Express Computer (Vol.27, No.1) January, 2016 by Indian Express

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WILL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SCALE IN 2016! n the age of digital transformation, the enterprises are deploying technology to reinvent themselves in unpredictable ways. The macro forces that will continue to drive the digital transformation in 2016 are: mobile, cloud, big data, analytics and social technologies. While all these technologies have been around for few years, now their maturity curve is high, which makes the conditions ripe for actual implementations to take place. The process of reimagining, redefining and reengineering the business processes will gain traction in 2016. The enterprises have already been creating digital strategies, but till now many of these strategies were being conceived in silos, which is why the digital implementation failed to yield the expected business outcomes in many of the cases. The business leaders that we interacted with while creating this issue of Express Computer tell us that in 2016 most enterprises plan to focus on holistic and integrated strategies, which encompass the consumers, the enterprise ecosystem and the distribution networks. There is widespread realisation that technology canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t deliver efficiency and effectiveness in isolation. The key technology drivers for the enterprises will be connectivity, content and communication. The new wave of innovation and growth that is being empowered by technology is not only benefitting the private enterprises, the PSUs too are gaining and sustaining the competitive edge. This issue of the magazine has the complete coverage of the Express Technology Sabha-PSU that was organised in Kolkata. The PSU sector is taking decisive steps for using innovative technology tools to bring efficiency and transparency in their business processes. Advanced technology is leading to important transformations across the private sector and the PSUs. The focus in every organisation is on taking advantage of the technologies that can lead to flexible and low cost solutions and reduce the time to market or drive efficiencies. The organisations that have systems in place for identifying the new technologies and developing the strategies for leveraging them will gain a huge competitive advantage in 2016.

THE MACRO FORCES THAT WILL DRIVE CHANGE IN 2016 AREâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;MOBILE, CLOUD, BIG DATA, ANALYTICS AND SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES

anoop.verma@expressindia.com

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contents

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PUTTING DIGITAL FIRST & BRANCH SECOND 14 4

TOWARDS MAKING THE CHANGING ‘SMART’POLICING DNA OFTHE CIO A REALITY FOR INDIA 30

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OVERCOMING DDoS 42 JANUARY, 2016

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exclusive interview 8

interviews K.T. RAMA RAO Minister for Information Technology, Telangana

Tata Motors: Driving on the Information Technology Highway

Taking Telanganaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ITindustry into Higher Growth Trajectory

Express Technology Sabha-PSU 2015

DAY 1 50

Welcome Address Inaugural Address by Chief Guest Launch of PSU Case Study Book Candid Conversation Power Panel: Renewing and Building New Capabilities in PSUs with Technology Innovations Accelerating Business Transformation in the Application Economy Technology Presentation: Value Proposition and Solution Deploying IT for Taking PSUs to Growth Path Power Discussion: CATechnologies

DAY 2 Power Discussion: BSA | The Software Alliance Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy by PSUs Latest Offerings from Exide for Uninterrupted Supply of Power Devising Defence Grade Cybersecurity Strategy Barracuda the new Paradigm. Simplify IT, Reclaim IT Panasonic Video Conferencing Solutions Keynote Address Power Panel: Digital Empowerment: How PSUs are Driving Efficiencies and Growth Using SMAC Opportunities in Information Technology in West Bengal Power Panel: Ensuring public sector information security in a borderless World Power Discussion: Barracuda Power Discussion: Exide Industries Limited EXPRESS COMPUTER

JAGDISH BELWAL

PETE KARNS

Delivering Secure IoT Solutions ASHOK VASAN

Tapping DevOps for Digital Transformation MASAHIKO YAMADA

Empowering India with Super Computers 36

NOSHIN KAGALWALLA

Listening to Education Data 41

MIKE AMUNDSEN

Business Transformation Through API Management PRASHANT BINDAL

Opportunities for Device Makers

JANUARY, 2016

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JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW K. T. RAMA RAO MINISTER, TELANGANA

TAKING TELANGANA’S IT INDUSTRY INTO HIGHER GROWTH TRAJECTORY “Telangana aims to become the hub for electronics manufacturing, like Taiwan and South Korea. We are developing institutions like T-Hub and TASK that will enable us to emerge as the world’s centre for innovation and enterprise,” says K. T. Rama Rao, Minister for Panchayat Raj & Information Technology, Government of Telangana. In conversation with Express Computer Information Technology is one of the major industries in Telangana. Do you see any prospects for further growth in the sector in the near term? Hyderabad is exporting around $10 billion of IT software and employing around four lakh people in this sector. We would like to improve upon our current performance and become the number one IT destination in the country. We aim to double our income from IT sector in next four years. To do that we will continue to expand the IT-ITES software industry through proactive and business-friendly engagements. We also plan to focus on new growth sectors like electronics manufacturing, aviation and automobiles. You have started a skill development programme called TASK. How is it working? To make the graduates from the state employable, TASK (Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge) has been launched. The programme has already skilled around 15,000 students this year and placed 2000 of them with the industry. It has a mandate to create a workforce of 100,000 in 5 years.

Outer Ring Road. This will ensure that IT industry is spread across the city and not concentrated in just one part. In addition, we are going to build T-Hub Phase 2, which will be nearly 5 times bigger than the current one. We are also planning for Gaming Tower to promote animation industry, and SME Tower to encourage small and medium companies. We have a separate park for promotion of aviation industry. For promotion of electronics industry, we are developing two Electronic Manufacturing Clusters close to the airport.

The state government is planning to set up new IT clusters in Hyderabad. Please tell us about the project. Under the ITIR initiative, we are developing more IT clusters along the 8

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What steps are you taking to encourage startups in the state? We want to make Hyderabad, the startup capital of India. We believe we have all the essential ingredients for encouraging startups. The state government is ready to play the role of a facilitator to sustain the entire startup ecosystem. We have launched the T-Hub, which is the largest incubation centre in India—now we are planning the Phase 2 building, which will be nearly four times bigger. T-Hub is at the center of the ecosystem of angel investors, VCs, mentors, industry, and even an extension arm in the Silicon Valley. T-Hub has partners like IIIT Hyderabad, ISB, and NALSAR. Not only will these institutes provide access to world class research and mentorship, but also enable protection of intellectual property. The new Innovation Policy that Telangana is developing will further boost the startup environment in the state. India produces less than 5% of its electronics needs.What steps is the government of Telangana taking to make the state a hub for electronics manufacturing? I believe that IT means both software and hardware. Unfortunately India is lagging behind in its electronics production. Soon we will reach the stage where our electronics import bill is higher than our oil import bill. With the ‘Make in India’ campaign launched by New Delhi, there is now a strong encouragement for promotion of electronics industry in the country. We want the manufacturers to focus on our state. Telangana aims to become the hub for electronics manufacturing, like Taiwan and South Korea. Our institutions like T-Hub and TASK will enable us to emerge as the world’s centre for innovation and enterprise. We have created a historic and unprecedented industrial policy that mandates 15-day clearances for major projects. We have passed the TS-iPASS bill to make time-bound clearances a law of the land. With our efforts to streamline every process of the industry, we have taken the ‘ease of doing business’ to a different level. We want to make Telangana the most preferred EXPRESS COMPUTER

destination in India for electronics manufacturing. India is one of the largest consumers of mobiles and set-top boxes, but the demand for these products is being fulfilled through imports.Are you developing policies for encouraging the production of mobiles and set-top boxes in Telangana? Recently the Government of India created a differential duty structure for mobile and set-top boxes. This will incentivise manufacturers to set up their plants in India. Telangana has recently announced one of the most aggressive mobile manufacturing policies in the country with state subsidies and tax incentives. Our VAT reimbursement policy is unique in the entire country. It is almost like an exemption for the manufacturer. We are seeing lot of interest from manufacturers. Micromax and Celkon have setup their manufacturing units in the state, and few more projects are in the pipeline. What steps are you taking to further improve the scope of e-Governance programmes in the state? We have one of the most mature electronic service delivery programmes in the country. Telangana is currently offering nearly 500 citizen services on ESeva and Mee Seva, where we are seeing around seventy thousand to one lakh transactions per day. After the launch of

We have embarked on an ambitious programme to provide high-speed broadband connectivity through fibre optic network to every home in Telangana in next three years

Mee Seva 2.0 next year, with a vision of offering digital services to the citizens on an anytime, anywhere basis, we believe that we will see a dramatic increase in the number of citizens who engage with us through digital means. People can use a mobile or computer to access a range of cloud-based services. With one-stop kiosks in every village, we will be able to reach almost the entire population. What steps are being taken to bring connectivity to all parts of the state? We have embarked on an ambitious programme to provide high-speed broadband connectivity through fibre optic network to every home in Telangana in next three years. Piggybacking on our Water Grid project, which shall give tap water to one crore homes in Telangana, we will be laying optic fibre in the same trench. In about three years, we could become one of the most well connected states in India. It is generally understood that broadband penetration has a direct impact on the GDP of the state and on the country. We believe that this network will change the economy of our state. Entrepreneurs will come up with business idea to utilise this network, possibly setting up call centers in villages. This will allow the state to provide education and healthcare services at the doorstep of the common man. It has been reported that you are planning to offer free WiFi facility in Hyderabad. What is the scope of the project? We are developing plans to provide free WiFi facility at many more public areas in Hyderabad. Right now, we are having this service around the Necklace Road and Tank Bund, but soon the service will be available at all the major business centers, tourist centers, shopping places, airport, railway station, bus stations, and other places where large number of people go regularly. In this programme, the internet is free for the first half hour and after that the user has to pay. This ensures that people are able to access internet, avail citizen services and other smart services. This is one of the steps towards making Hyderabad a world-class city. JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW JAGDISH BELWAL TATA MOTORS

TATA MOTORS

DRIVING ON THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HIGHWAY Jagdish Belwal, Chief Information Officer at Tata Motors, feels that there is ample scope for using Information Technology to enable Tata Motors to become a faster, more agile and more innovative company. He spoke to Abhishek Raval on the importance of developing extensive capabilities in the areas of cloud, analytics and IoT What is your technology roadmap for 2016? Today mobility has become very important for bringing efficiency to the business processes. In 2016, we will be bringing out more mobile apps for our stakeholders. From a technology transformation point of view, we are now moving from UNIX to Linuxâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;this is actually a three year programme, which we will be completing in 2016. This transformation will give us complete interoperability in the cloud. We are doing extensive work on IoT and this will give us the ability to have a better monitoring mechanism for our large manufacturing plants. How do you see technology being used to create the winning strategy for Tata Motors in 2016? From the viewpoint of various business functions in the organisation, we need to work in some of the areas. For instance, enablement of talent management is a priority area for us. Also, my view is that by next year GST will pass the parliamentary hurdle. For the smooth management of GST, we will have to make some technology changes and we are focussing on doing that. In 2016, we are planning to bring many more supplier processes on the digital platforms. As we are very focussed on quality, we will be 10

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1945

60,000

TATA MOTORS Established

60,000 Employee Strength

developing new technology solutions for enhancing the quality monitoring. We will continue to strengthen our Global Delivery Centre, which continues to be the nerve centre for delivering various services to our stakeholders. Please tell us about the work that you are doing in the area of IoT? Currently we are doing some experiments to find out how IoT can help us in improving the maintenance of our plants. The technology vertical is working jointly with the manufacturing teams to identify all the opportunities where further efficiency can be brought by making the processes simpler through the use of new solutions from IoT. You have been using analytics to ensure that engineers can quickly respond to vehicle breakdowns. Give us an overview of the process? We are using CRM for making this happen. We have developed a system through which we can leverage the capabilities of our partners, who are on our CRM system, and use their field breakdown management capabilities. Essentially we are marrying the breakdown management capability of our partner with our system and call centre. By this process we are able to provide a 24/7 breakdown management service to our customers. Our promise is that we will reach you within 30 minutes and generally we are able to reach the breakdown site in less than 30 minutes. The physical process in this facility has been outsourced, but the call centre and the IT system is owned and managed by us. EXPRESS COMPUTER

$42 Billion

>900,000

>6,600

Vehicles Sold

Sales & Service Points

Company Turnover

In the area of analytics, what kind of work has Tata Motors done in the last few years? In the last few years, we have invested in advanced analytics capabilities. We have created a high-speed data warehouse for analysing primarily the customer related data. In this area, the scale is quite significant for us. We are also doing data modeling with predictive mechanisms, which meansâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;forecasting, propensity modeling, and basically identifying the customers who are most likely to buy the new products launched by Tata Motors and also the customers who are more likely to avail the exchange programme. We are identifying the churn propensityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the customers who are likely to leave our products. Such information is useful for us in finding new customers, and for running promotions and schemes that will help us retain our existing customers. What are the enterprise efficiency initiatives that are being undertaken in Tata Motors? Earlier when we used to talk about enterprise efficiency, it was just about

deploying a SAP Platform. Now, the need is to build efficiencies in the entire eco-system and not just the enterprise. Now we expect to have efficiency in terms of our interactions with suppliers, dealers. During the last couple of years, we have run a major programme called Star++, which basically digitises our component development work with the suppliers. When we develop a vehicle, a good amount of it happens outside the enterprise, in the partner eco-system. So in this area we have accomplished a lot of digitisation. We are digitising our collaborative product development with the suppliers. Built on SAP Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) platform, it includes the drawings sent to the auto ancillaries, the quotation process and much more. There are many other collaboration workflows that we have built with the suppliers. All this brings transparency, speed and traceability to the entire process of developing new vehicle concepts. We expect that this will help us control our product development programs more closely.

