MMA Awards for Managerial Excellence 2022

CUMI

Carborundum Universal Limited (CUMI) is part of the 120-year-old Murugappa Group, one of India‘s leading business conglomerates. CUMI started as an abrasives company in 1954. With a focus on value-chain integration, CUMI has expanded its portfolio to become a mines-to-market company with integrated operations that include mining, power generation, fusion, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution.

With a legacy of over six decades, CUMI has carefully nurtured and built businesses across geographies and cultures. CUMI operates as a Glocal player – a global vision that preserves local ethos. This vision comes from its deep-rooted commitment to create environments and opportunities that allow local regions to flourish. Whether in India or around the world, these long-standing relationships and networks have enabled CUMI to become what it is today—a leading materials science engineering company. The CUMI network also creates a wealth of opportunities for employees to experiment, learn, innovate, and contribute to business and their communities.

CUMI is focused on being a world-class solutions provider in abrasives, electrominerals, industrial ceramics, super refractories, and energy storage materials. The company has a varied end-user industry portfolio and has maintained a steady performance despite volatile operating conditions. CUMI‘s consolidated revenue is Rs.3,300 Crores and PAT of Rs.333 Crores for the financial year 2022.

Today, it is one of the largest producers of silicon carbide grains worldwide, the largest silicon carbide player in Russia, one of the market leaders in abrasives in India and Russia, the largest electrominerals and abrasives player in India, and the world‘s second-largest producer of metallized cylinders.

TANFAC

During the period from 2010 to 2015, TANFAC was affected by Chinese competition, Thane cyclone damage, debt and high interest burden. It was on the verge of going into the BIFR fold with a debt of Rs.64 crores (The D/E ratio was around 13.8 times). To turnaround the business, the company took a lot of focussed initiatives, such as:

• Improving productivity through best people practices, including steering performance-based work culture, rewards, recognitions and man power optimization
  
• Customer Centric Approach
  
• Market penetration of specialty fluorides
  
• Simplification of production processes
  
• Strategized sourcing of input products
  
• Tight control on working capital management
  
• Reduction in finance cost
  

TANFAC collaborated with CPCL, a vendor, and highlighted the possibility of reducing the cost of flaking at CPCL and melting at our end. This resulted in a win-win situation, helping CPCL to reduce their price to us substantially. These steps helped not only in turning around the company when the odds were unfavourable but also placed the company back on a far better growth trajectory with better Balance Sheet and acceptable ratios.

NTECL

NTECL (NTPC Tamil Nadu Energy Company Ltd), a 50:50 Joint Venture Company between NTPC Limited and TANGEDCO is a power station with an installed capacity of 1500 MW (3×500 MW) situated in Tiruvallur District in Tamil Nadu. Around 71% of the power from NTECL is supplied to Tamil Nadu and the rest to neighboring states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and Pondicherry. It sources coal from Mahanadi Coal fields, Central Coal Fields, Eastern Coal Fields etc. Some of the unique features of NTECL are gas insulated switchyard, pipe conveyor and grab unloader.  

NTECL is a 100% sea water-based plant with the least area/MW among NTPC plants and a spillage free pipe conveyor of 4km length for transporting coal from port to site. As a power plant set up near the coast, we have had to bear nature‘s fury time and again—be it cyclones, floods, and salt water corrosion. We have taken steps to be resilient enough by adapting best practices to deliver quality power to our beneficiaries.

Our PAT had doubled in the past two years. Also, since the start of commercial operation of NTECL, dividend was paid to our stakeholders for the first time in 2020-21; dividend payout has more than quadrupled in the subsequent year. NTECL is performing better than the state and private sectors and is inching towards central sector peers in terms of performance.