No Time to Relax

It is no mean task ensuring that one of the premier banks in India stays accessible to its customers 24/7. Arvind Kathpalia is a busy man making sure the customer gets what he wants when he chooses Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Arvind Kathpalia, Group head-Operations, Technology and Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank

"We make sure that we continue to be agile and excellent, and always responsive to the marketplace. So we do almost a hundred projects a year," says Arvind Kathpalia, Group head-Operations, Technology and Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank. The company normally allocates around 60 percent of its IT budget for new projects and the remaining to maintaining them. Currently, Kotak Mahindra is initiating some large projects including CRM, a state-of-the-art back office system, a cash management system, a suite of systems for their other upcoming products, BPM systems for operational excellence and so on.

With a plate full of projects, he still finds the time and means to motivate his team for the best results. "I think they get motivated because we make sure that they are doing a lot of projects and that no project timeframe exceeds 6 months. Also, we make sure that they have a properly defined matrix, so they are sure of what job they have to do and how," explains Kathpalia.

Despite his multiple roles, Kathpalia still manages to stay ahead of the pack in the adoption of new paradigms. For instance, the company was among the first banks to leverage improved data networks. "Even in mobile banking and information security, I don't think anybody has done what we have done. We pride ourselves on our innovation. But we make sure that it is required for the business and we don't go in for the heck of it," he signs off.

Top Projects At Kotak Mahindra Bank

Kotak Mahindra re-architected their Internet presence and as a result claim to have the fastest Internet banking solution in the industry-one which can scale up very quickly. Another key project this year was the mobile banking project. A pioneering, vendor-agnostic project, one can use any device and telecom operator to operate. It is fully secure and uses dual-factor authentication. An early-mover in using the Managed Security Assurance Program. Aligned with the best partners in the space, the Bank is provided with updated information and 24/7 monitoring.

The core-banking deployment at Bank of India brought fresh thinking into the bank's processes. Kalyansundar rode this wave of change to introduce many applications, most notably an HR management solution.

P A Kalyansundar , General Manager, IT Bank of India

In tandem with the recent rollout of its core-banking solution, Bank of India embarked on a business process re-engineering exercise, enabling the back-office functions of the individual branches to be centralized at various cities. This provided Kalyansundar, the GM for IT at the bank, the basis for pushing an HR management solution for its employees. Its deployment resulted in the centralization of employee records and considerable ease in various activities in the life-cycle of an employee-from recruitment to retirement and after. More is to come. "When implemented fully, a knowledge portal, self-learning and online tests-all would be part of the system," says Kalyansundar.

Kalyansundar's passion for enhancing employee productivity comes from his own conviction that in every organization, there are numerous employees who will gladly follow once there is someone to lead. "I believe in counseling, where required, in private and praising good workers in public," he says.

Besides directing core IT projects, Kalyansundar has actively led other initiatives, many of them providing essential support for a robust IT infrastructure. A case in point a solar powered UPS project, which Kalyansundar spearheaded with a view to tackle the overall energy shortage in the country. The project has already resulted in major savings as per Kalyansundar's calculations, solar power is cheaper than other alternative sources of power and is also easier on maintenance.

Top Projects at Bank of India

Core Banking Solution (CBS) The bank embarked on a Business Process Re-engineering exercise along with its CBS rollout, enabling the back-office functions of the individual branches to be centralized. Customer-facing staff at counters were freed from their mundane activities to look after only the front office functions and to take care exclusively of customer care and customer service. Human Resources Management Solution This has resulted in centralization of employee records. When implemented fully, a knowledge portal providing self-learning and online tests will be part of the system.

ICICI's Group CTO, Pravir Vohra, has had his laurels in being an early adopter of various technologies including the Web-based model, networking ATMs and evolving the national RTGS payment scheme, among many others.

Pravir Vohra, Group CTO, ICICI Bank

The most vital task that Vohra took up at ICICI was to implement an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software module to create a common platform integrating all the functionalities. These included savings bank, mortgage account, credit, multiple money transactions etc. "We brought all these on a single framework using the Microsoft platform, which enabled customers to have a single view of their varied accounts," says Vohra.

In an effort to strengthen its customer relationships, Vohra laid emphasis on deploying CRM solutions customized for its needs and developed by Infosys. However, the most treasured moment for him was the going live of the wealth management system, which was developed by Polaris.

Vohra created a new avenue by evolving a knowledge-based portal for the bank's customers. This wealth management application enables customers to receive information of various products and segments related to real estate, trading companies, investment companies and any other market related information.

"One of our intentions is to facilitate a unique experience for our customers while transacting with the bank and also to bring various value-additions to them in enriching their knowledge, which helps us in having the highest brand recall," Vohra remarks.

Top Projects at ICICI Bank

While IT is the backbone of ICICI Bank, there is constant evolution in its deployments and it becomes critical to align with changing technologies. With this goal, the bank sees a 10 percent increase in the overall IT spend in the new financial year. While the continued thrust on existing hardware and software infrastructure remains, the bank is concentrating on enhancing security processes and creating a mobile platform as a channel. Banking through mobile phones is a planned offering for its customers and data analytics application deployments for analyzing and tracking customer data at a rapid pace is on the cards.

An Integrator and a Technocrat

IDBI Intech is the wholly owned subsidiary of the well-known bank, established with a view to tap various IT opportunities mainly in the BFSI industry. Sanjay Sharma has been taking care of the technology needs of IDBI for quite some time now.

Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director & CEO, IDBI Intech

Mergers are never easy, but they can be made a lot less cumbersome by the person at the helm of integrating systems and processes. IDBI's execution in this regard has been exemplary, for when they merged with the United Western Bank, it was Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director and CEO, IDBI Intech, who integrated the systems of both entities.

Sharma, given his experience, brings a strategic point of view to the way his company and clients look at technology. Thus, he also consults on business processes and looks after new channels of business. "Not only this, but any business which is launched has technology as part and parcel of the same and I provide my viewpoints on it," he explains. When quizzed about his IT priorities for the years, he swiftly states them to be risk management, networking after expansion of ATMs and launching new products.

Sharma would like to look at the risk management framework and new developments towards Anti Money Laundering, BASEL II and other frameworks being implemented by banks the world over. He would also like to look at networking the increased number of branches across country and launch new products around credit and debit cards, while also enabling m-commerce through mobile phones.

Top Projects at IDBI Intech

Integrating IT When IDBI Bank merged with United Western Bank, Sharma and team integrated the two technology platforms. They rolled out this integrated platform to as many as 174 branches on a single day. Creation of Data Center Sanjay Sharma and his team created a level III data center and a DR site in Chennai with world-class technology in place. Corporate Financial System The team was involved in the creation of a corporate financial system for the bank by the integration of the different functions related to commercial, development and financial banking.

With Technology on his Side

Aggressively deploying new technology, for which Yes Bank is famous, comes at price product and deployment costs. The CIO's mandate is to keep them low and exercise IT governance, while continuously supporting product innovation.

Umesh Jain , CIO, Yes Bank

Yes Bank has been a trend-setter of sorts in the technology deployment landscape of India. It was the first bank to offer dual-factor authentication to thwart identity fraud and also the leader in bringing Wi-Fi to its branches. Currently, Umesh Jain informs, the bank is looking at speech recognition on its IVR (interactive voice response) offering. It is scarcely surprising then that Jain, who is the CIO of the bank, is very tech-savvy, with a long stint as a programmer and project manager behind him. However, as the fledgling bank of yesterday begins to mature, IT governance forums take centerstage.

Jain and his team regularly undertake reviews of the underlying processes that support the business and are designed to deliver value to existing businesses. "We are looking at continually defining, reviewing and automating the existing processes to deliver value in the most cost-effective and risk-free environment," says Jain. The governance focus, however, doesn't in any way mean that the focus on launching new business products is diminished.

When it comes to people management, there are no high-tech principles for Jain, just some really simple ones: "Be honest and candid in your dealings with people." He also lays a great deal of stress on empathizing with team members. "Spend time with them to understand their needs and aspirations and then work with them and the system to find common ground," he says.

Top Projects at Yes Bank

IT Capability Framework and Governance WThis project focuses on continuously defining, reviewing and automating the existing processes to deliver value in the most cost effective manner, with emphasis on mitigating risk. Dual factor authentication Provided by the bank for safeguarding against identity fraud. Wi-Fi Hotspots Many of the bank's branches offer wireless connectivity to customers. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Currently the bank is looking at speech recognition on its IVR offering.

Corporate Warrior

Arvind Tawde has occupied various positions at M&M over the past three decades. He was Senior General Manager, heading Corporate Affairs at M&M's Corporate Center, and was involved in strategic initiatives such as mergers, acquisition, business revivals and restructuring.

Arvind Tawde, Senior Vice President & CIO, Mahindra&Mahindra

He set up the Corporate IT function at the Corporate Center, which he currently heads as Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer. He also leads the organization-wide initiative on Information Security.

Under his guidance, Project Suraksha was instated, which has ensured that organization-wide security policies have been put in place and all the relevant systems and processes documented. He has spearheaded a number of other significant projects in M&M, including the consolidation of distributed SAP servers into a single server at the company's Kandivli data center. Tawde is also in the process of launching a group intranet to serve as a platform for employees to share knowledge, collaborate and communicate with each other.

"IT strategy is driven by business strategy but it also highlights opportunities for the business to exploit new, emerging technologies to differentiate itself in a highly competitive market," says Tawde. M&M spent about 1 percent of its turnover on IT and Tawde anticipates a 15 percent rise in spending.

His top priorities for the coming fiscal are the roll-out of a Dealer Management System, expanding the data center, consolidating and archiving Exchange and implementing GRC.

Comment

Rajendra Bhurat, Chief Executive, Mahindra Spares Business The role of a CIO has evolved from that of a mere technologist to that of an IT strategist. Equally important is the effective and efficient implementation of strategies. Implementation with involvement of business, end-users and IT yields better results. A CIO must maintain the proper balance between rapid technology obsolescence and newer opportunities provided by emerging technologies. Outsourcing management is one of the priorities for the CIO who needs to cater to demanding user expectations with effective monitoring of external service providers.

Three R's of Success

Respect, Recognition and Job Rotation has been his key to people management. It is no wonder then that Hilal Khan, Head-Corporate IT of the automobile giant, Honda Motor India, has been able to carve out a niche for himself.

Hilal Khan, Head-Corporate IT, Honda Motors India

Known to be an early adopter, Hilal Khan has been amongst the first few who implemented a wireless network in Honda's vehicle quality system.

An MCA and a Manag ement Diploma holder, Khan carries a wealth of 16 years of experience. His journey has seen stints with DCM Toyota, Daewoo Motors India, an independent IT venture, and his current assignment at Honda Motor India. While with Honda, he has been associated with three of the most prestigious and critical projects undertaken there. These include the Honda Supplier Collaboration Portal, the On-line Drawing Collaboration System and the Vehicle Quality Management System.

On his top three IT spending priorities in the coming financial year, Khan lists them as infrastructure at Honda's second plant, applications and systems for better inventory and assembly-line control and supplier and dealer collaboration with dashboard management. It takes IT knowledge to make a CIO, but it also takes strategic vision, the ability to pull peers, juniors and seniors along seamleassly and the ability to leverage IT knowledge for the company's advantage. This is what defines Hilal Khan and brings him into the power list.

Top Projects at Honda Motor India

Honda Supplier Collaboration Portal The project was undertaken to minimize inventory, reduce inventory carrying cost and to ensure timely payment management. On-line Drawing Collaboration System This was undertaken to prevent the loss of key information on account of difference in platforms used by the company and its vendors. Vehicle Quality Management System The usage of wireless networks with embedded chips to record variance between standard parameters and actual results during car testing. The findings are shared on-line to allow the shop-flooor to take proactive measures, ensuring the best possible quality.

ERP's the Way

He is one of the early adopters of ERP in the country. Today, he has a vision of bringing the entire group live on the system. This Godrej loyalist, who started his career and has since been with Godrej, has many successes to his credit. Meet Mani Mulki, Executive Vice President, Godrej Industries.

Mani Mulki, , Executive Vice President, Godrej Industries

It is never easy to bring about change in an organization. If it is difficult to do it today, it was near-impossible yesterday. But like some obscure philosopher pointed out, even the word impossible spells possibility. Still, Mani Mulki's steadfast conviction in the use of technology for enhancing business, helps him manage this impossibility. He implemented an ERP package in Godrej way back in 1994-1995 and with the support of his Chairman, Adi Godrej, Mulki went ahead with a host of innovations.

When quizzed on organizational resistance to change, he quickly comments that any IT initiative-when going live-is akin to giving users a glass of bitter gourd juice. "Over a period of time you have to keep on telling them that it is sweet. They then realize that it is and get used to it," reveals Mulki. Another strategy to bring about a successful technological change is to convince the right people at the top. "Once they are convinced about the project, then it will be pushed by them. So there has to be a combination of push and pull," he adds.

Today, armed with a budget, he is ready to bring more and more of his group companies live in the next financial year. At the same time, Mulki is also pushing to educate users with help from the management.

Top Projects at Godrej

ERP System Godrej went live on ERP for the first time in 1994-95 using MFG / PRO. Project Sampark After MFG/PRO stabilized, Godrej launched Project Sampark. The company integrated all of its distributors on the system. A strategic benefit was that this reduced the FG stock along the entire supply chain. Implementing SAP The company migrated from MFG/PRO to SAP, going live in five months. While the previous system was effective and beneficial, SAP was chosen due to the increasing need of an integrated system.

Jewel in the Crown

Titan Industries offers a range of watch products, jewellery and of late, fashionable eyewear. CIO N Kailasanathan's contribution has helped the company become a leader in this space, employing 3,800 people.

N Kailasanathan CIO, Titan Industries

With 1,200 different variants of watches to be distributed across 12,000 outlets, having a proper supply chain management system was critical for Titan Industries. Realizing this need, the company's CIO, N Kailasanathan, kicked off a project implementing Advance Planner and Optimiser (APO) from SAP in December 2005 to improve the alignment of supplies to customers.

This was a three to four crore project implemented by IBM consulting with three software modules-demand planning, supply networking planning and production planning and dynamic scheduling-were deployed on top of SAP. For Tanishq-the jewellery division of Titan, Kailasanathan initiated another 4.5 crore project that involved the implementation of Oracle ERP.

Launching a knowledge portal on SAP Netweaver was another area where Kailasanathan played a significant role in the year 2006-2007, taking around nine months to complete. The primary objective was to capture knowledge in the field and streamline some of the processes. Having served Titan for nine years, Kailasanathan is responsible for IT, business excellence and knowledge management, corporate communications, corporate social responsibility, ethics and governance.

Peer Review

Jagadeesh Shenoy, IT consultant. I have worked with N Kailasanathan (NK to all of us) for twelve years and he is a very special leader and a role model to many of us who have worked with him. He stimulates ideas and coaxes the best from people, and gives recognition to all those around him. NK is at his best when leveraging technology for the advantage of the organization. Specific facets of technology such as ERP, Web infrastructure, e-commerce and so on, are easily picked, adopted and implemented to suit the business needs wherever he has worked.

Know thy Processes

When top management decided to restructure company divisions to suit changing business needs, they chose Prabhakar Deosthali for the job - as much for his IT prowess as for his thorough understanding of the company's processes.

Prabhakar Deosthali , Head - IT Solutions, Kinetic Communications

With the Kinetic group bracing itself to face the imminent fallout of an extensive restructuring process, Deosthali didn't want to leave things to chance, and pushed himself beyond his technology expertise-making sure he knew what was happening at each of the company's many manufacturing operations.

Among the major overhauls was the shift in Kinetic Engineering's focus to manufacturing auto components, as a result of which its plant at Nagar had to be restructured to cater to multiple customers and multiple component lines. The management introduced a 'cell concept', with each cell manufacturing a specific component, while simultaneously supporting the component requirements of multiple customers. "The IT systems at the Nagar Plant had to be completely re-oriented to reflect the cell concept," points out Deosthali.

The benefits are evident. "There is better visibility of the shop floor situation and better responsiveness to the customers' dynamic demands," he says.

Deosthali has worked on many projects in product development capacities contributing to his deep understanding of operations, readying him out for the daunting task of IT system re-design. His roles have been diverse those of a control engineer, a software developer and an electronics designer.

Peer Review

Arun Firodia, Chairman of Kinetic Group I have seen Prabhakar develop from a dedicated software engineer to a leader who can manage his job well with limited resources. His vast experience in an R&D environment has made him a good experimenter and challenge taker, while handling his current assignment as IT head. He is totally flexible and a good listener to the needs of the users and also of the top management. He is a good visualizer and also up-to-date on the latest technology trends. His positive approach to work at hand and his capability to develop his subordinates into leaders is his biggest asset.

Uplifting Corporate IT

With more than two decades of experience in IT, Prasad Parab has made his mark with some important implementations and is looking to spend his money at the right place for international growth.

Prasad (Krishna) P Parab, Associate Vice President-IT, Ion Exchange (India) Ltd

Prasad (Krishna) P Parab, Associate Vice President-IT at Ion Exchange (India) Ltd heads the IT division with experience spanning almost a quarter of a century. This engineer has been through almost all levels of the hierarchy at Ion Exchange-from manager in one of the IT departments to the Head of IT for all the group companies. After joining Ion Exchange is 1999 he has been part of many projects that have reinforced the company's IT strength. Under him, Ion Exchange has became one of the first organizations to implement Oracle 10g on the Linux platform.

Prior to joining Ion Exchange, from 1990 to 1999, he was part of Cable Corporation of India. As part of this job, he worked on projects such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR) for reducing the cycle time of order bookings.

According to Parab, all business decisions are IT-driven and any business move has a direct impact on IT systems. As a manager, he believes in giving responsibility and freedom to subordinates, along with accountability, and feels that the retention of IT talent is a big challenge in the manufacturing industry due to high paying jobs in the IT sector. With an almost flat annual IT budget of Rs 3 to Rs 4 crore, he is looking at risk and compliance, security and standardization as the top three priorities for IT spending in 2008.

Projects

Projects In-house ERP implementation As the head of projects, Parab was instrumental in the development of an in-house ERP system and its implementation for all the group companies. The project was started in 1999 on a client-server platform and has been re-engineered on a browser-based platform last year. VPN setup with centralized data center Parab was asked to head this project which started in December 2004 and was completed in February 2005. The vendor was changed in December 2006, following which the implementation was completed in June 2007.

The Strategist

India swears by Bajaj Electricals as a company. But not everyone will be aware of the effort that goes into running this company. Pratap Gharge, Vice President and CIO has been on the forefront of technological innovation at Bajaj.

Pratap Gharge,, Vice President and CIO, Bajaj Electricals

A strategist is one who has the ability to look at the big picture, and act accordingly. A definition fit for Pratap Gharge, the IT Head of Bajaj Electricals. For this IT man, who started his career with a software consultancy firm, IT is not the only focus of his activities. He has been involved in other critical activities like driving the performance of the organization with the Balanced Scorecard project. "I worked on the Balanced Scorecard project for our company, along with Hewitt Associates as the strategic partner to help us devise the same," states Gharge. "I handle that portion of the strategic initiative for the entire company, to drive the performance of the organization," he adds. Additionally, he is working on devising software metrics for performance tracking. "I have been contributing to our company in the area of performance management by driving this initiative myself, though it is not in my area of operation," says Gharge.

No wonder then, that this visionary is involved in the business planning meetings for almost all of the company's business units, where business strategy is discussed and key decisions are taken. Currently, he is also in the process of evaluating ERP and CRM options to replace Bajaj's legacy ERP software platform. "I am part of the strategic evaluation committee. This will be a big decision for the organization in terms of reaching business goals and making the organization future proof with respect to a software platform," he signs off.

Top Projects at Bajaj Electricals

Pratap Gharge and his team have deployed some significant projects for Bajaj Electricals. These include developing the company's Intranet and Extranet (for Dealers & Suppliers) portals, customized ERP and business process improvements. "The intranet and customized ERP projects were significant for us, as the entire workforce is using these applications, which work on a single database instance in centralized mode across 20 branches, 6 depots, 900 employees, 200 dealers and 100 suppliers," beams Gharge. The projects were undertaken by the company's in-house development team of 12 people.

Dialing in the Q Factor

S R Karode's appointment as head of corporate IT not only brought the Crompton Greaves IT infrastructure up to speed but also helped imbue the work culture at the company's manufacturing operations with a sense of quality consciousness.

S R Karode, Head - Corporate IT, Crompton Greaves

One of the first things that Karode set out to do when he took over as the head of the engineering major's corporate IT department was to implement an application for after-sales service. The modules covered complaint registration to closure, spare parts management, performance of service contractors and analysis of customer complaints, providing Karode with ample opportunity to satisfy his itch for instituting quality practices. "This application has brought forward quality issues related to our finished products; coupled with Six Sigma initiatives, we were able to improve the quality of our products," says Karode. The application is used by service centers located at various places in the country.

Karode has also been instrumental in implementing an employee self-help portal called CGHR4U, which has modules like employee self-service, performance appraisal, statutory compliances, recruitment and cessation. The software is integrated with SAP, payroll and the SMS / email server. "This application has created a sea change in many operational areas of our company, bringing in transparency, efficiency and automation."

A strong believer in team work, Karode encourages participation from every person in the team depending upon his/her capability. "I try to provide challenging assignments to my team members to ensure that they enjoy working here," he says.

Top Projects at Crompton Greaves

Implementation of after-sales service application The software-which has modules such as employee self-service, performance appraisal, statutory compliances, recruitment and cessation-is integrated with SAP, payroll and an SMS / email server. Deployment of CGHR4U, an employee self-help portal This system has changed the overall handling of the HR function. Karode was part of the team that worked on the project from the application's conceptualization to implementation. Presently, it is one of the major applications used by all levels of the organization-from the MD to the trainees.

Lightning Cures

Sanjeev Kumar wasted no time in getting a sales portal up and running. He has deployed SOA in both Java and .NET environments yielding massive improvements in efficiency.

Sanjeev Kumar, Country Head IT, Philips Lighting India

With benefits pouring in, the deployment of the sales portal will surely be a beacon of light to those contemplating such a project. "Our decision to put an e-ordering system in place has been supported by a good business case-that of reducing order cycle time from 7 days to 30 minutes," says Kumar. E- ordering now constitutes upto 45 percent of the orders in the sales channels.

In consultation with the marketing teams, Kumar's team also deployed COGNOS 8 based solutions across all sales and marketing functions in the company. "Now we have well-informed, quicker and better analyzed decisions being taken on marketing funds."

Kumar has deployed SOA in JDE / DB2 and .Net environments. The implementation has yielded remarkable increases in terms of BPM efficiency, improving process throughput from 30 minutes to 45 seconds with almost 100 percent uptime.

As part of the management team of South Asia in Philips Lighting, Kumar works closely with his peers from other divisions. When the company wanted to establish a modern retail channel to add to top and bottom lines, Kumar contributed to the selection process and the new channel's modalities.

