1 | Page

Most important measures that define organization performance: - A Case Story: Interview with CEO of GKB ophthalmic ltd, India

Overview
GKBs a story of young persons who dreamt of massive opportunities in free and democratic
India. Dreams which were not in tune with the overdose of socialism then being tried out in
the country, or the corruption rapidly growing among the lower rungs of the bureaucracy
even if not much prevalent amongst higher ups and politicians then.
The GKB case describes an overall performance management and organizations performance
effort in high tech manufacturing company involving the CEO. GKB a mid-sized (250 plus
employee ) medium manufacturing company offering ophthalmic products , had grown
rapidly since its establishment in 1960 and by 1982 was one of several firm in the
competitive market. Company performance had slowed in recent year and company had law
market share along with status as the top player.
Krishna Gopal Gupta, was a simple man but a man of many talents. In his 50-year career, he
had been the CEO of GKB ophthalmic ltd, Goa. Mr. Gupta faced the task of reviving and
created a strategy to write GKBs growth story (Mansion of Glass: GKB story). Soon after
the marriage of their two elder brothers in November 1959 and he got busy in planning and
launching GKB. At 19 when he was just out of college, He had spent 50 years of his life
seeing the Indian lens industry grow. Starting small, it had spread its wings to other parts of
the world. It has been an eventful and colourful journey of struggle, opportunities, failures
and successes. This was an attempt to capture that journey, as perceived by Mr. Gupta., GKB
was initiated and run by four brothers who came from middleclass, service-oriented family.
They joined hands and worked together and tried to ultimately grow into successful and
respected businessmen.
Major challenges of GKB
It was started in a very modest way when Mr. Gupta was very young just passed out from his
graduation from Banaras Hindu university , Banaras ( India ) in 1959 and so they started this
business just by chance in very small city and very small capital given by their Father and
two of them. Since it was in 1960, when things were not very congenial or convenient for
business to have a licenced permit for everything they had to go to the government and
foreign exchange was rare for having a licence of import and export.
Corruption had begun to reach to the lower level it was rampant and they stood quiet which
was new to that type of business as they did not come from a business family. The people
who come from business family come prepared to handle work and set the goal and vision of
the business. This was a challenge for them. They came from a service class family as their
father was working in Government service. Their father was a person who believed in what is
right and what is wrong and he would always speak about it. This understanding and belief
about ethics become the founding stone in building GKB. After this type of situation they
have gradually grown to be a successful business enterprise because of strong hard work.

2 | Page

And when they entered international market through export in 1975 at that time they found it
very inconvenient to sale the product in the Indian market because they were trying to
produce a high quality product and people were not prepared for the price. So export was a
god given opportunity for them.
The Middle East particularly was at its boom because of the sudden oil price hike and those
countries had become rich overnight. They were trying to conquer the market as it was very
much open and the opportunity was in the Europe, America and UAE. Though the reputation
in India was not very good but somehow they fought and struggled with all the up and down
situations.
It was their struggle which gave them the dividend of their hard work. At that time exporters
were considered to be privileged class in India. The government also was very much
conscious that they should bring in more foreign exchange so they got the support from
government and the First time, they realized they were liked by the government otherwise
business-men are all dishonest and selfish, they dont bother about others it was that type of
attitude. But when their export started earning foreign exchange for the country they become
sort of Blue-eye Boy. After that they could say yes they were the ones who were earning in
international market. So this was good opportunity for them and they expanded into export.
The First site started in Agra (Uttar Pradesh, India), but when they went into export in bigger
scale they decided that they should expand in Goa (India) and after that they put up an export
oriented unit in Goa (India) and now they also have two more units in Goa. So their focus has
been in export and in providing good quality product because they have certain number of
client overseas.
They have established their brand to all the countries like not just Middle East but Europe,
USA and also in Africa and so on. They have selected customers and they have their own
office in UAE and one in USA also.
Possible challenges GKB foresee for the industry in the next five year:The biggest challenge faced by the company was B2B communication and for that they were
fully equipped as far as the infrastructure was concerned. One of the problems faced by the
company was with regards to the power supply continuity and this problem was tackled
through the purchase of sophisticated electronic machines which controls the fluctuations so
that no harm comes to the production.
Than the second challenges was Infrastructure like ports, roads and sea-ports. Clearing the
sea in Europe was easily estimable and even of Dubai where they had office. Once a
consignment has left from India they could plan that within 72 Hours, the consignment will
reach the destination and it was never late more than 72 Hours.
The one challenge which was foreseen and which was cautiously there was of labour-law.
The labour law in country had not changed where as in the country like china which was a
communist country and 100 % pure labour was available. Not that they were not against
labour but they had made the law which were realistic and restrict in favour of labour as well
as industries.