Currently we are doing some experiments to find out how IoTcan help us in improving the maintenance of our plants

What technology initiatives is Tata Motors taking to improve customer experience? There are two aspects to customer experience. One is managing customer interactions, where we see a good amount of role for digital technologies like mobility. It means empowering dealers to handle customers more efficiently. To make this happen, we have provided our salesforce in both the business units with mobile applications. Hence it virtually eliminates the need to write something on paper and then feed it somewhere. The customer information can be recorded on JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW

www.expresscomputeronline.com

JAGDISH BELWAL TATA MOTORS

BIW Line at Tata Motors Plant

the go. It also helps us in getting clean data. On the service side also, in both the business units, we are working on mobile job cards, which has details of the work done on the vehicleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;repairs done, parts changed, etc. Earlier the job card used to be made on paper, but now it can be created on a tablet. The customer even signs the job card on the tablet. The earlier practice was the service centre employee will maintain a paper based pad. Digitising of this process has cut down the job card preparation time and has surely improved the customer experience. Are you creating some more products and options for the customer? 12

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Tata Motors has R&D and design centres in Pune (India), South Korea,Italy and the UK. We have over 4,500 engineers, scientists and technicians making path-breaking innovations that are driving the form and performance of future vehicles

Of course, creation of better products and options is always on the agenda. But how do we create more products and options for the customer? This is where the business model of Tata Motors stands outâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the customer offerings that we provide are top of the class and are executed on a very largescale. For instance, we have given extended warranty to our customers. IT has to be used for every new customer offering to ensure that it is smoothly implemented. In the commercial vehicles segment, we even have a loyalty programme supported by and run on our CRM. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

CIO PROFILE

PUTTING DIGITAL FIRST & BRANCH SECOND The current trends indicate that during the next ten years majority of the banking customers in India will be self-directed and well-adapted to the online platforms. Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, Deputy Managing Director & Chief Information Officer, SBI, spoke to Ankush Kumar, about SBI’s plans for digital transformation and the bank’s vision to put the digital first and the branch second

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n an age when the rapid movement of employees is regarded as the new normal, especially in the attritionprone IT sector, Mrutyunjay Mahapatra stands out as an archetype of stability. He has been serving SBI for more than 25 years. After completing the mandatory assignments of SBI, like Branch Managership, Rural Postings, and handling several crucial assignments in the areas of credit, investments, forex, private equity funds, and leasing custodial services, now Mahapatra is handling the Information Technology wing of SBI and its associate banks. “In the past I have served as the Regional Head of SBI in UK and as the Head of the International Banking Group at SBI,” Mahapatra informs. He asserts that he is by nature inclined towards technology and he finds his current assignment in SBI’s IT department quite interesting and challenging. “There is tremendous amount of innovation happening in the IT sector,” he says. “SBI is making significant efforts to modernise its systems and operations by bringing in new technologies.” He informs that SBI is currently the largest IT spender bank in the country.

Age of Technology led Transformation “In terms of technology advancements and process reforms, SBI is undergoing significant transformation,” says Mahapatra. But technology is evolving at a brisk pace, how does the IT team at SBI ensure that the bank is not encumbered with technology systems that face the danger of being replaced by better systems in near future? Mahapatra accepts that it is a challenge to decide what kind of technology is most suited for the future growth of the organisation. “The challenges are surely there, but there is no doubt in my mind that Information Technology is now set to bring radical change into the traditional retail-banking business model,” he emphasises. “Due to the large IT spending at SBI, there are some activities that may not EXPRESS COMPUTER

Mahapatra at the Express BFSI Technology Conclave (Lonavala), delivering keynote address on “Preparedness for Digital Innovations and Technology in 2020”

SBI would soon be deploying Hadoop open-source software framework for analysing different kinds of data and develop targeted solutions to meet the banking related needs of the customers

be adding enough value to the organisation,” he says. “I am planning to replace these activities with ones that can create more business value to the organisation.” He is of the view that such an exercise will be especially beneficial for the bank in the long run. “You see, SBI is dealing with all kinds of complicated processes in many of its departments,” he explains, “and if we are able to ensure that only the most effective technology gets deployed, then the IT department can have a positive impact across the entire organisation.” He believes that this kind of strategy will help the bank in streamlining its workflow and saving time and effort. “Many leading companies have managed to minimise the cost of innovation and the associated risks, by outsourcing their innovation related needs,” says Mahapatra. But he accepts that this kind of strategy can only work when the company is in a position to figure out which one of the latest technologies are on the forefront of innovation and which of the technologies can actually be leveraged to derive maximum possible synergy within the organisation. He informs that currently SBI is having a technology team consisting of close to 1000 inhouse technicians and around 1500 members from the side of various vendors. The bank has also started the State Bank Institute of Information and Communication Management (SBIICM) for providing quality IT training to its employees. “The SBIICM collaborates with universities, industry and R&D establishments, for acquiring state-of-the-art technologies pertaining to training and software development,” informs Mahapatra.

Innovations for Instant Banking According to Mahapatra, the BFSI sector has been one of the largest beneficiaries of the innovations in the Information Technology and Communications space. “Look at the way things have transformed in the BFSI space?” he asserts. “Few years ago no one could have imagined that online JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

CIO PROFILE

banking would see such massive popularity, but today we find that many of our customers have already moved a step ahead of online banking. They are now warming up to the mobile banking systems.” He says that in the entire banking industry, technology has led to the opening up of new markets, creation of new products, new services, and the development of more efficient delivery channels. “Digitisation and automation are leading to the movement from traditional banking towards online and mobile based systems that give the user the flexibility of conducting transactions from anywhere and at any time,” he says. Mahapatra agrees that IT plays an indispensable role in enabling the banks to meet the customer-service related requirements of its new breed of 16

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customers who are tech savvy and prefer to conduct their banking related tasks from their home or office. “When customers are demanding instant, anytime, anywhere banking facilities, banks have no alternative except to deploy a significant amount of IT,” he says. He is of the view that pace of

change in the banking sector will continue to be swift. “Till few years ago, we used to be satisfied with ATMs, Electronic Fund Transfers, credit cards, etc., but now banking is becoming more and more mobile based,” he explains. “You can now use your smartphone for securely conducting all kinds of banking related tasks.”

Analytics for Better Banking

Information Technology is now set to bring radical changes into the traditional retailbanking business model

According to Mahapatra, the large banks in India are now deploying technologies like Big Data and Analytics to gain a better understanding of customer behaviour and refining their decision making. He informs that at SBI, initiatives have already been taken to bring trained professionals for implementing analytics. “We are using JANUARY, 2016

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analytics to generate better models for a host of banking related activities,” he informs. He says that SBI would soon be deploying Hadoop open-source software framework for analysing different kinds of data and develop targeted solutions to meet the banking related needs of the customers. Mahapatra informs that, another way of creating value through digital is by enabling straight-through processing— that is, automating and digitising a number of repetitive, low-value, and lowrisk processes. “Data churning helps us to assess and design our offering to target specific customer, keeping in mind specific products for our not so techsavvy customers. In this regards, we have dedicated teams looking after our self hosted private cloud which is getting scaled every now and then. This also helps us in enabling to provide IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) to other internal departments.” “In order to ensure that the banks are in a position to deliver a 21st century banking experience to their customers, it is important to leverage emerging technologies like IoT,” he adds. “Periodic review of all the IT implementations that are happening,” says Mahapatra, “is important to ensure that the innovation does not lead to cliched products.” He informs that at SBI all the hardware and software resources are reviewed from time to time. The focus is always on ensuring that quality systems, aligned with the standards and best practices, are in place. In case there is a failure, despite the best efforts, then the focus has to be on correcting the process that led to the failure. “We don’t believe in installing short-term fixes for tackling problems,” says Mahapatra.

Rural Banking & Mobile Banking The efforts to encourage banks to extend their rural networks and to advance credit to the agricultural sector mostly failed in the past because the cost of developing traditional banking infrastructure in rural areas was too high as compared to the expected returns. Mahapatra is of the view that

EXPRESS COMPUTER

Name

: Mrutyunjay Mahapatra

Current Organisation

: State Bank of India

Current Destination

: Deputy Managing Director & Chief Information Officer

Favourite Quote

: “Man’s dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest causes”– Nikolai Ostrovsky

Favourite Book

: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Favourite Food

: Chinese

Favourite Destination

: Hills of Northeast & Uttrakhand

Favourite Gadget for Work

: Fountain Pens & Watches

Favourite Gadget for Personal Use : Jawbone Band What Inspires at Work

: Making a difference

Information Technology has revolutionised the concept of rural banking. He mentions SBI Youth for India, which is an Indian rural fellowship programme, funded and managed by SBI. “Youth for India is a 13 month long programme that enables India’s brightest young minds to work on rural development projects with experienced NGOs,” he says. Cutting edge information technology has made it possible for banks to provide all kinds of services in rural areas without having to open large brick & mortar bank branches. He informs that SBI has set up thousands of Business Correspondents (BC) across the country to improve the scope and the reach of banking services. “The BC arrangement essentially entails enrolling customers and enabling the transactions of the customers at the Customer Service Points (CSPs). The BCs also source various deposit and loan products for the bank as a Business Facilitator,” explains Mahapatra. He emphasises that without new technology and good connectivity the BC model

could not work. “Technology has a key role to play in this,” he says. Mahapatra is confident of the mobile banking space. He says that SBI is giving thrust to the mobile banking channel and the bank will soon emerge as the top player in the segment. “We are currently engaged in completely revamping our mobile banking channel,” he says. He also talks about the SBI Buddy, which is a mobile wallet that the SBI has recently launched. “With State Bank Buddy, you can simply send or ask money from any of your contacts even if they do not have an SBI account,” he informs. The service is available to existing SBI customers as well as to non-SBI customers. “To be eligible for downloading the SBI Buddy app, you need to be an Indian national, have a valid mobile number and be above the age of 10 years. You can register to the app, via Facebook or sign up for the app via your mobile number, PIN or password,” explains Mahapatra. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

SETTING STAGE FOR 2016!

SIDDHARTHA CHATTERJEE

PARAG ARORA

MINOO DASTUR

AREA VP & COUNTRY HEAD, INDIA SUB-CONTINENT, CITRIX SYSTEMS

CO-FOUNDER & COO, NIHILENT TECHNOLOGIES

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, PERSISTENT SYSTEMS

RAJIV AHUJA SENIOR VP & HEAD OF OPERATIONS, CONVERGYS INDIA, CHINA AND MALAYSIA

RAJU VEGESNA

RAHUL MATHUR

CHIEF EVANGELIST, ZOHO

VP, GLOBAL ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS-SALES- APAC, TATA COMMUNICATIONS

RAJAN SACHDEVA K SRINIVASAN EVP & GEOGRAPHY HEAD, IMEA MARKETS INTELLECT DESIGN ARENA

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MD & LEAD - ACCENTURE TECHNOLOGY, INDIA

BHOOPATHI RAPOLU LEAD CONSULTANT & HEAD OF ANALYTICS, CYIENT EUROPE LIMITED

JANUARY, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

SUMAN REDDY MD, PEGASYSTEMS INDIA

SUDHINDRA HOLLA COUNTRY HEAD, AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

Is it possible that 2016 may be the tipping point when the virtual and the physical world finally coalesce! The technology leaders that we spoke to emphasise that Enterprise Technology will keep racing ahead—mobile and cloud will be central to the digital transformation. They highlight the Internet of Things, the smart devices seamlessly communicating with each other, and getting smarter and more useful as they do. Emerging technologies will upend established business models and punish slow-to-adapt companies, while rewarding the agile ones. The possibilities for where the digital technologies will take us and how they can impact our lives in 2016 are endless. Here is a summary of the trends

DEEPAK GHODKE

JIM SIMON SENIOR DIRECTOR OF ASIA-PACIFIC MARKETING, QUANTUM

SURENDRA SINGH COUNTRY DIRECTOR, RAYTHEON WEBSENSE

TARUN KAURA

COUNTRY MANAGER INDIA, TABLEAU SOFTWARE

BY JASMINE DESAI KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN

DIRECTOR – PRODUCT SOLUTIONS MANAGEMENT , APJ, SYMANTEC

SENIOR DIRECTOR - SOUTH ASIA, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, WD

EXPRESS COMPUTER

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

SETTING STAGE FOR 2016!

RAJU VEGESNA

SIDDHARTHA CHATTERJEE

CHIEF EVANGELIST, ZOHO

oing forward, we will see consolidation in the cloud market. Companies that do not have a good business model will go out of business. It is already happening, and it is natural, given that there is a lot of competition and limited exits. Usually, the companies either get acquired or go public. But most of the companies are over valued and this makes it hard for them to get acquired. And those who have already gone public are valued less than their initial offering price. This trend will continue in 2016 and for the years to come. When it comes to India, however, we will see many new startups in the cloud market, particularly in the SaaS sector. More VC funds will reach India, and there will be an accelerated growth, even 20

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though the global market will be slow. There is an influx of data now available on the cloud. The focus now is on developing business intelligence tools that will help analyse big data, and come up with actionable insights. Big data analytics will play a pivotal role in the way various departments in a business, particularly sales and marketing, function. Commoditisation of the market has led to drop in prices of per GB of storage, and this trend will continue. Google has slashed its rates, Apple and Amazon have entered the market bringing down the rates further. We have seen it happen with hardware, and with OS earlier. These sectors have become commoditised. Google is offering free OS with Android, Apple’s latest Mac OS is also free, and this has forced Microsoft to slash prices for Windows. Soon, it will be free. Now we can see the same trend in software infrastructure, of which storage is an important part. Cloud and mobile are the key, and Zoho R&D has invested heavily in both. As businesses moved to cloud apps, they started working with multiple applications from multiple vendors, each with varied processes, user interface, billing/invoice and credentials. These disparate applications didn’t talk to each other. So, businesses are now looking to consolidate these applications. Apps that talk to each other, i.e. an integrated suite of apps, are given high priority along with single sign-on, billing, etc. There is an increasing interest in unified product suites like Google and Zoho. This is the second phase of SaaS evolution – consolidation. A lot of innovation is possible in this stream through mobile devices in the coming years. IoT is going to be the next big thing in the year 2016, as it is going to see products integrated with technology. It will enable good products to become better products. Zoho has progressed to the next step,innovating out of India where we have launched a host of new products this year, some of which include Zoho SalesIQ.

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, PERSISTENT SYSTEMS

here are several technology trends that we see emerging and maturing in 2016. In the area of connected devices, we see context-rich systems (Examples are—geo-fencing, location awareness, role-based experiences, etc.), the Internet of Things (on both the consumer and industrial fronts), and the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality devices, with the introduction of devices such as Oculus and HoloLens. In the area of algorithmic business, we see the growth of machine learning and adaptive security. On the data side, we see the emergence of data lake architectures to store multiple kinds of data and process them either in batch or in real-time mode. Digital experience with connected device and algorithmic business platforms are going to be key business driver for any enterprise. End-to-end IoT solutions will see an uptake in the Smart City arena. We are seeing strong demand for data lakes and associated analytics across multiple industries, and we expect this trend to accelerate in 2016. These SMAC technologies have actually become the way for new or existing enterprises to transform their business. That being said, we also see cloud and containers gaining significant traction in 2016.

JANUARY, 2016

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K SRINIVASAN EVP & GEOGRAPHY HEAD, IMEA MARKETS INTELLECT DESIGN ARENA

he decision journeys undertaken by customers are no longer the same and are now more influenced by digital and mobile like never before. Most of the organisations claim that they are becoming digital. True digital enablement can happen only when firms re-look at their processes that can offer a simplified and integrated end-to-end experience across all touch points for their customers. For FINTECH companies like Intellect Design Arena, 2016 will be a year of accelerating our digital propositions to BFSI. We see banks wanting customer facing applications to be App based and therefore wanting to be holistically Omni-channel. A recent study by McKinsey indicates that about 40 % of Asian mass affluent customers now prefer Digital banking. The number of

Digital banking consumers in Asia is expected to reach 1.7 billion by 2020. I am also very captivated by the Block Chain Technology. Banks have come together elsewhere in the world and investing to see how the concept of distributed public ledger can bring down the transaction cost substantially, INTELLECT Design Arena is experimenting with Block Chain in its Transaction Banking line of business. In the global banking trend technologies such as mobility and cloud are redefining financial services and payments worldwide. Data Analytics is a technology that is going to be leveraged across industries. It can serve as lead indicators that can enable early call out actions, Natural Language processing is something that we can look forward to.

