Gec Alsthom To Revamp India Operations

GEC Alsthom, the Anglo-French power and transport engineering group, has selected India as one of the 40 countries in which it is decentralising its management. This comes as a part of GEC Alsthom's biggest organisational change since inception eight years ago.

The company has created a post of president in GEC Alsthom India to co-ordinate the group's activities in the domestic market. R K Daga, chairman and managing director of the Indian subsidiary, has been asked to wear the hat of the country president as well. There have been corresponding changes in the other top-level posts in the company.

The new structure has been superimposed on the company's existing system to give a special thrust to its four main areas of operation in the country -- transmission and distribution, industrial equipment, transportation and power generation.

 

Though GEC Alsthom is quite strong in the marine sector world-wide, it is conspicuously absent from this area in India.

In its efforts to focus on transport and power generation, the Indian subsidiary has formed two companies -- GEC Alsthom Transport India (GECATIL) and GEC Alsthom Power Gen India (GECAPGIL).

Under the reorganisation of the company's management, its international division, which used to represent the group's activities in India, has been replaced by a 'network' which will deal with all the commercial and sales work concerning all the divisions of the company. Daga will head the network in India.The change is in response to criticism by GEC Alsthom executives and customers that the group was too centralised in its Paris head office.

The change is expected to cope with the fast-changing markets. In India, privatisation of power and transport markets is seen to create unprecedented potential calling for decentralisation of powers in GEC Alsthom.

Daga would plan strategy, including possible acquisitions, act as the company's public face and co-ordinate activities which could be brought together, like supply and purchasing.

The management reorganisation assumes significance in view of the commitment made by GEC Alsthom's president and chief executive officer Pierre Bilger in November that the Indian subsidiary would double its investment of $500 million in the next five years. GEC Alsthom India, which has 11 factories in the country, employs 6,700 workers.

It has a turnover of nearly Rs 525 crore.