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RISE OF THE BOTS T

AS BOTS BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT, EXPECT THEM TO BE PERVASIVE AND EMBEDDED IN EVERY BUSINESS PROCESS

echnology vendors have been experimenting with bots since many years. While earlier attempts to build intelligent contextually relevant bots have not been extremely successful, recent efforts show a significant improvement due to the rise of artificial intelligence and a sharp spike in messaging platforms. For instance, instead of calling a customer service agent in a bank or texting a pre-defined text to a preset number, a customer can simply ask, "How much balance do I have in my account?'. The goal is to make customers interact with bots the same way as they normally would converse with human beings. The gradual adoption of smart bots in the enterprise points to a major shift. For example, ICICI Bank, has deployed software bots that have helped in reducing the response time to customers by 60%. The bank has deployed bots in over 200 business process functions across the organization. The bots now perform over 10 lakh transactions on a daily basis, which enables ICICI Bank to handle ever growing volumes with existing resources even as its retail banking division grows at over 25% year on year. HDFC Bank, is working with Bangalore-based startup SenseForth, for helping it better understand customer queries using chatbots powered by AI. Similarly, Meru Cabs allows passengers to book cabs using conversational questions and answers through a Meru Messenger bot on Facebook Messenger. Singapore-headquartered DBS Bank has announced plans to launch a bot on Facebook Messenger, that will allow customers in India to make transfers and track spending. Lybrate, a firm which provides online consultation services, has launched a bot that allows people to seek consultation on health queries from doctors. As bots can be programmed to carry out specific tasks, they can also initiate action based on certain exceptions or defined thresholds. As bots have access to information about identity, they can be used to authenticate transactions such as shopping or workflow requests. Bots also do not need to be installed; they just need to be logged into from your default messaging app such as Facebook Messenger, Slack or Telegram. The future for bots looks increasingly promising as every major technology giant from Facebook to Microsoft has announced ambitious plans. For instance, over 34,000 developers have developed over 30,000 bots on the Facebook Messenger platform. Similarly, Microsoft has announced plans to integrate Cortana into Skype as a bot. This will allow the bot to identify context in chat messages. For example, if a person is exchanging messages with a co-worker about traveling for an event in another location, Cortana could block the calendar besides showing options for travel and accommodation. While most companies are using bots to primarily handle customer queries, in the future, bots could do far more complex tasks. As bots become more intelligent, expect them to be pervasive and embedded in every business process. srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

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OCTOBER, 2016

contents 18

HOWTHE ELECTION COMMISSION IS USING TECHNOLOGYTO DELIVER CREDIBLE ELECTIONS In an interview with EC's Mohd Ujaley, Om Prakash Rawat, Election Commissioner of India talks about innovative use of technology in the upcoming elections in state legislative assembly elections for Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Case study

cover story

JM BAXI EMBARKS ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION USING CLOUD AS THE FOUNDATION

As the group embarks on a digital transformation drive across the group, the cloud is the first step and foundation for enabling this transformation

THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF CLOUD: A CXO PERSPECTIVE CXOsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; take on CSPs and cloud

Cloud has come a long way from the time when it was distrusted and suspected as a gateway for all security threats.

8 4

CLOUD COMPUTING: THE CHANGING PARADIGM

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interviews

feature 26

CLOUD-BASED ERP GAINS TRACTION

More and more companies are turning to cloud-based financial management systems to replace their legacy ERP systems

opinion 28

MANAGING FRAUD RISKS IN ACLOUD COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

WHYTHE TIME IS RIGHTFOR INDIAN BANKS TO MOVE TO THE CLOUD

Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Maharashtra

TERESA

32 CARLSON 38

VP, Amazon Web Services

HOWSBI TRANSFORMED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE USING DIGITALMEDIUMS 34

V K GAUTAM

ENTERPRISE VERSUS PERSONALAPPLICATIONS

BASK IYER CIO, VMware

37 TUKARAM MUNDHE Municipal Commissioner, NMMC

DR ANOOP

event 46

MULTI-CLOUD STRATEGY, CONTAINER,NSXRULES VMWORLD 2016

40 KUMAR MITTAL 48

CMD, NBCC (India)

HOWSAPARIBAIS UNLOCKING THE VALUE OFADIGITALECONOMY

DR RAJIV

43 RAMASWAMI Executive VP and GM, Networking and Security BU, VMware

VIRTUALNETWORKING GOES MAINSTREAM AT VMWARE NVINNOVATE 2016

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VIJAY SETHI CIO, Hero MotoCorp

OCTOBER, 2016

Vol 27. No. 10. October, 2016 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Srikanth RP* Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Ankush Kumar, Rashi Varshney Mumbai Jasmine Desai, Abhishek Raval DESIGN National Design Editor Bivash Barua Asst. Art Director Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rekha Bisht Layout Vinayak Mestry, Rajesh Jadhav Photo Editor Sandeep Patil MARKETING Regional Heads Harit Mohanty - West and East Prabhas Jha - North Marketing Team Shankar Adaviyar Ranabir Das Ajanta Sengupta Amit Tiwari Mathen Mathew Navneet Negi Circulation Mohan Varadkar Scheduling Ashish Anchan PRODUCTION General Manager B R Tipnis Manager Bhadresh Valia

