ACHIEVERS
Congratulations

Ms. Aarti Parameshwaran, daughter of Mr. Parameshwaran of Delhi Branch, has shown a high standard of excellence in Tamil Nadu State Intermediate Board Examinations. She passed her Higher Secondary in Commerce stream and secured 100% marks in Accountancy.

Harshad M Mande, son of Mr. Manmohan M Mande, of Godrej Infotech Ltd., secured 96.33% marks (289/300) in PCM and aggregate marks of 92.5% (555/600) in the H.S.C. Examination held in March 2001.

Mr. Shantaram S Salekar of Plant 15 has been re-appointed Special Executive Officer (S.E.O.) by the Govt. of Maharashtra for a second term of four years from 28.7.2001. He is in constant touch with the Police Department at Vikhroli, in helping to establish law and order, and rendering assistance to civilians as and when the need arises.

Lakshmi Upadhyay, daughter of Shreedhar Upadhyay of Plant 19, secured 84.58% marks in her S.S.C. Examinations from Udyachal High School.

Office Furniture Division
At the Office Furniture Division, we continue our efforts towards creating customer delight. We have also come out with an innovative concept, the Knowledge Centre, where we try to put 'knowledge selling' into practice. This centre has been visited by our customers and architects who have appreciated both our products as well as the knowledge we share with them about our products. "I was awe-struck looking at the facility and the interest each one of you have taken to make me comfortable," says Mr. Siddarth Hemmadi, Asst. Manager (Projects), GE International Services Ltd.

"We were pleasantly shocked and surprised to see the mammoth leap our very own Godrej has taken as regards the Modular Furniture and seating industry. As a staunch Indian, I felt personally accomplished to see the Furniture range at par with international contemporaries," feels Arch Jayan Tipnis of Jayan Consultants Pvt. Ltd.

Just as we have set off on this path of change, so has the market, so has the competition, keeping this transposition in mind, we have come out with a spectrum of new products in all our product lines: Desking Systems: Maestro & Accolade (premium Executive suites for senior professionals), Buddy, Companion & the Personal Workstation (our Computer Workstation range) and First Impressions (the reception table); Seating Systems: 4103 chair and Jupiter chair (premium auditorium chair); OPOS: Reflex- the Desk Based Partition system.

Training and development, the time-tested tools, have been used to bring about change in skills, awareness levels, knowledge and performance of our people. We had conducted a training programme for Sales and Service personnel in July-August 2001. Keeping in mind our mammoth network of dealers, which is forever increasing, we also had training for our technicians on product installation on a region-wise basis.

The Partnership 2000 Initiative:
We at Furniture Business constituted the Divisional P2K Team comprising all the DMC Members conducted weekly. To bring in accountability and sense of ownership, we invited feedback from the Divisional P2K members so that they could tell us what had to be done better and what were our strengths. We had a series of Performance Assessment Workshops conducted for all employees, which enabled people to understand their accountability in a better manner. They say what is in the DNA cannot be changed ... Though Performance and Leadership flows in the veins of Furniture Business, we believe, we still have a long way to go.

Launching of 'Baan'
The Branch went live on “Baan” from July 2001. Its launching was done in traditional style with the breaking of a coconut followed by 'puja' and 'aarti' to the computers, in the midst of joyous Branch employees and Mr. Sanjay Jaggi, the "Baan" implementor for Jamshedpur Branch from H.O.

Jamshedpur Branch

Customers Meet
On 9th August 2001, Jamshedpur Branch organised a "Customer Meet for Bankers" at Hotel Chinar in Ranchi, which was well attended. The Bankers were given a presentation of our range of products and a demonstration of our new products. This was followed by cocktails and dinner. The bankers were highly appreciative of the efforts put in by the Branch personnel in making the meet a success.

Kudos to Visakhapatnam Branch Team for having won the Regional and All India House Keeping Contest consecutively for the second time. The trophies were handed over by Mr. A. N. Choksey, OCP Finance, during his visit to the Branch on August 7, 2001 to Mr. B. P. Chinoy, Branch Manager and Mr. P. Guviah, Service Executive. Mr. K. M. Vinod Kumar, General Manager - Sales (South Zone) was also present to grace the occasion.

Mr. Takao Kasahara, our Japanese Consultant,
reviews projects in Locks Division, Plant 18, on 16th June 2001

CHANGE
Change is the only constant in the world today. All of us undergo change- some for the better. Experience changes us.

I had been part of a 4 member team sent by the Office Equipment (OE) Furniture Division to Dubai in January 2000. Before the trip began which was basically a training programme for Steelcase representatives, I was under the impression that we at OE Service, Bangalore were doing an excellent job and had reached the pinnacle of perfection. But this lofty opinion soon changed.

On reaching the apartment, we literally experienced a cultural shock. The apartment was perfectly constructed and fully furnished with veneer furniture. There was not a single scratch in the entire 2-bedroom apartment. In fact my colleague and I, who were allotted an apartment, spent thirty minutes searching for defects. We found none!

Then came breakfast which was served at 7.45 a.m. exactly on time. This was indeed alarming as we had imagined that we would have to remind the hotel. It was pretty obvious that the entire hotel was geared up to take care of customer needs both in terms of time and quality.

After breakfast, we hailed a cab and reached the Al Abbas showroom without any difficulty. Once inside the showroom, we saw an excellent display of furniture. The only scratch we triumphantly found was on a Free Standing table, which had undergone thirty demos!

At the showroom it was emphasized that we could walk around the showroom only after proper authorisation was given. We realised that there was a system in place.

The training programme was very informative. Apart from the technical training, it provided other valuable insights, which has changed my way of working in Godrej forever and which I’d like to share.

