‘An Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) platform, the BPCL’s digital nerve centre, is seamlessly navigating the company through the process of business transformation with a constant focus to add value to the stakeholders’ experience. By embedding intelligence in BPCL’s operations, IRIS is helping BPCL optimize its operational performance and efficiency, enhance security and safety and deliver the brand promise using the latest technology. Currently, IRIS is integrated with 17600+ Retail Outlets, 89 retail terminals, 53 LPG plants, and 25000+ Tankers’.-Hardeep Singh Puri (Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas.) to newsip.in
Bharat Petroleum, the state-run second-largest oil marketing company, has embarked on a massive digitalization initiative to bolster customers’ satisfaction, experience and trust. The initiative has also paved the way for fast-tracking technology innovations. In order to become the first mover, the Navratna oil company has imbibed a ‘Phygital’ model for its future growth strategy, which is a perfect blend of physical and digital approaches in all its business value chain. The model has been adopted not only to give its 8.5 crore customers a brand new experience, it has also helped optimise cost and significantly increase efficiencies. The foray into the phygital model was made in 2020 with the launch of Project Anubhav to enhance customers’ experience.
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Project Anubhav is a bold step by BPCL where we have created exceptional & consistent customer experience based on the three foundational pillars – Convenience, Personalization and Trust, says” Sukhmal Kumar Jain (Director Marketing)
The Director has further explained that Initiatives under Project Anubhav include a Customer Engagement Platform, Digital Nerve Center, Digital Marketing Platform, and Integrated Supply Chain Management solutions. To build and deliver the initiatives of Project Anubhav, BPCL has procured best-in-class solutions which are being deployed through the agile development model.
BPCL, which has a turnover of over Rs 4.35 lakh crore with nearly 25 per cent market share in the world’s third largest oil market, is present in the entire oil&gas value chain-from cooking gas to aviation fuel. Its six business divisions spanning commercial and retail, individual and organisational, as well as B2B and B2C customers underscored the need for a massive integration drive which spawned the Project-Anubhav.
In the last three years, BPCL has implemented powerful cloud-based RO (Retail Outlet) automation solutions at over 18,000 pumps with unique wireless FCC (Forecourt Controller) and APOS (Android Point of Sale machine) duly integrated with the loyalty solution and all types of digital payments.
An Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) platform, BPCL’s digital nerve centre, is seamlessly navigating the company through the process of business transformation with a constant focus to add value to the stakeholders’ experience.
IRIS has already integrated over 18000 Retail Outlets, 75 terminals, 54 LPG plants and 25000 Tankers. This is one of the largest digital integrations in the Indian oil industry, particularly in the Refining and marketing sectors.
“ We are investing in minds to accelerate our journey to the future energy spectrum. IRIS and Anubhav are the fruits of the ideation,” says a senior BPCL official. The company has chalked out a capex of a whopping Rs 1.4 lakh crore for the next five years to have a perfect mix of energy portfolios and modern delivery systems.
In order to further strengthen its digital plan, the company entered in a collaboration with the technology giant Microsoft in April 2022. This has given a strong fillip to the company’s digital first icon-Project Anubhav. BPCL’s front-end AI chatbot, Urja, which is run by Sales Buddy (internal name for Salesforce) has brought in a phenomenal change in the company’s digital interaction with physical clients. All leads from Urja, which applies cloud-based PIN Code model for last mile connectivity, flow directly to the Sales buddy, the digital customer relationship manager, and accordingly, all jobs are accomplished with a tremendous alacrity and pace to cater to the need of the customers.
Today Urja, which has been rolled out in 13 languages has over five million user-base. It has also generated around Rs 30 crore business within a short span of time. “Urja is our goodwill hunter,” an official quips.
As the digital push gets increasing focus, BPCL is hoping to retain its numero uno brand position in the country’s oil and gas sector.
Directors Statement
Today we live in a highly connected digital world where our customers are used to world-class digital platforms to connect, transact or entertain themselves. In line with the current times & to make BPCL’s customer interfacing units technology relevant with a comprehensive & integrated approach to digital technologies, “Project Anubhav” has been initiated.