Kumar lays great stress on evaluating competencies and recognizing high potential candidates. "We motivate our people to get the best out of them and try and retain motivated talent," says Kumar.

Peer Review

S Venkatramani, CEO, Philips Lighting South-Asia Sanjeev Kumar knows how value is created in the business. He structures IT services, processes and systems and proposes new IT directions to support value creation. He is able to translate future strategic challenges and trends for the business into IT strategy and policy, ensuring that these are aligned. He helps the organization see how fundamental trends in IT enable and shape business strategy and create business opportunities. His practical approach ensures that business critical IT issues are on the strategic agenda.

Integration for Efficiency

Some of the largest IT deployments happen in the automotive sector and TVS Motors and its group companies have been the major IT spenders. The company's CIO, T G Dhandapani, is focusing on ERP solutions for multiple benefits.

T G Dhandapani, CIO, TVS Motors

While security, networking, application and hardware deployment remain critical, T G Dhandapani, CIO of TVS Motors, has gone ahead and deployed ERP solutions for manufacturing as well. "We initiated the process of testing SAP for the production and planning functionalities to enhance production capabilities, while evaluating various technologies that would enhance supply chain management capabilities," says Dhandapani.

As part of the digitization effort, the CIO recommended total product maintenance solutions and introduced SAP-based plant maintenance modules. To create a Web-based model for fulfilling supplier and customer needs, Dhandapani deployed ERP. He ensured that the projects in IT were all business-driven and in an effort to improve logistics and the supply chain, a Kanban solution was used. The most significant moment for TVS' CIO was the introduction of RFID, which is used to have better employee access control to various stocks. Dhandapani finds that technology is 90 percent of the game when achieving business targets in the company.

While achieving business goals is of prime importance for Dhandapani, his main challenge is to face the increasing numbers of highly demanding customers. "It is imperative that we empower our employees-and recognize their merits from time to time-in building a strong team to help them reach targets and leverage IT," he says.

Peer Review

P Kaniappan, Executive Vice-President (Operations), Sundaram Clayton Ltd. Having headed varied departments in the TVS Group, T G Dhandapani understands every aspect of the business. The SAP supply chain applications that that he introduced have evolved an effective pull system at TVS Motors, which has improved delivery capability and reduced inventory levels. The most cherished moment for Sundaram Clayton under the leadership of Dhandapani was receiving the award for customer excellence for the 'Best discrete sector implementation (automotive)' in the year 2006.

Self-learning IT Tricks

Originally from the manufacturing division of Cummins, Tushar Padalkar's interest in IT saw him jump at the opportunity to work in the IT department. He's been polishing his skills ever since and today, deploying ERPs is his forte.

Tushar V Padalkar, Senior General Manager-IT & Enterprise Solutions, Cummins India

Padalkar's first brush with IT came in the late 1990s when he got involved with an IT business project on the shop floor at Cummins India. At that time, Padalkar, an electrical engineer by qualification, was in the company's manufacturing division. Subsequently, he deployed relational databases for the company. From then on, there was no turning back as he implemented one ERP after another for each of the group's companies. Between Dec 2005 to June 2006, he was responsible for rolling out all modules of Oracle ERP in all the five companies of the group.

Now, as the group's Senior General Manager-IT & Enterprise Solutions, Padalkar provides both strategic and manufacturing inputs for the firm, besides looking after the IT stables. He also contributes to strategic planning for the facilities department and HR.

Recently, Padalkar helped set up a global data center for the APAC region in Singapore. "This will help us to move more applications from India to the remote location," says Padalkar.

Among the top priorities for Padalkar in the year ahead are deploying a Supply Chain Management solution, a BI application and working on a new data center.

Padalkar believes in giving his employees challenging work to keep their motivation levels high. "Supporting them by making available the right environment and providing a clear growth path for all individuals has helped us keep our attrition levels low," he says.

Top Projects at Cummins

Supply Chain Management solution Planned for roll-out in 2008, the solution will help manage the group's distribution challenges. BI deployment Padalkar plans to deploy a BI suite soon. Oracle e-Biz ERP was deployed in 2007 in the five group companies of Cummins-Cummins India (CIL), Cummins Sales & Service (CSS), Cummins Research & Technology (CRTI), Cummins Auto Services and Cummins Generator Technologies. Infrastructure expansion A new data center is planned to accommodate the group's growing computing requirements.

4-S Philosopher

Being associated with ABB for over 20 years and exposed to diverse functionalities, the CIO of ABB India, Vivek Deshpande has been instrumental in establishing the regional ERP concept across ABB South Asia Pacific spanning 12 countries.

Vivek Deshpande, CIO, ABB India

"I felt it important to develop a regional template with detailed processes and implementation of the same and Indian operations were chosen as the pilot for this project," says Deshpande. ABB saw information services in two major dimensions-Internal and External. Some of the initiatives that were taken included Mobile Synchronization, Video Conferencing, Single ERP platform, Shop floor to Top floor integration for customers, On-line Channel Partner portals and customized tools like project status and service support for customers, which increased efficiency.

Culturally speaking, ABB has adopted a 4-S management philosophy and Systems are an important pillar in this approach (the other three being Spirit, Speed and Simplicity). "I am responsible for delivering value-addition to businesses and ensuring best-in-class IS infrastructure, applications and ERP platform to enable real-time management information." Besides ensuring that information services act as a key performance enabler and management facilitator, Deshpande is involved in strategic business decisions, taking calls on entire technology deployments, investments and also employee training across business groups.

To improve the interaction levels within the organization, he establishing a Video Conferencing facility for ABB across 20 locations-a project that has contributed immensely to improving networking, speed and above all cost savings.

Top Projects at ABB

For a power and automation company like ABB, the IT spend is driven by need and it is the quality spend that impacts the buisness. In a continual quest to increase operational efficiency, ABB uses IT extensively. With operations growing between 35 and 40 percent, the top priority for the CIO is to ensure that the information systems infrastructure supports business growth. The company intends to strengthen its ERP implementation and deploy more SAP solutions across its various groups. The thrust in the coming year is on application management and enhancement of IT assets.

Training on an ERP Wicket

A veteran of several SAP implementations, Adi Shroff knows a successful deployment is just the beginning of the innings. The long and difficult part of the game is to nurture and retain talent to build new applications.

Adi Shroff CIO, CIO, Essar Oil

When Adi Shroff came on board Essar Oil, he found himself in a queer situation the 50-odd programmers that he was provided with by Essar group's IT company for his company's (Essar Oil's) system development needs all reported to a project director and not to him. "Foremost in my mind was attending to their training needs and helping them realize their aspirations for then alone could they contribute enthusiastically to any development project." So what did Shroff do? Just what he has been doing in all his years as the head of an IT department. Notwithstanding the reporting structure, he simply went ahead and treated the IT team as if it were his own.

Support from an energized team and regular interactions with the business teams have helped Shroff choose applications that directly map to business requirements. The latest addition to Essar Oil's applications-a business intelligence suite from SAP-now provides sales analysis and variance reports every day for the top management. "If there is something wrong at a particular sales station, and the required sales targets are not met, it immediately shows up," he says. As in most other cases, Shroff had to go sniffing around to determine business needs. "Business doesn't come and tell IT what they want, it is for IT to go to business."

Top Projects at Essar Oil

SAP as ERP SAP IS-OIL and SAP BI modules deployed. SAP BI is used to process large volumes of data without burdening the main SAP transaction systems. Oil industry-specific deployments Manufacturing Execution Systems from Aspentech provides such modules as planning, scheduling and blending and advanced process control. Trade capture system The Bulldog Trade Capture System captures physical and paper transactions, integrates and streamlines pricing and analytical information, monitors trader portfolios and provides access to real time profit and loss performance metrics.

Electrifying Infotech

Ashok Adhikary, the Associate Director, Systems at AKPG, joined AKPG as an Electrical Design Engineer. Today he heads technology initiatives in the company and is the person this infrastructure goliath depends on for all of its IT needs.

Ashok Adhikary, Associate Director (Systems), Aker

Not only has Ashok Adhikary undertaken critical projects, but he has also devised a road map worth following. This includes the adoption of high-tech, IT-driven collaborative work tools and packages operable across the globe with a wide-bandwidth network. He is hopeful that this will result in delivering excellence in project execution, regular investment in IT infrastructure to keep pace with technology, improved internal workflows, knowledge sharing to reduce the cost of errors and improve the management of change.

Adhikary firmly believes that adopting a strategic view of IT can work wonders for any organization. IT is an integral part of engineering services, especially for export-oriented jobs, he asserts in one of the reports he has authored. IT plays a crucial role right from bidding for the job to completion, acting as an enabler and facilitator.

Adhikary firmly believes that adopting a strategic view of IT can work wonders for any organization. IT is an integral part of engineering services, especially for export-oriented jobs, he asserts in one of the reports he has authored. IT plays a crucial role right from bidding for the job to completion, acting as an enabler and facilitator.

Top Projects at Aker Kvaerner

ESS portal Aker Kvaerner's ESS Portal provides a single Web interface to all the information an employee may require for official and personal use. It provides a platform for the company to publish its information through channels like News, Notice Boards, the Leadership Desk and the intranet. The architecture is Web-enabled and developed using Microsoft .Net technology. Liveforce LiveForce is a system currently comprising modules like Employee, Travel, Time & Attendance, Skills, Training, Vehicle Maintenance, etc. The software is written in Visual Basic and based on the SQL Server 7 database.

A Long Winding Road

From a management trainee to Vice President-IT at Calcutta Electric Supply Company (CESC), Debashis Roy has come a long way. And it has been a symbiotic relationship for both, with growth and development being the mainstay of the journey.

Debashis Roy, Vice President-IT, (CESC) Calcutta, Electric Supply, Company (An RPG Company)

In times of employee loyalty being considered an antiquated ideal, Debashis Roy has stuck with his parent company CESC, where he started his professional journey and in which he is bringing about technological innovations. Roy was the force behind the implementation of RPG Net. "I implemented an innovative solution called RPG Net for Spencer [RPG's retail arm] in 1997 that provides five utility services to all 26 group companies of RGP. These services include a mailing / messaging solution, video conferencing, intranet, Internet and voice services. The important thing to note is that this project was done ten years ago when the IT infrastructure was not there," he states with pride in his voice. Additionally, he also persuaded the management to go in for an ERP implementation at CESC. "I was the first person to push for SAP ERP in the retail industry. I implemented SAP ERP for RPG's Spencer stores. It was a 350-store project, which was completed on November 17, 2007. I also implemented SAP ERP at Philips Carbon Black in Dec 2004," he adds.

Over a period of time, his role at CESC has evolved to include a variety of strategic responsibilities. "My role is more of a business manager and I give strategic inputs for business process re-engineering," says Roy.

Top Projects at CESC

Captive data center Debashish Roy and his team are looking at establishing a captive data center that will have fail-over capability, satisfying Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning needs. Other investments will also include servers, storage, networking and security. GIS CESC is a power utility company with 11 million customers. Due to their complex power cable networks, the company is preparing a digitized blueprint of the network infrastructure with the help of online maps. ERP Roy and his team are investing in an ERP solution-the Oracle e-Biz Suite.

Fuelling Efficiencies

With an ERP system rolled-out across all its sites and significant strides taken in vendor management, it is logical for HPCL to now focus on process efficiencies. Leading the charge is Nishi Vasudeva, the company's Executive Director - IT & ERP.

Nishi Vasudeva, Executive Director - IT & ERP, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL)

HPCL is a mature user of an ERP system and vendor management solutions. The former has encouraged transparency, Vasudeva notes, while in case of the latter, the firm is now moving beyond a pilot for e-procurement. Meanwhile, Vasudeva is already venturing into other areas where IT implementation holds much promise. "The CIO's role has gradually changed from supporting the company's business through maintenance of IT infrastructure to driving IT initiatives that enable business divisions to achieve their objectives," says Vasudeva.

Improving business process efficiencies now features on top of Vasudeva's agenda. Equally important is institutionalizing knowledge-oriented decision making. "Implementation of business intelligence system would enable managers to take decisions based on relevant and current information," says Vasudeva.

Another domain in which Vasudeva wants to see the company come up to speed is automation. "Automation of retail outlets and despatch depots / terminals would also be on top of our list as that would allow quality monitoring of products, significantly improving customer confidence and brand loyalty," she says. Still another thrust area for Vasudeva is deploying an Enterprise Performance Management system using a balanced scorecard approach.

Top Projects at HPCL

ERP implementation Among the largest implementations of JDEdwards EnterpriseOne in Asia. The system has been rolled out at more than 450 locations and is used by over 4,000 employees. Document management system This implementation has created a document repository with aids for retention and compliance. It is integrated with the ERP and messaging systems. Vendor management solutions A system for online vendor registration and for hosting tenders over the Internet has been implemented, as also an e-payment system.

The Energizer

Called a techno-strategic professional by his colleagues, Prashun Datta has been heading IT for Reliance Energy since its inception and his vision and contribution have played a key role in the status that the company enjoys today.

Prashun Dutta, Head IT, Reliance Energy

Prashun Dutta, Head IT at Reliance Energy, joined Reliance in 1994 at a time when IT in Reliance was not widespread. He has since been part of various projects at Reliance and has played a pivotal role in Reliance's IT growth.

In his early life, after finishing his Electrical Engineering, he joined a post-graduation course in Industrial Engineering and went on to work with National Productivity Council for about five years. Hunger for education saw him walk into IIM Calcutta for his Fellowship. Prior to joining Reliance, he worked with Tata Consultancy Services for about ten years.

As part of his early projects in Reliance, he was instrumental in establishing the Marketing and Plant systems for the Polyester business. He was then made part of the SAP implementation in Jamnagar as well as other businesses in Reliance Industries. In his role at Reliance Energy, he has been heading IT ever since BSES was taken over by Reliance in 2003. The first step for Dutta was to evolve an IT roadmap for the company-a plan for implementing world class IT systems in the distribution business. This roadmap has now reached fruition with all the components in place and is in regular use. Under him, Reliance Energy has been one of the early movers in Service Oriented Architecture implementation.

As a part of his business involvement, he was the main facilitator in the development of a 'Destination Statement' for Reliance Energy Ltd. At various stages in the last five years, he has been actively engaged in several HR initiatives of the organization.

Peer Review

Rajeev Bhadauria, Head (HR), Reliance Energy A techno-strategic professional with a flair for strategic value-addition coupled with robust planning and execution abilities. Prashun Dutta, with his tremendous urge for working on challenging goals, creates and promotes a vibrant work culture which encourages team work. He is known for a tremendous ability for nurturing talent. He is able to cascade and communicate his strategy and vision to people down below and get their ownership and support. We have, in him, a business leader who has a tremendous drive for excellence and persuasive ability to achieve visionary goals.

A Network to Beat

With its oil fields scattered across remote locations, Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) needs to have a robust network that supports data transmission in real-time and does so with great reliability. Sandeep Shah has put such a system in place.

Sandeep Shah, Head - IT, Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC)

The fact that GSPC is India's only state government-owned company in the oil and gas exploration & production (E&P) business speaks for the scale of challenges that come in its wake. But its Head-IT, Sandeep Shah, is not one to be deterred. With an increase in the number of pipelines commissioned every year, Shah's team undertook to carry out data digitization of all information related to network of pipelines for better management and maintenance. "The project also included data pertaining to land records and ownership so that the complete land acquisition process is now automated," says Shah.

As in most large oil companies, GSPC has deployed a SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system to keep track of real-time parameters and indicators and to provide alerts. To obtain more mileage from its instrumentation systems as also to serve as a gateway to Service Oriented Architecture, Shah has pitched for an SAP upgrade-from the existing version 4.7 to ECC 6.0. "Looking at the organizational benefits and ROI, we have decided to migrate to SAP ECC 6.0," says Shah. GSPC is among the first companies in the oil & gas segment in India to migrate.

With so much digitization, it's difficult to overestimate the importance of a sound network for GSPC. Shah's team has established redundant communication pathways using GSM technology to retrieve data from remote locations.

Top Projects at GSPC

Implementation of a Data Interpretation Center To create a paperless interpretation environment with seamless integration of data across various disciplines, GSPC has set up a Data Interpretation Center (DIC) with state-of-the-art Schlumberger-GeoQuest software packages. SAP upgradation project (in progress) Deployment of SAP in order to focus on reduction of system complexity and maximize the SAP standard functionality. To avail of the extended business scenarios offered by SAP's new version of business information warehouse (BW 7.0). Also to serve as a gateway to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

The Non-conformist

He is an IT pro who knows the importance of non-technical and managerial issues for the successful implementation of an IT initiative. Satish Pendse, CIO, HCC, believes that he has found a balance, and has enjoyed considerable success.

Satish Pendse,, CIO, HCC

For the senior management cadre, it is not just technical capability, but also people and strategic management skills that are put to the test-two areas where Pendse scores a perfect 10. He opines that in the area of Information Systems, the only assets are people and hence managing them should be among the top three priorities of any CIO. "If we demonstrate confidence in our people, then invariably they end up delivering more than expected. We need to have courage to demonstrate that confidence and provide clarity of expectations," states Pendse.

On the strategic front, he is again a forerunner. In a role with his previous organization, he contributed significantly to the process of an acquisition. "My responsibilities involved assessing the business potential, valuation of the deal, due-diligence and dealing with legal experts during the takeover of the business," explains Pendse.

Pendse has often been an early adopter of technology. At HCC, he initiated the SAP ERP implementation. As a result, today, the company is considered a pioneer in the infrastructure space. Today, he has his agenda for HCC set for the coming financial year which includes work on projects like an employee portal/supplier portal, engineering-IT initiatives and IT security.

Top Projects at HCC

Project Sankalp Consists of implementing SAP ERP. SAP R/3 and BIW are now running at 25 HCC projects and its Head-Office. IT R&D A separate section has been formed within the Information Systems Department to research new developments in IT that may favorably impact HCC's business. Reinforcement Steel usage optimization During the last few years, the cost of steel has gone up substantially. Software was developed using an optimization engine that takes into account the bar-bending schedule and available inventory and suggests optimum cutting patterns to reduce wastage.

Agile Enterprise Engineer

Change agent, mentor and strategist, Subbarao Hegde is credited with bringing about a revolution in the often old-fashioned infrastructure business. As technology head, Hedge has led various impressive projects, quickly bringing GMR to the head of the pack in terms of IT.

Subbarao Hegde, CTO, GMR Group

As technology head of the infrastructure giant GMR Group, Subbarao Hegde must maintain an agile infrastructure, ready for any project that the company may bag. "GMR is a project-driven company. Whenever we bag any project, we have to enhance our connectivity, so that the client has productivity from day one," explains Hegde.

Not surprisingly, Hegde's top priorities going forward include improving WAN links, application integration, SAP BIW and Knowledge Management. Unlike many of his peers, he expects to have about half the IT budget of the past year for IT infrastructure. "As in the financial year 2007-2008 we have already covered several key initiatives, the IT spend is going to reduce in the current FY 2008-2009," Hegde explains.

Apart from technology decisions, Hegde is actively involved in strategic business decision-making with the top-level management. For instance, he convinced the management of the need for standardization of IT platforms and integration of SAP ERP with the ESS portal covering all business verticals.

Besides IT, Hegde also contributes to other functional activities like learning organization initiatives, delegation and leadership development, self-management leadership, an initiative towards small group activities (SGA) and solving problems using Quality Improvement (QI) tools, housekeeping, process improvement and Total Quality Management (TQM).

Top

Implementation of Secured MPLS-based network in GMR High-speed point-to-point connectivity between three data centers, point-to-point redundant and scalable connectivity between all core data centers through the nationwide WAN. Information Systems and Technology plan (ISTP) Played a significant role in planning and executing an IT strategy study for the whole group so as to align IT and business strategies and focus on a process-driven system approach. MS Exchange and Work Anywhere and Work Anytime (WAWA): Hegde claims that GMR was an early adopter of integrated collaborative tools in MS Exchange 2007.

Master of All

With almost three decades of experience, Umesh Vashishta wears many caps simultaneously and works unrelentingly, believing that 'freedom to perform is the mantra for success.'

Umesh Vashishta, Vice President-IT, Unitech Ltd

An electronics and tele-communication engineer, his IT experience encompasses areas like e-Consulting, e-Solutions, Business Process Reengineering, Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP) practices, application software / system design and development, network management, computer maintenance, product development and marketing.

With a view that IT is more than just software-it is a strategic solution, Vashishta handles ERP (SAP), Customer Relationship Management, ISMS Deployment and Document Management System in his current role. Under his leadership in Unitech, the IT expenditure of the company for the current financial year (2007-08) has been Rs. 4.9 crore, which includes hardware, software, and services. The increase in IT expenditure is pegged to be in excess of 40% in 2008-09. This, he attributes to the implementation of SAP, along with the exponential growth in infrastructure and the real estate industry coupled with change in business strategy towards creating SEZs and intelligent homes.

"As a CIO, I realized that one of the enablers for competitive advantage would be efficient use of IT to manage business. A dynamic and complex environment calls for greater emphasis on decentralization, R&D, and greater use of IT" says Vashishta.

"Close integration between sourcing, purchase, manufacturing, finance, marketing, distribution and service is imperative to meet the customer requirements promptly. The key objective of IT is to facilitate and achieve a transition from selling inventories to selling capacities," he adds.

Top Projects at Unitech

Vashishta has been involved in ERP (mySAP/ In4Suite RE/Navision/ Tally), Enterprise Application Integration, EDI, WAN, networking on diverse platforms, communications and design and management of mission critical applications under RDBMS (SQL Server / Oracle). Also in his role as a CRM Head (CRM-In4Suite RE), his prime focus was on selling and branding through a Web-enabled CRM application that encompasses the entire process right from land acquisition, conceptualization of real estate projects, construction execution to sales. This is well-integrated with ERP, SCM and HRM as well.

Sights on Scalability

Starting off as a specialist in retail financial services on underwriting and services, Anita Pai, Head IT, ICICI Prudential, is now managing the IT function, in addition to the customer service and operations domain.

Anita Pai, Executive VP- Customer Service & Technology, ICICI Prudential

As the head of IT, Pai's main focus in the upcoming financial year will be on automation, innovation and consolidation. She says, "Our IT spend matches that of any company that is geographically as spread out as ours with a matching number of initiatives." ICICI Prudential tracks IT spends as a percentage of the top line and the overall expenses, and Pai expects them to grow proportionately this year to meet growth aspirations. Key factors, expects Pai, will be managing scale and operational efficiencies. With increased scale and high-paced growth in the organization, IT spend has to match up.

Being a part of the managing committee, Pai's involvement in the company's affairs extends to include strategic decision-making as well. With increased scale in all facets of the organization, management styles have undergone a change, with an impact not only on business processes and priorities but also on IT. Identifying redundant process steps and bottlenecks in processes and ensuring that processes are tuned to expectation levels has been a continuing endeavor that Pai has been engaged in. She also heads the Six Sigma initiatives that are run across business functions.

