhan, C Sankar, Amaresh Kumar Nayak, V Ramasamy,
J Suresh, Lavanya Venkatesh, K S Supreeth, Supriyo Bhowmik,
S Duraipandi,
K Sattanathan, S Sunderraman, K Deepesh Nanda and Saurabh Jha.
Seated: P S Jayaraman,
M S Sekhar, M N Radhakrishnan, N Sankar, B Natraj, Vijay Sankar
and B Chakrapani. |
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| Presentation teams |
| Management Philosophy—K V Ananthakrishnan, Deepak
Dave, G R Prasad and Himanshu Rastogi. |
| Building a Performance Culture—N Krishnamoorthy,
N J Nair, Ramkumar Shankar, V R Venkataraman, B Venkataramani. |
| People Philosophy—V V Subramaniam, R Ramakrishnan,
C V Subba Rao, S Chakrapani, R Balasubramanian and S Ravi. |
| Ethics Policies—B Natraj, R Mohan, K Mohan, B Jayakumar,
N Shivakumar, S A Mrithinjayam, P M Rao and V Suresh Chandra. |
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