EDGING FORWARD

THE HOUSE MAGAZINE OF GODREJ & BOYCE VOL 22-23 DEC 2021

EDGING FORWARD FOCUS

PED joins the League of Big Boys

Difficult but not Impossible

RenTRUST creating an edge with CRM

Godrej Körber SCALES New Heights

No part of the magazine can be reproduced in any form without due permission of the editor.

Please access the magazine at Godrej connect and www.change.godrej.com Mail your contributions, suggestions and feedback to: The Editor, Plant 12, 2nd Floor Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. Pirojshanagar, Vikhroli (W) Mumbai 400079, India or email us at change@godrej.com Published by Indrapal Singh on behalf of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. Designed by Design Stack

THE HOUSE MAGAZINE OF GODREJ & BOYCE VOL 22-23 DEC 2021

Advancements Galore!

“Progress is not inevitable.

It is up to us to create it.”

- Michael Bloomberg

Indrapal Singh Editor

Taking several transformative initiatives during the second wave of Covid-19 and its aftermath, our businesses have been edging forward and expanding their footprints of fitness to compete. In this issue of CHANGE, we have many interesting articles that showcase this progression.

On the front of digitalization, CRM software is deployed successfully by many of our businesses. Gunjan shares how at Godrej Material Handling he is working on CRM to grow the business of renting forklift trucks.

Shyam Motwani describes how digitalization powers GLAFS’s new product introductions and efficiency in sales operations. Automation carried out at a leading tea processing company by Godrej Körber showcases how efficient intra-logistics can lead to business advantage. Do read Naresh’s article. Nataraj shares with us how PED secured a landmark order for steam generators from NPCIL. This is a strategic win, that paves the way for EDIT BOARD

Nalini Kala

Gillian Dennett

many such large orders in the future. Besides these, we have many stories about how our businesses are exploring newer vistas for sustaining growth.

On the people front, mental health has emerged as a key area of concern for us.

To help our managers appreciate the issues involved, Ashika Mehta had conducted several workshops. Based on her session on anxiety and depression, Jyoti shares with us key takeaways and learnings, which is a useful read. The palpable lifting of moods was felt across the country during the recent Olympic games. In her piece, Karuna captures this phenomenon. Girija of Coimbatore branch tells us how her daughter Niveditha won a silver medal at the recently held Junior World Shooting Championship; a magnificent achievement indeed!

Rekha Pandey tells us how she and her team of teachers shifted to online teaching to the benefit of students of Udayachal

School- kudos to them. In a photo essay by Chirodeep Chaudhuri, the photographs of manual typewriters are a sheer delight. Do not miss this essay.

As always, we have many general interest articles, for eg: on how to keep your protein levels high by Dr Manasi Dake, a book review

by Debashish of ‘Breath’ by James Nestor, which urges us to learn how to breathe right.

CHANGE will now be uploaded on the microsite every quarter, so that we can interact with you often and ensure freshness of content.

Enjoy this CHANGE and urge your family and friends to do likewise.

Greetings for the festive season.

Happy Reading!

Contents FOCUS

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RenTRUST Creating an Edge with CRM

PED joins the League of Big Boys

To serve customers better, digitalize in depth!

Capabilities matter most in winning breakthrough orders.

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Godrej Körber SCALES New Heights

Difficult But Not Impossible

Automate, Scale Up & Succeed.

The “P” in PM is as much about people management as about Project Management.

SUCCESS STORIES

16 Digitalization: The Engine That Drives Transformations Upgrading technologies continually is now mandatory.

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Integrated Project at SIFY

A Silver For Niveditha!

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Becoming a champion is not an easy process.

PERSPECTIVE

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Citius, Altius, Fortius

No Follow-up Please!

The uplifting Olympism is essential to fight many odds that we face.

To minimize the tyranny of follow up, do ‘good’ work!

INSIGHT

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Online Learning: A Panacea in Crisis

26

A Better Way to do your Dishes

54

Protein: The Wonder Macronutrient

60

Aatma Nirbharta at the Indian Navy

INSIDE G&B

BOOKMARK

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44 Managing Anxiety and Depression at Work Respecting people and encouraging them to express themselves are strong antidotes to stress.

LAUNCH PAD

22

Typewriter Tip Tip

Medical Oxygen Generators

A Photo Essay

From Godrej Precision Engineering

BOOKMARK

LAUNCH PAD

32

The Naoroji Godrej Centre for Plant Research

30

Breath: A Book Review

38

Pre-cast Products from Concrete Waste

56

Conserving Mangroves

62

Silver Lining

52

Uno Electric Forklift

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RenTRUST Creating an Edge with CRM To serve customers better, digitalize in depth!

Gunjan Bhargava, Godrej Material Handling

In the past few years, there have been rapid changes in the ways the businesses are conducted. Traditional methods of sales & customer relationship management (CRM) are no longer adequate and there is an urgent need for upgradation as well as finding efficient and effective newer ways to be close to the customers.

RenTRUST is a line of business of Godrej Material Handling that rents out material handling equipment. It offers various services such as an assortment of equipment on rent, providing operating and maintenance crews and so on.

Customized solutions are offered in the best interest of the clients after an in-depth study of the requirements.

This LOB is growing 21% year on year for the last five years despite the Covid- 19 Pandemic.

CRM, an acronym for customer relationship management, is any technology or strategy that is designed to help businesses improve their relationships with customers. It is a tool that allows businesses to focus on the individual customer while having the capability of doing business with all the customers in the database. With the modernization of the CRM software, the shift accomplished is from contract management software to sales force automation (SFA). Many service providers are offering different suites of services for more focused marketing efforts, greater ability to address individual customer issues, and an improved level of automation. This has led to increased efficiency and

enhanced ROI. With internet of things (IOT) and cloud computing, the required information can be accessed from anywhere in the world through the internet.

Salesforce.com (SFDC) offers a wide range of CRM options to meet the needs including sales cloud, marketing cloud, service cloud and so on.

Each cloud is having a separate functionality that fulfills the need of the current markets to digitally manage customers quickly, consistently, efficiently and effectively.

The approach of creating contacts starts with creating an account with all customer details like the name, address codes, locations, customer users and contact details, PAN number and the like. A lead is created when a journey of the enquiry starts with Godrej. It captures requirement details, lead source, executing branch, LOB details and so on. The CRM allows the user to carry out tasks and update the status as new, contacted, working, unqualified and converted within the system to confirm the action and keep the stakeholders updated.

Qualifying leads are converted into opportunity with a link to account as well as lead and opportunity specific fields, status like inquiry, application study, offer, demo, negotiation/review, or closure.

The final stage is the creation of a quote for submission to the customer. SFDC has standard modules and out of the box solutions to customize offerings which makes it more user friendly, allowing the developers to develop applications to meet the needs.

Godrej RenTRUST has specifically customized the CRM to best meet the demands keeping in mind the end user requirements while making it simple and easy for the users.

The RenTRUST journey in SFDC initiates with an account creation followed by lead generation. An opportunity is created for a qualifying lead which is a customized screen which captures RenTRUST specific details like sector, type of business, competitor details etc. These extra fields are the support system and this information helps the managers in strategizing the action plan for the future.

The system has the capability to attach the documents and attach products to the opportunity from the price book.

RenTRUST price book is specially designed keeping in mind the sales personas, equipment, attachments and location specific crew details. When a quote is generated, the system itself triggers a special price request sanction as per the hierarchy based on the type of requirement and all sanctions are within the system. On approval from the approvers, the quote pdf is generated for sending to the customer. During the negotiations, salespersons have the functionality at hand to provide discounts on an item, product line or the total amount quoted.

SFDC has a reports and dashboard view,

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which permits any user to create and use self-made customized reports for monitoring and decision making. SFDC also has a powerful search engine known as ‘Einstein Search’ which allows the user to search any information by using keywords.

RenTRUST has also customized the cloud, to get real-time status of the ready, available assets in three depots from which it operates. The sales user while creating an opportunity could see the availability of the assets and can commit the deliverables accordingly.

The system fetches the data from the direct link making it real time.

‘Pardot’ of SFDC is a B2B marketing automation solution which connects marketing with sales by automating marketing activities.

Pardot has proved to be a great tool to generate more leads, engage buyers through dynamic & personalized campaigns, understanding user interactions with the campaigns, making data driven decisions and developing account-based marketing strategy.

RenTRUST is using Pardot since the inception of SFDC at G&B. A campaign was run using the account pertaining to the MHE within SFDC and we received useful analytics for the campaign. The system has the feasibility to upload the prospects database and

run a campaign making it flexible and suitable. Pardot also provides predefined email templates which enable us to design emails inhouse with a professional, engaging look.

It allows the users to assign a score to each of the activities that would be performed by the prospect. Once a campaign is run, a scoreboard is displayed for the potential prospects providing filtered data to the users making it focused and efficient.

Another key factor that makes the adoption of SFDC easy, is its capability of being fully functional on mobile phones from anywhere.

It allows the users to stay up to date, manage leads, pursue opportunities, and collaborate with coworkers.

SFDC puts all the information at the fingertips of the users through their hand-held devices via notifications and sanctions on the go. After the rollout of the SFDC at RenTRUST, we are capturing ‘moments of truth’ concerning the stakeholders to understand the efficacy of the implementation of the system.

The users can engage easily with the system because of the ease of use, on the go access on a mobile or laptop, ease of monitoring with reports and dashboards and timely communication.

The data is also managed efficiently, inte-

The LOB is growing 21% year on year for the last five years despite the pandemic. gration is feasible and the visibility and transparency are of a high level which makes the system a good match for the requirements of the new normal. This is not all, but there are still many more functionalities which can be brought to play as we become skilled at using the system.

At RenTRUST, we are committed to utilizing full capabilities of the system effectively and reap greater gains in the near future.

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PED joins the League of Big Boys Capabilities matter most in winning breakthrough orders.

Nataraj R, Godrej Process Equipment

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The tallest milestone in the PED’s history has been the recent winning of the order of Steam Generators (SG) from Nuclear Power Corporation, India Ltd (NPCIL).

Yes!!! This order is won by the business which started in 1976 by making trays for process equipment and has come a long way since then. Now, if you ask anyone from PED if they are happy, the answer you’ll get will be a resounding YES. But if you ask them if they are surprised, the answer will get will be a loud NO. People at PED are fully aware of their capabilities built over the years and the capacities enhanced in the recent years. This order is won against strong competition; the established duopoly of L&T and BHEL.

Nuclear Power in India In the 60s, India set out on its journey of generating nuclear power for commercial use. The baseline 220 MW design was developed with the help of Canadian design and the so called CANDU reactors were built at Rawatbhata, Rajasthan. The pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR) design was adopted by NPCIL in 1964. The design was later scaled up to manufacture power plants of 540 MW and 700 MW capacities. PHWR uses unenriched natural uranium as its fuel, uses heavy water (D2O) as its coolant and

moderator. The advantage of this design is that it is suitable for India’s engineering and manufacturing infrastructure.

Top - Inside view of world class state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Dahej, Gujarat.

Steam Generators (SGs)

Just to give an example of criticality, even a single scratch on the tube’s outer surface is not permitted during the tube insertion process.

SGs are one of the most critical pieces of equipment in the nuclear plant. SGs drive turbines, which produce electricity.

As these SGs are used in nuclear power generation, even a marginal error can be catastrophic. Therefore, each manufacturing operation has to be carried out with utmost care.

The construction code to be adhered is ASME Sec III NB (Nuclear Code) for SGs. This will be our first order for supply of SG from NPCIL for its indigenously designed 700 MW PHWR. Steam generators comprise four units, each weighing approximately 330 MT. Each unit of a SG has approximately 1200 unique components which demand high accuracy and precise tolerances to be maintained. Manufacturing processes like tube sheet drilling, machining require high accuracy and close tolerances. Also, automatic tube-to-tube sheet welding and expansion are so critical that the welding qualification itself takes about 8 months! This involves qualifying of the workforce, equipment, processes, and consumables.