People-power and employee focus come to the fore as she asserts, "Work profile management, project allocation, rotations, industry benchmarking, training and development, a free and fair environment and a culture based on meritocracy ensure that retention and career growth objectives are met."

Top Projects at ICICI Prudential

M-Fund Investment Management System M-Fund is an integrated, automated system providing a single platform to address dealing, pre-dealing, decision making, fund accounting and valuation. Core activities like NAV accounting and generation process have been brought in-house, helping the company in controlling processes, enabling substantial savings, and mitigating security risks. Web-based CRM Extending CRM to the Web has enhanced the customer experience by inclusion of interaction data, making it more personalized. This has also helped in a shift from person dependency to process-driven delivery of services.

Man on a High

The bull run at the NSE has been fueling trade. Behind the scenes, it's C Kajwadkar's team matching the passion at the Exchange and sending its BCP ratings soaring.

C Kajwadkar, Executive Vice President, NSE.IT

The person behind NSE's BCP (Business Continuity Planning) exercise, initiated way back in 1995-96-long before 9/11 made it a business imperative, C Kajwadkar never seems to rest.

Since the start of the first BCP exercise, IT-supported projects at India's premier stock exchange have been moving at a frenetic pace. Among other technology deployments for which the company won early- bird status is SAN-providing firm benefits such as back-up and restore for heterogeneous systems and multi-terabyte storage.

Another opportunity for Kajwadkar and his team to show their IT prowess came shortly after the enactment of the IT Act 2000. Digital certificates were incorporated in NSE's online platform to meet the requirements of confidentiality, integrity, authentication and non-repudiation. "The first Internet trade in the country was made using a solution from NSE.IT," says Kajwadkar, who has been heading IT operations at the firm for the last ten years. More recently, with the formation of NSE.IT as a separate IT arm, he has been leading the enterprise management services and consultancy practices division.

An ongoing project like BCP tests a CIO's soft skills. At NSE.IT, Kajwadkar has taken the firm's DR plans to new heights: with significant efforts on testing and mock drills, the organization has achieved a level where live operations are periodically conducted from the BCP site. Involvement of business teams is crucial. "A BCP project involves every individual and every system in the organization; we all work as a single team," he says.

Peer Review

Bala Jothi, Sr V P, Clearing Corporation of India Kajwadkar is a natural leader. He also keeps abreast of the latest in IT and developments in other technologies. His leadership capabilities and his pursuit of staying at the top of the IT world has helped him to be seen as a capable manager. He is also very focused on the projects that he undertakes. People management and motivational skills are crucial in our industry. Kajwadkar has both skills in ample quantities and I am sure this will see him scale new heights in the future.

Catching Up, and How!

In India's fiercely competitive life-insurance market, time is one thing that Bharti Axalife's Dipak Sahoo doesn't have on his side. The company's Vice President-IT is firing on all cylinders to help his company capture market share.

Dipak Sahoo, Vice President-IT, Bharti Axa Life, Insurance

Dipak Sahoo is candid in his admission "We have been a late entrant in the market and for that we have to be doubly aggressive." Many of Bharti Axa Life's competitors, the other private-sector life insurance players, have been in the market for five years or more, while Bharti debuted just around a year ago. To a good measure, Sahoo is epitomizing that aggression in the IT support that he is ensuring. In less than a year, the IT team has deployed the infrastructure for more than 70 branches, of which around 60 branches have been rolled out over a period of less than four months.

The company's late-mover status has been cleverly leveraged by Sahoo to adopt technologies that are helping it to leap-frog others. Deployment of an enterprise content management application used for cataloging and storing documents has shaved off days from processing time-as documents are verified at the branch office and sent digitally, the time spent on couriering documents is saved.

In the insurance industry, having a great product can only take you so far, as cloning a product has become very simple. Sahoo is focused on providing the sales team with a service differentiator by helping customers take a financial decision based on correct information, quickly and reliably. "In all this, dependence on proper documentation of customer's records and access to that information is critical," points out Sahoo.

Top Projects at Bharti Axa Life Insurance

HR Information System Sahoo's team tailored a Lead Management System (from Talisma) to fit the company's HR processes. The application has automated the hiring process, tracking follow-up and providing alerts when required. The company's recruitment needs are currently huge over a period of two to three months, it will employ around 8,000 persons, 4,000 of whom are agents. Enterprise Content Management applications from FileNet Used to catalog and store documents, the application has made the documentation process efficient and provided the sales force with easy access to customer pbpinformation.

Reliance on IT

When it comes to trading operations, Reliance Money trusts G N Nagraj to keep its systems going. Nagraj, with his background in financial services and stints with banking goliaths is best suited to handle the company's challenges and the nature of its business.

G N Nagraj, Sr Vice President & Chief, Technology Officer, Reliance Money Ltd

Reliance Money's online services call for added diligence from a technology head-ensuring that the company's systems are secure and reliable. Trust Nagaraj to take charge and deliver. During his stint at Reliance Money, this busy CTO has been in charge of a number of critical projects like meeting the humongous scalability needs of the company and building a state-of-the-art mobile portal prototype that is operator and device-independent.

For the current year, he has already chalked out his agenda, which includes IT Infrastructure management on account of maintenance and expansion; driving IT Infrastructure scalability initiatives and implementing strategic projects that contribute to the top-line of the company. "I have also been involved in sales and distribution strategy and have been part of strategy formulation and execution for the same along with other business teams. I am involved in making key decisions on process and quality initiatives that affect operations and execute the same under the BPM umbrella," reveals Nagaraj.

Interesting, also, is that Nagaraj often goes beyond his role for the organization. He often sits with a team of representatives from across the company and identifies problems. He also takes ownership of resolution irrespective of nature of the problem (IT or non-IT). "I am the part of Core Strategy Team that comprises the CEO, CFO, EVP Sales, VP Branding and CIO. This team takes strategy calls and monitors execution in Reliance Money," states Nagaraj.

Peer Review

Sudip Bandyopadhyay, CEO Reliance Money Ltd In the environment that Reliance Money operates in, innovation using IT, management and maintenance of IT Infrastructure with strict SLAs and availability of 99.999% uptime assumes huge importance. G N Nagaraj executes these functions effectively. He gets involved in strategy along with business leaders in my organization and plays an equally important role in execution of this strategy. We are pleased to have G N Nagaraj as our CIO and value his contribution to the growth of Reliance Money.

Money Man

A veteran of IT in the BFSI segment, this CIO retains a hands-on approach despite having been in a leadership role for many years. Godwin Fernandes drives his team with the practical experience and wisdom that his years in the industry have afforded.

Godwin Fernandes, CTO, ASK Raymond James

Having been associated with the Banking and Financial Services industry for a number of years, Godwin Fernandes, CTO, ASK Raymond James knows what it takes to make these goliaths run efficiently. Projects like branch IT Infrastructure, beefing up of information security and IT Disaster Recovery to ensure business continuity are on his priority list for the coming financial year. With a budget that is set to soar to Rs 6 crore in the coming year and projects already finalized, Godwin Fernandes has a lot to look forward to.

However, considering that he has always had the privilege of heading IT teams right from the early days of IT adoption, starting in 1989 with a merchant banking company-it will probably be old hat for him. At ASK, he has already executed a number of critical projects. A firm believer of the strategic nature of technology, Fernandes has always been a part of the broader vision for his company. He has also been a proponent of outsourcing of services for various business processes in the Mutual Fund business.

He attributes his success to his team and deserves credit for motivating his team to deliver great performance. "With my present IT team, I have ensured that the team members are sufficiently engaged and have been given enough space to grow in their respective areas for the projects that have been assigned to them, based on the expertise that each individual Team Member possess," he says.

Peer Review

Rajesh Ajgaonkar, Vice President and Company Secretary, ASK Investments Managers Private Limited During the period I have known him, I have seen Godwin evolving as a leader in many aspects. In strategic issues such as formulating an operating business plan for the company in the ever-changing securities market environment, I had always been impressed with the vision and foresight with which he structures the Information Technology budget. His strength comes from the fact that he himself is 'hands-on' in all critical functions and drives his team with a practical approach.

Understanding Business Dynamics

As CTO of ShareKhan, Ketan Parekh manages partners, interacts with customers and departments, business scope, and works on design as well. Put simply, Parekh is responsible for program, project, and vendor management.

Ketan Parekh, CTO, ShareKhan Ltd

The top IT spending priorities for ShareKhan in the coming financial year will be ensuring the scalability of existing systems, upgrading of servers, buying licenses to ensure sustainability and stability, and focusing on the growth factor in terms of doing projects, new process improvements, new dynamics and new vendor management.

Parekh's role is also to understand and provide value addition to the company's business users. "The technical aspect is just one part of my role. I am more interested in the business side and I do give inputs to the organization's business plan," says Parekh. As a CTO, he believes in understanding the business thoroughly and talking in the same language. This, he says, helps him and the company make better business decisions.

Parekh adds, "Actually, we are not purely technology people. We are into business-cum-technology management. We don't want to restrict ourselves to technology, so we do understand the business as well."

As far as people management is concerned, Parekh is of the view that the staff has to constantly improve themselves in order to ensure retention and career growth. And as a manager, one has to understand the potential of the staff and give them space. The bottom line is always results.

Top Projects at ShareKhan

In his capacity as a CTO, Parekh has worked on various projects, key among them the automation of business processes to address changing needs in terms of market dynamics, enhancements in customer base, changes in functionalities due to new market dynamics, changes in the customer information system, and requirements from compliance and regulatory bodies. Parekh has also worked on Business Intelligence, data mapping, and instituting a single ID which works across all applications, which will be provided to customers. Besides, he has also worked on data quality and the implementation of a Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

IT and Operations

Few CIOs control the destiny of their organizations as Manoj Chandiramani does. As head of both operations and IT at Man Financial, he is able to leverage his keen business sense in the deployment of IT solutions.

Manoj Chandiramani, Senior Vice President - Head IT & Operations, Man Financial

Having worked across various industry verticals-BFSI, Petroleum, Education and Travel (Airline)-Chandiramani has majored in Broking for the last eight years. Today, he's responsible for both IT and Operations at Man Financial.

"I think the reason I was considered to head operations along with IT was because they felt that I had ably contributed to the IT space. Apart from that, there is a huge overlap of our business with IT. Operations and IT are now tightly coupled in our industry," comments Chandiramani.

He has had the opportunity to see through several key projects at Man Financial. "The global data warehouse project required that our head office reconciled our revenues on a daily basis. Revenues are available in our finance and accounts module, which had to be mapped to our systems at the corporate headquarters," he says.

As the company starts following the processes and structures that are followed in developing markets, IT connectivity will have to be made available to offshore clients. "Their uptime requirements are going to be severe," says Chandiramani.

As Head-Online Trading SBU, he is involved in most strategic business decisions. "We were the first to provide online (Web-based) trading on NSE in India," he adds. His top three IT spending priorities in the coming fiscal are knowledge sharing amongst various functions of the organization, service delivery and security.

Peer Review

Vineet Bhatnagar, Country Head, MF Global (India) The role of technology head within our firm has been instrumental primarily because of our internal reliance on sophisticated technology, consistent with our overseas parent and our local commitment to stay ahead of the competition. Leveraging next-gen technology allows us to create differentiating service levels. Manoj and his team have demonstrated that the right technology can make a difference. He has also been a catalyst in integrating our operations and technology processes, providing a holistic view of our business at an operational level and assisting in strategic decision-making.

Winning at the Online Game

Providing a secure browser-based system that connected with multiple payment gateways was proving to be a tall order for Dawnay Day AV (India) Advisors, but P Rangarajan was keen to meet the challenges head-on.

P Rangarajan, Director - Group Technology, Dawnay Day AV (India)

The decision at Dawnay Day AV last year to launch an online trading module was dictated by business compulsions the wealth management industry in the nation was growing at a scorching pace and, as a mutual fund distributor, the company had to be one-up over its competitors. Setting up the online trading module-notes Rangarajan- required a mammoth effort, as the company had to provide an integrated account linking the banking, broking and demat accounts of its client and ensure seamless flow of securities and funds for trading.

But Rangarajan didn't want to stop at that; designing a DR architecture, he installed online trading servers at Disaster Management Sites (DRS) for additional security, providing uninterrupted connectivity from DRS to the stock exchanges and the company's head office. Online payment gateways with ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank and a thorough testing period before roll-out capped off the preparations. Audits from BSE and NSE validated the system's robustness. "We were able to go live in the month of March 2006, well within our deadline of 90 days," says Rangarajan. Probably the most important endorsements have come from the company's clients: in just eight months of its launch, the online customer base has now grown to 36 percent of the company's trading clients. "The exercise has led to a complete realignment of operational areas, saving us time and cost and utilizing our human resources better," says Rangarajan.

Peer Review

L Sundarrajan, ex-President IT, Aditya Birla Group Rangarajan joined us in Systems and Technology and very capably handled the assignment in close co-ordination with other departments. His close co-ordination with different vendors, and, at the same time, his deep involvement with his team members, ensured that the output was precisely in line with the company's requirements. Rangarajan closely monitors the progress of projects and various activities connected therewith. His logical and analytical sense leads to crucial ideation, which on occasions makes the results look simple.

Scratch and Spend

Prakash Pawar has worn a rack full of hats and continues in the tradition of the reputation that precedes him-that of Mr. Fixit. With diverse roles in the past including HR, Operations and Stores, this all-rounder is set for any challenges that may arise.

Prakash Ramchandra Pawar,CTO & Head Operations, Intrex India

With a quarter of a century under his belt, the last 16 with companies like the Times of India, Jet Airways and the Essel Group, Pawar has consistently been involved with new initiatives and technology. Known as a problem solver he has provided inputs in a number of areas as the need arose. For instance, within Intrex, he has handled various additional responsibilities such as HR, Operations, Stores, Purchase and property procurement, besides heading a number of internal projects. As head of HR, he has been responsible for putting the top management team in place.

"We have around 15 people in IT. We manage IT talent right from the selection process, conducting several technical and non-technical tests before the interview which consists of both technical and general rounds. We select those candidates who have good technical skills who, while wanting to work on new technologies, would like to see a project through rather than being shunted from project to project," comments Pawar.

He implemented Web services back in 2002 for the ItzCash project, when it was not a buzz word. He had also chosen Java as the platform for the business system and used the IBM Websphere application server at a time when Websphere was not the market leader in its category.

Today he is armed with a Rs 8 crore budget and expects the quantum of IT spend in his organization to double or triple in the upcoming fiscal for which his priorites are ERP, terminal infrastructure setup and DR.

Peer Review

Shekher Shrivastava, Vice-President - Marketing Today, ItzCash is a prominent payment solutions provider. If one looks behind the technology or market share, there emerges a selfless perseverance and an unfailing personal commitment by a hands-on individual driven by a passionate desire to execute. Prakash demonstrates an ability to detail, equip and empower others to fulfill the collective vision-to bring the project to a benchmark, ready for infusion of external talent. IT under Prakash "never stops learning" and continues to drive success and market leadership by analytically translating market insight into technology.

CIO, Consultant, President

The current President and CTO of Reliance Capital, Sandeep Phanasgaonkar, has handled myriad senior positions across the who's-who of the corporate world. Few senior management personnel have had the opportunity or the ability to do this.

Sandeep Phanasgaonkar, President & CTO, Reliance Capital

An officer, a consultant and a CIO, Sandeep Phanasgaonkar has played all these different roles. Starting as a probationary officer in SBI, he went on to be a consultant at Tata Unisys, a Senior Consultant at i-flex, Deutsche Bank's Regional Technology Head for Asia, GE Capital's Group CIO, India for its financial service busines and Genpact's Global CIO. Today, he is President & CTO of Reliance Capital where he is focusing on scaling up core systems and delivery channels for this young group of financial services companies. His top three priorities for the coming fiscal are building scale on current core systems and delivery channels to handle proposed volume growth for the next two years, expanding and integrating all customer engagement systems and to do the buildup of IT DR and BCP.

Explaining how the CIO's role becomes a strategic one, he says, "Strategic inputs in various aspects of Customer Relationship Management and Process metrics & Process re-engineering are a natural adjunct to the IT job."

Creating a Single Customer View to facilitate enhanced customer service and service differentiation for the various delivery channels across all lines-of-business was one instance where he played a strategic role. In financial services, IT is the only technology and this is used to create scale, delivery reach, operating economy and differentiation in product and service.

Top Projects at Reliance Capital

Sandeep Phanasgaonkar cites the implementation of the online trading and broking system in Reliance Money, implementation of the document management and scanning workflow system across different Lines of Business and implementing SAP HR and FICO and laying the foundation of controllership and governance at his present job as his top three projects. He also mentions the implementation of an Identity Management System for 23,000 employees across 15 offices of Genpact globally, enabling Single Sign-On for all Web applications across the company.

Knowledge Power

Having begun his career in IT as a programmer, Subhojit Roy knows how to relate to his team, be pragmatic and get things done. As Head-IT of SBI Funds Management, Roy straddles the thin line separating IT and business functions.

Subhojit Roy, Head-Information Technology, SBI Funds Management

In the corporate world, it always helps when one starts at the bottom of the ladder. This helps one's strategic view and the holistic assessment of implications of various policies and projects. Subhojit Roy, Head-IT, started his career as a programmer. Having proved himself at every step, today Roy heads the IT function in SBI Funds Management.

The wealth of knowledge that he has augmented over his professional journey helps him assess the impact of his decisions on the other departments, beforehand. Also, with IT increasingly becoming an integral part of all the business functions of a company, the line separating IT and business has blurred. "As the head of IT, I have opportunities to participate in all the strategy meetings of the company, reviews of business functions and give inputs and innovate in areas of customer service, sales & marketing and operations", explains Roy.

Additionally, his experience has made him sensitive to strategic issues like managing intellectual capital in his organization. In today's time of high attrition, he believes that the best tactic to retain talent is to empower the human knowledge bank. "I try to ensure that my team members participate in the process of decision making at various levels.

I also make sure that they are consulted at various stages of decision making," signs off Roy

Top Projects at SBI Funds Management

Enterprise Information Portal The company has recently deployed its Enterprise Information Portal. It features a built-in collaboration suite, Content Management with centralized document library and Employee Self-Services and workflow. Contact Center and CRM for Customer Servicing Roy implemented a centralized Customer Contact Centre and a CRM system for customer services enabling the branches to log customer interaction and track complaints resolution. Off-site Disaster Recovery Roy and his team established a complete Disaster Recovery Site in an off-city location.

Power Plays in Rural Corridors

To understand India one must go to its villages. Financial institutions have understood this, and latched on to the financial opportunities that come in the wake of innovative mechanisms to tap rural India.

Suresh, A Shanmugam National Head - Business Information Technology Solutions, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd.

Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (MMFS) is one such institution and its CIO, Suresh A Shanmugam, has his hands full harnessing his firm's IT infrastructure to power business teams with the tools they need.

Central to Shan's application deployment strategy is the project to connect the entire task force with e-POS hand-held devices which act like mini mobile branches. Using these devices, the sales force is able to provide swift response to business queries and make the collection process more effective. "They now have the confidence to negotiate better during interactions with customers, based on accurate current data," says Shanmugam.

India's connectivity woes, especially in rural areas, are well known, and Shanmugam must grapple with uptime and maintenance issues. He has instituted a system support structure with one local support person for every five branches.

The fact that MMFS has gained considerable traction in the rural finance segment may be well known, but less known are some of the behind-the-scene drivers that have taken it there. For instance, Shanmugam's obsession with rural technology, which has led him to read widely on the subject. Little surprise then that he has also been instrumental in deploying such technologically diverse projects as solar-based green energy systems and kiosks for communication and knowledge management.

Top Projects at Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services

Ensuring connectivity at rural villages and remote semi-urban towns Has developed pioneering products and services. MMFS has chosen to do things differently and thought "out-of-the-box" to differentiate themselves in the market. Kiosks for rural knowledge management Rural customer convenience and accurate information is ensured, building good relations with customers. Hand held devices to capture customer information directly into the system MMFS' innovative project "MF Connect -3000" enables the entire sales force with e-POS hand-held devices which act like mini mobile branches.

Coming Full Circle

Titus Gunaseelan's professional life has come full circle, associating with India Infoline once again after a sabbatical. Back in action on his home turf, Gunaseelan has his hands full with a host of projects and people management issues.

Titus Gunaseelan, CTO, India Infoline

Gunaseelan, CTO, India Infoline, believes that motivation is the best medicine for most people-related problems. "It's not just money that drives people. At work, people want to show their talent and want to prove themselves, and I provide them with a platform to do just that." Also, he opines that motivation comes in different ways-money, healthy work environment, job rotation, heightened interaction with juniors and seniors, clear-cut communication about the company's goals, missions, action plans, etc.-all work towards motivating an employee and ensuring high productivity.

While at Anand Rathi, Gunaseelan handled intellectual capital very well and worked on multiple projects primarily on the infrastructure side. He was instrumental in creating a datacenter for the company. In his previous position as an IT manager at India Infoline, he headed the team developing software applications for the trading and distribution business of the company and was in charge of trading-related applications.

Today, in his current role, he has been the key to the technology face-lift at India Infoline, with various new implementations for customers and for the organization. As for the year ahead, he is looking to dedicate a significant amount of resources to implementations relating to collaboration and a few enterprise-wide applications such as HRIS.

Top Projects atIndia Infoline

IP Turret System India Infoline decided to implement this IP Telephony project-a dealer-based system-when it initiated its institutional business. As a part of the leadership team, Gunaseelan was involved in indentifying the solution and later co-ordinating the finalization of the system. Primarily made for the dealer board, this system runs with almost zero downtime which is essential for the business. Consolidation Gunaseelan headed the team which undertook the process of consolidating storage and networks for India Infoline.

Change is the Constant

IFFCO Tokio is a major insurance player in the country. Increasing volumes, decreasing paperwork coupled with an expanding consumer base and heightened competition spelled a huge challenge for the IT head of the company, UC Dubey.

U C Dubey, Executive VP - IT, IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Company

Ever since U C Dubey took charge of technology at IFFCO Tokio, there has been constant activity on the technology front. Be it the CRM project or ITIL compliance, Dubey has left no stone unturned to comply with the industry standards for various platforms in the company. Armed with an IT Spend of around Rs 20 crore, Dubey has already decided to undertake projects in the areas of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning, information security and mobile and Web computing-with some already initiated. Not one to be satisfied with the functioning of his own department, Dubey takes initiative and is also involved in various strategic and management activities. For instance, he was the force behind deciding whether IFFCO Tokio should outsource its call center and also encouraged launching newer and innovative products.

Dubey needs a strong team to back him up, and he makes sure that they are geared to help him execute. "On the people management side, I believe in giving enough independence and full accessibility to staff members. Once the priorities are set and the objective is clear, staff members should be left free to accomplish the task," explains Dubey, when asked on his strategy to extract the best performance from his team. "The staff should also be provided with enough opportunities for learning and contributing towards achieving organizational goals," he adds. As the IFFCO Tokio juggernaut rolls on, UC Dubey is ready to match every step.

