On Fertile Grounds

The marketing division of National Fertilizers is responsible for dispatching

tonnes of fertilizers across the country, therefore, the focus is on speeding up

the information flow for effective decision making. IT plays a vital role in

sales operations, checking marketing costs and safeguarding market share. In

addition, technology also plays a significant role in bridging distance barriers

and making relevant information available to all at the same time making the

communication interactive with facts and figures.

Adding Value to Business



In order to plan and monitor production, distribution and import of

fertilizers, the Department of Fertilizer (DoF), GoI has set up an online web

based Fertilizer Monitoring System (FMS). NFL has entered an MoU with DoF

wherein the government assists NFL in obtaining ECA allocations commensurate

with the availability of fertilizers from NFL plants.

"FMS leverages the distribution of fertilizers across India and is also

responsible for tracking information regarding the import of raw material and

finished goods, custom clearances, dispatches from the plant, warehouse and

wholesale details to the DoF and state governments at all points of time," says

NR Satyapalan, deputy GM, MS and CIO, National Fertilizers.

NFL has expanded its program from improving the crop productivity to include

development of the farming community by developing an extensive and integrated

marketing solution which takes care of the internal accounting system that

tracks orders, sales, inventory levels, receivables and payables. In addition

the solution also maintains the order, delivery and the billing cycle impacting

the timelines of the sales reports. This has opened up new means of business

transactions between the fertilizer supplier, channel partners and finally

customers.

IT Infrastructure



As part of its IT infrastructure, NFL has its own WAN providing leased line

connectivity through BSNL for Internet and email. Besides, laptops and data

cards have been provided to the district level executives as well.

The corporate office at Noida has 2 Mbps while the Panipat unit has 512 Kbps

broadband connectivity. In addition, the Panipat unit has its own Intranet

website wherein information related to MIS, inventory and personal information

like salary, leaves, advances, PF, blood group and income tax is made accessible

to all.

NFL has added VPN to its IT infrastructure. This has eliminated the need for

costly long distance leased lines, thereby reducing long distance telephone

calls charges. Further more with VPN, the cost of maintaining and supporting

servers goes down. As a part of the new IT initiative, NFL has replaced the old

servers with Oracle Applications Server (OAS) to lower operational costs with

superior manageability and excellent support for interoperability with other

systems.

Green IT Initiative



In tandem with the current go green theme, NFL has replaced all CRT based

monitors with TFT monitors.

In terms of pollution reduction, the Panipat unit monitors the level of

emissions from various stacks before releasing it in the atmosphere. The unit

has obtained ISO-14001 certification relating to Environment Management System

(EMS). EMS is part of an organizations overall management structure addressing

both immediate and long term impacts of its products, services and processes on

the environment. This has value added to NFLs existing process and procedures

through allocation of resources and assignment of responsibility.

Atreyee Datta



atreyeed@cybermedia.co.in