Thursday, 27 March 2014 00:00
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Ceylon Tobacco Company PLC (CTC), a subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT), was one of the first fully-fledged supply chains in the group to launch ‘TaO’ along with South Asia Area (SAA).
TaO brings a new and modern ‘way of working’ underpinned by state of the art ERP systems that will integrate and optimise operations in order to be faster, stronger and more resilient.
Project TaO for CTC was a 20 month process consisting of several phases under the leadership of a seven-member cross functional team. Planning, mobilising resources, designing and development, training, risk assessments, and identifying and implementing changes were some of the key phases of project TaO in Sri Lanka.
Emphasising on the importance of each phase, Sajeewa Rajapakshe, TaO Project Manager, Sri Lanka, said: “The project was a great challenge, with us being one of the first end markets to implement TaO in a fully-fledged operation. Strict timelines had to be followed coupled with an intensive workload and a lot of learning to get on top of this ‘new way of working’. We wanted to deliver everything perfectly and this resulted in quite a stretch on the TaO team as well as the business teams over the past 20 months.”
“During the transition phase, we carried out 111 training sessions with 14 trainers, all within a span of 8 weeks to ensure that everyone at CTC was ready for TaO. In SAA, CTC was recognised for data accuracy and readiness. We also spent a great deal of time preparing our employees mentally to accept TaO. It has been a long and challenging journey, but a well-recognised success,” Sajeewa further commented.
TaO is expected to enable CTC to generate greater and faster business insights for effective decision making achieved by real time information, higher transactional efficiency and a stronger IT infrastructure. TaO will also drive stronger integration with associated businesses around the world using well-integrated system base information helping CTC to plan better, reduce duplication of work and improve delivery time.
Felicio Ferraz, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of CTC, said: “The implementation of a single platform means reliability, integrated processes and the entire Group working in a standardised manner. As for CTC, we will now be able to focus more on our consumers, automate manual processes and thereby increase overall efficiency.”
TaO will fund sustainability and growth through innovation and make business simpler and faster. It will give the Company a ‘fit for future’ platform due to the effective planning and flawless execution supported by ceaseless efforts put in by highly motivated teams across the company.
CTC takes great pride in its seamless transition into this new way of working. In recognition of the swift and successful migration in the agreed time span, the Company was awarded with the ‘TaO Award’ by BAT’s Asia Pacific Leadership Team.