MUMBAI Shankar Adaviyar, Ranabir Das The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 2nd Floor, Express Tower, Nariman Point Mumbai- 400 021 Board line: 022- 67440000 Ext. 527 Mobile: +91 9323998881 Email Id: shankar.adaviyar@expressindia.com Ranabir Das Mobile No. +91 9820097606 Email: Ranabir.das@expressindia.com Branch Offices NEW DELHI Prabhas Jha, Navneet Negi The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India. Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270 Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email id: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com Navneet Negi Mobile No. +918800523285 Email: navneet.negi@expressindia.com CHENNAI Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 8th Floor, East Wing, Sreyas Chamiers Towers New No.37/26 ( Old No.23 & 24/26) Chamiers Road, Teynampet, Chennai - 600 018 Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com BANGALORE Amit Kumar Tiwari The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 502, 5th Floor, Devatha Plaza, Residency road, Bangalore- 560025 Mobile No. +91 8095502597 Email: amit.tiwari@expressindia.com HYDERABAD Amit Kumar Tiwari The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 6-3-885/7/B, Ground Floor, VV Mansion, Somaji Guda, Hyderabad – 500 082 Mobile No. +91 8095502597 Email: amit.tiwari@expressindia.com

KOLKATA Ajanta Sengupta The Indian Express (P) Ltd.. Business Publication Division, JL No. 29&30, NH-6, Mouza- Prasastha & Ankurhati, Vill & PO- Ankurhati, P.S.- Domjur (Nr. Ankurhati Check Bus Stop), Dist. Howrah- 711 409 Mobile: +91 9831182580 Email id: ajanta.sengupta@expressindia.com KOCHI Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd., Ground Floor, Sankoorikal Building, Kaloor – Kadavanthra Road, Kaloor, Kochi – 682 017 Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com COIMBATORE Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd. No. 205-B, 2nd Floor, Vivekanand Road, Opp. Rajarathinam Hospital, Ram Nagar, Coimbatore- 641 009, Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com AHMEDABAD Shankar Adaviyar The Indian Express (P) Ltd. 3rd Floor, Sambhav House, Near Judges Bunglows, Bodakdev, Ahmedabad - 380 015, Mobile: +91 9323998881 Email Id: shankar.adaviyar@expressindia.com BHOPAL Prabhas Jha The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India. Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270 Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email id: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com JAIPUR Prabhas Jha The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India. Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270, Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email id: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com

IMPORTANT Whilst care is taken prior to acceptance of advertising copy, it is not possible to verify its contents. The Indian Express (P) Ltd. cannot be held responsible for such contents, nor for any loss or damages incurred as a result of transactions with companies, associations or individuals advertising in its newspapers or publications. We therefore recommend that readers make necessary inquiries before sending any monies or entering into any agreements with advertisers or otherwise acting on an advertisement in any manner whatsoever.

Express Computer® Reg. No. REGD.NO.MCS/066/2015-17, RNI Regn. No. MAHENG/49926/90 Printed for the proprietors, The Indian Express (P) Ltd. by Ms. Vaidehi Thakar at Indigo Press, (India) Pvt. Ltd. Plot No. 1c/716, off Dadoji Konddeo Cross Road, Byculla (E), Mumbai 400027 and Published from Express Towers, 2nd Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021. (Editorial & Administrative Offices: Express Towers, 1st Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021) Editor : Srikanth RP (*Responsible for selection of News under the PRB Act.) Copyright © 2016 The Indian Express (P) Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner, electronic or otherwise, in whole or in part, without prior written permission is prohibited.

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COVER STORY

THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF CLOUD:

A CXO PERSPECTIVE In India, almost every sector is using the power of cloud computing to transform existing business processes, and industry value chains. Jasmine Desai spoke to some major enterprises, which are leveraging the cloud. These CXOs also share the key opportunities presented by the cloud, and the key areas where they feel that cloud service providers are not upto the mark 8

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RAJENDRA DESHPANDE CIO, INTELENET GLOBAL SERVICES

loud computing has revolutionized the utilization of computing resources through automatic provisioning and release, fostered greater collaboration among the stakeholders in the organization and improved the overall business performance. Delivering the highest levels of availability with the private cloud’s automated business continuity and virtualization-aware security and compliance was one of our main challenges. Other challenges included moving and scaling workloads as needed for using a common management, orchestration, security and compliance model. There was also need for solving IT problems faster with rapid detection and root-cause analysis through operational analytics. Network scalability and redundancy were also very important to us.

