An Aditya Birla Group Commitment 19 We have developed, peer reviewed and third party assured (to a group of international standards) the Aditya Birla Group Sustainable Business Framework of 17 new policies and 40 technical and 17 management standards. Furthermore, 70 Guidance Notes and over 700 e-learning courses have been made available across the Group. The leaders of all our businesses are working to develop and improve their management systems to meet the Group framework and by doing so, we expect our performance at all levels to improve towards international best practice. We have a series of training courses to support their practical implementation across the Group. By empowering our employees and giving them the chance to train, learn, understand and apply improvement techniques, we aim for everyone to be involved in our efforts to reach higher standards of performance. Our Group policies are available on our corporate website at: www.sustainability.adityabirla.com/ policies. Information Technology Data allows us to run programmes effectively and we firmly believe in the old adage that what gets measured gets managed. We understand however, that collecting data for data’s sake serves no purpose. We have made a significant investment in the implementation of a world-class IT system that provides cost effective measurement and supports the Group assurance processes through efficient data capture. Given the breadth of sectors and geographies within the Group, we have harnessed the power of information technology to help assess our systems and processes and to embed our Framework across our businesses. This has been a major innovation as not only have we had to consider the operational differences within the Group, but also encourage a mind-set shift in the institutional approaches to data capture and management. A key challenge has been to make the Sustainable Business Framework meaningful for all our operations – from small retail stores to large manufacturing sites. Collaborating with colleagues at each stage of the IT build process has been vital to making sure that this will drive a systematic shift in our performance. The repository of information will be used to drive future decision-making. Embedding processes across the Group Workshops and training sessions have been used to engage colleagues at all levels using the new IT system. Train-the-trainer programmes embed the system ensuring that it is integrated into our processes. Trainers are given two months to train colleagues and once evidence is provided to that effect, licenses are issued. This means that we are able to track the number of people being trained whilst monitoring its integration into our operations. Currently we have over 7,000 licenced users. The results so far have been very promising. In the 18 months since inception, we have rolled out the Information Management System across 174 manufacturing sites, 22 telecom circles and 35 retail clusters. Modules in Legal & Regulatory Compliance Management, Performance Management; Incident Management; Assurance (to our Framework); and Action Planning have been delivered as well as specific modules on health and chemical management. In addition, we are finding that the new IT management system is also allowing businesses to engage with their suppliers and vendors in more meaningful ways and the accuracy of information has improved considerably. Improving the sustainability of our supply chain is a crucial target for our future and we are in the process of piloting supply chain mapping in six of our businesses. // POLICIES & STANDARDS 02 Creating A Sustainable Business Creating A Sustainable Business