“Indian Oil had realised the importance of transitioning from digitisation to digitalisation and we wanted to converge the gap,” informs Manish Grover, Executive Director (Strategic IS & IS), Indian Oil Corporation.

In an exclusive conversation with APAC News Network & CXO News, Manish Grover, Executive Director (Strategic IS & IS), Indian Oil Corporation outlines the digital journey at Indian Oil and how initiatives like Epic, iDrive, and Vishleshan are changing the overall ecosystem.

What are the key digital initiatives at IOC that you would like to highlight?

Indian Oil has leveraged digital solutions and emerging technologies to empower people and processes across value chains. We have numerous pillars that strengthen our journey towards digitalisation:

A. Custom Tools and Solutions:

1. Integrated Planning Tool – Integrated Refinery Planning tool for processes such as crude evaluation, production planning, primary distribution planning, and project evaluation.

2. Digital Reconciliation and Yield Accounting Tool – Plant-wide tool procured for accurate product yield accounting through statistical data for effective performance assessment.

3. Energy Management System – Tool being procured for end-to-end utilities supply-side optimization along with consumption monitoring and minimizing overall utility cost.

4. Refinery Production Scheduler – Tool to improve the accuracy of planned production by the reduction of the gap between planned vs actual production and reducing quality giveaways.

5. Integrated Shipping Tool – Tool for automation of shipping dept activities spanning chartering, operations and finance such as the creation of charters, scheduling of crude oil lifting, ocean loss monitoring, insurance, etc.

6. E2EPMS – One-stop end-to-end view for Project Management across all divisions for effective monitoring of project progress and identification of risks. 

7. Cascading Dashboard – Integrated Dashboard with relevant KPIs with varied levels of accessibility across the hierarchy to give real-time updates in a synchronised manner.

B. Analytics:

1. FCCU Real-Time Optimisation – Real-time recommendation of optimum process parameters by maximizing high-value products based on current market prices

2. Heat Exchanger Cleaning Schedule Optimisation – Forecasting of exchanger fouling patterns to identify the optimum cleaning schedule of all exchangers in a train, to minimize total cost of operation (incl. cost of fouling and cost of cleaning)

3. APC Performance Optimisation – Multi-level, historian-linked, real-time dashboards with 7 KPIs to effectively track and measure APC performance

4. Pipeline Zoning – Using ML Model to classify pipeline stretches based on their vulnerability towards pilferages.

5. Aspect-Based Sentiment Analytics – Using NLP, Retail Outlets performance is scored based on various aspects using Google Reviews as the source

6. 1906 LPG Analytics – Analytical and Visualisation tool to map LPG-related complaints to the relevant distributors to minimise the occurrence of any discrepancy.

C. Emerging Technologies:

1. Digital CoE – At IIPM, Gurugarm 

2. Smart Helmet for Remote Assistance – Deployment of AR-based smart helmet solution to enable peer-to-peer collaboration, knowledge access and sharing in the context of activities like remote inspection, workflow management etc

3. Generative AI – Building Models by fine-tuning open source and GPT models for relevant use cases like Project Compendium Analytics, HR Bot, Law Document Analytics etc.

How would you explain the functioning of the CRM and secondary DMS at Indian Oil and how has it provided you with a 360-degree view of customers to enhance business?

Indian Oil’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Dealer Management Solution (DMS) is known as ePIC, or e-Platform for Indian Oil Customers. This integrated platform seamlessly unites customers and dealers, distributors, and channel partners across various Lines of Business—such as Retail, LPG, Aviation, Lubes, and Institutional Sales—onto a single digital platform.

ePIC serves as the digital platform for implementing dynamic business processes and marketing strategies for the entire spectrum of IndianOil’s customers (primary, Secondary and tertiary). It provides a 360-degree view of customers by integrating and standardizing marketing efforts across product lines, enhancing the handling of customer service requests and grievances, and offering a unified customer experience across mobile phones, tablets, and desktops. 

The platform includes mobile applications like IndianOil ONE for Customers, IndianOil for Business for Channel Partners, mPOWER ONE for employees, portals, and Siebel CRM, through which stakeholders connect and leverage the ePIC platform. This platform has enabled IndianOil to:

• Develop lifelong relationships with customers by providing seamless access to various services, such as LPG refill booking, digital payments, and grievance redressal, across different Lines of Business in a unified manner.
• Utilize a unified customer repository to manage digital campaigns and promotions.
• Implement its retail loyalty management programme known as XTRAREWARDS with features for loyalty point accrual and redemption along with upselling and cross-selling products to various customer segments and alliance partners.

The ePIC platform has significantly improved IndianOil’s service delivery and reduced the time for grievance redressal. By opening lines of communication with customers, IndianOil receives constant, direct market feedback on products, services, and performance, surpassing traditional market surveys. This has led to better customer connection, increased overall customer satisfaction, reduced churn rates, and more referrals from satisfied customers. As a result, the demand for troubleshooting staff has decreased, and the organization’s service flows and teamwork have become more efficient and satisfying.

Over time, enhanced customer experience fosters customer loyalty. Automation and modernization of distributorships, Retail Dealers, and Lube Stockists have improved the digital presence of Partners. As an industry leader in the Oil & Marketing Business, IndianOil has increased its digital presence nationwide to enhance quality and quantity (Q&Q) assurance for customers. The corporation’s business strategy aligns with technology and innovation, driving its digital transformation to serve and sustain the trust of over a billion customers across the country.

