CIO & LEADER-Issue-01-April 2018 (1)
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Cover Story<br />
Sometimes<br />
you don't see the<br />
problem till an<br />
outsider comes and<br />
shows you a better<br />
way of doing it.<br />
Rajeev Jorapur<br />
VP-MIS, Bajaj Auto<br />
tion) at Bajaj Auto, who oversaw the<br />
deployment, said of the implementation<br />
that they chose Universal Robots<br />
primarily due to the collaborative<br />
nature of the robots. "The key benefits<br />
of Universal Robots’ products such<br />
as their compactness, low pay back<br />
period, flexibility, light weight, costeffectiveness,<br />
accuracy and their safety,<br />
is what ultimately convinced Bajaj<br />
Auto about the suitability of Universal<br />
Robots for its standardized offerings,"<br />
said Sawhney.<br />
Universal Robots wasn't the only<br />
start-up that Bajaj Auto worked with.<br />
According to Rajeev Jorapur, VP-<br />
MIS at Bajaj Auto, start-ups offer an<br />
exciting model of partnership that is<br />
very difficult to get from most other<br />
partners. Their focus is on the task<br />
and to make it happen. They are<br />
driven by passion and are more entrepreneurial<br />
in nature.<br />
"Most start-ups are sharply focused<br />
and they don't have width that you<br />
expect with more established companies.<br />
Thus, you must carefully choose<br />
them with the purpose you have in<br />
mind. We won't be worried about their<br />
sustainability or how strong they are<br />
financially. We believe we would be<br />
able to handle that part," said Jorapur.<br />
The automaker was looking to simply<br />
the manual process of sending the<br />
service coupons to Bajaj Auto every<br />
time the customer visited the dealer<br />
for vehicle servicing.<br />
Jorapur said that it was crucial for<br />
the manufacturer to carefully record<br />
the timeframe within which the vehicle<br />
was brought in for servicing. In the auto<br />
world, customers must get their new<br />
vehicles serviced within a month of purchase<br />
in order to ensure that the product<br />
has a long run. There was no way of<br />
knowing whether the customer or the<br />
dealer followed the process completely.<br />
With this resolve in mind, Bajaj Auto<br />
went through careful assessment and<br />
selected GladMinds Technologies, a<br />
cloud based start-up providing CRM<br />
services. After the deployment of the<br />
solution, the paper-based coupon<br />
system was replaced by a unique digital<br />
token system and was given to the<br />
customer every time he/she brought<br />
his/her new vehicle for servicing at the<br />
dealer's shop.<br />
Jorapur said that sometimes you<br />
don't see the problem till an outsider<br />
comes and shows you a better way<br />
of doing it.<br />
In 2<strong>01</strong>5, the automaker partnered<br />
with an IoT start-up.<br />
At the time, a lot of manufacturing<br />
processes at Bajaj Auto were<br />
performed by external vendors at the<br />
company’s assembly plants. A vendor<br />
would communicate the production<br />
details at a pre-decided frequency but<br />
if machines could tell how they were<br />
performing without human interaction,<br />
not only would the manual effort<br />
at collecting information would go<br />
away and info would come directly<br />
from machines and would be more<br />
timely and reliable than somebody<br />
communicating it.<br />
“With this hypothesis, we<br />
approached the start-up, who helped<br />
us eliminate the manual channels and<br />
helped us plan our maintenance in a<br />
more robust manner,” said Jorapur.<br />
In the last four years, the company<br />
has evaluated over 50 start-ups, performed<br />
POC on 10 start-ups and are<br />
closely working with five start-ups on<br />
fully operational projects.<br />
“Most of our time is consumed in<br />
conducting background checks, financial<br />
analysis and performing due diligence<br />
– that is where most of our effort<br />
and energy is spent,” said Jorapur.<br />
#When an enterprise and<br />
a start-up can work together<br />
on resolving specific<br />
business problems<br />
Organization: ONGC<br />
Start-ups: Undisclosed<br />
Outcome: Inculcate<br />
innovation in business and<br />
eliminate critical business<br />
problems<br />
Some start-ups are only interested in increasing their<br />
own evaluation. You must gauge the motive of such<br />
organizations early on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2<strong>01</strong>8 | <strong>CIO</strong>&<strong>LEADER</strong><br />
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