MANAGEMENT CASE

INTER-ORGANISATIONAL SYSTEMS IN A CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS NETWORK: CASE OF GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LIMITED (GCPL)
Anjali Kaushik

This paper reports a case study of the inter-organisational systems (IOS) at Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL). The paper provides valuable data on planning of IOS and its effect on supply network competitiveness. GCPL has taken specific initiatives to integrate distributors, retailers and the suppliers across its extensive supply networks. This study shows that different supply chain partners in an actorbased business network may require separate information system planning and design. This case presents a differentiated analysis of the design elements (e.g. relationships, processes, systems as well as change issues) from the perspective of a major player in the Indian Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Industry. This study highlights the need for coordination among various IOS initiatives and between network partners and business managers of the key actor. It also focuses on the qualitative and quantitative benefits achieved for all partners through strategic planning of IOS and adds valuable information to the business relevance of IOS investments. Key Words : Supply Chain, Inter-organisational Systems (IOS), IT Value, Critical Success Factor (CSF), Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), India

INTRODUCTION

S organisations rely more on collaboration with the partners to enhance their position in business, they look beyond their traditional information system boundaries. Many organisations use IT-based inter-organisational information systems as a strategic tool to link partners in the supply chain. GCPL is such a case study from the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) sector in India. GCPL has successfully implemented three IT based IOS initiatives with dealers (Sampark), with suppliers (Sahayog) and with retailers (Sampoorna). The main objective of these IOS is standardisation of inter-organisational processes and optimization between the partners. This case study discusses the drivers for planning, methodology and the CSFs for these IOS initiatives. It is hoped that the findings would provide insights for other organisations that plan to implement IOS in their Supply Chain Networks.

When planning systems have greater impact upon organisational processes, especially across a number of organisations, planning must be inter rather than intraorganisational (Finnegan et al., 2003). However, little formal thought is given to the planning of IOS processes (Finnegan et al., 2003). Kumar and Dissel (1996) recognised that the inter-organisational structures, design, implementation and operation of IOS are interdependent. This means that inter-organisational system development is affected by more factors besides technology. Of these factors, planning is regarded as a most important factor in influencing the success of interorganisational systems (Finnegan et al., 1998). It is important to carefully plan for and architect these systems, understanding that the nature of these systems is quite different from planning at the organisational level. There are concerns on amount and nature of information to be shared between the organisations, trust

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between the partners, security concerns, roles and responsibilities of people across the organisations, infrastructure requirements, technology platform and modelling of inter-organisational processes. The management of a process across the organisation in itself adds to the complexity. The cultures across the organisations are different; therefore, there is a need for cultural alignment in integrating processes across the organisation. Not much work has been done in the area of IOS planning. This study discusses the drivers and IOS planning issues for GCPL. The GCPL study also discusses the CSFs which maybe important in the IOS domain. CSF occupies a prominent place in IS research field. Rockart (1979) defines CSFs as those few key areas of activity in which favourable results are absolutely necessary for a particular company to reach its goals. For obvious reasons, the critical success factors are the areas of activity that must receive due attention from the management. CSFs have been one of the earliest and most actively researched topics in the IS field. As a result of such research efforts, we know a number of factors, which influence an information systems successful implementation, e.g. commitment of top management and adequate funding. These factors are applicable to IOS, since it is also a sort of IS. However, IOS are more complex and multifaceted than the traditional information system in terms of technological and management issues. The GCPL case study brings out certain CSFs that may need to be addressed for successful IOS implementation and adds new insights to the existing literature in IOS domain. LITERATURE REVIEW Supply chain collaboration has been strongly advocated by the consultants and academics since the mid-1990s under the banner of concepts such as Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), and Continuous Replenishment (CR). It is widely accepted that creating a seamless, synchronized supply chain leads to an increased responsiveness and lower inventory costs. Several seminal studies have identified the problems caused by lack of coordination and to what extent competitive advantage can be gained from a seamless supply chain (Lee et al., 1997; Chen et al., 2003). The management of supply chains is characterised by high degrees of difficulty, attributed in large part to the complexity of the multiple relationships and interactions
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between the trading partners. These interactions are not just complicated by their volume and variation in the processes, but also by the complexity inherent in the dependencies existing between the parties in time and space (Power, 2006). Organisations have been deploying information technologies as a means of improving information flows. Literature in the area of supply chain management often proposes an extensive set of benefits for the organisations which choose to invest in the technologies which are designed to enable more effective processes with trading partners (Ballou et al., 2000; Cachon and Fisher, 2000). These systems are enabled by different interorganisational systems (IOS). IOS are Information Communication and Technology (ICT) based systems that transcend legal enterprise boundaries (Bakos, 1991; Konsynski, 1993). The boundary-spanning aspect implies a level of cooperation and coordination well beyond that of the traditional arms-length relationship that exists between organisations acting as free agents in the market. IOS exist to support and implement cooperation and strategic alliances between two or more organisations. IOS are strategic assets as they enable new business models. Kumar and Dissel (1996) define IOS as software and system manifestation of interorganisational relationships. IOS represent a pattern of interdependent relationships between the activities of a given firm and those of the other firms (Kambil and Short, 1994). IOS affect organisations at many levels (Sumoi, 1994) and these systems go beyond mere electronic data inter-connection and deal with the people, policies and procedures (Konsynski,1992) as well as power relationships (Webster, 1995). Inter-organisational Systems (IOS) and Collaboration Johnston et al., (1988) define an IOS as an automated information system shared by two or more companies, to facilitate the creation, storage, transformation and transmission of information. An IOS differs from an internal distributed information system by allowing information to be sent across organisational boundaries through communication technology. The strategic value of IOS has been well recognised for its real-time interaction, higher transaction accuracy, more efficient and quicker payments (Hendon and Nath, 1994), rapid response, reduced search costs, reduction in inventory and tighter links to customers (Johnston and Vitale, 1988). These benefits enable all parties to have high operational efficiency and capability (Angeles et al.,
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2001), and more and more corporations tend to adopt IOS in order to gain competitive advantages. The above definition of IOS encompasses many systems such as extranets, EDI, Internet EDI, B2B e-commerce and eSCM. What they differ on are just the technologies used, scope of application, stakeholders and so on (Grossman, 2004). Current IOS literature focuses on describing the role of information technology in enabling the transition from inter-firm competition to cooperation (Kumar and Dissel, 1996). As organisations move towards closer, more collaborative economic relationships, information technology and IOS play an enabling role in making this transition feasible (Clemons and Knez, 1988; Clemons and Row, 1992; Reich and Huff, 1991). There are a number of reasons for the formation of inter-firm collaborations (Guglan and Dunning, 1993). These collaborations are formed for sharing of large investments, pooling and spreading of risk and access to the complementary resources (Guglan and Dunning, 1993). Economies of scale, specialisation, rationalisation and in some cases the motive of neutralising competition by co-opting are also cited as possible reasons for these partnerships (Kumar and Dissel, 1996; Jaiswal and Kaushik, 2005). Further, increasing the return on investment by a geographically wider diffusion of the firms products and services and thereby increasing the product life cycle expectancy may also play an important role. Reduction in supply chain uncertainty is an important possible motive for the virtual vertical integration (Konsynski, 1993). This in turn helps in gaining cost, cycle time and quality advantages over the competing supply chains in the Industry (Kumar and Dissel, 1996). The key strategic advantage is through collaboration within the supply chain to compete with other chains in the industry. Supply Chain Network has been defined as a structure of interdependent relationships between the activities of a given firm and those of other firms in its competitive environment that influence each others strategies (Kambil and Short, 1994). Competitive success, to a large extent, now depends on how well the entire supply network delivers value to its ultimate consumers, relative to its competing supply chain networks (Christiaanse and Kumar, 2000). Oftenmentioned features of such a network are a strong interorganisational design and an interactive and dynamic set of relationships acting in concert with one another for a common goal, bringing together core capabilities of different organisations to accomplish business

