Volume 3 | Issue 2
Jindal SAW’s Email Management Takes Flight With the Cloud
Maruti Drives Its Way To The Cloud Mr. Rajesh Uppal CIO and Executive Director IT, MSIL
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Maruti Drives Its Way To The Cloud
Mr. Chandan Sinha CIO, Jindal Saw Ltd.
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Jindal SAW’s Email Management Takes Flight With the Cloud
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If your CXO buys Cloud based solutions without IT involvement, is it Shadow IT?
Maruti Drives Its Way To The Cloud Maruti, one of India’s most cherished consumer brands, is gearing up for the next phase of its growth chapter. Rajesh Uppal, who has been with Maruti for more than three decades and is credited for successful IT adoption within the company, is excited about their ambitious goals for the near future. He believes that technology continues to be the key to achieving the company’s big vision: Maruti 2.0.
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Maruti Drives Its Way To The Cloud
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Jindal SAW’s Email Management Takes Flight With the Cloud
If your CXO buys Cloud based solutions without IT involvement, is it Shadow IT?
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Cloud Accelerator Program
If you’ve lived in India, chances are you’ve been in a Maruti car at least once. That’s how pervasive this brand is in the Indian milieu. What began in 1982 in Gurgaon, Haryana soon transformed into an automobile revolution. Today, the company manufactures close to 1.5 million family cars every year; that’s one car every 12 seconds! With 12,500 professionals, 14 models, and over a 150 variants, Maruti is poised to enter the next phase of its incredible growth story: Maruti 2.0. “Maruti 2.0 is, simply put, 2 million in annual sales by 2020. We’re at a point in our journey where we’re going to double our growth within the next 5 years,” explains Uppal. “It took us nearly 25 years to reach 1 million, and we aim to double that within the next 5 years alone.”
as the Education and Training division at Maruti. In its endeavour to achieve its ambitious targets for 2020, Maruti is focused on capacity expansion, responsive supply chain, new product lines, network expansion, and finally, its people. Uppal leads the people front, aimed at creating a skilled pipeline; not only for Maruti’s own employees but for the entire value chain which includes the dealer workforce, vendor workforce, etc. Uppal stresses, “The role of IT is not just to computerise. Today, it’s imperative for IT to add business value and take ownership.” He elaborates how the value from an IT team is determined at the time of selection of the project. “The project is driven by the value it’ll serve the business; and IT is not just for implementation.”
Maruti’s Education and Training division is responsible for skilling, training, and educating nearly half a million employees to achieve Maruti 2.0. Another key focus area is skill development, in line with the Government’s objective of creating an industry-ready talent pool from the unemployed workforce in India. Maruti’s unique training mechanism, heavily supported by technology, is driving structured learning experiences across all areas — right from simulation and hands-on technical training delivery for shop floor employees to asynchronous learning for customer-facing sales and service workforce.
“In the last 3 years, we have increased our market share from 38% to 47%. We are looking to challenge the existing way of doing business and make sure we are fully prepared for the 2 million, that’s our target.”
From the team at CCKC
Naturally, such an ambitious business strategy will not see the light of day if it isn’t backed by robust technology. That’s where Uppal’s team comes in.
The prime objective of this newsletter is to provide CIOs with actionable knowledge in relation to Cloud Computing and to cut through the hype and share insights which are grounded in experience. We believe sharing your journey to the Cloud will help your peers adopt Cloud with more openness and confidence. For further information, feedback, and suggestions on the Cloud Computing Knowledge Circle, email us at: cckc@cioindia.org
Gearing up for change Uppal leads two critical business functions: He is Head of both the Information Technology division as well
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Cost - Our existing costs have reduced to less than half thanks to Azure adoption.
Driving to success
Mr. Rajesh Uppal being presented the trophy of India’s Best CIOs: 2013 – Second Place by Mr. Arnab Goswami on January 24, 2014 in Mumbai.
