LMTSOM, Thapar University, Patiala School of Management

KM Assignment On KM Practices at Abhishek Industries Limited- Trident Group

Submitted to: Dr. Santosh Rangnekar

Submitted by: Navneet Rehan(50701034) Sumedha Goel (50701058)

Declaration
We declare that this assignment is all our own work and we have acknowledged all the reference material used in this assignment including work published on the internet.

Knowledge Management Practices at ABHISHEK INDUSTRIES LIMITED: A Case Study

Navneet Rehan and Sumedha Goel LMTSOM,Thapar University, Patiala

Objective To study and understand KM practices in Abhishek Industries Limited-Trident Group Abstract Abhishek Industries Ltd, is the flagship company of the Trident Group. Trident is using a wide range of IT-tools supported by intranet and extranet for facilitating the sharing of knowledge among its employees to provide customer satisfaction, through teamwork. AIL lays strong emphasis on transparency, accountability and integrity. The driving forces of Corporate Governance at Trident are its core values, belief in people, entrepreneurship, customer orientation and pursuit of excellence. Methodology This case study has been developed with discussions with Mr. Rajnish Gera, General Manager, Energy Unit, Abhishek Industries Ltd. Barnala*. Introduction Abhishek Industries Ltd, is the flagship company of the Trident Group, incorporated in 1990 and headquartered at Ludhiana with manufacturing facilities at Barnala and Budhni (M.P).Trident is one of the largest towel manufacturers of the world, one of the world's largest agro-based paper manufacturers and one of the largest yarn producers in India. Abhishek Industries has made an investment of Rs 2130 million for expansion of manufacturing capacities of Terry Towel and modernization of Yarn and Terry Towel manufacturing facilities. The company is also setting up a 20 mw captive power plant. With business spanning across 40 countries, Trident today is Rs. 15 billion enterprise with the employee headcount more than 9,000, and providing indirect employment to 20,000 people. The organisation structure here is flat. The entire team of the Company is divided into five distinct categories based on their authoritative responsibility and functions: institutional builders or senior management, development coaches or the middle management, frontline entrepreneurs or executives as well as facilitators(called Saarthies) and operatives. The Company also employs some contractual workforce for non recurring assignments.

Trident celebrates its mission day on 2nd January and its vision day on 18th April every year. This year it has set 3 BHAGs (Big Harry Audacious Goals):
1. 15: Raise its capital expenditure to Rs. 15,000 crores by 2015 and achieving 15%

profit margin.
2. To make Trident a GPTP- a Great Place To Perform

3. To make Trident a number 1 national brand in textile and paper industry. Special Initiatives in the field of Knowledge Management and Learning and Development of TRIDENTIANS:
Knowledge Matrix: This is a knowledge bank having deposits of different

discussions, case studies, project analysis, policies, training material, manuals and books, technical drawings, presentations and news. Discussions include general topic as well as project related discussions. For example Management Education: Is it necessary to succeed in a business? -such topics come under general category. Case studies of various companies from paper and textile industries are taken and added in this repository. Other case studies like Valuation of intangible resources which can help in the improvement of Trident in knowledge Management field are also included. This bank is populated with technical drawings plus their functional description write ups, organised according to unit and department wise. So, this bank operates on both the internal and external sources of knowledge. Employees can use it at any time, either for ongoing projects or for future reference. In this way any good information of the company is accessible to all the employees. It also inculcates the habit of sharing knowledge for others among employees.
Communication: Trident is an advanced company in communication. It is totally a

paperless organisation. Throughout the company communication takes place through Lotus Notes. Employees at managerial level are provided with laptops, data cards and blackberry sets.
Library: To develop the learning and development culture a Library is present in the

company premises.
Takshila-Centre of Excellence: It is equipped with ultra modern training facilities for

its employees of any level like computer labs, classrooms, and training and seminar rooms. It caters the learning needs of the employees at any point of time. Continuous growth and development being part of Tridents vision, R&D is accorded high priority through which members are exposed to new ideas, are able to expand their knowledge base and become ready to face all kinds of challenges both at personal and professional level. Takshila is targeted to convert itself into a Corporate University.
Internal helpline and Help Cell: A 24 hour internal helpline is built to report any

matter like grievances, directly to MD. Help cell is built for employees where they can get any kind of help related to their work.

 Suvidha: Suvidha is an intranet cum extranet of Trident Group which helps its

employees in telecommuting. It provides different features like

o

Trident Directory, where all employees details are available

o

Trends of 5-6years in the Textile and Paper industry are presented

Collection of last 15 years experiences of employees who are now Alumni of Trident
o Alumni Portal: To bring together all the former members of Trident on one platform,

there is a Trident Alumni Portal. The portal is fun, interactive and keeps alumni connected with their old friends.
Joint W/catch ball process: Under this all goals are discussed with people

responsible for their achievement before they are finalized. The process goes like this: For a new project, firstly all features are discussed, then feedback is taken from all the related employees, and on the feedback basis decisions are finalised.

Induction programs: The new recruited employees are acquainted with company

environment and work culture through e-induction programs. Individual performance is measured via hourly monitoring.
Management Education: 40 employees were sent to IBS, Hyderabad for

management education for the time duration of 4 months.

Performance Management and Feedback System: o

Capability Development Index: This is an index to address development needs of executives at all levels and to speed up their growth. This helps employees to develop and improve their generic and specific competencies. RADAR chart: This is like a pie chart which tracks the work done by the employees. The amount of work which gets completed is shown green in the RADAR chart. 360 feedback system: 360feedback system is implemented here which helps the employees to know about themselves. It is measured on the basis of 12 competencies like creativity and innovation, passion for excellence, result orientation, professional mastery, building successful teams, identifying and developing talent, adaptability, communication, decision making, strategic thinking, leading courageously, and building strategic working relationships.