improvements. One of the benefits of a Supply Chain Network is the increased flexibility of linking actors together. This provides a more agile arrangement for the network to produce from actual customer requirements as a starting point, and not on the basis of assumed or forecasted customer needs. Fawcett et al., (2008) did a study of 51 firms to understand the practices and requirements for supply chain collaboration. Majority of the firms (86%) identified information sharing and system integration as the topmost requirement for collaboration in the supply chain network. Supply/ demand networks invariably involves more than one organisational unit and often integrates business partners such as customers, suppliers, and service providers with a companys information infrastructure (Alt and Fleisch, 2001). It is important that the supply chain network are planned and coordinated properly; else it may result in suboptimal performance for different partners in the value chain. Gap in Terms of Good Planning in IOS Most of the early research in IS planning was theoretical; essentially developing better conceptual models for the internal IS planning (McFarlan 1971, IBM 1975, McLean and Soden 1977, King 1978). These models have evolved over the time in light of the changing organisational role of IS (Ward et al., 1996). Business organisations are increasingly getting networked with their business partners and they need to incorporate the network issues in their IOS planning process. IOS planning requires addressing the problem of finding how diverse systems and platforms will be integrated to meet the organisational requirements. The conventional methodologies fail to explicitly address such integration issues because they are from an era when organisations created their own information systems and cross-platform integration was not a primary need. These shortcomings are in part because of the significant shifts in business practices and technological capabilities in the last few years (Kaushik, 2005). In addition, some of the IS planning models may not have strong theoretical roots, which might make it difficult to augment them to suit in new contexts. As there is a move towards systems which have greater impact on the organisational processes, especially across a number of organisations, planning needs to be inter- rather than intra-organisational. There are factors such as increased role of information, reduced transaction and coordination costs and economics of a
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network and its effect which make the planning environment with business partners different. The earlier theories are abstract approaches to the network structure and classification and do not provide comprehensive help in answering the practical questions. IOS for supply chain requires addressing the problem to find how diverse systems and platforms would be integrated to meet the organisational requirements. Practice also shows that as a rule business participate in several networks simultaneously and are involved in different value chains for different products and services. These networks may be independent or they may mutually influence one another. In the process, they use different IS/IT applications, depending on the business processes to be coordinated. While a few inter-organisational system planning models have been put forth in the recent years, each of these models has its own weaknesses. For example, the industry framework for e-business (Kalakota and Whinston, 1996; Kalakota and Robinson, 1999) is a broad-based framework that examines the significance of technologies in the e-business. The focus of this framework is to explain e-commerce technologies and their capabilities. The framework does not provide sufficient details to serve as a tool for IOS architecture planning. Similarly, Zwass framework (1996) is a general-purposed model which focuses upon the nature of e-commerce infrastructure, services and products. This framework also fails to address the concerns and requirements of IOS architecture planners. Raghunathan and Madey (1999) suggested an IOS planning framework which focuses on the development of e-Business Information System (EBIS), providing a threedimensional coordinate axis to classify business models and to establish IOS architecture for a particular model. While the Raghunathan and Madey (1999) framework focuses on the information architecture for e-commerce and is useful in aligning e-commerce information systems to business needs, it fails to adequately address how the overall architecture of e-business systems should be planned and designed. Finnegan, Galliers and Powell (1999) conducted a study to understand the IOS planning practices of largesized organisations in Ireland and the UK. Their study is largely exploratory in nature and the focus is on documenting the IOS planning processes followed by the companies with a view to improve upon them. The study indicated that IOS planning is still in its infancy and is largely ad-hoc. It also revealed that the companies are still relying on the traditional IS planning approaches
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and majority of organisations experience difficulties in IOS planning. An analysis of planning activities of the respondents showed that they are more concerned with the systems issues than with cooperation issues. This demonstrates the infancy of the IOS planning process and illustrates the importance of developing appropriate method for dealing with IOS planning in a network. As IOS become more complex and started to have significant impact, situations where one organisation develops a system and simply extends it to others will be inadequate. This is especially true of IOS that require alteration of business processes to achieve greater benefit (Swatman and Swatman, 1992). Limited research has been done in the area of IOS planning for Supply Chain Networks. Most of the earlier frameworks do not consider managerial and organisational problems, change management issues in defining how planning should be done. The conventional IS planning frameworks may help the business strategic planners to understand how to rapidly plan IS applications at firm level but may prove inadequate when considered for inter-organisational systems. Therefore, though some studies have been done in the inter-organisational domain, no comprehensive study seems to have been done that fills up this gap in the literature. This case study attempts to bring out an approach to IOS planning in an actor-based supply chain network. Inter-organisational Systems in CPG Industry Researchers in inter-organisation systems have developed a variety of theoretical arguments to explain the formation and structure of IOS enabled alliances between the organisations. These arguments are usually derived by adapting and extending existing theories of the organisation from intra to inter firm behaviour. Bensaou and Venkatraman (1996) examine different theories for inter-firm cooperation. The IOS in a vertically integrated supply chain has sequential dependency i.e. the output of one unit becomes input of the other unit (Kumar and Dissel, 1996). For example, the marketing plan becomes input to production and/or purchasing plans. With sequential inter-dependence, there is a direct directional dependence between the units (Robey and Sales, 1994). This case study provides evidence that in a vertically integrated firm, IOS add value at all points in the supply/ demand chain. This information is valuable. Traditionally, the IOS in such supply/demand chain was driven by the key actor. The evidence from this case study
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suggests that IOS planning, design and implementation including cost sharing may be collaborative as all the players stand to gain in supply network. It also discusses the issues involved and the critical success factors (CSFs) in the implementation of these IOS. This case study examines the IOS usage and its effect on the firms competitiveness closely. METHODOLOGY Due to complexity of IOS planning process and the uniqueness of each Supply Chain Network, it is difficult to suggest a single best method for planning of interorganisational system. For example, there is no best approach in integrating the external supply chain with the internal production and inventory management processes. In such a situation, the case study research method is often employed (Eisenhardt, 1989; Benbasat et al., 1987). Case research is particularly suited to the situations where current theories seem inadequate (Eisenhardt 1989; Yin 1989). It gives a possibility to be close to the studied object (firm), enabling inductive and rich description. Case research is also a strong method in the study of processes as it allows the study of contextual factors and the process elements in real-life situation. Case study has been recommended as a suitable approach for the study of networks (Halinen and Tornroos, 2005). This paper is based on a case of the Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) which is a leading CPG company in India. GCPL was selected for case study for the following reasons: First, GCPL is a major player in the CPG industry in India. Second, it has successfully formulated and implemented an IOS strategy for its supply chain and realised significant benefits for all partners in the network. Third, if we observe the performance of CPG companies in India especially since October 2008 (which represents the current economic downturn), GCPL has the most positive performance and has outperformed the Sensex compared to the other players in the CPG industry. To get through the description of this case study, several informants who had good access to the study issues and the case network were taken. The primary data for this study was collected during 2006 - 07 and was later updated. In this case study the first set of data about the case companys structure and business performance was collected from its published documents and the website. The secondary data was also collected from various relevant industry publications, industry reports, magazines etc. The

