Train 18 series, part V..our vendors, our partners

At the end of the day, our Train 18 strategies were working fine and even getting spun off to all other areas. The consultancy and procurement contracts were getting finalized speedily. I leave the details for the next post. In today’s diversion, let me dilate upon the oft-repeated cliché in govt. organizations, more as a lip service pretension, and not as a governing mantra, “treat your vendors as partners”.

Let me go back some twenty five years when I was working as a Joint Director in Research, designs and Standards Organization (RDSO), Lucknow, the premier R&D wing of IR. Every day, a large number of industry executives would visit our directorate and one would see them standing in the corridors, waiting for audience with some officer or the other. Some would be seen sitting on the attendants’ stools.  I always found it rather embarrassing. One of the toilet doors in the common wash area was broken for years and I once saw a foreigner inside with his head hidden in his palm; the pressure of Delhi belly had perhaps got the better of his sense of indignity. Are we going anywhere with this kind of a set up with important visitors not even offered basic courtesies? Well, thankfully the then ED of my directorate got one room converted into a make-shift visitors’ room which was somewhat of a novelty in this sarkari type office and well, as I saw it, something was better than nothing. The situation rankled but many of my colleagues were least concerned about all this; their take, “These people are here for their work, why should we bother about them”. Were we an organization dispensing favours or were we here to collaborate with industry and develop cutting edge products for IR?

Let’s move forwards to some 16/17 years back when I was Chief Design Engineer at Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi. One day I had an important tender negotiation and the convenor informed me that the GM of the concerned firm had arrived and that I should come to his room. I went to his room and on the way met the GM gentleman standing outside the room. The committee discussed the tender at some length interspersed with many pleasantries and small talk. Eventually after more than an hour, the gentleman was called in and before we could begin, he said, “Sirs, you people are big officers of railways but even I am the GM of a reputed company. If I have to stand outside your room for hours, I take it my stride in the interest of my company but the disgrace rests entirely on your exalted status and your organization, not mine”. We were speechless but I am sure the others forgot it within no time. I, however, thought that what he said was so right. Since then, wherever I have worked, I have made sure that visitors are treated with dignity and not made to wait; if waiting was unavoidable, as indeed was frequent, they would be seated in a proper visitors’ room. And if the wait was going to be long, I would invite them to be seated in my room itself on sofas/side chairs till I became free to meet them. Big deal? Not at all. But the message, certainly very positive, “”You are here to find ways to partner with us, to collaborate with us and not to collect favours”. That GM gentleman is a friend till date and we have done many projects together, but, of course, entirely on merit of the product offered or developed.

I was very keen that the a change in our outlook and in our disposition that our industry partners were our companions in an enterprise had to be inculcated at every level in ICF. Some members of the team were already ahead of my thoughts. For example, Sri Srinivas, the Chief Design Engineer/Mechanical was already known to treat the vendors in a very business-like manner but with remarkable courteousness. I always heard only words of praise from all vendors, cutting across our supply and development chain, about Sri D.P. Dash, the then Chief Electrical Engineer/Quality Assurance and presently the Chief Design Engineer/Electrical. The then Chief Mechanical Engineer, Sri L.C.Trivedi and presently the General Manager/East Central Railway was known to transact with our vendors in a very professional manner. Briefly, the base was already very receptive for the mind set to change among all key member of the team, right down to lower level officers and supervisors of ICF. I would like to think that gradually the interaction with vendors became more professional and business-like and not that of one supercilious purchaser vis-à-vis supplicant vendors.

I am not suggesting even for a minute that you should not be harsh with vendors who repeatedly let you down. That is a separate matter and we always came down hard on vendors who, in our judgement, were not showing any resolve to improve. Punitive measure should be exemplary, not routinely customary. We must follow what Angelo says in Shakespeare’s Mesuare for Measure, “We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey, and let it keep one shape, till custom make it their perch and not their terror.” This would apply to so many areas of our strategy but about that, later.

To cut a long story short, a clear message was percolated down the hierarchy of ICF that the our existing or would be vendors were out partners. We needed to deal with them with empathy and not indifference. There were many grievances of vendors which we might not be able to address to their satisfaction, like our rigid provisions for imposing Liquidated Damages, but they must get an impression that we tried.

I started getting a sense that things had indeed improved during one to one discussions with our vendors. I was sure this would show results; a team of committed vendors was as important as the significance of earnestness of our work force.

Back to Train 18 story in the next post...(to be continued)