The entire project must be executed on a “first time, each time right” approach. This approach calls for detailed planning of each activity with an aim to anticipate failures/defects and pre-empt disruptions. A dedicated core team has been formed for the execution of this project which includes the managerial staff, highly qualified welders, and operators.

PED - A Reliable Partner Godrej Process Equipment has been a trustworthy partner to NPCIL for over three decades. Our journey with NPCIL had a humble beginning with the supply of recombination burners in the late ‘80s. In the early ‘90s, PED was awarded an order of distillation towers for their Manuguru plant, which also had the criticality of accuracy and dimensional tolerances.

During its planning stages, PED had carried out numerous engineering and manufacturing improvements which had resulted in considerable savings in the free

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Godrej Process Equipment has been a trustworthy partner to NPCIL for over three decades. issue plates and other materials supplied by NPCIL. Also, as distortion control was very critical to the manufacturing of towers, PED had developed ingenious methods to control distortions. Such customer-centric, voluntary inputs by PED were highly appreciated by NPCIL and were later incorporated by them in their specifications for the future orders.

As a result, PED had laid a solid foundation of trust with NPCIL. Building on the trust cultivated over the years developed, PED has supplied many critical pieces of equipment such as D2O accumulators, nitrogen & light water accu-

mulators and others for their plants all over India. Also, PED was awarded several orders for distillation columns which were executed successfully. This track record of executing orders successfully has strengthened the confidence of NPCIL in our capabilities of design, engineering, manufacturing and managing of projects. We now fully understand the distinct challenges of working in the nuclear sector, including the challenges of high accuracy, stringent tolerances and zero margin for errors.

Clients today count upon PED as a reliable source for buying high quality equipment delivered on time.

Further, as we are an export-oriented business, we are fully conversant with the demands of international clients for exceptional quality and timely delivery. Exports and working with nuclear projects over the years has helped us emerge as a high-quality manufacturer. Today, we are proud to say that PED is a reliable partner both in the markets abroad and nuclear power projects in India.

Upgraded Infrastructure Recently, we have been executing an order for 40 nos hair pin exchangers for NPCIL’s 220 MW projects in Rajasthan (RAP) and Tamil Nadu. The major portion of the order has been supplied to RAPS’s site and is successfully installed.

These hair-pin exchangers consist of Monel tubes and the construction code is ASME Section III-Division 1-Sub-Section NB. These exchangers also involve critical tubeto-tube sheet welding, and all the critical manufacturing activities are required to be carried out in a dust free enclosure.

Considering the criticality of these exchangers, NPCIL conducted an audit of our facility before qualifying us for this tender and we were qualified successfully. This qualification has also helped us in a big way in satisfying NPCIL about our capabilities for the manufacturing of steam generators. As we are nearing the completion of this order, the experience gained will be invaluable for the order of SGs. NPCIL also conducted a prequalification audit of our capabilities for the order of SGs at our Dahej manufacturing facilities and we emerged successful.

The Way Forward We are fully aware of the challenges that lie ahead for us for executing the order of steam generators. We are confident of emerging successful on the basis of the foundation of trust and solid experience built over the years. The trust that exists will help us move forward with the speed not yet achieved in the industry.

By executing this order exceptionally well, we intend to position ourselves as a formidable supplier of steam generators in India as well as abroad. PED, the third and probably the last entrant in this game, may prove to be the best choice.

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PERSPECTIVE

Citius, Altius, Fortius The uplifting Olympism is essential to fight many odds that we face.

Karuna Chavan

“FASTER” renewal, “HIGHER” spirits and “STRONGER” rekindling of the power ‘within’….

This is how I have experienced the Tokyo Olympics event. I believe this time it has showered upon us many deeper dimensions of cheer and lived up to its core purpose more than ever before.

In the backdrop of the gloomy pandemic canvas, I could palpably sense the subtle shifts in human mindsets as the event progressed. It felt unbelievable! Irrespective of the level of interest in sports, geographical locations and so on, multitudes did seem stimulated by its impactful rays of liveliness and hope. The changing undertones of social media, not just in terms of the topic but also in terms of perspectives towards life and each other seemed very enthralling. It felt as though we were blessed with a rise in the overall level of human consciousness.

A shift from a “give up victim” attitude to a “resurrection of spirits” was witnessed at a global level.

Very few other events could have created such deep positive impact across the globe.

Frankly, I am not at all a sports person. I had begun with a critical approach and had felt it was wrong to conduct such a big event in the current sensitive context. But as the event unfolded, my opinion became diametrically opposite.

Coincidentally, one of the most process and safety conscious nations was hosting the event and they took it upon themselves to make everyone feel secure to participate.

Hats off to their rigour, preparedness and simplicity. They made it sound much easier than what it was.

Innumerable small pockets of excellence

came to the fore one after the other as the event unfolded. The relentless efforts made by the individuals and teams to bring out the “best from within “or “from each other”, always succeeded in moving millions, no matter the event. The sheer purity and grandeur of these efforts made my eyes moist even when the participating nations weren’t known to me. Never knew the transformative magic of sports until I experienced it myself.

I also saw many people known to me suddenly emerge as expressive writers. I knew it was the spirit of Olympics at work. It was contagious. The studio team covering our participation by Sony deserves a special mention.

They really lived the Olympic philosophy and inspired the nation not just with their lively updates but also with rich insights and varied perspectives.

Many compelling stories of grit, determination, focus and such like, which hitherto had failed to catch our attention, started blowing away the clouds of indifference and negativity surrounding us all. Only something of the magnitude of the Olympics could have enabled this difficult transition.

The authenticity of the spirit of Olympics helped us all to come out of our comfort zones and nudged us to look beyond our self-imposed limits.

Now, I feel enriched and connected with the nation’s fabric, if not of the world. This note is to express my deep gratitude to this amazing sports event; its philosophy of brotherhood, its grandeur, its reach, and its inherent core “Olympism”. Loved the intent of enabling good athletes participate under

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the Olympic banner to overcome their constraints. I had never thought the learnings from “near misses or 4th positions” can be more enriching than winning medals; not just for us viewers but also for the participants and their nations. Also, what was riveting to me was the way “vulnerability” was valued. Simone Biles, the American gymnast’s withdrawal from the final round is a good indicative example. Her human acceptance of being impacted by the pressures of expectations received much appreciation. To me, this incident just proved that the true spirit of olympism is indeed ingrained inside us as viewers too. I was moved when I saw her being hailed as ‘GOAT’ (Greatest of All Time)’ by the familiar name of Priyanka Chopra, who had interacted with her earlier.

Excellence can never be about records at the cost of mental health and overall wellbeing. It is the journey that needs to be enjoyable and in-

spiring as much as the pride associated with reaching the destination.

Watching the performance of top-notch participants felt like seeing the personification of sheer drive, willpower and the crazy efforts we humans are capable of. It was meditative to observe actualisation of human potential when we saw the bars rising higher and higher…. Pray the ignited spirits remain alive and continue to spread the “josh” in the fabric of our lives.

Olympism needs to get integrated into our day to day living. We, as global citizens owe this to ourselves, not only to boost our sense of universal brotherhood but also to raise our collective consciousness to new levels.

This uplifting is essential to fight the odds we face. We also need this ‘josh’ to overcome

the challenges in newer ways that combine childlike playfulness with the rigour to play the game of life. This spirit need not be limited to sports. Can’t we all, in the arenas of our own lives, live like true Olympians?

Olympism needs to get integrated into our day to day living.

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Godrej Körber SCALES New Heights Automate, Scale Up & Succeed.

Naresh Tahiliani, Godrej Consoveyo

Godrej Körber (GK) is the winner of the Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence Award 2020 of CII Institute of Logistics in the category ‘Process Innovation - Supply Chain Automation’.

This award is a testimony to GK’s capabilities for designing and executing ‘end-to-end automated integrated solution’ for improving efficiency of a supply chain at Amar Tea, a leading tea processing company.

“Godrej Körber helps organizations to convert supply chain complexities into opportunities for greater efficiencies. Godrej Körber’s recognition by SCALE is a testament to this”, said Naresh Tahiliani, Business Head at Godrej Körber.

To help the jury appreciate the enormity of the project, it was essential to communicate the challenges and complexities faced by the team in designing and executing the project.

A detailed presentation was made to the jury by the Project team to highlight the same.

Project in Brief At Amar Tea, most of the operations involving manufacturing and distribution were carried out manually. The manual mode of operations made it extremely difficult to scale up the business. To facilitate scaling up and bring higher efficiency to manufacturing and distribution, Amar tea opted for the integrated automation solution offered by GK. To fully understand the complexities of Amar Tea’s supply chain, GK conducted a comprehensive assessment of material flows and develop a deep understanding of the entire supply chain from the receipt of raw materials to the dispatch of finished goods and the processes that could be automated.

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Key Challenges » To ensure maximum automation of processes to minimize labour requirement storage capacity of 22,000 pallets. » To design and supply customized belt conveyors and verti-sorters for handling Raw Tea (RM) bags of different materials such as foil-lined paper bags, HDPE bags and the FG packed in different sizes of cartons. » To keep track of the unique source / date of procurement of the raw tea bags. » To ensure continuous feeding of blending machines with the right quantity of raw materials for each blend. » To ensure continuous movement of the blended materials to storage zone / packaging machines. » To ensure full compliance to applicable food safety and quality norms and rules. » To ensure delivery of FG cartons in Last In, First Out (LIFO) mode, batchwise and create a sequence for unloading for dealers, based on the routing of each truck. » Integration and synchronization of different equipment such as strapping machines, de-dusting machines, telescopic conveyors, etc. to deliver the required overall results.

A set of solutions with different levels of automation were developed and jointly evaluated with the customer and their consultant - for selecting the optimal solution based on desired performance and investment.

The scope of the project included conceptualization, engineering design, selection and integration of an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), sortation system, conveyors, auto-lifts, de-dusters, strapping machines and vacuum lifters, among others.

All this equipment was to be controlled by a Warehouse Management System (WMS) and interfaced with the customer’s ERP system, to ensure smooth, seamless operations.

Realized Benefits The successful implementation of the project has offered significant savings in operational costs as well as many other benefits to the customer as under: » High storage capacity allows the customer flexibility to buy his RM in bulk leading to lower overall procurement cost and full availability of all RM for consistency in tea output. » Limited dependency on labour for assured and predictable throughput helps the business meet its commitments. » Improved control over plant yield, wastages - Accurate weight capturing of raw materials at different stages of supply chain such as inbound, manufacturing and outbound processes facilitates this increase in productivity. » Improved hygiene, reduction in damages and compliance to food safety norms.

Minimal human intervention facilitates all of these. » Real-time control over inventories. Fully customized Warehouse Management Software (WMS) integrated with

customer’s ERP system - SAP helps achieve this. » Full traceability of raw materials used in every batch of FG. The WMS provides this benefit for controlling quality of inputs.

Full automation of operations has increased efficiency and improved throughput with less manpower enhancing the competitiveness of the business. Higher productivity of both, manpower and capital has resulted in improved return over investment (ROI).

As a result, during the first six months of the lockdown, Amar Tea was able to dispatch more than one million cartons of tea, weighing about 20,000 tonnes!

Going forward, this unique solution will enable Amar Tea to fulfill their growth aspirations over the next decade.

SCALE Award is an honor to Team Godrej Körber, for creating an outstanding ‘end-toend’ solution for Amar Tea. The team is now confident of handling bigger and more complex projects.

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PERSPECTIVE

No Follow-up Please!

To minimize the tyranny of follow up, do ‘good’ work!

Indrapal Singh

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This year Bombay Management Association (BMA) is hosting twelve sessions, one every month, on the theme of ‘Celebrating Indian Managers who made a difference.’ In August 2021, BMA celebrated the life and times of Dr. Sharu Ragnekar. He had an illustrious professional career from which he retired at the age of 50 years. He took this decision consciously to devote the rest of his life to developing managers. He would teach at several business schools and conduct executive programs throughout the year from different platforms. He was a prolific writer and has written several articles and books in addition to producing more than 25 instructional videos. His contribution in the field of management and development is considered remarkable and was conferred upon the BMA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, some years ago.