second set of data about the Supply Chain initiatives was collected through the interviews and discussions with its Chief Information Officer (CIO) and senior executives from its IT, finance, marketing and operation functions. A total of seven interviews were conducted across the functional departments. Apart, there were two sessions from across the functional areas where senior executives from the functional areas and the CIO explained their processes end to end. Interviews and qualitative insights were also obtained from the dealers and suppliers of GCPL. Two of the suppliers, five distributors and three retailers were contacted for the purpose of this case study. The third set of data on the post-implementation scenario was collected from various published documents and industry analysis reports (see www.indiainfoline.com; www.godrejcp.com), as also interviews and discussions with senior executives at GCPL. Specifically, the postimplementation information was collected from the IT head, senior managers in production, marketing and purchase departments. The case study examines the supply chain network re-design issues at GCPL for integrating its extensive supply chain. The details of the IOS planning strategy and the planning process are also discussed as part of the case study. CPG SECTOR IN INDIA The CPG segment ranks among the leading implementers of Information Technology (IT) in India. Some of the prominent areas where CPG organisations harnessing the power of IT include supply chain management, dealer management, customer relationship management and sales force management. The size of the CPG industry in India is close to INR 500 billion which is approximately US $ 11.5 billion (www.indiainfoline.com). Low margins and high volumes characterise the CPG sector. While the level of disposable incomes determines the overall sector growth, the market has already been segmented and subsegmented. Companies have launched products at a number of price points to drive up volumes. New products are being launched in niche segments, and old products re-launched. Brand equity drives the customers purchase decisions, and is the key to gaining market share. Also, competitive pressures have hiked the advertising budgets of most players. Besides, a profusion of promotional schemes are being offered. Most players are struggling to maintain top line growth, despite incurring heavy advertising and sales promotion expenditures.
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A lower price differential between the organised and the unorganised sectors from reduced excise duties is now allowing the former to grow at the expense of the latter. The organised sector also has a superior distribution reach. Although most of the product categories are still in the growth phase, a few broad categories, like detergents, have reached a mature phase in the urban markets. For the past five years (2000 05), the organised sector has been focusing on rural markets, which are perceived to drive future growth in the industry and which, to a very large extent, are dominated by the unorganised sector players (www.indiainfoline.com). After the slow growth registered during the period 1999 - 2003 due to price wars and below-par monsoons, the CPG industry as a whole is now focusing on extending reach into the highgrowth rural markets, investing in increasing in-house production capacities to achieve lower cost per unit and improving the efficiency of their marketing (advertising, sales promotion and channel management) programmes. Key Industry Trends and Initiatives The secondary research on CPG sector in India and interactions with the business and IT managers at GCPL indicated that the CPG players in India want to drive volumes and gain market share more than ever before. To achieve this growth agenda industry players are taking various IT and market initiatives around one or more areas such as rural marketing, streamlining of distribution channels, increasing sales by driving channel width, re-orienting business focus from brand management to business management, deploying IT solutions to better manage their procurement and distribution etc. There is a strong MNC presence in the Indian CPG market and out of the top 10 CPG companies four are multinationals while two others have significant MNC shareholdings. Unlike several other sectors where multinationals have entered after 1991, MNCs have been active in CPG sector in India even before 1991. CPG sector is poised for further growth in India because of the emerging opportunities and strong fundamentals developing in the economy. The future growth may come from newer segments such as the youth and through increased rural and small town penetration. Internet and e-commerce may further change the dynamics of this industry helping the companies improve their procurement, distribution and selling efficiencies.
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CASE BACKGROUND GCPL (www.godrejcp.com1) is a major player in the Indian Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Industry with leadership in personal, hair care and household and fabric care segments. GCPL is a part of the Godrej Group which is one of the largest engineering and consumer products companies in the country. Godrej Group was established in 1897 and has since grown into more than a $1 billion conglomerate. Companies operating under the group umbrella are involved in a wide range of businesses Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) is a part of the Godrej Group. The corporate headquarters of GCPL are in Mumbai, India. GCPL has state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities at Malanpur (Madhya Pradesh), Guwahati (Assam), Silvassa (Uttar Pradesh) and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh). On the warehousing and distribution side, it has four Plant Warehouses (PWH), four Regional Warehouses (RWH), 33 CFAs (Carry and Forward Agents) and about 1200 distributors covering around 0.6 million Retailers. It has more than 300 suppliers. The organisation has adopted Total Quality Management (TQM) system and the factories have received ISO certifications. The main product-lines of GCPL are toiletries, hair care, household care, fabric care and body care products. The groups are based on the product lines. GCPL is amongst the largest marketer of toilet soaps in India. It is a leader in the hair color category in India and has a vast range of products. GCPL is also the preferred supplier for contract manufacturing of toilet soaps to some of the well-known brands in the country. The philosophy at GCPL is reflected in their mission we are dedicated to deliver superior stakeholder value by providing solutions to existing and emerging consumer needs in the Household and Personal Care business. The company achieved a revenue of INR 6573.2 million (146 mn USD) in the financial year 2005 -06. It had a turnover of INR 9,532.3 million in the financial year 2006 - 07. GCPL has a global presence and is operating across more than 30 countries in the world. GCPL implemented an IT initiative (Sampark) for outbound operations to capture the primary sales. It successfully extended this initiative to the suppliers and the retailers to enable end-to-end information sharing across the supply chain. The new distribution and supply chain system based on a replenishment logic has helped GCPL to reduce the stock outs at various levels in supply chain, thereby increasing the availability of products. It has also helped to move from being a traditional Push operation to becoming a Pull Operation. Continuous
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communication and data sharing with raw and packaging material suppliers, third party manufacturers and CFAs ensures optimal finished product inventory levels and adequate marketplace availability. Efficient distribution and supply chain management and an efficient collection mechanism have contributed to continue working on the negative networking capital. Further, besides significant cost optimisation and inventory minimisation, the IT infrastructure contributes significantly towards Knowledge Management by enabling access to the archived learning across several functions. The introduction of data warehousing products has improved the interpretation of sales data and comprehension of market dynamics. The focus of this case study is on the process of IOS planning in GCPL. It highlights the impact of the re-designed IOS in realising value for all business partners. INTER-ORGANISATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AT GCPL For GCPL, the thrust on IT started about a decade back, when as a group it decided to adopt ERP across the enterprise. In 1995 - 96, GCPL was one of the early companies in India to adopt ERP. It selected MFG/PRO as the ERP package. In 2000, GCPL decided to look beyond ERP and leverage the internet to the maximum possible extent. While ERP MFG/PRO had helped GCPL significantly to gain benefits within the organisation; the new IT initiatives were to connect the business partners outside the organisation. The GCPL IT team felt that MFG/PRO had also not kept pace with the market developments. MFG/PRO has a decentralised architecture and did not support B2B, dealer or supplier networks. At this time, Accenture was hired to prepare the Strategic IT Investment roadmap for the next five years. The methodology involved a cross-section of the organisation in co-creating an IT investment roadmap. Inputs were also taken from the annual IS plan of GCPL. The entire planning effort for the supply chain network was spread across three programmes. The main programme was to support integration with distributors. It was extended to the suppliers and retailers in the subsequent programmes so that the entire supply chain was integrated end-to-end. ANNUAL IS PLANNING PROCESS AT GCPL At GCPL, the IS planning is an annual exercise. The company has an existing, well-documented