RAHUL MATHUR VP, GLOBAL ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS-SALES- APAC, TATA COMMUNICATIONS

016 is set to witness yet another round of enhancements and technological developments to help enterprises match their expected growth trajectories. This is also going to be an year when there is much greater adoption of technologies. We see 2016 being the defining year for cloud computing. It has been anticipated that cloud investments will grow ten fold with deployments in private cloud. Private cloud will also give way to hybrid cloud technology which will be adopted by most of the big enterprises by end of 2017. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been projected that the IoT market will be worth 11 trillion dollars in 2020. It is important for CIOs that the wearable or connected device that will drive new revenues for their company connects within their ecosystem. Understanding this need, we at Tata Communications, have been carrying out field trials in Delhi and Mumbai for LPWAN with LoRa technology. We are now working on EXPRESS COMPUTER

delivering a universal connectivity platform for IoT in India as a managed service based on industry standards and not tied to Wi-Fi, 4G or GPRS. Content owners, enabled by technology providers, are taking control in a world where consumer viewing patterns are dramatically changing due to flexible content provisioning across screens and devices. In this competitive environment, broadcasters are focussing on staying ahead of the game and providing viewers with the platforms and services that give them more control when it comes to dictating their own viewing experiences. Due to this growing competition, 2016 will witness more and more IT organisations offering services that will enable broadcasters to reduce production and distribution costs while increasing quality of the content delivered. Innovation is the key today to finding and sustaining new avenues for growth

and this is what we have been doing. The capability for IT & telecom organisations to flourish in this new ecosystem is underpinned by disruption and ubiquitous communication. At Tata Communications we are making steady strides in the journey. We are innovating across all aspects, including service creation, go-to-market, how we partner with next-gen and OTT players. JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

SETTING STAGE FOR 2016!

MINOO DASTUR CO-FOUNDER & COO, NIHILENT TECHNOLOGIES

recent report from the Indian Brand Equity Foundation says that India is currently the world’s largest sourcing destination for Information Technology solutions. The country accounts for approximately 67% of the $124-130 billion global IT solutions market. In 2016, the concept of ‘Smart IT Solutions’ for managing personal life and business will gain further traction. Societies will migrate towards intelligent, integrated systems that make use of advanced IT solutions. Such movements towards smart systems will bring new opportunities for IT vendors in India. Platforms and apps that can multitask seamlessly will be in demand. Lot of work will also be done in the areas of Big Data and IoT. Even traditional IT services like ERP will see increased demand in 2016. In the government we will see increased demand for healthier e-Governance services.

Deep Neural Nets (DNN), an advanced form of machine learning model, will evolve quickly in the coming year. DNN allows hardware and software-based machines to adapt and learn the features of their environments. The idea of having ‘universal credit’ and a cashless or even single currency in the world is now within our reach and is being aggressively explored. Some institutions are experimenting with variations of the ‘Block Chain’ —it will not be long before these ideas start getting applied in the world of ecommerce for providing consumers with borderless experience. Nihilent Technologies has made strategic investments for acquiring expertise in Business Intelligence, Data Sciences, Cashless Commerce, Universal Payments, Digital Marketing, Digital Services and Digital Operations. We have also been creating holistic models that help our clients extract greater value

from their ERP and ERM systems. We are already using NLP and Machine Learning for abstraction of legal data for global customers. Our R&D Lab has already created prototypes of advanced mobile based payment systems. On the whole, I expect 2016 to be an action packed year for IT companies in India.

RAJAN SACHDEVA MD & LEAD - ACCENTURE TECHNOLOGY, INDIA

he Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming a driving force behind several new innovations and opportunities. IoT offers the opportunity of bringing every object, consumer, and activity into the digital realm. According to Accenture’s Technology Vision survey conducted in 2015, 40% of Indian businesses are now investing in digital technologies as part of their overall business strategy—whereas 35% of the companies are investing in digital technologies globally. Pioneering companies are aware of the benefits that can be accrued by moving into the digital ecosystem. In the digital world, India is positioned to emerge at the forefront. The Indian e-commerce companies are toying with the idea of mobile-only applications and gateways for enabling customers to access their 22

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services. Delivery of services through multiple channels and devices (mobile, tablets, etc.) are becoming an order of the day. There is vast increase in the scope of interaction between business and technology. The technology-led industry solutions will fuel growth. This is not something new, but a renewed focus has enabled technology drive business metrics like secondary sales, OTIF (On-Time In-Full), inventory levels, etc. Cloud, Big Data, social networks and analytics are at the center of technology-led business transformation. Companies are adopting new operating models and technology to reduce capital investments and pay as and when they need technology resources. We are consulting clients on how best they can leverage disruptive technologies like Cloud, Big Data and Social. Our

Application Services Innovation Center in Bangalore helps clients develop, test and manage applications with agile and intelligent approaches. Cloud, Big Data, Analytics, Social and Mobility are an integral part of our Application Services Innovation Center. JANUARY, 2016

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RAJIV AHUJA

PARAG ARORA

SENIOR VP & HEAD OF OPERATIONS, CONVERGYS INDIA, CHINA AND MALAYSIA

AREA VP & COUNTRY HEAD, INDIA SUB -CONTINENT, CITRIX SYSTEMS

n the area of Business Process Management (BPM), Convergys has witnessed certain trends that are having an important impact on technology investments; for instance, now we are having the system of multi-channel offerings as normal part of the client solution. To fulfil the demands, the global

BPM industry leaders must invest in omni-channel technology capabilities. The BPM industry is focused on enabling its clients to run smarter businesses. Whether it’s about “voice of the customer surveys” and customer journey mapping, or statistical linkages and root-cause insights, Convergys uses its Analytics solutions to provide a comprehensive picture of the business processes. We are also now supporting chat programs for our clients. Our chat capabilities, lets agents manage concurrent chats effectively and efficiently, while providing a 360-degree view of the customer, and includes predefined templates, bookmarks, quick responses, and macros to maximise agent productivity. Robust analytics and reporting allosws us to monitor and improve performance and customer experience.

SUMAN REDDY MD, PEGASYSTEMS INDIA

n 2016, we will witness several landmark changes in the CRM space. Analytics will move beyond visualization, because the thrust will be on automating the process of turning insights into specific actions. We are at the cusp of creating a world where service representatives will no longer have to sift through charts and graphs to understand the next best way of making EXPRESS COMPUTER

a sale, but instead it will be readily available to them, customised to every customer or prospect. Essentially we are looking at a world where CRM will not only give you a closet full of clothes and accessories, but it will also be able to recommend that you take an umbrella because there’s a 90 % chance of rain. In the connected world that we live in today, businesses are constantly documenting their customer’s journey to better understand their experiences. In 2016, the businesses will be able to model their customer experiences and also effectively utilise that model to gain better insights into where the customer’s pain points. In this development, advanced analytics will play a key role. The CRM space will change the way companies communicate with their customers. Data generated from previous interactions will effectively shape and transform the next set of actions.

n 2016, the CIOs are going to be focused on implementing IT solutions, which enable the employees of their company to provide differentiated experience to their customers. The trend is towards having a software-defined workplace, which can bring lot of efficiency to the organisation. The focus of the CIOs will be on the development of technologies and platforms that allow them to integrate traditional applications and data with the next-generation applications and services. In 2016, we will see the enterprises consolidating their efforts for developing innovative on-demand, selfservice delivery models, which are either app or desktop based. Citrix is planning to channelise its investments for driving the adoption of cloud based services. We plan to further our investments in India in the areas of engineering, R&D and global support. On the innovation front, we will further investments in India through broader capabilities in engineering, R&D and global support. A key development that took place this year has been the announcement of Citrix WorkSpace Cloud. This is one of the major prospects which will drive growth for Citrix in the coming year. JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

Âť

SETTING STAGE FOR 2016!

BHOOPATHI RAPOLU

SURENDRA SINGH

LEAD CONSULTANT & HEAD OF ANALYTICS, CYIENT EUROPE LIMITED

COUNTRY DIRECTOR, RAYTHEON WEBSENSE

oT and Big Data applications will get practical in 2016. The remaining IT industry including SMAC will be aligned more into this trend to drive the transformation and business growth. The industry is driving towards Software Defined Hardware (SDx) thanks to the remote monitoring and controlling capabilities brought by IoT and related

technologies. A leading manufacturer of heavy equipment used to build multiple versions of engines, each providing a different level of horsepower. It now can alter the horsepower of a standard physical engine using software alone. In 2016, we expect to see more of such software-defined industrial products. We specialise in applying advanced data science for industrial applications to build Industry 4.0 solutions. We expect significant growth for our advanced analytics solutions for IoT-driven products and services. Though SMAC is gaining further traction in consumer applications, its applicability is limited in industrial applications. However, IoT is now changing this trend. We keep watching this trend and adopt ourselves to it at the right time. At the moment, we want to focus on IoT and advanced analytics for industrial applications.

DEEPAK GHODKE COUNTRY MANAGER INDIA, TABLEAU SOFTWARE.

n 2016, there are certain technology areas that are bound to pick up and become more mainstream . In cloud analytics we can expect some major innovations. CIOs will be interested in implementing cloud analytics because this technology can lead to vast reducing in cost and efficient resource utilisation. There will be lot of movement towards Hadoop. As Hadoop comes the core part 24

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of the enterprise IT landscape, investments will grow in the components surrounding enterprise systems related to aspects like security. Apache Sentry project provides a system for enforcing fine-grained, role-based authorisation to data and metadata stored on a Hadoop cluster. These are the types of capabilities that customers expect from their enterprise-grade RDBMS platforms. In 2016, we will witness the trend of IoT, Cloud and Big Data coming together. There will be new technologies in the BI ecosystem, and as these technologies go to the market, we will see gaps that need to be filled. There will be new companies to do just that. In the area of mobile analytics we can expect considerable interest. In fact, this field is already growing at a fast pace. We are already offering Tableau Mobile solution, which compliments our other products.

he year 2016 will witness the exponential rise of cyber threats. The newer services offered on the backdrop of the start-up boom will come under increased threat. The new payment services platforms that are being on the mobile devices could be a likely target. It is predicted that the year 2016 may witness a new wave of retail data breaches. Cyber security will find an increased relevance in the insurance sector because the service providers are expected to refuse compensation due to inadequate and ineffective security mechanisms adopted by entities affected by attacks. Moreover with new generic top level domain (gTLDs) propping up, cyber criminals and nation-state attackers will create highly effective social engineering lures to steer unsuspecting users towards malware and data theft. It is important to keep in mind that the existing internet structure is ageing and is set for an overhaul. However, the transition will reactivate the earlier ghosts from a cyber security perspective and we may witness issues like Heartbleed and POODLE coming to life again. Also, the US Presidential Elections set for next year will result in an unprecedented rise in cyber attacks mainly executed over the social media channels of communication. JANUARY, 2016

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TARUN KAURA DIRECTOR â&#x20AC;&#x201C; PRODUCT SOLUTIONS MANAGEMENT , APJ, SYMANTEC

ttacks have become smarter and sharper and it is obvious that 2016 will open up greater opportunities for cybercriminals. The smart cities initiatives will require deployments with multiple features and state-of-the-art technologies (like critical and complex ICT implementations) and comprise of a diverse ecosystem of technology providers. As Internet of Things (IoT) becomes the bedrock of smart cities, it would require greater security challenges to grapple with. As enterprises move farther away from traditional endpoints to IoT, the whole security framework will become increasingly important. India is currently in the middle of a smartphone boom, which will get bigger in 2016, as smart mobile devices become more affordable. In fact, India will overtake the US as the second largest market for smartphones in the world by

2016 with 200 million smartphone users. The enterprises will have to relook at the BYOD frameworkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;from just managing smartphones to securing them. In the upcoming year, Ransomware will make inroads into enterprises. To prevent being in this compromised state, requires effective data loss prevention software on each endpoint, gateway, and email server to prevent data exfiltration. It also means that the backup and disaster recovery should become much more important, as do detection and response planning. Above all, Advanced Incident Response capability will enable organisations to proactively address security needs, enable continual security improvement and overall cyber resiliency. In 2016 many companies will turn to cyber insurance as another layer of protection. Cyber insurance is evolving as fast as technology.

According to NASSCOM, the security market in India estimated to be 1% of the overall IT-BPM industry. The IT security market estimated at $77 billion in 2015 is growing at over 8% annually. By mid-2016, we expect to see corporations using enterprise data hub approaches to enhance agility and decision-making.

cameras and keep track of what is happening a video management solution is needed. Video Content Analysis (VCA) is one of the key trends in the video surveillance industry. There is a clear trend to embed intelligence in field devices (such as cameras) and in centralised intelligence devices (algorithms run on the recording server). Overall the video surveillance market in India has shown a 15% growth, the network video alone has projected 23% growth rate. With many more vendors and retailers now becoming aware of network video cameras and their benefits, integrators and local installers will become increasingly familiar with installing, configuring, and setting up network video surveillance equipment. Every industry is now using some sort of analytics in their existing surveillance systems for analysing, accessing and

storing the footages. Audio detection is one such analytics that is now present in most surveillance solutions. The help of Big Data is required in analysing the video captured by the cameras. In city surveillance Big Data is now being increasingly used. In 2016, we can expect major developments in these areas.

SUDHINDRA HOLLA COUNTRY HEAD, AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

n 2016, we will see newer and better technology solutions that will provide efficient bandwidth savings, image clarity and storage. The latest video compression standard, H.264 (also known as MPEG-4 Part 10/AVC for Advanced Video Coding), is on its way to becoming the video standard of choice in the coming years. The video surveillance industry and many suppliers are currently developing equipment to use the next generation of compression codecs. One such codec is H.265 or High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) has been approved as the standard by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T). Video management is the next big thing because the high-end implementations like in city surveillance, corporates surveillance, even the surveillance in big hotels, is usually done through deployment of thousands of cameras. To monitor these many EXPRESS COMPUTER

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

SETTING STAGE FOR 2016!

