Consulting & Technology · Performance management · Industrial rubber · Mumbai
Seventy roles interviewed. Then we stopped the reviews.
The short version
Zenith Rubber has made industrial rubber since 1965 — rubber sheets, wear-resistant rubber for mining, flooring, EPDM waterproofing, coated fabrics and inflatables. It is family-owned, works across India and the Middle East, and runs its head office at Nariman Point with factories in Dombivli and Ras Al Khaimah. Debox has worked with Zenith since October 2024, across growth planning, procurement and organisation design.
After KPIs for the sales team, management asked for a performance management system across the whole 300-plus workforce. Between May and December 2025 we interviewed every unique role on payroll, about seventy in all, documented each one and wrote its KPIs. The interviews also showed that the structure on paper was not how work actually happened, so from October 2025 to March 2026 we mapped the organisation and ran time and motion studies in core departments.
Then the first reviews showed that much of the data behind the KPIs was not tracked anywhere, or was wrong. We caught it in the first round and chose to pause rather than run reviews by hand. From April 2026 we went after the cause, rebuilding SOPs department by department so the work itself would create clean data. Those discussions became 100 Ops, which went live in October 2026.
Roles on paper are not roles in practice
KPIs written from job titles measure what a role is supposed to do. KPIs written from interviews measure what it actually does. So we did not start from the org chart. We sat down with every unique role on payroll and asked what the person did, who they worked with, and what good work looked like.
Those interviews gave us more than KPIs. They showed where the structure was getting in the way. Some work was being done twice by different roles. Some decisions waited on people with no reason to be in the loop. Some reporting lines no longer matched how work flowed.
The clearest case was in production. Executives and supervisors were doing much of the same work on the shop floor, and neither had time for what the factory most lacked — somebody looking at the data and asking why output was where it was.
Clear roles come first. Clear KPIs follow.
What we did, step by step
Steps one to six are the PMS and structure work. Steps seven and eight are what turned a data gap into a lasting fix.
A new structure, without new hires
The usual answer to a missing capability is to hire for it. We looked first at whether the capability was already on the payroll, hidden inside duplicated work.
The time and motion studies showed where time was really going. In production, the executive and supervisor roles were split cleanly. Supervisors now own the shop floor — people, machines and output. Executives now own the data — analysing output, reviewing performance and finding the reasons behind the numbers.
The same logic ran across the structure. Duplicated work was removed, responsibilities were written for every role, and reporting lines were redrawn to match how work actually flows. People moved to new work rather than out of the business, and the shop floor gained analysis and review it had never had without adding to headcount.
The right person for a new role is often already on your payroll.
What got in the way, and how we got past it
The KPIs were sound. The data behind them was not. When the first round of reviews began, much of what the KPIs needed was not tracked in any system, and some of what was tracked was wrong.
We caught it in that first round — later than ideal, early enough to stop before a manual system took root. Without reliable data, reviews would have meant numbers collected by hand, checked by hand and open to dispute. So in December 2025 we paused the full rollout.
Running the PMS by hand would have kept it alive and taught everybody to distrust it. So from April 2026 we went after the cause: work was not being recorded as it happened. We set up new processes and rebuilt SOPs department by department so the work itself would produce clean data.
Those discussions raised a bigger question — how do you see whether each step was actually followed? In July 2026 that became 100 Ops, and the build started in August. The first SOP went live in October 2026, and SOPs now go live at about two a week. The target is every possible SOP on the platform by March 2027, after which the PMS restarts on system data.
No data, no KPI. Just an opinion with a number attached.
What it produced
How to read this
These results are qualitative, on purpose. The PMS paused because reliable numbers did not yet exist. Publishing performance figures from the manual reviews would contradict the reason we stopped them.
The structure changes are Zenith’s. We designed the new structure and responsibilities with management; Zenith’s team put them in place and moved people into their new roles.
The numbers come next. Once more departments are on 100 Ops the PMS will run on system data, and its results can be measured properly.
Where it stands
The new structure and responsibilities have been in place since March 2026. SOPs have been rebuilt department by department since April 2026, and 100 Ops has been running them since October 2026, two months after the build began. The target is every possible SOP live by March 2027, and the PMS restarts once that is done.
The bigger change is in what a review will be when it restarts. Today a KPI review means collecting numbers and arguing about them. Once work is recorded as it happens, the numbers are already there and the review can spend its time on what to do about them.
The best KPI data isn’t collected. It’s left behind by the work.
What we now build in from day one
Data checks come first. Every KPI was checked for whether it measured the right thing. Not every KPI was checked for where its data would come from. That check is now the first step in every PMS we design.
Track, measure, then review. A PMS is a data project before it is an HR project, and we now set up that order from the start.
Numbers come next. The new structure went in while the data was still being built, so its impact is described today rather than counted. With work recorded in 100 Ops, the next phase will put numbers on it.
If you are about to roll out KPIs
Before you agree a single indicator, ask where its data will come from and whether that source exists today. Most KPI projects are checked for whether they measure the right thing and never checked for whether the number can actually be produced.
If the honest answer is that somebody will assemble it by hand, you do not have a performance system. You have a monthly argument with a spreadsheet attached, and it will teach your managers to distrust the whole exercise.
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Measurement note. Scope, role counts and deliverables are from our own project records. Results on this page are described rather than quantified because the performance reviews were paused before reliable data existed; publishing figures from the manual review round would contradict the reason the rollout stopped. Structural changes were designed with management and implemented by Zenith’s own team.