methodology for IS planning. The annual IS plan is initiated by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and led by the Chairman. The CIO also participates in the general strategic business planning. The IS plan begins by taking requirements of IS applications and the projects from all functional departments. The average size of the IS planning team is 12 people. GCPL also has a large IS department consisting of more than 35 IS professionals. The IS planning team consolidates the current requirements and prepares a budget. It also does a review on the status of the IS projects which were initiated in the previous year. The entire information is presented and discussed with the top management with participation from the functional heads where required. Based on these discussions, the IS plan, projects and priorities are decided. The IS planning document includes recommendations on IS policies and procedures, investment priorities and resource requirements. It does not include detailed issues such as application architecture, technical architecture and service architecture. In 2006 - 07, the annual IT spend of GCPL was INR 70 million ($1.56 mn). STRATEGY FOR IOS PLANNING IN GCPL The main objectives of the IOS plan at GCPL were standardisation of inter-organisational processes and optimisation between the partners. These requirements led GCPL to conceptualise three IT initiatives Sampark, Sahayog and Sampoorna. These IT initiatives were conceptualised in line with the strategy document submitted by Accenture. It also had inputs from the annual IS plan of GCPL. GCPL identified three basic elements for IOS planning in its network: communication, cooperation and integration. Communication became the backbone for cooperation and integration. GCPL realised that in case of distributors, better connectivity and communication was of importance. These requirements gave rise to an initiative for Distributor Management System (DMS) called Sampark (a Hindi word meaning communication) for connecting the distributors. In case of suppliers, the focus was required to be on cooperation. Sampark was extended through another initiative called Sahayog (a Hindi word meaning cooperation) to connect the suppliers. This was followed by an initiative called Sampoorna (a Hindi word meaning complete) to integrate the retailers into the existing IT initiatives. The Sampark initiative forms the backbone of supply chain. The Sampoorna and Sahayog IT initiatives connect the two ends of the supply chain. All the above IT initiatives and
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Plants (factories)

Plants Warehouse (PWH)

Regional Warehouse (PWH)

Carry and Forward Agents (CFA)

Distributor

Retailer

Customer

Figure 1: Supply Chain in the GCPL Network

the current information system investments at GCPL are in line with the strategy document on IT submitted by Accenture earlier.
Factories

Distributors

Daily Closing Stock and Receipt Information Order Confirmation

DEALER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (DMS) INITIATIVE: SAMPARK The supply chain for GCPL consists of movement of Goods from the Plants (factories) to the Plant warehouse (PWH) to Regional warehouse (RWH). From RWH, the Goods move to CFA and then to Distributor and then to Retailer and finally to the Customers. While the product flow is sequential, the information flows are automated through the information system described below so that information is available for planning across different points in the supply chain much before the physical movement of Goods. PRODUCT FLOW GCPLs initiative to integrate itself with its distributors called Sampark (communication) successfully integrates 450 distributors directly and another 750 distributors indirectly into the supply chain. One of the challenges the company faced 3-4 years back was to bring the distributors into the IT infrastructure. The need came because of the non-visibility of stocks at the distributor end. GCPL had to entirely depend upon their estimates, intuition and knowledge of the field force. GCPL has around 1200 distributors of which around 400-450 are A-class distributors contributing 75-80% of the total business. Remaining 750-800 distributors are B and C class distributors. GCPL used Pilot with incremental and phased approach for Sampark. It was essentially a vendor driven (WIPRO) initiative. To start with, GCPL used project pilots at 25 distributor sites. It took GCPL 18 months from conceptualisation to the first roll-out to a distributor. Sampark is a combination of more than one product. GCPL has used a combination of business applications to integrate its distributors. While all the distributors are running a common business application, the application is different centrally. These diverse
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Broad Vision Application

Plant Ware house

Broad Vision Database

Central Database Regional Ware house

Carry and Forward Agent (CFA)

Shipping and invoicing details Location wise stock

MIS Reports (Input for forecasting) (Stock Report Fact, CFA, Dist.