Sharu and I knew each other well as both of us were associated with organizations such as BMA, AIMA, IMC, ISTD and so on.

Also, he had conducted several training sessions at G&B in the 70s and 80s.

Dr Ragnekar had a unique method of imparting training which was lighthearted, direct and devoid of managerial jargon or pomposity of any kind.

He would communicate in simple words with plenty of anecdotes, stories and shayaris. Incidentally, he had learnt Urdu to indulge deeply into shayaris and appreciate the beauty of this language.

In one of the sessions on managerial effectiveness, he had remarked that our work cultures do not promote productivity and much time is wasted in performing nonvalue added work.

Generally, people are not used to doing work in time and of quality that is required. Often the work is incomplete or delayed necessitating frequent follow ups.

In his opinion, this was so endemic that follow up had become a part of the routine work itself! A highly avoidable waste of time.

He had added, there were countries where work culture was such that no follow up was necessary to get things done. He had urged us participants to analyze our written messages, phone calls and meetings to find out how much time was spent on follow ups. In his view, it could be as high as 20-25% of the working time.

To drive the point home, he had narrated a personal experience, which I reproduce below. He said, “I was visiting Japan and was with our host organization to explore business opportunities of mutual interest. I had bought something which I wanted to send to India right away. I asked my host as to how should I go about it and he replied, “Please give it to my secretary and she will send it.”

Next morning, upon reaching the office, I handed over the parcel to the secretary and requested her to ship the parcel to India.

With great courtesy, she mumbled something which I presumed was her agreeing to do the same.

Being used to following up, I walked up to her in the coffee break and checked if she had sent the parcel. Once again, she nodded and said something which I could not understand fully. But I took her response as what I did previously.

Having a lingering doubt and not sure of her having understood my instructions fully, once again, post lunch, I walked up to her and inquired if she had sent the parcel.

This time, she definitely looked flustered and uncomfortable. I did not know what to say and I walked into my host’s cabin. After a small talk, with a sense of embarrassment written on his face, my host asked, “Why are you harassing my secretary? I replied, “ I was doing nothing of the sort and was making

sure that she had understood my instruction fully for sending the parcel to India. Also, I was following up on her to make sure that it was sent before the end of the day.” It is here, what my host said that shook me out of my wits. He said, “Your frequent follow up is upsetting her because she takes this as a reflection on her capabilities! She takes this as a personal insult. In fact, she told me that she would consider committing suicide if she was thought to be a poor performer that required frequent reminders, especially by the guest.”

I rushed to her and apologized profusely and assured her that my follow-ups were in no way reflected on her capabilities. I was just doing whatever I was used to doing in India to get things done. My host also joined me in conveying this message to her.

Now, let us contrast this incident with what is happening at our workplaces. Can we get anything done without a follow up?

Even today, if we were to analyse our communications, we will find that 20-25% of our time is spent in reminders and follow ups.

The question here is how may we change our work cultures so that follow up becomes minimal or better still, redundant?

I suppose the change must begin with all of us. We must learn to do our work in time as promised and of quality that meets the requirements of the recipients. We must commit ourselves to doing our work in a better way.

I believe this seemingly small commitment of changing the way we work can go a long way in boosting our collective efficiency, building harmonious relationships and above all, experiencing ourselves, the joy of doing good work.

So, let us start collecting data on the parameters outlined to make conscious changes in the way we work. You will definitely find these changes rewarding.

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SUCCESS STORIES

Digitalization: The Engine That Drives Transformation Upgrading technologies continually is now mandatory.

Shyam Motwani, Godrej Locks & Architectural Fittings and Systems

A glimpse of how digitalization can be deployed across all the functions for growth.

While the pandemic has been a time of great challenges, it has also been a time of enormous learning. It taught us the value of courage in the face of challenges. At Godrej Locks, we have bravely surged ahead, even going beyond new and significant milestones. We have surpassed expectations of all our stakeholders. Here are the major transformative initiatives undertaken by us.

Transforming Manufacturing Driven by our strong desire to become the best-in-class manufacturer, we have taken significant strides for matching international standards. This year, we took a major step forward by launching the initiative of Total Productive Maintenance (TPMs) across our three manufacturing locations in Goa Madkai, Kudhal and Thivim.

TPM is an approach of equipment maintenance that aims to achieve highly reliable production processes which improves safety, efficiency and productivity. It is designed to disseminate the responsibility for maintenance and machine performance to the employees concerned. Such an approach deepens employee engagement, improves teamwork and facilitates cross-functional cooperation amongst the functions of maintenance, operations, engineering and management. Our top management has always encouraged our businesses to opt for TPM for embarking on the journey to become a highly competitive manufacturer.

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The TPM kick-off was digitally integrated and done through a live webcast to everyone in the business. We believe this webcast was the first of its kind in G&B and perhaps the first in the country.

Digi-Mech Road Map Under this project, we have launched Spacetek, India’s first indigenously designed and manufactured digital door lock. Spacetek is a cutting-edge safety solution with its advanced pro-safety features, conceived and created by design engineers at Godrej Locks.

An ingenious coming together of design and engineering, it comes loaded with dynamic functions, making it a futuristic answer to the safety needs of modern Indian homes.

Shortly, we will be adding two more variants to the range, namely, Spacetek Pro, an advanced version with a highly sensitive touch pad and Spacetek Touch, a variant with number-lock access.

New Mobile Apps To ensure that members of our salesforce work effectively in the market and do not waste their productive time in non-value-added activities like filling order booking forms, writing daily sales reports, contacting the back office for information, and the like, we have launched two new mobile Apps: MySales and MyStock. These Apps can be accessed by our entire salesforce to enable them to take informed decisions on the go.

All this can be done with a mere click as they have full access to the information they need.

MySales App is designed to drive sales force effectiveness.

This GIL developed App has a wide functionality, including booking orders of our distributors. Locks is the first business to book primary orders through an App developed especially for us. In addition, our business development executives can plan their travel to different markets and outlets with the help of this App. This App also helps them track

At Godrej Locks, we have bravely surged ahead, going beyond new & significant milestones. daily coverage, orders booked, retailer feedback, competitor information, and the like to enhance their productivity in daily market working.

The other features of MySales include classification of outlets, planning of optimal travel routes and creation of journey plans for each salesperson. The App also helps the use of analytics to improve business such as generating SKU recommendations for retailers, full range selling, upselling, finding opportunities for primary sales as well as identifying distributors and dealers, not billed in cities, urban areas and towns.

The automation of primary order booking facilitated by the MySales App gives the following benefits: real-time primary order booking on a user-friendly interface. The salesforce saves time in order booking as they need to enter only the distributor code, product code and the quantity ordered. The remaining supporting information is entered automatically from the pre-configured database. This ensures accuracy in order booking, pricing, applicable taxes, and the pack size as these cannot be changed in any way. Promotional schemes are deployed automatically.

The Mystock App is yet another pioneering effort of Godrej Locks. This App was launched with the objective of providing reliable information to our salesforce for facilitating taking of prompt decisions. The App is a tool for accessing the supply chain status of SKUs on the move. It gives real time inventory status on the go.

This App offers information like real-time, consolidated report of inventory in stock and in transit, pending orders and billed quantities. It can be readily accessed by a mobile phone in less than a minute as it is designed to consume minimum data.

From top to bottom - Biju Raj - TPM Consultant, Rahul Naik - SCM Head, James Kurian - Location Head, Wilson D Souza Manufacturing Head

We are proud of the fact that we are the first business in G&B to launch such an App and perhaps the first in the Locks industry in India.

Digitalization has indeed become the fulcrum of our progress with the live webcast of the TPM kick-off to the launch of the breakthrough Spacetek digital lock as well as the introduction of the MySales and MyStock Apps for the sales force.

We now look to edging forward with digitalization as the driving force.

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INSIGHT

Online Learning: A Panacea in Crisis Cultivating a sense of community amongst teachers and students proved critical.

Rekha Pandey, Udayachal High School

UHS converted adversity into opportunity for learning and innovation by shifting to online teaching.

“Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.”

This African proverb which I had read a few years ago has struck a chord with me, as I introspect on the year gone by. As I think about what we at Udayachal accomplished during these unprecedented times, it fortifies my belief that the hard knocks in life are meant to soften our rough edges and shape us into refined and resilient individuals. The true testament that supports this belief is my team of teachers and non-teaching staff who have risen like a phoenix to ensure that no catastrophe could stop the light of knowledge and wisdom from enlightening the minds of our little angels. They have indeed transformed themselves into skillful sailors who have sailed through unchartered waters and weathered the storm with sheer grit and determination.

The first few months of the pandemic were about finding a viable solution for our learners, planning the approach, and training the teachers for effective execution. However, once we found our feet on the landscape of online education, our emphasis shifted to pushing the bar higher to impart knowledge in an enchanting manner.

With no scope for face-to-face interactions and limited screen time, it was necessary to inject innovative ideas into the mainstream teaching to enthuse our students and channel their energies.

In remembrance of our most adored Shri Naval Godrej and in pursuit of carrying forward his legacy, our theme for the current academic year is “Aaje Navu Su Kidhu?” which translates to “What new have you done today?”

We, at Udayachal, grabbed the opportunity to leverage the prowess of the online medium and blended it with our intellectual capital and skills to ensure students are not deprived of quality education. In the same vein, a collaborative teaching approach was implemented which not only helped students to gain diverse perspectives through the expertise of different teachers, but also helped the teachers broaden their horizons. The last two weeks of April were devoted to this novel approach with emphasis on shared responsibility, broadening horizons and developing a sense of community amongst teachers and students. The ‘flipped classroom’ technique has been seamlessly integrated into the curriculum to engage students optimally so that the online classes are used for constructive discussions, clarifying concepts and doubts.

Apart from teaching students using innovative methods, we ensured that we evaluated their performance fairly.

This year we not only conducted the Std. X S.S.C exams virtually, but also evaluated the examination papers using an online application and prepared the final results.

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We will continue to leverage the benefits of the online medium through blended learning.

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INSIGHT

It was a mammoth task, but completing it successfully gave us a great deal of satisfaction.

Cultural events have been our hallmark, always. As this pandemic phase has created an emotional turmoil for our students, we made concerted efforts to ensure the well-being of students. Albeit online, we have set a precedent worthy of emulation by organizing an array of special assemblies, cultural events, and competitions such as our Annual Functions, Reader’s Theatre, Radio Play, and Discorso (Intra-School Elocution Competition) with active participation of students.

Our Annual Sports Day was organized virtually which was a first of its kind, as we did not have access to our wonderful playground.

Though the playing field shifted from our playground to an online platform, there was no dearth of enthusiasm and excitement among our students. This helped to restore a sense of normalcy among students and teachers. What a joy to behold, smiles on the faces of our children! It is difficult to imagine the huge planning and coordination effort that our team willingly put in to ensure that we took forward Udayachal’ s legacy without allowing the pandemic to derail it in any way.

With education transitioning from the classrooms to the virtual medium, geographical barriers are no more a hindrance.

This led to the germination of a novel initiative “Udayachal Speaks” wherein we have our former students connect to their alma mater and speak to our current students.

As part of this initiative, our alumni currently located across the globe having made their careers in multifarious fields, such as the armed forces, medicine, engineering, research, education, and so on reminisce their anecdotes from their school days, provide guidance on career opportunities and share inspirational stories.

Another innovative initiative ‘My Piece of History’ was conceptualized and conducted which involved display of artefacts, heirloom objects and antique coins by students and teachers. It also involved preparing students for a role play and conducting a mock Gram Panchayat. This helped students to connect to their roots and diminish the urban-rural divide.

Can you imagine organising visits to heritage sites, forts and geographical places for students when travelling is risk-laden? This was accomplished with virtual field trips through the “Unravel without the Travel” initiative. Both students and educators gained from the rich, experiential, and immersive learning experiences of exploring places of significance from the comfort of their homes.

