Advertisment

Acting Locally

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

The claim

that global deployment of IT will reduce cost, standardize practices, develop

good systems, and place the enterprise in a controlled environment is

theoretically acceptable, but not universally practical. Specially, while

implementing IT in the Banking Industry where banks have a large geographical

spread and a variety of customers who look for different values, the

inapplicability of global deployment is more pronounced.

Advertisment

A global deployment of

IT and the delivery of products/services through IT has an impact on two

sections of people: the users of IT within the organization, and the clients who

use the products and services delivered by the organization, through IT.

D Krishnamurthy



GM—IT, Bank of India
Global Deployment

Problems




  • Local statutory requirements (in case of

    implementation in foreign branches) will vary in different locations

    and may require specific security standards etc which may make large,

    specific customizations  necessary.

    The IT maturity in those countries and also the infrastructure

    availability will make global implementation difficult

  • When there is a disaster it will affect all

    and, hence, the business continuity plan (BCP) for localized

    deployment can be simple. The magnitude of disaster management and the

    requirements of business continuity systems will not be necessary in

    the same scale for small areas

  • IT upgradations and maintenance have to be

    carried out on a large scale for the sake of uniformity and may also

    require standard hardware which may not be really necessary at all

    centers or may cost more

  • Non-development of localized products and local

    innovations, delays and side stepping of such requirements will affect

    business

  • Delays and escalation of cost for introducing

    small solutions for local requirements will occur because it has to be

    done globally for the sake of uniformity

  • It will force business strategy to align with

    IT strategy

  • Global System may force some customers to

    change their system for adaptability 

  • The availability of service and support becomes

    a critical issue if a global implementaion is done

  • Often

    it results in a situation that the group/business segment continues a

    parellel system or modifies the global solution to suit its

    requirements, thereby causing additional cost defeating the purpose of

    centralization

Advertisment

The training of staff

that use such IT will be an expensive and long process where we find that it is

not really necessary for all of them to get acclimatized to the new environment

and the full functionality of the new software. Similarly, the clients have to

get used to the new way of delivery of the same product because of a new global

IT implementation, which has changed the way systems used to work earlier or

even may not use all the products the new IT solution can offer. Such a global

implementation may further require creation of awareness at the client level and

lack of such effort to make this happen will result in non-acceptance by the

clients of such new systems and cause dissatisfaction.

Hence, it will be

prudent to identify the business groups amongst the clients and put them into

different silos and map their requirements for the purpose of delivering

appropriate technology to them.  The

way of delivery of the product to these groups of segmented customers will make

technology adoption by them easy and also useful to them, rather than pushing

something to them just for the sake of global implementation, which they are

unable to use/appreciate.

Similarly, for the

groups of staff who use technology.

Therefore, it is my

opinion that a global implementation of IT is to be selectively done, only after

a careful study and only where it really suits the kind of business. 

As told to Goutam

Das 



goutamd@cybermedia.co.in




Advertisment