About the Book
At a time when businesses stare at unprecedented uncertainty, the SAIL turnaround story brings to us lessons of how companies can make miracles happen. Making the Elephant Dance talks about how the greatest business challenges can become the harbinger of the biggest corporate transformations, and how leadership can be the key influencer when companies face existential threats.
The economic reforms of 1991 transformed the Indian steel industry overnight from the most controlled to most open. This book is a narrative of the steel mammoth, SAIL, which fought back an existential threat to emerge as a winner when a combination of domestic and global factors plunged the industry into its worst ever crisis. The book delineates its in-house strategies, implementation challenges and the actions undertaken to bring about an unprecedented organizational transformation by those who participated, experienced and lived it.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
The Turbulent Nineties and Indian Steel
Being Prescient Makes One Proactive
Is It the Beginning or the End?
Impecuniosity Leads to Creativity
The Balance Sheet Matters
Courts Pave the Way
Dynamics of Power Asset Transfer
Challenges in Divesting Loss-Making Units
The Human Dimension
In the Interest of Employees
Perspective from the Units: The RSP Challenge
Battles within Battle: Perspective from the Plants
How the Market Was Won
Communication Holds the Key
The Sense of a New Dawn
Bibliography
About the Author :
Arvind Pande has worked as the chairman and CEO of SAIL from January 1997 to September 2002. During this period as chairman, he led the company in a major transformation and turnaround, facing challenges after decontrol of the steel industry and entry of new private players and supplies from overseas players. He joined the Board of SAIL as a full time functional director in August 1986, in different areas such as corporate planning, personnel, finance, Rourkela Steel Plant, and special steel plants. He worked as a vice chairman from 1992 to 1997.
After superannuation, he was an independent director in several private and public sector companies such as HDFC Bank, Coal India Ltd, Sandhar Technologies Ltd and Visa Steel. He chaired the Board of Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd which, along with Changi Airport of Singapore, have built the first private greenfield airport at Durgapur in West Bengal.
He advised POSCO (South Korean steel company) for several years and chaired J-PAL South Asia (2009–2012). He was the member of Government of India Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (2004–2014) and member of conciliation board for ONGC, NTPC, NBCC.
Arvind Pande had joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1965 and has had varied experience in different districts. Sanjay Kumar superannuated from Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) in September 2019, as Chief General Manager, after serving it for more than 30 years, in various capacities. After joining SAIL in 1988 as an economist in the Business Planning Directorate, at its Corporate Office, he rose to head the business planning function of the company. In his tenure at SAIL, he was actively involved in tasks pertaining to strategic planning, joint ventures and business development. He was also a part of the investors relations team that regularly interacted with the investors, merchant bankers and equity analysts on the performance and prospects of the company and the steel sector.
Some of the key assignments he handled included formulating long-term strategy for the company—SAIL Vision 2030, Corporate Plan 2012 and Corporate Plan 2005. He developed the demand module for India Vision 2020 for the World Steel Association. He was also a part of the team that prepared the ‘Investor Relations Guidelines’ for the central PSUs in 2011.
Mr Kumar was a key member of the team that formulated and implemented SAIL’s Turnaround Strategy in the years 1997–2003. Subsequently, in the chairman’s secretariat, he dealt with the issues related to the company’s special steels business, cost reduction strategies, business environment analysis and contemporary issues concerning the industry.
He holds a master’s degree in economics and business administration from the University of Delhi.
An avid sports fan, Sanjay Kumar has diverse interests encompassing music, reading and watching movies.
Review :
Shri Pande was at the helm of SAIL during some of its most difficult years towards the end of the last century. Vagaries of a cyclical industry, SE Asia’s economic meltdown, high capital charges, inadequate competitive capabilities, etc., had pulled down the financial position of India’s largest steel company. Restructuring of the business, enhancing service parameters, improving product mix, downsizing manpower, etc., were some areas where complex decisions were taken. The entire organization was galvanized to bring about a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of the company. As Chairman, Shri Pande had done it all and seen it all. This book portrays the journey of that transformation story. This book offers insights that can find resonance with the future practitioners in the steel industry. A great read!
Making the Elephant Dance is a brilliant story of the exemplary turnaround of SAIL, the pride of India, under the visionary leadership of its former Chairman Shri Arvind Pande who has penned with rare insight, his first-hand account of the restructuring and revival of the giant central PSU in the turbulent times by the turn of the 20th century. This outstanding treatise is a must-read for corporate leaders, research scholars, policymakers and management students.
The book "Making the Elephant Dance" by Mr Arvind Pande and Mr Sanjay Kumar is a valuable contribution to the Management Literature. The insights from this book can be leveraged not only by the future managers of SAIL, but also managers across the Indian and global steel industry. I had been closely associated as a Management Advisor, in a previous turnaround of SAIL, in 1985-88, with the then Chairman, Mr V Krishnamurthy. His main message to the workers was. Let us together raise the production, productivity, and profits of SAIL, so that we can deserve a modernization investment of Rs 15,000 crores from the Government of India. The whole team marched towards this goal and SAIL rose from a loss of Rs 350 Crores per annum to a profit of Rs 1,000 Crores. A similar tune was echoed when 1991 Economic Reforms of India created a new and highly competitive environment. By 1997, SAIL needed another turnaround effort, and this time the company was ably led under the captainship of Mr Pande, who was Chairman from 1997 to 2002. Mr Pande comes in the tradition of a Civil Servant, turned Manager, Corporate Leader, and writer. The book can be used creatively in MBA and Executive Training Programs. Each of the fifteen chapters can be seen as a case study with lessons in some of the key management issues. I commend this book to policy makers, business leaders, managers, teachers, and consultants.