With an aim to foster student leadership skills, the “Shiksha Programme” was organized where selected students conducted research on the famed educationist - Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and discussed their findings with their peers. Even though we had been confined to our homes, we did not let the pandemic dampen the festive spirit and conducted “Sevadaan Utsav” celebrations online- an endeavor appreciated by students and parents alike. As part of this initiative, we celebrated all the festivals in a unique manner by keeping the spirit of humanity and service to mankind at the forefront.

Earlier our laboratories in school were always bustling with experimentation and curiosity, hence we did not want our students to be deprived from learning about the practical implications of scientific theories.

This led to the conception of the “Prayog” sessions where Science experiments were demonstrated online. This helped to satiate the inquisitive minds of our students.

One of the foremost priorities during our transition to online learning was ensuring the mental well-being of our students.

Hence, our Palaash department immediately started with online counselling sessions to take care of any emotional conflicts and anger management issues arising due to the stressful conditions. Various webinars were conducted on topics like growth mindset, classroom modifications, stress management, positive language in the classrooms, and self-esteem.

Also, with students having access to online platforms and devices, it became more important to create awareness about the perils of excessive and irresponsible use of the internet which was proficiently handled through the “Responsible Netism” and “CyberSmart” programmes.

Yoga and breathing exercises through online sessions and videos became an integral part of our curriculum to enable our students and teachers learn to cope with adversity.

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Although online education has become the new normal in the current scenario, we hope and look forward to getting back into the lap of our Udayachal, where students can resume learning in the classrooms and playing on the playgrounds. In the meanwhile, we will leave no stone unturned to provide a superlative learning environment to our students and nurture them to become the best possible versions of themselves. As the pandemic situation improves and we return to the offline mode of learning in the future, we will continue to leverage the benefits of the

online medium through blended learning.

I feel eternally indebted to our respected founder for showering upon us their blessings and inculcating the core values and philosophy which hold us in good stead even in the most difficult situations.

Our accomplishments, especially in this transition to the online medium, would not have been possible without the unflinching support of our School Management. It was the invaluable guidance and hands-on involvement of our dearest Smt. Smita Godrej Crishna, Dr. Pheroza Godrej and the Godrej

family which proved to be the wind beneath our wings helping us overcome all the challenges and achieve our goals.

We at Udayachal feel most fortunate to be bestowed with the love and kindness of our trustees, management, parents and students during this turbulent phase which inspires us to believe that the sky is the limit and there is no looking back as we march forward in our pursuit of excellence inspired by our theme for the year – “Aaje Navu Su Kidhu?”

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MEDICAL OXYGEN GENERATORS FROM GODREJ PRECISION ENGINEERING The shortage of medical oxygen was experienced across the country during the second wave of COVID -19. Also, as the pandemic was raging with newer variants emerging with greater frequency, the demand for medical oxygen had increased exponentially. To overcome this critical challenge, the Government of India has put together a plan to create buffer capacity for medical oxygen at hospital, state and regional levels, across the country. Under this plan, about 550 medical oxygen plants are required to be installed in a specified timeframe.

This large requirement has been distributed amongst several reputed manufacturers. Certain number of plants have been assigned to DRDO to be manufactured according to the technology developed by Defense, Bioengineering and electromechanical laboratory (DEBEL), an arm of DRDO. This technology has been transferred by DRDO to 10 private sector companies including Godrej Precision Engineering (GPE).

This technology provides the ease of generating and storing oxygen from air, using Sodium Zeolite molecular sieves. This plant will be able to generate, store and supply medical oxygen on demand. For emergency use, hospitals need not depend on any external source such as high-pressure oxygen cylinders.

“Throughout our history, Godrej & Boyce has contributed to India’s journey of self-reliance by combining cutting-edge engineering prowess with decades of precision expertise.

With this new Medical Oxygen Generating system, we hope to assist India in gaining a lasting advantage in the fight against Covid” - Nyrika Holkar, Executive Director, G&B “We are honored by the trust reposed by DRDO in us for over three decades for the manufacture of critical systems and precision machines. At Godrej Precision Engineering, we have established our manufacturing processes, supply chain and infrastructure so that the production of such a critical element of India’s medical infrastructure can be scaled up quickly.”

- Sushil Agarkar, Business Head, GPE In this hour of need, team GPE rose to this daunting challenge of producing the first batch of Medical Oxygen Generators, from drawing board to manufacture and dispatch to remote rural hospitals across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh, just in a month! This is a step forward in realizing the dream of self-reliant India, through successful partnerships.

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SUCCESS STORIES

Integrated Project at SIFY Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

Puneet Haldankar, E&E: Ashi Seth, Godrej Interio and N.S.N. Moorthy, Integrated Offering - President’s Office

Adoption of digital technologies create massive, new opportunities that must be exploited by the collective efforts of our businesses.

G&B has been serving the projects business space for several years across different business units. This business typically involves long gestation periods and a high level of preparatory work with the customer, right from the pre-order stage. Our Businesses have maintained long term connects with their customers over the years.

The MEP Team from E&E has been exploring new segments to grow. One of these is data centers, which has a healthy potential for growth. MEP learnt that a major player in this segment – Sify Technologies Ltd (SIFY), had a requirement to set up a Center at NOIDA for a 700 rack, 10MW project on three floors of their building. They were looking for contractors to do the packages of MEP, HVAC, Electrical and Civil Interiors.

MEP has been a part of the Integrated Offering initiative since 2018. A clutch of project-based businesses from E&E, Interio and Security BUs have been a part of this initiative with GLAFS being a recent entrant.

This initiative seeks to leverage the customer relationships forged by individual BUs to win new business for the participating BUs. SIFY presented a great opportunity for the BUs concerned.

The MEP and Interiors teams jointly bid and successfully bagged the orders for all the three packages.

Making a beginning with a reputed customer in data center space, this was a significant win for us marking our entry.

Project SIFY As it was a first for Godrej in the data center space, the client wanted to know about our capabilities. These were presented to them by our sales and execution teams.

The teams shared our experience in executing large and complex projects across the country. During this process, we established relationships with the stakeholders in SIFY. They were convinced and invited us to participate in the tenders, which were issued as per their practice, project-wise. In close coordination, E&E and Interio participated in these tenders.

The intent was to get a full understanding of the client’s requirements and prepare a very competitive offer. The teams had multiple rounds of negotiations before successfully closing the orders for three packages – Interiors, HVAC & Electrical.

Execution Planning & Coordination Interio executed Civil Interiors and HVAC while Electricals were executed by the E&E team. The workflow was Integrated for Civil, HVAC and Electrical works by sequencing the inter dependent activities as per the readiness of the site and the installation of HVAC equipment.

Timely information relay on the progress of each stage helped in avoiding rework.

The entire project was mapped to its last mile activity on MS Projects and tracked daily for adherence to the schedule. Project teams created and circulated internal track-

ing sheets to ensure that the teams of design, purchase and execution were abreast of the requirements and the decisions taken. Escalation interval was set at three hours to ensure a high level of adherence to schedules.

Execution Challenges The work commenced in Nov 2019 and the pandemic hit in March 2020 stopping the operations at the site. Men and materials were there but the work had to be halted due to the lockdown. The Godrej teams provided the workmen with requisite support and rations during this period which enabled them to remobilize the site in May 2020, once the restrictions on movement were lifted. As there were some restrictions still in place for movement across state borders, vendors were identified near the project location to meet site requirements immediately. Additional local workmen were mobilized too. For critical component like bus-ducts, materials were air lifted for meeting the schedule.

As it often happens, the client increased the scope of work. It called for additional materials to be sourced during the lockdown. Our teams rose to the challenge and identified vendors who were ready to supply. Train cargo services were engaged for delivery of materials at site as they had fewer restrictions. Imported items too were sourced from different countries to facilitate timely completion of the project. Workflow processes were modified for reducing turnaround times. Heat run test was a part of the site acceptance test for busducts. With 48 circuits to be tested - each taking four hours, the testing time was simply too long. It was reduced by a half (24 circuits only) by opening the interlocks between the breakers.

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Hydro-testing of HVAC piping system was a big challenge as spillage of water was not permitted. To meet this condition, we tested the entire piping system by air first and eliminated the chances of leakages during the hydro-testing. Another challenge was an integration of the new and existing HVAC systems, having a total cooling capacity of 5000 TR. Any error could lead to a loss of cooling for existing server rack system.

Data centers is a growth segment in India. As MEP projects are of short cycle by nature, agility, flexibility, and frequent reviews are essential for adhering to schedules.

Our mantra is – “On time, Every Time (OTET) which is based on the strong foundation of continually improved processes and systems. This makes us confident of fulfilling the expectations of our customers.

Pravin Rawool, Head MEP Projects

The entire schedule was planned for smooth execution where all activities were listed with timelines and worst-case scenarios.

As a result, successful integration of the systems was achieved. The client project team at site cooperated fully in quick resolution of the project related issues.

We gratefully acknowledge their direction and support in overcoming formidable challenges. E&E and Interio teams worked round the clock to make up for the lost time due of

the lockdown and ensured timely completion and handover of the site in November 2020.

SIFY expressed their delight at our performance and has rewarded us with fresh opportunities to serve them. SIFY has also opted for Godrej furniture and busducts.

This project is an outstanding example of what our BUs teams can achieve when they work together to meet the expectations of our customers.

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INSIGHT

A better way to do your dishes Newer technologies, unless adapted to local needs, do not count for much.

Rajinder Koul, Godrej Appliances

Health, hygiene and effort minimization are always at the core of our development efforts.

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Godrej Appliances announced its foray into the Indian dishwasher market with a recent launch of its new range of Godrej Eon dishwashers with Steam Wash Technology ideal for Indian cooking and Indian kitchens.

Steam Wash Technology gives a sparkling clean wash for heavily soiled dishes. This technology is tough on stubborn food stains while being gentle on the dishes which ensures a thorough cleaning, deep hygiene and zero damage to the dishes.

The pandemic driven changes have significantly increased the stress levels of consumers.

Urban consumers have been affected as they are required to juggle their work along with daily household chores. Further, they are restricting the dependence on domestic helps to avoid health risks. As a result, more and more consumers are looking for effort minimizing appliances such as dishwashers.

The teams at Godrej Appliances have been working on various technologies around the

themes of health, hygiene and efforts minimization since the beginning of the pandemic and our efforts have culminated into Godrej Eon dishwashers, which meet the requirement fully. With hygiene, convenience and efficiency at its core, Godrej Eon Dishwashers effectively carry out dishwashing; one of the most time and effort consuming household chores and deliver a better way to do the dishes.

Many misconceptions surround the use of dishwashers such as they don’t clean well enough, are not suitable for commonly used dishes and utensils, can wash only a limited number of dishes at a time, water and electricity consumptions are high, the washing cycle is too long and such. The new Eon dishwashers are designed to demolish these widely held misconceptions and offer a solution that works for Indian households.

Steam Wash technology helps deep cleaning with its usage of high-temperature, direct steam application to remove sticky, greasy and stubborn food residue from your utensils, giving you a greater degree of hygiene, cleanliness and care for utensils of different shapes, sizes and materials.

Also, contrary to the popular belief that dishwashers consume a lot of water, Godrej Eon Dishwashers can be operated in an ecomode which saves energy and uses as little as 9 litres of water per cycle of wash.

Godrej Eon Dishwashers effectively clean sticky masala and cooking fats that line the utensils, common to Indian cooking.

Additionally, Godrej Eon Dishwashers are ideal for an Indian kitchen, with 12 and 13 ‘place settings’ to wash up to 91 items: utensils, dishes and cutlery as well as pressure cookers, kadhais, pans, tawas and other Indian cooking utensils. You can also wash expensive dinner sets, delicate cups & saucers and glasses. Also, non-stick cookware, dishwasher safe ceramic, melamine, silicon and plastic cookware can be washed safely.

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INSIGHT

Godrej Eon Dishwashers can be operated in an eco-mode which saves energy and uses as little as 9 litres of water per wash cycle.