Robust savings We have achieved 1.2 crore savings per year on AMC (Annual Maintenance Contract) in terms of savings post implementation. It has helped us grab more customers due to IT readiness and service delivery. There has been 30% reduction in number issue calls and 80% improvement in server provision and up scaling. Our organization’s email platform has been migrated from an on premise email system to cloud based System Office 365. This new cloud based email platform provides new features and functions for the end user. We have also deployed our Central Login Authentication mechanism on the Azure cloud platform. Our IT Service Desk Management tool is also getting deployed on cloud technologies for seamless access and better management in term of uptime, availability and increase in capacity. The cloud is constantly evolving and will continue to evolve in the future too. This will also come to revolutionize the way BPO service providers will extend offerings and benefits that organizations accrue by outsourcing their business processes. Applications will gradually be made available over the network on demand; with the cloud operating like any other utility service, thereby eliminating the need to invest in IT and reduce costs significantly. The benefit can be seen particularly in organizations with legacy systems that demand high maintenance and upgrades. They can now move to a platform on the cloud and outsource their business processes. EXPRESS COMPUTER

We are looking at developing solutions and tools in house, which if combined with the cloud, allows organizations to scale up or down quickly, without impacting operational efficiency. Customers can update applications dynamically on the cloud by striking a balance between the business need of the day and the required infrastructure as well as service providers that can offer on demand scalability. We are also looking at leveraging the benefits of cloud computing to bring down processing time for data-intensive business processes as offering data processing workflow, documentation and image processing publishing enables reduced turnaround time. A careful examination of the BPO service provider and a transparent policy to build trust with the outsourced partner can go a long way in realizing the benefits of what is being termed as the next big thing in the BPO landscape. We are constantly looking at different ways on how cloud computing can be leveraged better to provide affordable business processes to small and medium sized businesses. With a view to provide affordable business process-intensive solutions to SMBs, we are looking at developing and providing solutions that can play a huge role in terms of enabling these SMBs to automate and integrate better. With the aim being flexible and scalable, we are looking to gradually gravitate towards becoming a cloud based BPO that offers a selection of “tried and true” applications and services that are flexible and scalable to meet the needs of SMBs. This flexibility makes for much faster on boarding of the new business, as well as quicker leveraging of the existing standardized knowledge and technology offered by the us. In recent years, businesses of all shapes and sizes have seen the potential advantages that cloud computing can offer and decided that they’d like in on it as well. Whereas years ago the question was usually, “What is cloud computing?”, today the question is more like, “What can cloud computing do for my business?” The answer to that is “a lot,” but the benefits might be a little further off than some organizations had in mind. Before taking advantage of cloud computing, businesses will first have to move there, and that in itself is fraught with obstacles and challenges.

Key challenges One of the biggest challenges is integrating legacy systems into the cloud. Systems and networks are used to a certain way of doing things, and any disruption to that could cause problems. For example, business applications we have developed are delivered in a specific way, but moving such items to the cloud represents a major change. We have solved this problem by only moving a portion of our operations and applications to the cloud, but still need to find ways to integrate majority of our systems with new cloud services to make the transition as smooth as possible. OCTOBER, 2016

COVER STORY

T G DHANDAPANI CIO, TVS MOTORS

t TVS Motors, after DC consolidation, our cloud computing initiative was taken in a private in house infrastructure. Virtualization of servers, DB, network were undertaken immediately after that. Earlier there were 12 racks which have now been reduced to five. There are 120 virtual machines in 10 base machines. Approximately it is 810 virtual machines per machine. Power reduction has been 22% post consolidation. It has eased the process of provisioning the facilities. We hardly take 25 hours of planned downtime per year and unplanned downtime is 0%. Presently, 10 group companies and all dealers leverage the private cloud infrastructure that provide applications, computing, storage, mobility, security services. SLAs are agreed with demanding customers on availability, performance, security and so on. Self service on provisioning the facility is on implementation. Services price catalogue is documented. Our Dealer Management System (DMS) is on the cloud with 3,500 dealers connected on it. Earlier it used to take 2-3 weeks to roll out the DMS, presently, it takes only about 1-2 days. Now for SLA, availability is measured in PPM and not in percentage and performance response time is committed in milliseconds. Cloud and mobility have brought agility in the organization. Agility is extremely vital in a time when customers can demand anything at anytime. Cloud has helped us achieve that.

