GMR Group
SAP ERP PAVES THE WAY FOR EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
“The way you cannot survive today
without a mobile phone, in the
same way your business cannot
survive without an integrated
platform like SAP.”
Mr. A. Subba Rao
CFO of Corporate Integration Group.
SAP ERP Success Story
GMR Group
FOR GMR GROUP, A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE GLOBAL
INFRASTRUCTURE INDUSTRY.
QUICK FACTS
Summary Implementation Highlights
n Name: GMR Group n Implementation period of seven months.
n Location: Bangalore Pilot Go Live of 5 entities during first
n Industry: Infrastructure
n
week of February, 2008.
n Products and Services: Agri business, Rollout to 14 entities during first week of
n
Airports, Energy, Highways and Urban March, 2008.
Infrastructure n Second rollout of 23 entities during first
n Revenue: About INR 40000 million PA week of April, 2008.
n Employees: About 3,500 Human Capital Management Go Live in
n
April, 2008.
Website n Implementation Partner – SAP Consulting.
n www.gmrgroup.in
Why SAP
Challenges and Opportunities n Global industry leader in ERP space.
n Need for a strong technology platform n Choice of many Fortune 500 companies.
to rest as a growth enabler. n Possesses the required scalability and
n Need for state-of-the-art systems flexibility.
to provide world class customer n Faith in SAP’s products, solutions and
information and services in airport services.
n Standardization of the best in class n Overall suitability of SAP for infrastructure
business processes. business, particularly for airports.
n Need for a single view of real time
information across various business Benefits
verticals and entities. n Availability of continuous real time
n Need for seamless information flow information.
impacting core strategic decision n Seamless information flow across various
making. business verticals and entities.
n The exponential growth of the Group. n Uniform MIS and Legal or Operational
n For better mitigation of operational risks. reporting framework.
n Standardized policies and procedures with
Objectives defined roles and responsibilities.
n To implement the best in class ERP system n Embedded controls with company wide risk
and place the business on a solid management.
technological foundation, capable of
supporting the Group’s growth strategy and Existing Environment
safeguarding the organization from n Disparate stand-alone systems working on
operational risks and releasing the different platforms.
management bandwidth by automating the n Susceptibility to inaccuracies.
business processes. n The inability of the existing system to keep
pace with the growth of the Group.
SAP Solutions & Services
n ECC 6.0 (FICO, MM, SD, PP, PM, PS, Third Party Integration
TR, HCM) GRC, EP, BPS n Implementation partner – SAP Consulting
n Hardware – IBM
GMR Group
SAP ERP PAVES THE WAY FOR EXPONENTIAL
GROWTH FOR GMR GROUP, A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE
GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE INDUSTRY.
Nine business verticals and over 3,500 employees – GMR Group’s
exponential business growth was threatened by the absence of a
solid integrated technological backbone.
Using stand-alone systems running disparate
processes across its many business entities,
the Group was plagued by the absence of
real time information visibility, susceptibility
to inaccuracies and the lack of a reliable and
meaningful information structure. SAP ECC
6.0 provided the Group with the requisite
technological foundation, and the scalability to
steer future business growth.
GMR Group is a Bangalore headquartered
global infrastructure major with interests
in Airports, Energy, Highways and Urban
Infrastructure. It has successfully employed
the public private partnership model to build
a portfolio of high quality assets including
the modernisation and restructuring of Delhi
International Airport and development of a
Greenfield international airport at Hyderabad,
the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. Agri-
business is another focus area of the Group,
with Sugar as its main product line.
The Group deals with diverse businesses
and their inherent challenges. While GMR
Holdings Private Ltd. is the holding company of
the GMR Group, its two subsidiaries – GMR
Infrastructure Ltd. and GMR Industries Ltd. are
listed on the Indian Stock Exchange.
Challenges: Absence of a holistic view of
business across verticals; No access to
seamless information flow.
The width and depth of GMR Group’s activities
can be gauged from the fact that not only does
it have several legal entities under its fold, but
is also one of the fastest growing infrastructure
companies in India. However, the Group’s
existing technological base was incapable of
keeping pace with the rapid strides the Group
taking. With every step towards expansion, the
operational complexities increased. The more
the Group pushed towards breaking growth
limits, the more the technological drawbacks
acted as speed-breakers.
