The inspiring story of mjunction's entrepreneurial growth!

Intrapreneurs@mjunction, a first-of-its kind book in India on intrapreneurship, documents the meteoric rise of mjunction services ltd, an E-commerce company whose visionary leader empowered his team to think and work like entrepreneurs. What followed is a growth story that is both unique and awe-inspiring. From humble beginnings-the company began as a 50:50 venture promoted by Tata Steel and SAIL-mjunction rose to become world's biggest e-marketplace for steel.
The story of mjunction chronicles how the challenges of growing in a nascent business domain were overcome through specific innovations, how new opportunities were created, mostly with limited resources, how the business environment was shaped by helping clients to identify potential efficiencies by changing their mindsets, how the crippling monopolies in the trading of steel and coal were broken and how change-resistant public sector companies were persuaded to adopt new digital practices and processes in their selling and buying. And most vitally, how mjunction was run on solid business principles, where elements of social and economic sustainability were combined in their service offerings.
Coming at a time when India urgently needs business leaders who can unleash the power of intrapreneurship to grow their organizations as well as the nation’s economy, this book is an essential read for organizations, strategy planners and CEOs.

CEO & MD,
mjunction Services Limited

“Ïntrapreneurs@mjunction for me is a labour of love and a matter of pride. It has been a privilege to have been associated with mjunction from day one as I believe it marked a watershed in the e-commerce history of India. It was an innovation from the word go, with two competitors coming together to take advantage of the Internet. Subsequently, mjunction took rapid strides and has a lot of firsts to his credit. The book has captured beautifully how one innovation led to another, all the time with technology at its backbone.
The journey has not always been smooth. To the contrary it has been fraught with severe challenges at times, the first of them being the dotcom bust as soon as we were born. We braved it, however, and came out stronger and even more determined to make a success of the little life. Today we are only about 14 and yet we feel we have come a long way.
mjunction for me is nothing short of a dream and I believe we have had a dream run this far. On my behalf I dedicate it to everyone who has ever been a junctionite. At some point when so many milestones were happening, we all felt this is a story which had to be told. Dr Rajeev Kumar on his part left no stone unturned in capturing the essence of what mjunction stood for and how supply chains were cleaned up through competitive bidding.”

mjunction services limited, founded in February 2001, is a joint venture between steel behemoths Tata Steel and SAIL, and offers a wide range of e-selling, e-procurement, e-finance, e-retail, channel management and knowledge services across diverse industry verticals that empower businesses with greater process efficiencies.
mjunction’s core competence lies in its ability to redesign and improve and re-engineer business processes of a supply chain or an industry to unlock and create value in a sustainable and scalable manner. A business process management (BPM) company offering customised BPM solutions, mjunction has e-transacted worth over Rs 200,000 crore since inception till date, and runs the world's largest e-marketplace for steel. Business volume of the company in terms of transactions has soared from Rs 94.35 crore in FY02 to Rs 43,108 crore in FY14, making it India’s largest BPM organisation. mjunction has service offerings spanning the entire e-commerce spectrum and operates through metaljunction.com, buyjunction.in, coaljunction.in, autojunction.in, valuejunction.in, financejunction.in, straightline.in and mjunctionedge.
mjunction’s biggest contribution to society has been the disintermediation of steel and coal supply chains. Coal is a crucial national resource, and steel is an important indicator of India’s economy. As mjunction transformed the steel and coal supply chains, it tackled a huge issue of transparency. For the seller, the influence of cartelised buying was minimised with e-auctions, the online bidding process, where even the smallest of buyers can bid. For the buyer, even the smallest of suppliers found their way to the vendor database. It was a win-win situation for both. Whereas the large organisation got a wider and thus fairer supplier base, even the smallest of suppliers could sell their products online from remote locations. e-commerce did away with cartels and also removed unwanted intermediaries. It was fair play and justice for all, as all transactions became transparent. Transparency led to efficiency and unlocking of value, which was lost to middlemen till then.
mjunction also provides customised sourcing and procurement solutions, which not only save cost for the client but also reduce procurement cycle time.
mjunction is a ISO 9001:2008, ISO 27001:2005 and a CMMI Level 5 certified company.

Author

Dr. Rajeev Kumar, ABC* is a specialist in organizational communication management. A PhD in Organizational Communication from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, he was a Fulbright Doctoral Research Fellow at Texas A&M University, USA. Until 2006, he served the Indian Army as a Colonel. Thereafter, he has worked as Senior Practice Consultant at Tata Management Training Centre; Professor in Organizational Behaviour at Goa Institute of Management; and Head of Learning and Development at Larsen and Toubro. Currently, he is General Manager, Learning and Development, at Tata Group Corporate Communication and is also the Vice Chair of the inaugural Global Communication Certification Council set up by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC).
*ABC stands for Internationally Accredited Business Communicator.