Moulding engineers into managers

Companies such as Bharat Forge are giving their technical staff a business orientation.

Jack Welch, former chief executive officer of engineering giant General Electric, has said in his autobiography Straight From The Gut that corporations interested in overall progress should have outstanding managers"" rather than high-calibre engineers"" in positions of leadership.

Welch's view is perhaps corroborated by many organisations which would prefer not to waste a high-calibre engineer by converting him into a mediocre manager.

This is evident in the practice of creating a structure that has both a technical ladder and a managerial ladder and offers opportunities of career growth to people on both these ladders with a built-in mechanism to ensure parity in compensation and rewards.

However, the dynamics of global competition and the operational scales on which Indian businesses operate may not allow for the luxury of grooming managers who will only manage and engineers who will concentrate on engineering alone.

The University of Warwick's MSc programme in Engineering Business Management would appear to be an ideal solution for those who would like to create effective managers out of efficient engineers.

This is what Pune-headquartered Bharat Forge Limited (BFL), the flagship company of the $1.5 billion Kalyani Group, and the largest exporter of auto components from India, has discovered.

With manufacturing facilities spread over nine locations and six countries"" two in India, three in Germany, and one each in Sweden, Scotland, North America and China"" the company is acutely alive to the need to give its multinational technical workforce a business orientation.

Says BFL's executive director Amit Kalyani: "From our point of view, this is a major tool for nurturing our in-house talent and imparting business management skills to our middle level managers. From next year we plan to cover engineers from our overseas operations also."

The company has selected the offering of Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) only after a close scruitiny of other similar courses available, Kalyani adds.

Bharat Forge is keen on covering 1,500 engineers working in group companies in India and abroad. To start with, two batches are to undergo training.

The first commenced in February, and covers 30 engineers from Bharat Forge, Kalyani Carpenter Steels, and Automotive Axles.

Ten training modules have been identified for participation by all the 30, and these modules are to be completed in two years"" five each in 2006 and 2007. Batch II will commence in 2007 with 35 participants, some of them drawn from group companies abroad.

Tata Motors has also decided to utilise the Warwick programme for the development of its managers. Says a company spokesperson: "We find the content appropriate to the development needs of our talent base, in the context of our growth ambitions. This year will be the first year we will nominate managers to this programme"" about five managers will be nominated."

The Warwick programme, which started in 1985 globally and was brought to India in 1999 by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), focuses on giving a business management orientation to managers in engineering functions in the manufacturing sector.

The course offers continuing education for practicing managers who cannot be released full time, and engineers from TVS Motors, Godrej and Boyce, NRB Bearings, Alstom Ltd, Sundram Clayton, Samtel India and Hindustan Motors have trained under the programme.

Says S D Puranik, executive director of the CII Naoroji Godrej Centre of Excellence: "The course aims at making better managers out of engineers, capable of shouldering bigger responsibilities. It focuses on the manufacturing sector and is an updation of the domain in which an engineer is already operating."

The course modules are divided into three categories"" operations, technology and business. The three eligibility criteria for admission include being an engineer, having a minimum of five years work experience in manufacturing and, finally, a company sponsorship.

Participants undergo 8 to 10 modules that involve one week of classroom training"" inclusive of case studies"" and then carry out post-module assignments based on them. Towards the end they take up project work in their own area of activity. The focus is on business improvement through the management of change. Each seat costs the sponsoring company Rs 300,000.

Companies that have put their engineers through the course are predictably enthusiastic about it. According to Venu Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director of TVS Motor, "the programme has been invaluable in creating a learning organisation." In fact, TVS has now made it mandatory for its engineers to take this course, says Puranik.

Sums up Kalyani: "Since the course has started recently at Bharat Forge we cannot definitively comment on this but the feedback from the participants on each of the modules conducted so far has been more than satisfactory."