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A host of other unique features enable Godrej Eon dishwashers to give several benefits: » Unique UV technology eliminates bacteria and disinfects the dishes. Also, the built-in-ionizer completely removes odours, giving fresh, clean and hygienic dishes for use. » Smart Wash technology deploys special ‘turbidity’ sensors that detect the amount of particle matter in the water to adjust the washing cycle parameters such as temperature, duration, amount of water for an optimal wash, every time. » As a result, water and electricity are conserved. » Special Turbo Drying activates a powerful fan for air circulation to draw out the steam from the dishwasher to deliver

thoroughly dried dishes. This, coupled with the Intensive 65°C wash programme for heavily soiled dishes, gives squeaky dry dishes which can be used readily without wiping. » As Godrej Eon Dishwashers are powered by highly efficient BLDC inverter technology, (Brushless Direct Current Motor) they have A+++ Energy Rating, the highest, according to the European standards for energy consumption. This technology saves water, energy and time while ensuring superior cleaning as well as drying. » Stainless-steel durable interior door and tub ensure longer life. » Godrej Eon dishwashers come with a 2-year comprehensive warranty and are available in 12 or 13 place settings across three variants.

The dishwasher category in India is at a nascent stage (INR 800 Cr approx.) but is likely to grow in the coming years because of greater awareness about the need for hygiene, convenience, increased personal stress brought about by the quest for more leisure time and the pandemic.

During the festive season last year, Godrej Appliances had launched the new Godrej Eon dishwashers, for select cities, exclusively on a leading e-commerce platform. Now, the entire range is being made available both, online and offline, pan India.

Go for Godrej Eon Dishwashers and experience the joy of handling hot, dry and sparkling dishes and utensils ready for use.

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BOOKMARK

Breath: A Book Review “A healthy mind has an easy breath.”

Debashish Sahu, President’s Office

“Breathing” is one of the most vital yet least appreciated aspects of our lives.

Surprised? Do we even pay attention to how we breathe? Unfortunately, most of us don’t breathe right. Most people can run 10 kms or swim a mile if only they can get better at breathing and stay in the right heart rate zone. Another surprise, breathing even 10 percent more than the body’s needs, could overwork our systems!

Do you know that carbon dioxide is the chief hormone of the entire body?

Unbelievable, but right! My reactions could have been the same had I not read the book “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art” by James Nestor.

I take this opportunity to share some of the author’s insights which might go against the grain of whatever we think we know about this most fundamental aspect of being alive - breathing.

Unfortunately, most of us habitually breathe through the mouth. As a result, 90% of children acquire some degree of abnormality in their mouths and noses. About one half of the adults snore occasionally, and a quarter constantly.

Majority of the population suffers from some form of breathing difficulty or resistance. Mouth breathing causes the body to lose 40 percent more water as compared to breathing through nose. It also leads to periodontal diseases and bad breath.

Mouth breathing is the number one cause of dental cavities, even more harmful than sugar consumption, poor diet or hygiene.

Inhaling from the nose has the opposite effect. It forces air against the tissues at the back of the throat, making the airways wider and breathing easier. One of the many benefits of nasal breathing is that the sinuses release a huge amount of nitric oxide, a molecule that plays a vital role in increasing circulation and delivering oxygen to cells.

Immune function, weight, circulation and mood are heavily influenced by the amount of nitric oxide in the body. Nasal breathing alone can boost nitric oxide sixfold, which is one of the reasons we can absorb about 18 percent more oxygen than by just breathing through the mouth.

There is a yoga practice dedicated to manipulating the body’s functions through forced breathing from the nostrils. It’s called nadi shodhana pranayaam or, more commonly, alternate nostril breathing. There are dozens of alternate nostril breathing techniques; you can start with the most basic one.

If breathing has such profound impact on the body, then it should not be surprising that expanding our lung capacity can be one of the ways to enhance the quality of our lives and increase lifespan. Just a few minutes of daily practice of breathing can expand lung capacity substantially. Also, the stretches, called the Five Tibetan Rites can be practiced by anyone to expand lung capacity. Even simple moderate exercises like walking or cycling have been shown to boost lung size by 15% and hence, are crucial for improving cardiovascular and overall health.

Speaking of exercise, there are two forms of energy our bodies generate: Anaerobic and Aerobic. Anaerobic energy is generated only with glucose (a simple sugar), and it’s quicker and easier for our bodies to access.

But anaerobic energy is inefficient. The nausea, muscle weakness, and sweating you

experience after you’ve pushed yourself too hard at the gym is an outcome of anaerobic overload. As anaerobic respiration is intended as a backup system, our bodies are built to have fewer anaerobic muscle fibers. If we rely on these less-developed muscles too often, they will eventually break down.

This is why Aerobic respiration becomes important. When we run aerobically with oxygen, our energy efficiency can be 16x greater than anaerobic. The key is to stay in that energy-efficient, oxygen-burning aerobic zone while exercising, resting and performing daily activities.

Finding the optimum heart rate for exercising is easy: just subtract your age from 180. The result is the maximum heart rate your body can withstand to stay in the aerobic state. Long bouts of training and exercise can happen below this rate but never above it, otherwise the body will risk going too deep into the anaerobic zone.

If this happens, then instead of feeling invigorated after a good workout, you will feel tired, shaky, and nauseated.

The most important aspect of breathing isn’t just ‘inhaling’, it is lung expansion.

Also, it is the transformative power of full exhalation that assures healthier, longer lives. Therefore, in martial art forms like karate, you yell certain words like “Kiai” or “Hyah!” at the time of throwing a punch or a kick. The yell helps in full exhalation and there comes that extra power in the punch or the kick.

What’s also less acknowledged is the role carbon dioxide plays in weight loss. The carbon dioxide in every exhale has weight, and we exhale more weight than we inhale.

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Breathing even 10 percent more than the body’s needs, could overwork our systems.

The way the body loses weight isn’t through profusely sweating or “burning it off”. We lose weight through the exhaled breath. For every ten pounds of fat lost in our bodies, eight and a half pounds of it comes out through our lungs; most of it is carbon dioxide mixed with a bit of water vapor. The rest is sweated or urinated out. The lungs are the weight-regulating mechanism of the body.

Carbon dioxide also has a profound dilating effect on blood vessels, opening these pathways so they can carry more oxygen-rich blood to hungry cells.

One needs to inhale slowly and exhale slowly while breathing deeply is the worst advice we can give anyone. Big, heavy breaths are bad for us because they deplete our bodies of carbon dioxide. We need to learn to inhale and exhale slowly.

The nose is the silent warrior: the gatekeeper of our bodies, pharmacist to our minds, and a weathervane to our emotions. It deserves lot more attention than we have given it thus far.

But like most things in life, it is never too late to start. To know more about breath and breathing, please do take a look at this wonderful book and imbibe a few key lessons for breathing right for the healthier years ahead.

Happy breathing, the right way!

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INSIDE G&B

The Naoroji Godrej Centre for Plant Research Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing.

You are just talking!

- Wangari Maathai Dr. Mayur Nandikar, Senior Scientist, NGCPR

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A conservation and research hub for unique plant diversity of the Western Ghats.

In the year 1992 the lowland at G & B’s Lawkim campus at Shindewadi began planting species of bamboo, orchids, medicinal, endemic and indigenous plant species. The Naoroji Godrej Centre for Plant Research (NGCPR) was set up in fond memory of the Late Mr. Naoroji Pirojsha Godrej by Late Mrs. Soonu Godrej and Mr. Vijay Crishna whose aim was to conserve, multiply and propagate endemic plants of the Western Ghats.

The concept was to establish and conserve the germplasm of unique plant species that the Centre collected. The Centre is recognized as a Scientific and Research Organisation (DSIR-SIRO) by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, and the first two endemic and threatened plants viz. Frerea indica and Abutilon ranadei were brought to the NGCPR from isolated wild patches, protected, multiplied, and studied.

The Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritisation (CAMP) workshop on Medicinal Plants of Maharashtra, conducted by NGCPR in 1999 was a first-of-its-kind workshop in the state. It helped in understanding the diversity of the unique but underutilised medicinal plants in Maharashtra.

Similarly, the first status report of Endemic plants in Maharashtra was published in collaboration with the Botanical Survey of India.

In one of the projects on Endemic Plant documentation more than 100 species were assessed for their taxonomy, ecology and distribution from the northern Western Ghats and named as a ‘Haritarium Database’ which is now available online.

The NGCPR has worked in the field of ‘habitat ecology’ to understand diversity, co-existence & threat and is studying the mangroves of Thane creek as well as ephemerals on Kas plateau.

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The NGCPR Garden at Shindewadi has now become a paradise for the plants and their dependent creatures with more than 14 bamboo species, 100 endemic and indigenous species, 25 different orchids, 300+ medicinal and other economic plants.

The Centre has its own Herbarium, which is registered with New York Botanical Garden’s Index Herbarium, and consists of more than 5000 dried plant specimens. Digitisation of these plant specimens is under process and over 3000 of them are now online.

Every year the Centre is visited by 1000+ visitors comprising of school and research students, company employees, guests and NGOs from Maharashtra and other States.

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Previous Page - Frerea indica, Arisaema murrayi var. soonubeniae and Abutilon ranadei, From Top Left - Commelina badamica, Salacia megacarpa, Vicoa sahyadrica, Brachystelma naorojii.

The idea is to create an awareness of the important role of plants in the ecosystem, their diversity, threat and conservation.

For better reach and access, and to build an understanding of endemic plants, awareness of their importance and to enable citizen and student-based support for their conservation, the Centre has established a mobile app that gives information on Endemic Plants of the Western Ghats, their importance and threat status. In the last two years, more than 200+ species have been described through this app, over 2000 national and international users have accessed and benefitted from it. The NGCPR and Godrej Infotech teams are working together to make this mobile app vibrant and more useful with a targeted addition of at least 300 and more species.

The Centre has published 50+ research articles in various national and international journals.

More than 30 students have completed their master’s dissertation programme with the Centre. The Centre has recorded 100+ endemic plants from the hilltop of Torna fort which suggests that besides the turbulent historical past, these hill-top habitats hold important plant diversity. We hope this will guide policymakers to make the right decisions before developing these areas, and help preserve these hotspots for the conservation of these valuable species.

The Centre has been working on the medicinal plant group called Salacia, commonly called ‘Saptarangi’, - about 10 species occur in peninsular India of which 8 are endemic to the Western Ghats of India. ‘Salacinol’, an antidiabetic compound found mainly in the roots of this plant, has been the cause of its overexploitation in recent years. Studies have indicated that a few local species were threatened due to overexploitation.

As part of different research programs, the NGCPR team has described 10+ new species and have added a similar number of species to the flora of India.

With a strong focus on the conservation of flora of the Western Ghats, the Centre aims to work more on action oriented conservation initiatives.

Considering the impacts of deforestation and climate change, the Centre has initiated an endemic and native plant conservatory project from this year. Through this project, the Centre plans to develop a model forest of native and endemic plant species based on the ‘Other Effective (area based) Conservation Measures’ and ‘Ecosystem (based) Adaptation’ initiatives. Committed to AICHI Biodiversity Targets and Sustainable Development goals, the Centre also plans to work on eco-restoration, eco-development and environment education initiatives with collaborative support from other like-minded organisations.

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SUCCESS STORIES

A Silver for Niveditha!

“Becoming a champion is not an easy process.

It is done by focussing on what it takes to get there and not on getting there.”

Girija Sarvanan, Godrej Commercial, Coimbatore

As a Godrejite, I am very proud to share that my daughter Niveditha has won a silver medal in the Junior World Shooting Championship, 2021 at Lima, Peru in the 25M Standard Pistol event.

This is her second medal in the International Shooting Championship, the first being a bronze medal she won at the Asian Shooting Championship held at Doha, Qatar in 2019.

Last year, Covid-19 had put a stop to all international shooting championships. Prior to the pandemic in 2019, Niveditha had represented India at the Asian shooting Championship, Doha, Qatar. After this event, she continued to engage in practice and was selected, once again, to represent India at the Junior World Shooting Championship 2021 to be held in the months of September - October at Lima, Peru. She was selected for the events of 25M Sports Pistol and 25M Standard Pistol.