» www.expresscomputeronline.com

KHWAJA SAIFUDDIN SENIOR DIRECTOR - SOUTH ASIA, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, WD

plethora of devices coupled with increased broadband and mobile internet connectivity are likely to facilitate the adoption of centralised storage that can be accessed on the go. At the same time, data privacy and ownership of the device holding the data is of paramount importance. IoT is slowly becoming a reality. Due to these factors, we can expect the concept of personal cloud gaining lot of prominence in 2016. CCTV and surveillance cameras are being deployed everywhere, right from homes to public places and large enterprises. To support these, purposebuilt surveillance drives are being deployed and their adoption is likely to increase in the coming year. The growing crime rate has become a cause of concern and is leading to the growth in adoption of surveillance technology. With this development of surveillance infrastructure, there will be

a simultaneous demand for increased storage capacities. When the cameras are recording on a 24x7 basis, the data captured needs to be stored in secure systems, which allow effective monitoring and analysis of the footage, as and when required. Specialised storage drives are increasingly being developed to successfully cater to these requirements. With the rising popularity of NAS storage products, NAS-enabled surveillance drives are expected to experience a growth in adoption in 2016. Initiatives like Digital India and Smart Cities have brought to the forefront an array of concerns, the most important of which is the need for a robust security infrastructure. According to 6Wresearch, the market for video surveillance in India is projected to reach $2.4 billion by 2020.

JIM SIMON SENIOR DIRECTOR OF ASIA-PACIFIC MARKETING, QUANTUM

uantum sees several key technology trends and areas of growth that will impact the way customers approach storage in 2016. Object storage is now seeing traction with commercial enterprises, because it scales to meet the capacity needs of massive datasets while keeping data available. The growth of unstructured data will push enterprises to use object storage to extend online access to data in multi-petabyte, non-block data storage. Customers want full outsourced solutions that remove the problem of archiving. In 2016 these solutions will arrive, with a major migration of customer compliance and “write once, read never” data to the cloud. More companies will discover the wealth hidden in their video data to do things like tighten supply chains and keep shelves stocked. Bringing together massive 26

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datasets of disparate file types into a common analytics engine will require a thoughtful storage architecture. In 2016, the three areas where we see great potential for growth are video surveillance storage, hybrid storage, and technical markets (such as Genomics, Oil & Gas, and Geospatial). The addition of QXS hybrid disk and flash solutions has been welcomed by Quantum customers. If over half of all enterprises are to adopt a hybrid cloud model by 2017 (as Gartner predicted last year), more organisations will be wrestling over where their data is stored. In 2016, as more enterprise IT departments wrestle with massive data workloads, they will also turn to on-premises cloud storage. Analytical tools will create new reasons to keep data available on demand, and to extend retention times. JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW PETE KARNS IBM

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“It is important to extend the ecosystem of strategic IoT partners to deliver secure solutions that seamlessly connect the “things” to IBM IoT cloud services,” says Pete Karns, Director, IoT, Cloud Platform and Services, IBM. In conversation with Ankush Kumar

Delivering Secure IoT Solutions How crucial will be the role of IoTin developing Smart Cities? IBM’s pioneering work in smarter planet and smart cities is based on practical application of IoT in the enterprise sector. Our work has led to the development of a broad set of solutions in areas related to water management, traffic management, space optimisation, etc. IBM leads in enterprise IoT implementations, which can be used to securely combine and analyse data to uncover new actionable insights. With new industry-specific cloud data services, combined with our Bluemix digital innovation platform for developers, IBM will build on its IoT expertise to help clients and partners accelerate the adoption of IoT to benefit city services, and constituents.

will open to appropriate standards bodies for broad industry adoption. Earlier this year IBM announced that it intends to invest $ 3 billion to establish a new IoTunit.What verticals,the company is planning to target with this investment? With this investment of $3 billion, IBM will focus on designing and delivering new industry vertical solutions to industrial clients by bringing together engineering and operation solutions. We plan to accelerate the development of IoT PaaS on IBM Bluemix to extend capabilities of connected devices to collect, secure and generate real-time, actionable insights from data. It is also our aim to enhance engineering and asset management solutions with analytics to support mission critical IoT development and its processes. From our perspective, it is important to extend the ecosystem of strategic IoT partners to deliver secure solutions that seamlessly connects the “things” to IBM IoT cloud services. It is also important to engage in new research initiatives with major universities to advance IoT technologies. All these goals will be achieved through this investment.

In your view what kind of challenges can arise due to the massive amounts of data being generated by the IoTdevices? A variety of challenges exist, but we see most as being manageable. The challenges that I refer to are related to areas such as connectivity (method, power requirements), data storage and management (historical, streaming, correlation, etc.), and aggregating the 'right' data in support of desired analytics driven insights. In our interactions with clients, we often start with the insights they want to achieve, and work backwards from there to discuss types and forms of analytics, and then to the data required - machine data, weather data, geospatial, etc. If we know what that desired outcome is, issues of data management, security, and how to capture data can be effectively addressed. What is your view of the security related challenges in IoT? One of the most interesting challenges that we face with IoT is security. As apps converse with devices such as appliances, vehicles, transformers and pumps—it is necessary that these interactions must be secure. IoT requires trust and it also raises an important question— how is a device’s identity managed and validated through its life cycle? On April 9, 2015, IBM announced an expansion of its partnership with Texas Instruments. We are collaborating on a secure, cloud based provisioning and device life cycle management service for IoT devices. We EXPRESS COMPUTER

What is your view of the IoTenvironment in India? Momentum is accelerating in India as far as the IoT sector is concerned. A range of business models are emerging (such as Capex - Opex mix for industry solutions), along with scalability solutions for hardware products and, global and local applications of IoT platforms. Startups are already showing the way for IoT innovators, and large industry players and academic institutes are also teaming up. With the next link coming from government, IoT may well be poised as a powerful growth sector and driver in India.

Startups are already showing the way for IoT innovators,and large industry players and academic institutes are also teaming up

Which verticals will be the major adopters of IoTby 2020? All industries are and will benefit from IoT. I see the manufacturing industries, discrete and process, transportation, energy & utilities, retail, and the domain of buildings (campuses, airports, etc.), as major adopters. There is simply no end to the possibilities that IoT presents before us. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

SMART POLICING

Traffic Management Centre, Bangalore

TOWARDS MAKING

‘Smart’ POLICING A REALITY FOR INDIA

Sanjay Sahay, Additional Director General of Police, Karnataka, maintains that it is essential for law enforcement to stay current with ongoing technological developments. He presents an overview of the work that has already been done for modernizing the police forces and also speaks about new technologies that can function as force multipliers for improving efficiency and effectiveness of the law and order machinery 30

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JANUARY, 2016

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he concept of ‘SMART’ Policing was enunciated by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, while he was addressing the 49th Annual Conference of Director General of Police & Inspector General of Police and head of all central police organisations in Guwahati. The Prime Minister said that a Smart Police force is one which is Strict and Sensitive, Modern and Mobile, Alert and Accountable, Reliable and Responsive, Techno-savvy and Trained. ‘SMART’ Policing is an exercise in evolving a transformational policing ecosystem to meet the present day policing challenges and people’s expectations. In a democratic system like ours where rule of law reigns supreme and probity, transparency and service delivery, are the cornerstones, the demands from the police is increasing by the day. We are living in an era when digital transformation is the accepted reality. Digital innovations are providing us with new opportunities and new challenges on a regular basis. It has become a norm to use technology to improve almost every area of our society and the police departments are actively laying down the framework for incorporation of digital systems, which will bring efficiency and transparency in their working. I believe that with all the work that is being done for modernising the police with technology, 2016 will probably turn out to be the watershed year. Many of the Information Technology initiatives that have already been taken will start maturing in 2016 and this will lead to a discernible improvement in the functioning of the police forces. Coming to the state of Karnataka, I would say that the state’s police department has been at the forefront of using digital systems for improving its functioning. ERP: Karnataka State Police ERP software, the Police IT, has been functioning for the last five years and can be extended across the nation. Efforts are being made to provide access on the mobility platform as well. The creation of the state database on crime and criminals is a utility of multifunctional value in EXPRESS COMPUTER

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR BETTER POLICING

prevention and investigation of crime, analysis and planning, verification of all types and all supervision and direction related functions. The state has the capability to replicate this model in any other state or number of states. Networking: Karnataka State Police Wide Area Network (KSPWAN), has been in operation for over 6 years and has a completely evolved networking infrastructure by now. This model of VPNoBB, MPLS and internet leased line can be a path breaking model financially viable even at the current levels of funding in the state. Data Center: Is the nerve center of all the digital operations. KSP has a state of art data center for over 4 years and have been able to handle fully online operations inclusive of 21 police services being delivered under SAKALA (Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act 2011) in the public domain. The Data Center is presently working on virtualization technology. The cloud computing project is just getting completed and with this the Data Center moves on to a different technological level, completely in tune with the times with the capability to deliver services to sister organisations and also other states as well besides taking care of the state’s requirements. Capacity Building: Karnataka State Police has created a pool of 75 employees to maintain KSPWAN and the Data Center certified in MCSE & CCNA. This has been our biggest success towards the creation of the Police IT ecosystem and

Artificial intelligence: The transformation happening in this field has already started transforming our cities into the Smart Cities of the future. It will encompass incorporating technologies and key digital developments all linked by machine-tomachine (M2M) solutions and real-time data analytics which sit under the umbrella term of the Internet of Things. Artificial Intelligence developments are accelerating as more companies enter this sector and start investments to develop it. Big Data Analytics: A big data mind set is the starting point.Our usage of transient data is just the beginning of the number of ways data can be used.The latent data can be used in ways beyond our comprehension as of now.Big Data is the future of Data Science and the Data Scientists are the script writers.Sooner than later it is going to engulf us.Commercially,it is already being harnessed in full swing. Machine Learning: This area of learning both compliments and supplements Big Data and also Artificial Intelligence.The systems have their own learning curve as programmed and this learning would help create contextual intelligence which would be one of its kind for the particular organisation. Drones: We hear of them being used for large number of commercial activities and its usage for law and order and counter terrorism is already in the offing.These are multipurpose flying gadgets which can be customised to a lot of our very specialised requirements. Robotics: I had seen robots being used in Kosovo in the UN Peacekeeping Mission around a decade and a half back for detonating bombs.The technology has since then improved considerably.They might be of use in hostage situations and lots of other counter terror requirements besides being used for our normal mechanical tasks as well. JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

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SMART POLICING

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TECHNOLOGIES FOR SAFE CITIES

odern digital technologies offer several options for better policing. Here are some themes that we may see being implemented in 2016 Command and Control Centers: Complete integrations of all inputs made comprehensible through a software providing critical inputs for decision making is the key to our existence.This whole exercise has to be based on the concept of C4i software, the first successful operations can be seen at the Delhi Police control room. Best of the control rooms in the country can be modelled on these lines and can then be replicated at least across mega cities. Cyber Security and Interception: Though capability of interceptions do happen depending on the requirements of different police organisations, Cyber Security is yet to take off in this country. It is all pervasive and it has the capability to devastate the whole nation leave aside the police. Recent hacks in US on Sony and Anthem and the US response prove the same. Cyber Security is both a defensive and an offensive strategy. Interceptions have been the most valuable sources of actionable intelligence for quite sometime now and has to be at the cornerstone of all our strategies in the digital age.

day across the globe, but it is yet to take roots in this country. It is the most potent deterrence and an investigative tool. Surat and upcoming network at Bhubaneshwar may be used as models.Analytics is yet to start in any tangible way. Networking small and big private networks on optic fiber with the video command center can be a feasible beginning.

Video Surveillance with Analytics: City based video surveillance is the order of the

TETRA Public Safety Network: Terrestrial Trunked Radio Network, the parallel of GSM meets all the public safety communication requirements. It is one gadget to all communication and operationally fully under the control of the Police, is thus failsafe.The GSM communications fails when we needed the most, is a very common experience in the Police.TETRA has been successful across the globe. Our lack of capability to create integrated systems comes in our way of the execution of such projects and operationalise the services in a robust manner.

the operations of the network and the network infrastructure. These employees are technically sound and operationally effective. They are taken from the constabulary level and work as System Administrators in the department and continue to be the backbone of our truly online system. Intensive training in Police IT, an ERP solution is a must to keep the State Police functional. This task is being

handled by a group of Police IT Trainers, nearly 300 in number. They have been collaborating with CCTNS trainers as well. A small group of expert trainers are available at Police Computer Wing, who have gained immense experience from the time of the creation of the software itself. Home grown experts from within the department guide the various processes and also the work of the SIs and various

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Geospatial Technology: The third eye as termed in the space technology parlance is a multi-purpose technology primarily dealing in imagery of all types, which is scripting its applications in large number of sectors the world over.This technology was liberally used in the fight against AlQaeda and in the Abbottabad operations leading to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Lots of commercially off the shelf imagery can be used for anti naxalite / anti insurgency / counter terror operations / traffic and host of other mandatory duties of the Police.This is an all pervasive technology which supplements and complements most of efforts in the field. Homeland Security Architecture: A software to integrate all into one Homeland Security mechanism, each technology and output having a command center at the national level and then its integration into what can be called as National Homeland Security Resource Base and Incident Support System seems to be the final answer. There are lots of newer technologies defining our existence and its adoption in the police would be the cornerstone of our effectiveness in the days to come. 3D printing is already throwing up challenges of a magnitude beyond our imagination.The mastery over the following technologies would decide the level of safety and security we can provide to our citizens.

vendors involved in the Police Computerisation Projects. Facilities Management: is the key to running this Police IT Ecosystem and a separate funding has been provided to the Police Computer Wing for this purpose in Karnataka. National Database of Crime and Criminals: State Database on Crime and Criminals is operational in the state for the last five years. JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW ASHOK VASAN CA TECHNOLOGIES

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Software companies are able to speed up the process of software release is because they are now moving into a new way of developing software and testing and releasing it. This new process is called DevOps,â&#x20AC;? says Ashok Vasan, vice president, application delivery, Asia Pacific & Japan, CA Technologies. In conversation with Rashi Varshney

Tapping DevOps for Digital Transformation How does DevOps help in creating a healthy culture of innovation in IT industry? The writing of software is done through a process in which different groups have to collaborate. The software developers write the lines of code, which goes to the group, whose job is to test the software. Once the testing has been done and bugs, if any, have been dealt with, the software goes to the OPS group, which has to release the final software for production. The movement of software from development phase to the testing phase and finally to OPS group usually takes lot of time. In fact, most large software companies are able to release their software only once a year. However, things are changing now. As we have smartphones, the number of releases has increased and this is leading to new features, new bulk fixes, new functionality coming in quite rapidly. The reason that the software companies are able to speed up the process of software release is because they are now moving into a new way of developing software and testing and releasing it. This new process is called DevOps. This process of software development is more collaborative. Is it right to think that the system of DevOps can be a threat to the legacy systems in the enterprises? Most enterprises are on the lookout for ways of reforming or removing their legacy systems. But just because it is a legacy system, it does not mean that it has to be 20 years old. I can be relatively new and by the use of DevOps they can take better advantage of such legacy systems. Essentially, the DevOps model is designed to enable the creation of apps on top of the legacy systems. The DevOps model is designed to take full advantage of the data and the capability that resides in the backend legacy systems. In the DevOps model all the groups in the enterprise come together. The concept of DevOps was first developed about 10 years ago by some people in Yahoo. EXPRESS COMPUTER

Why is DevOps gaining so much importance now? You have to look at what is now possible, in order to understand why DevOps now. Service virtualization as a capability did not exist years ago. New tools and technologies are complicating or at least making the software deployment process very complex. Therefore, you need to have a release automation framework. For instance, if you look at payment space, 30 years ago people used to pay in cash. Then credit cards came. Then debit cards came. Now we have got other payment methods. So what is happening is that systematically people are adding layer, upon layer, upon layer of different ways in which they can transact. We have the mainframe systems, client service systems and the web systems and now we also have the mobile systems. All of them continue to be used. You need DevOps to leverage all the existing capabilities and ensure that applications get released faster in the market. How is the DevOps model evolving? Teams are now recognising that they should not be working in isolation. So under the umbrella of DevOps, they are adopting work methodologies that are agile, and where the teams come together for improving efficiency. This enables them to relate apps much more frequently. They use tools like service virtualization, which eliminates constraints that previously used to exist. They are using much better tools to manage test data and are having much better collaboration with their OPS teams.

