IT at Hero Honda: A Quiet Revolution Kamna Malik and SR Balasubramanian

Abstract Information management till 1998 was certainly not a key requirement at Hero Honda Motor Ltd. (HHML), a market leader in two wheeler segment in India. When many of the major industry players had already joined the ERP bandwagon, IT department at HHML was still operating under the aegis of finance department, expediting the way of projecting the benefits of enterprise information systems to top management. In 1999 started the Quiet Revolution a shift from reactive data processing systems to strategic information systems; from Obey all IT staff to Serve all professionals. There has been no looking back since then. Improvements in materials planning have been highly significant. Inventory management and purchase process have been reengineered to achieve just in time model. Some of the Quality control activities have been removed without a compromise on product quality or cost. Today, the renamed SAP/IT department serves as the nervous system for this Rs. 7500 crore company, its 550 dealers and 350 vendors. It has become a referred site for IBM and SAP and was a ramp up site for mySAP - SRM. The punch line for success: Have state of the art technology for competitive advantage and adopt it fully, says Bala Vice-president, Systems. Moreover top management support has been a major contributor to this success. It has not been a smooth sailing though. In initial days, Bala had to contend with users lack of faith in the IT systems in operation and the skepticism of two failed experiments with IT. Then came the challenge to break traditional mindsets and stereotyped business processes. The first phase of reform involved setting the in-house systems right, the next stage was to introduce industry standard packages to automate business processes. After the new systems stabilized and helped in enhancing efficiencies in the work processes, it was thought appropriate to spread wings beyond the organizational boundaries and connect with suppliers and dealers to cover the entire value chain. Considerable success has been achieved in this area and the process is on. IT has also introduced business intelligence in the decision making process and it has set itself a challenge of changing the work culture among the managerial staff. It is no cake walk, and though the initial changes have been introduced, the target is to make it a way of life for senior management by December 2006. Key Words: Information Systems, IS Planning, Business Intelligence, Strategic Information Systems, ERP, BPR. Introduction Hero Honda Motors Ltd. enjoys a reputation for quality and innovation in motor-bikes segment. In order to handle its fast growing pace, it decided to go for integrating the enterprise information through SAP. Soon it not only started reaping the benefits of its multi-crore investments but also became a reference site for its processes and practices in SAP implementation. Management Information system (MIS) has been fairly Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663. 1

streamlined by eliminating paper reports and ensuring online access at authorized points. The task has not been that easy as every one involved had to sail through technology as well as cultural changes. Many people had to go through the unrest and uncertainty. Now the company wants to utilize its Information Technology (IT) capabilities to enable business intelligence. However, the time is not ripe as managers, accustomed to routine reporting and stereotyped analysis, have difficulty appreciating the need and importance of analyzing data intelligently. Company Background Hero Honda was formed when Honda Motors of Japan wanted to establish a motorcycle company in India after the local government eased restrictions on foreign investment. Hero Cycle was Indias largest builder of bicycles, and the firm had a sister company, Hero Majestic, which was a thriving moped maker. Added to the attraction of massproduction capability and a large distribution network was a similarity of thought. Honda saw that we had similar business philosophies, notes Brijmohan Munjal, founder of the Hero Group [3]. We were careful with capital investment, and made efficient use of equipment and manpower. Obviously Honda found those qualities attractive, and the new motorcycle manufacturer hit the road in 1984 and has today become the World's single largest two wheeler Company. Coming into existence on January 19, 1984, Hero Honda Motors Limited gave India nothing less than a revolution on two-wheels made even more famous by the 'Fill it - Shut it - Forget it ' campaign. [2] Based in New Delhi, India Hero Honda quickly won a reputation for innovation and quality. Its first model, CD100, adopted a four-stroke engine at a time when the entire Indian motorcycle market used two-stroke engines. It also gave riders a whopping 80km per liter, double what the competition could manage. Driven by the trust of over 13 million customers, the Hero Honda product range today commands a market share of 50% making it a veritable giant in the industry. The over Rs. 7500 crore company operates through a network of two production plants one each at Gurgaon and Dharuhera, 27 sales offices spread across the country. Sales are generated through more than 550 dealers, 20 stockists, 350 vendors and 700 services points. In the words of Brijmohan Munjal [2], "We will continue to make every effort required for the development of the motorcycle industry, through new product development, technological innovation, investment in equipment and facilities and through efficient management." Scale of companys operation is visible from following table 1 and figure 1. Case Methodology This case writing is an outcome of first hand experience, observation, document review, research study and interviews. The balance of depth as well as non-bias has been ensured by the composition of team of authors. The second author is the key resource person who heads SAP/IT function at the company and has been leading the ERP implementation since conception. First author has been in constant touch with the IT implementation at Hero Honda over various stages in different capacities initially as an employee and then as a researcher. An earlier study conducted in 1999 on the IS effectiveness of the Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663. 2