IRIS – Digital Nerve Centre
The first initiative launched under Project Anubhav is IRIS, the Digital Nerve Centre. IRIS is capable of accepting more than 3 million inputs per second from Local Automated systems, cameras, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed at key locations like Retail Outlets, Fuel Terminals, LPG Plants, Consumer Pumps, and Railway Installations along with the associated Tank Trucks for product delivery.
By embedding intelligence in BPCL’s operations, IRIS is helping BPCL optimize its operational performance and efficiency, enhance security and safety and deliver the brand promise using the latest technology. Currently, IRIS is integrated with 17600+ Retail Outlets, 89 retail terminals, 53 LPG plants, and 25000+ Tankers.
Integrated Messaging & Conversational Platform
Under “Project Anubhav”, one of the key initiatives is to set up BPCL’s Integrated Messaging Platform, aimed at unifying all customer interactions into a consistent omnichannel conversation with customers across BUs. Accordingly, BPCL launched its first conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot, “Urja”, for customers. Urja is an intelligent virtual assistant with AI/NLP (Natural Language Processing) capabilities and trained in more than 900 use cases. She can chat with customers in 13 languages and is available on WhatsApp and BPCL Website.
Urja today speaks in 13 languages (English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, and Assamese). Over 45% of the conversations with Urja are in the non-English languages ensuring inclusiveness for all types of customers of BPCL.
Unified Mobile App / Portal – HelloBPCL
The Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) aims that all customer-facing activities of all marketing BUs and entities are enabled through a unified platform in a manner that BPCL gets a single view of the customer across the organization. The first offering from the CEP is the unified mobile application for our customers – christened “HelloBPCL”. HelloBPCL is our one stop solution for sales and service activities for all BPCL customers. Now customers can order LPG refills with one click, place B2B indents, recharge fuel loyalty, make payments and earn loyalty & rewards. It is available as a mobile application on iOS & android mobile devices for B2C customers and as a website for B2B customers.
Advanced Loyalty Program
In our endeavour to consistently enhance the experience of our fleet, corporate & B2C customers, the company launched the Advanced Loyalty Program (ALP) as a part of the HelloBPCL ecosystem.
Built with best in industry features, ALP enables the entire fleet value chain, right from the driver in the fuelling bay to the group fleet manager’s dashboard to the back-end ERP solution of the corporate customer with personalized reports, simplified fleet management & control.
I&C B2B Portal
A one-stop business portal for our industrial and commercial customers with total visibility of their Orders, Indents, Account Statements along with improved response and reduced need for manual intervention. The all new B2B Portal on HelloBPCL platform empowers our customers and their associated transporters digitally – right from purchase order to product delivery.
Customer Relationship Management Solution – SalesBuddy
A customer relationship management platform powered by Salesforce – christened SalesBuddy has been deployed for internal employees. This platform aims to build high levels of customer centricity by enabling BPCL field force to effectively build and improve customer relationships, manage the expanding base of customers and nurture prospects/leads effectively through a structured/guided process
4000+ Business Opportunities won from over 10,000+ Leads generated in Sales Buddy
Corporate Digital Centre
A state-of-the-art Corporate Digital Center has been set up at the head office to comprehensively build a common data warehouse across the organization, essentially to /enable integrated and more effective decision making by top management.
UFill
Retail SBU and Anubhav team jointly released an innovative digital solution christened “UFill” for the fuel customers, using the design thinking principles to improve Retail Outlet performance through enhanced customer experience at ROs. Currently active in almost 17,000 retail outlets across India, UFill is a pre-paid UPI-based voucher solution, which can be utilized by our customers to pre-pay for Fuel. UFill is also integrated with BPCL fuel automation system which increases transaction transparency during fuelling transaction.
1.2 Cr Unique customers experienced the convenience of fuelling through UFILL at over 10,000+ ROs
Integrated Supply Chain – Lubes QR Code Solution
BPCL’s MAK lubricants is a leading name in the Indian Lubricants industry with a sizeable market presence. The lubricant industry in India is very dynamic where around 40 players including MNCs are active. BPCL is building an innovative QR Code solution for the highly competitive lubricants business. Through this solution, BPCL can have an end to end product traceability across the supply chain, provide genuineness check to customers, provide loyalty schemes to mechanics & retailers, as well provide instant coupon redemption & cashback for all coupons inserted in MAK Lubricants packs.
Over 49.8 Lakh coupons worth Rs 17 Crs scanned and instantly credited to customer in FY23.