HO

Figure 2: Replenishment Model for Class a Distributors: Information Flows

applications are integrated with a common replenishment engine using internet. The underlying business concept behind this information system initiative is based on replenishment. It monitors the inventory levels at distributor end and based on that it suggests a replenishment plan. The distributor has to furnish information on sales to CFA. Information on the current stock levels and Goods-in-transit in-turn flows from CFA to distributors as also to GCPL. The system considers all the above three things to determine the order level by considering the replenishment logic. IT Solution Selection Process The IT Solution design had to consider the preparedness and skill level with the business partners. The initial challenge was that the distributors were not open to sharing the data. Also the technical challenge was that most of the distributors were using some software or the other. The distributors felt that GCPL will get insights into their data and they had an apprehension
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that their data will be shared with other distributors. GCPL considered three options to overcome these challenges. Option 1 was to write 450 interface programmes individually for all distributors. The distributors were using some proprietary software for recording their dayto-day transactions. Extracting the information from their existing software meant coding about 450 extract routines. First this was a big task and then sustaining 450 programmes was another difficulty. Therefore, this option was ruled out. Option 2 was to develop web based data entry form on internet. Here, the distributors would come to website at the end of the day and then fill all the details. However, considering the low quality of net connectivity at most of the distributor locations and the time required to fructify this option, it was ruled out. Also, it would have been a time consuming process and it was difficult to gauge the accuracy of the data entered. Option 3 was to customise a mini-ERP for them. GCPL considered this option. Chennai-based BOTREE specialises in developing ERP for CPG Sector. Therefore, GCPL obtained the BOTREE ERP solution from the company BOTREE Software International Limited based in Chennai (India) and decided to customise it. It took GCPL 4-5 months to implement and customise the solution at distributor end and convince them to use it instead of packages which they were using earlier. The second part of this was to develop a replenishment engine which would run on the data collected by all the mini-ERP of the distributors and generate a sales order which would be processed by the CFA. GCPL has used J2EE compliant commerce server: Broadvision one-toone Enterprise for the Central Replenishment engine. This system works on a portal framework. Deployment of new functionalities is done in a modular way, without affecting the user interface or security aspects. This typifies the classical three-tier technical Architecture which can scale up to cater to practically over a million users. The GCPL team selected IBM MQ series as the middleware which ensures the flow of data across all these 450 locations in a secure framework. However, one of the major limitations of the existing architecture comes from the fact that most of the distributors are in fact using a separate ERP for each of their suppliers, although technically one package would be able to service all the suppliers, the reason being, the supply chain planning relates to sensitive sales data, no

supplier would like the distributor to share the package with any other supplier. The distributor has to customise the ERP to meet the overall requirements of the supplier. In most cases, the financial support for the package is also provided by the supplier. Implementation Details for the DMS Initially the initiative was Pilot tested on 25 distributors and was used for day-to-day billing, invoicing and payment processing. At the back-end, GCPL developed a replenishment engine based on Broadvision platform. The current information system architecture has 450 distributors, who use BOTREE as ERP. This solution is desktop based and the software is called Sampark. Besides this, GCPL has 33 CFAs who use MFG/PRO as ERP. The current system works on data from 33 CFAs and 450 distributors. The 450 distributors have internet connection and the 33 CFAs are connected on WAN. This data is collected centrally into the broadvision database. Broadvision application layer has got the replenishment formula (Sampark Order Replenishment System). At the end of each day, 450 distributors log on to the BOTREE ERP programme. This initiates the data transfer process and takes data and transmits it to the central processor. From CFAs also, GCPL gets the sales data on what has been supplied to the distributors during the day. Based on this data, invoice details are generated
Table 1: Scope SAMPARK Project Implementation Details Cover 450 Distributors spread across India

Implementation Vendor Driven Initiative (WIPRO), strategy/ Incremental and Phased Approach , approach Use of Pilot Sites Timeline Resources and team structure 18 Months from Conceptualisation to the First Roll-out to a Distributor. Sampark: Internal Team of 5 people. Business Led Project