company had indicated the overall readiness of the company for higher end use of IS as moderate. Organization culture and budget allocations were identified as major limiting factors. Table1 (a): Sales Trends of Hero Honda Motors Ltd. [2]
1985-86 1989-90 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 43,000 units 96,200 units 5,30,600 units 7,61,210 units 10,29,555 units 14,25,195 units 16,77,537 units

Table 1 (b): Sales Performance of Hero Honda Motors Ltd.

Source: Company Documents

Sep 04
Domestic 212228 Exports 5279

Sep 05
257838 8233

Apr04Sep04
1197191 26728

Apr05Sep05
1377118 52874

Figure 1: Growth Pattern of Hero Honda Motors Ltd. [1] Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663. 3

Information Technology Evolution Initial Stage IT at Hero Honda was introduced since its inception. In 1985, payroll, Accounts and Stores applications were operational in conventional batch mode of operations. Gradually many standalone applications were built. The, then only factory at Dharuhera had NELCOs minicomputer that worked on its proprietary BASIC language. Many production and payroll related activities were built on this platform. At head office, systems were made on DOS and Dbase III+, a popular development environment of that time. These application systems supported primarily the marketing, sales and distribution functions. In 1990, the first revamping took place with the introduction of RDBMS / 4GL operating on Unix systems. This was the first effort towards integration and stability. At Head Office, Unify RDBMS was in use on 68020 motorola machine, running Unix. Accounts function had ready made multi-user software Ex from TCS. Spreadsheets were used to handle adhoc requirements. A RISC based machine with INGRES 6.1 on Unix SVR4 was installed at factory and attempts began to convert the old systems to INGRES. However, the task was not easy as this was not a high priority for the company. The staff was occupied maintaining the old systems in disintegrated environments. Phenomenal time was spent in data collection and information retrieval. There was a lot of duplicated effort. For example, dealers payment details were maintained at Sales and Accounts departments separately and they often used to discover mismatch in the figures. After a few years, these systems were found inadequate to take care of new market challenges. The IT infrastructure also did not cope with the rapid growth of business. The IT function called EDP department, till late 1990s was a part of Finance department. Bala - the head of IT, used to report to Vice President, Finance and used to hop between HO and plant. Thus the focus and culture of IT could not be much different from that of finance. In 1993, the head then Assistant General Manager EDP left the company. Very soon, most of the professionally qualified employees left the department. The old timers, who were not professionally qualified but had undergone basic on job training had to run the show. During this period, services of an outside consultant were hired but not many results came visibly out. New IT Wave In 1998, the company started seeing need for integrating systems and its importance in building organizational strategy. The first major step was to re-invite Bala as General Manager of IT and keep him at par with other functional heads reporting to CEO. IT found a place in the agenda of board meetings. However, most of the time in such cross functional meetings was lost in disputes over figures. Decision making was delayed due to incorrect information. Management did not place much trust on information put up to them.

