In the 1999 business leaders list, "Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd." was the first name on the list. The growth was Rs.9766 crore. The company has taken the turnover to Rs. 21,660 crore. The company had also recovered its lost market share in lubes and in other products.

This success is not the result of any chance factor, sudden rise in demand or any government support. This is the result of leadership provided by the top and developed at every level.

After opening up of the economy many private companies like Castrol, Gulf Oil, Elf, has made the life of public sector companies miserable, especially so in respect of lube sales. BPCL was no exception, but the way BPCL has fought the war should prove to be an example for other sectors also like aviation, power, automobile etc.

The chairman of the company Mr U. Sunder Rajan leads from the front. Like other great corporate leaders Mr SunderRajan listens deeply to the voice of his employees, customers, consultants, market, and to himself. He is present for hours together when employee feedback matters are presented and accepts the feedback without being defensive, he tries to understand instead of giving replies, he asks to know more and then takes personal interests in the actions.

He pioneered the restructuring of BPCL into different business and profit units. He created a model, undertook massive exercise of training the entire workforce on "Foundation of learning organisation" and "Visionary leadership programme", an exercise which still continues. This has delivered results.

The results of this exercise have been amazing. On key areas, such as Vision, Goal, Team Spirit, Climate for high performance, Interpersonal-relationships & Customer service, the average percentage of improvement is approximately 25%, which is quite high, as the average change from any given training remains in the range of 7% to 15% only.

The company has reorganised its personnel function, the performance appraisal system has been changed, and the powers delegated have been raised at all levels. BPCL has been awarded for best HR system in oil public sector.

The group known as 'Internal coaches' have the trust of chairman and it is a dedicated, self directed and self motivated team.

The factors behind this success are Mr. Sunder Rajan's humility, his love and kindness for people, his trust in team, risk taking capacity, and his abiding faith, that "we can do it".

Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine, who is a senior manager in a leading public sector company, posted at Ajmer as the station head. He told me, that BPCL also has a station head in Ajmer in the rank of Dy. Manager, but he is more empowered and more effective than me.

- S.K. Shahi

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