The Methodology

“Strategy is about stretching limited resources to fit ambitious aspirations.”

In a country as large and diverse as India, management guru C K Prahlad’s simple quote, given above, best summarizes the aspirations of thousands of Indian companies who have re-engineered their business processes to navigate around tough constraints while remaining globally competitive.

This re-engineering has seen several Indian companies emerging as ‘game changers’. Be it the Indian software service companies which started with low cost services and moved up the value chain, to completely alter the way software services were delivered, to the more recent example of Nano, where Tata Motors re-engineered the process, and worked backwards to fit the cost constraints of a Rs 1 lakh car. In almost every major Indian company’s success, you can see Prahlad’s quote in action.

Working around constraints is part of every Indian company’s DNA, and we observed this trait coming out very strongly in most of the top nominations for ‘EDGE’, our initiative to honor companies that have used technology to create the best business impact. For example, Shree Cement, one of the major cement manufacturing companies in India, used a reverse auction process, to break a transporters cartel which governed transport freight rates. The firm now saves over Rs 15 lakh per month due to a reduction in freight-related costs. Similarly, FINO created a solution using biometric and mobile technologies, to get around challenges such as identity, illiteracy and lack of infrastructure, typically faced by financial institutions while serving the 'bottom of the pyramid' segment.

EDGE: The Methodology
The ‘EDGE’ list contains several such interesting cases, and we certainly had a tough time identifying and shortlisting companies that truly have the 'EDGE'. Our call for nominations received a phenomenal response, with more than 170 companies across India submitting their entries. In the first phase, redundant and incomplete entries were removed from the list. Based on an internal assessment framework that focused broadly on the parameters of innovation, cost savings, scale and efficiency, this list was subsequently narrowed down to 75 companies.

From this illustrious list of 75 companies, a filter was again applied, using the same parameters, to select 15 of the best projects. Projects of these 15 companies were submitted to the jury, who evaluated the projects on multiple parameters such as innovation, complexity of the problem and success of the solution, improvement in market share, efficiency or productivity, cost savings, employee productivity, and the criticality of the solution to the overall business. In addition to these parameters, we added an overall project assessment score, to be used by the jury member to rate a project based on his overall assessment. Based on the combined score arrived at after totaling the scores for the parameters and the overall assessment score, we decided the ‘Diamond Edge’ winners.

The broad list of parameters ensures that every project has an equal opportunity to score. While some companies score on cost savings, others may have an advantage in terms of competitive ability. For example, a project in the area of BI or analytics may score high in the ‘Improving market share’ parameter, but less on ‘Innovation’. Projects in the area of security may be critical to the competitiveness of a business, but may not give returns in terms of say, an increase in market share. Similarly, a project on disaster recovery may not show returns in terms of cost savings, but may have been extremely crucial to the survival of the business.

In totality, we have 5 'Diamond Edge' winners (chosen by the jury from the list of 15 companies), 10 'Silver Edge' winners (chosen from the list of 75 companies), and60 'Edge' winners (chosen from the list of 170 companies).

Several of the projects published in this issue are exceptional and deserve special appreciation for the way these companies responded to a business situation and triumphed using ingenious practices.
We hope that this special issue will help your firm gain insights, and accelerate your company's progress in the journey towards excellence.

Srikanth RP is Associate Editor, Network Computing.
Write to him at srikanthrp@ubmindia.com