Under the umbrella of DevOps,the IT teams in enterprises are adopting work methodologies that are agile,efficient and capable of releasing applications quickly

How is DevOps growing globally and in India ? Adoption of DevOps is continually growing yearly. In India, we did a survey according to which 52% of Indian CEOs are now considering using DevOps practices. Very high interest for DevOps can be seen in verticals like IT, BFSI companies. In fact, we are seeing interest for DevOps in most of the enterprises which are engaged in serving the end-customer. I see the market for DevOps doubling in India. rashi.varshney@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW MASAHIKO YAMADA FUJITSU

EMPOWERING INDIA WITH SUPERCOMPUTERS

“The goal of Fujitsu is not only to develop supercomputers but to also provide solutions, which can enable our customers to make optimal usage of the supercomputers that they own,” says Masahiko Yamada, President of Technical Computing Solutions Unit, Fujitsu. In conversation with Ankush Kumar

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Fujitsu has a significant presence in the High Performance Computing (HPC/ Supercomputer) market. In your view how has the sector evolved during the last few years? Fujitsu has been developing the supercomputers since 1975. We were the first supercomputer supplier in the world. In the past supercomputers were only being used by the scientists for conducting basic scientific research. It was also being used for mechanics because computer performance used to be very slow. Today when even the personal computers have become very powerful, the supercomputers are in a position to simulate and analyse all kinds of real world issues and problems. Now we have many instances of supercomputers being used for forecasting weather and tsunamis. On the technical side what kind of changes are you seeing in the supercomputer space? The worth-noting trend on the technical side is that the CPU in the computer is now becoming more and more commoditised and this is leading to a significant reduction in the price of supercomputers. Even the supercomputers are becoming a kind of commoditised technology, because they use tens of thousands of CPUs. In terms of features there is not much difference in the supercomputers that different vendors are offering. The differentiation

today lies primarily in how the supercomputers are being actually used for driving real business innovation. At Fujitsu, our goal is not to compete with hardware brands, but to use supercomputers for taking care of real social solutions. Along with developing supercomputers, we are also focused on providing solutions, which enable our customers to make optimal usage of the supercomputers that they own. The power of PCs, as you have rightly pointed out, is on the rise.Tomorrows PC might as well be as powerful as today’s supercomputer. So how do we differentiate between a PC and a supercomputer? It is very difficult to point out the difference between the PC and a supercomputer. The basic technology that goes into the both is still the same. In a Super Computer 10,000 CPU’s are working together. In fact, in the largest supercomputers you may have as many as 8,00,000 of processors working together and the performance would be around 800,000 times higher than what today’s advanced PCs can offer. However, you can also define a supercomputer based on the task that it performs. For instance, if a human brain takes 4000 years to compute a formula, a supercomputer can do the same in just one second. A PC is primarily for personal use, whereas a supercomputer can help us solve the massive real world problems that humanity faces. It can be JANUARY, 2016

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used for forecasting weather changes, or for designing new technologies. What is your view of the HPC business in India? Are you seeing enough demand for such systems here? The business on the HPC has been growing steadily. In fact, business in Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HPC sector is growing faster than most other verticals in the IT sector. The Prime Minister has recently announced the supercomputer mission and now many of the large government organisations are moving towards getting new supercomputers or scaling up their existing systems. There is demand from DRDO Labs, Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Indian Meteorological Department, etc. Even the large educational institutions in the country, like the IITs in our country or the CDACs of the world have be emphasising on the setting up of more EXPRESS COMPUTER

clusters for taking care of the needs of their students. Earlier the super computer market was limited to USA, Japan and Europe. However, now Asia, India, Mexico and Brazil have started seeing lot of demands for HPC. Fujitsu is mainly working in Japan, USA and Europe, but now India is also becoming an

APC is primarily for personal use,whereas a supercomputer can help us solve the massive real world problems that humanity faces

important market for us. Are you having any plans for expanding your business in India? HPC is a very important and vital part of Fujitsuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business. It constitutes upto 30% of our overall product business. We also have a significant presence in the products segments, where we are offering SAP solutions, surveillance solutions, solution around consolidation and virtualization and cloud, solutions around HPC. In these areas we are growing at the rate of 100% year-on-year, and currently we have more than 150 customers now. The list of our customers in this area includes, the IITs, DRDO labs, Mahindra, Tata Motors, HP University, M&M, TVS Motors, etc. We have been growing this business 100% year on year. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW NOSHIN KAGALWALLA SAS INDIA

LISTENING TO EDUCATION DATA

“Innovations in cloud and affordable technologies such as Hadoop are helping in democratising analytics and making it available to more consumers at lower cost,” says Noshin Kagalwalla, MD, SAS India. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

Education bodies and institutions are sitting on massive amounts of data related to students, teachers and various academic issues. How can this data be utilised to improve the state of education in the country? Analytics can play a very important role in the area of education by enabling the institutions to derive useful information from the data that they possess. With today’s technology it is possible to effectively analyse the data and discover insights, which in turn can enable us to take the right decisions for improving the scope of education. Analytics can help us in uncovering the trends across the regions and states or across the across factors like age, gender or even fields of study. Employment data that the institutes collect can be correlated with the courses, disciplines and nature of education. The needs of the industry can can be further identified and the relevant courses can be designed for the students. What kinds of data do the educational institutions generally track? Most institutions are recording data related to demographics, educational performance, attendance, extra cocurricular activities and the placement records. They also closely monitor the data concerned with financial planning and budgeting process, and the faculty data and other operational data. Some institutions may also record parental information, location and medical 36

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background data of the students. All such data can be a potential goldmine of important information. For instance, interactive and visual dashboards can provide interesting insights in several areas such as faculty attrition, popular courses and student preferences. The analysis of the outcome of various courses can enable the institutes to help their students in in choosing the right career path. The possibilities are endless.

With cutting-edge analytics software,we can capture and derive insights from a wide variety of data

What are the new types of educational data that can be captured and mined with the help of data analytics software? With cutting-edge analytics software, we can capture and derive insights from a wide variety of data. Institutes are now capturing and analysing data on extracurricular activities, such as sports, music. This could not have been possible by use of traditional systems. Social media analytics is another emerging area of application. Important aspects of students learning styles, behaviour and preferences can now be gauged from formal groups that the educational institutes may have on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs. This helps the institutes learn a great deal about students’ preferences, concerns, reactions and perceptions. Faculty feedback, faculty research interests, financial health of the institutes, are in the areas where analytics can be effectively applied. Analytics can help in uncovering JANUARY, 2016

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We are optimistic that analytics will see a high growth in education sector.While specific numbers for analytics are not available,there is definitely a large opportunity that lies ahead

patterns and predicting trends that may help the students in their career. It can also analyse historical data on donors, alumni and prospects and create predictive models that determine the likelihood of a donor donating funds. This is helpful in enabling the institutes to cost-effectively target those who are most likely to donate. What kind of improvements can we expect in learning outcomes with the deployment of data analytics in our institutions? With analytics, the institutions can derive value in a number of areas. The value can come through the creation of better systems for accessing information from multiple sources and uncovering patterns and trends. As a direct result of this, the institutions can develop market relevant courses, attract the right students, maximise retention and sustain strong relationships throughout the student lifecycle. Visual dashboards and reports can also give stakeholders the ability to analyse program performance and develop better overall strategy for empowering decision makers with a clear understanding of how the institution is doing. EXPRESS COMPUTER

What are the major issues due to which the some of the institutions are unable to take full advantage of analytics? Analytics is a new technology and in much of the education sector there is very little awareness of what this technology can do. But now we are seeing some sections of the education sector warming up to the analytics technology. The major challenge that we face is the lack of a culture of datadriven decision making. There is also a need for a promotor/leader who can effectively spearhead the analytics initiative in educational institutions. Also, some institutions are unable to use analytics because there are concerns related to privacy. The answer to this issue is that every institution must come up with its privacy policy and based on that the system for deploying analytics can be developed. Today the cost of software is not high. Innovations in cloud and affordable technologies such as Hadoop are helping in democratising analytics and making it available to more consumers at lower cost. We are conducting regular webinars in the

academic institutions to spread awareness about the benefits that the education sector can reap by deploying analytics. What are the growth projection of data analytics in education sector in India? As per the IBEF (Indian Brand Equity Foundation) report, Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education sector offers a great opportunity with approximately 29% of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population being between the age group of 0-14 years. The schooling segment in India is anticipated to be around US$ 144 billion by 2020 from an estimated US$ 95.8 billion in 2015. In 2014, with 29.63 million students and approximately 48,116 colleges and institutions, Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s higher education segment is the largest in the world. It is expected to increase to US$ 37.8 billion by 2020. Considering these findings, we are optimistic that analytics will see a high growth in this sector. While specific numbers for analytics are not available, there is definitely a large opportunity that lies ahead. mohd.ujaley @expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

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CHANGING ROLE OF CIO

The Changing D N A

O F

T H E

C I O

The modern CIO is more of a business professional who manages technology for bringing together a diverse range of business processes and relationships, and develops strategies for connecting with customers in new ways BY ANKUSH KUMAR

he position of a CIO is thought to have come into existence in USA during the late 1980s or the early 1990s, around the same period when the open systems hardware and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications came into being. Earlier the CIOs were concerned mostly with the IT infrastructure, their job was confined to ensuring that the systems were running smoothly. But the rapid advancement in the

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digital technologies and the fact that the modern IT systems are playing a critical role in enabling the business to run smoothly and stay competitive, the expectations that the organisations have from their CIO has changed. The CIO is now expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of not just the IT systems, but also the business processes, so that he can reinvigorate the organisation by using technology on an optimal scale to JANUARY, 2016

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create new business processes, which will generate better business value. The CIOs are shifting from reactively supporting the IT needs of the organisation to proactively initiating the plans for bringing structural and cultural changes within the organisation so that there is more efficiency and growth.

and gets the right data to the right people within the organisation. According to Ghoshal many of the CIOs today are having MBA degree and they are mostly without any technical qualification. However, they do have a general interest in the area of technology.

Changing Role of CIO

The idea that the role of the CIO has now gone beyond technology and innovation related issues, and has now reached the domains of strategy and planning, is emphasised by Sayed Peerzade, Chief Information Officer, Reliance Big Entertainment & Reliance Entertainment – Digital. He says, “Days are gone where IT was considered to be the cost center and treated as an isolated entity. The CIO’s role has become more challenging with the emergence of new technologies, which have a critical influence on the growth of any business organisation. CIOs are no longer technocrats, they are being looked at as business enablers. They are expected to take risks, and they need to have extensive knowledge of planning and strategy.” As a case in point, Peerzade gives the example of how his own career has grown in Reliance. In the early days of his career, his role was confined to looking after Zapak business, which was a high growth segment. Over a period of time, other groups got formed into the organisation to manage different lines of business. Later on the company realised that there are many entities in the group that are using similar technology to reach out to their customers, and then Peerzade was given the charge of developing the IT strategy for the entire group. “My new responsibility was to incorporate technology for bringing agility to the business, so that there is improvement in the time-cycle in which we place our products into the market and the cost of doing business is also manageable. I have consolidated the entire stack of online businesses from the traditional DC to an one cloud platform. We have successfully performed technology migration to private cloud. By successfully completing this project, we are able to reduce 80% of the server footprint, and have eliminated 70% of the

Ashvin Vellody, Partner - Management Consulting, KPMG in India, says, ”A CIO is now expected to be much more of an influencer, a shaper, a business strategiser.” He informs that in the Indian enterprises we are now seeing an increasing trend of CIOs interacting more actively with the senior management for taking key decisions within the organisation. “Mobile, BYOD and cloudbased computing are presenting new challenges and new opportunities before all the organisations. The issue of cyber security has also taken centre stage. In such a scenario the role of the CIO is bound to become more critical for the success of the enterprise,” he adds. Samiron Ghoshal, Partner & LeaderIT Advisory Services, E&Y, points out that the role of CIO has now split into two categories—there is the CTO and there is the CIO. The CTOs, he explains, are basically the technology people, whereas the CIO is supposed to be versed in both, technology and business processes. “A worldwide survey estimates that 20% of the CIOs now carry double titles: Head of Business Transformation, Head of Business Process Change or Management and sometimes they are even called the Head of Supply Chain,” says Ghoshal. He is of the view that the modern CIO is someone who plays the role of a technology integrator and evangelist. “The CIO gets business and technology together by taking care of four key responsibilities—Infrastructure, Integration, Intelligence and Innovation,” he adds. He explains that the CIO, as the person responsible for infrastructure, manages the existing infrastructure—as a Chief Integration Officer, he is responsible for developing integration between the external and internal data and systems—as the Chief Intelligence Officer, he fosters business intelligence EXPRESS COMPUTER

CIO as Business Enabler

ACIO is now expected to be much more of an influencer, a shaper, a business strategiser Ashvin Vellody Group CIO - IMEA& VPAtos

The CIO gets business and technology together bytaking care of four key responsibilities— Infrastructure, Integration, Intelligence and Innovation Samiron Ghoshal Partner & Leader- ITAdvisory Services,E&Y JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

CHANGING ROLE OF CIO

» www.expresscomputeronline.com

The CIO’s role has become more challenging with the emergence of new technologies,which have a critical influence on the growth of any business organisation Sayed Peerzade

In order to become the CEO,the CIO must be completely business oriented and he must possess enough management skills Ashok Kannan Group CIO,Salcomp

Chief Information Officer,Reliance Big Entertainment & Reliance Entertainment – Digital

operating costs, with permanent elimination of Capex requirements,” says Peerzade. Avinash Velhal, Group CIO, Atos, is of the view that the role of the CIO is especially critical in the IT services industry. He says, “In the services industry, we not only have to manage internal IT support, we also need to keep a check on the deliveries going to the endcustomer. These customer related deliveries use the same internal shared infrastructure and connectivity. It is uphill task to manage customer satisfaction, because most of the IT users are tech-savvy.” According to Velhal, his most major contribution to Atos was in the area of mobilising and fast tracking M&A activities. He has played a seminal role in integrating the organisation and ensuring that the transition management is as smooth as possible. “Over the past 4 years there has been M&As of Siemens IT services, Bull, Xerox ACS. This has almost doubled the employee count in India to 40

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Newinnovations in technologyhas brought the CIO to the centre-stage. There is no dearth of opportunities for ambitious CIOs to make their mark on the business Hemant Kulkarni DeputyGeneral Manager - Corporate IT,Kirloskar Electric Company

14000+,” informs Velhal.