3 | Page

Japan was having the labour law for long time but in china it had grown in last 25-30 years
and it was a communist country. Where the labour union set was very strong and in those
countries also they had changed the laws but in country like India the laws had not changed.
They will be able to do some rational changes. And whatever government want to change
with lots of apposition, so the labour laws were very very old and needed to be changed.
Example a labour reward for the productivity was not doing good work was reducing
productivity. They cannot be about anything where very rational policies have where they
should be doing some other work.
Most important measures that define organization performance
Organization performances, which apply good leadership was very important for the
organization. A good team-work, Delegation of the power, they have to trust people. The ones
who dont trust cannot grow though there always be exception exist but exception to the rule
that they have trust on people.
People, who can delegate their responsibility and be transparent in operations, They were
secretive not transparent, taking decision in an autocratic manner. By autocratic manner
organization cannot grow. It had fix limitations.
Overall performance in last five years
CEO rated as far as the monetary growth was concerned to be 7 out of 10. But one thing
which they felt very strong was the working environment. They felt the independence of
thought and the ideas and people trust on their ideas and implement it for run the system
which was suitable or not.
And that was a biggest achievement of GKB that people were hundred percent sure about
their work (productivity).
The GKB were using one of the practice namely Mastermind Idea in which people
(employee) contribute their idea for growth of GKB. Mastermind was a great practice
running in the GKB. It was started form 2000. The objective was to get decision and
generate idea form all the employees of GKB, right from top to grass route level. The
objective was to implement these ideas in the production process and after that give the
recognition to the person who had given that idea which was beneficial for GKB in term of
certification and as well as monetary benefits.
Mr. Cedric Lobo, Senior Manager (Personnel and Administration), addressed about the
Mastermind practice. Mastermind committee comprises of engineer and office staffs,
production supervisor, group of ten people. And the evaluation was when the idea was
generated in prescribed format which they discussed in weekly management review meeting
(MRM).
And the good evaluator and selected by the engineers because they were the people who were
connected with the ideas and their management process. Sometimes it use to takes long time
and sometimes it took short time depending on types of ideas. So similarly GKB was getting
ideas every week and order to promote and give a boost to employee to get ideas. They gave
them incentives like hundred rupees for every idea that they generated.

4 | Page

Measures of organization performance does GKB monitor on a regular basis

GKB had daily meetings and some meeting were weekly than they had other management
meetings namely management review meeting. And they had the performance based
upgraded monitor which helped them to update their system.
And everything in each department like purchase, sale, production, store, quality, market and
Human resource department done on the regular basis. For them there was nothing which
include unimportant. So everything was nothing like a priority there the organization
everything they monitor and periodically they implemented.
Link people performance to organization performance
Employees performance was always measured and based on that their increment, promotions
their rewards were set. Without employees, the organization cannot grow and it was possible
that employees were not performing and organization will not perform.
And they were using some method to measure the performance of people like performance
appraisal form, 360 degree appraisal etc.
Major opportunity for GKB in the next five year
Since, they were in the business of Eye-Care in health care worldwide and also in the
countries were there was huge scope for their business. Their were so many people who
needed glasses and were not using them and they were able to afford them. There were so
many poor people who couldnt afford than the cat rack which completely made the person
blind after a certain age and the operation required to be done.
They were in the business which was related to health for the people as long as the standard
of living of the people rises there was huge scope for their business.