Naveen Navlani S-41 THE MCKINSEY 7S FRAMEWORK : PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE SURAJ ( INDIAN ARMY)

Brief about PMO SURAJ 1. PMO SURAJ is the nodal agency in Indian Army for managing all projects of Electronic warfare (EW) systems in the Indian Army. It involves all functions related with contract formulation, procurement ,post contract management and repair and maintenance for these systems after they are inducted in service. Background 2. PMO SURAJ had been established in 1986 wherein for the first time Electronic Warfare capability was inducted into the Indian Army. Electronic Warfare is a highly technology intensive field wherein our own technology has to be continuously upgraded based on the technological changes taking place in the communication technology field. Back in 1986, the communication technology was based on large discrete components based electronic components. Hence the repair and maintenance of these electronic components was a relatively easier task. Therefore the repair philosophy adopted at that time was that Army personnel were trained for undertaking the repairs of these equipment. 3. However by the first decade of 21st century the technology in communication field had totally changed with micro components and multilayered PCBs making almost 95% of the hardware. Hence it is no more possible to repair these sophisticated components in house as the cost of training Army personnel on such sophisticated communication components would have been very high and then there is the case of very fast obsolescence of the technology leading to re-training and associated costs. 4. Hence it was felt that the complete repair and maintenance philosophy for these communication equipment needed a change and this would require a complete relook at the organisational structure. The McKinsey 7S framework 5. Since there were number of stake holders in this process it was essential that a holistic and most optimal change in the repair philosophy is brought into the organisation. McKinseys 7S Model would be an ideal model to analyse the problem in totality.

6. The model is based on the theory that, for an organization to perform well, these seven elements need to be aligned and mutually reinforcing. So, the model can be used to help identify what needs to be realigned to improve performance, or to maintain alignment (and performance) during other types of change. Whatever the type of change restructuring, new processes, organizational merger, new systems, change of leadership, and so on the model can be used to understand how the organizational elements are interrelated, and so ensure that the wider impact of changes made in one area is taken into consideration. 7. The important components of the Model are :(a) Strategy : The earlier repair philosophy of all in-house repair by the Army technicians would not work in the present technology environment. Hence there is a need for paradigm shift in the complete philosophy. The new philosophy has to rely on the concept of outsourcing the complicated and technology intensive repair jobs to the experts, i.e. the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) by means of getting into a limited AMC with the OEM. However since these EW systems are going to be used in war , hence the OEM technicians would not be able to come in the warzone. Therefore there is a requirement of training the Army personnel in some basic repairs of the system as well. Since most of the electronic parts are module based , therefore the strategy that has to be adopted is replace forward and repair backwards. This entails the concept that the Army technicians shall only be diagnosing the fault in the system in the warzone. Having identified the fault, because of the modular nature of the system, they would replace the faulty module with a fresh module and hence bring the system to functional state. Thereafter the faulty modules will be sent rearwards and handed over to the OEM technicians who will carry out the repair at their centralised facility where they have the trained personnel , test equipments and the other facilities to carry extensive repairs of the faulty modules. (b) Structure : The present repair philosophy mandates that The Army technicians are responsible for the repair of the systems and hence the manpower staffing norms for the repair agency of the Army had a sizeable component for the repair personnel. However with the change in the repair philosophy a major part of the repair responsibility needs to be taken care by component level AMC with the OEM. Hence there is a need to change the staffing norms for the Army repair agency wherein the emphasis has to shift from actual repairs to managing the AMC and the various contracts associated with it. This required decrease in the number of repair personnel and corresponding increase in the number of personnel for contract management domain knowledge. (c) Systems : The need for seamless flow of information between the actual user of the system and the agency managing the AMC would be critical for the success of the new system. This would also require decrease in the funds allocation being done to the present repair agency which was required to purchase the various spares for the repair of the sys and consequently augmentation of the financial allocation to the agency managing the AMC. At the same time, there would be a requirement of providing training capsules for the Army personnel on the issues of AMC management.

(d) Shared Values : Till now the complete repair responsibility was with the repair agency of the Army and the user was delinked with the repair of the system. However this will require change since now a third party is responsible for undertaking the repair of the system. At the same time there is going to be a duality in the responsibility for the repair of the system. Till now only the Army repair agency has been responsible for the repair , but now the Army repair agencys scope of repair has been reduced to fault identification and replacement of the faulty modules with working modules and thereafter testing of the system and its calibration. Hence there is scope of confusion in terms of shift of responsibility between the AMC vendor and the Army repair agency. There is also fair possibility of finger pointing between OEM and the repair agency. Hence there is a clear requirement of clear demarcation of responsibilities which should be very well defined, as also level of faith between all the stake holders , i.e. the user, the Army repair agency , the OEM which is providing the AMC and the AMC management agency. Each of these agencies have to keep the ultimate goal of synergising their efforts to ensure that the system downtime is kept to the minimum keeping in view the criticality of the system in the overall security of the nation. There are bound to be grey areas in this responsibility matrix for such a complicated system and hence the maturity of the managers in each of these stake holders would be of paramount importance. (e) Style : Probably one of the most important factor in successful implementation of this change would be the role of top management since there would be number of grey areas and there is a fair chance of finger pointing amongst the various stake holders. The top management will have to put its weight behind the successful implementation of this change and always keep the ultimate goal of maximum uptime of the system as the primary goal. All the stakeholders will have to address the various issues which will come during the implementation of the change. In this the top management of the Army which is responsible for the Military operations will have to arbitrate on number of issues whenever the logjam occurs during the initial implementation period. (f) Staff : There is bound to be a requirement of rehashing the staffing norms keeping the changed scope of responsibilities and functions of the various stakeholders. It is quite evident that the number of repair personnel will decrease and at the same time there would be a requirement of increase in the staffing of the contract management agency. At the same time, there is a requirement of adequate training for the contract management personnel. An important issue over here is going to be a proper competency mapping of the present personnel of the repair agency. The requirement now would be more of managerial staff and less of the repair personnel. This is bound to have personal biases and agendas coming in the way of finding of the optimal model. And hence the role of the top management would become all the more important. (g) Skills : There would be a constant question in the minds of everybody- Do we really need personnel of the Armys repair agency to manage the AMC or can the user himself manage the AMC ? The most important issue here would be the mapping of the competencies of the

various agencies with the present scope of work. The core competency of the user is to exploit the system and to provide vital intelligence to the fighting forces in the battle zone. The core competency of the Armys repair agency is the repair and maintenance of the system. They have been involved with the repair of the various systems ( including EW Sys) and thus have the domain knowledge of the nuances of the processes involved in the same. At the same time, the basic repair and diagnosis and recalibration is still the responsibility of the repair agency, hence keeping the responsibility of managing the AMC with the personnel of the present repair agency would be the optimal model. However skill enhancement for this modified role would be essential for achieving the optimal results.