Day 3 - Chennai

Chennai – Day 3

Day 4 of our India trip will be our first company visits.  After having spent the previous night on a beachfront hotel in Mahabalipuram, the last few days sightseeing, Day 4 marked the beginning of our many company visits.  First in the morning we will be visiting “Rane” an automotive company here in Chennai.

Rane (Madras) Ltd. is a subsidiary company of Rane Holdings Ltd.  Rane started with the inception of manufacturing facilities 1960. The company is the manufacturer of steering & suspension systems for every segment of automobile industry, passenger cars, multi-utility vehicles, light commercial vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles and farm tractors.

The company operates under one division, namely components for transportation industry. They manufacture two types of steering gears, namely, circulating ball type steering gears, and rack and pinion type steering gears. The other products include tie rod assemblies, drag link assemblies, center link assemblies (steering linkages) and gearshift ball joints (suspension linkages).

With best in class manufacturing facilities, the production plants of the company at Chennai (2 plants), Mysore, Puducherry each address a specific industry segment.  Independent manufacturing cells produce specialized high-end components.

• Chennai plant - Light Commercial vehicle, Heavy Commercial vehicle and Utility vehicles segments.
• Mysore plant - Tractor and Commercial vehicle segments.
• Puducherry plant - Passenger car segments.
• Varanavasi (Chennai) plant - Exports market.
• Uttarakhand plant - Caters specifically to the customers in the North of India.

Of the companies many achievements, the most they value the most is the Deming Grand Prize (2012).  Being only 1 in 6 companies in India to win the award, the Deming Grand Prize is given to the automotive company that best exemplifies quality in all aspects of its production process.

The meeting at the Rane headquarters was very intriguing and informative.  The people we spoke with were very key people in the organization and were able to discuss with us the ins and outs of their line of work.  We were able to meet with the companies General Manager, the third most influential person in the company, behind the Chairman and the CEO.  He gave us not only great insight to the company, but also discussed with us general business challenges unique to India.

After meeting with the Rane organization, we took some free time to go shopping in a very active shopping area in Chennai.  We all started out in a store call Sandari Silks, which we chose as the place to rendezvous a few hours later.  Everyone seemed excited to spend their Rupees, as this was our first opportunity for some real shopping in India.  We were buying saris, scarves, kurtas, jewelry and the usually trinkets.  We had KFC lunch that afternoon.  Although this was still the beginning of our India trip, we all missed American food that we were so used to eating.  Later that afternoon, we went on our second company meeting of the day to a call center company called Allsec.

Allsec Technologies Ltd, a BPO established in 1998 is a leading provider of outsourced solutions in customer engagement, sales & retention and quality assurance for businesses across banking, financial services, insurance, telecommunication, retail, healthcare, energy & utilities and technology.  With more than 10 years of experience servicing multitude of clients, handling millions of transactions and observing a million of them, Allsec has the experience, expertise and customizable solutions that focus on customer satisfaction.

“Our service delivery objectives are focused on Clients’ Return on Investment while enhancing the ‘customer experience’ quotient. 

We understand that our clients’ success is our success. We grow by delivering consistent, reliable, world-class services”.

The meeting at Allsec also went very well.  Although we were late for our scheduled meeting by about 40 minutes, the members of the organization were all very nice, friendly and eager to meet with us.  This meeting was also extraordinarily informative.  They had a very strict policy with regard to photography and video recording, but that did not put a damper in the experience.  The speakers were all naturally born Indians, but working in a call center, they all spoke English extremely well.  This made listening to them easy, fun and interactive.  Especially since they all had great personalities.

As we were leaving the Allsec company headquarters, the bus driver did not get the clearance he needed to avoid hitting some overhead telephone wires, which led to the emergency exit being ripped of the roof of the bus.  It gave us brief movement of good laughs and entertainment after a long day as we drove to the next and final location for today, the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, a Hindu temple of Shiva located in Mylapore, Chennai.

The Kapaleeshwarar temple was built around the 7th century CE and is of typical Dravidian architectural style, with the gopuram (monumental tower) overpowering the street on which the temple sits.  There are two entrances to the temple marked by the gopuram on either side. The east gopuram is about 40 meters high, while the smaller gopuram faces west.

Once at the temple, we were all in awe of its majesty.  We had to take our shoes off before entering the temple and even had to pay a small fare to take pictures (25 Rupees/$0.50) and video recording (50 Rupees,/$1).  Despite paying to photograph and video record, the only thing we were not allowed to film was the inside of two particular temples, out of respect.  At the temple, some students make offerings of bananas, coconut and jasmine to a deity and received a blessing of ash and prayer.