Top Projects

Siebel CRM The company opted for Siebel CRM, which included point of sale, partner management, renewal retention and call center related customer service applications. Cordys The SOA-based Cordys system was implemented to provide seamless integration of the existing core insurance system with other systems. This provides features like BPM, Enterprise Service Bus and integration tools for smooth interaction between various systems. Service Desk CA's Unicenter service plus service desk was deployed in IFFCO Tokio to introduce an ITIL compliant system.

Business Partner

An experienced CIO with a wealth of experience in the BFSI vertical, Zameer Syed is no stranger to dealing with unfavourable odds. Even as HDFC Securities, and the industry in general was seeing massive growth, Syed was able to scale and more.

Zameer G Syed, Senior Vice President - IT & Business Solutions, Group HDFC Securities

Syed has been a CIO for most of his career with one exception, the time when he was Head-Consultative Partnering at Quantus Infosoft. In the past he has helmed IT at Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Ltd, held the post of Head - IT Projects at GE Money (GE Countrywide), been the Associate V.P. & Head - IT at Prudential ICICI Asset Management Company Ltd and Manager - IT at Peregrine Capital India Pvt. Ltd.

"As part of the Executive Management committee, I provide strategic inputs as IT plays a key role in all aspects of the business. The strategic inputs play a critical role in the Customer Service functions and in terms of business growth and expansion," he says. Some of the key implementations at his present organization include the deployment of an online trading application, eIBS from TCS, and migrating the same from v2.0 to v3.2. All this was done as the company experienced more than 300 percent growth.

ECN (Electronic Contract Notes) Application - AltaSigna from Odyssy Technologies was implemented to comply with the market regulator's guidelines to send 'digitally signed Contract Notes' in lieu of physical contract notes, to end-customers. By using the ECN solution, HDFC Securities has derived benefits including reduction in process time and substantial savings in operational costs.

Today, Syed manages a Rs 40 crore IT budget, projected to grow by about 25 percent next fiscal. That money will go towards new business initiatives, upgrades and setting up infrastructure for business growth and geographical expansion.

Comment

Renu Jalan - Exec. Dir. & Head of Risk and Compliance The financial services business demands quicker, efficient decisions and speedier delivery of solutions from the CIO. In an environment where each millisecond makes a difference to the company's bottom line, our technology head is not merely a support function, but a business partner. Puneet Gupta - Vice President & Head of Sales As a leader, our CIO not only applies expertise to his tasks at hand, he shares, communicates with and fosters the development of new knowledge-inside and outside his boundaries-in a variety of business stakeholders.

Who Jumps Farthest!

Before their taste-buds, dairy companies must capture the eyeballs of customers. Early visibility matters. Mother Dairy's Annie Mathew is bolstering the company's supply chain, providing valuable information regarding product availability to its channel.

Annie Mathew, Head of IT, Mother Dairy

Alongside fortifying Mother Dairy's supply chain, Annie Mathew, who serves as Head of Information Technology at the firm, has prioritized other areas, all of which directly map to business imperatives. Chief among these is consolidating IT infrastructure and standardizing IT services, which, Mathew notes, is the basis for efficient business processes. "Bringing in uniform standards and processes across multiple lines of business and over several locations is very important for us," says Mathew. The company's SAP implementation is in progress, and synchronized with this is the project to ensure reliable WAN connectivity across the firm's scattered locations.

Mathew's ability to feel the pulse of Mother Dairy's business has seen her convert hurdles into opportunities. Her team is putting in place infrastructure to support knowledge management and dissemination and deliver expected service levels. Farther out, applications designed by Mathew's team provide information and support to farmers through access to products, best practices and trends in their relevant domains.

While working through all these projects, Mathew is adamant that ownership rests with the business teams. "Ensuring that ownership for the ERP project rests with the business and that it is accepted as a business transformation project has required an investment of considerable time and effort."

Top Projects at Mother Dairy

SAP implementation Currently is in progress and is expected to provide a robust framework for business transactions. Associated infrastructure projects like data center creation, hardware deployment and reliable WAN connectivity to synchronize with the SAP rollout are also in progress. Knowledge management systems Setting up a robust infrastructure to support knowledge management and creation of an IT shared service to deliver expected service levels. Portal additions For providing information and support to farmers with access to products, best practices and trends in their relevant domains.

Techie Dons the Finance Hat

Think CFOs are too mired in numbers to connect with IT-speak? Think again. MTR Foods' (a packaged food company, acquired by Orkla, a Norwegian major) CIO, B G Shenoy, straddles the world of technology and finance and makes a good case for doing so.

B G Shenoy, Head - Finance and IT, Orkla's India operations

CIOs who report into CFOs are advised to be wary of the finance head's obsession with monetary benefits; often if a technology rollout doesn't directly equate to improved revenues, it gets the short end of the stick at the budgeting stage. It helps, therefore, that Shenoy is his own boss, ensuring speedy clearances. But what's impressive is the manner in which his deployments have impacted the company's bottomline. As per Shenoy's estimate, judicious technology investments have brought down the working capital by five percent, which translates roughly to between Rs 10 to 15 crore for the SME.

In the erstwhile MTR Foods, Shenoy had undertaken a fast-track implementation of SAP ERP. "The speed at which we stabilized the investment in SAP ERP without business disruption was important for the success of the project," says Shenoy.

Shenoy sees the acquisition of the company in a positive light-he feels that the Indian operations will now get global exposure. When it comes to team management, however, it is looking inwards that is important for him. The most important tenet in effective team building, he says, is that information in the form of communication should reach the lowest rank among the employees. "It helps in overall team delivery only then is there a sense of belonging."

Top Projects at MTR Foods

Networking of stockists The company has started a pilot project to capture the secondary sales happening at the stockist level and study sales patterns. The pilot project includes ten stockists and, depending upon its success, it is to be rolled out to 40 other stockists. Sever Purchase Plans to buy additional Sun UltraSPARC servers to meet new requirements. ERP Investment in additional SAP ERP modules. Communication Lotus Domino messaging is to be deployed soon.

Managing a Spirited Business

Farhan Khan manages the technology backbone of Radico-known for brands like 8PM Whiskey, Contessa Rum and Old Admiral Brandy. As the company expanded its operations, he geared up to meet the increased IT needs.

Farhan Khan, GM-IT, Radico Khaitan

Farhan Khan has his priorities set for the coming year. For starters, this GM-IT for Radico Khaitan is keen on investing in a supply chain management solution (SCM). Beefed-up network security is also on the cards as the company sets up a data center. Next on the agenda are a data warehousing solution with BI on top to get more meaningful business insights.

With business expanding its operations through a variety of alliances, Khan has had to be on his toes, gearing up to meet the needs of his organization. "I feel responsible in strategic areas. For instance, for any new project or avenues that Radico Khaitan plans to take up, I do data analysis and spot the market opportunity. I also look at various options in marketing, setting up factory and logistics. In this manner, my role has evolved into that of a strategic business planner over a period of time," states Khan. "I also give strategic inputs when our company embarks on a new venture-a new project or new business area expansion, etc. The initial feasibility study on investment in the same is done by me," he adds.

With enthusiastic and proactive people like Khan, it is no wonder then that Radico Khaitan is managing to provide tough competition to its rivals in the industry.

Top Projects at Radico Khaitan

Employee Communication Management The project helped Radico Khaitan to consolidate employee communication systems and to share information across the organization. Dealer Management Systems A strategic move to consolidate all the dealers nation-wide as well as the sales force. The company benefited from the increased quality and availability of consolidated information online. SCM With dealers distributed across the country, an SCM initiative was undertaken by the company. This project is currently in process and Khan and his team should be able to complete it in next six months.

Tech (Uni)leverage

For Hindustan Unilever Ltd - which has about seven lakh retail outlets, 5,000 stockists with 70 warehouses and 1,200 stock keeping units cutting across various geographies-an effective supply chain management system is critical.

K G Mohan, CIO-South Asia and Africa, Hindustan, Unilever Ltd

K G Mohan, CIO-South Asia and Africa finds that building IT capability to consolidate an entire system onto a single platform is vital and hence has gone ahead with SAP applications for various business needs. The entire supply chain and business process runs on SAP ERP and its APO and CRM solutions. To create a robust IT system, high-end Unix servers were deployed. Creating global IT services to evolve a paperless office was imperative and an ITIL standard is being used to bring in operational efficiencies.

With 1.5 percent of its total sales turnover dedicated to IT, Mohan expects investment to be flat on the operations front and up by 10 percent as far as projects are concerned. "Going forward, we will leverage the SAP applications, deploy data warehousing for improving delivery capability across geographies using Microsoft's OLAP applications, while enhancing IT infrastructure using MPLS based networks from British Telecom to consolidate transaction capabilities," says Mohan.

Peer Review

D Sundaram, Finance Director, Hindustan Unilever Ltd. The key evolution of a CIO's role in the company involves two important components-business intimacy and IT for competitive advantage. While a CIO cannot truly deliver if the focus is only hygiene and automation, K G Mohan, group CIO of HUL and his department ensure that they have deeper understanding of business processes and nuances, which cover consumers, customers, cost structure, competition etc., and mere knowledge of technology is inadequate. His role encompasses every aspect of the business having timely, reliable and accurate information.

Camping in Open Country

When choosing an operating system, most Indian companies opt for the choice of the masses, strengthening the marketshare of the dominant player. Nisheeth Doctor chose to go the open source way and stay there, making heads turn.

Nisheeth Doctor, IT Manager Wagh, Bakri Tea Group

The proprietary operating systems camp has been trumpeting its advantages for years, but Nisheeth Doctor, IT Manager of Wagh Bakri Tea Group, wasn't one to be blindly herded into accepting these beliefs. Instead, he did his own SWOT analysis on open source and found its benefits outweighing the drawbacks.

The chief gains expected were in reliability. After long discussions on various topics, Doctor was able to convince the management to opt for open source software. Ultimately, the company went with Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 as a server operating system and Red Hat Linux 9 as the desktop operating system. "It was a tough decision for the Information & Systems department as well as for the users," Doctor admits, referring to the fact that most new employees generally have a higher comfort factor with Windows.

Preparations for migration to the Linux platform were well chalked out. "Proper training was given to the users and those who were accustomed to MS Office were shown the benefits of open source office suites and the similarities between both office suites," says Doctor. The payback was worth far more than the effort put in. "Linux was well accepted throughout the organization and users have been working happily for the last five years."

The key factor that has brought cheer to Doctor is what he set out to achieve: negligible downtime.

Top Projects at Wagh Bakri Tea Group

Operating System RedHat Linux deployed on desktops. At the server level, RedHat Advanced Server 2.1 has been deployed. Web-based applications designed With Java / JSP as a front end tool and Oracle database. ERP Implementation Based on the recommendations of a business process reengineering study conducted by consultants, the company selected a local software development company to develop an ERP package. Connectivity Currently different locations are connected to the company's corporate office at Ahmedabad by leased lines. VoIP has been rolled out at some of the company's offices.

A Reference Implementation

The most cherished technology deployed in Britannia is its SAP implementation on the IBM DB2 platform. With the deployment being a standard reference for IBM, P Shyam Sunder, VP-Head of Quality, Britannia Industries, is understandably proud.

P Shyam Sunder , VP-Head of Quality, Britannia Industries

Shyam Sunder claims that the SAP implementation in Britannia is the first of its kind and magnitude in India on the IBM DB2 platform. This initiative not only gave Britannia significant savings in terms of database costs but also provided a stable database platform. "IBM DB2 gave us higher performance with lower disk space requirements and complete integration with the SAP DBA cockpit that is easy to manage," adds Shyam Sunder.

Today, the company runs all of its critical applications on DB2 and is one of the worldwide reference sites for IBM DB2

Titled 'Project Butterfly', the project was executed between July 2000 and March 2001, when the first site went live. The rest of the organization migrated to the system over the next six months. The current SAP deployment spans a network of over 100 nodes. Modules like FI, CO, MM, PP, SD were implemented on the DB2 database on AIX servers.

Another significant project undertaken was Strategic Outsourcing. The project commenced in September 2006 with a consolidation of services to be covered and stipulating desired service levels. Evaluation of the offers received was done in three key stages consisting of alignment of offers received on a common basis, Quality and Information Systems.

As part of the top management team of the company and being responsible for quality in addition to IT, Shyam Sunder is called upon to provide strategic inputs in a wide range of activities.

Top Projects at Britannia

Britannia plans to increase its IT budget by 10 percent this year. The top three IT spending priorities in the current financial year will be Employee empowerment Self-service portals, dashboards and workflows are planned to aid employees in availing services. Business applications Enhancement of business applications through more automation, database consolidation, and use of systems. Systems security Shyam Sunder aims to enhance the focus on information security systems going forward.

IT's Last Frontier

Exploring new frontiers in technology has been S R Balasubramanium's passion all through his career. Now the Chief Executive Vice President, IT at Godfrey Phillips India, he has set his sights on strategizing for his firm's new business areas.

S R Balasubramanium, Executive VP, IT & Corporate Development, Godfrey Phillips India

Balasubramanium won't tell us what his new business is. However, the leadership qualities that he has shown in previous projects provide a slant into his style of working.

A few years ago, in the capacity of VP of Information Systems at Hero Honda, Balasubramanium had been among the first in India to use version 4.6B of SAP and SAP SRM version 3.0. Large-scale use of Lotus Notes, which Balasubramanium initiated, was also uncommon for its time. Even earlier, as the GM (IT) at Gujarat Heavy Chemicals, he lead his team in internal application development using GUI tools, a rather unfrequented terrain at that time.

Currently at Godfrey Phillips, Balasubramanium is planning the extension of ERP to cover other functions and bring in mobile computing in a few key areas. He's on familiar turf, having previously led an exercise to streamline the entire supply chain network that brought in several improvements in the network.

For a person seeking constant challenges, active involvement in a CIO forum seems to be in order. Balasubramanium has been the founder president of the IS Manager's Club in Delhi, where he has been working with other senior colleagues to develop young talent through collective learning and sharing. For motivating his own team members, he has an effective mantra: "encourage enterprise and initiative and let people drive their own projects." He believes that so long as people are enthused, stay ahead of the industry and have independence, they would stay on and not shift. "One cannot stop attrition but it can be significantly reduced."

Top Projects at Godfrey Phillips

ERP implementation in the organization Extension of ERP to cover other functions. Mobile computing Deployments being planned in a few key areas. Infrastructure upgrade Revamping the IT set up to move towards enterprise class systems. New business area Balasubramanium has framed a strategic document and a business plan for a new business area in which the company plans to venture. (He has previously lead a team on a project of scenario planning to help the organization chart a path for staying ahead of the competition.)

E-business Maven

An early proponent of e-business, Subrata Dey has been working in IT for the past 17 years in various areas and capacities. No stranger to large, distributed projects, Dey has handled packaged and custom-built application implementations with equal aplomb.

Subrata Dey, Information, Systems Godrej Sara Lee Ltd

Today he is Vice President-Information Systems at Godrej Sara Lee Ltd. The organization spends approximately 1 percent of its sales turnover on IT. This year, thanks to an SAP implementation, that figure's expected to be higher. His priorities for the upcoming fiscal are data warehousing and business intelligence, disaster recovery and business continuity and to extend SAP.

"We have just completed the SAP implementation for two of our businesses covering 55 locations and 250+ business users (the entire domestic and export business out of India). We plan to extend SAP to other countries where we have manufacturing and distribution operations," says Dey.

Dey cites a couple of other projects that are close to his heart. One was a custom-built solution on IBM WebSphere, DB2 and Java platform completely integrated with the company's ERP solution. The system has been running successfully for the last five to six years integrating 500 distributors to achieve a replenishment based ordering system. The other was Project SMARTNET, a B2E initiative taken to provide a single window where employees can transact and find work-related information.

"I like a free and frank environment where any team member can come and discuss his issues with me without thinking about what I may feel about it. Apart from that I believe that to ensure retention and career growth of staff, you need to empower them, give them additional responsibilities," he adds.

Peer Review

Ravi Venkateswar, Chief Operating Officer, Godrej Sara Lee "Subrata plays a leadership role in defining and finalizing IT strategies for the business and for the company's IT security policy. He has been instrumental in initiating and implementing various IT initiatives like the e-business initiative with distributors and suppliers and e-initiatives for employees and instrumental in setting up a centre of excellence for Intranet and Internet-based initiatives for Sara Lee in the Asian region. Recently, he successfully led the SAP implementation. He makes sure that the IT function works as a major enabler for the business."

Controlling Waste, Freeing Time

Employees love him. Business heads encourage him. Close scrutiny of Henkel CAC's business processes helped Manikkam V S identify gaps in the business; he then brought in IT to plug them.

Manikkam V S, AGM-IT Henkel, Information Technology

At Henkel CAC, a division of Henkel-a global leader of cosmetics and adhesives, higher production yields have a direct relation with business gains. Manikkam V S, Assistant GM of IT at Henkel Information Technology, deployed a production process module that did just that. "With production yield substantially increased, there has been a quick payback on IT investment," he says.

Manikkam also deployed a Depot Sales Accounting System which is integrated with the existing ERP system. At eight depots at various location within India, sales data is input and this information is available online through the company's ERP system. A single integrated system gives a snapshot view of all functions within the organization. "This has helped us in accurate decision making, reducing wastage, monitoring purchase requirements online, increasing production yield and reducing reconciliation time," Manikkam notes.

To improve cash flow and collection, IT has chipped in again. The accounts receivable module provides online information and hence aging receivables can be monitored closely, says Manikkam. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in monthly collections. Probably the best part, Manikkam opines, is that with improved business efficiency employees are able to complete their work faster. "You don't see employees working late any more as the process has been completely automated."

Peer Review

Sandeep Kothari, Eagle Seals and Systems Manikkam is good at aligning the IT department's goals and objectives with those of the enterprise. I have seen him carefully review processes for project funding. He has evolved so that he now considers IT spending from an investment perspective, accelerating the transformation of IT from a cost center to a profit center. He considers technology investment issues on the basis of likely outcomes at the enterprise level. He is well-aware of new laws pertaining to corporate governance, and designs systems to ensure financial accountability and transparency.

The Model Co-operative

Sumul - now known as The Surat District Co-operative Milk Union Ltd - is a vast initiative with intricate needs when it comes to IT. Trust Satyen Naik, Manager IT, to take care of them with consummate ease.

Satyen Naik, Manager IT, Surat Disctrict, Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd. Sumul Diary

Satyen Naik has been associated with the Surat Disctrict Co-operative Milk Producers' Union since 1996. Having started at a junior level helped him understand the needs, difficulties, and apprehensions of IT users at various levels. As a result, this IT pro strives to make solutions as simple and user-friendly as possible. No wonder then, that this model co-operative has made great technological advances. SAN, NAS implementations, state-of-the-art data centers and Online Integrated Computerized Systems are some of the projects that have been implemented at Sumul, with Naik at the helm.

So valuable has been his contribution, that he is now a part of the prestigious project committee at Sumul Dairy, which is the final decision-maker and one which approves all projects between Rs. 20 lakhs to 2 crore. "I also get involved in the annual budget meeting, which covers a host of topics other than IT. I am actively engaged in all CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives like increasing income per household, making of pucca houses, women's health and sanitation programs, building water tanks and gober gas plants etc," states Satyen Naik. Today, armed with the necessary budgets-and more importantly, Trust-Naik plans to take Sumul to the next level in technology adoption by spearheading IT security initiatives, forging plans for network expansion (connecting almost 1,000 locations) and disaster recovery.

Top Projects at Sumul Dairy

NAS Implementation The organization generates around 1 million records per day. Data was stored in disparate locations without central back-up. Naik and his team deployed a NAS solution for speedy retrieval of data without putting extra load on the network. SAN Implementation It was necessary for Sumul to invest in a resilient IT setup to support the milk despatch operation, which is a 24/7 activity. After implementation of the SAN, application servers and software are planned. Data centre Considering the criticality of data, Sumul opted for a data center to protect its IT infrastructure.

Real-time Healthcare

With the healthcare and insurance industry promising huge growth in the coming years, a great task lies ahead of Amit Kumar, Group CIO, Max Healthcare & Max New York Life in ensuring the efficient operations of the business through IT.

Amit Kumar, Group CIO, Max Healthcare & Max New York Life

Kumar's commitment to IT is reflected in his intention to increase the IT spend by 25 percent in the coming year, with clear priorities laid down.

In an industry that has not been very IT savvy, Kumar has been instrumental in evolving a well-researched technology blueprint for the company, which introduced hospital information management system for the first time, customized for its use-developed and implemented by IBM. "This application developed on the Microsoft .NET platform enabled of all our customers to have real time access to information," says Kumar.

Wide area networks is another area Kumar focused on, creating a centralized data system and connectivity-all with redundancy built in.

Kumar, with his wide experience in handling operations for financial groups, often influences business decisions. "I am involved in the planning of the entire operations and strategy for various branches and also to decide on what solutions can be evolved for hospitals and patients who can access our portal to gain knowledge on varied aspects related to healthcare," says Kumar.

Top Projects at Max Healthcare

The agenda is to make IT ubiquitous within the organization and leverage its strength. As a focused approach, the goal is to deploy electronic medical record (EMR) and a clinical decisioning solution which provides insights into varied drugs, products and equipment. 2008 will see the emergence of an organized knowledge-based portal which helps patients with information related to diseases, hospitals, doctors, treatment, remedies, appointment schedules etc. This is where a major investment will be made. A dashboard, along with business intelligence capability is a thrust area for Max Healthcare, while foraying into RFID is next.

Taking Orders for Smiles

Poor service at a luxury hotel can quickly snowball into a threat to the hotel's revenue stream. Hyatt's Sudhakant Mishra implemented a system that stops this from happening.

Sudhakant Mishra, Information Systems Manager, Hyatt Regency

To address the issue of maintaining high quality standards of customer satisfaction at The Hyatt Regency, the obvious solution was to deploy a call management software application. The system tracked customer complaints from their origin to the closure of a ticket, requiring service staff to send a message when a job was completed and automatically escalated complaints to higher levels if unattended for stipulated time periods. But Sudhakant Mishra, Hyatt Regency's Information Systems Manager, faced stiff opposition from employees who thought that the time limits in the system were too short. The root cause in Mishra's opinion, though, was inertia: "People don't want to make changes," he states. Mishra worked actively with the operation teams, changing time limits of calls where required. "Now there is a clear track of complaints, which helps us identify problem areas in service much better," he says.

Round-the-clock operations at luxury hotels mean that Hyatt can ill-afford to have downtime even for a few seconds, let alone minutes. "When the customer is checking out, any delay in processing his bill can result in much nuisance to him." Mishra has put in place multiple power backups and has adhered to a policy of buying only the most reliable IT infrastructure, making the event of a hung system a remote possibility.

Another IT project which provided handsome returns on the customer satisfaction front was the deployment of a Wi-Fi network in the hotel. Besides the convenience of wireless access, Mishra notes that guests also experienced improved service due to better grade network equipment.