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

In addition, loosely connected legacy systems generated routine reports and most of the information analysis was on printed spreadsheets. There was a lot of paper usage and paper movement. The company identified four areas with which it was dissatisfied: Disjointed systems residing on various platforms with little or no integration between them were leading to considerable duplicity of work. Inconsistency of information, with various functions coming up with different figures for the same activity. No transparency of information as employees kept information to themselves. Absence of a platform to help optimize organizational resources meant there was no clear road map for embracing state-of-the-art facilities. A few initial steps were taken to establish IT usage. Draft of a new information systems plan was made and put up to management committee for discussion. After a lot of deliberations, directions for IS deployment were firmed up and technology plan was derived. It was decided to use state-of-the-art technology solutions that were relevant to business. Gartner was appointed as technology advisor. New servers and internet connectivity was introduced. Small applications were built using Lotus Notes to extend IT services to others. E.g. Users could now log on to a networked system and register their IT problems and see the status as well. Use of emails and festival greetings were the initial applications. In-company store of e-greetings was built and employees were encouraged to add to the repository and use the same rather than download cards from the internet or attach large files. This led to controlled internet traffic and reduction of data traffic on the WAN and the same time gave a great boost to their passion for using IT as a communication tool. This brought in a significant cultural change. IT department recommended adoption of standard ERP package over the in-house development route. It strongly urged that implementation be taken as an organizational project rather than an IT initiative and all functional heads should be a part of this exercise. After some deliberations, SAP was chosen. SAP team presented a business case to the top management. To help in confidence building and decision making, a visit to some of the working installations was organized and intricacies and issues involved in such an implementation were studied. What also made SAP attractive was their strong presence in automotive sector, its financial clout, commitment to R&D and strong base in India. The entire suite was bought in March 2000. The Big-Bang SAP implementation got the status of an organizational project Synergy. A project team was formulated with 22 functional people, 10 IT people and 14 external consultants. The team went through many debates and arguments before process finalization. Wherever appropriate, processes were changed. Policy issues were escalated to steering committee. Minimal changes were allowed in standard SAP processes and additional Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663. 5

programming was restricted. 8 months time to implement was set up. Production, Sales, material and Finance were the first areas to be covered. Later Human resource and plant maintenance was also added. The project went live on Feb 1, 2001, following Big-bang approach. A lot of effort went into the planning for big-bang. It was surely a risk but then they had taken a lot many measures; learnt many better practices from others and adopted them such as: Keep time for masters update. Do not take master data easy. 4 months were kept for this. Enough preparation for go-live such as Integration testing; Hands on training; verification of masters on servers a week before the big bang.

On the big day, i.e. Feb 1, 2001, a demo session was conducted for Top management. Three transactions were done viz. Receipt of material, Production of motor cycle and invoicing. All clapped and went away. Then the transactions got muddled and many errors in master data, configuration settings etc. came to surface. User departments who were apprehensive of the success of the project had a reason to celebrate proving their visionary claim for failure. Finally in April 2001, the project got stabilized. The renamed SAP/IT department got its deserving position in the company. Modified organization chart of the same is exhibited in figure 2. The team includes technical as well as Functional people. Functional SAP team was organized by picking people from respective functional departments and training them on ERP concepts and package. They are the key people responsible for enabling the functional change and suitable customization. Managing Director Vice President SAP/IT IT Infrastructure Development SAP Functional

Servers

Network Security

SAP ABAP

VB/ Oracle

Lotus Notes

PP/ MM/ Fin/ SD/ HR

Figure 2: SAP/IT Organization Hierarchy

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

Business Process Improvements Major process effectiveness was realized after SAP implementation, resulting in high savings. Direct Clearance and Direct Online Step 2 Vendor Store 1-3 days lag On issue basis Step 1 Quality Clearance Figure 3: Process re-engineering Before ERP implementation, material used to come from vendor to store from where it used to go for Quality clearance and then stock management used to be done. The transfer of material from store to QC used to take around 1 to 3 days. Stocks were maintained thus raising the need for stock management as well. Production department used to request issue of material from store. There used to be a lot of conflict in the issue and received quantity. In step I, it was decided to eliminate Quality clearance (QC) and allow direct clearance. This was based on some observations. E.g. it was identified that for items like batteries Hero Honda had no arrangement to test for the quality of electrode. Similarly for tyres there was no provision to test their quality. It was obvious therefore that quality check and its entry into the system was a wasteful exercise. There was resistance from in house QC people due to fear of loss of job and this had to be handled well. A counseling session with them helped allay their fear and they were assured that they would be deployed on better tasks than sheer data entry. A list of various items was made. Number and percentage of rejections were traced and it was observed that around a thousand items were not rejected even once and another 1000 were rejected once in three months. Overall rejection rate was less than 1%, so Quality inspection process was eliminated and instead returns rejection was followed. Assurance now had to be vendors problem. This led to the installation of Direct Clearance process. This was then handled by deputing some of them to vendor sites for QA. Production

