Whos Who

A
Processer CIO: Positively impacts business processes through
successful use of IT

L&T effectively used
IT to achieve its business goals, especially in the areas of procurement
order cycles, project management, order fulfillment, engineering and
development of new products thanks to its IT governance structure.
Some of its key projects were: an automated disaster recovery management
system for business continuity; software-as-a-service (SaaS) for financial
product training: RFID-enabled stores management system; a Web service
integration tool; and an e-learning portal for employees.

“We have done a host
of things with IT. But the reason we succeeded is the way we put it all
together. We made sure that there were no mindless solutions and so we
achieved customer optimization, efficiency and standardization at all
levels. We put some solutions for enterprise and some as niche
solutions,” said Sayana. “I strongly commend ITs role in the
way it has changed the face of communication at the company. We have
adopted many pieces, from informal email to intense use of web
conferencing, meetings, and Webcast. Today IT is at a stage where we have
achieved hundred percent automation for every business process,” he
added.

The two-wheeler
manufacturer leveraged IT to streamline its business. An efficient dealer
management system monitors retail, sales and stock levels online. Its
manufacturing system has enhanced productivity, transparency and data
accuracy. A product lifecycle management solution has integrated design
and manufacturing to reduce lead-time by six months. Some of its key
projects include an online business model for outsourced manufacturing and
mobile computing.

“Implementation of
IT to the base level was not easy. But we tried to make it so by bringing
in business orientation for every IT project. Said Dhandapani, “About
20% of our total IT spending, which is in the range of Rs 6-8 crore per
annum, is injected on technology for business. But, we have a different
mindset for IT. We dont do IT for the sake of it. If business demands,
we go ahead with the investment. Our target is not budget but
deliverables. IT at TVS is not bound by budgetary control. IT does not
cost, IT pays.”

Eveready is Indias
leading manufacturer of dry cell batteries and flashlights, and the worlds
third largest carbon-zinc battery manufacturer. The company strategically
used IT to enhance the business performance of its stakeholders. It
achieved major business benefits by fine-tuning forecast accuracy and
tracking inventory status using Linux. Some of its projects of merit
include: balanced scorecard to measure organizational and individual
performance, Web-based field reporting tool integrated to mobile devices,
and the unified business systeman integrated e-business solution that
connects manufacturing units, sales offices, warehouse and sales force.

“Using technology to
manage over 15 sales branches and 9 manufacturing plants, plus an
additional mobile distribution operation in rural sectors, is an extremely
formidable task. Our legacy environment was disparate, built on a
heterogeneous demand-based architecture. This created a need for
establishing a single point of contact. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has
greatly simplified management and given us complete freedom to scale up
using low cost commodity hardware, with absolutely no compromise in
performance or reliability. Migration from our legacy environment was
seamless, and all applications have been shifted to Oracle E-business
Suite on Enterprise Linux successfully,” explained Choudhury.

Roots is a light
engineering company with varied product services. Its core business is
exporting electric horns to leading automobile manufacturers. The company
achieved high impact for its business operations with key implementations
such as EDI integration with SAP, supplies portal integration, CRM for
dealers and distributors, and MRP and product costing solution. Its robust
metrics system to measure RoI was a clincher. “We are looking into
innovative tools to solve our business issues and I thank the jury and
team at Dataquest and CIOL for rewarding our hard work,” said
Balasubramaniam.

Winners at
EnterpriseConnect Awards 2007

Category

CIO

Companies

Large
Enterprise Category (>Rs 1000 crore)

Champion CIO

Anantha Sayana

Larson & Toubro

Gold CIO

TG Dhandapani

TVS Motors

Silver CIO

Sanjeev Goel

Hindalco Industries

Mid-sized
Enterprise Category (<Rs 1000 crore)

Champion CIO

Arup Choudhury

Eveready Industries

Gold CIO

OA Balasubramaniam

Roots Industries

Silver CIO

Falgun Shukla

Hikal

Individual
Category Awards

Pioneer

Suresh A Shanmugam

Mahindra & Mahindra
Financial Services

Innovator

G Radhakrishna Pillai

SRL Ranbaxy

Advocate

Murali G

SBI Life Insurance

Extended Manager

Sanjeev Kumar Chanana

Oriental Insurance

Process

PA Kalyanasundar

Bank of India

The Selection Process

Alok Shende, member of the
jury, enlightened the gathering of some of Indias best CIOs with an
overview of the EnterpriseConnect award selection process. He said that it
was a difficult choice for the jury while deciding the winners.

As about how the CIOL-Dataquest
awards was different and Shende said, "The starting point itself goes
in a very robust fashion, that is, the questionnaires are sent out and
nominations are invited. The questionnaires not only look at what
enterprises do in terms of anecdotes, but also, a lot of quantitative data
is asked for. When the jury is taking a call, they not only look at what
has been done, but also the impact that followed."

The framework followed for
the CIOL-Dataquest EnterpriseConnect Awards questionnaires essentially
comes from business and IT alignments. He said that the questionnaire
looks at both the internal and external impacts of IT. The second aspect
was that it looked at the demand aspect coming in for IT and the supply
that was coming from CIOs. Another aspect was that not only did data come
in raw form, but there was also a process for putting that data in a
logical sequence.

Shende said, "From a
contextual perspective, Ive seen some awards where you go on the
Internet and vote. There is no return in that kind of award as anyone can
go and have as many clicks as possible. It doesnt bring the competitive
aspect, it doesnt bring the leadership part."

According to him, some key
understandings that came out were:

The jury liked
quantifications. As compared to companies of similar size, who probably
did similar work, the jury was able to give a quantitative justification
and quantitative outcome of what the enterprises were able to do.
"For some of the projects that were done, what has been the net
outcome? That was the first thing," he said.

"Another surprising
thing was, when you compare Indian firms, you could see that they are not
behind, when compared to some of the multinational firms. The traditional
ideas are that MNCs are probably better at drawing the IT architecture,
implementing, and drawing benefits. The answer is no. You can clearly see
that Indian firms are really on the ground."

"We saw that many of
the companies who were able to achieve good outcome from the investments
they made, ideally, were the ones who kept business and IT together. They
were able to make the alignment," he elaborated. "These were a
set of people with great vision who went about implementing and making
impact on the business stance."