Fitting into the Suite

That charity begins at home does not look like a philosophy endorsed by
Indian enterprises, especially when IT deployment is concerned. Be it hardware
or software, the preference has always been toward MNC vendors over their Indian
counterparts. To be fair to Indian CIOs, one must also take into account the
paucity of indigenous products; and whatever limited numbers are available do
not stand up to scratch in terms of quality.

Times, though, seem to be changing, at least for some enterprises, as far as
acceptance of homegrown IT products are concerned, especially on the ERP front.

Desi Flavor

Homegrown ERPs are becoming a part of the CIO consideration set, more so
when it comes to finding a vertically-fit ERP. Prakash Pradhan, head, IT,
Jagsopan Pharmaceuticals, says that while deciding on an organization-wide ERP
solution, he evaluated ERP products from India.

Budget and total expenditure play a great role in selecting the final product
and thats where indigenous ERPs beat the MNCs by a large margin. My idea was
to find something fit for pharma. MNCs cost almost double the investment, he
says. From a financial estimate, the Indian options scored well but the only
hitch was scalability and hence he had to think of MS or SAP.

Finding an ERP that is 100% satisfactory for all processes would be a
difficult proposition. Readymade mapping is not easy to achieve unless one
designs something from the scratch in-house. But be it user requirement or SMB-specific
issues, the big suites are in use because of their wide presence and not
necessarily because they fit, he admits. Much against the skepticism they were
earlier met with, Indian suites, as they are surfacing, are no less than
international ones when it comes to ERP applications.

Another company that had tried and tested an Indian ERP solution was Madras
Cements, which incidentally was a solution from a group company. G Muthukrishnan,
chief manager, IT, Madras Cements, confidently puts Indian options on a par with
foreign ones: We implemented an Indian product, Ramco, and got the best
product, better support, immediate response, and

customization.

Features used to be a forte for MNC suites, but as of today, Indian suites
dont lag behind, whether its features or performance. They are far easier to
adjust to Indian requirements and other customization needs. Not to forget
there is the obvious pricing advantage, both in license fees and AMCs. More so,
the implementation was done directly from Ramco and not by a third party,
Muthukrishnan adds.

In another example, Henkel, too, invested in Ramco for its ERP application.
It decided on Ramco e-application suite after evaluating several competing
solutions as per some earlier news reports.

Ramco apparently scored over the others with its ease of implementation,
integration responsibility, TCO, better understanding of Indian statutory laws,
better support, cost effective AMC, and as a one-stop solution, besides being an
industry-specific solution ideally suited for Henkel.

Ramco, being an Indian company, has better understanding of Indian statutory
requirements. The support in terms of both ease and cost-effectiveness is much
better than other ERP options, says Manikkam VS, India head, IT, Henkel
Information Technology.

Existing Troubles

The troubles with Indian options continue to exist, more so in a scenario
when not many options are around in the first place. Not many would venture to
be the first users in India of an Indian product and so there is a dearth of
convincing referrals. At the end of the day, one is left with Oracle and SAP to
choose from. MS is not visible enough in the marketing front as it falters when
it comes to pan-India choice and enough referrals.

In case of Shree Cements, Indian ERP player Ramco was considered but not
picked because of peer feedback. Rajat Sharma, GM, IT, cites examples like Prism
Cement and Parrys that had to migrate from Ramco to SAP.

To admit at the onset, this alternative would purely depend on ones
priorities. If the customization needs to outscore the scale and technical
know-how factors, its worth spending time and effort in building up or, as is
more often the case, brushing up ones homemade solution.

For the CIO, the name is simplelegacy systems. These can be further
augmented and brought at par with foreign options through hybrid routes.
Disheartened at the absence of adequately tailored ERPs, Indian companies and
CIOs have already started experimenting with stuff out of their own kitchen.

FCm Travel Solutions took this route after spending a good amount of time in
research that ended with zilch. At last we started with our own vision and
started working on a completely raw development. It took time, energy,
investment but it was worth waiting. Finally, we are going to roll out our
product by early next month. It is going to be a 100% customized product which
will cater to most of our requirements, explains national manager, IT,
Vishwajeet Singh.

Tried and Tested

The desi flavor hence is not limited to Indian vendors alone. There are
instances of in-house legacy systems gaining over their branded counterparts. In
fact, a hybrid model can be a killer combination had it not been for scale
issues.

It would work if it is used in a distilled fashion and can be mapped across
the ERP or plugged-in easily, Sharma says. At Shree Cements, there was an
in-house system working well, given the domain grip and the vision of internal
team but that worked till the company did not set foot in growth frontiers.

Integrating most key suppliers, key dealers, all employees, and all business
processes in customized software set, is the key accomplishment that the IT team
of Bajaj Electricals professes to have done with minimum IT investments.

We have been using these customized software solution sets for all areas
like ERP, Intranet, SFA, CRM, SCM, extranet dealers and suppliers and customer
care centers, call center and e-commerce-enabled website, etc. And we have been
using some of these components like ERP, Intranet for the last twelve years, and
over the period we have reached a stage where all other components are developed
and implemented with in-house efforts in a well integrated manner and with
centralized setup, says Pratap Gharge, vice president and CIO, Bajaj
Electricals.

Now that its current IT infrastructure foundation has been laid for around
twelve years, it has lived its life, and Bajaj Electricals is in the process of
changing ERP, CRM, and SCM components with ready products in the coming
financial year.

The IT budget (both capital and expenses put together) since the last twelve
years is consistently below 0.4% of the total revenue. He feels that the IT team
has been doing excellent work of delivering best functionality, integrating all
the areas, including business partners, within such a small IT budget
consistently for more than a decade.

Are SaaS (Software as a Service) models or open source solutions potent
enough as substitutes or complements to big ERP suites? SaaS can be a very
successful option in the coming days, when the industry will have enough people
to work point-to-point. It can be great too, if you have expertise or capable
and reliable partners to work with. There is nothing which can beat this
chemistry, says Singh from FCm Travel.

Eatons Blausey feels that SaaS is just about who runs or hosts the
application.

It is ASPs in a new light (or fancier term). We use SaaS for some CRM
applications as well our expense management system. Deploying ERP in this
fashion abdicates no one in the company from proper process, people, and data in
the ERP. It just shifts the running of the application outside.

Pratima Harigunani/CyberMedia News

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