The IndianOil One app for Customers and the customer portal allow customers to onboard with Indian Oil by providing minimal information and subsequently leading to a comprehensive 360-degree view of customer profiles through various interactions. This holistic understanding of customers’ interactions, preferences, and history allows Indian Oil to make informed decisions about customer requirements and prevailing practices.

The 360-degree view of customers has benefited IndianOil in several ways:

• Data Collection: Gathering a wide range of data, from basic contact information to detailed insights like purchasing habits and feedback on products and services.
• Touchpoints: Engaging with customers through various platforms like mobile apps, the customer portal, and campaigns, which improve customer services and provide direct feedback mechanisms.
• Integration: Consolidating data from various touchpoints into SDMS and performing data analytics, which arepresented as OBIEE (BI) reports.

This comprehensive approach has helped Indian Oil enhance customer services, improve direct feedback mechanisms, and make data-driven decisions to better serve its customers.

What was the vision behind the iDrive initiative and how would you measure its success?

I would borrow the words of the honourable Chairman to give a context to the project – he believes, ‘If we don’t go digital, we don’t stay relevant in business’, this was his brainchild that culminated into Project i-Drive. We had realised the importance of transitioning from digitization to digitalisation and we wanted to converge the gap between new emerging technologies and the industry through a dedicated program. 

We started with a small team with humble beginnings of pilot projects which have now been extended into 200+ successful initiatives across the supply chain.

HOW I WOULD MEASURE ITS SUCCESS:

1. TANGIBLE BENEFITS – 

We have a standardized protocol of program management pertaining to any iDrive initiative. We involve all stakeholders – user team, finance and iDrive team to understand the benefit in terms of revenue or ROI in Vario initiatives, for example – FCCU Yield Optimisation where we can calculate the enhanced yield due to the digital intervention translating to higher profits.

2. INTANGIBLE SUCCESS –

The success of various initiatives might not be objectively quantified but can be perceived by their profound impact. For example, using Smart Helmets for safety in Refineries, and using ML models to restrict pilferages bring profound impact as you cannot put a price on safety.

3. SKILLED WORKFORCE – 

We have created various COEs, in the domains of RPA, and AI/GenAI and nurtured talents across the hierarchies who are well-versed with the emerging technologies of the industry. iDrive has made the ‘democratization of technology’ possible – an example being the successful GenAI hackathon accepting 400+ ideas, mostly coming from non-tech professionals.

4. CHANGE MANAGEMENT –

iDrive has brought that change in the digital culture of the organisation where functional teams are stakeholders in the digital ecosystem.

Vishleshan has been an important example of cloud deployment at IOCL. What would be the status update on this adoption?

Vishleshan – Wet Stock Analytics was envisaged with an objective to generate insights for the field based on the data captured through Automation after processing the data and performing analytics as per business requirements. Vishleshan Project went live on 01.06.2020

Vishleshan Analytics System is helping out Retail Functions at all levels from field to Head Office in multiple areas as per below –

▪ Analytics Command Centre

i. Generate Exceptions through RO Monitoring

ii. Validation of system-generated leads

iii. Development of insights and alerts required by the Retail Team

iv. Provision of various communications- Email/ SMS/ Call 

▪ Insights and dashboards to assist the field on Market Share Analysis, Trading Area Analysis, Nozzle Sales Trend, Branded Fuels Performance, Pending Indents, Out of Stock, About to go dry, Sales Hour Exceptions, Ticket Size Analysis, Hourly Tyre fall Analysis etc.

▪ Monitoring the health of Automation system with respect to data transfer, data quality and logging complaints to Automation/ DU vendors 

▪ Monitoring the Assets available at Retail Outlet, Nil Selling Nozzles, Nozzle Utilization for optimizing the asset utilization 

▪ Leads Management & Storyboard & Profiling 

▪ Email and SMS alerts sent to all concerned on key parameters like Dry outs, About to go dry, Inventory, Nozzle Sales, Branded Fuel Performance, Customers Lost etc.

Going forward, we are revamping the platform in the next contract as the present system is giving some performance issues. It will continue on AWS Cloud only. The main change would be the decoupling of Cloud services and Software.

What are the key digital initiatives planned at IOC over the next 24 months?

1. Leveraging GenAI: GenAI has huge potential with diverse applications across various media – text, numbers, audio, images and video. We shall leverage the ever-evolving models to integrate various GenAI models instead of making them work in silos.

2. Video Analytics: Apart from pilot projects, we have various enterprise-level, highly scaled video Analytics initiatives across the supply chain to improve operational excellence, safety and security.

3. LPG Track and Trace: The flagship initiative shall be rolled out at the Pan India level.

4. Roll out of ongoing initiatives:  Cascading Dashboard, Crude Scheduler etc.

5. Building Enterprise-level Solutions: Scale the already existing solutions like FCCU Optimisation, and Alarm Management System and make them full-fledged products which can cater to the industrial needs of IOC and peers.

6. Cloud Computing: We have a structured plan for smooth transitioning from On-premise to cloud while ensuring data privacy and data localisation policies are in check.

Rajneesh De, APAC News Network