 Anand Ka Abhishek: Its an organizational development initiative taken by Trident.

Trident believes in Creating & Facing Challenges. Under this initiative, they revisit various HR processes like Performance Management System, Incentive Schemes, Recruitment & Selection, Training & Development, Career & Succession Planning, etc. It also aims at identifying and developing leaders & ensuring maximum participation of employees in management activities.

Preparing The Soil: It Involves creating a critical mass of highly motivated people who will drive the change effort in the organization.

Study Mission: It facilitates learning and transfer of learning from best practices of organizations that have undergone successful change/ transformation. Different teams from Trident, having a mix of hierarchy, function, age and attitude, are sent for these missions to various organizations like Infosys, Mother Dairy, Eli Lilly, Godrej, Dr. Reddy's, M&M, GCMMF, Gujrat Gas, Maruti, Mawana Sugars etc. These teams document their learnings and share it with other members of the organization by conducting workshops for them.

LSIP: LSIP or Large Scale Interactive Process as a methodology consists of Involvement of critical mass of people in a change event to enable transfer of commitments & action plans from the event to the workplace. LSIP programs are conducted over a period of 5 days covering approximately 1200 members per day under one roof.

Employee Engagement Initiatives

MUSKAAN: MUSKAAN is Tridents own nomenclature for KAIZEN. This is to ensure that members in the organization undertake small improvements of permanent nature in their own work area and department. This reduces extra effort, inconsistencies, and improves quality. One of the approaches under this is Lean Manufacturing. SHAAN: SHAAN is their own nomenclature for 5 S. Benefits of 5S in Trident include increased efficiency due to reduced time in looking for tools and equipment, improved quality, work standardization, reduced changeover time,

improved safety, reduced space requirements & storage costs, reduced machine down time and simplified work environment
o

SGA: Small Group Activities have been undertaken by members for improving the process capability in all the production and support processes and to make the processes more efficient.

BEST things about TRIDENT:

Trident remains strict to its defined values. The core values of AIL are four strong pillars of its governance system. 3Rs- Right fitment, Rewards, Recognition are always emphasised. Trident is known to provide best pay scales in the Punjab region. Its a performance driven organisation. The true meaning of flat and transparent organisation can be easily seen here like information of revenues / profits are known to everyone in the Trident family. Employees are given right to take decisions independently in their area, only those decisions are fixed which violate companys values. Distributed Leadership: Internal development of leaders is done through distributed leadership. Living 2009/24*7: Under this Frontline entrepreneurs are called CEO 24*7. They are given ownership of some areas where they can take decisions independently. Employee Stock Option is also provided to TRIDENTIANS.

Awards 2007 - 08 Silver Trophy -' Top Exporters -Madeups' 2007 SAP ACE (Award for Customer Excellence) 2007 JC Penney Supplier of the Year Award 2007 Padma Shri Award to Mr. Rajinder Gupta, CEO, AIL. 2007 CONCOR (Containerized Corporation of India) Best Exporter Award 2006 Safety Award 2006,2005,2003,2001 Wal*Mart International Supplier of the Year

2006,2005,2004 National Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance 2006 CITI Birla Award for Quality Management(Confederation of Indian Textile Industry) 2006,2005 Outstanding Export Performance 2005 ICAI Awards for Excellence in Financial Reporting 2005ICWAI National Award for Good Performance, 2005 2005Distinguished Entrepreneurship Award, 2005 2005Udyog Ratna Award 2005Merit Award at Kaizen Summit 2004E&Y - India Inc Icons of the Year 2004 2004CII Quality Circle The 'Trishul Team' won the first position in the Regional Final Round of CII's Quality Circle competition held at New Delhi in December 2004. 2004Tata Crucible Business Quiz 1999Energy Conservation Award

* Phone No. +91 9878997858 rajnishgera@rediffmail.com

Email Id: rajnishgera@tridentindia.com ,

REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Interview with Mr. Rajnish Gera, General Manager, Energy Unit of Abhishek

Industries Limited-Trident Group, Barnala. 2. Tridents Official Intranet cum Extranet website, Suvidha
3. Tridents Official internet site, www.tridentindia.in

4. Interview of Mr. Rajinder Gupta, CEO, Abhishek Industries Limited with Textile India Progress 5. Manual of Performance Management System: Orientation and Skill Building Workshop

Annexure 1: Questionnaire Used:

Get: 1. Does your organization support any document, manuals, web sites, intranet and extranet? 2. Do you have any electronic portal? 3. Which type of training is provided to employees? 4. Do you keep the records of problem occurring in your organisation?
5. How do new recruits get acquainted about the organization?

Use: 1. What is the organisation structure of your organisation? 2. How do you do the performance analysis of employees? 3. How do employees share new ideas in the organisation? 4. How do you share your information with customers? Learn: 1. Do you encourage employees to undergo orientation programs or specialised courses? 2. How often do you evaluate your organisations performance? 3. What are the expansion plans of your organisation?
4. Have you worked on learning culture of your organization?

5. Do you focus on continuous improvement? Contribute: 1. Do you encourage the employees to share new ideas? How? 2. What is the rewarding criteria of your organization?

3. What is the role of an individual in your decision making process? Assess: 1. Are employees encouraged enough to do research work? 2. What is the core competency of your organisation? Build & Sustain: 1. Are the best practices periodically documented? 2. Do you consider your organisation at satisfactory level in cut throat competition? Divest: 1. Do you focus on analyzing a problem by identifying a pattern? 2. How do you convert information into knowledge?