IndianOil is India's largest national oil company, operating across the hydrocarbon value chain from refining to exploration and production. It has over 34,000 employees and annual sales of over $72 billion. Until 1991, IndianOil focused only on downstream operations, but has since diversified into petrochemicals, natural gas, LNG, and international marketing. This diversification presented human resource challenges in developing talent for new business areas, but IndianOil overcame this by equipping existing employees with new skills and hiring new talent. It has now built internal capabilities to manage its diverse portfolio.

1. INTRODUCTION ABOUT INDIAN OIL.
IndianOil is India's flagship national oil company with business interests straddling the entire
hydrocarbon value chain – from refining, pipeline transportation and marketing of petroleum
products to exploration & production of crude oil & gas, marketing of natural gas and
petrochemicals. It is the leading Indian corporate in the Fortune 'Global 500' listing, ranked at
the 98th position in the year 2011. .
With over 34,000-strong workforce, IndianOil has been helping to meet India’s energy demands
for over half a century. With a corporate vision to be the Energy of India, IndianOil closed the
year 2010-11 with a sales turnover of Rs. 3,28,744 crore ($ 72,125 million)andprofitsof Rs. 7445
crore.
At IndianOil, operations are strategically structured along business verticals - Refineries,
Pipelines, Marketing, R&D Centre and Business Development – E&P, Petrochemicals and
Natural Gas.
With facilities at multiple locations and ever-expanding market opportunities, IndianOil is poised
to become an integrated energy company. As the flagship public sector enterprise of India,
IndianOil has also successfully combined its corporate social responsibility agenda with its
business offerings, meeting the energy needs of millions of people every day, across the country.
DIVERSIFICATION-BEGINNING OF PROBLEM
Until 1991, IndianOil was purely a downstream company. And it was not into any other
businesses. It was only after liberalisation that IndianOil decided to diversify and the Board took
the lead by creating a business development group in 1994 that ventured into different businesses
both upstream and downstream. From 1994 onwards, these internal teams have been focusing on
diversifying into non core businesses. First it ventured into petrochemicals, then natural gas,
LNG, and globalization of marketing operations. Today, IndianOil is poised to become the
second major petrochemical company in India.
In the last few years, IOCL consolidated in core areas of refining and marketing and have also
grown very fast in strategic initiatives across the hydrocarbon value chain. With a consortium
approach, It has also grown in upstream integration into oil and gas exploration and production,
downstream integration into petrochemicals, and diversification into natural gas business, as well
as globalization of marketing operations.
Major challenges faced in the HR function in the past years
IOCL today is India’s largest commercial enterprise with a turnover of Rs. 271,074 crore for the
year 2009-10 and it is believed that in a growing economy like India, the future is indeed full of
excitement. IOCL sees itself as an ‘Energy Company‘ and are also venturing now into
renewable energy sources like solar, hydrogen and bio-fuels and other sources of energy like
nuclear as well.
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2. In the last few years, IOCL has grown extensively in new business areas where it had no
presence before and that was a challenge to have the internal talent available to run those
businesses. Since it has grown in upstream and downstream, especially into petrochemicals and
diversified into natural gas. And considering the core business that is refining and marketing, it
has been a huge change in terms of the talent that it needed to attract and groom internally to run
these diversified businesses..
IOCL faced a major challenge in terms of talent shortage, especially in areas of new businesses
for it. But the challenge was overcome by equipping people with new skill sets as well as
hiring new talent at various levels. And hence it has been able to build internal capabilities too
over a period of time. Today, IOCL has the confidence that it has those required capabilities in it
selves.
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