JAGDISH BELWAL CIO, TATA MOTORS

n our kind of context to take everything on cloud may not be practical. The preference though would be always to go cloud first. We have some systems which are very low latency like manufacturing execution system where plant and machinery gets controlled where the data center is as close to the plant and machinery as far as possible. Cloud is always need based but the first question we ask is, "Why not cloud?" There has to be a very tangible reason like latency to say â&#x20AC;&#x153;That is why not cloudâ&#x20AC;?. There are physical limitations to every technology. We are utilizing cloud for non-core areas in terms of 10

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connecting with our customers and anything on edge. Our websites are on cloud and our customer focused Telematics solution is on the cloud. There are 30,000 trucks connected to Telematics, which is provided as a service to the customer. We manage the back-end and customer gets tracking, driver behavior and various other services through it The back-end for customer apps is on the cloud. Even the dealer apps are on the cloud. Production systems of Testing & Development one by one we are taking them on cloud. Initially, we were hesitant with cloud but decided to experiment with it. Our security team got a comprehensive assessment which reassured us to move onto the cloud. It is necessary for organizations to form their own point of view of cloud beyond what is marketed. Successful experiments on cloud developed our confidence to scale up on it. Besides AWS, we have Azure and Google in our environment. We experiment with different cloud providers for small projects. Agility, innovation and time to market are major factors to move onto the cloud for us. I still find that mindset is the challenge when it comes to its adoption.

ARVIND SIVARAMAKRISHNAN CIO, APOLLO HOSPITALS

e have been early adopters of cloud. We did start off with lot of skepticism in the form of security and privacy. We follow multiple cloud options in our IT setup. We have a private cloud for core clinical information within our entire organization. Our HCM is on Oracle HCM. Lot of patient facing services are on the public cloud as well. We also have a hybrid cloud which suits storage requirements as well as corresponding bandwidth constraints. Our public cloud is on Microsoft Azure. It can be troubling to manage multiple clouds. We have to be careful of various activities that constitute cloud and their various roles and responsibilities, the cost involved and the TCO. One of the major bottlenecks in managing the cloud environment is to ensure that everything is available in black and white and there is a genuine reduction in Capex to Opex and complete reduction in overall infrastructure cost. This is related to not just the reduction in costs but also the service uptime and the guarantee of service quality. These are measures that one has to tread through while we decide cloud partners. One has to careful as guidelines are very limited. In the future, it might be one cloud that CIOs can prefer because post negotiation with a provider, if one is comfortable with the service categories, then one tends to veer towards that. Also the credibility of the provider, the continuity of the service and the risk to business become important factors in trying to do that. I would assume that there are benefits around cost when one OCTOBER, 2016

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has one cloud provider. The stake of the provider to make the company successful is higher. However, it depends on the servicing ability and the demonstration of service and not just speaking of it. The talent with these cloud providers to give the service is sometimes not up to the mark. Aggregation is a factor of the service, the quality of service and reliability, the uptime guarantee and genuine cost in reduction. Certain solutions come with their respective clouds. For example, Oracle HCM comes only in the cloud model. As long as there is ownership around service and there is no round robin contract which can put the organization at risk, there is not much to worry. The major benefit we have incurred is in our patient facing solutions which is on Azure. It gives us immense scalability and reasonable speed to reach the consumer, who in this case is any consumer of the healthcare service, and not necessarily a patient. Bandwidth continues to be a serious concern when it comes to cloud services. Continuity of services, support and talent are very important. It is necessary to create an atmosphere of partnership model of business and not a dependency model. The more service providers try to make it proprietary in terms of proprietary knowledge or proprietary processes, it creates that many roadblocks in having a cloud-based discussion. Dependency model is a very protective way of doing business and does not help the agility of infrastructure or scalability when it comes to a growing business. Service providers are still not mature in that direction and a lot needs to be done. We have used cloud innovatively in patient engagement services. The patient scheduling, personalized health records, ability to provide virtually digitally enabled consultations is on the cloud. I would definitely want cloud to give us better service in terms of availability. Total cost of the cloud is still on the high side. Having an in-house set-up continues to be a valid and viable alternative. It is in an optimistic growth phase. We have 3 million personalized records on the cloud and able to do continual patient engagement beyond the hospitalization. We are able to stay in touch with the patient to ensure wholesome care which is not limited to our premises. The patients have comfort of having healthcare on their fingertips. Our â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Chronic Care and Disease Management Programâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is on the cloud. HIS and electronic medical records is on the private cloud. Because of this, we are able to extend to it our centre which provides remote health services. It is vital in places where infrastructure is a serious challenge. We provide direct primary and secondary care and ensure that the patient is well stabilized before moving them in the event of tertiary care.

KETAN DOSHI CTO, PEOPLE GROUP

ost and agility (in terms of innovating quickly and make changes quickly) were major driving factors for us to move to the cloud. We also wanted more flexibility in terms of infrastructure. We wanted to be able to auto-scale based on variable loads. We have very definite patterns of load through the day. EXPRESS COMPUTER

We were looking to create a short URL capability, wherein we send out SMS to users and wanted to give them a link to come back to our application. We built it ourselves using serverless architecture on AWS. We also realized 55% cost savings by moving some of our databases to Amazon Aurora. AWS allowed the customer to exploit the potential of serverless architectures (Lambda + DynamoDB) that has delivered 80% plus cost savings. The Redshift data warehouse solution analyses 67 billion records to derive key business trends for the company. They also have many interdependent applications built over the last 15 years having unique high IOPS requirements.

