Technological Upgradation as a Path to Sustained Success : A Case Study

In this paper, the importance of technological upgradation has been considered to be of paramount importance for sustained success of any organization. A hundred year old integrated iron and steel plant in the private sector of India was selected for the study. Technological upgradation has been measured by the amount of gross block in plant and infrastructures. The impact of technological upgradation has been assessed through the use of four performance parameters, namely, revenue rate, profit rate, revenue per unit of technological intensity, and profit per unit of technological intensity. The exponential function of these four parameters is used to measure the rate of organizational learning towards sustained success. Using published data, the study has been conducted over five decades starting from 1960 to 2009. Out of twenty scenarios generated (four parameters for each of the five decades), fifteen scenarios showed very significant average learning rate, the highest rate being 40% for profit per unit of technological intensity. The learning rate in the last decade, i.e., 2000 to 2009 has surpassed the figures for all of the earlier four decades with respect to each of the four learning parameters, reflecting the level of sustained success from technological upgradation.