IT Strategies: Viewing IT Differently

It would be well neigh impossible to spot an enterprise that
does not use IT. But to find an enterprise that uses IT strategically is still a
rarity. Across different business segments, right from the upper echelons of
corporate management down to the lowest rung, all seem to be grappling with how
to get the best RoI from IT infrastructure.

The Bombay Management Association (BMA) recently held an IT
conference 2006 in Mumbai recently, that dealt with such issues. The two-days
saw participation from various industry players, big and small.

In a session on "Strategy to Execution", Tan Chee Peng,
CEO, Business Technovise International, spoke about how different organizations
faced unique IT challenges. According to him in spite of having an IT plan, the
main problems plaguing the implementation are: lack of business/IT alignment,
gap between current and target IT architecture, lack of knowledge about IT
processes and its accrued benefits, disjointed IT implementation, etc.

Pallab Talukdar, director, Marketing & Alliance Technology
Solutions Group, Hewlett-Packard (India), emphasized the need for companies to
consolidate their IT infrastructure. "Organizations need to evaluate their
infrastructure and take a recourse that best suits their needs. One of the ways
suggested today is to consolidate, it not only saves costs but also results in
quicker and smoother functionality of applications and processes," he said.

Gautam Shroff, vice president, TCS, spoke in support of service
oriented architecture (SOA) and how organizations can profit from it. CN Ram,
head, IT, HDFC Bank spoke on 25 reasons why outsourcing made business sense.
Ninad Karpe, managing director (India & SAARC), CA India, presentation was
one of the highlights of the final day. "In the olden days, demand created
the supply, but in today's world it is quite the other way around. Today,
supply creates demand. Take the case of the Apple iPod or the shopping malls
that are cropping up everywhere," he said.

The event ended with a lively discussion on "What CEOs
really want". Different industry captains, like R Ramakrishnan (executive
president & COO, Bajaj Electricals), RS Mani (executive director and
president, New Initiative, TechNova Imaging Systems) and Alok Kejriwal (founder
and CEO, Games2win India), took part in the discussion. The session was
moderated by Prasanto Kumar Roy, president and group editor, CyberMedia.
"While a lot many of the CEOs currently talk about using IT as a
differentiator, the important question is whether they view IT
differently," asked Roy. Differing views emerged from the panelists and
audience, while a few CEOs defended their high dependence on CIO for IT and even
expected the CIOS to have a bit more of a business outlook. CIOs asked for more
leeway and guidance from the CEOs.

Team DQ

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in