Top Projects at Hyatt Regency

Deployed MICROS Systems' OPERA Solution Hyatt migrated to the OPERA Solution, an integrated and Web-enabled suite of products that meets most of the hotel's business process requirements. It also deployed MICROS' (POS) Point-Of-Sale hardware. Wireless connectivity Wi-Fi access for all guests in rooms and lounges. Power back-up Multiple power back-ups to counter power disruptions. Deployed Triton's Call Management Software for monitoring customer calls and improving service levels.

In IT we Trust

Suresh Shenoy leads the technology team at one of the busiest, most competitive pharma companies. With a host of regulations to deal with and and a demanding organization, Shenoy has his hands full working at Wockhardt.

Suresh Shenoy, Senior VP-IT, Wockhardt Ltd

Armed with an IT budget increasing by almost 20 percent every year, Suresh Shenoy has set his priorities on acquiring ERP licenses for an impending implementation and certain networking projects. In his journey at Wockhardt, he has undertaken a number of projects like the Wipro Hospital Management System, and also deployed state-of-the-art infrastructure. Both these projects required not only his technological prowess, but also his business skills in evaluation, negotiation, procurement, commissioning and implementation across ten hospitals run by the company.

Shenoy's systems run 24/7 with modules like billing, materials, clinical, back-office, customer-care all integrated. Operational specifics are local to these systems. On the other hand, financial data is captured at a global level in Oracle Financials.

Projects like these need immense planning and people management. While Shenoy is already a master at the former, what is commendable is the trust that he puts in his team members-juniors, colleagues and seniors. "Trust them. Make them understand that you trust them and they will be motivated to perform. Additionally, state-of-the-art technologies have been commissioned, which give them a clear idea about their career path and how they will grow," states Shenoy.

With a career spanning across domestic pharma giants like Lupin, Unichem Labs and the current Wockhardt Ltd, Shenoy has evolved into a technology wizard, enabling these domestic companies to hold their own in the world market.

Top Projects at Wockhardt

Global SAP Implementation Shenoy implemented this project across India, UK, US, Germany and Ireland. The work culture and systems, as well as platforms were disparate and distributed across Wockhardt companies in these locations. Since a number of acquisitions were in the queue, the time-frames were aggressive. ERP Configuration determination, implementation partner selection, server and networking procurement, commissioning and an all-India implementation across four divisions, the Headquarters, 11 plants and 30 C&F agents was done in a span of nine months.

The A in Automation

Starting his career as a production engineer with Phoenix Lamps, Ajay Bakshi has now moved into the role of process improvement and automation through IT. Bakshi has been instrumental in the early adoption of J2EE, .Net and Hybernet.

Ajay Bakshi (AVP), (Process Improvement and Automation), HTMT Global Solutions

As AVP (Process Improvement and Automation) at HTMT, he has helped link applications across various platforms through SOA, thereby reducing response time.

These efforts helped in automating attendance systems across locations. "This functionality-a first among first among BPO organizations-has proven to be very effective and has helped HTMT create a transparent atmosphere which is popular among employees. It involved integrating various employee access systems of all kinds across all our locations and unifying them on a real-time basis from a centralized office," says Bakshi.

With an IT spend of approximately 58 crore for 2007-08, Bakshi intends to focus on implementing generic ERP solutions, integrating them with existing applications and linking to either a standard BI package or develop one for the next financial year. He adds, "Our likely IT spends for 2008-09 are projected at 67 crore, which is a 15.5 percent increase. It may go up on business expansion."

According to Bakshi, his role is not limited to IT, but takes on greater significance as it evolves to encompass risk assessment and process planning. "These things start right from the time when the marketing team is preparing a business proposal and continues thereafter. IT is also part of the strategic planning group which works on the growth and direction taken by the organization," he says.

Top Projects at HTMT Global Solutions

Automating the entire attendance system to digitize the whole process and workflow. Conceptualizing and implementing the appraisal system within a BPO organization: Being completely transparent and available to each employee on their desktop, this project is destined to change the way competency mapping and appraisal systems are driven across a BPO organization. Knowledge management system: Enhanced capabilities in addressing a knowledge management repository and its timely availability are being implemented across processes.

Formula for Certainty

When a global IT solution provider decides to dig into its own people to produce some creative sparks, it must have an exemplary internal network to support the initiative. That task fell on Alok Kumar, TCS' VP & Global Head - Internal IT.

Alok Kumar, Vice President & Global Head - International IT, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Global Idea Storm, as the project was christened, was TCS's first collective and interactive online ideation event. The event called upon all TCSers to contribute ideas, comment upon ideas suggested by others, discuss these ideas and encourage other participants by voting or ranking 'Hot Ideas'. The event was quite a challenge from the IT infrastructure perspective, notes Alok Kumar, because this type of event was unprecedented and there were no projections available on participation numbers.

Moreover, the management had put its weight behind the project. Expectations from IT were high, especially because the company had, in-parallel, embarked upon a marketing campaign that went with the tagline 'experience certainty'. The challenge for the internal IT team was to provide a dynamically scalable infrastructure, while ensuring that the application was accessible globally and that high participation did not affect the performance of the application or network. "Besides," says Kumar, "we had to ensure 100 percent uptime and a decent response time for this application."

If the stated objective behind this online search project was to create a pool of innovative thoughts and ideas from within TCS, the achievements went beyond that. Specifically, with Kumar and his team demonstrating uninterrupted support throughout the project, it even raised the confidence levels of the business by a few notches.

Top Projects at TCS

Global Networked Delivery Model An IT service delivery model, where multiple global delivery centers serve multiple customer locations, positioning TCS as a global IT services company with offshore advantages. Implemented Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Brought flexibility in changing business process flows in the system and enabled IT to respond to changing business process needs. Achieved separation of business rules from applications and separated access via an ESB layer. Vista adoption Has helped introduce end-users to a more secure and productive desktop environment.

One Small Step

'Think Big - Start small'. This is what defines Anwer Bagdadi. Known in the industry for the innovative projects that he has undertaken, Bagdadi, a Senior Vice President and CTO at CFC India, has always believed that one small step makes a big difference.

Anwer Bagdadi, Sr.VP & CTO, CFC International

It is this mantra which has enabled Bagdadi in shouldering massive IT projects all through his career, not just with CFC India (CFCI), but with other companies like Epicenter Technologies, Lawkim and Godrej GE Appliance. However, it is at CFCI, that his role has become more strategic in nature. "In my stint with CFCI I have worked with integrated or embedded solutions and projects, being part of the strategic execution of the organization's mission as part of the global market," says Bagdadi.

It is unsurprising that Bagdadi has always been an early adopter of technology. "In my long stint in the field of Information Technology, there were many occasions wherein the usage of technology was critical for achieving a breakthrough and I have always taken pride in taking that first step," he says. He has been amongst the first few to have implemented VSAT technology in early 1995. This early system led to his organization adopting an ERP deployment in 1996 when most other organizations were not even fully aware of MRP II.

Today, armed with an approximate budget of US $5 million, his priorities include the establishment of IT infrastructure (new facilities and business growth requirements), expansion and augmentation of Network and Telecom requirements and expansion of the NOC (Network Operating Center) processes and tools.

Peer Review

Alok Gupta, Co-Founder and Director, Samtech InfoNet Limited (business partner) Alok Gupta has worked with Anwer Bagdadi in the past in another capacity Anwer is a talented and highly focussed CXO who has the ability to think differently and is an asset to any high-performance organization. An IT veteran, with vast experience of managing large teams and complex projects. During my interactions with Anwer, I found him to be calm, sincere and highly mature. More than anything else, he is a great human being.

View from the Top

Deciding whether to tightly monitor IT infrastructure, which requires considerable investment of time, or to hand over the IT reins to a managed service player is often difficult to make. Oxigen's CIO Arnab Biswas wanted the best of both worlds.

Arnab Biswas, Group CIO, Oxigen Services

Oxigen operates in a niche industry-it enables the electronic top-up of pre-paid mobiles across thousands of its sale points through a nationwide network of hand terminals at petrol stations, cafes and small shops. As the very nature of its business suggests, its transactions are entirely IT enabled, and so its dependence on a sound network cannot be overemphasized.

It was up to Arnab Biswas, Oxigen Group's CIO to ensure the required connectivity. After careful planning, Biswas got Wipro's managed services arm to undertake the responsibility of monitoring and managing the company's entire pan-India network infrastructure. "This allows us to focus on long-term planning and management of services from a higher business-level perspective, rather than getting mired in day-to-day operational issues," says Biswas.

However, it was only after looking minutely into the service agreement provisions that Biswas decided to let go. He calls the project Network Virtualization, wherein the IT team mapped the complex network to the business processes that flow through them. BSM (Business Services Management) dashboards allow his team to monitor the availability and performance of each of the business processes at all times. "Hiving off the monitoring while obtaining visibility into to what's going on from a business perspective has been very useful for us," he says.

Top Projects at Oxigen Services

ERP implementation Deployed Microsoft Dynamics Navision with source, along with a strong SI, since the implementation required a large amount of customization and interfacing with Oxigen's existing platforms. The project required cross-functional involvement for process definition and very heavy customization efforts, along with continuous training and evangelizing on the processes. Networked Storage and DR Biswas' IT designed a solution that incorporates SAN, blade servers and two different ISPs to ensure high fault-tolerance for not only the databases, but also the application servers. The company also has a DR plan.

Method in Growth

To rein in Wipro Technologies' growing server farms, Jethin Chandran turned to virtualization. The resulting consolidation brought in impressive savings.

Jethin Chandran, GM, IT Planning and PMO, Wipro Technologies

With Wipro technologies adding hundreds of servers every few months to cater to its growing computing requirements, Jethin Chandran, the company's Head, IT Planning and PMO, led the company's initiative toward server virtualization, improving the utilization of CPUs and memory and optimizing data center space. In spite of the company's high growth and the consequent requirement of processing power, Chandran expects to reduce his server count by 30 percent over the next two years.

There are other aspects of the IT infrastructure wherein Chandran has married IT strategies with the company's growth plans. Wipro's next-generation network enables scaling for growth and supports business dynamism. "Its enhanced design has helped us achieve 99.999 percent uptime with improved performance," says Chandran. In addition, the increased bandwidth carrying capacity of the network helped the company defer the annual increase in bandwidth purchase. "Provisioning time for new customers has come down from 4 weeks to 2 weeks," Chandran notes.

IT is Everything

While CIOs across organizations are sensitive about IT spends, the service industry that Laxman Badiga-Corporate VP and CIO, Wipro Technologies-is associated with, finds IT investment key for business growth.

Laxman Badiga, CIO, Wipro Technologies

In 2007, his IT spend was Rs 700 crores, and Badiga estimates a 25 to 30 percent increase in the coming year. This increase is aligned with top priority areas in IT deployments spanning security and consolidation of various technologies, an extension from the past and unified communications with an intention to make IT systems business enablers.

Badiga has been a pioneer in varied network deployments which include being the first to implement a large-scale MPLS network in India, Europe and the US to connect offices across the globe. Besides this, Badiga's most cherished project has been the initiative to consolidate and virtualize servers and storage. "Instead of sizing and procuring different configurations of servers for diverse applications, we deployed server farms comprising blade servers and SAN storage for all our needs," says Badiga.

He believes in mapping the career ambitions of his employees and encourages job rotation, technical and leadership training and development through mentoring. Delegation and empowerment are key components of people management for Badiga. With IT as an enabler, rather than a support for the organization, Badiga works closely with the management team and has worked out an IT integration play book taking cognizance of the technical, managerial and business aspects of the company for efficient implementation of various projects and services.

Top Projects at Wipro Technologies

Wipro's inter-office network, which was based on diverse architecture, has been consolidated onto a single platform after migrating to the MPLS network. This helped in reducing operational and management overheads while bringing in scalability for business growth. Consolidation also helped the company in rolling out different IT services like email, VoIP, etc. Another area where technology played a key role was in Wipro's server and storage consolidation and virtualization, which had a direct impact on the business. While the consolidation not only reduced the number of physical servers, it also helped in reducing the provisioning time.

A Security Manifesto

Even as ACME Tele Power, a telecom infrastructure solution provider, strives to take its solutions across the globe, it wants its research data to be secure. CIO Romy Chopra set forth to design an infosec fortress.

Romy Chopra, Group CIO, ACME Tele Power

Information security matters for most companies, but it matters even more for ACME Tele Power. For a company that thrives on product innovation in an industry as intensely competitive as telecom infrastructure, IP (intellectual property) can make or break its fortunes. The company provides passive infrastructure solutions to wireless telecom players both in India as well as overseas. Guarding IP is thus a top priority for the company, the firm's CIO Romy Chopra asserts. He is putting in place the highest grade of firewalls and intrusion prevention devices along with a well structured infosec policy to safeguard the company's in-house developed designs from IP theft. Also on his infrastructure agenda for the coming year is a plan to have a Disaster Recovery site.

Chopra swears by the importance of training for employees while using new systems. ACME Tele Power recently deployed the Ramco VirtualWorks ERP application, but, when Chopra joined as the company's CIO, some of the implementation was still pending due to certain processes that needed remapping. Chopra spent the better part of the last quarter implementing the modules, while concurrently introducing training for all employees. According to Chopra, delegation is key for effective team management. "Delegate as much as you can," he says in the same breath that he spells out the importance of training. "Train your employees to take up your job and make yourself available for the next opportunity."

Peer Review

By Rajesh Taneja, GM - Systems, ACME Tele Power Ltd I have known Romy Chopra for the past five years and found him to be very focused and result-oriented person. He is a real go-getter: give him a challenge and he will thrive on it. At the same time, he is always calm and collected, keeps things in perspective and never loses sight of the big picture even when challenges around him seem to be insurmountable. Moreover, multitasking comes naturally to him. He is a team player-always keeping his team-members motivated and in good spirits thereby achieving better than expected results.

Serial Successes

Nothing can dampen his entrepreneurial spirit. Futuresoft and Spectramind have been his brainchildren. He has had the honor of serving as the Indian BPO industry's representative in the CII delegation for the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum.

Sunil Gujral, CTO, Quatrro BPO Solutions

Whether it is entrepreneurship or the challenge of setting up the technology backbone of an organization, Sunil Gujral, Chief Technology Officer, Quatrro BPO Solutions, has always rolled up his sleeves and taken things head on. After a stellar career in companies like Wipro, American Express Travel Services, Futuresoft and Spectramind, Gujral joined hands with a team consisting of his past colleagues from Spectramind, and co-founded Quatrro BPO Solutions. Headed by a person who understands the significance of technology, it comes as no surprise that Quatrro has already spent approximately US$ 7.2 million (includes platform investments) in 2007-08. "The estimated IT spend for the next year is approx US$ 3.5 million. We also expect to spend approx US $4.6 million in technology maintenance and approx US $6 million in telecom connectivity," states Gujral. For the coming year, he has his IT priorities set, which include platform-based solutions to support business verticals, Identity & Access Management, End-Point Security and other compliance-related solutions and a corporate intranet portal to facilitate information dissemination.

The secret of his success? Teamwork and motivation. "I follow some simple steps to ensure that I have a highly motivated and challenged team. I make them aware of their roles and responsibilities, and empower them to take independent decisions," signs off Gujral.

Top Projects at Quatrro BPO Solutions

Designing and implementing core IT infrastructure The intention was to maximize and leverage the use of a common IT infrastructure backbone and support team across verticals Designing and implementing platform-based solutions for Quatrro's Technical Support Services (TSG) Group The complete interaction-from contact to resolution-is enabled by this integrated platform. Implementing a Global MPLS-based WAN network for business-critical voice and data communications Quatrro critically evaluated all service partners and finally chose VSNL.

Every Second Matters

The CIO of Polaris Software Labs has his hands full with a host of projects. He plays the role of a strategist and a techie. With an increasing budget and ever-expanding business and IT needs, V Balakrishna rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.

V Balakrishna, CIO, Polaris Software Lab

During his stint with Polaris, he has already worked on projects like desktop management services and service level improvements. "The standard desktop management software did not provide linkage to business structures and we had to develop a data warehouse based solution to convert the DSM data into meaningful project and people integrated 'intelligent' reports," states Balakrishnan. In addition to this he has initiated and executed several other projects that have benefited the company.

However, he is of the opinion that IT cannot be looked upon as a standalone or support function in any company. Many key outcomes such as automation and cost-competitiveness would not have been possible without strategic IT. In Polaris, Balakrishnan not only manages projects, but also looks after integration of communication and collaboration mechanisms in the company. "I look at evolving business structures and processes aligned to exploit IT and collaborative technologies," states Balakrishnan.

Like his peers, he does not ignore the fact that people management is a key responsibility area for CIOs. While he believes that empowering knowledge workers is an important and a long-term strategy issue, what works quickly and in the best possible manner is visibility and transperancy. "As an internal services department, the visible quality of work and technology content are the best incentives that we offer," he signs off.

Top Projects at Polaris Software Lab

IT services and asset tracking automation was implemented for compliance, cost optimization, and service level improvements. Since standard desktop management software did not provide links to business structures, Balakrishnan and team had to develop a data warehouse based solution to convert DSM data into meaningful reports. Additionally, with numerous IT services on offer, exception and privilege management required workflow and automation with logs. Polaris now has IT services automation fully integrated with organization structures and business identities.

Business is Front-End

Ajay Meher, VP-IT, SET India believes that IT works as a back-end process while business should be at the front-end. He is therefore trying his best to develop his business acumen.

Ajay Meher, VP-IT, SET India

Ajay Meher joined SET India in October 2007. Always eager to improve, Meher frequently went to his peers for feedback. The most common observation of Meher was that he was more of a technical person rather than a business person. Today, Meher is working towards acquiring more business knowledge.

On one occasion, his mentor Arun Gupta, CIO, Shopper Stop, told him that for an IT person, IT should work as a back-end process and business should be the front-end. IT should be a business enabler. From then on, IT and how it can help business has top priority in Meher's mind.

Today, he is tentatively getting involved in strategic business decisions. For instance, the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) project is not under the purview of IT, but will play a strategic part in the growth of the business. Meher is working on this crucial project, which is a fairly new area in Indian business.

The company is moving from a VPN to an MPLS network with higher bandwidth. The network will be implemented at all locations and complete roll-out is expected in a month. Meher is also looking at server consolidation to help reduce server count and consequently, maintenance cost.

As a leader, he believes in giving complete freedom to his team to perform and excel. "It is crucial that people are given independence to grow career-wise. A person changes his job only when he is not satisfied with his career growth," he points out.

Top Projects at SET India

SAP implementation Presently, the company is using FiCO and now plans to implement material management (MM), which will help automate and provide control over all financial activities. Enterprise content management (ECM) ECM will help in the management of content, Web, workflow and image automation, digital assets and information rights. Projects for developing the infrastructure of the organization Meher is working on certain projects that will help the organization develop a strong infrastructure.

Techno-Driven Market Research

As Executive Director, Information and Systems Technology, Bhushan Akerkar is responsible for ACNielsen's IT requirements and strategy across South Asia. He has introduced many technological advancements in his industry segment.

Bhushan Akerkar, Executive Director Information and Systems Technology, ACNielsen-South Asia

A consummate professional, mentor and pioneer, Bhushan Akerkar has brought new efficiencies to his organization. ACNielsen's IT spending for the 2007-08 financial year has been approximately Rs 11 crore, with Akerkar expecting no increase in the coming financial year (2008-09). However, he reveals that the company has three key IT spending priorities in the coming financial year, including PDAs, Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management.

Akerkar plays a key strategic role in the organization, wherein he interacts with business leaders every day, as well as other service leaders every month. Akerkar says, "There are common interactions in which IT strategies are evolved and implemented and the course of implementation is discussed. How IT can enhance the functionalities of the company is also discussed in these meetings." Besides, he has been involved in designing systems to cut cycle time by 30 percent by using mobile technology. Akerkar has also been an early adopter of technology in market research-having been involved in possibly the largest PDA installation in the country.

As a CIO, Akerkar has focused on a unique mantra for people management. He believes that time-to-time training and constant encouragement to the staff can ensure a high-level of retention and great career growth in the long run.

Top Projects at ACNielsen

A major project executed by Akerkar is the revamping of Market Research Production Systems for statistical data processing. He has also deployed PDAs in the field for data collection and spot data quality checks, wherein once an interview is done, the PDA is plugged into a computer and the researcher can view all the data for analysis. This is done not just for interviews but for the data collection of sales, stocks, and purchases Lately, Akerkar has introduced interviews for customized research on mobile computing.

A Do-it-yourself Studio Kit

A pre-press studio used to be an outsourced function at most advertising agencies. That was until Meraj Khan changed the rules of the game, drastically reducing process time and winning customers at McCann Erickson as he did so.

Meraj Khan, Head-Studio, IT and administration, McCann Erickson

At ad agency McCann Erickson India, Meraj Khan's responsibilities straddle the areas of studio operations, IT and administration, providing him with a knowledge of business processes that few others have. So when he defied convention to build a pre-press studio with all its attendant consequences of requisite IT support, it was a decision that made others sit up and take notice. "The benefits were too good to be ignored," says Khan. The most direct impact was the slashing of process time. "Work that took days was now being delivered in hours," notes Khan.

Besides selecting the right hardware, Khan also had to standardize on the software to be used. Standardizing of software, Khan says, was required as designers were working on different software applications depending on their choice, making things difficult at the final stage of pre-press. Khan's proximity to the operations teams and his understanding of their challenges saw him deploy an archival system for files generated by the pre-press studio. "This makes life easier for the artist, who, having worked on a file, may wish to retrieve it at a later stage," says Khan.

Khan believes in providing motivation and training to his team members to ensure that they give their best to the job at hand. Equally important has been to provide recognition for their work, and this, Khan says, has seen them perform brilliantly.

Top Projects at McCann Erickson India

Deploying systems for a pre-press studio The company was among the first to develop a studio in the advertising industry. Design software was standardized and a basic archival system put in place. Shorter process time helped the firm pitch more effectively to clients. Changes in work-time to use resources optimally Staggered work timings were introduced to effectively use the new resource-the in-house studio-without adding too many employees. Shifting of office Khan took it upon himself to oversee the shifting, completing the job within 10 days.

The Transformer

Miten Parekh, Group GM-InfoTech at Rediffusion DY&R, has been associated with the advertising industry since he began his career. At Rediffusion, he has already implemented projects that have had strategic ramifications.

Miten Parekh, Group GM- InfoTech, Rediffusion DY&R

While at Rediffusion, Parekh and his team have already enhanced the company's financial accounting application to integrate additional, newly-developed modules. This was done in a record time of three months. However, that was not on his agenda when he joined. IT was looked upon as a support and a non-critical function in organizations some years ago. "One of the first things I decided that I had to do when I entered the group was to make IT a 'proper' group resource-across all companies, all locations," reveals Parekh. Everything about IT was centralized in Rediffusion and group companies-right from management of IT resources to procurement and deployment. "I have always believed in the power of synergy, especially in a group like ours where the businesses are more or less complementary to each other," explains Parekh. This not only brought about a welcome change in the attitude of the IT staff-which has now got a bigger canvas and greater responsibility-but also changed the approach of the IT team towards others, and vice-versa.

