Aricent: When IT's the Elixir

A full-service, full-spectrum communications software company,
Aricent has its core infrastructures like LAN, WAN, Internet access, email
system, active directory system and IP Key system, etc in place. The company
also has the usual hardware stuff like routers, switches, firewalls and various
types of servers like development servers and email servers.

Backbone Called IT

Being a software development company, Aricent's IT infrastructure assumes
critical importance for its business. "In Aricent, all software product
development is aligned with IT. As our business runs on IT, we need high quality
infrastructure. Otherwise, if the development server is down, then a team sits
idle leading to wastage of manpower," Rajeev Seoni, assistant vice
president and head, IT, Aricent says.

It is this criticality of infrastructure that has coerced the
company to use infrastructure management tools (IMT) that help in remotely
monitoring the infrastructure and also inform the team about the overloading of
a particular server by displaying a red dot on the central screen enabling
requisite rectifications to be made. The IMT monitors desktops, servers and
network equipments, etc.

-Rajeev Seoni (center, bottom row), assistant VP and head, IT, Aricent

Seoni adds that the importance of IT infrastructure can be
gauged from the fact that even if you are adding 500 new employees, then the
basic infrastructure has to be arranged before hand, so that work can be
started.

Overall Infrastructure

The company attaches a lot of importance to information security and
predictably has an excellent network security system like the firewalls, anti-spam
and intrusion detection system in place. It also has a proper access control
system based on a need-to-know basis that is anyone not authorized to access a
particular project will not be able to access it.

"On the applications front, ERP is the heart of core
functionality as it manages critical enterprise functions like the finance, HR,
software project management efficiently. We have been using ERP from SAP for the
last two years prior to using distributed type of applications built
in-house," says Seoni. For providing good post-sales support of products
and for sales force automation, it uses Siebel apart from in-house applications
like the Time Sheet. The company also boasts of an intranet called Anthra, a
communication tool used by the employees for their daily activities.

On being asked about the level of IT adoption in Aricent, Seoni
says: "As far as IT adoption in the infrastructure and development
environment goes, it is very high, may be even 100%, so I can say that our IT
infrastructure is highly matured and well utilized. But as far as applications
goes, there is no end to it."

Challenges

The challenges for IT infrastructure of any growing IT services firm is
different from what any other organization would face. This is because the staff
itself is up-to-date with the latest technology and predictably expects that the
required IT systems would be made available quickly. "This in turn builds
up the pressure on us," he says.

"Another challenge is, during the time of mergers and
acquisitions since the expectation is that we will seamlessly merge with the
entity and also start working together. And above all, all of this should be
done at minimal costs," Seoni says.

Road Ahead

"We are planning to introduce mobility in our applications to provide
information mainly for our sales staff for handling customer queries on the
move. This would be introduced within next one year," Seoni says.

The company is also working on a pilot project of knowledge
management system (KMS) and will be used as a strong collaboration tool.
"The KMS will essentially focus on solving the attrition problem by
capturing experience and knowledge gained of various people by working on
various projects," says Seoni.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in