Description of Consists of Sampark DMS(Distributor solution Management System); Vendor-Botree components and Software International Ltd.-Chennai suppliers of the different components ComponentSampark Web site ; VendorBroadVision IT Investment Amount SAMPARK:Software cost=INR 4.5 mn (0.1 mn USD); Hardware cost= INR 10 mn. (0.2 mn USD) ; SAHAYOG: INR 2 mn (0.04 mn USD)
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to the distributors. Therefore, the distributor knows that he is to receive these invoices in the next few days. The distributor marks all the invoices he receives. The invoices not received represent goods-in-transit. Data accumulation is done by 2000 hours everyday. The replenishment engine starts running by 2200 hours. By 3-4 am in the morning, everything is set and CFAs get the additional stock that is to be shipped to the distributors. Inventory level is maintained in term of number of days, say, in terms of 10 days of sale. It takes the record of last 30 days sales and then the future expected sales and orders are generated on per day sales basis. The Sampark initiative for these 450 distributors and 32 CFAs was completed in 2005. Replenishment for A-class distributors is done on a daily basis and for B and C class distributors; it is done on twice a week system. For B and C class distributors GCPL did not want to give the ERP software. This was because it is not easy to maintain the software at so many distributed sites. Also, these are small distributors and most of them do not even have personal computers. The other issues with small distributors are lack of IT awareness and lack of IT staff. These distributors are also located at remote places and providing them technical support would not have been easy for GCPL. Based on these considerations, for these 750 distributors, GCPL thought of a different solution so that the investment was also minimised. These small distributors call CFA two times a week and read the sales and stock data over the phone. CFAs key in the data by logging on to the website and then the data is taken backwards like in case of A-class distributors. This system was deployed in 3-4 months. In this way, GCPL is now connected to all its distributors. For proper planning and implementation of Sampark, two consultants Broadvision and Wipro were hired. While Broadvision was associated with building of the back-end logic for replenishment engine, Wipro was associated with the roll-out on distributor side. Wipro was selected because it had high geographic coverage and a good support model. The basis for financial justification of this IT initiative was the anticipated reduction in stocks and the consequent savings from the reduced inventory levels. The project team consisted of 5 internal people and the consultant team. Another objective of the project was to provide the daily secondary sales and stock information to its field force, so that better informed decisions could be taken.
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EXTENSION OF SAMPARK TO GCPL SUPPLIERS: SAHAYOG The gap in information flow between GCPL and its suppliers lead to frequent emergencies and unnecessary extra inventory at both the ends. Because of this, it was difficult to synchronize procurement with a stable production environment. Besides, the administrative efforts required to align the suppliers on GCPLs requirements, launch new products and fulfill transactional obligations were quite high. The GCPL management ultimately desired to move towards an inventory system which would be completely managed by the Vendor. Sampark was successfully extended to its suppliers through a separate initiative called as Sahayog which means cooperation. Sahayog was planned in year 2004 and was commissioned by the end of year 2006. Sahayog was developed on the Broadvision platform. Besides, the licenses and hardware cost of Broadvision (already incurred for Sampark) and additional development effort required for Sahayog was INR 2 million ($0.04 mn). Based on the distributors sales, GCPL generates orders and informs the regional warehouses on the quantity which is shipped to the CFA. Thus, CFA inventory level is also maintained at the minimum. The data from the regional warehouse is shared with the plant warehouse and based on it, the plant warehouse decides on the quantity that is to be shipped to the regional warehouse. Based on this, the manufacturing plants derive the quantity that is to be shipped to the plant warehouse. This information helps GCPL to finally decide on the quantity of different products to be produced at each of the plant. Based on this, the supplier is informed of the quantity that is to be dispatched. Thus for GCPL, Sahayog is like an extension of Sampark. Also, now production is done on the basis of demand which ensures that there is no over production. Therefore, a core IT initiative needs to be identified in the business network. This core initiative will depend on the individual condition of a firm and its business environment. This core initiative may be extended to other partners in the network through separate planning and design. GCPL has used Pilot with phase in approach to extend the Sampark initiative to suppliers. The top 100 suppliers are on the portal and are using Sahayog. The portal has allowed a firm communication channel to be established between GCPL and the suppliers, wherein key tactical information like dispatch and inventory
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details, finance history is regularly being shared and used effectively. The phase I of the Sahayog which dealt primarily with information sharing and building trust has been completed and GCPL is now moving to the next phase of inventory management which is Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI). IOS PLANNING IN GCPL AND COORDINATION IT enhances the coordination of economic activities by reducing coordination costs, and can therefore improve firm performance and productivity (Shin, 1999). The redesign of inter-organisational processes with the use of ICT plays a leading role in improving coordination among the various partners in the business network (Christiaanse and Kumar, 2000). GCPL is also implementing the concept of VMI to overcome the inventory problems in addition to the implementation of the IOS initiatives. The planning cycle of GCPL used to be monthly, and this has now become daily. The improved planning has paid off, mostly in stock reduction. On an overall basis, inventory level has come down by almost 50% and sales have gone up (see figure 4). The extension of Sampark to suppliers through the Sahayog initiative has further improved inventory planning in the GCPL network. Earlier the GCPL suppliers used to plan inventories on a monthly basis. After the Sahayog initiative, the planning cycle has moved to a weekly basis. Therefore, the implementation of ICT initiatives in the network does improve coordination between the partners, however, in case of more than one IT initiative, the coordination between the individual initiatives is also important; else it may lead to sub-optimal performance in the network and affect the performance of all partners. This is because the different network modes are dependent on one another in planning and manufacturing their finished goods and raw material inventories. INTEGRATION OF RETAILERS TO SAMPARK INITIATIVE: SAMPOORNA In the next phase, GCPL is trying to integrate its 0.1 million retailers through innovative usage of technologies such as PDAs in a separate initiative called as the Sampoorna which means completeness and integration in Hindi. This initiative is planned for the year 2007 - 08. The system will be based on replenishment logic again. With this, the retailers will also come into the current IS architecture. The