While people management is not much of an issue for him personally, Parekh takes pains to ensure that his team's morale remains high, despite the laid-back atmosphere of the industry. "Retention, as such, has not been a big problem as the advertising industry pays decently and has an easy-going approach. Of course the money has to be good, but sometimes convincing the management to reward the 'back-room boys' of IT with an above-average salary hike is difficult. Nevertheless, genuine performance and hard work has to be rewarded," explains Parekh.

Bhautik Mithani - CFO of TME (the Media unit of Rediffusion); and Senior Resource in the Corporate Office Finance Team

Miten and I work very closely on a lot of projects, including one of the biggest initiatives our organization has taken up this past year-for which we are partners. Miten goes way beyond his domain of technology, and his contributions to processes and policies are very significant. He makes technology sound simple and practical, putting at ease those who feel a bit uncomfortable discussing it.

In Speed we Trust

Media companies in India are seeing blistering expansion. To support this pace, Hindustan Times' CIO Mohit Agarwal must select the right infrastructure that both scales with demand and provides shared resources that reap economies of scale.

Mohit Agarwal , CIO, Hindustan Times

The challenge of eliminating redundancy and using editorial resources optimally presented itself in full measure to Agarwal when HT planned to launch its new business paper, Mint. After a thorough cost-benefit analysis, he introduced an application called Eidos, which created a converged newsroom where the editorial content resides in a common content management system and is repurposed into different formats for print, the Web and for syndication to other content aggregrators. The new application made it possible to recast the business process flow so that multiple editions of the publications were planned and executed from a central location-Delhi, whereas content flowed in from different parts of the world. "This led to significant savings due to decreased staff requirements in many of the cities to help plan and execute the multiple editions and also enabled a low-cost business model for lauch of the publication in new cities," says Agarwal. The organization-for the first time-also had cross-functional visibility across the entire editorial workflow, enabling enhanced accountability and efficiencies.

The marketing team at HT has an unusual ally in its CIO. IT companies have become significant advertisers in media, and with the close rapport that Agarwal enjoys with many of them, he has driven business alliances and long-term partnerships for HT.

Top Projects at HT

ERP implementation Deployment of SAP ECC 6.0 Media industry version on SAP certified Flexframe 4.0 technology developed by Fujitsu-Netapp. Portal support For HT.com initiatives (Hindustantimes.com and HTcricket.com), early adopters of Commerce Server 2007. Among the customers who signed up before its commercial release. Workflow application The Eidos application system provides a complete end-to-end workflow from advertising booking to content repurposing for final page production for print, Web and syndication.

Cost-cutting Capacity

An IIT graduate, Nirwan Biswas has had a wide variety of assignments, from research, consulting to media. Bringing his experience in leading-edge technologies to bear, he is trying to change the traditional IT mindset in the media industry.

Nirwan Biswas, Group Head Technology, MidDay Multimedia Group

He is a firm believer in spending less and doing more. According to Nirwan Biswas, Group Head Technology, Midday Multimedia Group, IT spends should always aim to reduce the overall cost of doing business.

Biswas had built SOA to empower the end-user and the management. With this, he has enabled all Mid Day employees to access company resources and information from anywhere. Logistics are no longer a problem, and correspondents can share assets and copy with their home teams seamlessly. Consequently, turn-around time is down by 60-70 percent. Biswas believes that the key challenge was to explain his needs to the system integrator, allowing him to build the architecture himself.

He has deployed Citrix with the help of which-along with other deployments-the company was able to reduce communication costs by 60 percent. The company has also implemented Pandion for internal instant messaging. Biswas had made sure that all data communications, including video conferencing, is done through a single node instead of different pipes so that bandwidth use is optimized.

Mid Day has also implemented a photo archival system to deal with the archival and availability of rich media.

Along with conducting training and seminars, Biswas always shares technology details and difficulties with his team to promote an inclusive atmosphere and share knowledge.

Peer Review

Manajit Ghoshal, CFO and Sr VP corporate affairs, Midday Multimedia Group "Nirvan has only been with us for the last few months, but has already proved himself as a change agent. Apart from being at the leading edge of technology, he has a profound understanding of business requirements and works seamlessly between the technical and commercial teams. His objectivity and passion for his job is a great asset for the organization. Nirvan's empathy with users, commercial acumen in striking great deals for purchase of technology and his ability to grasp strategic requirements is a great combination.

The Advertiser in IT

From being a systems manager to heading the IT department as its Vice-President, Ritu Madbhavi talks about her longest stint with any organization, and the opportunities that it has presented her with.

Ritu Madbhavi, IT Vice-President, FCB Ulka Advertising

Ritu Madbhavi's principal projects in her current job profile have been the company intranet and network consolidation. With the activation of a centralized environment with Mumbai the central hub, FCB Ulka's infrastructure provides 100% redundancy in terms of connectivity and hardware. The email system, the applications and database servers are clustered. Their intranet, Infojaal, is the one point resource for all users. She has also been involved in deploying HRIS spanning an employee's entire lifecycle.

"I work for an advertising agency with a strong strategic planning culture. One of the studies done really struck a chord with a lot of the working women in the office. The study on women described the 'woman' as the CEO of the house and how seemingly trivial decisions (male viewpoint) are actually solid business decisions and rather strategic. At work, we have a matrix system and I am fortunate that the organization has given me line business responsibility over and above my IT staff responsibility so the opportunities to look at strategic issues other than IT are very frequent," says Madbhavi.

She believes that money is no longer a motivator to retain people. Being sensitive to people's needs and presenting them with challenging opportunities bring out the best in people, and also encourages dedication to the organization. Madbhavi adds, "IT is about nurturing the reality that the team can take fundamental decisions and that we can make a difference."

Peer Review

Joemon Thaliath, COO, FCB Ulka "I know Ritu as the IT head for 10 years. She was and is never content with the status quo. She has changed over the years but this constant dissatisfaction with letting things be the way they are has not. However, she now has patience in handling recurring problems, explaining IT best practices to an ever churning tide of young managers. She is more than an IT head who actually knows some advertising-sometimes I suspect more than many advertising people-and adds value. She is not just a cost center but also a profit center and a business manager who understands what we need from IT.

Building Bridges of Information

Advertising firms are packed with talent, but how many of them use their resources such that an experienced hand is available when most needed? In an industry stricken by the poverty of time, Mudra's Sebastian Joseph found a way out.

Sebastian Joseph, VP Technology, Mudra Group

The resource-mapping application had its origins in Mudra's integrated Web-based HR management system, which, Sebastian Joseph, the company's GM-IT, had deployed to provide HR related information to employees. Mindful of the advertising division's talent-identification needs, Joseph then added a 'yellow pages' feature to track resources-employees who may have previously worked on a particular category, brand or consumer group. "It greatly helped in identifying knowledge resources for a particular domain," says Joseph.

Some years ago, Joseph had built bridges of information that had brought similar information-sharing benefits. That was when Mudra's integrated accounting and operations system, called mBoss, was deployed.

The application, which caters to diverse industry types, has brought all the companies within the group onto a common accounting and operations platform. Besides mainline advertising, the group's other companies operate in different verticals. Each of these operations has its own nuances. Before mBoss, Joseph notes, Mudra had disparate systems, thus creating islands of information. Some of these systems were standalone. "Monthly closing, consolidation, generation of group's profit and loss statements, etc. were nightmarish," Joseph recalls. With mBoss all these activities have become smooth, he asserts. Geographical barriers are broken since it is Web-based, while integrating a new company has become smooth and less time-consuming.

Peer Review

Madhukar Kamath, MD & CEO, Mudra Group Sebastian Joseph has led the transformation of our business systems from islands to an integrated real-time entity. This has helped collaboration, creating a more efficient way of producing and sharing ideas. This has also helped us manage our knowledge and share it better-in our business this is a key competitive advantage. Our employee self-help portal promotes transparency accounting and operations system facilitates quick decision support; time-sheet system reveal client wise/brand wise profitability and our CRM systems help strengthen client relationships.

A Legacy of Excellence

Despite a relative paucity of industry-specific solutions, Tridib Bordoloi has found creative ways to fulfill his organization's application needs. He focuses on how the Indian Express has set benchmarks.

Tridib Bordoloi, Head-Information Technology, Indian Express Group

Tridib Bordoloi is the head of IT of the Indian Express Group, one of the oldest and leading media houses in the country. Being an established entity for many years, the company faced significant challenges in terms of a huge arsenal of legacy data, systems and processes.

"Our initiative of technology upgradation began two years back focusing on alignment of IT with business rather than pure-play hardware procurement," states Bordoloi, adding that it has been the outcome of a thoughtful assessment, meticulous planning and collaborative effort.

While realizing the fact that the production environment must be maintained and upgraded, the transformation strategy was purely based on the needs of business processes and operations. "The right tools and solutions can fuel our infrastructure to stay above and ahead of the rest. Ever since our technology upgradation journey began in earnest (adopting and integrating new technologies with current legacy systems was an integral part of our transition), we have traveled from obscurity to a stage where we're on a platform that is at par with industry standards," asserts Bordoloi.

The top three IT spending priorities in the coming financial year will be on SAP, bandwidth upgradation and hardware (including storage). Bordoloi has been with the Indian Express Group for over three years providing corporate technology vision and leadership in the development and implementation of a group-wide IT program dispersed across various locations. The focus has been on aligning IT with business objectives.

Top Projects at Indian Express

Open-source The Indian Express Group has been a pioneer in the adoption of open-source software, including a Red Hat Linux Enterprise solution for media (newspaper industry) and the migration of various solutions to the platform. Open-source messaging Spearheaded Lotus Domino implementation on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The messaging system is operational nation-wide and also provides Web access on-the-go. Web-enabled Library Management System A digitized archive for ready reference through a single window.

A Strategist and a Technocrat

In his role as General Manager, Systems Operation, Abhijeet Kumar is responsible for the IT requirements and strategy for Unimark Remedies across the country. His career path has evolved from Manager-IT to Head of IT and Accounts to that of the General Manager.

Abhijeet Kumar GM-Systems Operation, Unimark Remedies

Kumar is geared for growth, expecting a 200 percent increase in his IT budget for the coming financial year (2008-09). He points lists the company's top three IT spending priorities in the coming financial year as security, connectivity, and ERP implementation.

Kumar has been responsible for developing and implementing an integrated system that covers all business processes. Calling it a tailor-made ERP solution, Kumar claims that the system has helped the organization face the competitive environment with real-time data, which has enabled it to have accurate information for decision-making. It also strengthened the internal controls and increased efficiency of human resources in all departments.

Under his guidance, the company's systems were validated as per US FDA guidelines (21 CFR Part 11). Kumar has also been involved in designing software that has reduced man hours by more than 75 percent and record keeping has become much easier. His strategic inputs have helped the design and implementation of systems required for controls in business processes. Besides this, he has also been involved in the evaluation of projects undertaken by the company. "When my company enters into strategic alliances with major principals, I provide strategic input regarding the feasibility of the project from a commercial viewpoint," said Kumar.

Projects Undertaken

Kumar, with his team, designed and developed an Integrated System to cover the various business processes of the company, which in turn helped them to face all kinds of situations with real time data. Validated the systems as per US FDA guidelines (21 CFR Part 11) for regulated markets like the US and Europe. Kumar also designed a system for compliance as per DGFT Guidelines. As per Customs & Excise law, companies like Unimark must maintain an elaborate record of licenses.

Blowing Away Migration Blues

Ask any system administrator about his worst IT nightmare, and chances are system migration will head the list. Not so for Arun Phadke, who has come to relish the exercise.

Arun Phadke, VP-IT, Nicholas Piramal India

To be sure, working with Nicholas Piramal India, a company that thrives on acquisitions, he has little choice but to come to terms with the fact that integrating myriad ERP systems is an existential necessity.

In recent months, Phadke oversaw two such migrations an acquisition at a US facility called for moving from one version of SAP to another, while in Canada it was the case of SAP replacing the legacy system. The company has standardized on SAP ERP. Every migration presents its own bouquet of challenges, says Phadke, who counts managing user expectations as the biggest of his challenges. "Users don't want to lose existing facilities." Some amount of resentment is inevitable, but Phadke must relentlessly push ahead. Already, he is readying for next year's migrations where the group will replace a 15+ year old legacy system with SAP in the UK.

Phadke's attitude to fulfilling user expectations is to look at a business user as his customer. He insists on his team members acting likewise. "Everyone in IT needs to have that customer focus, collaborate with end-users and talk English - the language customers understand," says Phadke, when asked about his success formula for implementing IT solutions.

Identifying and nurturing talent is integral to Phadke's approach in building a high-performance team. "I believe that every individual has some star value in him. It is up to the leader to identify that star value and help the individual to grow," he says.

Top Projects at Nicholas Piramal

Migration of systems Legacy to SAP in Canada and change in SAP versions in the US. Migration improved the availability of financial and inventory information. Also, migration helped consolidate the datacenter in India. Remote SAP training Deployed Sametime, a Web conferencing application, for chatting and sharing documents while training employees on SAP at remote locations. Automatic Order Generation system The company has developed an order generation and order capture Web-based solution that prompts dealers to place orders based on the dealer's inventory and purchasing pattern.

Self-made Man

B M Shah, CIO of the textile giant Arvind Mills, is a self-made man. Over 32 years, he has worked in audit, finance and accounts and finally took charge of the company's IT department where he continues to contribute to the company's growth.

B M Shah, CIO, Arvind Mills

Today, Arvind Mills has identified IT as a mechanism for its growth and has a well-crafted information strategy blueprint. B M Shah, CIO, Arvind Mills, who has been associated with the company for 32 years in various roles, believes that while any technology can be bought, the USP is effective deployment and cohesive coexistence.

A four-fold increase in IT budgets put Arvind Mills and Shah in an ideal position to support the shift in business strategy and the company's ambitious plans. These include re-implementation of ERP, replacement of existing hardware and networking infrastructure and installation of a robust security framework. Shah is actively involved in driving major projects at Arvind Mills and taking strategic and business decisions. One of them was the implementation of a messaging solution in 1995.

Another key initiative under Shah's leadership has been the deployment of an Intranet, which is living up to the vision of making the Web the de-facto desktop interface for the company

The key reason behind success of these projects? Shah's answer is team management. His mantra for people management is to empower team members and praise and support them in times of crisis. In his words, "Build trust among your team members and build a good team. One should give freedom to team members. This helps in motivating them to come up with innovative and cost-effective ideas."

Top Projects at Arvind Mills

Optical fiber for backbone cabling The company employs an optic fiber backbone for its network, while the desktop wiring is Category 5 UTP. Network segments have been planned and laid in accordance with structured cabling principles. Collaboration tools Lotus Notes and Merak mail act as the messaging platform. Users have the flexibility to access their mail database using the standard Notes front-end, Web browser or POP mail while on the Internet. Intranet A full-fledged Intranet portal with helpful information such as orientation to new recruits and details on books in the library is hosted by the company.

Maverick Project Manager

Technologist, growth architect and strategic thinker. K T Rajan has put Allergan India on the technology map with his innovative and pioneering implementations, and continues to be an asset to the organization with his strategic input and mentoring.

K T Rajan, Director-Operations, IS & Projects, Allergan India

Being early adopters of the .NET platform while it was still in beta, K T Rajan ensured the development of an SCM solution to run over the Web, managing nationwide sales and the supply chain. Of note is that this was done with less-than-ideal data networks. "It was a big challenge to operate nationwide distribution using centralized computing resources. The transactions had to be executed online and in real-time else there would be disruption in the business process. In fact, this initiative is detailed on Microsoft's Website and recognized as an innovative application using novel, emerging platforms," says Rajan. Besides this, Rajan initiated the process of providing a hand-held system to the field force to enhance their sales effectiveness.

According to him, it is essential to ensure that the IT staff doesn't function in isolation as technocrats. He believes that they should always be aligned with the business and should actively participate in every process.

As the CIO of the company, he is also actively involved in identifying new business opportunities from concept to market, scanning the latest manufacturing technologies and developing processes enhancing operational efficiency.

Peer Review

Santosh Ojha, Director - Sales & Marketing - Eyecare India & South Asia, Allergan India KT has three unique qualities which makes him a valuable asset in any strategic discussion: Thinking out-of-the-box, conceptual clarity and cogent articulation. KT can 'think business' and integrates ideas from various streams. His inputs are particularly useful when thinking about new products and business development. KT is an active participant in the organization's management team meetings. He has had a major role to play in the "border-less" organizational culture that we have.

Reinvention Artist

Starting from no IT infrastructure to a full-blown SAP deployment; from a well-organized IT system to a complete revamp, Mahendra Shekharan has done it all to manage IT in the chemical and pharmaceuticals industry.

General Manager IT,, JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals

Starting his career as a software consultant for a small firm in Mumbai, Mahendra Shekharan has changed the way IT is handled wherever he has worked. HIs first major undertaking at BlueCross Laboratory Ltd, saw him transform a five-computer infrastructure to a fully-developed application stack with SAP. And he did all this in five years.

Shekharan joined JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals as General Manager IT in February 2006, when, the company had some IT infrastructure in the form of leased lines, a JD Edwards ERP, sales and distribution tools, and was implementing HRMS from Systime. Sekharan found some disconnect between IT and its actual users and went on to make significant changes step by step. Recent implementations include a laboratory information management system and the company is in the process of migrating to a Ramco HRMS.

In terms of support for business, Shekharan and team provide suggestions based on business patterns, helping the organization make informed decisions. He believes that organizational goals should be top priority for employees. While JB does not have a fixed IT budget, Shekharan plans to invest in three key areas-a disaster recovery and business continuity site; salesforce automation for field staff-Head Office synchronization; and a document management system to reduce paperwork.

Top Projects at JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals

JD Edwards to SAP migration JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals had implemented JD Edwards in 1999. When the developer switched hands from PeopleSoft to Oracle, Shekharan felt a lack of support and was unable to incorporate some required functions. He then decided to opt for SAP, which took a lot of convincing before the top management agreed. He was instrumental in starting the project-from educating employees to finding the right vendor. JB are still in the process of implementation and will go live by the month of May.

Balancing Act

Manish Choksi has learnt the ropes of IT and strategic management in his 15 years with Asian Paints. He has moved across a variety of divisions, and his solutions thus maintain the fine balance between being strategic and tailor-made for the company.

Manish Choksi, Chief-Corporate Strategy & CIO, Asian Paints Ltd.

Armed with a hefty IT budget and a proposed 10-15 percent rise in the coming year, Manish Choksi is ready to take on projects like overall customer relationship management (including sales force automation), risk management, security and access control and compliance (including environment, health and safety) and knowledge management. These projects are of immense importance to the organization as they have a strategic impact on the company and its stakeholders. "As can be seen from my role since 1999, I have always enjoyed dual responsibilities for strategic planning for the company as well as leading IT. In my role as Strategic Planner or Corporate Strategist, I am responsible for day to day corporate planning as well as for spearheading new initiatives across business units," he states.

While reminiscing on various projects he has led, he opines that one of his "yes" moments was to spearhead and aid Asian Paints in launching Asian Paints Home Solutions (APHS). APHS is an end-to-end painting service, where Asian Paints sells customers a "painted wall" or a "new look" rather than just a can of paint. With a humble launch in 2003, the service has now been taken to more than twelve cities.

Comment

V S Patwardhan, Vice President - Human Resources, Asian Paints In the early '70s, the CIO's role at AP was all about convincing the management and end-users on how automation could improve internal efficiencies. In the '80s this role widened to include improving inventory control and delivering the right product to the right customer at the right time. During the '90s the role of the CIO was to manage the transition from legacy platforms to client-server and to take advantage of networking opportunities. During the last seven years, this role has involved transforming those islands of information into an integrated information landscape.

Rallying Forces for a Transformation

When Sintex Industries was overhauling its ERP system, the company's VP-MIS, Manven Dubey knew that it was not an exercise to be executed single-handedly, nor one limited to his team. He had to woo the entire organization for success.

Manven Dubey, Vice President-MIS, Sintex Industries

Two years ago, the boardroom talk at Sintex Industries centered around an ERP replacement, or more accurately, all the changes that came in its wake. Top management had decided to replace the then existing legacy ERP with Oracle Apps 11i. This was very challenging, Dubey notes, as the users of the textile division were resisting change, having become comfortable with the old system over ten years. "The system was custom-made so it suited their needs perfectly," he explains. Nevertheless, from an organizational point of view, upgrading the system was the need of the hour.

Besides employee willingness, there was the challenge of getting staff to adjust to the new system. In the initial phase, after repeated delays in getting financial data on time from the system, desperation set in, Dubey recalls. However, the IT team was determined. "We worked hard on training our users and when the Q3 results of the financial year came on time, it brought cheer to the faces of the entire team."

Dubey admits that, in general, retaining IT professionals for a manufacturing company is a tough job, given manufacturing companies' inertia in adopting new technology. However, at Sintex, he has countered this situation by offering motivation and training. "We chalk out a clear growth path for the performers and encourage them to learn new skills," he says.

Peer Review

Ashoke Maitra, President (Operation), Textile Division, Sintex Industries Manven Dubey joined this company as a Manager in Production Planning and Control and on account of his techno-commercial skills, knowledge of the business, vision, analytical skills, hard working nature and drive, he has been promoted to the Vice President's level within a short span of eight years. He is always updated with the happenings in business around the world and his high IQ helps him take the right business decisions well in time.

Medicine Man

Heading IT in a pharma co is not an easy job. With a host of compliance matters and usability concerns, it entails heavy responsibilities. Milind Khamkar of Aventis Pharma keeps his company's systems compliant and secure.

Milind Khamkar, Director-IT, Aventis Pharma

In a time when nobody in the pharma world had given much thought to their IT systems, Milind Khamkar, Director-IT, Aventis pharma went ahead with an ERP implementation in the company. "By its virtue and nature, the ERP implementation-and that too during early 2000-was a major challenge for any IT head," reminisces Khamkar. "I was not only able to successfully implement ERP in my organization, but I did that in the shortest possible time," he adds. This implementation, which covered transaction automation in Aventis, yielded benefits like establishment of controls, integration across various functions, faster response to business information and improvement in the operational efficiency of users.

From then on, there was no turning back. Armed with budgets that increase approximately by around 10 percent every year, Khamkar already has his agenda in place for the coming year. This includes projects in data warehousing and business intelligence, extended CRM and Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Planning. Khamkar started his career as COBOL programmer. He settled for a career in the pharma industry on the back of the challenges that it offered for an IT person after stints in various consultancies. Today he not only looks after the technological needs of his company, but also offers his inputs for any strategic initiative taken by Aventis and was a member of the country integration team during a major global acquisition.

Strong business acumen in supply chain management, team building and management and sensitivity to people issues is what brings this IT head to the CIO Powerlist.