1. Only personnel who have undergone a systematic training on the product are allowed to handle the system to assemble or dismantle the system.
2.It is a matter of great pride to do one’s work to perfection. The immigration officials, the cab driver, the hotel reception, the timely service of food, the zero defects in the showroom and at the apartment proved one thing. Perfection is a natural expectation.
3. Steelcase USA, had observed that while ordering panels, sales persons always forgot to include a small item in the computer workstations order called junction. This items joins the panels together. This would cause a lot of delay when discovered later at the time of installation. After much debate they found a solution. Steelcase re-wrote the order menu to always begin with the requirement of junctions. Thus maximum importance was given to ensure that this item was not missed out- ever again.

In other words, Steelcase gave maximum importance to the weakest link in its chain. A lesson for all of us. We need to focus on our weakest link.

From the above experience we had we returned fully CHANGED. We no longer felt perfect. In fact we had a lot to do.

Looking back, I can say that by implementing all that we learnt, my whole outlook at Godrej has changed. Let us all strive for CHANGE.

R. Solomon
Bangalore Branch

CHANDIGARH BRANCH
Silver Jubilee Year
On 5th September 2001, Chandigarh Branch completed 24 years of its existence, and entered its Silver Jubilee year. Mr Barinder Singh, the Branch Manager, in his address to all its personnel, highlighted their past achievements with the hope that they would do even better in the years to come.

July 2001
The Branch welcomed a 5 member team from H.O. headed by Mr. A.N.Choksey who was accompanied by Mr. Ajay Pimparkar, Mr. Sanjay Deukole (GIL), Mr. Somnath Banerjee and Mr. D.B.Chapgar (G&B) for pre-Baan implementation. Mr. A.N.Choksey informed all Branch members the need for Baan and outlined the schedule of training for its smooth implementation from mid-December to be conducted by Mr. Somnath Banerjee.

May 2001.
In order to maximise business, the Branch organised their annual WDs Conference at Manali, presided over by Mr. Dhruv Sharma, GM-Sales (North). H.O were represented by Mr. Vispi Patel of ‘Storwel’ Marketing, and Mr. Sushil Kadam of Security equipment.

The Branch has made it a point to organise from time-to-time of 2-3 days duration Training Programme of ALL PRODUCTS for WDs Salesmen and Service Mechanics, and exclusive training for both Sales and Service in Electronic Security Equipment. Participants always found such programmes educative, informative and useful.

Staff Club
This year the Branch has revived their Staff Club activities.The club had been started under the aegis of Mr. N.E.Tarapore, its first Branch Manager, but lost its regularity after 1983. Staff and their families welcomed the club’s revival and looked forward to more "get togethers".

A Touch of Class
When Reliance Industries wanted a reliable supplier for their Stainless Steel (316L) High Pressure Absorber Column at Hazira, they reposed their faith in Godrej for high quality and speedy delivery.

The order was placed with Godrej after negotiations valued at Rs. 172 lakhs based on a delivery commitment of five months (a very tight delivery schedule considering the work content involved: 2.5 M. Dia. 34M long and 78MT)

An additional complexity arose when we could not procure material sizes of our preference, and were compelled to take whatever material available, and make additional weld joints, which resulted in almost doubling our work.

Within two months of placement of their order, Reliance requested us to advance the delivery further as they anticipated problems at their Hazira Unit because of deterioration of catalyst in their existing column and the fear that they would be forced to take a Plant shutdown by the end of February.

It seemed an impossible task to further advance the delivery by one month. However, this gauntlet was taken up by PED and the impossible achieved.

Reliance facilitated this endeavour by arranging round the clock Inspection coverage, ensuring that there were no bottlenecks due to engineering or other clearances required from their end.

This marvellous dovetailing of needs and capability resulted in the equipment being ready for despatch one month before the Contractual date of delivery.

Reliance have gone beyond the Contract to issue a Bonus to Godrej for efforts put in by the PED team when they informed us in their letter No. RIL/GBMC/PTA (HZ) of 14.7.2001: "As a token of our appreciation of the efforts put in by you and your team, we are pleased to release a bonus of 2% of the basic order value, i.e., a bonus of Rs. 3.44 lacs."

The customer now speaks for us! Need we say more?

Ravi Vijayan
PED, Plant 19

The Excitement of a New System
The Baan system which went live on 2nd July 2001 at Chennai Branch was both exciting and thrilling. But it became still more exciting and thrilling on 14th July 2001, when we were privileged to have with us in the Baan room Mr. J. N. Godrej.

Mr. M. K. S. Prasanna who welcomed him was keen to show him the order-booking procedure, but Mr. Godrej was more keen on knowing the Stock position at Head Office, which was shown to him instantly. Mr. Godrej made a few queries followed by some words of encouragement.

Later Mr. Godrej addressed all the Staff members of Chennai Branch. He appreciated their good work and urged them to involve themselves in the Baan system. He cautioned that the Baan system like any other new system would be difficult to digest in the beginning. He had special words of praise for the various Managers at Chennai Branch in general, and made particular mention of Mr. Vinod Kumar, the Regional General Manager, and Mr. A.M. Visvanathan, the Vice President of Storage Solutions. We also had the privilege of dining with him in the newly set up Canteen.

For us, the Baan team at Chennai, the separation from our families for the past three months was amply compensated by the gracious visit of Mr. J. N. Godrej. Though the excitement has died down, the thoughts of 14th July still linger on.

F.S.Correa.
Baan Implementation Team, Chennai.

During the visit of Shri. J. N. Godrej to Hyderabad for the inaugural session of GREEN BUSINESS CONGRESS on 31 Sept. 2001, he went round our Kukatpally Establishment and also planted a sapling.

S.J.Singh
Fabrication Fitter - PED