Reliance Group's revenue is equivalent to 3.5% of India's GDP. The Group contributes nearly 10% of the country's indirect tax revenues and over 6% of India's exports.
Reliance continues to go from strength to strength with Cardax as its integration platform.
From late 1999 to 2002 Reliance Infocomm built the backbone for a digital India - 60,000 kilometres of fibre optic backbone, crisscrossing the entire country.
The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest business house with total revenues of over US$ 22.6 billion, cash profit of US$ 2.8 billion, net profit of US$ 1.4 billion and exports of US$ 3.6 billion.
The Group's activities span exploration and production (E&P) of oil and gas, refining and marketing, petrochemicals (polyester, polymers, and intermediates), textiles, financial services and insurance, power, telecom and infocom initiatives. The Group exports its products to more than 100 countries the world over. Reliance emerged as India's Most Admired Business House, for the fourth successive year in a TNS Mode survey for 2004.
The Reliance Group Companies include: Reliance Industries Limited, Reliance Capital Limited, Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Limited, Reliance Telecom Limited, Reliance Infocomm Limited, Reliance General Insurance Company Limited, Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited, and Reliance Energy Limited.
From late 1999 to 2002 Reliance built the backbone for a digital India - 60,000 kilometres of fibre optic backbone, crisscrossing the entire country.
Reliance Infocomm (RIC) network is a pan India, high capacity, integrated (wireless and wireline) and convergent (voice, data and video) digital network, designed to offer services that span the entire Infocomm value chain - infrastructure, services for enterprises and individuals, applications and consulting.
Reliance Infocomm HQ, Petroleum HQ, National HQ and a number of other organisations are based at the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) which is like a university campus spread over 150 acres with 15 buildings in total.
The DAKC security automation project is one of the largest integrated security systems in the world. The statistics from this site are impressive. The DAKC has over 100,000 cardholders, 222 Cardax FT Controllers, 736 doors, 841 access zones, and 266 alarm zones.
- Total access events for 6 months to March 2005 were 36,365,796 with an average per day of 241,302.
- Total events for 6 months to March 2005 were 43,095,392 with an average per day of 321,601.
Amidst this huge volume of traffic, and in keeping with their guiding principles, Reliance succeeds in making site security unobtrusive and invisible. They achieve this through integrated access control, alarms management, and DVR systems all managed through one core system, Cardax FT, from Gallagher Security Management Systems.
with Reliance, states Reliance chose Cardax FT because it was manufactured and marketed by a leading company in the security market and, on a feature-to-feature basis the system was "by far superior to any other system at the time". Luthra adds, "We don't have any regrets with our choice".
Reliance, an early adopter of technology, implemented its Cardax system in 1999 with the F2K and Sewree sites. Initially the system was challenged to meet the load placed on it however, with the implemention of Cardax FT Version 4.10 performance improved dramatically.
In the face of significant physical distance and time difference between India and Gallagher Head Office in New Zealand, Rajan Luthra comments, "I was impressed with the overall dedication and commitment of the Cardax technical support team." Gallagher Security Management Systems was able to effectively provide assistance remotely through a very high level of interaction between Reliance staff and Cardax technical staff, and through assistance from a very hands-on business development manager.
Since its early days, Reliance has gone from strength to strength with Cardax as its integration platform. A key issue in Reliance's choice of Cardax was its ability to meet their current and future requirements. Seamless integration with CCTV and video cameras for event-linked video has been achieved. Video integration with alarms and events provides a comprehensive audit trail of events.
Cardax FT interfaces with a number of systems at Reliance. Cardholder data from the Cardax FT system is shared with other systems to streamline processes and maximise efficiencies in cardholder management. When an employee joins the company, their personal data is put into an ‘e-joining' HR module in SAP, Cardax Photo ID captures their image and their ID card is produced. Reliance's interface between Cardax FT and SAP saves precious time in the card issuing process. Cardholder data flows into the Cardax system from SAP on a daily basis.
Data from DVR cameras and Cardax readers is captured as people enter and exit each building through turnstiles. Reliance extracts this information collected in Cardax for time and attendance verification and utilises an output for Cardax FT into their payroll system for accurate payroll management.
Reliance Infocomm has been using Mifare smart cards throughout the site for 5 years now. They have a low failure rate. Their smart cards have 16 sectors storing multiple applications' data. They are used in their cafeteria for tea, coffee and5vending machines and book issuing in the library. Reliance's smart cards also store templates for biometric readers for high security areas.
Centralisation of control and use of smart cards also facilitates control of property. Reliance once had 60 hard disks removed from the sites by an internal maintenance person and these were recovered within 48 hours as the thief's identity was verified using Cardax access logs and video images. The Cardax system has proven itself time and again as it facilitates detection of any crime against company assets.
Reliance today has over 1000 doors networked across a number of sites controlled with Cardax. There is now only 0.5% to 1% incidence of tailgating. Every access control event into security zones is audited for transgression using the recorded video clip. If a cardholder allows someone else to enter an area the incident is recorded and they are sent an email advising them not to do it again. A copy is sent to their head of department.
This no-nonsense stance on access enforced by H S Pannu, Corporate Chief of Security & Vigilance of Reliance Group, has resulted in a new company culture in which all employees as well as housekeeping staff appreciate the importance of security and access control and adhere to requirements as a matter of course.
Reliance is growing at a fast pace which means there are ever growing demands on the Cardax system. While their system currently has divisions partitioned and a couple of sites integrated, in the future Reliance plans to integrate multiple sites, extend their visitor management system and manage security over the web. The latest addition to the Cardax suite of products, Cardax FT Online Manager will enable cardholder and alarms management to be divulged to line managers, freeing up the security teams' time to focus on core security needs.