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

The conflict between issue, receipt and rejection quantity of material still remained a bottle neck. For this, Back-flash system was introduced which meant that no explicit issue of material done to production department. It was rather assumed based on actual production minus the supplies. System calculated the same and forced the production department for proper use of material. Thus Direct Online system was introduced, allowing the material to directly go to production thereby eliminating storage in the warehouse. Through information transparency buffer stocks were reduced. Earlier sufficient buffer used to be kept to feel safe and then later written off. Now ERP handled the calculation of buffer requirement. Quality inspectors became quality assurance people after much resistance. Removal of Quality clearance led to major savings. Thus, many processes were eliminated such as Receipts process; QC Inspections; Management of stock in store and Issue process to production. Figure 3 depicts the improvements discussed above. Beyond Integration ERP implementation is ideally an ongoing activity. It has been adopted gradually and in full form. The roll out for SAP implementation as planned and implemented is exhibited in figure 4. Punch line for this success has been to have the state of art technologies and use it fully, says Bala. IT has intentionally opted to remain out of Quality circles as it does not believe in Quality through Slogans. It has rather chosen to make changes quietly, for some of which in-fact other departments start taking the credit. We know what the fact is and that IT is contributing to business, then whats the need to make hoopla? says Bala. Many refinements have been done to improve upon the utility of infrastructure and facilities. Today, it connects all locations and stake holders (figure 5, WAN Connectivity) and offers a self service portal for dealers, suppliers and employees and Information kiosks for factory workers[4]. The workers can go to kiosks and see their salary status and other personal details. Interaction with the HR people has thereby been reduced. When Haryana became the first state in India to implement VAT (Value added tax), Hero Honda factories being situated in Haryana were expected to abide by the same. They took the initiative to customize SAP for the purpose. Later on, they were invited to help SAP in their product update. Today, Hero Honda enjoys the reputation of a reference site for SAP. At many occasions, their site and expertise has been used for training of SAP personnel as well. Inside the company, SAP/IT department is now seen as a successful project implementer. The HR department, motivated by the knowledge management drive in the market, once approached the SAP/IT with a proposal to initiate the knowledge management programme. Their idea was to have a system where process and skills knowledge of the company would be maintained and utilized. SAP/IT suggested changes as it was fully convinced with the way the project was modeled. However, HR chose to handle it alone but could not succeed.

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

ILM

SEM / Portals SRM

CRM

BiW

SAP-HR

Document Mgmt

SAP-PM

Employee Self Service

SAP R/3

SAP R/3 Stabilisation

SAP R/3 Process Improvements

Jan, 01

Jul, 01

Jan, 02

Jul, 02

Jan, 03

Jul, 03

Jan, 04

Jul, 04

Jan, 05

Figure 4:

Roll out Plan

Source: Company Documents

HERO HONDA WAN CONNECTIVITY

2.4 Hz 5G
1.5MB ( 2nd Backup Link) TULIP Repeator Site

2.45

GH z

(Kasan, Manesar)

2MB LL Bharti (Primary Link) 2MB LL BSNL (1st Backup Link) 2MB LL Bharti (Primary Link) 128K ISDN (Backup Link)

128K IPLC (Tata VSNL-NTT)

R&D

Gurgaon Plant
2MB LL Bharti (Primary Link) 128K ISDN ( Backup Link)

2M B

LL

Dharuhera Plant
BS NL
Delhi PoP

2MB LL BSNL

Comsat Max ( Airtel ) Frame Relay Cloud

Local PoP

Gurgaon PoP

HCL Comnet IP Cloud

Local PoP

Head Office
256K MLLN (Primary Link) Internet 2MB (1:1) 128K ISDN (Backup Link) Primary VPN Link (64K CIR) 128K ISDN (Backup Link)

128K ISDN (Backup Link)

Primary VPN Link (64K CIR)

15 Area & 3 Zonal Office

North Zone Office

5 Area Office

Figure 5:

