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RPG PUTS PEOPLE FIRST IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION DIGITAL REPORT 2021
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RPG PUTS PEOPLE FIRST IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
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RPG is a global diversified conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India. Samip Mutha, Vice President – Digital and Innovation, talks about how people are the key to a successful digital transformation
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nabling digital transformation in a manufacturing business is no simple task. The manufacturing industry is exceptionally analogue by nature and has been working on multiple improvement frameworks like ISO, Six Sigma, TPM, WCM, Demings, TRIZ, etc, to name a few. The success of Digital in manufacturing depends on your ability to take people along and raise its quotient across the employees in different functions, front line as well as backend. For the shop floor, digital challenges are enormous. For legacy businesses with old plants, the need to embrace digital arises, especially with old assets and systems which obviously can’t retire overnight given the large capex involved. Digital in manufacturing is akin to performing surgery on a person, it needs to be highly customised, leave breathing space for recovery and have an airbag for side-effects. To want to embrace Digital in its entirety and build future-ready factories without any stoppage or impacting business, the need to balance the approach of Plant-Wide building for future, the so-called Smart Factories vis-à-vis machine (critical), as well as the process-level tactic is a given. When the question of building a strong Digital core in large global and distributed manufacturing operations arises, it strongly resonates as more of a “when” as opposed to a “why” with Mr. Mutha.
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100% culture The 3 Ms of manufacturing, namely Machine, Method and Materials, are important, as are smaller concerns compared to the 4th M Man (Culture) according to Mr. Mutha. “The digital success stories are 100% culture,” he says. “We are still a generation of people who are driving digital projects with an analogue mind, then blaming the technology, without realising our weaknesses. Every digital project requires an acceptance of the new normal. It merits believing unseen possibilities. The letting go of age-old habits seems more arduous in comparison to embracing new and future-friendly practices. The operator who, so far, has been regulating the machineries in and out, is likely to face a mental challenge
“I’M NOT A FAN OF DIGITAL STRATEGY. WE HAVE A BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE DIGITAL NEEDS TO EMBRACE THAT TO TRANSFORM OR BUILD NEW BUSINESSES” SAMIP MUTHA,
VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG
Samip Mutha, Vice president - Head of Digital and Innovation, RPG
RPG GROUP
RPG group CORPORATE FILM #hellohappiness
Samip Mutha has four key characteristics for effective leadership:
ETHICS AND INTEGRITY HUMILITY COMMUNICATION ABILITY TO TAKE RISKS
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in adopting a whole new way of thinking, let alone accepting new possibilities that stand to enable, elevate, and boost the lives of people. Business KPIs haven’t changed drastically, and will continue to remain constant. It was about 15 years ago that I started my career in Manufacturing Consulting, and OEE was good back then, just like it is today, and I am fairly certain that it will continue to remain so tomorrow. That said, what changes is your ability to command trust, bring transparency and give rise to transformation in terms of the ways in which the business has been running. “So, in the said culture, believing in possibilities is imperative. It won’t happen overnight, irrespective of one’s credibility. Digital is a journey, one has to live it, a journey of opening the mind to creative courses of action, establishing and showcasing success stories while also then scaling it up rapidly, making it a way of life. It tends to come more naturally if you start from the POV of business benefit and associated ROI for investors. If
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"THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN DIGITAL IS ANALOG MINDS AND HENCE WORKING ON PEOPLE IS THE MOST CRITICAL LEVER FOR SUCCESSFUL ADOPTION"
SAMIP MUTHA TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION COMPANY: RPG GROUP
SAMIP MUTHA,
VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG
The Digital Academy It was early on in our journey that we realised the importance of aligning as many RPGians to Digital as possible. In order to facilitate the agenda, RPG launched an in-house Digital Academy in 2016. “We identified seven or eight pillars in the universe of Digital, such as its use in marketing, manufacturing, and different key areas of our diversified businesses. Our people in every function had to go through it to understand the impact
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you begin with the source of value for every stakeholder, then the chances of obtaining money run high. But more importantly, the adoption of new ways latch on too. “CFOs or CEOs have always envisaged the outcomes of a business rather than the tech processes involved. Hence, for me, success doesn’t reach fruition simply upon the approval of a project. It’s the start of a new chapter in my professional book, the beginning of another journey.