DAYKIN CREADO CIO, ITZCASH

tzcash is a very large player in domestic money transfer business. We have 75,000 outlets across the country. People can transfer the money using an IMPS backbone. During the festive season, the amount of money being transferred and customers leveraging the service goes through a spike. It can go upto almost double the normal number of transactions which requires an additional amount of increased capacity. We have seen issues wherein we have not only had to scale up front-end applications but also middle tiers which talk to the system like IMPS. We have been able to leverage our internal infrastructure to do that. We have our own internal private cloud which of course began with virtualization. Going forward we want to move some of our load into public cloud on Netmagic or AWS etc. We would start our journey with public cloud with some of the new projects we are working on. Lot of our existing applications are tightly coupled to one another and to database and infrastructure like storage. There is lot of cyrptographic equipment that is already installed in our data center. However, for our new applications and some of the self-contained applications do not talk to other enterprise applications onto public cloud. Meeting the business requirements in terms of capacity and very rapidly create instances and scale up or scale down as the business demands has been the best feature. Cloud, when used correctly, allows organizations to launch new businesses very rapidly and scale them up without long cycles of infrastructure procurement, provisioning and deployment. It is extremely critical when you do not know how a new business or idea will pick up and at that point of time, one does not wish to be under or over capacitized. The real beauty of the cloud is that it allows us to experiment, scale up and down and still keep the CFO happy. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

COVER STORY

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Cloud has come a long way from the time when it was distrusted and suspected as a gateway for all security threats. Presently, cloud is being hailed as a foundation for innovation and rightly so BY JASMINE DESAI

ore than US$ 1 trillion in IT spending will be directly or indirectly affected by the shift to cloud during the next five years, according to Gartner. This will make cloud computing one of the most disruptive forces of IT spending since the early days of the digital age.

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IT spending is steadily shifting from traditional IT offerings to cloud services. Ed Anderson, Research VP at Gartner, sums up this disruption perfectly when he says, "The market for cloud services has grown to such an extent that it is now a notable percentage of total IT spending, helping to create a new generation of startups and 'born in the cloud' providers."

This is just the beginning, as various possibilities of cloud computing are still being explored. Saju Sankaran Kutty. Associate Vice President â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Cloud Infrastructure and Security at Infosys, states, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some of our clients have leveraged cloud to modernize their legacy applications, increase capabilities and integrate their entire customer-vendor

OCTOBER, 2016

COVER STORY

In so manyways, we have evolved to use our cloud more smartlymore than anything else Murari Sridharan Chief Technology officer, Bankbazaar.com

ecosystem.” He points out that with the ability to scale and operate on the cloud, some clients have provided traditional inhouse applications to their customers and vendors. “We have also seen clients in the education sector leverage cloud to standardize reporting across schools,” adds Kutty. Organizations are just limited by their thinking and need to be open to scenarios that cloud enables. Srinivasan CR, Global Head, Data Centre Services and CDN Business, Tata Communications, avers, “Now the cloud has reached a point where due to wide adoption, you can ask for a scenario and 99.9% of the times that scenario maybe possible on cloud.” One unique scenario increasingly gaining popularity within cloud computing has been that of a hybrid cloud infrastructure, in which workloads have to move back and forth between the private and public clouds in an efficient way. Sajan Paul, Director – Systems Engineering, Juniper Networks, India & SAARC says, "A key consideration here would be the adoption and execution of a fine- grained security framework, which is agile in nature while still following the workload in an orchestrated manner."

Emergence of exclusive scenarios

Customers have deployed high performance computing databases on dedicated setups, while putting the web- based app on the multi-tenant public cloud Nitin Mishra Senior Vice President - Products & Services,Netmagic Solutions 14

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Almost every company is using the cloud, but not for everything, finds a new IBM study. 78% of respondents mentioned that their cloud initiatives are coordinated or fully integrated, compared to just 34% in 2012. And, among high performing organizations, that number climbs to 83%. At the same time, nearly half of workloads (45%) are expected to remain on-premise with dedicated servers. That said, the cloud is gradually becoming a platform for trying out new use-cases. After the initial pilots, organizations are experimenting with more options. A case in point is PayPal. Kumar Rethi, Director – Software Development, GPF, PayPal says, "At PayPal, we integrated cloud computing into our systems over five years ago. We started with a home grown cloud solution after which we moved to an open source IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) solution.” Moving to cloud brought PayPal