Getting selected for the World Championship was very demanding for her as she was focusing on her studies to do well in academics as well. Her practice was not as rigorous as required to get selected for the competition. With the selection trials barely a fortnight away, she had a lot to catch up.

As she was trying to do so, she met with a se-

vere injury that threatened her participation in the selection trials. Despite the agonizing pain, she participated in the trials and performed well enough to earn her ticket for the Junior World Championship 2021. It was only her grit and strong determination that saw her through.

Once at Lima, though leading the table in the 25 M sports pistol event, her favourite, she finished in fourth place at the end of Stage 1 of the competition. She returned the next day as a strong favourite for Stage 2, but destiny had some other plans for her. Her pistol had malfunctioned twice and she ended up with the lowest scores. As this was her main event where she hoped to win a medal for the country, the scores left her greatly dejected. She told me she was undoubtedly down, but certainly not out.

The second event was to be held on the final day of the championship, she had a few days in between to recoup her internal strength and the will to win. Like a phoenix, she rose and competed with all her concentration and strength to take an early lead and in the finals, she finished second in the 25M standard pistol event to win a silver medal for India.

I believe that her winning this medial after a major setback is a testimony to her deep commitment to the sport and a strong will to win.

Soon, she will be graduating to the senior level of the sport where the competition is going to be extremely tough. However, I’m sure that with ample preparation, practice, and the blessings of all her well-wishers, she will be able to represent India and win medals for years to come at the International Championships.

CHANGE heartily congratulates Niveditha for this outstanding achievement and wishes her great success at the senior level championships.

Born in 2001, Niveditha is a student member of the Coimbatore Rifle Club and is a third-year student of Bachelor’s in Business Administration at Coimbatore.

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This is her second medal in the International Shooting Championship, the first being a bronze medal she won in 2019.

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PRE-CAST PRODUCTS FROM CONCRETE WASTE

BY GODREJ CONSTRUCTION Solid Waste Disposal and Management is an area of great concern worldwide.

Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste constitutes about 20-30% (estimated) of total solid waste. Furthermore, the construction industry is also one of the largest consumers of raw materials, globally. A substantial part of virgin raw materials can be replaced by recycled, reused C&D waste for conserving energy and natural resources.

India generates an estimated 150 million tonnes of C&D waste every year. Less than 2% of this waste gets recycled as India’s recycling capacity is only about 2.3 million tonnes per year. The industry is thus ignoring a major opportunity for sustainable development. As a result, most of the waste finds its way to the landfills across cities which are overflowing.

The concrete part of the C&D waste can be recycled into concrete aggregates which can substitute natural aggregates in applications like walls, pavers, landscaping, customized precast products and production of concrete. Further, recycling C&D waste can lead to savings in land use and transportation to landfills.

At Godrej, the three step process of RECOVER + RECYCLE + REBUILD underscores our vision for sustainable construction. Taking a step forward, we established a plant at Pirojshanagar, Mumbai to manufacture several products from C&D waste. Here, we manufacture different types of

concrete blocks, pavers, and other customized prefabricated concrete products such as box culverts. Technical properties of these products compare favourably to similar products made from virgin raw materials. Godrej Construction is amongst the first businesses in India to receive ISI certification for a select type of concrete blocks. All our products are IGBC Greenpro certified to help our customers obtain green building certification.

This plant has the capacity of processing 300 tonnes of C&D waste per day and it has processed over 25000 tonnes of C&D waste in the last 3 years.

A pilot project was undertaken along with SINTEF, an independent leading research organisation of Norway which conducts scientific research on C&D waste and its practical applications. After a successful pilot, a new Indo-Norwegian project was initiated between the Central Public Works Department and SINTEF with the aim to enhance recycling capacity of C&D waste in India. Godrej Construction was one of the stakeholders in this project along with other leading players of the industry.

Adopting and implementation of Circular Economy principles is the need of the hour to make C&D waste a resourceful opportunity for sustainable construction.

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FOCUS

Difficult But Not Impossible The “P” in PM is as much about people management as about Project Management.

A M Wilson, Godrej Storage Solutions

Managing complex projects in the pandemic.

We are in the business of creating storage spaces where we design, manufacture components, and bring to life the requirements of customers at project sites through successful installations. We have built over 203 million sq. ft. of storage systems and managing projects well continues to remain the key for success in our business.

To enable our customers meet their business demands, our project management teams deploy hundreds of trained persons, almost every day for weeks and months as required. They work incessantly day and night to complete the projects on time regardless of the constraints faced and prevailing conditions.

How did we carry out this kind of project work amidst the raging pandemic?

During the pandemic, there were restrictions on the number of persons who could work at a time. The access to the sites was restricted. We could not even transport materials to the site. In addition, several COVID-19 protocols had to be followed for assuring the wellbeing of our people and complying with the government orders. It was very challenging for us to carry out installations at project sites spread across the country.

When the nationwide lockdown hit us last year, we had at hand 31 live sites and over 600 men stranded at various sites all over the country.

As safety and wellbeing of these men was a priority for us, we decided to provide them with food, medicines, shelter and keep them engaged through various activities. We conducted several training programs on covid

protocols to be followed once the sites were declared open for work.

While the sites began to open slowly by end of April ‘20, there was no clarity about the permissions required to transport materials, travel of our teams and the number of people who could be deployed at any given time at a site. We began learning how to perform our work following various protocols that were new to us. We ensured the availability of safety equipment like masks, sanitizers, thermal scanners, face shields, hand gloves and more at sites. We also arranged quarantine facilities at many sites for people who got affected with the virus. Several trucks were stranded at many sites as the materials could not be unloaded without the required manpower. Hence, we had no option but to organize locally available manpower to unload these trucks. This called for imparting training to local men in adhering to the covid protocols as well as carrying out the work safely.

To ensure a safe work environment, we had organized RT-PCR tests for our people.

Thermal scanning was put in place at all sites.

Washing hands frequently, wearing safety gadgets and maintaining social distancing at all times, were some of the practices that were instituted and rigorously enforced. We also arranged for medical camps and visits of doctors to treat minor ailments. Vaccination camps were also held. We had to bring in people by air as other modes of transport were unavailable. All equipment, materials, and incoming trucks had to be sanitized.

Our largest project till date was amongst the several large projects that we were working on simultaneously during the pandemic. This was a distribution center for India’s leading e-commerce player. This warehouse has an area of 9.5 lacs sq. ft. where we have erected a 15 meter-high multi-tier shelving

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of 5 lac sq. ft. floor area that offers 44.5 lac cubic feet of storage space having staircases for man movement and vertical reciprocating carousels for material movement.

Detailed and thorough planning is of utmost importance for successful project execution.

Planning and execution of this project were coordinated by a team consisting of D. Selvam - Project planning, Karthigeyan Production planning and Smarjit Chandra assisted by Sandip Mozumder - Site planning and execution. I had the responsibility of overseeing the entire project. We also had excellent support from Sugavanam Gnanasekaran from sales who handled all customer related interactions. Selvam worked meticulously to develop a comprehensive project plan and Gantt chart for detailing commitments on timelines for the activities of various teams.

The mega project was broken down into manageable phases, tiers, and blocks in consultation with the customer.

Critical milestones and deliverables were articulated upfront. Various risks were anticipated, and mitigation measures were thought of. In-depth planning played a huge role in the successful execution of this project.

The meticulous project plan was converted into a production plan for meeting the installation sequence to achieve the deliverables promised. Planning, production, and procurement of hundreds of components was a demanding and complex task.

Karthigeyan and his team broke the complex requirement into 681 units of shipment. We also had 800 tonnes of materials imported from Germany, Malaysia, and China.

The materials from the Chennai factory were dispatched to site through the sea which greatly helped in saving freight cost and ensured smooth flow of materials.

Remarkably, all this was accomplished by the team working remotely. Smarjit Chandra took care of execution planning and communication with representatives of the customer and local vendors. To ensure quality compliance at site, the execution team had organised a thorough checking of materials received at site. In addition, training programmes on various topics were organised to ensure safe and productive working.

Constant communication with customer helped expedite resolution of the issues faced.

Sandip Mozumder was assigned the major task of coordinating and monitoring the progress of work of various contractors at site with the help of Aditya Pal and about 50 site

and safety supervisors. To overcome supply dependency at site, we had arranged a temporary shed of approximately 1.5 lac sq. ft. at an open site about a kilometre from the warehouse which facilitated storekeeping activity and transport within the premises.

This helped us ship materials much ahead of the start of the installation. We also had to mitigate and manage local political unions for unloading and shifting activities. All

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infrastructure such as gen-sets, task lighting at multiple points, security, toilets, water for sanitation and drinking, local transport for manpower and supervisor teams, dining areas, office set up, training centres, medical facilities like ambulance and first aid had to be arranged by us at the site.

This indeed was a remarkable achievement in the view of severe restrictions and constraints faced due to the raging pandemic.

The mega project was completed in a record time of 148 days. All of these 31 projects required skilled manpower that had become scarce due to the migration of labor triggered by the panic and uncertainty created by the pandemic.

We had to work hard to source local manpower, mostly unskilled. This called for devising and conducting on-site training sessions almost overnight to ensure that the work was carried out by this unskilled labour that met the requirements of quality specifications for installations and productivity. In addition, we were required to handle the anxieties of family members of the workforce and mitigate their fears so that they would not pre-

D. Selvam

Karthigeyan

vent them from coming to work. Dedicated vehicles were also arranged for transporting manpower to and from their homes.

Despite all odds, we were required to adhere to the promised timelines to help our customers meet their business goals. We collaborated with customers and contractors as they worked in shifts, round the clock, to meet the agreed deadlines. Frequently, we had to engage additional manpower to compensate for the loss of productivity due to covid protocols and the shortages of skilled manpower. To compensate for the unintimated absence of many persons, we had arranged for ‘buffers’ of manpower.

Managing projects during the pandemic was an experience like never before.

There was uncertainty at every stage. We faced hurdles, we learnt, we stayed strong, worked hard to ensure that we completed almost all the projects in the agreed timelines to the satisfaction of our customers.

Notwithstanding the strong headwinds, we sailed through the pandemic successfully and emerged resilient and confident of our capabilities in managing many large projects concurrently.

Sandip Mozumder

The mega project was completed in a record time of 148 days.

Smarjit Chandra

Aditya Pal

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PERSPECTIVE

Managing Anxiety & Depression at Work Respecting people and encouraging them to express themselves are strong antidotes to stress.

Jyoti Sarkhot, Corporate Personnel & Administration

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The World Gratitude day falls on 21st September. I am not sure how many of us are aware of this, let alone celebrate it. I, for one, was unaware of it until I received a Thankyou note from a close colleague. This note got me thinking about how so few of us have made it a habit to be in gratitude about the gifts we have been blessed with. Being grateful was one such nugget that I picked up amongst the many that were shared by Ashika in her session on the above topic.

After the session, I consciously try to stay in the state of being grateful in my daily routine.

My mind was full of many thoughts as I sat to pen down my reflections from the workshop conducted by Ashika Mehta on how managers should handle anxiety and depression at the workplace. To begin with, I want to thank the P&A team for organizing this session. It was greatly helpful, besides being aptly timed. The workshop equipped me with many insights and practices to reach out to my peers and my team in the ways that are positive and meaningful.

A meme trending on Twitter really set me thinking on how the world views anxiety and depression and often we are guilty of seeing our world through this lens alone. It was revealing to learn that anxiety & depression come in many garbs!

With our limited understanding, we are not equipped to help even if we detect the signs of anxiety and depression amongst the persons in our immediate circle of influence.

I started wondering how many times I have been oblivious to the signs present or picked up wrong cues or tried to dismiss the issues involved.

The approach was not out of apathy but more out of the dilemma of not knowing what the right thing to do was. Hence, I am thankful to the session as it helped me with tools on what to do and what not to. I am now confident of assessing the situation more accurately and responding to it meaningfully.

