The presentation on the Sanmar policies on ethics was a highlight of the annual day, clearly making a statement to the world on how the group wants to make a clear difference with its ethical business practices. The formalisation of the policies was born of the group’s deep commitment to do things in a more right way, we were told. The ethical policies cover important issues such as conflicts of interest, nepotism, 100% commitment to the job or 24 hour-employment, transparency in all our dealings, professional respect for one another, and avoiding “any semblance of impropriety” at all times. We need to be ethical but also must be seen to be ethical.
B Natraj unveiling the Sanmar policies on ethics.
Sanmar’s ethical policies led to the group’s vision statement being revised, from the old “Prosperity to all stakeholders, through people involvement, leading to customer delight on a continuous basis” to the new “Combining integrity with excellence to ensure prosperity to all stakeholders, on a continuous basis”. The short form of the vision statement “Where integrity meets excellence” could well be adopted as an official slogan.
The new office of the Ombudsman would provide clarifications on ethical dilemmas, facilitate grievance redressal and receive complaints against violations of Sanmar policies.
Excellence is now a creed, prosperity on a continuous basis continues to be our objective, ‘combining integrity with excellence’ proves our strong commitment to integrity and the ethical values that we follow. The excellence that we achieve is not at the cost of integrity. The vision statement addresses several stakeholders and aims at professional excellence to meet or exceed customer expectations. The ethical policies enable employees to enhance their skills and give them opportunities to grow in a safe and hazard free working environment.
V Ramesh
Two other presentations had vital significance for the future of the organisation. The first stressed the
importance of the performance culture taking root in the group and detailed the various initiatives and imperatives that would make it possible. The performance culture would demand commitment that was “necessary and appropriate”, and delivery on time, every time. “Do not do what should not be done” and “Do well what should be done” were the two key messages.
According to M N Radhakrishnan’s ERP presentation, ERP should result in an operation that is fully automated, with the least manual intervention, enabling structured decision making, based on factual data, entered once at the origin, with continuously updated decision support tools, perpetually driving towards attainment of definite business goals, without sacrificing the desired business process.
The presentation covered the topics: Understanding the Management Business Processes, the Implementation Process – difficulties and ERP capabilities. The processes were divided into two categories, i.e., the management process which is uniform across the group (Guiding principles, management, people and ethics policies, accounting policies and an enabling structure, decision making process and performance culture) and the business process which is division-centric (Strategy, resources, implementation process and implementation).
All present took a pledge initiated by M N Radhakrishnan to do everything in their power to take Sanmar to greater heights.
The Employees of the year awards ceremony and Open House were the other highlights of the annual day. The citations read out were carefully worded to bring out the special nature of each awardee’s contributions to the company, and even contained a word or two of advice as to the future course of action the employee should follow to improve on his or her performance. Open House served to demonstrate the all round commitment among the employees to the group’s policies and performance culture.
It could be stated without a murmur of contradiction that the annual day was an unqualified success. The dinner on the second evening was a memorable occasion, too.
Lavanya Venkatesh, Manager - Accounts, Chemplast Sanmar Ltd, Chennai (Head Office), who topped the first batch of MBAs to pass out from the Academy for Management Excellence (ACME), Chennai.
The employees of the year (all standing L to R): J Ramdas, P B Janardhan, C Sankar, Amaresh Kumar Nayak, V Ramasamy, J Suresh, Lavanya Venkatesh, K S Supreeth, Supriyo Bhowmik, S Duraipandi, K Sattanathan, S Sunderraman, K Deepesh Nanda and Saurabh Jha. Seated: P S Jayaraman, M S Sekhar, M N Radhakrishnan, N Sankar, B Natraj, Vijay Sankar and B Chakrapani.