WAN Connectivity at Hero Honda

Source: Company Documents

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

IS Effectiveness There is no documentation of road map the larger picture but they do adopt annual business-IS plan. Though no formal way has been adopted for calculating ROI at HHML, there is significant evidence of high returns from IT investments. It is actually visible from many other business indicators. A study in end of 2002 as published in C|Level [3] indicated the estimated reduction of stock was to the tune of 600 million rupees (US$12 million). That can be seen as a decent ROI in nearly 15 months after the spending of around 110 million rupees (around US$ 2 million). The company sees ROI calculations as a short term view. The management feels, Information and work processes have been streamlined throughout the organization. Many tangible and intangible benefits have been realized and the work atmosphere has improved considerably leading to higher employee participation, morale and satisfaction. The well-managed image of the organization has made our employees feel proud of being a part of this company. We are today a reference site for most of our technology vendors, including SAP, IBM, Comsat Max and others. [3] There are many other intangible gains as well like no late sitting; no re-conciliation required with vendors physically; no phone calls. Last year, it became the first company in India to declare results i.e. on 13th April. This indicates processes and documents are in place. Sales and production has multiplied but support staff has not increased, rather wherever people had left their replacement was also not required. Its like a suitcase on Wheel revolution. No one feels the change immediately but gradually it eliminates the need for Koolie, trolley and other carriers. It has brought gradual change in culture, logistics, convenience and money saving. Same is true for IS effectiveness at Hero Honda its a quiet but strategic change. Issues and Challenges Implementation has been effective at Hero Honda because they systematically cleaned up the in house first and then went in for integrating the supply chain. Now it is connecting dealers as well. Ultimate plan is to reach the consumer and implement E-commerce fully. Today, the company has highly skilled manpower that is confident as their market value has increased. However, the flip side is that the turnover rate in SAP/IT has increased. Functional Staff who was shifted from their respective functional units and now sits in SAP/IT department does not get accepted by their functional heads. They come across problems during performance appraisal. SAP/IT head however insists that they belong to the respective functional departments and are only facilitating their function and reporting through customization of the package, while sitting in SAP/IT department. As the operational data and reports are streamlined, the next obvious target is to enable business intelligence. In one of such trials, a functional VP was advised to use business intelligence features in SAP. The VP suggested briefing his personal assistant on the Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663. 10

same as he did not have time. The IT head refused the service, saying PA is not meant to do business analysis. And the effort is on It is time for the company to explore if IT revolution has really been effective or not? Why is Business Intelligence not picking up in the company? What should be the road ahead for IT?

References: [1] Hero Honda Annual Report, 2003-4 [2] http://www.herohonda.com/site/about_us/History.asp [3] Susan Tsang, Hot Wheels, C|Level, Oct-Dec 2002 [4] www.herohonda.biz

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

11

Section B: Teaching Notes

Information Systems (IS) are often termed as socio-technical systems. Implementing them is a social challenge and management support is a critical success factor in this. Integrated IS follows a systems approach and targets improvising the value chain of business. Therefore, to study a case such as this that operates at an integrated organization level the readers must have obtained basic understanding of an organization and basic concepts of information systems. In this setting, the facilitator may define a generic model to be followed as a standard or it may be left to student / group to adopt ones own model for analysis. The case can be studied using generic strategic IS models such as SWOT, TOWS, Sector Analysis and value models [6]. The case may also be studied by looking at Critical Success Factors of ERP Implementation in literature. Gargeya and Brady [3] provide a good overview of such factors. The participants may discuss these factors around presence or absence of the same in Hero Honda. Students may be asked to do literature survey of CSFs at company, industry and region/economy level and compare the success / failure of Hero Honda.

