Established in 1943, Karam Chand Thapar (Coal Sales) Ltd. (KCT) is the largest coal logistics, sales, and services provider in India. A subsidiary of Thapar Group, KCT moves more than 70 million metric tons of coal annually. Customers include state electricity boards, steel plants, paper mills, and sugar mills. The company recently added coal importing––from Southeast Asia, South Africa, and Australia––to its portfolio of business activities.

With coal sales and logistics operations spread across 40 locations and the majority of India’s 28 states, KCT needed a flexible enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to replace its time-consuming manual business processes. In 2011, the company implemented Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 for its manufacturing unit, Indicon Enterprises Ltd., and automated business processes across the division.

In July 2012, KCT rolled out the second stage of its ERP system and implemented Oracle Financials, Oracle Inventory, Oracle Order Management, and Oracle Purchasing for its imported coal division to improve data visibility and achieve an enterprise view of coal sales and logistics business operations. The company reduced sales quote preparation time by 40%, cut inventory costs by 25%, and increased customer and user satisfaction.