After the decision to withdraw Quadra, Akruti City had floated the idea to go for ERP built in-house, but the management's decision to go for a world class product from Oracle changed the way. No ERP can fulfill all company-specific requirements; the one that meets 70 percent can be a fit and the rest of the functionalities can be handled in-house.

Oracle and SAP were short-listed. Both were evenly matched, but Oracle was chosen because it had a definite edge thanks to its open source nature – which opened the scope for integration – and its lower cost. Shrenik Mehta, AGM, IT, Akruti City speaks with Biztech2.0.

How have you planned to review the Oracle ERP rollout?

There is a three-level layer in the project review process. The first level consists of the functional champions. The second level is the steering committee presided over by the CEO, senior HODs and all of whose processes are included into the ERP. Every week there will be review meetings between the steering committee and the functional heads. Any unresolved issues will be routed to the third layer headed by the MD and the chairman.

Just before a major technology initiative there is a hesitance in the employee mindset on the viability and the issue on dissolving designation dependability. It was an eye-opener for us. One of our goals in 2008 is to successfully implement the Oracle ERP.

How much time will it take to go live?

We have chosen KPMG as the implementation partner. The project will take about five months to go live. The project is set to be completed by July. We are taking a big bang approach. The approach will be to select the functional champions of all the departments and they will act as facilitators in designing the processes for configuring the system.

What is your strategy to mobilize the employee base for the Oracle rollout?

Apart from the functional champions, we will concentrate on the IT department gaining the same expertise for training. KPMG also follows a ‘Train the Trainer’ concept whereby the functional head will train the employees of his department. The advantage is the team will not face the mindset challenge, as an employee from the team will be teaching the team itself. On the other hand, the approach of the team will be different altogether if a KPMG consultant is teaching them.

What was your experience with the IT team and you as an IT head at the ERP workshop with the IIM Professors?

The workshop gave us a lead in validating whether we were on the right path. Our CEO was also a part of the team. He can easily relate to the problems and also suggest a solution. The PMO has been formed and it is decided that our functional champions will work for approximately four hours daily on the Oracle implementation. In an adjacent building we have created a separate office for 30 employees. They will sit with the KPMG consultant to define the processes.

There will also be a separate hardware package allocated to them for testing and working on the project. The HODs also realize the importance of the project and they have asked the best people in their department to work on it. We have created a team that will work part time and full time.

What kind of training have you imparted to mobilize the workforce before they start working on the Oracle ERP?

We did a three-day workshop at IIM Ahmedabad, exclusively for the HODs to give in-depth idea into the kind of data volume that will be managed. This will also evangelize them about their initial contribution and hard work that will ultimately benefit them. The workshop stressed upon the definition and the fundamentals of the ERP, the overview, how it will help in business process reengineering and change management.

Which modules have you developed in-house?

The inward module, outward module, budget module, operations module – we have derived a certain logic to the critical issues in the project and attributed ranking on the basis of the criticality of the issue. There is a speedometer that tells the project speed. There are colours (red, green etc) that gives an idea on the speed at which the project is run. We have recently implemented a planning module that deals with multiple permissions required before any project initiation. It can be called as a small document management system, where department-wise documents are put online on the basis of the progress of the permission.

Will the Oracle ERP able to include a complaint and mobile management module that you had plans to develop initially?

Initially, in the first phase, the transaction data will be dealt with. We want to settle down with the basic modules like procurement, inventory, billing, contract, a/c payable, receivable, sales etc. The complaint and mobile management will either be a part of phase two or phase three where we may also plug in dealer and supplier networks wherein dealers can log on to the ERP and post their quotations after going through our requirements. They might also get the comparatives before putting in the quotes.