Thus with a new ethos and vision for his IT department, Uppal has restructured the way IT is delivered to the business. “Today, new-age IT solutions need a different kind of mindset. Earlier, the Infrastructure and Application teams were within the IT department. Now, we’ve expanded into a third vertical — New Initiative IT.” This new group is responsible for identifying and executing projects that are agile in nature. These are projects which need Mobility as a Solution; or Cloud, Social, or Analytics. The profile of people in this group too is diametrically opposite from those in traditional IT teams. For New Initiative IT, Uppal has hired management graduates and has tasted success through the adoption of IT, mobility, and social projects. Maruti finds an able co-passenger (for their journey to 2020) in Microsoft, their long-time partner. “What I liked about Microsoft was their willingness to showcase new technologies and pilot programs which can deliver business value,” affirms Uppal. “We began discussing our need with Microsoft, and found their offerings very interesting, finally zeroing in on Azure.”
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Putting the wheels in motion With over 3,000 dealers, Maruti adopted Azure for over 30 public-facing applications. “Customers today research their potential purchases thoroughly, viewing our offerings in large numbers. Our website as well as most dealer-facing and customer-facing apps are all on Azure now,” confirms Uppal. The adoption has been an incredibly fast and seamless process. “The beauty of this migration was that within 5 weeks, all our 30 applications (which we identified as critical) were migrated. I am very pleased with the outcome,” says Uppal encouragingly. He further elaborates on the three major advantages since adopting Azure: •
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Enhanced manageability - Earlier, managing security, especially for public-facing apps, was a big pain. The challenge was to have skill-sets to do all this internally. With Azure, manageability is made much easier. Reduced volatility - Our public-facing apps are volatile, witnessing a surge in peak time. Azure helped us better manage peak times (say when launch of a new model sends requirements on our website skyrocketing) by building agility into our infrastructure.
Jindal SAW’s Email Management Takes Flight With the Cloud
Uppal’s experience with Azure makes him a firm proponent of the Cloud. He feels that there is no question of Cloud or no Cloud anymore. While CIOs must certainly adopt the Cloud to run any IT enterprise, he feels the age of 100% Cloud is still distant. “Today, the need of the hour is a hybrid infrastructure — partially on Cloud, partially on-premise. At Maruti, we started small with a few apps moving to Azure; and added more along the way. Security and costs are much better with the Cloud, as we have seen with our migration.” What’s more, before Maruti undertakes a new project, the first question they ask themselves is — will this be on-premise or Cloud? “For existing projects, we are looking to migrate them one by one. Our portfolio of hybrid is becoming larger and will only grow. We are enthused by the feedback from our dealers too — all in all, there is better management of peak time volumes and Azure ensures people get the right response from the system at the right time,” signs off Uppal.
applications on a global scale, Mr. Sinha shares his insights with us on why Jindal needed a Cloud solution.
Chandan Sinha, CIO, Jindal Saw Ltd.
Leaders Of Today Jindal SAW Ltd began their operations in 1984, becoming the first Indian company to manufacture Submerged Arc Welded (SAW) pipes. Today, Jindal SAW (part of the O.P. Jindal Group) is the undisputed leader in the tubular market. The company has diversified from a single product company to a multi-product organisation, manufacturing SAW and spiral pipes for the energy transportation sector; carbon, alloy, and seamless pipes for industrial applications; and Ductile Iron (DI) pipes for water and waste-water transportation. Jindal SAW has integrated manufacturing facilities not only in India but also in USA, Europe, and UAE. With a customer base that includes the world’s leading oil and gas companies, engineering manufacturers, and other industrial applications, Jindal SAW’s reach is undeniable. Mr. Chandan Sinha, CIO at Jindal SAW, has over 3 decades of rich experience in blue chip companies in the manufacturing sector (including Automobiles, Pipes, Mining, and Chemicals). Having rolled out enterprise
Expansion And Its Challenges As Jindal’s business model expanded to include more strategic locations, markets, products, industries, and customers, so did their email volumes. Soon, they found that their existing exchange servers just couldn’t keep up with the sheer bulk of email traffic. “The existing email system of a controlling server communicating with child servers at each location was completely dependent on connectivity between each location. Cases of delayed email delivery and, at times, non-delivery, meant alarming consequences for the seamless flow of communication,” said Mr. Sinha. With email being a critical communication tool for a growing organisation, downtime spelt serious business repercussions. Therefore, it became vital for Jindal SAW to adopt a robust modern messaging infrastructure that could meet their business needs and expectations.