implementation of this programme started in March 2007. The challenge for Sampoorna initiative is that the retailers will not be using any system and cannot be connected directly into the network. To get data from them, GCPL will be using PDAs and mobile application for capturing retailing and Non Sampark Distributors data. GCPL plans to use the field force which used to visit the retailers earlier to get orders to also get the stock details using PDAs. This data from the retailers would be passed on to the distributors with Sampark who will then synchronise the data. Thus there is no overhead in terms of extra cost for the retailers. Each A-class distributor will serve 200-300 retailers. Also, only those 0.1 million retailers would be covered which are under the 450 A-class distributors. The Sampoorna project got completed by the end of year 2007. Thus, the information system planning in the GCPL network consists of extending the Sampark initiative to suppliers and retailers through two more initiatives called as Sahayog and Sampoorna. The supply chain planning logic is essentially replenishment based and is derived from the Sampark initiative. Going forward, GCPL is planning to change its ERP from MFG/PRO to SAP R/3. MIGRATION FROM MFG/PRO TO SAP R/3 In 2000, GCPL decided to look beyond ERP and leverage the internet to the maximum possible extent. While ERP MFG/PRO had helped GCPL significantly to gain benefits within the organisation; the new IT initiatives help to connect the business partners outside the organisation. The management team at GCPL was of the opinion that since MFG/PRO had a de-centralised architecture it may not support B2B, dealer or supplier networks easily. Also, according to them, MFG/PRO had not kept pace with the market developments. The success of above initiatives was because of the organisational/ top management push and now the expectations are high from the information systems across the organisation. What is to be shipped is completely generated by the system and there is a complete dependence on the system. Therefore, it is critical that the system functions properly. The technical challenge was to ensure that 5-6 software from different vendors (Botree, WIPRO, Broadvision and IBM) work together. If any of the individual applications fails, it would affect the complete system. Thus, sustaining these diverse systems is a challenge. Also, whenever any customisation or up-gradation is there, it is difficult to incorporate it across all systems.
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Therefore, the GCPL team decided to have SAP at the central level. It believed that SAP would be more robust as it was based on a centralised system. The implementation of SAP was started around March 2006. The business logic for the Supply Chain was kept the same but the central system was placed under SAP in this arrangement. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERORGANISATIONAL SYSTEMS IN GCPL This section does not cover the CSF for traditional IS such as top management support, communication, training etc. The insights obtained in the process of implementation of the IOS, the interview findings and the literature review are combined to list some of the CSFs in implementation of inter-organisational systems at GCPL. These include shared vision, change management, cross-organisational project team, interorganisational business process re-engineering, process ownership and strong project management.
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strong and key partners in the pilot phase. The success with the initial implementations plays a significant role in extending it to other partners. Bringing the distributors into the information systems architecture was a big challenge for GCPL. The distributors were not open to sharing data. Also the technical challenge was that most of the distributors were using some software or the other. The distributors felt that GCPL will get insights into their data and they had an apprehension that their data will be shared with other distributors. GCPL needed a solution that was not a technical challenge for all concerned and was aligned to the business logic. GCPL also realised that the initiative can only be successful if the distributors see benefit in adopting it. Till 1-2 years back, GCPL faced stiff resistance to their Sampark Initiative. However, slowly the distributors realised the benefits from the system and have started participating actively in it. GCPL considered various options to overcome the resistance from distributors. Training was considered as an important element of the strategy in the change management process. To convince the distributors, GCPL made a team of sales manager and 4 Officer Executive level people (one for each region) and they were made a part of the Sampark initiative. Each of the 450 distributors was extensively trained by a special team of 13 personnel (drawn from the sales function) with the help of Wipro. GCPL educated the distributors on the benefits of using the system and assured them of increased Return on Investment (ROI) within 4 months of usage. The distributors slowly saw merit in adapting to the system and were gradually convinced about that solution and how it would be beneficial to them and to GCPL. While GCPL benefited by a daily visibility of the retailing information, the distributor benefited from much lower inventory carrying costs. Like in Sampark, the most critical issue in Sahayog was to manage the resistance from both the purchase department and suppliers. The concern from the purchase department was more related to the security of information being shared. They were concerned about whether a particular supplier could see the price related information pertaining to other suppliers. GCPL arranged a detailed demonstration for the suppliers. Once the suppliers understood the benefits of opening a communication channel using internet securely, they helped to arrange supplier meets and participated in the trainings. In order to measure the benefits and evaluate the efficacy of Sahayog, Key Performance Indicators
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Shared Vision: Before the launch of the IOS project, it is important that the company and its business partners share a common vision for these IOS systems. It is important to communicate the blueprint and the objectives of the IOS with the business partners to reach consensus on the vision. The business partners should be asked to give their feedback which should be incorporated wherever possible. The shared vision of IOS among all stakeholders would reduce the divergence of opinion in the implementation process and in turn lower the risk and shorten the period of IOS project. Change Management: Change management is a critical issue in planning information systems in inter-organisational domain. Proactive change management requires companies to address the right structure, policy, processes and performance measures with all the entities affected by change. Companies are handling change management and project management issues by ensuring regular and focused communication and by organising training for the partners. The implementations are essentially phased so that the new system is introduced gradually and the change can be managed. The project management team needs to have committed people with strong project and change management skills to manage change across the external value chain. It is also important to identify and involve
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such as number of out-of-stock instances, administrative time and raw material (RM) inventory were set and measured periodically. Supplier meets were conducted periodically even after the site went live to take care of any operational issues and queries.
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setting authorisations for different data needs across the partners. BUSINESS IMPACT OF THE RE-DESIGNED NETWORK The initial calculations which were done showed that the benefit would be at least 1% of the sales i.e. around INR 60 millions (1.3 mn USD). On an overall basis, inventory levels have come down by 50% and sales have gone up. Payback period with these numbers came close to year. To measure the benefits of the re-designed network, distributors stocks were monitored. For instance, the stocks of a distributor in Mumbai came down from 30 days to 8 days. Also, the sales increased from INR 1.6 million (0.04 mn USD) per month to INR 2.4 million (0.05 mn USD) per month. Some distributors have reported about 15-20% increase in the number of outlets covered which directly reflects on their top line and in turn on the companys top line. There is a higher visibility of material flow and data flow across the supply chain. Figure 4 shows the inventory trends for the distributors and retailers from October 2004 to September 2006. The implementation of Sampark software across 450 distributors and 32 CFAs completed in April 2005. With the implementation of Sampark software the inventory levels have decreased across the Supply Chain. Improvement in Quality of Service Sampark has helped GCPL to considerably strengthen the bond of the Company with the distributors by significantly improving their quality of service to distributors. Earlier, pressures on the sales force in meeting primary sales targets led to unnecessary build up of stocks at the distributors end leading to high inventory carrying costs. High Margins products were being pushed in preference to low margin products ignoring market realities. This would invariably lead to stock-out conditions for some products. Sampark by its inherent business logic accurately captures the market realities of the sale of GCPLs products and ensures a steady stream of right dispatches from the CFAs to the distributors. The distributor is no longer besieged with unnecessary pile up of stocks and is able to control his stocks much more efficiently. The Stock Placement Accuracy which measures the delivery efficiency has gone up from 70% to +90%. Figure 5 shows the stock out to sales ratio in the same time frame. It is seen that overall, there has been a reduction of inventory holding days by 60% and a reduction of Stock-out situations by
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Inter-organisational Process Re-design: This implementation has re-organised the push-sales tactic followed before with pull-based operations. Now, the distributor invests smaller capital, for shorter time-periods. Also, product stagnation on the distributors end is reduced, and there are fewer chances of scarcity of a particular brand in the marketplace. Invariably, this translates to better brand visibility, and higher profits. Though this project took some time to reach wide acceptance, it is a part of the accepted routine now. Process Ownership: It is important for the processes that cut across various functions to have an identified process owner, who takes complete ownership in defining business requirements in the inter-organisational domain. Also active involvement of all affected functions should be ensured. The process owner plays an active role in defining requirements and functions and also helps in the resolution of issues in different stages of IOS planning. In addition to helping define business requirements and craft to-be processes, the process owner needs to proactively preempt problems and play an active role in the resolution of issues. GCPL identified dedicated process owners for all the important processes of Sampark. Additionally, it bore the entire cost for the Sampark initiative. Project Management: The critical success factors (CSFs) for the success of the Sampark project have been the participation from distributors and continuous support of top management. After implementation of the above projects, GCPL realised that for integrating the stakeholders in supply chain, the big-bang approach may not work. A pilot and phased approach is more advisable since the word-of-mouth spreads very quickly on the success of the system and encourages others to adopt it. The robustness of the system is very important because the dependence of business on the system is high. The major concerns for GCPL in the above implementation have been control and security of shared information between the partners and meeting the cross-platform integration needs. The concern for control and security of shared information has been resolved to some extent by

