Profiles: Strategic IT

Indrani Ghose is an old hand at the Oberoi Group, having spent 17 long years

with the hospitality giant. Ghose started her career in 1980 when she joined

Oberoi Software, then a software company developing software for the hotel

industry, as a programmer. It was the sheer drive for doing something different

that drove this Jadavpur University student (with a diploma in programming) to

get into IT. Recalls Ghose, “The IT industry in India was nascent in the early

eighties. IBM had just been asked to leave the country and domestic

entrepreneurs were then venturing into the business.” A short training program

with MMC Digital Systems after a programming course from JU gave Ghose the break

she was looking for. Adds Ghose, “It was the dynamism of the job that

attracted me to it.”

In 1995, the Oberoi Group decided to pull down the shutters on their software

development business. It was then that Ghose moved to managing the IT

infrastructure and software systems for the Group.

Ghose has seen IT evolve over the year from a mere support function to its

much more strategic role today. Says Ghose, “The scope of work for an IT

personnel has not just changed over the years but has become a lot more

demanding.”

After a near two-decade stint in the company, Ghose feels proud of her

association with an enterprise that has always championed IT and appreciated its

business need. Says she, “Way back in 1998, we were the first hospitality

company to set up our WAN to provide centralized reservation services at a

substantial cost. This is because the company had the foresight to see the

advantages of Centralized Customer Services.” The Oberoi Group is also one of

the first hotel chains in the country to offer Wi-Fi Internet services to

guests, long before Wi-Fi became an accepted technology. What made the

association a little more exciting over the years was the opportunity to get

exposure to “in-room” technologies which are exciting and are constantly

evolving. Today the Oberoi Group hotels are equipped with a paging system that

automatically notifies the butlers when a guest checks in, and a software that

monitors the response time to any service call from a guest. An e-survey has

been commissioned recently to capture guest feedback and enhance guest

experience at the hotels. Most recently an internal call center has been set up

with the objective of improving reservation services and increasing guest

interactions.

The dynamic IT industry has always excited the lady and it did not take too

much of an effort for her to adapt to the fast pace of change in technology.

However, the only thing that worries her these days is IT Security in the

enterprise. With newer threats emerging every day, providing data accessibility

and yet maintaining secure systems continues to be a concern for this IT head.

Attrition and the availability of quality manpower in the enterprise is yet

another challenge.

A social person, Ghose enjoys catching up with friends from time to time.

Reading, music and movies helps her to relax. A holiday every year is a must.

Success to Ghose is the ability to adapt. However, her biggest support has been

her husband. It's probably time to rewrite an old adage as: Behind every

successful woman, there is a man.