Technology for Sleeping Well
“We work pretty hard to develop solutions for ensuring that people can enjoy comfortable sleep. Through our innovatively designed mattresses, we are essentially educating the society on sleep related matters so that people can sleep-well and feel healthy and fresh when they wake up,” says Pertisth Mankotia, Head – Information Technology, Sheela Group. by Anoop Verma
“Information Technology provides numerous opportunities for exploring a wide range of solutions, by applying different thought processes, picking up different approaches. Essentially it enables you to work differently, in the way that you would like to,” says Pertisth Mankotia. “IT can lead to lot of innovations and creativity; it not only connects systems and processes, but also people.”
He looks back with surprise at the era when people used to be suspicious of IT. There was the feeling that implementation of IT will lead to loss of jobs, as computers would replace people. There was also the feeling that automation could lead to loss of importance of the workers. Thankfully, our society has now grown out of these luddite ideas,” he laughs. He is of the view that even the most advanced technology is of no match for the human brain.
“Only human beings who understand human psychology can do the work that humans do and take maximum advantage of the Information Technology systems that we have around us,” he asserts. In his IT career he has faced many challenges, but he believes that every challenge can be overcome as long as one has the patience, humility and the luck to be blessed with a good team.
Currently employed as the head of Information Technology in the Sheela Group (India & Australia), Pertisth Mankotia is responsible for digitisation of various processes with the objective of brining speed and innovation to enterprise. “Today IT is the backbone of operations at Sheela Foam and its channel partners. With a user base of more than 4000, we have created an information culture for not only our employees, also the channel (120+ Distributors and 5000+ Dealers) across the country. We have created a platform for sharing knowledge and taking advantage of technology to enhance business,” he informs.
All the distributors of the Sheela Group are connected, so that they can work efficiently on a similar platform and share information while running their independent businesses. This has simplified their life and enabled them to take advantage of IT Infrastructure and synchronised environment.
Pertisth informs that the IT department at Sheela Group has adopted technologies like cloud, virtualization, BYOD, Open Source, managed printing, etc. The group has set up its own data center with outsourced DR. The best thing is that the datacenter operations have been managed at the best possible cost, and are still able to contribute lot of valuable business insight through business intelligence.
“The infrastructure that we are using is quite simple and we look for commodity products rather than going with the proprietary products,” says Mankotia. He is also in favour of open source. He says that the open source solutions are better as they enable the organisation to expand and scale up at a lower cost. “In addition to this, we keep updating our self, as we very well understand that technology has a life like banana,” he laughs.
Pertisth is proud of the work that the IT team at Sheela Group has done. A homegrown ERP platform called “great plus” has been created, on this the entire business of the company is running running efficiently. Moreover, the channel partners (Distributors & Dealers) also use the same platform for their business of creating seamless and synchronised working environment.
“The IT team has also created specific solutions for tracking secondary and tertiary sales, controlling sales to unauthorised dealers, access the channel stock, improving serviceability, improving operational efficiencies and reducing wastage,” he says with pride.
The system at Sheela Group enables seamless system of order placement and product delivery. Once an order has been placed by the dealer, it automatically gets transferred to the distributor and from distributor to Sheela Foam (if material is not with the distributor). The order status till it is sold to end customer can be tracked by the entire chain.
Pertisth has played an important role in deployment of the replenishment system based on TOC (Theory of Constraints) concept. In this they have developed a dynamic replenishment system which auto adjusts the stock level based on sales, seasonality and orders in hand. This system has been implemented at Sheela Foam and also at the Distributors locations and at both points order is placed based on stock levels. This has brought down the inventory levels and have enabled the channel to stock more variety in the same space and cost.
The company has a weekly Review system based on TOC. Pertisth says, “We follow the concept of “theory of constraints” where all the performances are reviewed on a weekly basis so that adjustments in plan can be done easily to improve performance. We SMS all critical KPI results every morning so that the day can be planned accordingly.”
Controlled MOP (Market Operating Price) by tracking of the secondary sales and Guarantee Validation System has enabled “Sleepwell” to become the pioneer in successfully controlling MOP in India to a very large extent. Authorised Dealers are able to retain margin on Sleepwell Mattress as the company is in a position of setting an MOP (Market Operating Price) in the market. With this initiative, the dealers are more motivated for promoting Sleepwell sales. They are able to win the confidence of the customers in their product, as just after the purchase of Sleepwell product the guarantee gets registered through SMS. This ensures that the customers are able to develop faith in the authorised dealers and this further enhances the importance and scope of our dealership.
The deployment of RFID technology has helped the businesses in controlling the unauthorised selling of the company’s mattresses. Each mattress has a RFID tag inside it. This helps the company in tracking the product movement from the factory to the distributor to the dealer. The RFID tag enables the company to keep an eye on the entire supply chain.
Another valuable product that the IT department has created is the system of e-wallet. “We have more than 5000 dealers and for each one of them we have created an e-wallet,” informs Mankotia. In the e-wallet, the stock value of the dealers is maintained during the “exchange offer,” which is an offer run by the company for the customers. The stock value is calculated on the basis of material purchased by the dealers during the exchange period. Every time a dealer sells a mattress, the value in their e-wallet decreases. Dealers can increase the amount in their e-wallets by purchasing more products from a distributor.
The IT department in Sheela Group has also developed various systems for measuring the standard KPI such as — wastage, OTIF, Throughput, Payables, Receivables, NPA’s , Transportation cost, etc. These KPI are shared with everyone in the morning through SMS.
Mankotia is of the view that for any organisation, the protection of its internal data is of utmost importance. He says, “It is absolutely imperative for the organisation to have a DR. We should think of DR as a system for load balancing, as when the DR is being updated in real time, there is no need for conducting security related drills.”
He has positive view on cloud. He feels that there is good scope for using cloud for general event based applications or for packaged solutions like mailing, surveys, communications systems, DMS, etc.
Pertisth is one of those people who enjoy their job. “I love my job. My work Inspires me,” he says emphatically. “As long as you’ve got passion, faith and are willing to work hard, you can do anything. You can have anything you want in the world.” How does he see his work in Sheela Group? “We work pretty hard to develop solutions for ensuring that people can enjoy comfortable sleep. Through our innovatively designed mattresses, we are essentially educating the society on sleep related matters so that people can sleep-well and feel healthy and fresh when they wake up.”
So is there any ambition that still remains unfulfilled? His answer is rather philosophical, “Ambitions changes with time, as the world is highly dynamic. In the morning you get up with a certain plan and by the time you do to sleep, there is a revised plan to accomplish the next day. That is life.” He says that he would like to be creative in whatever he does in future.