Mr. Mutha has 17+ years of experience in Management Consulting, Digital Transformation and Innovation in various industries across the geographies. He is currently working with RPG Group as Vice President and Head of Digital and Innovation with focus on Smart Factories, Connected Customers, Digital at workplace and Smart Products across diversified businesses of RPG from rubber and tyres to life sciences, EPC and IT. Samip is on the Panel of Future of Technology, IET since 2018 whose focus is to develop the platform that will benefit stakeholders from student to government to SME in accelerating the Digital growth of India. He is a renowned speaker in various forums including, CII, NASSCOM, IET, IOT Congress and many more along with leading B-schools on topics like IOT, Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, Industry 4.0 and Business Innovation. During his Journey with RPG, the group has won prestigious awards including EY Mint Digital award for AI project, Golden Peacock Innovation award and most recent Best Innovation Company 2020 by Economic Times.
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We connect what’s now to what’s next. Leverage a combination of business excellence methodologies (e.g., Lean, TPM, TQM) and technological enhancements (e.g., IoT, Predictive / Prescriptive analytics) to better address challenges of ‘waste’, ‘variability’ and ‘inflexibility’ across 4M (Man, Machine, Material & Method) dimensions and achieve next level of operational excellence across SQPCDM (Safety, Quality, Productivity, Cost, Delivery & Morale) aspects.
Hitachi Vantara: making intelligent manufacturing happen
Watch the 3 dimensions of industry 4.0
Hitachi Vantara’s head of global manufacturing consulting explains the approach of the company to intelligent manufacturing Hitachi Vantara is, in the words of Dev Ramchandani, Senior Director and Head of Global Manufacturing Consulting, “a global technology leader and a catalyst for sustainable societal change. We respond to global dynamic changes with insight and agility. Our unique approach helps deliver sustainable measurable business results and a better consulting experience.” Ramchandani insists that while Industry 4.0 has been a buzzword, there are now material successes to point to. He breaks down the Hitachi Vantara view into three key areas. One: “We need to start with a business outcome or a business driven approach, not a technology driven approach. So we need to have the business objective in mind and then go ahead and identify the relevant technologies, which will help us achieve that.” Two: “We need to reimagine operations. We need to keep thinking of the technical limit in our minds, because that is what we are headed to. We need to figure out how we can disrupt the current cycle and reach there.” And three: “People. This calls for a different skill set and we need to nurture people.” In what he calls the “five-box model” – process, mindsets, capabilities, technology, data – Ramchandani sets out his blueprint for the company’s approach to “sustainable behavioural change”, leading to sustainable impact. Hitachi Vantara is one of RPG’s most important partnerships, and Ramchandani calls the experience of working with the manufacturing group a “pleasure”.
