SUCCESS STORY

STT GDC India enables Birla Corporation to sustain market leadership in the cement industry

Jun 15, 2022
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Birla Corporation Limited (BCL) is the flagship company of the M.P. Birla Group. Incorporated as Birla Jute Manufacturing Company in 1919, the company has transformed from a manufacturer of jute goods to a leading multi-product corporation.

 

With a turnover of more than INR 6,548 crores in the year 2018-19, Birla Corporation has a major focus on cement manufacturing, which comprises more than 92% of its revenue, followed by jute manufacturing, which contributes about 7.5% to its revenue.

 

Starting with the first cement plant in Satna, Madhya Pradesh, in 1959, the company now has 10 plants in seven locations, with a total installed capacity of 15.5 million tons per year.

 

The company offers a wide range of cement products to meet various construction needs, climatic conditions, regional and customer preferences. Riding on a strong network of 9,000 partners, its retail footprint extends from Rajasthan in the West to Bengal in the East, with a very strong presence in the central heartland of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

 

In 2016, the company acquired Reliance Cement, which provided economies of scale and scope and helped strengthen the company’s presence in the Central and Western part of the market. The acquisition added three high-quality cement units, access to strategically-located raw material resources as well as technical capabilities to produce high-quality cement products.

 

The primary focus of the company’s policies is to manufacture environmentally-safe and friendly products, and over the years, the company has progressively increased the share of blended cement with higher absorption of fly-ash and blast furnace slag. Green Cement, namely Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC), Portland Slag Cement (PSC) and Composite Cement (which uses both fly ash and slag) account for 90% of its cement sales.

 

Customer Challenge

 

In a highly competitive business environment, Birla Corporation is compelled to lower the overall operating expenditure by increasing efficiencies in the supply chain, continuously investing in technology up-gradation and facilitating channel sales with efficient and transparent systems. Also, the company must proactively invest in R&D and Innovation to maintain its competitive edge in the market.

 

Technology plays a crucial role in planning and managing transportation of raw materials and finished products via its fleet of 5,000 trucks. Enhanced visibility into operations enables efficiencies by helping reduce lead distances, improving the speed of delivery and reducing the overall turnaround time.

 

While manufacturing is the core activity, managing and engaging with channel partners is equally crucial to boost sales. The engagement needs extend to the entire community of stakeholders, which includes masons, contractors and engineers who are the company’s brand ambassadors on the ground.

 

Much of the company’s business objectives are therefore linked to the availability and reliability of its IT systems, as many applications, including Active Directory, Sales and Marketing Management Systems, Dealer Invoicing Portals, Helpdesks, Reporting and Data Analytics Platforms require real-time monitoring, high uptime and round-the-clock data availability.

 

The need for a robust technology backbone was therefore deemed extremely critical and Birla Corporation needed a highly reliable partner for managing end-to-end data centre solutions so that it can effectively focus on achieving its core business objectives, such as operational efficiency, technological innovation, higher sales and market expansion.

 

"STT GDC India has been truly supportive of our business requirements, enabling us to meet high availability and reliability for all our platforms and applications. We are satisfied that the STT GDC India support has been consistent, even as our business needs have been evolving and expanding."

Ashok Kumar General Manager - Infrastructure, Birla Corporation

 

STT GDC India Solution

 

Since 2014, Birla Corporation has strategically been utilising STT GDC India’s co-location facilities in Kolkata. STT GDC India provides best-in-class infrastructure provisioning along with the necessary power and cooling infrastructure to run the data centre efficiently, thereby allowing Birla Corporation to focus on its core business activities and serve its stakeholders more efficiently.

 

STT GDC India has worked closely with Birla Corporation to help meet its overarching need for high uptime, availability and security. STT GDC India’s purpose-built data centres provide the necessary infrastructure that enables Birla Corporation to focus on enhancing user experience and achieving its goal of providing highly accessible, always available, high-performance applications, to its customers.

 

STT GDC India adheres to industry-standard, global best practices in providing physical data centre security, validated and certified by global security standards, enabling Birla Corporation to meet its compliance and regulatory goals.

 

STT GDC India provides five layers of physical security -at the perimeter; facility; floor; quadrant and at the cabinet-level - with tools and process that control access, detect intrusion and identify personnel.

 

Says Ashok Kumar, General Manager – Infrastructure at Birla Corporation, “STT GDC India has been truly supportive of our business requirements, enabling us to meet high availability and reliability for all our platforms and applications. We are satisfied that the STT GDC India support has been consistent, even as our business needs have been evolving and expanding.”

 

Customer Benefits

 

The STT GDC India partnership has played a crucial role in the success of Birla Corporation, with STT GDC India taking care of the physical plumbing of data centres, allowing Birla Corporation to focus on staying on top of the game. Specifically, the partnership has accrued the following benefits:

 

  • Allowed Birla Corporation IT to focus on strategic initiatives that impact business outcomes instead of getting mired in the day-to-day operations of managing the data centre infrastructure.
  • Enabled Birla Corporation to meet stringent security and compliance requirements.
  • Being a cement company, Birla Corporation is able to showcase its sustainability practices by partnering with a provider who adopts Green technologies, as STT GDC India data centres run on 30% renewable energy.

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