Top Projects at Aventis Pharma

SFA implementation This system is business-critical since its provides details of call management and a better view of the field force work to back-office decision makers. It has also helped the field force to work smarter. Connecting offices across the country This was a major infrastructure project which has resulted in cost-effective connectivity with MPLS. All outstation offices are on one network, saving significant amounts of time. Aventis' business interactions are improved and the organization is able to use many real-time applications.

Tech-style Innovations

Today's business landscape requires innovative technology deployments just to keep pace. N P Singh of Madura Garments is on the forefront in the industry, with early adoptions of solutions to boost his organization's efficiency.

N P Singh, CIO, Madura Garments

The greatest challenge that N P Singh faced after he took over Madura Garments nine years ago was to create an homogenous platform bringing diverse IT deployments together. "As it was a herculean task, I took up a business process re-engineering study conducted by PWC to adopt best global IT practices within the system," he says. While evaluating various ERP systems, a quality audit was undertaken involving agents, distributors and factories, which called for a major investment. Ultimately, Madura zeroed in on deploying SAP for various business needs.

Another significant initiative from Singh has been a pilot project deploying Avana's RFID technology a few months ago, linked to the central warehouse and retail stores to track goods received. Ever the innovator, Singh has worked closely with the design team at Madura in conceptualizing 3D images to be showcased in retail stores. Being part of all innovations in design, technology and business, Singh works in collaboration with the business heads of various textile brands in evolving new strategies to increase production, supply and create demand. Singh leaves no stone unturned to leverage technology if it contributes to business growth and has interfaced his SAP deployment with his retail application software-Retek, along with warehouse management. This has brought considerable efficiency to transactions.

Top

Top Projects at Madura Garments The IT spend at Madura Garments will be in the region of Rs 15 crore in the new financial year, with the thrust on strengthening the company's retail presence. The company has signed up Oracle as the ERP solutions provider for its retail infrastructure and online connectivity, with networking and communication technology deployments being top priority. Tightening of security with SSL VPNs, NAC and network monitoring tools is in the pipeline. Proof-of-concepts for technological testing, gathering resources for various business processes and providing hand-held terminals at retail outlets and stocking units are also in the offing.

A Business of Trust

Nandkishore V Panchal, Assistant GM-IT, Elder Pharmaceuticals has always believed that the single-most important and critical success factor in IT is achieving a position of trust with the business. This allows IT to act strategically.

Nandkishore V Panchal,, Assistant GM-IT, Elder Pharmaceuticals

An early exposure-as an IT product manager-to the pharmaceutical industry was the trigger that cemented Nandkishore Panchal's career in IT and pharma. For the last 13 years he has been associated with Elder, where he holds the position of AGM IT and is responsible for IT strategic planning and operations.

The company has been an early adopter of technology, installing Microsoft Exchange 2007 for a unified messaging solution on HP blade servers with a centralized SAN.

His mantra for people management is to create transparency around career development plans to minimize IT employees' fears avoid layoffs by staffing smartly and conservatively provide clear, frequent, honest and euphemism-free communication to the team deliver training and development opportunities to the needs of both the organization and the individual; and ensure that rewards are fairly distributed.

The IT spend for the current financial year [2007-08] has been Rs 2.5 crore. The company will be increasing this by 40 percent in 2008-09. Elder Pharmaceuticals is in the process of evaluating an ERP solution for the entire Elder Group.

Top Projects at Elder Pharmaceuticals

Integrated information management system Consolidated applications on the Microsoft .NET Framework across the enterprise. Microsoft Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging In July 2007, the Elder Group enrolled in the Microsoft Rapid Deployment Program for Exchange Server 2007. It later added UM functionality, has begun upgrading its mobile devices to Windows Mobile 6, and has deployed SharePoint Server 2007. IT infrastructure revamp Implemented WAN, VPN, internet and extranet solutions with a centralized architecture.

Managing a Juggernaut

The bio-generics market is booming and Indian companies want a big piece of that pie. M&As, alliances, JVs and expansions; companies like Intas Biopharmaceuticals will stop at nothing to carve a name for themselves in this space.

Prashant Modi , Head (IT),Intas Biopharmaceuticals Limited (IBPL)

No one can deny that managing technology in the lifesciences business is not just difficult, but also cumbersome, with a host of regulations, standards and guidelines to comply with. The situation becomes even more complex when it is garnished with strategic alliances. It is laudable that, in such a situation, Prashant Modi, Head (IT), has been able to achieve technological innovations in his company. Armed with the current year's IT spend and an agenda which includes an ERP implementation, document management system and field force online reporting, Modi and his team are gearing up to meet the needs of the company, which are driven by growth and expansion.

"We have a major opportunity in field force reporting, which is currently manual in nature. This results in too much administrative overhead and inadequate reports. We have planned to go online for the same, which will help us to reduce administrative tasks and streamline the reporting," states Modi about his plans. Additionally, under his leadership, Intas Biopharmaceuticals has implemented an in-house Human Resource Information System (HRIS) through the application and usage of the latest IT tools. "With implementation of technology and advanced IT tools, customized HR modules were created to streamline the management of human resources and human capital," reveals Modi.

Top Projects at Intas Biopharmaceuticals

Network upgradation Modi upgraded Intas' existing network infrastructure-which was running on old CAT5 cable and unmanaged switches-to manageable L3, L2 switches, fiber-optic links and CAT6 cable. Mail server migration Modi executed this project whereby the team configured the company's own mail server and migrated all the users from the group company's mail server. Active Directory migration Modi helped the company migrate Active Directory and File Servers to high-end servers resulting in better throughput and increased productivity for users.

The Innovator

Radhakrishna Pillai realized way back in 2000 that reaching out to customers and managing turnaround time (TAT) are critical for success in the diagnostics business.

Radhakrishna Pillai, CIO, SRL Ranbaxy

Pillai persuaded SRL to develop a Web-based application, when the competitors were only looking at a physical presence and at IT as back-end support.

Leaders like Pillai are able to innovate, not only on account of their own abilities but also due to the support of their companies. The IT spend of SRL has been increasing by 15-20 percent every year. Approved budgets, management approval and team support have helped him scale heights of success, professionally and personally. As SRL Ranbaxy gears up to roll out its expansion plans, Pillai is in preparation to meet the IT infrastructure, communication and storage demands that will result from the expansion.

Pillai's rise has been steady, starting his professional journey as a programmer, then moving on to managing the EDP department in the late '90s. He later went on to managing a systems department and finally to his current role as a CIO. Pillai has had the opportunity to work with different business verticals like Entertainment, FMCG, Engineering and Healthcare.

Through his journey, Pillai has realized the importance of employee acquisition and retention. "Technology, process and people are the three important pillars of any business activity. In today's competitive and globalized economy, a CIO is expected to manage all these components, making people a critical success factor for any business activity," states Pillai.

Top Projects at SRL Ranbaxy

Clinical Trial (CT) management The newly developed CT application captures all the relevant project data from protocol documents and has the capability to convert the results from conventional units to SI (International standard) units for any test in Global Clinical Trial projects. Patient test result reporting The challenge with patient samples, which are received from all locations (local / international), was to maintain the TAT (turn around time) and deliver patient reports on a real-time basis. SRL introduced encrypted email reporting and Web-based reporting, thereby creating a first-mover advantage for the company.

Home-grown Remedies

CIOs commonly face flak if investments do not show proportionate returns. By contrast, instances of savings reaped from intelligent in-house development-an exercise easier said than done-are few and far between.

Radhakrishnan G, General Manager- Systems, Biocon

If anyone, Radhakrishnan G must be singled out for leading the charge of CIOs melding IT resources with remarkable cost-savings. A big part of Biocon's massive IT savings come from using an in-house developed solution (called BOSS for Biocon's Online Software System). The costs of a standard ERP and attendant license fees, Radhakrishnan notes, are not comparable with the costs of hiring the necessary software talent. And the advantages do not stop with cost savings. Radhakrishnan's knowledge of the way processes at Biocon interact and his sound progamming knowledge - Radhakrishnan started his career developing customized software applications-have helped design a system that has proved to be efficient. In particular, the design ensures that there is no duplication of entries at any stage.

Radhakrishnan passes much of the credit to his programming team. But then again, the invigorating and learning work culture that he has fostered has ensured that team members are kept motivated and attrition is far below industry average. "Even if a programmer is put on a project, he is given the flexibility to provide inputs in another area," he says.

Success with home-grown solutions hasn't made Radhakrishnan averse to packaged solutions. In fact, he pushed for an independent GAP analysis between Biocon's system and the ones in the market. The results, though complimenting Biocon for its robustness, suggest that the company may need to opt for a standard ERP package, keeping in mind its expansion plans.

Top Projects at Biocon

In-house development ERP, LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System)and DMS (Document Management Software), resulting in massive cost savings and providing a close fit with business requirements. HR application Developed an Intranet portal which provides for employees to log into and check their payslips, among other facilities. Saves stationery costs and frees up manpower. Optimization software Deployed disk-utilization optimization software that has brought in storage-related cost savings.

Leading from the Front

Marketing of IFFCO's fertilizer is done by more than 40,000 cooperative societies. IFFCO has setup about 700 marketing offices, many in small towns. S C Mittal is the driving force behind the overall computerization.

S C Mittal, ED (Management Services & IT), Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO)

Since S C Mittal joined IFFCO-one of the largest fertilizer manufacturers in the world-in 1986, he has been responsible for the planning and implementation of IT and networking infrastructure for the organization. "I was the first professional at IFFCO's head office who contributed towards setting up the company's IT Division, selection of technology, manpower, training, retraining and introduction of computerization," he says.

The company's IT spending in 2007-2008 was about Rs 14 crore. Going forward, Mittal plans to focus on the setting up of DR with business continuity, ERP and BI solutions.

Mittal considers his most significant career accomplishment to be the computerization of most of the business processes at IFFCO and the recognition of the firm's IT setup as one of the best in the fertilizer industry. "We have developed and implemented an ERP system on HR at IFFCO, which is a suite of 25 applications that are fully integrated with other applications such as finance, materials and maintenance," he adds.

IFFCO was also amongst one of the first corporates in India to have introduced an e-procurement system that is fully compliant with the Indian IT Act, 2000 and an early adopter of PKI, digital signatures and encryption technology.

Top Projects at IFFCO

Setting up of infrastructure and a Virtual Private Network Since IT support, connectivity and link reliability were major issues for remote offices, a state-of-the-art data center with robust connectivity was required at a central place. The data center, set up in New Delhi, has the latest technology deployed with blade servers, virtual data storage and online DR. Overall computerization of IFFCO IFFCO has not implemented standard ERP packages, it has developed and implemented enterprise-wide solutions in the organization. Setting of DR and Storage Virtualization An online DR with storage virtualization has been setup.

Propagating a Human Approach

It is all too easy to de-humanize employees and treat them like machinery, something no CIO or organization can afford to do. Information technology has its place, but it cannot replace the human touch, believes Sandeep Gosain.

Sandeep Gosain , CTO, Panacea Biotech

The human approach, believes Sandeep Gosain, CTO, Panacea Biotech, holds most true in today's competition-driven environment which does not accommodate failure. This often puts undue pressure on people and causes stress. Gosain encourages an approach that aims to mitigate these problems. "Be human! This is my mantra here at Panacea. IT systems cannot understand human emotions and hence a more human approach helps the entire organization," he elucidates. "Also, we should give leadership opportunities only to the deserving. It works in two ways-it motivates them and helps in getting future managers to lead. Also try to retain core people somehow. It works wonders," he adds.

Another principle that has worked for Gosain is his belief that IT is now becoming more strategic in nature. "The IT role has changed considerably. I look after day-to-day strategic business operations at Panacea, which help in streamlining and cutting the cost of operations and enhancing business processes," explains Gosain.

No wonder then, with such exceptional people-management skills, that Gosain has been able to implement critical projects for the company (MySAP All-in-One, SharePoint and Exchange application & domain consolidation and security) in the stipulated timeframes. He also has his priorities set for the year. He will be looking at setting up an R&D center, investing in regulatory as well as US FDA compliance.

Top Projects at Panacea Biotech

MySAP all-in-One The project rendered significant benefits to the company in the form of streamlined business processes using best business practices for the industry vertical. SharePoint and Exchange application This deployment has enabled professionals to collaborate and access information quickly across locations and data stores. Domain consolidation and security This project was implemented across 35 locations to standardize organizational policy across the enterprise while maintaining the confidentiality, reliability, availability, and integrity of IT resources.

The Technocrat

His input to strategy has contributed to a complete transformation of business models. Today, V Srinivas has moved on to head the IT function in another group company, Nagarjuna Fertilizers & Chemicals. The future can only be bright.

V Srinivas, CIO, Nagarjuna Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd.

A technocrat with fifteen years under his belt, Srinivas has been with Nagarjuna Fertilizers & Chemicals for a period of about eight and a half years in various roles. He handled the IT function in another group company, Nagarjuna Agrichem Ltd., for five years.

"In my current role as the CIO of Nagarjuna Fertilizers, I have been involved in giving strategic input in the areas of Finance and Logistics. In my previous role as CIO at Nagarjuna Agrichem, I was involved in providing strategic input in the areas of Corporate Finance, Banking, Marketing Alliances etc.," says Srinivas.

Till 2001, Nagarjuna Agrichem received 97% of its business from the domestic market. The business was seasonal and monsoon-dependent. "CEO G S Raju was assigned the task of getting this organization back into the black after three years in the red until 1999. We proposed that the business model be recast to ensure that 50% of business came from the domestic market with the balance coming from exports to Japan, US, Europe etc.," he says.

He helped build working relationships with major Agrochemical MNCs like Dow Agrosciences, Arysta Life Sciences and Syngenta Crop Protection in close coordination with the CEO. Today, the exports of Nagarjuna Agrichem constitute 30 percent of its business. Srinivas today manages an IT budget of Rs. 5.20 crore. His top three IT spending priorities in the coming fiscal are to extend NFCL's nCircle Mobility solutions, implement a DR site and solution and to deploy a cost-effective CRM solution to integrate with the existing ERP application.

Peer Review

R S Nanda, Director & COO, Nagarjuna Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd "Srinivas' role revolves around accomplishing objectives that flow from visions. The CIO's role in our organization calls for a focus on encouraging, sustaining and providing an atmosphere where innovation is encouraged and creativity is rewarded. Aligning the IT strategy with the organization's business strategy is a key function vested with the CIO. "Srinivas is an effective leader, a self-achiever whom everybody admires, an innovator and has been an early-adopter of IT. He is motivated to become a proactive leader and a role model."

Firestarter

While vibrant industry speaks volumes about IT deployments and use, the major challenge that Vijay Kumar, the Chief Manager - IT of Himalaya Drug Company, faced was to introduce IT into the organization and impress its value upon the management.

Vijay Kumar, Chief Manager-IT, Himalaya Drug Company

Vijay Kumar made immense effort to spur IT investments in the company and deploy technologies which could accelerate business growth.

He took the courageous step of introducing branded ERP software applications from 3i Infotech and Microsoft's Navision to the organization, when others were still making do with in-house solutions. "I went ahead and deployed applications from 3i Infotech for manufacturing and Navision for sales and marketing. We had to initiate IT from scratch, starting from one PC to a datacenter with WAN connectivity connecting all our 28 branches, 100 retail stores and 25 distribution points," says Kumar.

The idea was to initiate remote management of IT infrastructure and Himalaya evaluated products from several vendors. An in-house developed supply chain management solution which evolved into a total warehouse management solution was key to its growth.

With a mass of domain knowledge, Kumar worked closely with the other teams in imparting sales training and product knowledge, while empowering the teams to take independent decisions.

For Web-based reports and analysis Kumar, implemented SAP's data mining solution and products from Business Objects and a dashboard for the top management.

Top Projects at Himalaya Drug Company

Himalaya sees a need for projections and analysis of business data. While the previous year saw a Rs 60 lakh investment on technology deployments, the organization estimates an increase of 15 percent next year. The primary agenda is to upgrade to MS Exchange 2007 and work towards deploying Business Intelligence solutions to address aspects of sales analysis, forecasts, setting trends and goals etc. Enhancement of the IT infrastructure through remote management solutions is on the cards, particularly to connect with its Singapore, Malaysia and other global hubs, while branded SCM software solutions deployment is also a priority.

Mobile Manager

Vikas Gadre has been responsible for many of the key technological innovations that have taken place at Tata Chemicals. Additionally, he is involved in a variety of strategic activities. This experienced technology manager certainly has his chemistry right.

Vikas Gadre, CIO, Tata Chemicals

Vikas Gadre has leveraged his business experience during his stints as IT head at Rallis and Tata Chemicals. Not only does he take care of technology at his company, but he is also involved with looking after the company's investments in Vietnam. A strong business background helps him achieve the elusive equilibrium that business leaders look for-maximizing output with available input.

For IT though, the input is intellectual and that is where people management skills come into play. "I believe in creating an exciting vision for the future, giving challenging and tough assignments and most importantly allowing for failures," states Gadre. This not only helps him motivate people, but also helps them innovate as they dispense with the fear of failure. Backed by an able team, Gadre aims to take on projects in Business Information Warehousing (BIW), developing Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity planning and an SAP implementation in Kenya. He is also looking at outsourcing HR and Accounts processes to a BPO in 2008-09.

With his hands full as CIO of Tata Chemicals, one might expect him to stop there, but Gadre also gets involved with carving the strategic directions of the companies he has worked for. "I am a member of the top table (management review committee) in Tata Chemicals. Similarly, I was a member of executive council in Rallis and Eureka Forbes," states Gadre.

Top Projects at Tata Chemicals

Reimplementation of SAP / Change from Sap 4.6 to ECC 6.0 Tata Chemicals changed from multiple company codes to a single company code. A conscious effort was made to reduce ABAP programs and convert them to BIW reports. Implementation of governance risk and compliance software The project has thrown up a number of SOD violations in the authorization matrix. It has posed challenges on mitigation of risks. SAP sales, collection and dispatch process to mobile phones Successfully taken processes mobile. The process spans sales, payment and challan generation in real-time.

A Cost-cutting Masterstroke

Thorough planning before new purchases saw Emami's Vikram Saxena cut down on the list of items on the purchase list, saving lakhs of rupees and simplifying deployment.

Vikram Saxena, Senior GM, Emami

When Emami was budgeting for new IT infrastructure, Vikram Saxena, the company's CIO, slashed a prominent item due for purchase: a storage server. Instead, Saxena deployed a SAP Standard Archive Development Kit. This made the storage server upgrade unnecessary since, with the archiving application, the existing storage could take up further data. The initial storage requirement was effectively reduced by 33 percent, Saxena notes. "The cost saving on storage server upgrades were to the tune of Rs 60 lakhs," says Saxena. He also introduced other maintenance measures that brought in equally impressive results. "With performance tuning for the Oracle database, we now have much better and faster information availability."

The SAP implementation itself, which Saxena oversaw, has brought in several benefits. For one, it has streamlined all business processes and introduced a common system for the entire organization. The implementation has also enhanced information visibility across the organization. But Saxena has used it to reap other, less-obvious, gains-improving communication and creating a workforce that is easier to transfer between roles.

Saxena is a team player who strives to create a congenial and knowledge-centric work environment. His incentives for motivating his staff are as novel as his cost-cutting measures among them, nominating staff members for external and internal training programs on managerial skills and technical topics.

Peer Review

Indranil Dasgupta, COO, PCS Technology I have found Vikram Saxena to have a very analytical approach and process driven attitude. With his ERP implementation background, he has a macro-level understanding of IT related issues in an organization. He is very good at drawing up long-term strategies that make the optimum use of internal resources, but also includes outsourcing wherever it makes sense. Saxena is very responsive to the requirements of the internal customer. His quest for learning has seen him keeping abreast with the latest developments in technology.

The Grassroots Manager

Vilas Pujari believes in working closely with his team members. He talks their language and motivates them constantly. But what sets him apart from others is the fact that he can be approached by the even the junior-most member of his team.

Vilas Pujari , GM-Corporate IT, ACG Worldwide

Meet Vilas Pujari, GM-Corporate IT, ACG Worldwide. "Close contact with my people and constant motivation is my way of people management," states Pujari, matter-of-factly. "To do this we need to understand that we have to talk technology with them and also show a technologically appealing road map for them to stick around," he adds. Efficient People Management and his own hard work have reaped him laurels wherever he has been. From being a programmer to managing an EDP department in the early '90s to managing the Systems department which focused on business applications and to his current strategic role, Pujari has charted a long journey starting with large corporations like Birla, Ambuja, Tata, to the current ACG.

At ACG today, Pujari's role has evolved to provide strategic inputs in the areas of using IT for the benefit of the business-like increasing sales and improving customer satisfaction using the Internet as a medium and also in the area of vendor management. With this in mind-and considering the company's proposed expansion plans-Pujari has set his priorities on improving the company's IT infrastructure and applications (ERP & CRM) and implementing workflow automation. With his plans supported by the management and by the necessary budget, Vilas Pujari has a lot going for him.

Top Projects at ACG Worldwide

SAP HR Implementation With the SAP HR ACG has been able to integrate all locations, systems and have real-time, on-line information. This project gave Pujari an opportunity to play significant role as IT head and Project manager (technical and functional). Pujari believes that through the project, he gained a close understanding of HR functional aspects. Lotus Notes Implementation ACG implemented Lotus Notes in a centralized architecture along with the SAP connector. This project was important in that it has helped Pujari lay a platform for future initiatives like integrating SAP and Notes workflow.

Automated Technology

Vinay Datar started his career as a Trainee Programmer. Today, 26 years later, he has come a long way and holds the prestigious post of Vice-president, Information and Technology with Unichem Laboratories.

Vinay Datar, Vice President-IT, Unichem Laboratories

Unichem Laboratories, a pharma company with a turnover of Rs 800 crore, had an IT spend of around Rs 2 crore in the financial year 2007-08. Datar plans for another Rs 2 crore in IT spends for the coming financial year. "We intend to grow heavily in the coming year, with massive expansion plans in the field f technology," says Datar.

As part of the spending priorities for 2008-09, Unichem has an automation plan for its Indian and international operations, along with a planned upgradation of the ERP system. "We plan to consolidate what we already have and will re-look at some of the existing software updates," added Datar.

Unichem is the first pharma company to incorporate the use of mobile technology for a complaints management solution, wherein all complaints are sent through SMS, grievances are tracked and a solution is provided instantly. It is a fully automated solution and Datar is understandably proud of the pioneering initiative.

He believes that the necessary traits of a good team leader are to give the team an opportunity to work independently, with complete focus on returns and project benefits, rather than simply handing out large salaries. Besides, training should be provided from time-to-time to enhance their management and communication skills, Datar believes.

Top Projects at Unichem Laboratories

Datar has been involved in a number of projects at Unichem Laboratories. He is evidently proud of the key projects that he has worked on in his current role. The projects undertaken by him include 'Automation in Field Force' that involves hardware maintenance, updates to the employee portal, initiatives in terms of the company's customers i.e. doctors, and Web-enabled software development; concentrating on automating all business processes for the company's offices abroad and updating the existing ERP system.

