Bharat Petroleum: Oil the Gains

With a turnover exceeding $8 billion, Bharat Petroleum
Corporation (BPCL) is the only Indian petroleum company to be listed in the
Forbes’ International 800 ranking. BPCL has used information technology (IT)
as an enabler to establish a leadership position in their industry.

BPCL has 4,500 petrol pumps, 1000 kerosene dealers and 1,400
LPG distributors. The company also supplies fuel directly to hundreds of
industries and several international and domestic airlines. For a company the
size of BPCL, one of the primary concerns was the need for an effective
communication mechanism to cut down on the time in responding to both internal
and external customers. The IS department at BPCL identified the need for a
stable and reliable infrastructure that would help more 5,000 BPCL employees
enhance their productivity and offer better support to customers. To facilitate
communication and information dissemination within the organization, one of the
first changes to affect employees on a wide scale was the decision to implement
a messaging infrastructure and an Intranet.

BPCL uses the Internet to reduce turnaround time, besides
expanding its customer base. Dr Anand Teltumbde, GM-IS, BPCL, says, "Once
banks streamline the e-payment mechanism, over 90% of customer transactions
could take place through the eBusiness system".