Monday, March 18, 2013

“We Drive Cost Control, The rest is Market Trends”

HZL COO Akhilesh Joshi in an Exclusive Interaction with Virat Bahri of B&E
 
Hindustan Zinc was taken over by Vedanta way back in 2002. Since then, Vedanta has successively ramped up on both production quantity and quality. COO Akhilesh Joshi has been with the company for 34 years and experienced the evolution of the company before and after the Vedanta acquisition. In this exclusive interaction, Joshi talks about how he sees demand shaping up for zin, lead and silver globally and how HZL is looking to leverage it, particularly with a greater thrust on exploration

B&E: Since the acquisition of HZL by Vedanta, what have been the overall guiding philosophy and strategic thrust for the company? What changes were made in the operating structure and/or management?
AJ: I am from the public sector only and I have been with Hindustan Zinc for the past 34 years. It was the vision of our Chairman (Anil Aggarwal) post acquisition, that we should use our assets well and grow our production capacity to provide value to the investors and the stakeholders. Besides increase in volume, better efficiencies have also contributed to this growth. Major changes made post acquisition were faster decision making, and changes in the delegation of power. Empowering employees and speeding up processes were the major drivers. There were no management changes, only changes were the workers we employed.

B&E: The acquisition of Anglo Zinc makes you the world’s largest integrated zinc-lead producer. What is the vision for you from here on?
AJ: The target for us now is that we are now going for more and more greenfield exploration. After the Rampura Agucha find, there has been no new find. If any opportunity comes, then we will look into other areas as well.

B&E: Silver is one area where you are looking for significant expansion in capacity to around 500 tonnes by 2013. Are you looking to make it a separate profit centre? Also, what are you planning in the case of exploring the potential for lead, since India faces a huge supply crunch and you are the only prominent domestic producer?
AJ: As far as that (making silver a separate profit centre) is concerned, we wish to do that, but only as and when the appropriate time comes. In the case of lead, we are indeed ramping up production. We are commissioning another smelter of 100000 tonne per annum at Rajpura Dariba, so our capacity will increase to around 1,80000 tonne.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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