SMART WORLD & COMMUNICATION
C Krishnan,
Project Manager – Tamil Nadu E‑Shiksha project
Schooldays are some of the most memorable times for many. Project Manager, C Krishnan, has the opportunity to re-live his school days when leading a challenging project involving the supply, installation, testing, commissioning and maintenance of Hi-Tech Labs in 3090 Government High Schools and 2939 Government Higher Secondary Schools in Tamil Nadu under the centrally sponsored ‘Information and Communication Technology’ (ICT) scheme. “No,” he shakes his head when asked whether this was his first project at L&T. “My first project was the ‘Early Warning Dissemination System,’ a first-of-its-kind system that we set up in Odisha state, an integrated communication project, that saved millions of lives from the extremely severe cyclonic storm, Fani. One of my most memorable moments,” he adds proudly, “was when the honourable Chief Minister of Odisha inaugurated the EWDS project.”
With the 6029 government schools spread across several districts, work is cut out for Krishnan and his team. ‘Distributing the high cost electronic components to the various locations and establishing internet connectivity from the Centralised Command and Control Centre to every school, some in remote locations, especially during the monsoons and festival periods, were huge challenges. The project also has a stringent timeline for implementation,” he adds with a tight smile.
Driving operational efficiency has given Krishnan great satisfaction. “We expedited the internal process of procurement, logistics, inventory management, cost control, online implementation tracking across multiple gangs at site, integration and coordination with multiple stake holders, etc. and outsourced the works to maintain limited resources that saved us substantial costs,” he explains. The team split the contract during the execution phase itself as soon as they realized that project implementation was getting delayed due to approvals and the huge spread of the project. “We received an advance payment INR 40 Crores due to our persistent negotiations and by demonstrating progress, which was not originally available in the contract payment terms,” shares Krishnan with a satisfied smile, “and in terms of collections, we have received INR 273 Crores thanks to the excellent rapport we have built and maintained with our client to expedite the hectic payment process.” Effective communication through regular con calls with his team and sub-contractors, team building, coaching and feedback, he mentions are other efficiency drivers.
Listening to spiritual music while walking is what he likes but he loves to spend quality time with his better half, R. Rajarajeswari, a homemaker, and his two daughters, K. Seetha Lekshmi and K.Srinidhi.
“My initiative of technology changes to establish internet connectivity has worked very well to speed up my project,” signs off Krishnan with another winning smile.
Listening to spiritual music while walking is what he likes but he loves to spend quality time with his better half, R. Rajarajeswari, a homemaker, and his two daughters, K. Seetha Lekshmi and K.Srinidhi.
“My initiative of technology changes to establish internet connectivity has worked very well to speed up my project,” signs off Krishnan with another winning smile.
Vijayabhaskar Inakoti,
Manager, Supply Chain Management
Perfecting expectation management is something that all of us are into day in and day out but for some like Vijayabhaskar Inakoti, Manager, Supply Chain Management, the need to have the right horses for the course is vital especially in a business like Smart World & Communication that is ever-evolving and dynamic. The last 4 years have been new, and challenging having moved to SW&C from MMH in 2016. “It was a radical shift but what stood me in good stead was the basics that I learnt during my stint at the Central Materials Department and later at MMH as a projects procurement buyer.”
With the nature of SW&C projects being different, “Strategy and negotiation are key,” asserts Vijayabhaskar, “As the project tenure is very short with limited time frame for the buyer to make proactive decisions across a segment that is largely dominated by few monopolistic OEMS.” He adds, “On boarding the right vendor while aligning to project timelines was a specific challenge that needed constant attention.” A one-time solution was the need of the hour and for Vijayabhaskar it was an opportunity to shift gears from a buyer’s role to that of a developer bringing in his years of SCM know-how. “Along with some of my teammates, we began work by focusing on synchronizing a range of core functional areas involving strategic supplier relationship, cost reduction, digitalisation and developed two unique digital SCM applications christened as ‘Smart Sign Off’ and ‘SWIFT’.”
“Today, with a soft touch, we have the complete digitalized flow of information from procurement to execution,” shares Vijayabhaskar proudly. “With ‘SWIFT’, we have one of the best in-house procurement tracker applications that covers proactive project procurement, identifies critical items, ensures transparency across various stages with ownership matrix and timelines defined for various stake holders.” With the backup from ‘Smart Sign Off’ for approval tracking, the SCM process at SW&C is comprehensively addressed, assures Vijayabhaskar. Like all process-oriented L&T‑ites, Vijayabhaskar vouches that a robust EIP is at the heart of the matter at SCM. Acknowledging the merits of the system, he believes more empowerment to the middle level management will improve the operational efficiency of the processes and establish accountability to give bandwidth to the leadership team to focus on new strategic initiatives.
Nidhish Gupta,
Lead Bid Manager, SW&C
When it comes to achieving operational efficiency for Nidhish Gupta, Lead Bid Manager, SW&C, the gauge is straight forward, “Preparation is the key to successful performance,” he declares. And from the time he joined L&T, Nidhish has been part of the contracts team, successfully formulating winning strategies for various SW&C orders. “It’s a lot of hard work but worth the effort.”
Take the recent Unified Network Management System (UNMS) contract from the Indian Army, he cites, “It is the largest value contract for SW&C and one of our biggest challenges was the technical complexity and scale, with little precedence to refer in India. Working out the bid was exhaustive as we had to line up more than 300 global vendors and engage with all of them in strict confidentiality as per the RFP. The key was to quickly ascertain the technical credentials of the various vendors in line with the scope of work and eventually filter down the list to around 100 qualified OEMS.”
As a lead member, it was equally important to cover the many fronts, mentions Nidhish, “From devising the strategy to ensuring that we were on course, keeping a tab on the diligences with various partners, negotiating with key stakeholders and client interface, competing priorities had to be completed and synchronized.” The finalisation of the bid was hectic, he shares. “Over the last 2 days, we further filtered down the list to 40 OEMs and vendor partners through a robust negotiation process which allowed us to provide the best possible infrastructure to our Defence Forces and qualify as L1.”
Despite the diversity in projects bidding at SWC, Nidhish acknowledges that a lot is being done to streamline the process through digital tools, “Rigorous work was undertaken to standardise our scope, terms and conditions which is now enabling us to speed up the negotiation process and reduce scope creep at the time of execution. Similarly, for risk mitigation and scenario analysis, we use tools like @risk, regression and correlation. Further, in-house application platforms like ‘Constzon’ have given the much-needed analytics and data edge during bidding.”
As SW&C evolves as a business, Nidhish is thankful that he has always had opportunities coming his way, “I led the conceptualisation of Tamil Nadu Smart Education project which in a way helped us to foray into the education sector, T‑fiber contract, Army MPLS and now the UNMS project is a big break for me and I’m moving out from contracts as a project planning manager based in Delhi.”
Hailing from Punjab, Nidhish’s family is based in Delhi and he is eagerly looking forward to being with his parents as his wife Megha, a Manager with Amazon, who has also got her posting to Delhi lined up.
