Essar Oil implemented a simulation-based leadership workshop by enParadigm to address increasing business complexity and volatile costs. Over 60 senior managers participated in workshops to improve cross-functional decision making, consider financial impacts, and optimize resources. Six months later, managers reported new revenue opportunities, improved collaborative decisions, cost savings, efficient resource allocation, and finance-driven planning. The workshops helped Essar Oil's managers navigate business challenges and increased the company's competitiveness.

1. CLIENT STORY
Essar Oil
Essar Oil operates a fully integrated, international oil company. Focus
areas include exploration, and refining interests on three continents.
In the first half of FY 2012-13, Essar Oil’s leadership was concerned with two trends which
could significantly impact the company’s prospects – international crude price volatility and
increasing internal complexity. Among other considerations, they needed to equip their middle
and senior management to handle the challenges ahead. To address this, enParadigm
implemented a simulation-based intervention for Essar Oil. Six months later, senior managers
across functions report that the intervention inculcated critical practices like inclusive
cross-functional decision making, revenue-driven operational planning and efficient resource
utilization. This report traces the course of the intervention, implemented in early 2013. It puts
the solution in context before examining business impact six months after the event.
Business Situation
In Q2 of 2012-13, Essar Oil's revenue touched INR 21,000 crore, having risen consistently year
on year. However, two significant concerns emerged at this juncture:
Cost uncertainty due to macroeconomic factors. Their profitability now depended
heavily on external factors like volatile crude oil prices and an increasingly depreciating
Indian Rupee.
Hidden cost and revenue drivers due to increasing scale and complexity. Complexity
and rapid growth saw managers focusing on day-to-day firefighting. They were
increasingly constrained to functional silos and, while each department was effectively
run, collaborative opportunities on growth, cost and revenue fronts slid out of focus.
Mr. Lalit Kumar Gupta, MD & CEO, with Mr. Harsh Bhosale, Head HR, sought enParadigm’s
Leadership Simulation WorkshopTM
to equip their managers to deal with cost uncertainty and
understand the financial impact of every business decision they made; and also to be able to
consider the bigger business picture outside of their functional roles.
Solution
enParadigm's business simulation experts and facilitators worked with Essar Oil’s leadership
team as well as individual participants over a two-week period to understand the business
objectives of the proposed learning intervention. While the leadership team outlined strategic
imperatives, the individual participant interviews brought out specific strengths and skill gaps.
enParadigm then designed a Leadership Simulation WorkshopTM
on its Learning CurveTM
simulation platform.
Company
Essar Oil
Mumbai, India (Headquarters)
Industry
Oil and Gas
enParadigm Interventions
2 Leadership Simulation WorkshopsTM
, Feb and April
2013
Participant Functions
Sales, marketing, production, procurement, finance
and maintenance
Participant Level
Middle and senior management
Concerns Addressed
- Increasing business complexity
- Volatile macroeconomic cost environment
- Linking operational decisions to financial impact
- Cross-functional cohesion

2. The workshops were executed in February and April of 2013 for over 60 senior managers
across departments from marketing to finance to HR. The intervention itself was very well
received, with participants appreciating the experiential pedagogy as well as the relevance of
concepts covered. However, both enParadigm and Essar Oil’s top management were more
interested in actual business impact - in determining if the learning translated into deliberate
everyday business actions.
Results
enParadigm reached out to Essar Oil a full 6 months after the 3-day intervention, to assess
application levels of the workshop’s learning. The participants had actioned relevant learning
from the workshop and were beginning to see direct impact on business. A few significant
outcomes among them were:
New revenue-maximizing, ‘smart work’ opportunities were found and
pursued, giving significant returns for negligible costs and effort.
“I work in marketing dispatch. The profit margins on domestic dispatch are higher than export,
so I now see to it that they are done on priority. The bottom line has seen positive impact and
inventory holding cost is also reduced as I speed up dispatches.” - Paresh Choksi, Head
Coastal/Barreling Plant/Audit
Cross-functional and ‘inclusive’ decisions improved, with managers linking
internal plans to other departments and overall objectives.
“I am into the engineering of retail outlets and we are currently expanding the same at a very
good pace. I need to coordinate with the commercial department, accounts and top
management for roll-outs. Earlier, I did not understand why they rejected certain projects, but
now I am able to work with them in making the right decisions” - Ramesh Mehta, GM,
Engineering
The workshop simulated the following:
An experience of the challenges in
running a complex business organization
Illustrations of the bottom line impact of
their operational decisions
A platform for managers to live through
and navigate a volatile macroeconomic
environment
A constant undercurrent of the challenges
& benefits of collaborating across
functions
“The workshop was a great hands-on
experience for our management. The elements
that go into execution, including understanding
each others' functions, team-spirit, challenges
from the market, communication issues… these
were all good takeaways.“
- Harsh Bhosale, Head, Human
Resources, Essar Oil
ENPARADIGM | CLIENT STORY | ESSAR OIL | 2

3. Cost optimization on major drivers like manpower overheads, holding costs
and interest expenditure.
“They company has around 40,000 transmitters. Initially, we used to completely replace faulty
transmitters, which would cost anywhere between INR 25,000 and INR 5 lakhs. After
understanding the long-term cost implications, we have invested in repairing instead of
replacing, creating significant savings.” - Anil Sherekar, Lead ISBL1 and Utility -
Instrumentation Maintenance
Focus on areas of maximum impact, which helped in efficient allocation of
time and resources.
“ ‘Not chasing everything’ was a breakthrough learning for me. There were 150 odd audit
observations. 20% of them have 80% of the impact. So my team focused all our energy on
identifying and implementing these 20% of observations.” - Sachin Aroskar, GM, Internal
Audit, Essar Energy
Economics and finance-driven planning at multiple levels helped improve
Essar Oil’s competitiveness in a commoditized market with highly volatile
supply side costs.
“Operations inputs are now sent to economic planning as well as scheduling before we
finalize plans. Also, corrective actions are continuously taken. I learnt this process from the
workshop” - Jayesh Gajjar, Head ISBL
Long-term focus, even with support functions, proved vital to sustaining their
competitiveness which was increasingly based on talent and best practices.
“We do quarterly as well as yearly audits. I started to focus more on the yearly audit, as these
provided observations for improvements. I have now developed a relationship with the
auditees. My team now focuses on the observations more closely and acts as a solution
provider for the business.” - Sachin Aroskar, GM, Internal Audit, Essar Energy
ENPARADIGM | CLIENT STORY | ESSAR OIL | 3
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enParadigm Knowledge Solutions LLP
For enquiries and nominations to our next workshop:
John Cherian, +91 97257 69408, john.cherian@enparadigm.com.
We simplify business complexity
through simulation based interventions
for senior and middle management