“Exponential growth track demands focus,
aggression and strategic planning. However,
none of this is possible without a robust
integrated technological base,”
says Mr. M Mohan Rao, Vice President,
Corporate Integration Group.
A holistic view of businesses across verticals
is crucial for formulating strategies that will not
only harness the strengths of all the Group
companies, but will also impact them positively.
But stand-alone IT systems using disparate
processes lacked synchronization while
seamless flow of information across verticals
was non-existent.
Explaining the implications in terms of the
larger picture, Subba Rao explains, “A robust
information system is not only required for
consolidating the existing businesses, but also
for integrating companies to be acquired in
the future. Basically, the GMR Group wants
to capitalize on the immense opportunities
in the national as well as international level,
and establishing a solid technological base is
perhaps the most crucial step in that direction”.
SAP Consulting orchestrates seamless
implementation across five entities in seven
months.“Choosing SAP was not a tough
call. The preferred choice of Fortune 500
companies globally, SAP is clearly the industry
leader in enterprise resource management.
Moreover, only SAP has the scalability and
flexibility that GMR Group requires”,
explains Mohan Rao.
The organization was guided by the same logic
in choosing to partner with SAP consulting
for project implementation. In addition, Subba
Rao explains, “Nobody can care for a child
better than a mother. It is but obvious that
since the solution belongs to SAP, its features
and strengths will be best understood by SAP
itself”.
The implementation kick started in July, 2007.
Building the team was a major challenge as it
not only involved hiring people externally with
expertise in enterprise resource management,
but also borrowing employees internally from
business units. It was particularly difficult to
ensure that the day-to-day work does not
get affected even in the absence of certain
employees for the duration of the project
implementation. The project management team
finally came out to be a hybrid – a mix of 120
people chosen internally and externally.
Change management included setting up a
dedicated training center where people were
trained in three stages – Level 1 & 2 before Go
Live and Level 3 after Go Live.
With major international accounting and

consulting firm KPMG as project advisors
to GMR, almost each module was assigned
one representative to cross-check the various
plans and business processes put forth by
SAP Consulting. Weekly meetings, flawless
coordination and the involvement of top
management aided the deployment.
Mock run-ups of the actual Go Live played
a crucial part in making the final event a big
success. The cutover data for each module
was extensive. The trial run revealed a number
of loopholes that would have jeopardized the
final run, had they remained undetected. In
fact, the number of days in between account
closing and Go Live was brought down from
18 days during the trial run to just three and a
half days during the final run. This was a great
achievement as the lesser the number of days
for cut over, lesser is the amount of data to be
managed manually during the cut over period
and the easier is the transition. Therefore,
during the actual cut over, the account closing
took place on the 31st of January 2008,
and the system was in place by the 4th of
February. However, that day was completely
reserved for proof checking the system and
the final Go Live took place on the 5th of
February, 2008.
“Usually, in Go Live scenarios, people get
extremely overworked, missing out on sleep
and proper rest. But in this case nobody was
stressed. In fact, the day before the Go Live,
everybody logged off the office by around six
in the evening. This just demonstrates how
well we were prepared for the final transition”,
says Mohan V, Project Manager, SAP
Consulting.
Thereafter, Go Live for 14 more entities took
“Exponential growth track demands focus,
aggression and strategic planning. However,
none of this is possible without a robust
integrated technological base,”
Mr. M Mohan Rao
Vice President, Corporate
Integration Group.
place on 17th March and for 23 more entities in
April, using the same operational guidelines.
Benefits: Seamless information flow
across verticals; Standardized policies and
procedures; embedded controls with company
wide risk management.
Reiterating the fact that it is too early to
track the tangible benefits, Subba Rao says,
“The power of information gives the power
of decision making. Benefits apart, the SAP
platform is essential for running the business
itself. Managing such diverse interests
without a platform like SAP was impossible.
Intangible benefits have been many such as
streamlined information flow, transparency
and risk management. Since accounts of
many companies have been consolidated, we
now know where we really stand in terms of
growth”.
The Way Forward
“We trust SAP’s capability in providing us
with the requisite support as well as the
guidance, as our business grows. As and when
challenges arise, we will depend on SAP to
provide us with the appropriate solutions”,
says Mohan Rao.
GMR will be implementing new generation
modules in Phase II of their SAP
implementation. This would cover BIW, SRM,
CRM and SEM along with Real Estate & EHS.