We cannot function as an island may it be at work or in family as our primary role is contributory and supportive of the team members to reach the goal posts. We often wonder as to what really triggers/or drives a person to act/think or respond in a way. The session helped me understand that each person is a product of his/her conditioning.

This conditioning creates certain behavior patterns in people, for example, if a person has had a history of saying yes to please,

HIGH FUNCTIONING ANXIETY What you see

vs.

What they’re experiencing

Detail Oriented

Overthinking

Outgoing

People pleasing

Active

Inability to slow down

Super Helpful

Trouble saying No

Hardworking

Fear of failure

they may find it hard to express their point of view if it is different. In a team situation, they may not have the courage to disagree with colleagues, even if they genuinely feel something should be done differently. Inability to stand up for their point of view may cause tremendous anxiety. In such a situation as a manager or senior, we need to spend some time mentoring the person to recognize this pattern of pleasing and support him when he engages in the behavior of expressing his point of view. It really does not matter as much where a pattern comes from. Even if we don’t know someone’s personal history, it is fine. Once we spend time identifying a repeating pattern in a person, the most effective method is to talk to the person about the pattern and engage them in a dialogue to understand why it is happening.

Another important aspect I would like to share that as seniors, we need to be particularly careful about ‘type casting’ team members.

In a setting, where our work and personal lives are intertwined, a negative label can create anxiety and depression as there is no escape from it anytime.

It can create a situation of ‘learned helplessness’ where the person feels he/she is viewed by everyone in only one way so, there is no point in attempting a change. He begins to believe that it is impossible to change perceptions at such a large scale.

This was such a powerful reflection, that I went back to my own school days and recollected memories of being absolutely happy as my division/teacher changed which meant that I had a fresh slate to be without the burden of being judged upon. I wasn’t really the most obedient kid in the school, but probably

as I did well in academics and extracurricular activities my trespasses were taken lightly.

Although outwardly, I may have seemed like I was unaffected, yet me being pulled up in the class was very embarrassing whenever that happened. I think most of the times the heaviest burdens we carry upon ourselves are the thoughts of what people think of us.

Hence, it is essential from a managerial point of view that we learn to stay away from labelling people. Identifying patterns and discussing a plan of corrective action, where you do not provide answers but help the person arrive at the answers himself may prove to be most helpful.

Emotions of powerlessness, worthlessness, fear and being judged can be overwhelming and can push people into a cycle of anxiety and depression.

So, be mindful that the feedback given is factual and is not designed to trigger negative emotions. This could be one of the many ways of assuring good mental health in your team. It is only through mindfulness and awareness that one can alter one’s emotions and behaviors and choose not to react from the existing patterns.

One more key takeaway for me was that of the need to spend some time meditating every day. In a way, I have the responsibility to encourage my fellow team members to do so. Meditation helps center oneself and it lowers the risk of emotional hijacks of falling into the patterns that create anxiety and depression. Also, staying in gratitude and being thankful for all the things that are going right in the larger context beyond work, can be extremely enabling. Let me wish you the very best on this journey!

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BOOKMARK

Typewriter Tip Tip: A Photo Essay

Chirodeep Chaudhuri Photographer “When I was working on the book ‘With Great Truth & Regard’ that Godrej Archives published in 2016, we travelled across India and I photographed the world of typewriters extensively, glimpses of which I gave in the inaugural talk of the #ThursdayTalk series organised by Godrej Archives on 24th September 2020.

It all began with the news of Godrej & Boyce shutting down manufacture of manual typewriters and I thought it was imperative to capture the end of an ingenious product like the typewriter that had a glorious past in terms of touching the lives of millions, everyday. I along with Vrunda, Chief Archivist at Godrej, went down to the Shirwal factory and I did get some amazing pictures of the last batch of Godrej typewriters.

In the talk, I shared several intriguing stories and amusing anecdotes about street typists, typing institutes, manufacturing & trading firms, typewriter mechanics, artists, collectors and of the passionate typewriter aficionados. It all really fascinated me, and I tried to pass that on through the talk. I wanted people to experience for themselves, the rich relationship the typewriter had with the society at large and its fascinating public life on the street.

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The most important insight I had through this was that the typewriters may no longer be in use everywhere, but they still continue to live on in people’s hearts.

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In September 2020, amidst the lockdown, Godrej Archives started #ThursdayTalk, a bi-monthly online talk series in collaboration with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vaastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai and the Museum Society of Mumbai.

#ThursdayTalk aims to make conversations happen around histories of business, products, people and places involved, to garner insights and learnings from the past, for the way forward.

First Page - Hindustan Typewriter Spares, Mumbai.

Roof resembling typewriter, of the house of Naveen Patel in Aurangabad. Characters being made at the Character Types factory in Allahabad.

Previous Page - Rajesh Palta of Universal Typewriters, erstwhile typewriter dealer from Delhi and his collection of typewriters.

From Top - Bankshall Court, Kolkata.

Last batch of Arabic Typewriters at Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd., Shirwal, Maharashtra, India.

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U N O E L EC T R I C F O R K L I FT FROM GODREJ MATERIAL HANDLING The new Godrej Uno Electric Forklifts help boost productivity and are environment friendly.

Godrej Material Handling (GMH) is a market leader for Forklifts in India and has been innovating over the years to introduce green technologies and products. The launch of the new Godrej Uno Electric Forklift is an important step forward in GMH’s green journey. The new Uno is designed to perform as a work horse in the 1.5 to 3 tonne capacity category and is comparable to an equivalent diesel forklift with an added benefit of being friendly to the environment.

The new Uno Electric forklift is designed to offer a range of benefits: » Higher Throughput (pallets moved per hour) as much as 30% is achieved, from faster travel and lifting speeds. » Greater Operator’s Comfort is assured, by an advanced ergonomics that minimizes fatigue, improves visibility and safety to facilitate intense material handling operations over long hours. » Higher Reliability is assured, by indigenously designed AC motors and hydraulics suitable for Indian conditions. » Continuous Operations are facilitated by an advanced electronic control system and batteries that give longer run time for every charge, even in tropical climate. » Minimum Downtime is achieved by robust construction that protects sensitive internal components from damage, even in all weather, harsh working conditions.

At the launch, Anil Lingayat, Executive Vice President and Business Head, Godrej Material Handling said, “At Godrej, environmental sustainability has always been at the heart of the products we manufacture. We constantly strive to give back to the environment as we expand our range of Green (zero emissions) forklifts by launching this new Godrej Uno Electric Forklift.”

Since the onset of the pandemic last year, consumers have been buying essential items in significantly larger quantities from ecommerce entities. As a result, supply chains have been struggling to fulfill the demand amidst scarcity of manpower, equipment and other inputs spurring the growth of organized warehousing and logistics.

Godrej range of electric forklifts are designed to bring greater efficiencies to warehousing and logistics operations. These forklifts are backed by a nationwide sales & service network that takes care of sales, service and spare requirements, promptly and efficiently.

The new Uno Electric Forklift truck is ideal for industries such as the Food & Beverages, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Automotive, Paper & Packaging, Appliances and Consumer Electronics. These forklifts are versatile and can be used for indoor operations in most of the industries. Visit www.godrej.com to know more about this and other Godrej forklifts.

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INSIGHT

Protein: The Wonder Macronutrient Eat for the body you want, not the body you have.

Manasi Dake, Consultant – Dietician, G&B

Strong immune system, adequate muscle mass and weight control call for sufficiency of protein in our diets.

Lately, there has been much buzz about optimal diets that we must adapt as we continue to lead sedentary lives working from home. In my view, no matter which diet you follow, to keep healthy, you must keep an eye on the amount of protein you consume. This is essential to prevent muscle loss as well as facilitate loss of weight. However, it is advisable not to overdo anything. Taking a sensible way forward is advised.

Let’s take a look and find out more about proteins and how they help us stay strong and healthy.

Q: How much protein should I be consuming?

A sedentary adult should consume 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

That means that the average man weighing 70 kgs, having a sedentary lifestyle, should eat about 56 grams of protein per day, and the average woman, weighing about 57 kgs, should eat about 46 grams.

These quantities of protein are available from our regular diets with a few adjustments here and there.

Q: Can I only eat an all-protein diet?

Yes, theoretically you could. But it wouldn’t be good for you. But basically, you should aim for having 10%-35% of your daily calories coming from protein. So, if your body requires 2,000 calories per day, 200-700 calories should come from protein.

Q: How does dieting affect protein intake?

The short answer is the more you exercise, the more calories you burn. You can have more protein without any adverse effects. In fact, protein is great for weight loss as protein-rich foods leave you feeling more full than foods rich in fat and carbs. But all things in moderation — you can still gain weight when overeating protein, just like any other food. Remember, weight gain is governed by ‘Calories In, Vs Calories Out’.

Q: Can consuming too much protein cause health problems?

The biggest concern about overconsumption of protein applies to people who are predisposed to renal diseases. The real issue to keep in mind is the fact that our bodies cannot store protein. So once its quota is reached, our bodies will convert extra protein into either energy or fat. That’s why it makes more sense to simply get your recommended amount of protein and then focus on carbohydrates and fats for the remainder of your daily calories.

Q: Which are the healthiest sources of protein?

Just about every type of food has protein.

Some have more than others. Apart from protein, you might also want to think about

what else you’re getting from protein-rich foods. If you need to get more fiber, look to beans, vegetables, nuts, and legumes.

If you’re watching your weight, try including protein with every meal. It will help you feel full longer. Spreading protein evenly across your meals is also good for your muscles, which is especially important as you get older and start to lose muscle mass.

Q: OK, so where would I get my daily protein from?

Proteins are easy to source for non-vegetarians; however, it often looks tricky for vegetarians to source their daily protein requirement. Cottage cheese (25 grams), curd (11 grams) and milk (8 grams) are good vegetarian sources of protein.

Let’s go through 12 vegetarian foods that you can include in your weekly menu to get the required protein-nutrition from your veggie diet! » Lentils - 1 cup of cooked lentils offers you 18 grams of protein along with 30 grams of dietary fiber. » Red Kidney Beans - 1 cup of cooked Rajma gives you 16 grams of protein. It is also rich with antioxidants. » Black Eyed Beans - 1 cup of cooked black-eyed beans or ‘Rongi’ offers 16 grams of protein plus iron, vitamin-B, magnesium, and potassium. » Chickpeas - 1 cup of cooked chickpeas offers 14-16 grams of protein besides fiber, carbohydrates, iron, vitamins, and minerals.

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The current recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram (g/kg) of body weight a day for adults over 18 years. » Amaranth - While Quinoa is trending, its Indian counterpart Amaranth or Ram Daana is gaining popularity too. 1 cup of cooked amaranth offers 7 grams protein besides a healthy dose of iron, B-vitamins, and magnesium. » Green Peas - 1 cup of Green Peas offers 8 grams protein and brings in the goodness of a not-so-common amino acid - leucine that aids weight loss. » Green Beans - 1 cup of green beans aka French beans offers 8 grams protein plus vitamin-B6 and fiber. » Broccoli - 1 cup of broccoli offers 4 grams protein but also makes up for calcium, vitamin-B, vitamin-C, and fiber. » Spinach - Spinach is rich not only in iron but in protein too. 1 cup of spinach offers 5 grams protein. » Almond Butter & Peanut Butter - 2 tablespoons of almond and peanut butter offer 7-8 grams of protein depending on the brand you choose. » Pumpkin Seeds & Chia Seeds - 2 tablespoons of Chia seeds offer 5 grams protein while 2 tablespoons of pumpkin seeds offer 4 grams of this quintessential nutrient. » Oats - Last but not the least, when talking about proteins, a vegetarian can never rule out the goodness of oats. ½ cup of whole dry oats provides 7 grams protein while ½ cup instant oats offer 5 grams protein for the same amount.

Q: What are the protein requirements for adults between 18-65 years?

Q: What are the protein requirements for children below 18 years?

The current recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram (g/kg) of body weight a day for adults over 18 years. As you may have noticed, 18 through 65 years is a pretty wide range.

