The turnaround of a sick industrial unit does not happen without ruffling of a few feathers. However, a business school has undertaken such an exercise for a sick unit that employs 600 personnel.

The Calcutta Business School (CBS), after three 4-day sessions with the management staff and workers including leaders of seven trade unions, has taken up the assignment for the turnaround of Westinghouse Saxby Farmer, a State Government enterprise.

Last week, the SK Birla and BM Khaitan-supported B-school signed an agreement to bring it back to life without job cuts. Gautam Sengupta, Director of CBS, told reporters here on Wednesday that apart from drawing a turnaround strategy, the B-school would also handhold the management in implementing the plans.

“We are looking at an 18-month timeframe to see the positive result of the exercise,” said Sengupta.

Management consultancy

Challenging as it may sound, this would mark the beginning of the B-school’s management consultancy services in association with IIT, Kharagpur, Birla, Chairman of CBS, said.

Participation and intense involvement of management and workers in the CBS re-orientation programmes gave it the confidence. “Crucial mindset transformation for a turnaround came about at the end of the exercise, where tasks, roles and targets have been reframed by the unit’s white and blue-collared employees,” Sengupta added.

Westinghouse Saxby Farmer, originally a 20{+t}{+h} century British private company manufacturing railway components, now has two manufacturing units in city.

“It does not suffer from technological obsolescence. However, the bureaucrat-managed company almost went out of business in the face of tough competition,” said an industry expert.

Sources said the company’s average age of employee is 50-plus and the monthly wage/salary bill was over ₹1 crore.

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