IT Makes the Pen Mightier

Is the pen still mightier than the sword? The doubts are justified today,
especially after the fiasco of Bush's embedded journalists in Iraq. But one
thing is for certain-no pen can be the ultimate weapon today unless it is
bolstered by the click of a mouse. And media too has diversified into different
avatars-it is no more only the print media dailies and magazines, electronic
media, in the form of a spate of TV channels, requires extensive amount of
automation.

Indian media has traditionally lagged behind in IT usage than its global
peers-in fact, this was perhaps the last of the verticals to embrace IT. And
the catalyst was, undoubtedly, the TV channels-which changed the equation
since they needed enhanced technology to even run their day-to-day operations.
Fuelled by the competition, even print media houses realized that automation was
the need of the hour-in the last two years, all the big groups like ToI,
Hindusthan Times, Ananda Bazar, Hindu and India Today have gone for an IT
makeover. And the other compelling factor that drove the media towards
increasing IT usage was, perhaps, the emergence of the Internet.

But, unlike in banks, telecom, pharma or auto, very few have still attained
global standards-IT implementations in Washington Post, Financial Times or
even a specialty publishing group like Vogel, are today sample case studies in
business courses. In India, the adoption of IT is still primarily restricted to
mainstream media houses; barring a handful like CyberMedia Group of
Publications, it is still not prevalent amongst most niche publishing groups,
while in the vernacular press IT is still a distant dream.

Fortunately, the government behemoth Prasar Bharti, that runs both All India
Radio and Doordarshan, has woken up to the need for technological innovations it
has to go for to keep pace with the competition. And not only newspapers,
magazines and channels, today the ambit of media even covers publishing presses
like McMillan, Thomson or Rupa which cannot sustain their business model without
a large dosage of IT. Add to it the advertising agencies-the marketing
communication tsunami is reaching a crescendo today-big names like Lintas,
O&M or HTA cannot survive without automation. Some like FCB Ulka have even
gone for innovative IT usage, like developing a time keeping mechanism. Finally,
with broadband services and mobile content providers gradually emerging into the
mainstream, the parameters of technology usage in media are likely to be
re-defined more extensively in the next few years.

Talking of application trends, most newspapers like ToI, HT, ABP have gone
for SAP implementation-knowledge management, data warehousing and BI are some
tools most likely to integrate with their ERP. Interestingly, most TV channels
or radio stations are going for applications including ERP developed in-house-some
like SET Max justify this with the argument that a generic ERP cannot handle
specific functionalities like programme and advertising time allotment or artist
booking and royalty payment.