Manish Grover is the executive director (strategic IS & IS), refinery HQ, at Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL). Currently, he heads the company’s digital transformation project, iDRIVE (Indianoil’s Digital Readiness and IT Vision Enablement), which is aimed at giving focused impetus to digital initiatives that will not only future-proof IOCL in terms of technology but also bring implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies in the IOCL business. He has worked very closely with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and was instrumental in implementing the Indian government’s flagship initiatives such as direct benefit transfer of subsidy in LPG (DBTL-PAHAL) and Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana) for providing access to LPG to 100 million households. The PAHAL scheme was also awarded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “world’s largest cash benefit transfer programme”.
Under his leadership, IOCL has won prestigious awards such as FIPI Digitally Advanced Company, Governance Now Digital PSU for multiple successive years, as well as Asian Oil and Gas Awards for Leadership in Digital Transformation and Data Initiative for 2022.
Leading the digital transformation of one of the Fortune 500 companies in India, the most prominent challenge for him has been change management. Navigating through employee resistance and orienting them to adopt new technologies and processes has been the most complex and rewarding endeavour for him. Another major challenge was integrating complex new technologies with legacy systems, ensuring smooth data flow and creating an intuitive user experience.
Grover’s most memorable project driven by his team has been the integrated planning tool. It is one of the largest supply chain and production optimisation projects globally, the complexity and volume of which is unprecedented. The change management efforts, vendor coordination and technology identification for this was the most challenging and satisfying job for him. He has identified certain trends that will strengthen the infrastructure sector of the country, including focus on smart infrastructure, integration of sensors, data analytics; automation to optimise resource usage, improvement of traffic flow; etc.
Grover is an alumnus of the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad and Hindu College, Delhi University. He also has a degree in master of business administration. He has twin children and follows a very active and healthy lifestyle, devoting time to physical activity.