CIO as the Next CEO Biswajeet Mahapatra, Research director, Gartner, says that there is no industry in this age which is not working on a digitisation plan. “Digitisation has taken banking, insurance, logistics, media,

CIOs are shifting from reactively supporting the IT needs of the organisation to proactively initiating the plans for bringing structural and cultural changes within the organisation

telecom, government, manufacturing, and many other industries by storm. One cannot imagine going on a digitisation path without having a competent and strong CIO. We clearly see different kinds of CIOs evolving in the next 5-10 years,” he says. There are many who are of the view that as IT continues to gain a significant hold on all aspects of the business, the role of the CIO becomes as critical as that of a CEO. “New innovations in technology has brought the CIO to the centre-stage. There is now no dearth of opportunities for any ambitious CIOs to make their mark on the business.” says Hemant Kulkarni, Deputy General Manager - Corporate IT, Kirloskar Electric Company Ltd. Ashok Kannan, Group CIO, Salcomp, agrees that it is possible for a CIO to be promoted to a CEO at some stage of his career. “In order to become the CEO, the CIO must be completely businessoriented and he must possess enough management skills,” he says. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW MIKE AMUNDSEN CA TECHNOLOGIES

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“Adding value to the organisation is a major business case for APIs,” says Mike Amundsen, Director of API Architecture, CA Technologies. in conversation with Jasmine Desai

Business Transformation Through API Management These days many IT heads are becoming concerned about API management.What kind of business outcomes can be achieved through API management? API Management is something that will enable you to create, assemble, manage, secure and socialise web application programming interfaces (API). So the focus of API is on the connection between the softwares rather than on the software itself. It can relate to the ways by which a certain component running in, lets say USA, talks to a software component running in India or any other part of the world. The idea behind the API is to enable the software programs to talk to each other with seamless efficiency. With many organisations having components running in different geographical areas, today API Management has become a critical need.

business case for APIs. Some APIs will make it easier to inter-operate with other partners because they use the same format, the same protocol. One can reduce cost as one expands their space. We use API to unlock value that exists. For instance, in a clothing line one can create completely different experience for users from the information that is already there. They can create various kinds of applications to deliver this. Businesses can also create new revenue streams. For instance, the Telcos and the BFSI organisations are providing their customers with the facility of money transfer through phone. Tell us about the work that CAis doing in the area of APIs? Two most important aspects of API are security management, and visibility and access.. With CA API Management, you’ll acquire the capabilities you need to overcome digital transformation challenges and create new growth opportunities. We offer solutions to create APIs and integrate everything. For instance, you can bring together the data you need to power next-generation cloud, mobile and IoT applications with broad integration capabilities. We provide a secure platform for integrating across apps, devices and businesses. The CA family of API gateways deliver a broad range of API-centric, enterprisegrade security and threat protection.

Can you give us some examples of the popular usage of API? A mobile app telling a store location based on where I am is a good example of the use of API. The person who writes this application needs to have an agreement with the store. In fact, he must have access to a comprehensive list of stores.. API is also being used in parking meters, many of which are digitised these days. To make the Digital India programme a success, we need to develop a good system of API Management. In case of APIs what is the broad format in which the spending happens? There are three areas of spending. There is the actual creation of API, creation of the interface and the API management infrastructure, DMZ, etc. Then there is the actual life-cycle management. More than 50% of spending is on the lifecycle in any IT infrastructure and same goes for API. What is new is the notion of proxy and the API Management layer. But organisations are already using some kind of perimeter security, so this is not an additional cost. How does the APIs add value to the organisation? Adding value to the organisation is a major EXPRESS COMPUTER

The API Management solution from CAis designed to provide a secure platform for developing integration across apps,devices and businesses

What steps must the organisations take to design an API for maximum business benefit? The process for creating an API is just as important as the process for creating an user interface. Knowing who the audience is, knowing what their expectations are, is a must for the development of a good design. Businesses need to create targeted API for a groups of customers, partners, etc. To do this, they must possess the complete information on what language these groups use and what kind of work they are doing. An API is designed in such a way that it makes it easy for users to complete their task. Many companies hire product managers for designing their APIs. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

DDoS

OVERCOMING

DDoS The DDoS attacks always come without warning and they can easily upend an organisation. Faster threat detection systems are required to prevent such attacks from causing serious damage BY ABHISHEK RAVAL

n recent years, the instances of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have risen by leaps and bounds. Such attacks pose as an insidious threat to online banking and ecommerce. In a DDoS attack the malicious elements exhaust the telecom pipes through which the end users reach the online banking or e-commerce website. Basically the attacker is trying to saturate the bandwidth of the target’s website by flooding it with a huge quantity of data. The objective of the attack is to make the website or the online service unavailable to the genuine user. Even government websites are not safe from DDoS type of attacks. There have been instances when the decisions taken by certain governments have led to some 42

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Open DNS resolvers can be compromised and used as tools to launch a DDoS Ramandeep Singh Walia Head - Sales and Operations,QOS Technology

groups launching massive DDoS attacks on the websites owned by that government. In October, several Thai government websites were hit by a DDoS attack, making them impossible to access. According to sources, the DDoS attack appeared to be a protest against the Thai government’s plan to limit access to sites deemed inappropriate.

Evolution of DDoS attacks A study of the DDoS launched in the last few years reveals that there has been a significant evolution in the nature of the attacks. “The intent earlier was to bring down the system. However, now the aim is to keep the IT department busy and occupied with an initial attack and then take advantage of their distraction to JANUARY, 2016

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specific IP address. The jumping IP address makes it very difficult to spot the the source. There are separate companies which specialise in providing this service. Russia and Czechoslovakia have emerged as specialised centres for providing these services,” explains Prashant Mali, President - Cyber Law Consulting (Advocates & Attorneys). “Moreover, in the recent past the modus operandi has changed. Following the new strategy, the attacker does not directly get involved. He pays money to an agent, who co-ordinates with botnet owners, malware writers, etc. A combination of these factors makes it nearly impossible to nab the kingpin,” he adds. In a scenario where the online vandals are using tens, hundreds or even thousands of compromised servers to automate the flood of data, DDoS attacks are quite hard to predict and stop. Matt Larson, CTO, Dyn, says, “In the absence of a pattern in the attack and it can’t be easily filtered because the traffic looks just like regular traffic, the only defence is to have sufficient capacity to ride out the attack while still answering legitimate requests.” Dyn, an internet performance company, provides services to companies like Twitter and TripAdvisor.

The intent earlier was to bring down the system. Now the aim is to sneak into the system for inflicting an actual and more harmful blow Samuel Sathyajith Country Manager - India & SAARC,Arbor Networks

DDoS: Weak links and remediation

sneak into the system for inflicting an actual and more harmful blow to the overall information infrastructure,” says Samuel Sathyajith, Country Manager India & SAARC, Arbor Networks. Usually, the DDoS attacks are launched by a program or a bot, but other strategies, including those that involve mass mobilisation of computer users, can also be used. For instance, when the Thai government websites were targeted, the attackers had used social media in Thailand to encourage people to visit the websites and repeatedly refresh them. The vast array of strategies, being used by the attackers, makes it very difficult to detect the point of origin of the attacks. “DDoS attacks are designed in such a way that they cannot be traced to any EXPRESS COMPUTER

Because of the range of strategies, the DDoS attackers can use, it is difficult to completely stop such attacks from happening. However, with advance planning, such attacks can be mitigated and neutralised to a large extent. There are a number of steps that organisations can take to at least mitigate the effect that DDoS attacks have on their websites, servers, databases, and other essential infrastructure. “We may never be able to stop determined attackers from launching an attack. Safeguards have to be enhanced in all the systems and processes,” says Sandeep Godbole, Member, ISACA India Growth Task Force. A DDoS attack is primarily launched by taking advantage of the network, so a good method of prevention should be such that it allows the security teams to gain insight into what is going on in the network. One of the more popular approaches is flow sampling as virtually all

If the traffic is left unlogged,how will the organisation know that it is under a DDoS attack Devendra Parulekar Practice Leader,India Information Security and Privacy,E&Y JANUARY, 2016

FEATURE

DDoS

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In the absence of a pattern in the attack,the only defence is to have sufficient capacity to ride out the attack while still answering legitimate requests

Following the new strategy,the attacker does not directlyget involved.He pays moneyto an agent, who co-ordinates with botnet owners, malware writers

We maynever be able to stop determined attackers from launching an attack. Safeguards have to be enhanced in all the systems and processes

Matt Larson

Prashant Mali

Sandeep Godbole

CTO,Dyn

President - Cyber Law Consulting

Member,ISACAIndia Growth Task Force

routers support some form of Flow technology, such as NetFlow, IPFIX, or sFlow. In this process, the router samples packets and exports a datagram that contains information about that packet. This kind of technology is easily available, it can scale well and is fully capable of indicating the trends in network traffic. Ramandeep Singh Walia, Head - Sales and Operations, QOS Technology, says, “In my view the biggest weakness of the Indian information security infrastructure, one which leaves ample scope for DDoS to be launched, is that most of our network connecting devices are kept open. To be specific, open Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers, DNS proxies have default configurations. Routers are also not configured appropriately. In most Indian organisations that we have worked with, 8 out of 10 DNS resolvers are open.” Open DNS resolvers (computers that translate domain names into IP addresses) can be compromised and used as tools to launch a DDoS attack. Open DNS means 44

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the server has not been configured to reply to select IP addresses. Thus, by default, it responds to every IP address that sends a communication request. Such flaws in the network continue to exist, even though the biggest DDoS attack, ‘Spamhaus’, was launched in 2013 by using the vulnerability out of an open DNS resolver. After that recommendations were issued for thwarting DDoS. One of the recommendations was to harden the DNS resolver.

Watch Your Log Analysis In addition to setting the right DNS configuration, it is also important to enable log analysis in the respective devices. “Many Indian organisations do not keep ‘log analysis’ in an enabled state in their firewall or other relevant devices,” says Devendra Parulekar, Practice Leader, India - Information Security and Privacy, E&Y. “As a result, even if the firewall is detecting the traffic, it will not be able to give an early warning or alert because the device is simply not logging.”

“If the traffic is left unlogged, how will the organisation know that it is under a DDoS attack. The advanced Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) tool will have no data to develop the trends, patterns,” adds Devendra Parulekar. Enterprises disable log analysis because it affects application performance. In addition to following these standard practices, enterprises also need to manage the service providers, which includes telcos, cloud hosting providers, ISPs and anti-DDoS solution providers. Common DDoS protection deployments include flow analytics devices, which react to the discovered incident by redirecting the victim’s traffic to a mitigation device and telling it what action to take. This method scales well for gathering traffic to be analysed, and the reactive model only redirects potentially bad traffic, which allows for some bandwidth oversubscription. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW

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PRASHANT BINDAL SPICE MOBILITY

4G: OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVICE MAKERS â&#x20AC;&#x153;The spread of 4G will play a critical role in further improving the scope of the smartphone boom in our country. The demand for smartphones will increase tenfold in the next five years,â&#x20AC;? says Prashant Bindal, Chief Executive Officer, Spice Mobility. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

What is your view of the 4G market in India? Mobile communication systems have evolved exponentially in the last few years. 2G and 3G have already spread around the country. Currently we are seeing the rollout of the 4G network in different parts of the country. With the

spread of 4G, which is about ten times faster than 3G, there is significant rise in demand for 4G handsets. As India is a price sensitive country, the demand is for economically priced handsets that allow users to do faster downloads, better surfing and streaming. The consumers today are very demanding about having better Internet experience in their smartphones. Recently Lava launched its first 4G smartphone, Stellar 519. Even though the device is reasonably priced, it offers lightening fast downloads and streams high definition media seamlessly. Many analysts are of the view that cheaper handsets are a must for the 4G rollout to be successful. Do you agree with this view? India is a price sensitive market. The success of the recently launched 4G services in the country will be conditional to the availability of high-quality and

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reasonably-priced 4G handsets, which deliver superior internet experience to the consumers. Spice Mobiles has a significant presence in the Indian market and we have always strived to offer the better technology to a larger audience. With a vast majority of Indians accessing internet through their mobiles, we anticipate that the mobile will become a connectivity hub in very near future. High speed movie downloads and voice calls through the internet are already common and in times to come telecom players will have exclusive offers to enable customers to indulge in such activities at lower prices. The attractively priced 4G handset, Stellar 519, that we have recently launched is seeing good demand from buyers. We will be coming up with more 4G devices soon. In your view, what kind of impact will the Digital India initiative and Make in India initiative have on the smartphone segment? We are strongly in favour of the Digital India and Make in India initiatives, which will lead to the creation of infrastructure for better connectivity. These initiatives will lead to vast improvement in the reach of basic services such as healthcare and education to people living in all parts of the country. We will soon be able to see a very significant growth in our telecom sector. With better connectivity, there JANUARY, 2016