improved agility, which in turn has improved its Time To Market (TTM). The earlier paradigm necessitated an operations oriented approach with a number of tickets that needed to be filed well in advance to plan provisioning activities, hence the process would take months. This on-boarding and provisioning has now been reduced to a mere couple of days. Since the cloud approach relies on a self-service model, developers can now provision computes in minutes – avoiding all those tickets and providing a frictionless infrastructure provisioning experience. Cloud enables developers at PayPal to focus on what they do the best, which is coding without having to worry about infrastructure. They can create test infrastructure on demand or scale-up/scale- down the size of the cluster to handle traffic variations. Rethi gives his opinion saying, "Cloud computing opens up lots of creativity. We run Apache Mesos clusters on top of the cloud, which further optimizes resource utilization and moves compute intensive workloads around seamlessly." He says that with cluster management solution like Mesos, developers do not have to worry about underlying VM availability and can move workloads around when a VM is unhealthy. PayPal's build system runs on VM and this has considerably reduced the number of VMs required to run all their builds. They also have interesting use cases where the organization spins up entire test infrastructure by cloning the data volume and attaching this to a VM. There is a shift from legacy IT services to cloud-based services. “Cloud services are growing due to organizations pursuing a digital business strategy,” remarks Sid Nag, Research Director at Gartner. The public cloud services market in India is projected to grow 30.4% in 2016 to total US$ 1.26 billion, according to Gartner, The highest growth will come from cloud system infrastructure services, which is projected to grow 32.5% in 2016, with platform as a service (PaaS) projected to grow 31.7%. Another example is nearbuy (Groupon India Private Limited) which is a hyperlocal online platform that enables OCTOBER, 2016

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Akeyconsideration in a hybrid cloud infrastructure is the execution of a fine- grained securityframework Sajan Paul Director â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Systems Engineering-India & SAARC,Juniper Networks

customers and local merchants to engage with each other. The company migrated its entire production workload to Amazon EC2 Container Service that supports Docker containers, and was able to go from 350 instances to around 120 instances in just four weeks. Nearbuy also reduced its AWS spend by 50%. Another major trend is the deployment of hybrid cloud set-ups. Murari Sridharan, Chief Technology officer, Bankbazaar.com talking about his experience with hybrid cloud says, "BankBazaar.com itself has been built on the cloud. A solid hybrid client+cloud story allows us several design choices to deliver a fantastic experience to customers." He elaborates that given a problem, the cloud gives the luxury of choosing how to solve it. A secure, simplified, device-agnostic experience akin to shopping has always been the fundamental principal driving EXPRESS COMPUTER

BankBazaar.com. This was something that the organization believed only a hybrid cloud could deliver. As the organization grew, its cloud capabilities have grown to support the rising demands. "In so many ways, we have evolved to use our cloud more smartly more than anything else," affirms Sridharan. What Bankbazaar.com has been essentially perfecting over the years is a strong solution control between the cloud and the client that enables them to deliver the right solutions smartly. Another trend emerging is that of putting mission-critical applications cloud, for instance, SAP HANA deployments on hybrid cloud. Nitin Mishra, Senior Vice President - Products & Services, Netmagic Solutions (an NTT Communications company) sharing his view on hybrid cloud set-up mentions, "We have customers who have deployed

Cloud has reached a point where you can askfor a scenario and 99.9% of the times that scenario maybe possible on cloud Srinivasan CR Global Head,Data Centre Services and CDN Business,Tata Communications OCTOBER, 2016

COVER STORY

high performance computing databases on dedicated setups, while putting the web- based app on the multi-tenant public cloud." Speaking about a customer, Malav Kapadia, Global Director; Head of Indian Outsourcing Partners, BMC says that several customers have achieved success with an application-centric cloud approach. BNY Mellon increased innovation through the self-service model. Dr Swamy Kocherlakota, Managing Director and Head of Infrastructure Architecture and Engineering, BYN Mellon sharing his side of the experience says, “The ability to try a new idea and fail fast has increased. If it works, we proceed.” The company increased its dynamic virtualization optimization from 20 VMs per server to 60 per server. Through an application-centric cloud, BNY Mellon also achieved consistent IT service management and tight change control across board. Kutty from Infosys gives an example of a customer's innovative usage of cloud. A multinational electronics company wanted to position itself as a serviceoriented company that provides end-toend solutions. The increasing number of assets and data centers was proving costly to maintain and these were not aligned with the company’s vision. Infosys helped them migrate all their disparate data centers onto a private cloud and unified these in a manner that now they require only two data centers. “Post migration, we stabilized their operations and leveraged private cloud capabilities to help the client launch a new line of business that provides hosting services to their customers,” mentions Kutty. Besides helping the client develop new service lines and reduce operational cost, Infosys enabled the organization to reduce energy consumption by 87.5%. There are other very interesting cases of cloud beyond its client -base. For instance, the London Underground is a leading example of leveraging the cloud to improve performance. The UK Government is combining Microsoft Azure with Internet-of-Things (IoT) to modernize the monitoring of various 16

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systems of the London Underground network. This includes monitoring processes, securing and integrating disconnected systems and tracking equipment issues in real-time. The aim of the project is to provide faster maintenance and better service at a lower cost. "With such innovation, we can re-imagine endless possibilities of using the cloud along with big data, IoT, mobility, etc,” explains Kutty.

