Interview Questions

Full Interview with Anand Agarwal

Anand Agarwal:

Sterlite Technologies is a leading global manufacturer of wire and cable solutions for the telecom and power industries. In our quest for business excellence, we try to build transparency within our systems, thereby enhancing value to our stakeholders. Ensuring a high level of automation in our business processes, through IT, has been a key company-wide focus area.

Also, our products are manufactured in semi-batch process, wherein the quality of a batch can be judged by the quality of the previous batch. Hence, it is extremely critical to have real-time information on each sub-process, and this is only possible with a robust IT platform.

For Sterlite, IT is critical in the creation of competitive advantage and in the optimization of our business processes. This enables growth and allows us to improve our relationships with customers.

Anand Agarwal:

Sterlite's vision is to be among top-three manufacturers in the world by 2010, in terms of market share for all our business lines. In order to achieve this vision, adequate business intelligence is pivotal. We have enabled our workforce to be 'always connected' to the Internet and in-house IT platforms through computers, laptops, Blackberrys and Internet data cards.

Through the IT applications available within Sterlite, we have been successful in keeping abreast with information and best practices related to markets, products, technology and competition.

Anand Agarwal:

We have focused on our core competencies to ensure that we are amongst the lowest cost producers of all our products. This has been done by vertical integration and intelligent manufacturing. All our products have core linkage from the very basic natural resource - we manufacture optical fibers from naturally occurring silicon ore and we manufacture aluminum conductors from basic aluminum.

Our continuous focus is on achieving value addition from one form to another by expending minimum resources in terms of energy or chemicals. This helps reduce cost and pollution and helps use less energy and conversion agents. We effectively use IT to integrate manufacturing across the various stages of conversion as well as in reporting and controlling/optimizing the use of conversion agents.

We believe we have a unique edge with this approach on a global basis and we continue to work on this and such differentiators to ensure that Sterlite and India continue to be a big manufacturing hub for all the products that we sell globally.

Anand Agarwal:

Sterlite Technologies received the CIO 100 Award 2008 for its innovative use of IT in manufacturing. Sterlite has implemented a unique end-to-end traceability platform that is integrated with our ERP platform for the entire manufacturing chain at its power conductors facilities. The system ensures end-to-end traceability of raw material and intermediate products that are used to produce finished products.
The system was initiated on the basic premise that automation has the inherent benefits of data integrity and data reliability. Since data is automatically entered into the ERP servers from scanned barcodes, Sterlite has also been able to free up a significant amount of valuable manpower, who can now perform more value-added activities, rather than data entry. It has also simplified inventory management and enhanced customer support.

Anand Agarwal:

IT helps by reducing complexity, bringing about standardization and facilitating communication throughout the organization. IT merges different information silos into a common pool of information. It ensures that everyone talks a common language in the enterprise as far as data is concerned.

Anand Agarwal:

We have one instance of our ERP for all the locations wherein all users are governed by the same checks and balances. We believe we have implemented a robust platform with a very high degree of quality of service with all users being connected on a high-availability, redundant mesh network.

We have a total of six manufacturing facilities located at Aurangabad, Silvassa and Haridwar. Their manufacturing processes are independent of each other, but all other business processes (finance, banking, treasury, among others) are consolidated. IT has been able to integrate our business processes and bring a geographically-spread operation on a single platform.

Today, distance and location are no longer a constraint. Our executive management can assess the health of the business wherever they are or whenever they wish to. Moreover, from a customer support perspective, it is very important to have end-to-end material and process traceability for the entire manufacturing value chain. Our integrated ERP platform enables us to do this efficiently.

Anand Agarwal:

Within Sterlite, we use a combination of SAP and Oracle as unified platform for most of our manufacturing and financial processes. However, we acknowledge that there are some functional areas which require external interfaces such as effective CRM (customer relationship management), PMS (performance management system) and BMI (business measurement index) modules.

Although we are still in the process of evaluating these external modules, we believe that our biggest challenge will be to achieve a high degree of seamlessness between platforms to make the system user-friendly and provide the necessary return on investment.

Anand Agarwal:

Based on industry and customer requirements, we strive to develop a portfolio of quality products and services, through the effective use of IT and Six Sigma and a sustained focus on Intellectual Property and the environment. That is our business mission at Sterlite. Hence, quality and IT are at the very core of all that we do. We believe that getting things done the 'first-time-right' is crucial for operational excellence. Six Sigma methodologies integrated with IT initiatives have helped us to operate at very high compliance levels.

Anand Agarwal:

At Sterlite, we have a core management team that meets at least once a month to evaluate the evolving needs of our business. This core team comprises functional heads from operations, finance, marketing, IT, HR and purchase, to create a holistic view of our business. As a policy, our corporate decisions are not unilateral, but a result of healthy debate and unbiased evaluation of initiatives to improve productivity and efficiencies.