The Employee of the Year awards were a major highlight of the Group Annual Day. S B Prabhakar Rao, M N Radhakrishnan and P U Aravind were the seniormost employees to be decorated this year. There were 22 others, each one an achiever in his or her sphere.
The Big Three
(Excerpts from N Sankar’s citations)
These recipients of the Employee of the Year Award are very special – they are from among the seniormost levels of the Sanmar Group. The higher you rise in the organization, the tougher it is to get special recognition of your performance. The span of responsibility is wide and the KRAs are not well defined, but set out in very general terms. When people come to the highest ranks of the Sanmar Group, it is based on certain performance standards they have set for themselves and which are in the normal run far higher than the average.
Having reached these levels, the organisation expects these gentlemen to meet these standards continuously. The only way I would personally rate someone as having turned in an outstanding performance, is if they have during the review period consistently cleared the bar that they earlier set. Of course, in so doing they again raise the bar for their subsequent periods. Therefore if anybody is rated outstanding by this criterion, they have really done something extraordinary, and that consistently.
Man for All Problems:
S B Prabhakar Rao
Prabhakar Rao, our Executive Director in charge of Corporate Affairs is one of the true and longstanding pillars of the Sanmar Group. He is our “man for all problems”. He is probably the oldest employee of the group, but to see him work you wouldn’t believe it. He is always on the move, and this year in particular, I would say he has spent more time outside Madras in Pondicherry, Karaikal and wherever else. Prabhakar Rao’s portfolio is again wide and ill defined. Probably his KRA would be – “solve all problems in dealing with the external world that others cannot”.
When I was thinking of what to say today about Prabhakar and his achievements, a strange coincidence occurred to me which makes me feel that perhaps we should call his group the ‘P’ directorate. The constituents with whom he deals are the Press, Publicity, Politicians, Police, Pollution Control Board, Prohibition and Excise Department, the Public and even some times a Princess of Denmark – you will agree with me that’s a lot of P’s.
The Financial Expert:
P U Aravind
P U Aravind our Chief Executive - Finance (Legal, Secretarial & Taxation) has also had a busy year. One of the major projects he handled was the restructuring scheme for Chemplast. This was a scheme which resulted in considerable simplification of our group structure through a delisting process, and the consultants whom I dealt with were amazed both at the structure of the scheme and at the smoothness and speed with which it was put through by Aravind. Some of the other major projects Aravind took on this year were two acquisitions, Bangalore Genei and the recent one, Intec in Gujarat, and the divestment of Micropack. All these were put through with the minimum amount of fuss, and with the group’s interests fully protected.
More important, several times during these processes, I am told Aravind actually cracked a few smiles! Even while he achieved this fantastic performance Aravind has continued his learning process, and I believe one of the most important learnings he has had, is that perhaps I am really not as bad a boss to work with as he thought all these years! The fact that on three of the four projects I mentioned, he worked with the next generation of Sanmar, perhaps led him to this line of thinking.
Mr SEC: M N Radhakrishnan
The last recipient of Employee of the Year is M N Radhakrishnan. In his case I am afraid the definition I gave of clearing the bar set by himself has not been applied for several years now, since then we would have had to give him this award with monotonous regularity, year after year. This year I am forced to believe it is well past due.
M N Radhakrishnan joined the group as Head of Marketing of the then Durametallic India and has progressed through managing one of SEC’s businesses, to managing the Viralimalai complex, and then to head all of SEC for the last fifteen years or so. While SEC has shown excellent progress, his talents surfaced particularly in the periods in between when the business was under challenge.
Whether it was finding a new business opportunity in conceptualizing, selling and executing a terminal automation system at Hazira; or marshalling a well orchestrated plan using SEC’s product and collaborator strengths, resulting in SEC monopolising orders for the Reliance and Essar Refineries; or taking SEC’s exports up from Rs.2 or 3 crore to over Rs.100 crore per annum in about three years.
In all these you could see Radha’s hand at the tiller. What I particularly appreciate in him is his ability to move up the organisation leaving fully capable successors to take over. He responded very quickly when asked to move from field sales to business management; to pick up the reins of the entire SEC business when Sesh suddenly fell sick; and more recently when I asked him to get involved in HR and IT and other corporate activities. He is in my opinion a complete manager and could hold his own against any professional manager in a similar field in India or even overseas. You must also appreciate that he has developed his skills on the job at Sanmar.
Whatever task is set for him, however small or big, he gives one hundred per cent in the interests of the organisation. Just to give you an example, a little over a year back, when I felt that our foundry’s performance was not picking itself up, I asked him to take direct charge of its operation, in addition to his overall responsibilities. How well he responded is known to anybody who has visited the foundry of late. It has been a privilege and great support for me to have an extraordinarily competent and truly professional manager like Radha at my side these last fifteen years.
Shilpa Senthilkumar, HR - CorporateInvolved in the SAP HR implementation and a key member of Project Sparsh, Shilpa’s knowledge of HR policies and processes, end-to-end, helped significantly in integrating our processes into a robust technology driven platform. Her dedication and commitment to meet the project deliverables, within tight timelines, without any major shift in her other assignments in Corporate HR are commendable.
N Ramesh, HR - Corporate
In the last two years, Ramesh has spearheaded the foray of HR and Payroll into SAP, and been Team leader of Project Sparsh. In all the projects, the Go Live has been smooth. He has gone beyond roles assigned to him, especially in the NME Payroll project, learnt many new processes, handled complex requirements and led the team to a successful launch.
Unni Santhosh, ProCitius Research
Unni Santhosh, who did post doctoral studies at the Univ. of Atlanta, Georgia, has been working on contract research of projects for BMS aiding their discovery activities. His performance at the bench has been impeccable. Handling the most difficult, top priority projects, he has earned the appreciation of BMS. He has been proactive in upgrading systems at ProCitius to handle moisture and air sensitive reactions.