Combating challenges in the cloud Cloud computing comes with its own hidden costs like any other technology. Be it private, public, or hybrid cloud, there are associated costs that are not obvious at the first look. The first has to do with the architecture. Srinivasan at Tata Communications says, "The architecture has to be planned right and applications have to be designed specifically for the cloud. Every decision from server specs, to rack space to collocation space has

cost implications, especially for a private cloud." He stresses that if one does not get these factors right, the ongoing operational costs can be significantly high and the unit economics will not work out. If you are in a public cloud, then applications need to be written to be scalable and should be able to take advantage of the elasticity that a cloud solution provides. Again, everything boils down to the right architecture. Another hidden cost especially in a public cloud is the lack of having processes in place to make sure resources are used optimally. Additionally, most organizations these days juggle with different kinds of cloud infrastructure which can come in the way of giving seamless support. Kutty advises, "To ensure a seamless experience, CIOs must focus on enabling integration and seamless flow of data across the hybrid cloud environment." OCTOBER, 2016

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Several customers have achieved success with an application-centric cloud approach Malav Kapadia Director and Head of Indian Global Outsourcing Partners,BMC Software

Unfortunately, most enterprises undermine the importance of a concrete plan for cloud integration. Migration from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud is not a minor task. Aravindan Anandan, Consulting Systems Engineer, APAC, Barracuda Networks (India) says, "We are seeing lots of advancements in the cloud services market. But as data usage continues to grow exponentially, IT organizations find it increasingly hard to support the modern workforce without deploying cloud technologies." Organizations can reduce hidden costs caused due to issues like recovery and backup charges, compliance and storage by focusing policies on information and people. Sudhir Narang, Managing Director, BT India acknowledges that integration and compliance between software and vendors has become more intricate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;However, the right managed cloud EXPRESS COMPUTER

provider enables the CIO to unify a contrasting cloud IT environment, reduce operational costs and gain the comprehensive business insight needed to fulfill the role,â&#x20AC;? he adds. It does become kind of a hassle if you have cloud services of different companies for each of your enterprise needs. Rajendran Dandapani, Cloud Evangelist, Zoho Corp suggests, "For a truly seamless experience, think of going for a suite of products rather than individual ones from different providers." This way, users are in a familiar environment and they do not have to go through the process of getting to know a whole new application. It is more than clear that cloud is and will be an underlying layer for innovation among industries and governments. It is high time that organizations stretch their imagination to leverage it.

Cloud services are growing due to organizations pursuing a digital business strategy Sid Nag

jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

Research Director,Gartner OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW O P RAWAT ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

HOW THE ELECTION COMMISSION IS USING TECHNOLOGY TO DELIVER CREDIBLE ELECTIONS Encouraged by the role of technology in the successful conduct of elections in Bihar and the high turnout in recently conducted West Bengal and Kerala elections, the Election Commission of India is banking high on technology and has already initiated the process of monitoring the preparation of upcoming state legislative assembly elections for Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. In an interview with EC's Mohd Ujaley, Om Prakash Rawat, Election Commissioner of India talks about innovative use of technology in the upcoming elections. Edited Excerpts:

As a principal secretary Tribal Welfare, Madhya Pradesh, you used PDAs to collect land data in order to settled the title deed for tribal people. Can you tell us more about that experience of using technology? This was the classical case of how technology could be used to improve the life of people. We used PDA devices to survey the land of tribal people who were living in the forest and for whom the rights were to be settled. Had we opted for a chain or a classical method of surveying their lands, it would have taken years and years and even then the work would not have been completed. With PDAs, the easiest thing was that you just walk along the perimeter of the 18

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land and the longitude and the latitude gets recorded automatically. When you finish the full route, you get the area map and other relevant details on the screen itself. It means, we could survey 500-600 fields in a day. That is why, we were able to settle the claims within a short period of two years. This is the beauty of that project that today you keep on reading media reports about land issues related to tribal people in different parts of the country but in Madhya Pradesh everything was settled with the help of technology and left-wing extremism evaporated. There has not been any incident between 2008 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2015, because when tribal rights are settled honestly and with compassion, there is no

reason for extremism to exist. In fact, my team got the Prime Minister Award for Excellence in 2011 for this initiative. Recently, legislative assembly elections were held in Bihar. How did technology help? When I joined, the first election was Bihar, which was a great challenge and we fought that through technology driven communication. If you communicate through a classical medium like telephone, possibility of delay is high and there is always a challenge in transmitting data and photo. But fortunately, today technology has advanced to such an extent that we created a Whatsapp OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW O P RAWAT ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA

