Cost Congress 2008
After meltdown, it’s Mumbai effect
Thomex.com
The terror attack on Mumbai had its toll in Delhi too in the form of conferences and seminar being cancelled, postponed or witnessing thin attendance. The CII-organised Cost Congress, which was held in Delhi from November 27-28, had not only few participants but also two of its main speakers couldn't make it to the Capital. Another event - International Conferences on Technology Policy and Innovation - which was supposed to be held in Delhi from December 1-3, was postponed for January next year because of the terror attack in Mumbai.Speaking to thomex.com, R Sudharsan of CII said, "There were many participants to the show who could not come despite having paid their fee. Some of them were stranded in Mumbai and could not make it the Capital. Organised under the theme, 'Connecting Enterprise Excellence to the Bottom of the Pyramid through TCM', the two-day conference however went ahead with its schedule. Speaking on the occasion Gary Cokins, Global Products Marketing Manager, SAS Institute, elaborated on performance management saying it was the integration of multiple methodologies with each embedded with analytics, such as segmentation analysis and predictive analytics to achieve the strategy. It embraced methodologies, metrics, processes, software tools, and systems that manage an organisation's performance.AS Durga Prasad, Vice President, ICWAI while deliberating on TCM in retail sector said that the Indian retail industry is the largest among all the industries, accounting for over 10 per cent of the country's GDP and around 8% of the employment. It's expected to grow 25% annually and could be worth US$ 175-200 billion by 2016. He said that the retail chain faces unique and extremely complex challenges including supplier visibility, seasonality of items, human resources, multiple channels, return & reverse logistics, rising transport and shipping cost, high customer service demand etc. Durga Prasad said that the current retail boom in India can only be sustained if momentum of supply chain management is given top priority by retail players.Sudhanshu Sharma of Grant Thornton while speaking on the Performance-based Budgeting (PBB) said that it was an effective strategy and required integrating planning and budgetary activities so that it’s possible to see the effect of funding, demand and other factors. He said that knowing the cost, the leaders can make informed decisions about where to allocate scarce funding. They can even defend those decisions with solid data.P Thiruvengadam, senior director, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, while speaking on corporate governance and TCM said that the creation and optimization of stakeholder value should be the main object of governance. Good governance should appropriately balance the interests of stakeholders to optimise value and should be fully integrated into the organisation. He said that the governing body should establish a set of fundamental values by which the organisation operates and all those participating in governance should embrace these fundamental values.TG Dhandapani of Sundaram Clayton while speaking on enabling lean management through ERP quoted Bill Gates' saying, "The first rule of any technology used in business is that automation applied to any efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that the automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."While explaining lean management, he said that it meant balanced use of people, equipments and material that gives lowest manufacturing cost which ensures that all wastes are eliminated and material is supplied as per customers requirement as and when required with specified quality and quantity.V Srinivas, Director, Sr Vice-President & CFO, Satyam Computers while speaking on eroding cost advantages and need for cost management practices stressed on efficient resource utilisation for enhanced profitability. He said it leads to improvement in onsite and offshore loading factors, mappings of Business Wait Associates to projects at offshore and reducing revenue leakage due to leave and training of the staff.For complete success in total cost management Srinivas emphasised on 6 Ps - People - grow leader faster than the competition; Process - Demystify knowledge; Product - put technology to work; Proliferation - Don't re-invent the wheel; Patent - find a better way and Promotion - let perception lead reality. |