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60%. Some of the other benefits from the Sampark initiative include: Reduction in Lead Times Using Sampark, GCPL has reduced the lead-time taken to replenish a distributor. The distributor stock is replenished on a daily cycle compared to a weekly cycle earlier. In the larger picture, lead times to respond to market demands have also reduced. Since the carrying and forwarding agents (CFA) are intimated about a stagnation or scarcity in advance, precautionary measures can be taken days earlier than when following the traditional methods. Due to lower distribution inventory, GCPL can respond faster to competition via promotions, new product launches without the concern about stock buy-back. The efficacy of any marketing campaign/price scheme is now visible on an almost real time basis. Commercial and Financial Benefit The traditional system of product-distribution followed a 21-day inventory cycle, at the end of which, surplus products were either recalled or strategically sold. This practice led to stagnation: the distributor blocked his capital, and had little incentive to roll off his stock. Using Sampark, the distributor does and shares his billing and inventory documentation daily. This updates the carrying and forwarding units, who then replenish only that stock which is sold out, and in realistically saleable units. It also helps to make for forecasting and alternative sales

strategies for those products facing low demand. The distributor, on his part, streamlines his investment strategies, banking his money in smaller units for shorter periods of time, on assured sales. Thus, the returns on his investments are higher, freeing up a little extra money that can be, for instance, invested in niche marketing strategies or hiring more on-field sales executives. More sales representatives are able to cover more area per day, upping their daily target and increasing the sales. Some concentrate only on visibilityimproving tactics such as display, or covering niche areas such as salons and other places which are more viable for lifestyle products cosmetics and high-end grooming products. There has been overall improvement in the profits and improvement in customer support and average response time to the distributors. The integration and re-design of the business network has also benefited the sales team and there is an almost 60% reduction in the time spent on collection and compilation of data from the distributors. This has increased the availability of field working time for the sales team. Benefits from Extending Sampark to Suppliers (the Sahayog Initiative) The integration of suppliers through Sahayog initiative has yielded benefits such as improved order tracking, reduction in dispatch lead time and quick settlement of outstanding. There have been two important benefits

Inve ntory at the D istribu tor s

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P eriod Distributor S tock (Rs mn ) Retailin g (Rs mn) Numb er of Days of
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Figure 5: Stock out- Sales Ratio October 2004-September 2006

from Sahayog. One, it has significantly reduced the number of follow-ups by suppliers (by at least 6070%). This is because most of the purchase related information or the suppliers financial history is always there on Sahayog for the suppliers to access. The suppliers also record the dispatch related information as soon as they dispatch the goods. This helps GCPL to plan much more efficiently. This information supplied by the suppliers is used in the inventory planning process. GCPL has now moved from a monthly planning cycle to a weekly planning bucket because of Sahayog. The unplanned emergencies caused due to lack of information on material availability have also come down significantly. Through the Sampoorna initiative, GCPL aims to extend the replenishment to the last link in the supply chain, thereby improving the efficiency. This provides a more agile arrangement for the network to produce from actual customer requirements as a starting point, and not on the basis of assumed or forecasted customer needs. This is expected to give benefits such as saving of up to 30% of time in order taking process at the retailer, increase in accuracy level of billing information and better reach of all the range of products. CONCLUSION This research uses a case study method to examine the IOS between GCPL and its business partners. Business organisations are increasingly getting networked with their business partners and they need to incorporate the network issues in their IOS planning process. IOS

planning requires addressing the problem of finding how diverse systems and platforms will be integrated to meet the organisational requirements. The conventional methodologies fail to explicitly address such integration issues. The case study findings focus on some of these issues and identify how they impact the IOS planning. Specifically, it focuses on the need for a separate IOS planning for different value chain partners; analyses the process re-design and change management issues and emphasises the need for coordination amongst various IOS initiatives and between the network partners and business managers of the key actor. The end to end integration as in the case of GCPL provides a more agile arrangement to produce from the actual customer requirements as a starting point, and not on the basis of assumed or forecasted customer needs. GCPL identified three basic elements to its IS planning strategy in the business network: communication, cooperation and integration. Communication became the backbone for cooperation and integration. Based on this understanding, GCPL identified integration with distributors as a backbone initiative and then extended it successfully to the suppliers and retailers. To start with GCPL restricted the scope of IOS planning to select processes and expanded the application coverage in future as per the requirements. The channels to various value chain partners were planned for separately. The decision regarding sourcing of applications for an internal and interorganisational process need to be taken in the light of a number of factors including the nature of application, number of users, skill level available with the channel partners and the cost of ownership etc. It was also observed
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that the companies find it difficult to support and integrate different programmes for the channel partners such as distributors, suppliers etc. Therefore, one major objective of IOS plan was seen to be standardisation of application and processes with the channel partners. GCPL used pilot with phase in approach to IOS planning. The same may be recommended for other actor-network based supply chain networks. Change management is a critical issue in planning IOS. Proactive change management requires companies to address the right structure, policy, processes and performance measures with all the entities affected by change. The implementations are essentially phased so that the new system is introduced gradually and the change can be managed. GCPL has completed its integration with the distributors and has realised significant benefits from it. Only some of the benefits from integration with the suppliers are documented as part of this case study as this initiative has been completed recently. The programme to integrate retailers is in the progress. This is a limitation as comprehensive discussions and learnings from the other two initiatives could not be included for the purpose of this case study. The research confirms the benefits of IOS already discussed in the literature such as increased coordination, shorter sales, production turnabout time and greater monitoring capability. It identifies CSF for organisations which want to adopt IOS with their business partners. These CSF include: shared vision, change management, cross-organisational project team, interorganisational BPR, clear process owner for the IOS processes and strong project management. The limitation of this research is that though the author has done a detailed study of IOS implementation, the insights may not be complete since it is single case study based. Also, the study maybe more biased towards the CPG sector and may have missed on some of the more general planning issues and CSFs in IOS domain. It is believed that with some more IOS studies, the list of the factors can be modified. Also, different countries have different cultures and business practices. It needs to be tested whether the CSFs and planning issues in respect of a CPG company in India are applicable to companies operating in other industries and countries. NOTES
1. I Express my thanks to the Chief Information Officer, Mr Mani Mulki, other Senior Managers of GCPL; distributors and suppliers of GCPL for sharing their insights for the purpose of case study.
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APPENDIX-1

2% 3% 2% 3% 3% 4% 4% 7% 41%

31%

Hindustan Lever Limited Colgate Palmolive India Limited Marico Godrej

ITC Limited Dabur India Limited Procter & Gamble

Nirma Limited Smithkline Beecham Reckitt & Colman

Figure 1: CPG Industry Players in India

Anjali Kaushik (anjalikaushik@mdi.ac.in) is an Engineer, an MBA and a PhD in the area of Information Systems from Delhi University. Presently, she is an Assistant Professor at Management Development Institute, Gurgaon in the area of Information Systems. She has almost 14 years of consolidated experience in the area of IT Business consulting and Research across corporate and academics. Prior to joining academics, she was heading the vertical research group in International Data Corporation (India) Limited. Her areas of research and training include e-business, IT strategy, information security and e-Governance. She is active in business consulting and has authored books and publications in national and international journals.

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