IT Pro in the Ring

Over the years, having headed the IT departments of various companies, Zoeb Adenwala has proved his mettle. However, he has little time to reminisce. The challenge of consolidating ERP at Essel Propack looms large before him, and he must deliver.

Zoeb Adenwala, CIO, Essel Propack

Over a period of time, Essel Propack grew inorganically taking the M&A route. Adenwala, who is the CIO of the firm, says that this resulted in inheriting the transaction systems from the acquired companies. The company also implemented independent ERP systems at each of its overseas locations. "Since each of them runs independently, there are different processes in each company and we are not able to leverage procurement and other processes to improve economies of scale," laments Adenwala.

He's already got the blueprint for the ERP consolidation ready, though. To overcome the problems caused by running disparate systems, Adenwala will move operations to a single ERP hosted out of India on large servers which will be accessible to all locations world-wide. This will not only bring about standardization of processes, Adenwala notes, but will also substantially reduce operating costs as today, each of the local servers has local vendors associated with it, with their attendant costs. "By moving the set-up to India, a low-cost country, we will substantially reduce our opex ," says Adenwala.

Another problem-area Adenwala hopes to set right is the availability of critical information to business decision-makers. Currently, reports are available to top management only on a monthly basis and these reports are mostly stating the facts. "Top management is starved of any useful information which can help them in proactive decision making," says Adenwala. He plans to put a basic BI solution in place immediately to improve analytics and decision making.

Top Projects at Essel Propack

Integrated ERP rollout To ensure that all basic business transactions are captured. Currently, there are multiple ERP and transaction systems like Microsoft Navision, MFG Pro, MES, etc. Business Intelligence solution This planned deployment will help the company consolidate reports from disparate data systems. Collaboration and connectivity Adenwala plans to bring in collaboration tools to support sharing of information across EPL's geographically diverse divisions. To ensure reliable connectivity, an MPLS based VPN network is planned.

Across Industries

In his fourteen years as a CIO, Arun Gupta has worked in various verticals at DSP Merrill Lynch, DHL Worldwide Express, Hughes Telecom, Pfizer Limited and Philips Electronics India. Today, Gupta is the Group CTO at Shoppers Stop.

Arun Gupta, Customer Care Associate & Group Chief Technology Officer, Shoppers Stop Limited

He says, "My role as a part of the Management Board of the company includes inputs on all initiatives of the group and I am involved in almost all the business decisions taken by it. Today, many organizations acknowledge the CIO's role as that of an equal leader and technology as a means to achieve business. This is driven by heightened awareness of IT amongst other business executives and their usage of the solutions deployed."

He has deployed applications at the cutting-edge before. In 2003, Pfizer equipped its medical representatives with CDMA phones connected to laptops and desktops for planning and reporting in a deployment covering 1,400+ medical representatives across the country. It was used by the sales teams to access the sales force automation portal OPTIMA (Online Pfizer Territory Information Management Application, which was developed internally). This was later extended to also cover e-learning for the medical representatives. He continues to do so and says, "We are currently working with secure RFID tags."

He manages an IT budget of about Rs. 15 crore that's expected to grow to Rs. 25 crore in the coming fiscal. His top priorities for the year ahead are to improve Supply Chain Systems, build an effective data warehouse and consolidate server requirements.

Top Projects at Shoppers Stop

The first involves building B2C portals. "Over the next few years, we expect the Internet sales to be comparable to that of a mid-size store and these will be run like another store by the respective business unit. We will extend this channel to other retail formats during 2008," says Gupta. While the company has been using data mining tools for over three years, these focused on specific aspects of its business. Its new initiative will cover all business units. A B2B collaboration portal is being implemented at key suppliers. Over the next six months, all of its suppliers will move to the new platform.

Retail Therapy

Having worked in travel, logistics, banking and financial services and now, retail, Meheriar Patel has been exposed to a wide range of experiences. For Globus, he brings to bear this extensive experience in taking the retail major to the next level.

Meheriar Patel, GM & Head IT, Globus Stores

Today, as the GM & Head IT at Globus Stores, he has been involved in some key decisions that included choosing the right partner and business model for the company's e-Commerce business, picking the right Business Intelligence Tool to enhance productivity and preparing a five year plan to conceptualize IT architecture to support the Retail Business Growth plan.

He considers the top projects that he has worked on in his present role to be Business Intelligence (BI), e-commerce, intranet and security. BI has gone a long way in providing Reporting and Decision Making for Senior and Middle-level users. "Being available online, anywhere, anytime has been our primary focus and building a strong e-commerce foundation for our products has been a mandatory requirement," he says. The work on the intranet involved the development of HRIS, feedback mechanisms, sharing of knowledge/resources/collaboration and an online magazine.

"All business requirements can be converted to meaningful and automated architecture through IT. A clear understanding of the business is essential if it is to be well supported through IT," he says. Patel manages an IT budget that is three to four percent of his company's turnover. The rise in spending in the coming fiscal is expected to be in the region of two to three percent. His top priorities for 2008-09 are CRM, Upgrades of Merchandising and POS systems, Storage and Security.

Comment

Vinay Nadkarni, CEO, Globus IT has played a key role in making things happen. Anything and everything is possible through IT and a positive attitude to support and put in place the right systems at the right time. The CIO needs to innovate and fully concentrate on playing a leadership role in moving towards a superior information services arena. The approach of being proactive and swiftly providing continuous and seamless architecture as an IT support group is needed. Continuously provide training, reduction in IT operation cost, data protection and formulate an IT security policy for a corporate environment.

Ship-to-shore

A CIO for over two decades, Chetan Sheth believes in the mantra, "Motivate - Empower - Delegate." Today, he is the head of IT at The Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd. where he has been involved in several projects.

Chetan Sheth, DGM IT, The Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd

Chetan Sheth and his team have developed and implemented ten large applications. Numerous workflows and third-party integration like Lotus Notes and Actuate (a BI tool) have been incorporated, making all these applications real-time, transparent and they facilitate e-approvals.

"These were two-tier (client-server) applications, based on Oracle 9i and Forms 6i. All these applications have been successfully migrated to the Oracle 10g application server, Web-enabling them in the process," says Sheth. "The migration has enabled Web access to applications, paving the way to reach out to colleagues on board our ships who otherwise must wait for resolution of their queries. Enabling real-time access results in huge savings on processing and communication costs," he adds. Today Sheth manages an IT budget of Rs. 4 crore and he expects that to be bumped up by 10 percent in the coming fiscal. His top three priorities are Backup infrastructure, Storage and Disaster Recovery.

"We are currently evaluating the possibility of enabling office-to-ship video conferencing, especially for our coastal ships. Once fully operational, the need to travel will be significantly reduced, thereby bringing down costs and enabling senior executives to be more productive by operating from a central location," he concludes.

Comment

Balan Wasudeo, CFO, The Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd. In Great Eastern Shipping, the CIO is an important member of the CxO quartet. Great value comes from him in terms of securing the company's intellectual property, creating a decision support system, increasing overall corporate productivity and reducing response time to external stimuli. While the CEO, COO and the CFO draw up business plans and strategies, the CIO is expected to not just visualize what IT-enabled support systems these plans will require, but is also expected to suggest how modern utilities and software can create distinct competitive advantages for the company.

GEMS on the Go

The most critical business challenge for G S Ravi Kumar, the CIO of Gati Ltd is to ensure 24/7 connectivity and a smooth supply chain across all its 400 locations, besides its overseas branches at Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other SAARC countries.

G S Ravi Kumar , CIO, Gati

G S Ravi Kumar, Gati's CIO has been an early adopter of many IT products such as IP phones and software applications for disaster recovery. He was instrumental in launching a Web-based project, Gati@web, which integrated all the software applications used for various business processes under a centralized data centre, while creating a Gati Enterprise Management System (GEMS) on a single framework.

"The vital aspect of the IT implementation was to integrate the Oracle CRM and ERP applications on a single platform to ensure a smooth supply chain and facilitate inventory operations across all locations," said Kumar. Implementing WAN across over 100 locations and VoIP-besides workflow software for various business functions-paid off with tangible advantages. The use of business intelligence, data warehousing and GEMS saw the organization becoming more transparent, increased performance of employees and also reduced the time taken to carry out various operations. Kumar emphasizes that the management focused on creating a multi-skilled environment where all the employees are exposed to varied functionalities in the business. With most of the software applications developed in-house, Kumar, who works with a 25-member team, ensures a clear growth path for all employees.

Top Projects at Gati

Gati has been one of the largest spenders on IT in the logistics vertical, with technology being the backbone of its entire business operations. The IT spend for the past year was Rs 15 crores, and it is estimated to go up by 20 percent going forward. The priorities include mobile computing devices for all employees to expedite the information flow. A vehicle tracking system and telematics are other thrust areas for strengthening its inter-city traffic flow. Building an interface across various SoA and Web services, evaluating branded ERP systems and revamping the entire stack to integrate it on a single platform is on the cards.

An Eye for Opportunities

Driven by a desire to raise his company's customer satisfaction standards, DHL's Prasad Dhumal scouts around his own company-looking for opportunities that make the courier delivery process sleeker and his company's bottom-line healthier.

Prasad Dhumal, National IS (Information Systems) Manager, DHL Express India Globus Stores

DHL Express is known for its reliability, but Dhumal, the company's National Information Systems head, found that anxious customers wanted to know the status of their parcel every few hours. For them, Dhumal's development team designed a follow-me-track service, providing updates over the phone on the position of the consignment as it clears different checkpoints. While DHL had a conventional Internet-based tracking option available, Dhumal found out that there were limitations from the customer's point of view. "Not everybody in a customer's organization would have access to the Internet," he explains. There were thorny problems like receiving messages from CDMA service providers in certain areas, but these were eventually sorted out. Studies by DHL have shown that the service has helped win more customers.

As Dhumal sees it, there are no defined boundaries for a CIO's role. This attitude spurred him to lead the customer-centric initiative at DHL. For the IT team, Dhumal says, that meant interacting with the internal customers-the different business function teams-spending time with them and trying to understand their challenges better. "They need to see if there are any opportunities where technology can help," says Dhumal.

Often, coming in a guise other than that of an IT Head helps. "Customers open up and tell me the non-IT challenges as well when I go to them to discuss customer-centricity," says Dhumal.

Top Projects at DHL India

Field force application Deployed next-generation scanners and a parcel-collection mobile application that enables couriers to directly enter parcel details in the system at collection points. Migration from point-to-point to MPLS With the overhaul, the company tripled its bandwidth usage and improved its uptime. Customer-centric initiative led by IT Head Dhumal spearheaded this initiative, his philosophy being that if internal customers are delighted, it will reflect in their interactions with external customers.

Master at Work

New setups are never easy. But some, through discipline and sincerity, manage even the most daunting of tasks. Rajiv Nandwani, who is responsible for the IT backbone of IndiGo, makes it to the list on his sheer tenacity and hard work.

Rajiv Nandwani, Director-IT, IndiGo

"We are a new organization. This only shows the vastness of opportunities and innovation that can be achieved," states Nandwani, Director IT, IndiGo Airlines. It has been scarcely over a year since IndiGo Airlines setup its office and roped in Nandwani to do the job. Armed with a budget that runs into millions of dollars, Nandwani is looking at putting in place all required business-centric applications by procuring and maintaining them from reliable vendors. Another item on his agenda is consolidating the IT infrastructure that is already in place. To date, he has undertaken and implemented projects like a Microsoft SharePoint intranet with modules that include appraisal cycle, collaboration of documents as well as an SAP project.

He attributes his success at IndiGo to his team as well as his ITIL and project management background, which has disciplined him. On the team front, he does not believe in micro-management. "A leader is someone who has a clear vision and communicates the same. I believe in working through managers and mentoring my team members, rather than supervising them in detail," says Nandwani. Also, this strategy of managing people leaves him with more time to devote to making IT a more strategic function at IndiGo. "I usually give inputs in the area of managing the customer, as it is of utmost importance in our industry. Since I have an ITIL background, I offer inputs in areas like continuous service improvement, team and time management," reveals Nandwani.

Top Projects at IndiGo

Within a short span IndiGo has created a name for itself in the airline industry. One must recognize the contribution of strategic IT in this success. Getting systems in new offices up and running in a few months is no mean feat-one which Rajiv Nandwani has managed to achieve. He will continue to put in place best-of-breed technologies and applications for the company from top-tier vendors. To date, he has already undertaken and implemented projects like a Microsoft SharePoint intranet with modules that include appraisal cycle, collaboration of documents as well as the SAP project.

Implementations and Accolades

S R Mallela, the Group CTO of AFL, takes care of all technology in the organization-IT and otherwise. He is a veteran of the IT field with over 32 years of experience in various senior positions across different industries.

S R Mallela, Group CTO, AFL

A leading logistics company, AFL spent 12 crore on IT in the last financial year and Mallela expects this to come down by 20 percent in 2008-09. In 2002, Mallela was responsible for putting up a centralized data center in Mumbai for the company, which is directly connected to 400 locations across the country and approximately 800 locations through a VPN.

For supply chain management, Mallela has created a bespoke centralized ERP system called 'AGRANI', for core business functions, while for the company's express business, he has created another ERP system called 'STRATOS'. Mallela is, meanwhile, working on a 'shared services concept' for the coming financial year, wherein the company will assign a cost value for its services. "With this concept, we will be able to evaluate the real cost of any work done in a particular time frame," said Mallela.

Besides being the Group CTO, Mallela is also a part of the company's management committee, wherein he participates in business review meetings for strategic planning and decisions. He has taken on various key projects in his tenure, including optimizing server costs, and implementing networking through hopping. Mallela has been awarded 'CTO of the Year' for the Service Industry in 2004 as well as 'Best User of Storage' by EMC. He believes in treating his staff as individuals and looking after their growth prospects.

Projects Undertaken at AFL Logistics

In his current role, Mallela has been involved in creating a Management by Exception rule for his company, wherein a report is generated every day, listing the areas that have not met the set target. The report then goes through the management hierarchy and proactive decisions are taken. His other key project has been Network Route Optimization that allows dynamic network route planning for AFL's transportation. Mallela has also established and streamlined business processes, which has helped his company acquire the ISO 270001 certification for IT.

Business-minded Benefits

The word 'corporation' evokes, more often than not, a picture of piles of paper and staid processes. But IT implementations at Transport Corporation of India (TCI), India's leading supply chain and logistics solutions provider, tell a different story.

Sudesh Jain, Sr VP-IT, Transport Corporation of India (TCI)

Towering over intimidating legacy issues, Sudesh Jain, TCI's Senior Vice President (IT), has implemented a centralized and Web-based system that's now yielding impressive productivity gains.

As Jain prepared to transform his company's systems architecture-from client-server technology to one based on .Net-he had many challenges to face. The company's extensive service network and the fact that its services are available in all modes of transport (road, air, sea, and rail) meant that Jain had to carefully study the intricacies of the business and plot out how the different divisions could be integrated. Jain also had to convince employees who were used to legacy processes to adopt the new systems and technology.

Another of Jain's initiatives has been to introduce a Web-based application for tracking attendance and other payroll-related parameters. He has also directed the transfer of the petrol pump applications of TCI pumps, initially working as decentralized applications, into a similar Web-based environment. "Generating information has become very simple and easy," says Jain.

Jain's thorough understanding of business processes puts him in an advantageous position to provide strategic direction for the company. And as a member of the senior management, he is doing just that.

Peer Review

Praveen Mathur, AVP Business Development, TCI Sudesh Jain is one of the most admired Heads Of Departments within the Group. A keen listener, his supportive and empathetic nature has earned him respect and veneration from people across the Group. His many years of experience and sound knowledge base has helped the Group transform itself into a technology-driven organization. His biggest strength is his team which, under his leadership and guidance, conceptualized and designed an integrated IT system that not only resulted in internal efficiencies, but also helped the business to grow to newer heights.

Have IT, Will Travel

Working with a travel management company for the last ten years, Vimal Das has developed expertise in aligning IT with the travel management business processes to keep his company ahead of the competition.

Vimal Das, GM-IT HRG Sita India, Kuoni Business Travel India Pvt.Ltd.

Vimal Das started his career with the basics of IT-data processing and data management using mainframe computers. Programming was the next step. With the advent of dBase, a number of third-party tools evolved that enhanced its functionalities. "My basics in data management being strong, I could use these tools efficiently. I was part of a small team which developed a mini-ERP system for a manufacturing company, and this was a highlight in my career at that time," said Das.

Over his decade with a travel management company (TMC), he has shifted his focus to align IT with business. "This has helped me gain a deep understanding of TMC business processes, and I am using this knowledge to bring about a radical change in existing processes. This will surely take the company ahead of its competition," adds Das.

His IT spending priorities going forward are explicit, and include the reduction of transaction time by 10 percent, manpower deployed as percentage of turnover by 5 percent and to create a Web-based interface for customers.

Das has often provided strategic input in other business decisions. When BPR (Business Process Re-engineering) was being done by a consultant, he spent a lot of time identifying processes which could be replaced, amended and merged to qualitatively improve workflows.

Top Projects at HRG Sita India

BTSoft Built a new application-BTSoft (Business Travel Software) which works efficiently to take care of business and functional needs and future growth. BTSoft's specifications and design were done by IT and it has improved user efficiency. The application was developed specifically for Kuoni Business Travel India Pvt Ltd (BTI Sita now branded as HRG Sita India). SAP through SSC The 'migration to SAP' project was an excellent learning for Das and his team. It involved detailing each and every process and identifying those processes which would need to be migrated to SAP

Service Guaranteed

'In transit' can mean different things for different people, and Vincent Paul, the Head of IT in Blue Dart knows this. His team has deployed a tool that monitors the net service levels for premium customers, monitoring service quality and ensuring patronage.

Vincent Paul, Head-IT, Blue Dart

While a delay of a few minutes in a parcel's delivery would mean-for most of us-a minor inconvenience, it could rattle the business processes of other companies. For instance, a diagnostic company relying on a courier company to deliver its test samples from remote locations needs guarantees that are honored. With the service-monitoring tool that Paul helped deploy, Blue Dart is now able to pledge such guarantees. "Many diagnostic companies have entrusted their logistics operations to us," says Paul.

Blue Dart's order-tracking tool, TrackDart, enables its clients to track the status of each order online. Paul's interaction with the business teams has helped narrow down the time difference between the online update and the physical status of the parcel: it's down to a maximum of nine minutes now. The IT team has also automated the entire pick-up process so that the time-consuming step of manual labeling of consignments has been eliminated.

Paul has been observing how the company's bandwidth requirements have been growing. To counter that, he is deploying a WAN optimization tool for better management of the available bandwidth.

A firm believer in the potential of his team members, Paul provides them with full freedom to explore opportunities for designing new IT solutions. "This has helped us design solutions that plug nicely into business needs," notes Paul.

Top Projects at Blue Dart

Consolidating storage The company is adding finance and HR modules to its inhouse ERP system; in anticipation of more storage requirements, consolidation of existing storage is in progress. Workforce Mobility Providing secure mobile connectivity tools to its mobile workforce. Applications to be made available over SSL-VPN. Business Contingency Continuity Plan (BCCP) The company has set up a back-up technology hub in Bangalore as a part of its Business Contingency Continuity Plan (BCCP). This is a hot backup site with real-time switchover.

Wind Beneath their Wings

It's a battle up there in the skies, with low-cost airlines tearing at each other. At the IT controls of Spice Jet, Virender Pal has some tech-fuelled initiatives.

Virender Pal, Chief Technology Officer, Spice Jet

Other things being equal, cost-cutting and superior marketing are what are sending airline companies' profits soaring. So when SpiceJet embarked on a plan to provide the airline's customers with TATA-AIG insurance, Pal knew that much would depend on how cost-effective his team's IT support was. To achieve this, existing infrastructure was harnessed, while automating the process ensured that there was no requirement for additional manpower. "Even the reports for reconciliation are automatically generated," says Pal. SpiceJet also stole a march over its competitors in offering a Net-banking facility to pay for airline tickets. Middleware was incorporated to serve as the transaction platform. "Currently, we have around 15 banks in the list," says Pal, adding that more would be added in the future.

ERP implementation and upgrading the IT infrastructure to keep in sync with the solutions planned for the year are among Pal's top priorities going forward. "The biggest challenge is to keep the costs low, while leveraging IT to deliver solutions that provide the organization with a competitive edge," sums up Pal.

For managing his team members, Pal goes with his own unique formula, with the first letter of each of the attributes borrowed from those of the word "TEAM": the attributes being Trust, Encouragement, Authority and Mileage. (By 'mileage' he means providing employees with due compensation and recognition). "These components are key factors for employee motivation," says Pal.

Top Projects at Spice Jet

Online Fraud Screening of online transactions Deployed an application to monitor online credit card transactions, checking for potential fraud. With this system in place, customers are assured of a much safer online transaction. Online payment mechanism for tickets SpiceJet was among the first in the airline industry to implement a solution for the direct purchase of tickets with payment through Net-banking. Most airlines only provide credit card payment through their Web sites. TATA-AIG online insurance to SpiceJet customers Transaction processes and report-generation automated.

IT with CARE

What might be the technology needs of an organization that strives towards the betterment of human society? Ask Harcharan Singh, Director-IT, Care India, for he is the man behind the smooth functioning of this organization.

Harcharan Singh, Director-IT, Care India

HS, as he is fondly referred to by his colleagues, has strived towards creating the necessary infrastructure, establishing relationships as well as allocating resources to accomplish the goals of the organization. Driving a humanitarian organization calls for optimum utilization of given resources. And with modest budgets too, Harcharan Singh has been able to manage that and much more. For starters, he upgraded the company-wide legacy IT Infrastructure to meet industry standards. He was also the force behind conceptualizing and developing the Budget Management System, which aimed at automating budget preparation as the first phase, and which, over a period of time and roll-outs, was highly appreciated and well accepted.

Additionally, Singh also convinced the company heads to opt for outsourcing Anti-Spam Services. "Today, the IT helpdesk is enabled with conclusive tracking of lost or missing emails. Now, it is also possible to manage a white- and black-list of emails based on users request. As a result, the user's satisfaction and belief in the organization's emailing system and overall IT services has strengthened over time," beams Singh.

Given his experience and domain expertise-Business Process Mapping, this technology head has analyzed, over his journey with CARE, the various functional areas of organization and has successfully devised practically feasible system designs and logical models to align them and deliver maximum output.

Peer Review

Akashdeep Vashisth, Head, Network Operations and Web Technologies HS has a sense of team spirit. This enables him to take his entire group/team/unit forward along with him. He has created an environment where decisions are made by consensus, feelings are dealt with openly and contributions made within the group are additive. He represents the team's interests, secures resources, clarifies expectations, gathers ideas, information, and shares what is learned within the team. This is what HS has converted CARE India IT into-a knowledge-driven organization.