INTERVIEW PRASHANT BINDAL SPICE MOBILITY

will be higher demand for smartphones and all kinds of eservices. Many new jobs are expected to be created through the Digital India and Make in India initiatives. All this will lead to improvement in the quality of the lives of our citizens and it is good for the broader economy. I think that in times to come there will be several new opportunities for telecom players and smartphone makers to grow in India. The 4G services are expected to lead to the improvement in the quality of VoIP services and Video on Mobile services. What kind of broad changes can we expect in the telecom market? We are seeing vast possibilities from 4G. In my view, 4G is the new revolution happening in the telecom sector. The rollout of 4G will play a critical role in the smartphone boom that is now all set to happen in our country. We expect that the demand for smartphones will increase tenfold in the next five years. However, 4G also has the great potential for disrupting the telecom marketâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the major players in the sectors may have to make significant changes in their revenue models. When more customers gravitate towards personal messaging services and video calling applications, more efforts will have to be made to monetise the data delivery systems. We could see the emergence of several new products and internet services for VoIP, Video on Mobile, etc. By virtue of offering better quality of connectivity, the 4G services could lead to more customers for mobile internet. There will be higher demands for smartphones and tablets. All verticals of the telecom sector will see heavy growth with the spread of 4G services across the country. The experience from 3G has not been that good. In many places in the country, even in urban areas, the connectivity is poor. Do you think that the 4G consumers will have better experience? The operators are under growing pressure to optimise their network infrastructure, but the thing is that for improving the quality of mobile internet connectivity in the country, significant investments are required in telecom towers. The country needs more telecom towers to meet the market demand. There must also be improvement in the quality and the quantity of the allied infrastructure. All this can happen when the companies have the benefit of easy financing options, industry-friendly taxation policies and subsidies. The mobile industry has redefined several key aspects of the consumerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. People are now able to stay connected with the world and access information in real time. All the players in the telecom ecosystem, the telecom players and mobile handset manufacturers will have to join hands to ensure that the consumers are able to benefit from the 4G technology. mohd.ujaley @expressindia.com

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BUSINESS AVENUES

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JANUARY, 2016

Transformation, Competitiveness & Sustainability

A PSU Perspective Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face it, enterprise technology is getting more innovative than ever.And at the Express Technology Sabha-PSU, there was no dearth of presentations and panel discussions to deliver interesting insights into the future of technology in the PSU sector

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WELCOME ADDRESS Anant Goenka, Wholetime Director and Head-New Media, The Express Group

EXPRESS TECH SABHA PSU 2015 Welcome Address Inaugural Address by Chief Guest Launch of PSU Case Study Book Candid Conversation Power Panel: Renewing and Building New Capabilities in PSUs with Technology Innovations Accelerating Business Transformation in the Application Economy Technology Presentation: Value Proposition and Solution Deploying IT for Taking PSUs to Growth Path Power Discussion: CATechnologies 52

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n his welcome address, Anant Goenka dwelled on the important role that Information Technology can play in modernising India’s PSU sector. He said that the second edition of the Express Technology Sabha PSU is being organised to serve as a platform for sharing knowledge and information on the ways by which the PSUs can benefit from the innovative IT solutions. While commending the work, PSUs are doing for developing essential infrastructure for the country, Goenka said that now it is time for the sector to take major initiatives for developing its IT capabilities. He emphasised that in today’s times it is important to have Information Technology at the core of every organisation. He said that lot of new innovation was happening in the technology space. IT presents PSUs with ample opportunities for improving their efficiency and transparency. However, the deployment of IT must be done in such a way that the security concerns are minimised. JANUARY, 2016

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Inaugural Address by Chief Guest Amit Mitra, Minister-in-Charge of Finance, Excise & Commerce and Industries, Public Enterprises, Industrial Reconstruction, Information Technology and Electronics, Government of West Bengal

n his inaugural address, Amit Mitra touched upon the Information Technology applications that were leading to seminal improvements in the working of various government organisations. He spoke about eTendering, Big Data Analytics, Integrated Finance Management, and many other eEXPRESS COMPUTER

processes that are being extensively deployed by the PSUs in India. He informed the audience that he was acquainted with what the PSUs were doing for modernising their systems with IT because in the past he had served in the board of major PSUs like GAIL and SAIL. “Based on my personal experience

with the PSUs, I can say that the sector needs to make better use of IT for improving its efficiency,” he asserted. He said that when Mamata Banerjee was the Union Minister for Railways, the Indian Railways developed the vision document for e-tendering. “Now all the departments in West Bengal are using etendering to take care of their procurement needs,” he added. “Currently the Government of West Bengal is implementing e-tendering in municipalities and is planning to take it to Gram-Panchayat level in future,” he added. He also informed that the VAT registration is completely digitised in West Bengal and the officers can’t raid any dealer without the written approval of the Joint Commissioner level officer. Highlighting the achievement of the Government of West Bengal in IT, the minister said, “The IT industry in the state has seen 79% growth. The number of IT companies has grown from 500 to 900. The IT export from the state has grown to Rs 13686 crore.” He informed that major IT companies like TCS, Cognizant, Wipro and Microsoft are now expanding their operations in the state. Dwelling on the PSU sector, AmitMitra said that there are many important questions that the leaders of the sectorneed to ask. “Are the PSUs trying to be paperless? Are they using data analytics to underst and their future demand and customers? Do the engineers and accountants working in PSUs talk to each other in the age of WhatsApp and Facebook ? Are PSUs using technology for inventory management? Are they using SAP. Do PSUs have chief economic advisor? Are PSUs tracking the technology development on real time basis?” JANUARY, 2016

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LAUNCH OF PSU CASE STUDYBOOK

(L-R): Brig. B. D. Pandey, S.M. (Retd.), Managing Director, BBJ Construction Co.; Vimal Wakhalu, CMD, Telecommunications Consultants India; Anant Goenka, Wholetime Director, and Head- New Media, Express Group; Amit Mitra, Minister in Charge of Finance, Excise & Commerce and Industries, Public Enterprises, Industrial Reconstruction, Information Technology and Electronics, Government of West Bengal; Jaiveer Srivastava, CMD, The Fertilisers & Chemicals Travancore; Siddhartha Gupta, Head Strategic Industries (Public Services, Public Utility and Public Sector Undertakings), SAP India; Amit Sharma, Managing Director, J&K State Industrial Development Corporation

he PSU Case Study Book, “Strengthening India’s Growth”, was created by the editorial department of Express Computer for putting the spotlight on some of the most landmark cases of SAP ERP implementations in India’s PSU sector. The PSUs and government departments that have been covered in the book include iconic names like — IndianOil; The Department of Finance in Andhra Pradesh; Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd.; Bharat Electronics Ltd.; Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Company Ltd.; Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.; Maharashtra State Power Generation Co. Ltd.; Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation Ltd.; Bhavnagar Energy Co. Ltd. 54

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Candid Conversation

L to R: Anant Goenka and Amit Mitra

nant Goenka began the conversation by saying that the Goods and Service Tax (GST) has a special link with Information Technology, because any implementation of GST would require a massive transformation of the IT infrastructure that is currently owned by the government and many of the private companies. Amit Mitra agreed that transformation of IT infrastructure was necessary for GST implementation. He also clarified that in principle the Government of West Bengal was in support of the GST bill, but some steps have to be taken to ensure that there is EXPRESS COMPUTER

no loss of revenue to the states after the GST implementation. “The issue of putting a cap on the GST rates has to be considered in totality,” said Mitra. He added that if the GST rates are taken too high then that might lead to evasion and corruption. On the issue of the kind of barriers that the state faced while digitising the entire tax collection process, Mitra said that many challenges have crept up in other states, but fortunately West Bengal has been able to avoid most of these challenges. “The digitisation of the tax collection in West Bengal has been accomplished with minimum

challenges or complications,” he said. Goenka broached the subject of the Singur Tata Nano controversy. He asked if the controversy continued to haunt the West Bengal Government? In response, Mitra said that what we saw in Singur was a people’s movement. “We should not see Singur as some kind of anti-industry step by the state or the government,” he said. He added that the Tata group has made many new investments in the state during the last few years. “The Tata Group is also setting up their Centre of Excellence in West Bengal,” he said. JANUARY, 2016

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Power Panel: Renewing and Building New Capabilities in PSUs with Technology Innovations

(L-R): Brig. B. D. Pandey, S.M. (Retd.), Managing Director, The BBJ Construction Co.; Vimal Wakhalu, CMD, Telecommunications Consultants India; Anant Goenka, Wholetime Director, and Head-New Media, Express Group; Jaiveer Srivastava, CMD, The Fertilisers & Chemicals Travancore; Amit Sharma, Managing Director, J&K State Industrial Development Corporation

nant Goenka, the moderator for this power panel, began the session by asking the panelists if the PSUs are doing well in India. “Are the PSUs in a position to accept new technology?” he asked. Amit Sharma of J&K State Industrial Development Corporation said that there are lot of challenges that the PSU sector faces in using new technology. “Currently PSUs are lacking the systems that will allow them to make optimal use of available IT solutions,” he said. “There are lot of positive outcomes that the PSUs can achieve by using technology for business analysis, but they need to develop more expertise in this area.” Vimal Wakhlu of Telecommunications Consultants India pointed out that the PSUs were set-up with specific goals, but these goals got changed after 1991. “After 1991, only those PSUs could survive which were able to innovate and meet the challenge of the competitors in the 56

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market,” he said. He added that at times the delays in IT implementations or other critical decisions are due to the guidelines imposed by various agencies like CAG, CBI, CVC. “The delays in decision making lead to many missed opportunities, but the PSUs are now geared to meet the challenge head-on and fully embrace Information Technology.” He informed that TCIL is using an ERP platform and also providing ERP as a service to other organisations. Brig. B. D. Pandey of The BBJ Construction Co. Ltd. agreed with Vimal Wakhlu that only those PSUs which are in a position to innovate can survive the market competition. However, he disagreed with Wakhlu on the point that the slow decision making in PSUs was due to the actions of the vigilance agencies. He added that the government organisations are bound by L1 tender process. “We need to figure how we can get the best possible IT solutions when

we are following the L1 rule,” he added. Anant Goenka asked why were some of the PSUs in such bad shape that they had to be shut down? Jaiveer Srivastava of The Fertilisers & Chemicals Travancore stated that the major problem that many of the sick PSUs were facing was related to lack of capital infusion and innovations. He was also of the view that the shutting down of one PSU can often put pressure on another PSUs because most PSUs have extensive dealings with one another. He agreed that technology obsolescence is also reason behind the failure of some of the PSUs. On the subject of the kind of contributions that National Informatics Centre (NIC) is making on the PSU sector, the panelists were of the view that NIC itself needs to introspect and find out why the private companies are able to access much more powerful and economical IT systems. JANUARY, 2016

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Accelerating Business Transformation in the Application Economy Prashant Chaudhary, Senior Director, Government Sales, CA Technologies

P Prashant Chaudhary

rashant Chaudhary began his presentation by highlighting the growing importance of applications. He was of the view that app economy is the way forward. He said, “In the age of applications, no company can afford to have a downtime and ERP failure is not an option. Therefore companies need to be agile and follow the highest possible standards of security.” He emphasised that it is critical for the application to function smoothly. “A chaotic and complex application delivery mechanism can create a bad experience for the user. This defeats the entire purpose of technology, which is to help people to do

their work in an easy and smooth manner,” he said. He informed that solutions from CA Technologies has robust framework for delivering experience, scale and focus for all the customers. “For more than 35 years, we have been exclusively focused on software – and working with our customers to help them deliver high-quality applications and services to their customers,” he said. “Our DevOps is at the core of business success in the application economy,” he added. He also asserted that the leaders in the application economy are focused on DevOps, leveraging security as an enabler and running IT like a business.

Technology Presentation: Value Proposition and Solution Nitin Kumar Dang, Country General Manager, Micro Focus India Pvt. Ltd.

Nitin Kumar Dang EXPRESS COMPUTER

n his presentation, Nitin Dang pointed out that four decades of innovation has delivered incredible returns, but it has also led to massive rise in the levels of complexity. Cloud and mobility are further adding to the existing complexity of the IT platforms and architecture in enterprises. “The business environment is constantly changing due to new demands from customers. So the enterprises must take every precaution before deciding to change their platform”, he said. He informed that Micro Focus India is focused on bridging the gap between on-premise solutions and the solutions in the cloud. Such an effort can lead to less complex IT architecture for

the enterprises. “Micro Focus bridges the old and the new. It enables you to exploit the latest industry innovation and leverage prior investments,” he added. He asserted that Micro Focus is fully capable of enabling its customers to exploit technology advances in cloud, and mobility without incurring any significant cost or risk. “The fastest way to get results is to build on what you have. No matter what your latest project-whether cloud, mobile, or the Internet of Things-our solutions bridge the gap between existing and emerging technologies. We set you free to seize new opportunities with speed and agility,” he said. JANUARY, 2016

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Deploying IT for Taking PSUs to Growth Path M Thyagaraj, ex-Executive Director–CIO, ONGC

M M Thyagaraj

Thyagaraj began his presentation by accepting that the PSUs in India faced large number of constraints in selecting and deploying Information Technology solutions. He said, “Aligning IT with business is the biggest challenge for the PSUs. PSUs need to overcome the constraints of capacity, speed and the challenge of the unavailability of solid framework for IT governance.” He proposed a plan for enabling the PSUs to make effective use of technology. His plan included increasing the human resource capabilities – “make people IT ready.” He focussed on improving the IT

infrastructure and presented ideas for developing – “IT ready infrastructure”. He highlighted the need for ensuring that the business processes are IT ready, and spoke on – “IT ready businesses”. He also dwelled on the need for creating IT framework for efficient governance of PSUs – “IT governance.” He was of the view that lack of IT infrastructure should not be allowed to become a hurdle for the company’s smooth operation and businesses. “PSU should invest in educating the staff about the use of IT. An IT friendly environment needs to be created within the organisation, so that the use of technology becomes a norm,” he advised.

