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Friday, 28 November 2014 00:56 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Capital Maharaja Organisation Limited (TCMOL), one of the largest private business conglomerates in Sri Lanka, has won the ‘Best Run Award in ERP – Emerging Enterprise’ at SAP ACE Award 2014, the most coveted customer focused award by the global ERP solutions leader. The award was received by Eshini Mudalige, Group Director, TCMOL and Nalaka Seneviratne, Chief Finance Manager, TCMOL at a glittering ceremony which concluded on 12 November 2014, in Palladium Hotel, Mumbai.
SAP ACE award is an industry benchmark to recognise the best of the best-run businesses in the Indian subcontinent. It honours business excellence achieved through the implementation of SAP solutions. Running in its eighth year, SAP ACE Awards 2014 received over 140 nominations across eight categories created for the evaluation. TCMOL winning amidst the giants of the Indian corporate world such as TATA, Mahindra & Mahindra, Apollo and Aditya Birla,has elevated them into higher echelons of regional business excellency.The award is a reaffirmation of TCMOLs processes and systems being best in class and an industry benchmark in the country.
Speaking on this important achievement by the Maharaja Group, Michael Sathasivam, SAP Country Manager, Sri Lanka, said, “First, the sheer magnitude of the project, doing implementation in 19 companies with nine modules in a period of nine months is no easy taskand that is something that TCMOL pulled-off very successfully. If you put things into perspective, the largest ‘Big-Bang’ approach to implement SAP in the region ever, was by Mahindra & Mahindra group in India with 50 companies going live. I’m proud to say that TCMOL going live in 19 companies in a ‘Big-bang’ approach makes it the second largest SAP project in this part of the world. This is very big in terms of quantum, In terms of effort which makes it world standard.”
He continued, “We didn’t have any doubt at the start itself, their ability to do this and are very proud of them coming with flying colours. Their achievement has made SAP and SAP operation in Sri Lanka stand out. The other factor is that the ‘Emerging Business’, the category in SAP where they won, contributes about 60%-70% of SAP’s annual budget. Emerging business is not SME; they are the forces to be reckoned with in their respective areas of business. To have TCMOL, a Sri Lankan organisation, compete among the giants of Indian sub-continent and winning one of main awards on offer is very significant.”
Sathasivam further iterated, “Previously, SAP Ace Awards have been won by several Sri Lankan SAP customers, but, they are more specific SAP module related categories. TCMOL is the first Sri Lankan, customer to have won this award for a full-fledged ERP implementation.”
The project which was named Project MARS (MAharaja Resource System) kicked-off in August, 2013 with over 170+ strong core team drawn from various operations of the group. A 30 member consultant team contributed from the Prism Informatics as the implementation partner. The MARS project saw the TCMOL group embracing a lot of SAP best practices and performing the necessary process unifications and re-engineering. The project successfully went live in March-April, 2014.
The Group CEO of TCMOL Mohan Bharara said, “As an ongoing exercise to improve our processes, sometime back we looked at various ERP solutions available and found that the most appropriate solution was SAP as it is most suitable for conglomeratessuch as ours. It required a large investment and a lot of courage to do such an exercise in one-go because of the diversity of the businesses.
“Hence we believe that the success we have achieved in getting this coveted award is a true reflection of the tremendous input and intellect of our total team.There is a tremendous sense of satisfaction in being recognised as one of the best in anarray of leading lights of the corporate world.”
Speaking on the occasion, Eshini Mudalige, Group Director, who led the project for TCMOL said, “This is indeed a big win which has put Sri Lanka on the global map. This required a lot of planning, execution but most of all a lot of passion. That is what the team members had from the word ‘go’. They gave their best, contributing long hours of work, making personal sacrifices to make this a reality. This was complemented by the support and encouragement given by the Top management in all possible forms.” She dedicated the award to the entire Project MARS Team who had the passion to achieve excellence and make Sri Lanka proud.
Kiran Patil, SAP Partner Manager for Strategic Industries – India and Sri Lanka, had this to say on TCMOL’s contribution and effort: “Congratulations to the entire TCMOL team who has put in their sweat to make this a Great Grand Success. ‘ACE Awards’ is the milestone to recognise those customers who are outstanding in terms of their implementation and TCMOL blew the mind of the entire selection panel. Everyone in the panel was amazed by the hard work/complexity and the consolidation of 19 companies, etc. But nothing is complete without a clear articulation of the efforts which was captured in your presentations to our internal / external team.”
Patil also added, “The key to any success of Implementation is ‘Transformation’ and this was deeply engraved into every team member’s DNA right at the Inception from ALL the TOP management of TCMOL.”
TCMOL acknowledged that their Implementation Partner, PRISM Informatics Ltd, was one of the key success factors behind this achievement. It was a truly commendable effort from PRISM who worked hand-in-hand with the MARS project team for the successful completion of the project in-time and within budgetPRISM is an India-based company having delivery centre in Sri Lanka through Computer Systems Ltd., a subsidiary of TCMOL.
