Vijay Mehra: Piloting IT AT Essar

Currently the CIO of the Essar Group, Vijay Mehra has a host of prestigious qualifications in his kitty. To name a few, he has a BS in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering and BA in Economics from Cornell University, USA followed by MS in Systems Engineering and MBA with a concentration in operations/manufacturing from MIT, USA.
Mehra’s Stint At Motorola

Vijay served for a few years as a software engineer at Motorola’s Corporate Manufacturing Research Centre in Schaumburg, IL which is about 35 miles from Chicago after completing his education at Cornell. He was part of the team, which developed a high-end algorithmic-based software for improving the manufacturing process and reducing the cycle time. The software proved very strategic for Motorola because it reduced the cycle time of manufacturing of all devices using Surface Mount Technology i.e the technology of mounting a chip onto a printed circuit board. This is virtually in all electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, printers, transmitters, radios, pagers and telecom infrastructure equipment such as the telecom base stations that are used to transmit cellular signals across the cell. This software reduced the cycle-time of production of any circuit board of a mobile, printer or a telecom base station by about fifteen to twenty-five percent. It enabled Motorola to save a hundred and fifty million dollars annually, across sixteen manufacturing lines in eight countries, in a span of a year and a half after the project was launched.

The CEO wanted to patent the software but the team advised against it because Mehra says, “if we patent the software, it has to be disclosed, so Motorola gained a trademark for it, instead. I was awarded for the same by the CEO and the team as well.”

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Apart from Motorola, Mehra has also been a consultant with Computer Sciences Corporation. In 2000, Vijay came back to India to work for Mckinsey followed by Syntel for a year and a half as Divisional President of one of the Offshoring Divisions.
Core Competencies As Group CIO Of Essar

“The biggest value that I bring to the table is the ability to create through my IT team”, said Vijay. He continues, “Networking, Applications, Data, Processes, Right engagement between IT and Business, Location are the six dimensions of IT.” He has charted a three-year IT Strategy for Essar, a thick book he is proud to show but certainly not to reveal the contents of it.

Coupled with this there should be a strong Governance model that a CIO of today should have in place to implement the Dimensions of IT. “There are three components to it. Firstly to keep a tab on all the running items part of the six components of IT. Then to gradually build a Business-IT engagement where there should not be any over the wall instructions given to IT department. The CIO should be able to convince the management in a way that over a period of time, the business heads accept the fact, that IT is in a role of servicing the business,” said Vijay. Lastly and most importantly is how to create strategic partnerships. A company cannot deliver all the services in-house. Leveraging partnerships and partnering for particular skill-sets is also important. Essar is actively engaging in doing this with all the vendors they work with.

Essar’s IT Mission

In the Steel business Essar has embarked on an over arching sales and operations planning and execution project, stretching from the plant to the customer. The IT-enabled solution will cover demand forecasting, sales and production planning, supply chain management and capacity utilisation planning. Once this solution is fully operational, it expects to provide customers with online visibility of Order Status, Inventory Tracking, Shipment History, Material Release, Physical and Chemical Test Reporting.

In the Oil business, Essar is working to put through a system that will enable the company to gather real time data and optimise key processes and equipment in the refinery to maximise throughput, yield and revenues. The SAP core business platform is also being further built-out with additional functionalities that will support our business expansion.

Transition to Retail: “We have successfully launched JDA in more than 450 retail telecom stores and 65 steel hypermarts across India. This has been one of the fastest JDA implementations of this scale world-wide” said Mehra. Over the next few years, there are plans to ramp up the Telecom Retail outlets to 2,500 across India, and the company will be launching JDA solution in each of these outlets.

The Daily Routine

No two days are the same for Vijay. A typical day at office comprises of the current and the future. To keep a watch on the road map Essar has chalked out for itself, the daily fire fighting, attending meetings with the management, handling e-mails.

Hobby This

Vijay meditates regularly, practices Yoga, is a father of three children and likes playing cricket with them. He also plays table tennis and lawn tennis. A versatile personality that he is, he also holds a Single Engine Pilot license from the US and has about hundred to hundred and ten hours of flying on his name.

The CIO Learning

The CIO should not only lead the company on the IT front but he can also be a business leader. Vijay proved this when he advised the CEO of Motorola not to patent the software, rather to Trademark it because that would result in ultimately opening the software to the patent office.