6 minute read
Digital Transformation for competitive advantage
by CIOONE
Umesh Moolchandani, Group IT Head of Bin Dasmal group elaborates on the digital transformation journey need to enable digital operating model.
— By Arya Devi
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Elaborate your journey in Bin Dasmal as the group head of IT. What is the most recent technology implementation done in Bin Dasmal?
I’ve been associated with Bin Dasmal Group for almost 3.5 years. I’m working as Group IT Head, heading the ICT function of the Group at Head Office in Dubai and its subsidiaries globally. My responsibility is to ensure maximum value creation for business by aligning IT capabilities and priorities with strategic and operational business priorities, ensuring resource optimization and maximizing the IT cost efficiency, ensuring optimal level of IT support services and IT service delivery among the different LOBs in the group. Bin Dasmal Group has always been keen and proactive in adopting modern and innovative technology to get competitive advantage in the market. This can be established with the fact that the group is one of the early adopters of cloud computing environment. My initiatives after joining the group have been to provide a strategic direction and clear roadmap for Digital Transformation for the organization, consolidation and integration of IT Infrastructure, Business Applications and various other IT resources, explore and implement innovative technologies in the areas including but not limited to IT operations, information security, governance based on cloud and AI for sustainable future growth. Bin Dasmal Group recently upgraded the legacy ERP application to a more agile, modern and cutting-edge web-based application in a cost efficient and secure manner. The main objective of ERP upgrade project was to shift from legacy client-server-based architecture to modern web and mobile enabled application to help the organization in tracking its supply chain activities from inventory purchase to production to processing and final shipment to customers.
The infrastructure for ERP
application is deployed in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure using Oracle IaaS and PaaS Services. The database server, application servers, report server and other utility servers were setup in the cloud and configured with highly secure network design and secure access connectivity using cloud based firewall and firewall/load balancer between On-Premise Network and Oracle Cloud to access mission critical ERP Application for all Group Companies of Bin Dasmal Group.
The web-based ERP application is a browser-based application with Oracle 12c as database, Red Hat JBoss as Middleware and Java as frond-end uses the cutting-edge technology and leverages APIs for integration with other business applications for data interchange. The application also provides accessibility through mobile platforms for reporting, quick access to information and good applications for workflow and other services. The upgraded ERP also provides access of KPIs and Analytics Dashboards to the senior and mid-level management for the timely decision making.
The deployment of ERP in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure has been done considering a secure network design, data and application security.
Which IT implementation would you say has revolutionized the organization? Explain.
Among various IT initiatives undertaken during the last 3 years, I would say that upgrading of ERP has revolutionized the organization. The upgrade has allowed the business to optimize the total cost of ownership by deploying serves with highest standards of security in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and shift the cost model from CAPEX to OPEX. Furthermore, the integrated view of company data in a web enabled architecture has improved information sharing, collaboration across functional and corporate boundaries and improved decision making for the management using advanced analytics based on single view of data. This has to be achieved by investing in the latest available technologies with lower Total Cost of Ownership and maximizing the Return on Investment. For setting up the infrastructure, the objective was to host the servers in Oracle Cloud instead of investing in on-premise hardware. The key objective was to host the application securely in the cloud environment with no / limited public exposure while keeping the optimal performance, infrastructure resiliency and data redundancy.
How is the digital transforma- tion in Bin Dasmal benefiting the business?
Since starting the digital transformation journey, the organization has taken up multiple initiatives and projects which have provided benefits in different dimensions. Initiative of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for ERP application deployment has allowed the organization to adopt OPEX cost model instead of CAPEX resulting in enhanced cashflows and improved TCO and ROI. Similarly, deployment of web enabled ERP has Increased collaboration among various functions of the organization, improved supply-chain efficiency and customer engagement, provided the business analytics for the management from the data integrated from various sources. The innovation in production and supply chain has resulted in increased levels of customer service and enhanced collaboration with suppliers and customers.
With more companies opt- ing for remote working in the present scenario, how will technology adoption affect people’s jobs in the long run?
As technologies like artificial Intelligence, automation, and robotics reach maturity level with lot of work being done in these fields, the job market is going through a major shift. I strongly believe that both the government and the job workers are required to prepare themselves for the upcoming challenges and they should adapt themselves according to the demand of new emerging technologies by upgrading their knowledge and skillsets. Governments are taking up initiatives which are directed at narrowing the skill gap which has been created by the ever-changing technological landscape.
Which technology according to you is the most over hyped in the UAE market? And which is the one that you wish the market recognized more? Elaborate.
I feel that cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology is the most overhyped as of now. As far as blockchain is concerned, this could be down to the fact that the so far, the application of this technology is limited and complex and many organizations aren’t yet using blockchain widely, so even IT professionals haven’t seen enough of its benefits. Cloud Computing including IaaS, SaaS and PaaS with security and AI has gained lot of traction and momentum in UAE market in recent times as we can see that there is a balance between the perceived importance and implementation with no or very little gap.
What is your vision for 2020 as the Group Head of IT at Bin Dasmal?
As the Group Head of IT at Bin Dasmal Group, my vision for 2020 is to continue the digital transformation journey which will help the organization move toward a digitally enabled operating model that will provide competitive advantage and change how customers, partners, employees and other stakeholders experience and interact with the business. The robust roadmap for this journey includes disciplined IT investment decisions for adopting new technologies like Cloud Computing, RPA, IoT, Blockchain and AI, building IT platform instead of products for future growth sustainability, using data beyond business intelligence for predictive and prescriptive analytics, focusing on cloud and information security. The execution of this is to focus upon the four paths of people, process, technology and content. Needless to say, to achieve all these objectives our focus would be for the empowerment of team with the skills and knowledge required to continue the digital transformation journey. With the strong support from the management, I believe, we will continue to innovate and ensure that solutions with latest technology are in place for sustainable growth of the business. We have laid the strong foundation and embarked on digital transformation journey and our goal is to continue working with the business units and move towards industry 4.0 leveraging technologies like IoT, AI, autonomous systems and big data.