It spans nearly five decades! During these years of your life, age doesn’t have much to do with your protein requirements as your weight and overall fitness goals do. So, when it comes to figuring out your body’s protein needs during these years of your adult life, you should use your weight as the determining factor.

Adults who stay active and prioritize protein as part of their diet might want to have anywhere between 1-1.5 grams per kilogram, depending on fitness level, instead of the generally recommended 0.8 grams per kilogram (g/kg) of body weight per day.

For children, dietary needs are often broken down by age. In terms of protein, children ages 4 to 9 need around 19 grams of protein each day, while children between ages 9 and 13 need 34 grams. For adolescents ages 14 to 18, it can vary by sex: Boys typically need around 52 grams and girls need 46 grams.

It is important to know that it’s a myth that children who are more active need excessively more protein to fuel their bodies. They do burn more protein with increased physical activity, but only elite athletes closer to 18 years should consider making significant changes to the amount of protein in their diets.

Healthy eating habits are easier to adopt when learnt in childhood. So, if children start eating mindfully now, chances are they will adopt a healthy diet as they grow in years.

This habit of having a healthy diet will ensure that they get adequate amount of protein through healthy sources as they grow older.

Q: How do protein requirements change for older adults of 65 years and above?

Age becomes more important to protein intake as you hit 65+. Once you reach your 60s, you might want to begin upping the amount of protein you consume per day to maintain muscle mass and strength, bone health and other essential physiological functions. Older adults should consume 1 to 1.2 gms of protein per kg of body weight.

Conclusion As you may be aware, muscle mass naturally declines with age, leading to possible fat gain and risk of many chronic diseases. But thoughtful protein intake can help prevent adverse effects of aging. By eating healthy and taking supplements only when necessary, you can successfully meet the protein requirements at your age and be healthy.

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INSIDE G&B

Conserving Mangroves The visionary journey is always marked with perseverance and innovation.

Laxmikant Deshpande, Wetland Management Services

Research, conservation and awareness are the three pillars of successfully managing the ecosystem of mangroves.

India’s mangrove conservation movement is synonymous with Late Mr. Sohrabji Godrej like Ornithology is with late Dr Salim Ali. It has taken foresight, commitment over decades and innovations by Godrej family and G&B for them to emerge as one of the leaders of conserving mangroves in India.

The journey of mangrove conservation at Godrej began formally, in 1985, but its roots go back much before, when the importance of mangroves and its diversity were not commonly understood.

In that era, ‘protection & proliferation of Pirojshanagar’s green cover’ was the mandate that prompted G&B to deploy security at the creekside to prevent felling of mangrove trees and prevent anti-social activities in the isolated areas. However, it was a PhD thesis on the mangroves of Pirojshanagar that offered insights and the way forward that led to the adoption of the three-pronged strategy of Research, Conservation and Awareness for managing mangroves in a scientific way at Godrej. Since then, G&B has taken many ‘first of its kind’ initiatives that have yielded widely accepted tools and methods of managing mangroves across India.

In 1997, G&B adopted the ISO 14001 certification for managing the environment and extended it to the managing of mangroves initiative of G&B, making Pirojshanagar mangroves as the first ISO 14001 certified mangrove forest of India. In 1999, the World Bank, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai

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and G&B joined hands for mangrove plantation on a 40-hectare plot. Several topographical, hydrological interventions were made, which included growing mangrove saplings at Pirojshanagar and bringing in mangrove saplings from other regions as well.

This was the first large-scale experiment of mangrove plantation of Maharashtra which is visible today, when we enter the air space of Mumbai as lush green mangroves with tall trees.

In 2001, G&B was the first to create a dedicated Mangrove Information Centre and offer mangrove trails for its employees & schools, NGOs of Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

In a few years, a visit to Godrej mangroves became an essential activity of the academic calendar of Mumbai’s several educational institutions. In the same period, we started the ‘Mangrove Club’, Mumbai’s first nature club at Godrej’s Udayachal High school, to introduce generations of Godrejiites to the wonderful world of mangroves.

The challenges of conserving mangroves emerged out of interactions among all concerned and various initiatives taken by G&B. One of the key challenges to emerge was the limited understanding of the mangrove ecosystem and inadequate identification of various species even by the seasoned botanists, researchers, teachers, officials of the forest department and the NGOs concerned.

Limited availability of books, identification keys and subject experts posed significant obstacles in creating awareness and popularizing mangroves. To overcome these obstacles, in 2017 we developed the ‘Mangroves mobile App’ in English for the identification of

24 mangrove species which was launched by the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

The App became popular beyond expectation and was downloaded by the users from over 50 countries! This encouraged us to create an enhanced version of the App to cover 67 mangrove species in 11 Indian languages. The multi-lingual App helped people at the grass roots, who do not speak or read English, such as the fisherfolk, forest guards and persons working for NGOs.

Today, the App has reached over 109 countries, making it the highest rated and most downloaded mangrove App in the world.

Further, the website of Godrej mangroves is not only the first dedicated website developed by a business organization, but it

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is also a highly popular depository referred by over 3,25,000 users from 215 countries.

Since 2020, the website is also available in Marathi making it the first Marathi website on mangroves.

We felt inculcating the understanding of mangroves and its appreciation amongst children at a very young age was the need of the hour. We engaged a popular story writer-teller in Katie Bagli, who visited our mangroves many times, and learnt all about its ecosystem. We shared with her the information gathered, insights and images in many discussions. In 2019, G&B published ‘Many Secrets of Mangroves’, authored by Katie Bagli, which is India’s first story book on Mangroves.

The book is translated in Marathi and was launched online in 2020.

Until now, G&B has been creating awareness and supporting mangrove plantations in Maharashtra & Gujarat. In 2020, our efforts to create awareness about mangroves

took a leap ahead when we collaborated with WWF India, another passionate organization, to conceptualize & execute ‘Magical Mangroves’ – a campaign spanning across eight states of India. Through 141 webinars conducted by 83 volunteers trained by G&B and WWF, India sensitized over 9500 participants. Also, several thousand others were sensitized through the sustained social media campaign. The success of the campaign has encouraged both organizations to launch the next phase of the campaign in September 2021 to cover nine states in the ongoing phase.

Besides conservation and awareness, G&B has facilitated research on mangroves in collaboration with subject experts. Our research on carbon sequestration at our mangroves, biodiversity Index of Pirojshanagar and camera trap study of Golden Jackal population are pioneering efforts that are referred for the methodologies followed by several researchers.

Left Page (Clockwise) - Brown-Headed Gull, Golden Jackal, Nature Trail at mangroves, Red Shank.

Top - Release of G&B’s Mangroves mobile App by Mr Devendra Fadnavis, former Chief Minister and Mr Sambhaji Patil-Nilangekar, former Minister for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship with Dr Pheroza Godrej & Ms Nyrika Holkar

G&B’s visionary journey of managing mangroves, marked by perseverance and innovation has earned a respectable place for Godrej in the international conservation community.

We hope to continue exploring the mangroves to ecosystem services of these silent coastal saviors for the benefit of mankind.

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INSIGHT

Aatma Nirbharta at the Indian Navy Taking huge bets is essential for independence in strategic areas.

Mikhil Bhat, Corporate Procurement

The cry “Jayema Sam Yudhi Sprdhah” I defeat those who fight against me - still reverberates through the Indian military history, where the formidable INS Vikrant (Ex. HMS Hercules built for the British Royal Navy) is remembered for enforcing a naval blockade in the Bay of Bengal during the Indo-Pak war 1971. This blockade wreaked havoc in the erstwhile East Pakistan during the war which is also known as the Bangladesh Liberation War. It is, therefore, appropriate that India’s first indigenously designed Aircraft Carrier is named INS Vikrant, after the legendary warship. Like its namesake, it is raised to defeat any enemy that challenges it.

Skeptics would say it is 12 years too late and too costly at 13 times the budgeted cost.

It was thought to be too complex an indigenous project to be taken up as India had never built a warship of this sophistication and size. Despite the scepticism of strategic planners, the engineering teams from DRDO, DMDE and Cochin Shipyard along with the support of the Indian Private Industry edged on with the development of this complex endeavour. The result is a testimony to the perseverance of those who engaged themselves fully over the years to make this project a grand success.

A truly Atma Nirbhar spectacle, the INS Vikrant stands tall at 59 meters in height.

In length, it is 262 meters and in width, it is 62 meters. It has a loaded displacement of 40,000 tonnes! That’s almost the size of two and a half football fields!!

It is literally like a giant floating island with the firepower of two squadrons of fighter planes and a host of other weapons systems such as missiles, anti-aircraft guns and so on.

The power used on the ship can light up half of Kochi City. The amount of steel that went into its construction is enough to build the Eiffel tower, three times over!

Being a “first of its kind” project in India, it had many challenges that our warship builders had never faced earlier. Besides the pressure of timelines, the national security objectives meant that many subsystems of the carrier were required to be designed and fabricated concurrently.

In engineering terms this was nothing short of walking on a tightrope, blindfolded.

The story of INS Vikrant is not a story of “flawless achievement and impeccable execution” but a story of “great achievements through great struggles.”

The only thing that kept the project going was the team’s ability to edge on and make progress one step at a time. The experience gained from the project has now given the establishment confidence to take on even more ambitious projects like the INS Vishal, India’s next aircraft carrier planned to join the Indian Navy in 2030.

As the Indian Navy likes to say “Sham No Varunah” - May the Lord of Water be auspicious unto us, naval projects like these have undoubtedly contributed to India’s growth story and continue to bring in more beneficial developments in the form of strategic capabilities and intellectual properties.

For now, let’s revel at the magnificence of the INS Vikrant sailing on the great seas leaving behind a large wake and making its presence felt wherever it goes - fiercely protecting India with all its might. A glorious chapter, indeed, in the history of the Indian Navy.

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INS Vikrant stands tall at 59 meters in height, 262 meters in length, 62 meters in width and has a loaded displacement of 40,000 tonnes.

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BOOKMARK

Silver Lining As the virus raged, it took its toll, Schools shut down and life was droll No friends, no teachers and no learning, For company and joy I was left yearning.

Soon, our stock of cricket balls was over, We had to find another way to play, The football beckoned, it seemed to hover, Like Harry Potter’s Snitch in a magical way.

Our days were filled with dread and fear, Of an unseen threat that was always near, We shut our doors, our gates were locked, All was quiet, as if in shock.

My brother taught me to dribble and kick, But as a teacher he was distracted a bit, Eager to show off his much advanced ‘skills’, I protested with a voice, both loud and shrill.

But then, things started to take a turn, The air grew lighter, the sky turned blue, Pollution lifted, my city looked fresh, The birds came out, their world anew.

And thus eight months have gently rolled by, With God’s Grace we’re all still healthy and well, I have learned to play and sing and Google Meet, Even though meeting in person would be far more sweet.

One morning, as I was rubbing my eyes, I saw a bright light filtering the dust, I looked for its source beyond the staircase, It came from my seldom visited unused terrace.

One lazy afternoon I began to realise, How life can teach us in a mysterious way, That every dark cloud must have a silver lining, From which will emerge a bright, new day!

I located a bat and a big football, Pulled up my brother and Dad and all, We could now enjoy some time outdoors, We could now decide to unlock some doors.

I learned to hold the cricket bat, And soon discovered if I held it like that, With some practice, I could hit a ball, And watch it dance merrily off the wall.

My father was ever so patient with me, Encouraging me to play and shout with glee, Training me diligently to stroke the ball, So strong and true, even clearing the wall.

By Parampal Singh, President’s Office Written for his daughter’s poetry recital at school in December 2020.

In the time of crisis, ‘Business-Not-As-Usual’ conditions prevail. Therefore, newer opportunities that help us leverage our existing capabilities or help us build new ones, should be pursued vigorously. These forays are akin to planting seeds now for harvesting fruits in the future. It may happen, some efforts may not work out as desired, but those that succeed are bound to yield healthier returns going forward. This is the core of edging forward.