It’s hard to believe to be out of a routine job after 26+ years. But its true that I had quit my high paying job to do something which makes me feel happy. This was not an easy decision as many times our internal fears of not having a routine income acts as biggest showstopper. Finally, I am ready to explore the unknown by overcoming that fear factor hidden inside us.
Enjoyed working with few big players in CPI (Chemical Process Industry) O&G, Pharmaceutical, Infrastructure and Telecommunications industry and my endless journey of learning continues. World is moving at fast pace and it’s a challenge for industries to cope with the changes. After assessing my working experience, following areas of expertise are identified potential for me to add value to my customers, clients and associates:
Emerging Technologies and Solutions- Digitization:
During my career, I realized there are many silos exist in organizations which makes it difficult to adopt new emerging technologies and methodologies with ease. While some industries are moving towards digitization, machine learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence) faster others such as O&G, Chemical Process Industry, or similar are moving ahead with some challenges.
Share holders are demanding to have better returns of their investments. In turn companies’ leadership is putting pressure on their operations to deliver value through better management of capital or in other words having capital efficient operations and project execution.
Customers talks about new technologies and solutions to be adopted in execution of their projects or operations to meet such objectives set by leadership team. This puts pressure on operations and project managers to adopt best possible methodologies or technologies in execution. As a result, these managers work in silos to start engaging some solutions and technology providers which could fit best for their needs.
Exploring few major manufacturing plants, it was found that within the same plant different methodologies and solutions were adapted in executing different areas of work or projects. Example: one team used in house developed excel sheet and/or access database to manage inventory issued for installation whereas others were found to be using different software solutions for their projects.
There is a gap in always having one common appointed team working on this consolidation and looking for the best possible solution to be implemented across the plant. Some places such team do exists but becomes hurdle to deliver the solutions within the stipulated timeline of the project. Reasons could be many such as; team is IT Knowledge based and had no clue on day to day operations/projects requirements, solutions providers can’t fit specific requirements set by operations or project manager, not enough time to evaluate possible solutions provided by the vendor, corporate IT policy does not allow any third party software to be installed into their server, etc. Hence operations / project managers decided to implement a mini solution to their specific needs.
Internal teams have their own challenges in embracing change to the current work processes. External consultant with good technical and IT knowledge adds value to propose the best available solutions in the market.
Work process and workflow improvement:
Companies wish to improve profit margins. But can it be done with their existing work processes and workflow to be adopted for today’s workforce? may be yes or no as it depends upon the process being evaluated in a particular given situation. It’s about the changing environment around us. In the past, a scientific calculator used to come with operating manual and people used to spend time on reading and understanding the functions.Today a tablet (smart device) generally does not come with any operating manual booklet. But still a small kid can operate it better than us in most of the cases. I do go to young kids to understand and learn some functions of these new gadgets.
Similar way its time for us to review our work processes and workflow used in the industry. Many of them were developed for the era when long term employees and loyalty to one company was common. But in today’s world of changing time when normal retention rate of a employee is short, it is needed to bring the teams to speed for project’s work processes / workflow understanding as fast as possible with minimum efforts to be put in to achieve results.
Digitization could only be fruitful if these basic work processes and workflow are streamlined through the knowledge of people who understand the business well.
Having engagement of external knowledgeable consultant who understands the basic work processes / workflow of a specific industry would bring the best optimized solution to add to company’s profit margins.
Internal reviews and audits:
Other challenge commonly observed is to identify the gaps in expectations/ objectives and actual delivery. All operations and projects do run their internal reviews and audits but still many issues pop in on regular basis. Internal auditors know people and internal processes too much which brings some complacency into the audit / review findings action plan.
“Catch issues earlier in order to minimize re-work”.
External reviewers and auditors from the specific industry knowledge are able to provide unbiased findings with action plan. This works in best interest of the project in long run.
Team building and trainings:
Another important part of any success story of an organization or project. Share holders set the expectations, leadership set the objectives and goals, managers set the path and people delivers the results.
It’s very important for people to be excited and motivated to do their piece or work to meet the company/project objectives. People are human beings and can’t be working like robots all times. During few project workshops I asked the team if they knew key drivers, importance or contribution to society of the project they are working on. Interestingly most of the times people didn’t know how their scope of work contributes in bigger picture. They are just performing their routine job on daily basis and get paid on time. Results were amazing when teams understood the importance of their contribution to something through some of our team building sessions which makes their work meaningful.
Many team buildings are about having drinks and dinner. Observe most of the times people who are always seen together in the office are again seen in a group in such team building gatherings. Meaning of a team building is missing in these gatherings and something different needs to be done.
Training is also important factor to make any new technology, methodology or solutions to succeed. Again, not an uncommon to see some new solutions implementation failed as people at the ground didn’t embrace it as value to them.
Providing strategic training to teams and making them understand the value of any new change makes a difference in performance. Training should not only be just providing someone with a classroom or online experience rather a total understanding of the content with value of helping them in day to day operations.
Formation of TGC- TheGritConsulting:
With some of the areas mentioned above, I strongly felt a demand for me to step in to explore possibility of supporting the organization in various areas. My experience into leading business winning strategies, innovations, business transformation through automation of work process/ workflow, IT solutions implementation, team building, value engineering, capital efficiency workshops, technical and leadership trainings gives me confidence of contributing value added solutions for various organizations/ projects as may be needed.
There are some areas where engagement of external party will add value to achieve results more effectively. However, all operations/ projects are different, and it is not always good to engage external consultants but for some strategic projects. That’s the area TGC, TheGritConsulting is gearing up to provide support and value add to organizations.
Decided to explore unknown in the deep ocean and didn’t know what it will bring to me. It was difficult for me step out of my stable platform and jump into my little boat which is shaky and unstable now. I do have mission with clear path in front of me but not sure where it will sail towards, whether I will land on a little island or will become a fisherman in the deep ocean. Whatever lies in future, I will learn more about life experiences through this sailing.
“Do everything out of Grit (passion) to make life meaningful”.
Reach us out:
At TGC, TheGritConsulting we look forward working with clients, plants owners, company leaders, decision makers, managers and all other industry players.
We would love to have a short “face to face” meeting to discuss your requirements if you are based in Singapore or via teleconference for all other locations to explore how TGC could add value to your organization.
Also, would love to hear from solutions providers in the field of efficiency and productivity improvement to understand more about your product and services. This will help us to pick the right solutions for our customers.
Will share my experiences as I sail towards this journey to explore and overcoming my internal fears.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.
Regards,
Ravish Maqsood
TheGritConsulting Pte. Ltd. Singapore