Authors Analysis in Brief Situation Analysis Hero Honda Motors Ltd. is a typical brick and mortar company by nature of its business and thus is low on information intensity of its products. It is a company with high growth rate and has spread its wings to global markets as well. It has been a high achiever in implementing ERP in the organization. The IT department has undergone a major shift in its position and status inside the company. Now it is in a state of recommending process improvements as part of management committee. After the initial integration effort got stabilized, the company has undergone drastic improvements in some of the critical business processes such as Quality Clearance and Vendors supply. As Dickinson [2] suggests, internal as well as dependent processes have been filtered out thus maintaining focus on core business process i.e. manufacturing. As the company has been able to reach the level of business process re-look, the state can be termed as revolutionary [7]. The company now targets implementing Business Intelligence in its decision making process. Problem Analysis The IT/IS evolution in this company has been through the conventional phases from initiation to Integration [4]. Seeing across the stages of growth, one can sense that the delay was result of many factors as technical competence, lack of organizational experience with IT and functional support. Culture has been one of the major barriers at Hero Honda. Mindsets are stereotyped and people need a trigger to work beyond convention. After initial years of ignoring IT/IS, the top management has now started giving high importance to Information integration in the organization. ERP Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663. 12

implementation can be seen as a transition point [5] from where on use of IT has got tremendous increase. Through this, the people who initially had a doubt on the success of ERP project have got some confidence in IT and people supporting it. However, the cultural and functional barriers still seem to exist from two incidents mentioned in the case One where the team members of SAP-function have been in a way discarded by their functional heads and peers; second where a VP still feels the IT tools just like any other document or detail that can be handled by his PA. This indicates information analysis and use of information tools is still a second priority to the functional heads. Pilot Implementation of Business Intelligence At Hero Honda As indicated in the case, SAP/IT head has been at times, forcefully telling the functional people to take IS on priority because their people sitting in SAP project are doing their departments work only Customization of reports is ultimately their own need. The top managers are being advised to leave routine works and do something better. There have been initial trials of using business intelligence. In one case, it has resulted in better time management for materials supply. Earlier, there used to be long wait queues of trucks outside the factory gate, waiting for unloading. Stock turn was checked to find out that ancillaries gave 15 days of wait for stock. Increase of frequency of schedule was introduced to overcome this. In another case, BI is being applied to analyze the cause for Warranty. The company offers warranty on its products and parts and as a result gets a lot of cases of warranty claim. Root cause analysis is planned to find out causes of failure, as it typically takes 4-6 months to trace a cause for warranty. Though Business intelligence has its advantages, it is difficult for the traditional managers to think beyond the straight line. The reason can be two fold: a. They are accustomed to routine MIS reporting that is mostly linear in presentation. They have difficulty looking at multi-dimensional view of data. Majority is tuned to typical statistical measures of average, min and max and studying deviation of actual against planned. Averages in most of the cases hide out many facts, thus the worst and best case analysis is hidden out. In some cases, it becomes of interest to people as it saves exceptions from getting into lime light. In many cases, such as those of rework, rejections, production below capacity; deviations and effort to hide them has been a commonly observed pattern in the plant, especially prior to implementing ERP.

b.

Potential Analysis Even though Hero Honda has been late adopter of IT, it has gained significant benefits both from cost as well as differentiation factors. With strong support of management as well as the philosophy and proven leadership of IT organization; it as been able to exhibit its effectiveness at organization, industry as well as society level [1]. Moreover, its IS/IT infrastructure and processes seem to be aligned to those of the business; it should be able to move ahead to integrated organization without much hindrance. However, it needs to

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

13

ensure continued effort in providing technical and cultural orientation towards use and benefits of IS for improved decision making. References: [1] Delone and McLean, The DeLone and McLean Model of Information Systems Success: A Ten-Year Update, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 19 No. 4, Spring 2003, pp. 9 30. [2] Dickinson Brian: Risk Free Business Reengineering, Jaico Publications, 1997. [3] Gargeya and Brady, Success and Failure factors of adopting SAP, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. II No. 5, 2005, pp 501-516. [4] Nolan, R. L. "Managing the Computer Resource : A Stage Hypothesis", Communications of the ACM, 16, 7 (1973), 399-405. [5] Nolan, R. L. "Managing the Crisis in Data Processing", Harvard Business Review, (April 1979), 115-126. [6] Robson, Strategic Management & Information Systems, 2nd ed, Pitman Publishing, 1997. [7] Scott-Morton, Michael S. (Ed). The Corporation of the 1990s: Information technology and organizational transformation, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Published in Sahay, B.S., Stough, R. & Sardana, G.D. (Ed.), Cases in Management. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers, 2005. Pages 653-663.

14