operations. “We convinced our partners, citing advantages such as instant and 100% delivery of emails, in a secure environment,” confirmed Mr. Sinha. Microsoft’s commitment to security was further displayed by it meeting the most stringent industry standards, including the ISO 27001, FISMA, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and EU Safe Harbor, offering the highest level of enterprise security to its clients. “Office 365 Exchange brought with it a smarter inbox, reduced corporate liability, diminished overhead costs, and enhanced mobile productivity. In addition, IT benefited with easier deployment because of the complete inter-operation with earlier Exchange version.” While deploying Office 365 Exchange, Jindal simultaneously entered into an enterprise agreement with Microsoft.
A Prudent Solution After careful consideration of the various options, Mr. Sinha’s team eventually zeroed in on Exchange Online — Microsoft’s Cloud-based hosted email platform. Embracing Change Change is difficult for most people and it was no different at Jindal SAW. Stakeholders were concerned about the potential security issues that may arise from hosting data externally. But the Microsoft team assuaged their concerns by giving evidence of Microsoft’s heavy investments in their data centers and
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Mr. Sinha saw great value in moving to an enterprise agreement with Microsoft due to: 1. Price lock in - With an enterprise agreement, Jindal SAW managed to reap the benefits of a price lock in, which allows prices to remain frozen for a period of 3 years, making the organisation immune to potential price rises. 2. Flexibility in moving users up and down - True scalability on the Cloud meant that Jindal could add or remove users within the price lock in period while maintaining the same price, per user. 3. Reduced administrative burden With only a single payment made at the beginning or end of every financial year, the administrative burden and overheads were reduced, while cash flow and budget visibility enhanced.
Reaping Gains Operational Efficiency Post implementation, the Jindal team quickly witnessed stability and performance enhancements from Office 365 Exchange, making it easier to run the Exchange Server. “No lost emails or delay in delivery have been reported since,” confirmed Mr. Sinha. The solution strengthened Jindal SAW’s steadfast commitment to its customers, its people, and its community. Scalable Business Model Adoption of Office 365 Exchange made the business model increasingly flexible. “Earlier, adding or acquiring a new manufacturing facility meant procuring and setting up brand new Exchange infrastructure, costing us time and effort. With Office 365, the process was streamlined such that creating profiles for a new set of users was almost instantaneous.”
Cost Savings Everyday operation of the Exchange server was no longer a costly affair. Microsoft’s endeavours to continuously upgrade the platform with the latest features and capabilities, as well as their round-theclock support ensured a seamless and hassle-free transition.
If your CXO buys Cloud based solutions without IT involvement, is it Shadow IT? By Arun Gupta, Managing Partner & Director, Ingenium Advisory
With single-minded determination and embracing a new technology, Jindal SAW has been able to cement its position as market leaders in the tubular industry. Mr. Sinha put his faith in the Cloud when he said, “It’s been over a year and we are extremely pleased with the support and benefits bestowed by Microsoft’s Office 365 Exchange. I would certainly recommend it to other CIOs looking to make the crucial leap onto the Cloud!”
