Dilemma to Awards: Mr Rajan’s journey
This blog is a continuation of a previous blog, “Have you heard of Mr Rajan’s dilemma?”. We would recommend reading that, before continuing here if you have not already done so. 7 DAYS LATER
3 brand new material handling systems were delivered to Mr Rajan. His trucks had been sent to Nandan GSE’s factory at Navi Mumbai to retrofit the Column Tail Lift and the Underbody Tail Lift. They would be arriving, along with a couple of members from Nandan GSE who would explain the entire loading process.
Mr Rajan was truly excited, an emotion he had not felt in several years in his business. Just 2 weeks ago, he was reeling under the worries of the strike and how to achieve the resolution promised to his labour. Today, hopefully, would be that day! Both his trucks arrived at his compound and Santosh stepped out with his colleague.
3 brand new material handling systems were delivered to Mr Rajan. His trucks had been sent to Nandan GSE’s factory at Navi Mumbai to retrofit the Column Tail Lift and the Underbody Tail Lift. They would be arriving, along with a couple of members from Nandan GSE who would explain the entire loading process.
Mr Rajan, usually a cautious entrepreneur, had for the first time, not gone for a personal inspection of the system being installed by a third-party company onto his trucks. Usually, he was quite hard on his vendors, always getting the better of them. But with Nandan GSE, because of their understanding and solution-oriented approach, he had a feeling of trust, as if he had been dealing with them for years.
Santosh, his colleague, Mr Rajan and his labour workforce assembled around the trucks and new equipment. Mr Rajan introduced the team from Nandan GSE and explained to his staff that they would be demonstrating the new equipment and thereafter conducting a short training session. As suggested by Santosh, Mr Rajan had shortlisted people who were performing well and were ready to take on more responsibilities.
First up, was the Pallet Truck demonstration. A few minutes into the demonstration and Mr Rajan could already see relieved faces amongst his staff. He knew he taken a step in the right direction.
This was followed by the demonstration of the Electric Stacker. Mr Rajan and his team were surprised by how such a compact machine could lift and stack heavy goods. Special emphasis on safety was made while sharing details about the Electric Stacker.
After both these demonstrations, few members of the staff were assigned to bring 2 sets of loads on the electric pallet trucks to the transport trucks standing in the compound. It was now time to demonstrate the tail lifts retrofitted on both the trucks.
The underbody Hydraulic Tail Lift looked like a natural extension of the vehicle it had been fitted on. “With its dual hydraulic lifting mechanism, it was built to handle heavy loads effortlessly”, explained Santosh. The complete demonstration of rolling the loaded Pallet Truck on to the lift, lifting it, unloading goods and lowering to ground level, was accomplished in less than 3 minutes!
The Column Tail Lift looked so minimalistic, that there was a sense of utter disbelief when Mr Rajan and his team realised it could actually lift up to 2000 kg!
Mr Rajan had already started to calculate how much time these types of equipment were likely to save. In the larger scheme of things, his investment looked negligible and he even had an impulse to invest more to speed up work. Coming back to reality and his cautious approach, he felt he should wait a while, monitor improvement in performance, take feedback from his team and then decide on a future course of action.
After answering a few safety and maintenance related questions from Mr Rajan’s workforce, Santosh and his colleague returned to Navi Mumbai.
Before leaving, Santosh had said to Mr Rajan “Just one last thing, I shall be emailing you a simple Excel template. Please fill that up regularly so that you can get an idea of the real world savings generated by our solutions. With your due permission, I would like to visit you again after a month and see the results.” Mr Rajan replied affirmatively to Santosh’s confident requests.
6 MONTHS LATER
Mr Rajan entered his office on a hot Friday morning. He took a moment to look around his modest cabin and at some “shiny glass objects” on the shelves. Many of these shiny glass objects had been received recently.
These “shiny glass objects” were trophies awarded to Mr Rajan’s firm for being the “Best Vendor”, “Most Preferred Vendor”, “Best Practices Vendor”, “Best On-time Delivery Vendor” by some of the leading brands in the Automobile world.
A fleeting flashback memory reminded him how helpless he had felt after the labour strike and the compromise agreed upon. The thought of receiving a “Preferred Vendor” award seemed so far fetched at that moment; even a nomination for the award was not on the horizon, let alone receiving the award.
But today, he was in his office staring at the gleaming trophies etched with his firm’s name.
He looked out of his cabin to see the equipment that was largely responsible for that achievement. 5 x Nandan Pallet Trucks – moving stock within premises 54% faster 6 x Nandan Electric Stackers – goods loading / unloading 46% faster 2 x Zero Height Scissor Lifts – Unloading Raw Materials and Loading Goods up to 38% faster 4 trucks with Hydraulic Lifts on each – Loading / Unloading at the client’s warehouse – 35% faster
These savings were visible on the simple Excel sheet shared by Santosh that Mr Rajan had filled in diligently. The RoI was immediately apparent too.
However, Mr Rajan knew that the most important thing Mr Rajan was not reflected in Santosh’s sheet: it was how this equipment had added credibility and reliability to his firm’s brand value. It was beyond numbers and measurements
As he stepped out of his cabin to meet his workforce, a little note crossed his mind:
It was sent to him by Mr Raghunandan Jagdish, CEO – Nandan GSE
“To be a Preferred Vendor, you have to work with Preferred Vendors”
