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L.N. Revathy

This player in the poultry sector is relying on technology to grow healthy birds and business.

About 15 years ago, when Soundararajan promoted Suguna Poultry Farms in his small village near Udumalpet, it did not catch media attention.

Today, it enjoys much greater visibility.

Farmers like to grow with Suguna, customers choose to buy the company's products and above all, industry veteran Azim Premji surprised the Suguna family by calling on Soundararajan during his recent visit to Coimbatore.

Suguna has carved a niche for itself in the poultry industry. What is the secret behind its success?

"Judicious implementation of IT. One would wonder about the role of IT in a poultry farm, but for any business to thrive, one can't think of growing without IT" says Karunanidhi, DGM (IT).

The company, incidentally, is the first in the Asian poultry industry to have implemented ERP in its system of operations. Observing the growth of Suguna, foreign collaborators have been vying to reach Soundararajan for their Indian venture, according to the company.

Soundararajan's concern for product quality and standard operating procedures at every stage of production drove him to imbibe technology.

Can technology solve problems?

"Definitely, as you will see," says Karunanidhi, explaining that people need information and that within the shortest possible time, especially when the organisation spreads, grows in size.

Suguna has established its presence across eight States, has 12,000 farmers within its fold. The production is roughly 50 lakh chicks a week.

The company produces the chicks and gives them to the farmers, only to buy them back after 45 days. "The growth phase is monitored by our field staff and details fed into the system every day. Say, a customer walks in with a request for 5000 kg of birds of a particular age and body weight, we can identify the farm that can cater to the customer's requirement at the click of a button. Earlier, people used to go from farm to farm in search of the customer's specification. Now the system is able to generate such minute details. The effort is aimed at improving customer satisfaction," he says.

Karunanidhi recalls how at the time of bird flu Suguna was able to get the data online on the health of birds, mortality analysis, bird weight, etc, at the various farms. "Bird flu or otherwise, we need production details," avers Karunanidhi.

The grower also enjoys incentives for keeping production cost under check and since all records are digitised, the system ensures transparency. The grower is able to get his accounts settled without delay.

Till about a year ago, Suguna used its own in-house software. In July 2006, it went live on Oracle platform.

"The ERP implementation is complete in the Southern States, particularly Tamil Nadu.

We are in the process of extending it across our offices in Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Orissa. It is useful particularly in production monitoring," says Karunanidhi.

Quality checks in feed

In the procurement space too, the company has ensured strict quality checks.

"Feed cost is 75 per cent of the production cost.

To enhance efficiency from procurement (be it agricultural or industrial goods) to payment, we have automated the processes and they are centralised. We have nine regional offices. The branch can only place an indent/request.

Thereafter the system takes care, by planning and giving the feed requirement. The indent is generated by the system and the feed despatched from the feed mill. From the bird stock in the farm, the feed requirement is calculated."

Isn't the quality of the feed important? Of course. Oracle Quality module prevents manual intervention.

All materials received are inspected and analysed in the lab. Only if passed will the material be available for consumption, says Karunanidhi.

Suguna, meanwhile, has set for itself a vision of Rs 3,000 crore by 2010 and Soundararajan is bent on achieving this.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

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