“We at Hitachi have a very keen focus on harmony, sincerity and pioneering spirit, and these three elements are ingrained in RPG as well. Given the values were aligned, it has been an excellent journey working together.” Two other key ingredients in the relationship are a win-win mentality and open and trust based communication. That journey has been marked by a focus on ‘intelligent manufacturing’ leveraging a combination of business excellence methodologies, such as Lean, TPM and TQM, and technological enhancements like IoT, predictive and prescriptive analytics to better address the challenges of waste, variability and inflexibility across four key dimensions Ramchandani collectively refers to as “4M” (man, machine, material and method). “I would say intelligent manufacturing for us is to find the next S-curve of operational excellence across the dimensions of SQPCDM (safety, quality, productivity, costs, delivery and morale). We go about doing that by addressing waste variability and flexibility. These are the core challenges, so we address waste variability and inflexibility across all the 4M dimensions. Each of these has some inherent waste variability and flexibility, so we try to address that in order to achieve the next S-curve of operational excellence.” hitachivantara.com
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RPG GROUP
30,000 +
Number of Employees
$4bn+ Revenue
1820
Year Founded
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“DIGITAL PROJECTS ARE LIKE LEGO BLOCK ASSEMBLY, YOU NEED PEOPLE WHO CAN THINK OF EXPONENTIAL APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY TO BUSINESS” SAMIP MUTHA,
VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG
and the change Digital can bring to their function or areas. Mr. Mutha built on the Digital Academy to identify the torch bearers who would expand the Digital agenda and work with early evangelists to identify new opportunities.“There can not be better success for Digital Officers than other people talking about your project,” he says proudly. What is digital strategy? One of the challenges Mr. Mutha faces with the diversity of RPG’s portfolio is that there are more than 6 companies, with revenues ranging from ₹400 crore to ₹12,000 crore+ ($60m-$1.6bn), holding different positions in the industry in which they play, with varying financial muscles and appetite. “I’m personally not a big fan of digital strategy,” he explains. "I think businesses already spend a lot of time thinking about three-to-five-year strategies and plans. The digital – and everything else – exists because the business exists. So, we have a business strategy, and the digital needs to wrap itself around it to evangelise and transform the way business is done. ”In addition, Mr. Mutha believes the pursuit of success is a core driver to making digital change. “If I take an analogy of, let’s say, the military, what motivates people is success. If you told people they were going to war to die, nobody would join. What motivates them are success stories. You need to celebrate success at every level. It creates a pull factor within the organisation and acts as a booster shot in the cultural change as required.” Changing business is changing humanity It’s a lot of change, Mr. Mutha admits, not least the shift from capex to opex as products become more service orientated. rpggroup.com
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“WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE IS SUCCESS. IF YOU TOLD PEOPLE THEY WERE GOING TO WAR TO DIE, NOBODY WOULD JOIN” SAMIP MUTHA,
VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG
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A Recipe for Happiness | RPG Group Hello Happiness | 30 sec
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DID YOU KNOW...
SAMIP MUTHA ON PARTNERSHIPS...
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“I want to work with partners who understand the significance of the journey and have the flexibility to deal with the diverse layers of complexity. I always tell my vendors that the project will go beyond scope, timeline, maybe even the budget. I don’t condone negotiations. In digital, hard negotiation will give you instant gratification, but in the longer scheme of things, it will take away the mental mobility vital to such a project. After six or seven years, I still refuse to write a specific contract for digital. It’s easy to draw up contractual obligations and just “do my job” in theory, but that doesn’t help my inner purpose. We still have those unseen possibilities, and I see them every day. To that end, a partner who has the commitment to pull you through and make a successful journey out of the ingredients is what we all need.
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But the bigger transformation will be in the workforce. “One thing I see is that the rise in humanity will be a basis for the kind of work that is being done. People will break free from doing jobs that are unsafe, mundane, predictable, or overtaxing. It’s going to encourage a safer and healthier way of life, which is a win for humanity at large, a role that Digital is going to play. A massive democratisation of talent is going to take over, changing businesses fundamentally, and it’s important to understand those underlying changes happening in every industry that you play in.
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“THERE CAN NOT BE BETTER SUCCESS FOR DIGITAL OFFICERS THAN OTHER PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT YOUR PROJECT”
“AI and analytics are going to be at the focal points of digital,” Mr. Mutha notes. Yet, he is certain that despite the said aspects being nothing short of vital requirements of motion in digital transformation, they need to be more intrinsic to it rather than separate strains. After all, nobody mentions programming languages when they talk about software. Why would they mention data and artificial intelligence? It’s the bottom line of any technology project.”
SAMIP MUTHA,
VICE PRESIDENT - HEAD OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION, RPG rpggroup.com
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