overawed and wanted to make up lost time as soon as possible. The vendor convinced him that he did not need support from IT as the solution was cloudbased and required no infrastructure except an internet connection. At a marketing conference, the CMO was childishly wide-eyed seeing technology options on display which he was unaware of. His IT team had been talking about some of the solutions and benefits that could be created for the enterprise, but he had not focused on them leaving it to his team. Now having seen possibilities, he wanted to get the tools and technology into his fold as soon as possible. So he asked the vendor to deep dive with his team to ascertain how quickly they could adopt the solutions. After the song and dance, demo and reference checks, he was convinced that the solution is exactly what he needed. It was superior to the current laborious manual process followed, which always ended up just a little late in comparison to required timeline. IT had been chasing him for a long time, but he did not understand technology; so he had deflected the discussion to his team, who were always looking at the operational aspects of the solutions rather than the big picture that needed to be defined. The CIO and the IT team gave up the chase since it appeared to be a futile exercise; other parts of the enterprise were happy to collaborate and implement new-age solutions and appreciated their contributions. Thus, when the CMO saw the solutions on display at the conference, he was
Weeks later, the solution was procured and deployed quickly; it was easy enough to use, did not require training, worked on their laptops and most smartphones, allowed analytics that the business wanted, and was quite affordable with a monthly subscription he could fund from his budget. Integration to existing data sources was not considered since his team had almost all the data in spreadsheets that they used to conduct analysis and created customer engagement models; the CMO believed he had a good deal. Months later, he presented outcomes from his new baby in the Management Committee Meeting to a round of applause, which he beamingly accepted. The success story continued for a while as the marketing team leveraged the solution which provided better outcomes than the earlier manual way of working. The dream run would have continued except that they reached a plateau and to leverage new functionality now required help from IT to integrate with existing data sources to move to the next level. Success creates arrogance that can be the undoing not just for the individual but also for the team. Emboldened by success of his earlier indiscretion, he hired resources to address the requirement. Unfortunately, to get what he needed, there was no way to circumvent IT and thus he approached the CIO, who feigned surprise and looked adequately stunned at the request. The IT vendor had apprised him of the purportedly illicit relationship which the
CIO did not confront since it was running of its own steam. The CIO did not throw tantrums; neither did he chastise the CMO — his demeanor and approach to the request had the CMO confused on whether the request would be reported to the CEO or discussed in the Management Committee meeting or the CIO will now ask for his pound of flesh or he would just acquiesce to the request. The CMO did know that if he did not get the required data feed, the fairytale would come to a horrific end which would also mean opening the proverbial can of creepy crawlies. With benevolence the CIO asked for an all-hands meeting with Marketing in which he explained the impact of the CMO’s request. There was a need to understand the elements required, security of data in motion and at rest, ability to maintain the interface while ensuring that exceptions are addressed, and finally data quality. In the manual world, the Marketing team had increasingly spent time managing some of these issues. The CMO realized the complexity and sensing no animosity with relief agreed to work together. Cloud-based models will entice CXOs to explore uncharted territories as they have low entry barriers and easy pickings to validate use cases. I believe that CIOs should proactively offer assistance to such forays rather than blocking them considering business ownership increases chances of sustained adoption. Conventional mindset would paint this as Shadow IT or a threat to the supremacy of the CIO; I see this as an extended arm of IT which can create win-win propositions for business, IT, and vendors.
This article originally appeared in Arun Gupta’s blog at CIO Inverted and is reproduced with permission from the author. 06
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Cloud Accelerator Program Industries all over the world have recognised cloud computing as the way forward and are turning to it for their communication and collaboration requirements. Microsoft is working on an innovative program to help you better reap the benefits of cloud computing and incorporate it seamlessly into your IT strategy. Microsoft has three main tracks to help you begin your cloud journey: Track 1
Strategy - This is the beginning of the process which focuses on senior decision-makers of the organisation. Microsoft will present a special brief to help them understand the benefits and aspects of working on the cloud. Track 2
Planning - Once the leadership is convinced of fully exploring cloud capabilities, the next step is to plan a migration process. Whether a quick cloud assessment of your company needs or a detailed adoption blueprint, Microsoft will help you chart your cloud implementation process. Track 3
Tapan Garg Founder and CEO CIO Association of India P1, Gem Wellington Old Airport Road Bangalore 560017 E: tapan@cioindia.org W: www.cioindia.org
Getting Started - Microsoft’s advanced migration service will ensure that your organisation’s infrastructure and application move seamlessly to the cloud. Now your organisation is ready to go! To know more, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/india/datacenter/cloudaccelerator-program.aspx
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