Power Discussion: CATechnologies

epresentatives from CA Technologies gave an overview of the work that the company is doing in the area of creating solid and robust platforms for addressing the unique challenges that often crop up during the software development lifecycle. He informed that new products in the CA DevOps portfolio drive business agility and competitive advantage through simplified and faster development and test, and through

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deeper network visibility. He asked the members of PSU community about how they were using applications in their organisation and what role they see apps playing. Answering the question, Amit Sharma, Managing Director, J&K State Industrial Development Corporation, said, “Applications matter a lot for the PSUs, as the real time delivery of the information and services to the end-user is the key.” He added that simplification of the application development, management and

operation is still a huge challenge for many PSUs. Rajiv Garg, Executive Director, Corporate Systems & Information Technology, Bharat Heavy Electricals, agreed that simplicity in the application is required but also emphasised that along with simple to use applications, the PSUs also need infrastructure support. Replying to the concern raised by the participants, representatives of CA Technologies said that to support digital transformation imperatives, organisations are increasingly exploring DevOps style approaches for the continuous delivery of high quality software. They said that CA Technologies offers flexible solutions for letting organisations develop applications swiftly, test automatically and release rapidly—from pre-production to release—reducing manual effort and manual errors. Plus, the solutions integrate seamlessly with many environments, so that the company can leverage existing investments and give the team a familiar experience. JANUARY, 2016

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Power Discussion: BSA | The Software Alliance

EXPRESS TECH SABHA PSU 2015 Power Discussion: BSA | The Software Alliance Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy by PSUs Latest Offerings from Exide for Uninterrupted Supply of Power Devising Defence Grade Cybersecurity Strategy Barracuda the new Paradigm. Simplify IT, Reclaim IT Panasonic Video Conferencing Solutions Keynote Address Power Panel: Digital Empowerment: How PSUs are Driving Efficiencies and Growth Using SMAC Opportunities in Information Technology in West Bengal Power Panel: Ensuring public sector information security in a borderless World Power Discussion: Barracuda Power Discussion: Exide Industries Limited EXPRESS COMPUTER

n this power discussion the emphasis was on the necessity of a healthy partnership being developed between the government and the private players for the growth of the software industry. “Technology is connecting us in amazing ways. It is helping to develop more efficient solutions for some of the world’s most complex problems. It is dramatically changing the way we manage our business,” said Yolynd Lobo, Director and Head, BSA. Lobo said that the Prime Minister of India is strongly focussing on initiatives like Digital India and Financial Inclusion, both of which entail the use of cuttingedge technology. “Technology can be the answer to large number of problems that

the country faces, but while digitising the systems, we have to keep in mind that on an average the organisations’ experience a malware event once every three minutes. There can be vulnerability in the systems of any organisation,” she said. Lobo briefed the guests about the importance of Software Asset Management (SAM). She informed that SAM helped by improving the awareness of the software assets in an organisation, which can be leveraged more effectively to increase productivity and efficiency. “It is important, not only to mange your own assets, but also to manage the supply. Malware generally comes from the use of counterfeit products and looks at the weakest point in the system,” she explained. JANUARY, 2016

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Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy by PSUs Yolynd Lobo, Director and Head, BSA | The Software Alliance, India

Yolynd Lobo

n her presentation, Yolynd Lobo spoke about the importance of data. She informed the delegates about the ways by which data is being harnessed for improving the city management. “Today we use data for predicting weather, improving agriculture, combating diseases and deriving information in many other areas for improving the quality of human life,” she said. “Data is being used in finding solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges.” She said, “The most conservative estimate of economists shows that data is expected to add more than $15 trillion to the global GDP by 2030. In India, data is playing a vital role in improving

agriculture; it is enabling farmers to make better decisions regarding what to grow, when to plant, how to track food freshness from farm to fork, and how to adapt to changing climates.” To further emphasise her point on the importance of data, Lobo gave the example of the cholera outbreak that occurred near Broad Street in the Soho district of London in 1854. More than 500 people died in the outbreak, and the physician John Snow made masterful use of data to prove that the cholera outbreak was due to contaminated water and not air. Yolynd Lobo asserted that the data that was once scarce is now plentiful, and data crunching, which used to take decades earlier, is now done in days.

Latest Offerings from Exide for Uninterrupted Supply of Power Kanad Sanyal, Senior General Manager-Industrial, Exide Industries Ltd.

Kanad Sanyal 60

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anyal began his presentation by giving a brief history of Exide since its inception in 1947. The company manufactures a wide range of storage batteries in the world in the 2.5 Ah to 20,400 Ah. Recently Exide forayed into manufacture and sale of home UPS/Inverters. Exide has seven battery manufacturing facilities located across the country – three in Maharashtra, two in West Bengal, one in Tamil Nadu and one in Haryana. The company also has two home UPS/Inverter manufacturing facilities in Uttarakhand. “Exide thrives through a culture of innovation. The company is now the

world’s leading producer of industrial batteries,” he said. He shared with the audience, the UPS battery market trends from the year 1990 - 2000 and said that the requirement in this period was generally of low backup batteries and the installations were mostly in metros and large cities. Sanyal then touched upon the trend from the year 2000 - 2007 when the requirement changed and the customers started seeking batteries with more backup for helping them tide over the frequent power cuts. While dwelling on the trend between 2007 and 2012, he said that in this period most of the installations happened in the rural hinterland. JANUARY, 2016

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Devising Defence Grade Cybersecurity Strategy Sanjeev Chauhan, Senior Sales Engineer, Raytheon | Websense

Sanjeev Chauhan

anjeev Chauhan began his presentation by stating that the human and technical aspects of the cyber threats have changed dramatically during the last few years. “The threats have become highly evasive, very targeted and are equipped with blended techniques,” he said. Presenting a picture of the world’s major data breaches, he mentioned the case where hackers had managed to infiltrate JP Morgan’s network and steal gigabytes of data, including checking and savings account information. He spoke about Stuxnet worm, which had infected the software of at least 14 industrial sites in Iran, including an uranium-enrichment plant. “Although Stuxnet relies on an unwitting victim for getting installed, it spreads on its own

through the computer network,” he informed. He asserted that Stuxnet enters a system via a USB stick and proceeds to infect all machines running Microsoft Windows. It shows that it is a reliable source, and is able to evade the automated detection-systems. “Today the Stuxnet code is readily available, and the system-specific training is also readily available,” he said. Chauhan informed that there has been a steady rise in cyber crimes in India. He stressed that there was need for strong compliance and cyber security policy in India. He briefed the guests about Websense security products for safeguarding web, email, data, cloud, and mobile. He also presented an overview of Raytheon security products.

Barracuda the new Paradigm. Simplify IT, Reclaim IT Murali Urs, Country Manager- India, Barracuda Networks (India) Pvt. Ltd.

M Murali Urs EXPRESS COMPUTER

urali Urs began his presentation by stating that the IT professionals are engaged in a tough job. They have multiple responsibilities, limited time, resources and budget. The IT vendor model, which is traditionally adopted by IT companies, creates its own set of problems by leading to multiple platforms or product offerings, lengthy sales cycle, complicated pricing, and a long and rather complicated process of implementation and upgrades. He stressed that businesses and

enterprises need to have a new model, which should simplify things for them. “We simplify through usability, through paradigm shift, through deployment of appliance, cloud, and virtual appliance, and through centralised management. We have single console to manage all the IT needs,” he added. He also said that the PSUs are often worried about the end of the life-cycle for a product, but with Barracuda that kind of problem cannot arise. “We never stop giving you support,” he said. He informed that NIC is one of Barracuda’s customers. JANUARY, 2016

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Panasonic Video Conferencing Solutions Kaushal Singh, Product Marketing Head, HDVC, Panasonic India

K Kaushal Singh

aushal Singh started his presentation by informing about the Panasonic Corporation, which is headquartered in Osaka, Japan, and has more than 250,000 employees. He presented an overview of the range of products in security, display, and IT & Communications space that are being offered by Panasonic. He emphasised mainly on the products that cater to the requirements of conference room, shared space, desk, entrance, server and monitor rooms. Kaushal gave an overview of Panasonic products like the “Toughbook and Toughpad”, which facilitate efficient

computing in hostile weather conditions. Pointing out the key features of some of the rugged mobile computing devices that have been developed by Panasonic, he also dwelled on the benefits of Panasonic’s HDVC,” he said. “The Panasonic HD Visual Communications System is a new visual communication tool that is clearly different from previous videoconference systems. High image quality, high sound quality, and a stable connection have been achieved both with intranets and the Internet, enabling easy, comfortable communication between remote locations,” he said.

Keynote Address Rajesh Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Government of India and CMD, National Insurance Company Ltd.

Rajesh Aggarwal 62

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ajesh Aggarwal began his keynote by presenting an overview of Governemnt of India’s initiative of JAM (Jan Dhan with Aadhaar and Mobile). He informed the guests that there is a huge transformation happening in the way by which money travels from one person to another. “The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has brought significant improvements in the way bank accounts are opened in the country. This scheme uses latest communications and IT systems to ensure that the banks are able to provide efficient services to the people at lowest possible cost,” he said. “We have added 20 crore accounts in the last one year. In PMJDY we see deposits of more than 27,000 crore rupees. The

important thing is that this is sticky deposit, which means that it is small amount for long term.” He spoke about the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, under which a payment of Rs 200,000 is made to the nominee in case of death. The annual premium for this scheme is just Rs. 330. After that he spoke about the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, which is available to people between 18 and 70 years of age with bank accounts. It has an annual premium of Rs. 12 only. In case of accidental death or full disability, the payment to the nominee is Rs. 200,000 and in case of partial disability the payment is of Rs. 100,000. “This scheme has been a runaway success, till date more than 7 crore policies have been issued till date,” he said. JANUARY, 2016

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Power Panel: Digital Empowerment: How PSUs are Driving Efficiencies and Growth Using SMAC

(L-R): Rajiv Garg, Executive Director, Corporate Systems & Information Technology, Bharat Heavy Electricals; B N Satapathy, Consultant, NITI Aayog; R. Radhakrishnan, General Manager - Information Systems (Functional), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation; Rajiv Chawla, Executive Director IS, Indian Oil Corporation; S C Garg, Addl. CEO, REC Power Distribution Company

he panel discussion began with the moderator, N Satapathy of NITI Aayog emphasising the important role that Social, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud (SMAC) can play for bringing efficiency and transparency in the day to day operations of the PSUs. He asked the panelists to present their views on how SMAC was having an impact on various PSUs? Rajiv Garg of Bharat Heavy Electricals said, “Mobility is the new reality. SMAC offers huge opportunities as well as challenges for PSUs. We are a business to business (B2B) company, but

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we use WhatsApp, data analytics, cloud and high standard of security solutions in our usual operation.” R. Radhakrishnan of HPCL said that his organisation is now almost paperless. “Today HPCL has an e-file clearance system. We have also implemented business intelligence system to analyse the data that we are having with us,” he said. Rajiv Chawla of Indian Oil agreed that SMAC has an important role to play in the PSU sector. He said, “At Indian Oil we are using mobile applications and other solutions to reach out to the dealers,

customers and other key stakeholders.” On the subject of analytics, he said, “Currently we are having about 15 terabytes of data, but we are yet to run any analytics on it. We are in touch with few companies and in one or two year, we will have full-fledged data analytics team.” S C Garg of REC Power Distribution Company said that his organisation has taken many initiatives for deploying IT to ensure transparency and accountability. “We are using e-tendering and reverse tendering process to ensure transparency and accountability,” he said. JANUARY, 2016

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Opportunities in Information Technologyin West Bengal Upender Jit Singh, Managing Director, West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation

Upender Jit Singh

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pender Jit Singh began his presentation by informing the audience that the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation (WEBEL) is working on the 9 pillars of Digital India programme. “In order to transform the entire ecosystem of public services through the use of Information Technology in the state, the WEBEL will roll-out NOFN up to the Gram Panchayat level,” he said. The Digital India programme is a flagship programme of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. On the issue of development of IT infrastructure in the

state, he said that the state datacentre is working well. “More than 100 application are being run in our datacentre for offering various e-services.” He spoke about the importance of mgovernance. “M-governance has a huge potential, especially in the healthcare sector,” he pointed out. He informed the audience that in West Bengal there is no dearth of opportunities for major IT companies as well as the start-ups. “The state has plans to develop 16 IT parks. 8 of our IT parks are ready to rent out in the plug and play mode. We are endeavouring to ensure that the IT companies can enjoy round the clock electricity supply,” he added.

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Power Panel: Ensuring public sector information security in a borderless World

(L-R): Dr. Naveen Gurusiddaiah, Head, Technical Services, Micro Focus India. Sanghamitra Pyne, Head-IT, West Bengal State Electricity Transmission Co. M Thyagaraj, ex-Executive Director CIO, ONGC; Vijay Devnath, General Manager / I & S, CISO, Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS); Nitin Chandurkar, Chief General Manager - IT, Maharashtra State Power Generation Co.

Thyagaraj, the moderator of this panel discussion, began by asking the panelists to provide an overview of the underlining issues and factors that are driving the shift towards borderless networks. Dr Naveen Gurusiddaiah of Micro Focus India expressed the view that borderless network is a major security concern. “Social Engineering can pose as a new kind of threat, one that is hard to detect and is capable of hitting the organisation from unexpected directions. Proper analysis is needed to improve security,” he said. Sanghamitra Pyne of West Bengal State Electricity Transmission said that the boundaries are crumbling and access EXPRESS COMPUTER

points of a system are no longer restricted to office floors. “We have to change the way we think about the security. The electricity sector is critically vulnerable to cyber security threats. All our dispatch centers are interconnected. We need to look for the robust security system for the grid as well,” she said. She was of the view that with SMAC leading to the creation of access points for many users in the organisations, it was important to further improve the security of the systems. Vijay Devnath of CRIS was of the view that going borderless is not in our control and the vulnerability has increased in the last 10 to15 years. “We try to empower the

customers of the Indian Railways. We practice reasonable security and try to limit our transactional interface with the customer to the extent that the information is not impacted with the security concerns,” he added. Nitin Chandurkar of Maharashtra State Power Generation stated that IT has never been the key concern for the PSUs, and therefore these organisations have not been able to develop systems that can lead to timely upgrades of hardware and software. He said that for improving security it was necessary to educate the workforce so that everyone understands the risks that are there in accessing data through mobile devices or from remote locations. JANUARY, 2016

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Power Discussion: Barracuda

epresentatives of Barracuda briefed the officials from PSUs about the growing vulnerability of IT systems in an age when we are having rapid evolution of mobility solutions, rapid cloud adoption and the

acceptance of virtualisation. They said that even though people understand network security, WAP security is yet to be fully understood. Murali Urs of Barracuda Networks said that Barracuda makes security very simple.

The guests were of the view that there was significant growth in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The representatives from Barracuda assured the guests that the solutions developed by their company are fully capable of stopping DDoS attacks. It was pointed out by some guests that many of the PSUs and government departments have IT infrastructure on premise, as well as in the cloud, and this leads to complex problems in their security. The representatives from Barracuda said that their solution was designed to leverage the legacy systems and the modern IT infrastructure in order to provide foolproof security. They also pointed out that the solutions from Barracuda have always been highly rated in the tests conducted by NSS Labs.

Power Discussion: Exide Industries Limited

anoj Kumar Hazarika, Head Marketing for Exide Industries Limited presented several insights into the focus that Exide has always had on providing best possible service to the customers. “We have got 2000 dealers across the country and 75 service centres. Our Turnaround time is only 8 hours. We

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ensure that customer gets the same level of service in all parts of the country.” With the new process for service, technicians are deputed to complain sites with batteries in their first visit, thus reducing the downtime. He informed that with the extensive range of products and focus on express service had bought in greater amount

of confidence on the customer’s mind and has helped the company to get into new segments of business. The particulars about the bigger product basket, selecting the right battery for the right application and quality of service provided by Exide Industries remained the focus of the discussion. JANUARY, 2016

REGD.NO.MCS/066/2015-17, PUBLISHED ON 28TH OF EVERY PERVIOUS MONTH & POSTED AT MUMBAI PATRIKA CHANNEL SORTING OFFICE, DUE DATE 29 & 30 OF EVERY PREVIOUS MONTH, REGD. WITH RNI UNDER NO. MAHENG/49926/90