Indian School of Business : Managing Management

One of Indias premier management institutes and the worlds eighth largest
business schoolthe Indian School of Businesssince its establishment in
2001has forged academic associations with some of the worlds most prestigious
business schools. These include the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania, Kellogg School of Management, and the London Business School,
helping to design and update its curriculum.

However, as the school grew, its business systems became increasingly
unresponsive. "We used a lot of stand-alone softwares and applications for
various business units," says K Mohan, IT director, ISB.

And compounding the situation further, data was not seamlessly delivered, nor
was it in real-time, leaving the management waiting to access data from
different sections; leading to delay in decision making, since the basic data
was incomplete.

"From the IT/CIO perspective, its a nightmare to deal with so many vendors
of different applications," says Mohan. "Trying to educate people on how to use
all these different applications, sending the data from one section to another,
and dealing with the datas compatibility from one system to another created
serious issues."

Vendor Selection

Taking things in hand, ISB decided that it was time to unify its business
systems with a single enterprise resource planning (ERP) application.

After a careful consideration of all the available options in the market from
ERP vendors, ISB finally decided to go ahead with SAP.

"First, we looked at the customer base," recalls Mohan. "Then, the relevance
of the vendors products to our business needs. Also, we were interested in the
market share of their products, and the customer support available. The cost
factor too played an important role," he adds.

The solution selected by ISB was SAP for HE&R, a portfolio designed to meet
the unique needs of the public and private universities, multi-campus
institutions, research agencies, and medical colleges. Powered by SAP NetWeaver
platform, it allows educational institutions to create applications on top of
the existing infrastructure, and fully leverage the current IT investmentsfor
long-term adaptability, lower costs, and a flexible response to the changing
strategies.

Cost Savings

Post the implementation, ISB has been able to record or project considerable
cost savings over the period since 2005 when it went live. "In the first year
alone, we have calculated cost savings of some Rs 9 lakh ($20,000) from
efficiencies and improvements in just our back-office systems," says Mohan.

When it comes to qualitative benefits, there are many. For example, SAP for
HE&R provides ISB with real-time access to student data; seamless integration of
data across all business units; a single window with complete access to and
control of the entire organizations data, information, knowledge, and
resources; and improved communication among the faculty and students. These are
all significant improvements over the conditions imposed by the previous legacy
systems.

All these benefits resulted in the satisfaction of the users, including the
students and faculty; and improved decision making for the school management.
Everything is done smoothly, and everyone can concentrate on the core areas
rather than wasting time. That leads to quality improvement and customer
satisfaction.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in