group during the Bihar election. With the help of that group, everything – photos and relevant data were instantly sent to all the stakeholders. Any report coming on TV in Delhi could easily be verified with the help of officers at ground level and subsequently, we were able to reach to media houses with the factual position and hence, public confidence in election machinery continued unabated. That is why, this time, the Bihar elections were incident free. Not a single incident of violence was reported. In the case of the Bihar elections, the state election body used three technology platforms – Samadhan for public grievance redressal, Suvidha for ensuring that all candidates and political parties have applied for permission to hold a public meeting and Sugam for vehicle management. Earlier, parties used to acquire vehicles like buses, trucks, jeeps from people without paying them. The vehicle owners used to struggle over a month to get payments and it was a total harassment for them. Sugam ensured that as vehicle is acquired some percentage of money is paid immediately to the owner, the next instalment is paid after few days and within fifteen days of a completion of election process and release of a vehicle, the whole payment is done. So what I found in Bihar that people were queuing up, whereas earlier they would not send their vehicles out in the fear that they would get harassed. And, this happened because of technology intervention. In 2017, seven legislative assembly elections will be held. How does the Election Commission plan to use technology in these elections? All the software that has been developed through various elections would be used in these upcoming elections. We have already initiated the process of monitoring the preparation everywhere. All those innovations which were available during Bihar, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu elections would be used. I am also sure that our officers will have innovative use of technology depending on the local circumstances. 20

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e-voting could be helpful for people who migrate from one place to another and NRIs who are currently not able to participate in the electoral process in a large number There have been EVM rigging complaints. How is the Election Commission addressing this challenge? Our mainstream voting system – electronic voting machine (EVM) and voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) are unique in the world. In Australia, elections took place on July 2, 2016 and the final result was announced on August 4, 2016 – it took a month. In our case, the number of voters is much more than Europe and America, still we can count the votes in just about ten hours and declare results. Even if somebody has doubts on EVM, VVPAT can count slips. VVPATs are attached to the EVM and they record voting slips against all the symbols. So, if one feels that the EVM has been manipulated or something has been done, just take that box out, count those slips and match the numbers. With the help of technology at different levels, we have established people's faith and it is helping us in delivering free and fair elections with credibility. Last time, when I attended the Forum of Election Management Bodies of South Asia (FEMBoSA) in Sri Lanka, even there countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh were talking about our EVM and quite a few countries have already bought EVMs from us. Is there any attempt being made to use data analytics tools to understand the different aspects of elections in India? Actually, we are not analysing data

from this point of view, because for us who wins is not material. We are referees and we do not play any partisan role, so we have to be absolutely neutral. That kind of analysis is of no use to us. It is done by other research organisations. What we are doing is: presenting the election data and compiling the data in public domain in a form which is user friendly, and can be used by researchers and other election management bodies. We have now started using social media platforms so that young people can connect with the Election Commission. In addition, we have started using all kinds of communication technologies for systematic voter education and improving electoral participation. These initiatives are having a positive impact on elections. Participation in elections are gradually going up. For example, in West Bengal legislative election, voting percentage was about 94% and in Kerala, it was almost 90%. There has been discussion about the e-vote system in India.What is your perspective? We are seriously thinking about this. There are a group of ministers under the chairmanship of Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, who is looking at this aspect. E-voting could be helpful because people who migrate from one place to other and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) are not able to participate in the electoral process in a large number. For ensuring that these people participate in elections, there has been a thought about electronic voting or electronic postal voting. So, once that is crystallized and the group of ministers give their recommendations, e-voting could become a reality. What are some of the major reforms that you would like to see in our election process? The Electoral Integrity Project of Harvard University and Sydney University rate us as moderate because they feel that we are not able to meet the international standard on two fronts – campaign finance and media OCTOBER, 2016

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management. If we could manage these two aspects, our level would be the highest, because we are far ahead in terms of use of technology and managing big elections as compared to any other country. Therefore, I would like to see these two things improving. For media management, things are being put in place. Like for paid news, we have guidelines. In Tamil Nadu elections, we got to know that some of the candidates and parties owned the media houses or TV channels. We intervened wherever there was unevenness in media exposure, so that equitable access to media is maintained and paid news cases are brought to an end. EXPRESS COMPUTER

For campaign finance, we held an international consultation last December in which we invited even political parties. We got many suggestions in this conference. Quite a few political parties were in favour that public finance should be taken up. One suggestion was to establish a trust where all kinds of political donations should be funneled and through that trust the election expenditure should be reimbursed to the candidates and political parties. These suggestions are being analysed and we will see after further consultations. We are making efforts to improve in these two areas and other necessary electoral reforms.

In the recently held Rajya Sabha elections, there were some media reports about the use of money to buy votes. In such situations, when you do not have concrete evidence, how do you act? Without concrete evidence, we can't really do much because we act on the evidence. So whenever there is an evidence, we will immediately take appropriate action. For example, there were complaints in Haryana from some parties that some mischievous activities have been done that caused some ballots being invalidated. The Election Commission has ordered an inquiry by the chief electoral officer. mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW

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V K GAUTAM PRINCIPAL SECRETARY, IT, GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA

‘MAHARASHTRA TO LAY FIBRE OPTIC CABLE ATOP ELECTRICITY POLES’ The state has taken up GIS based geo tagging survey of the electricity poles of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company to plan the route for laying optic fibre cable for the same. This will optimise the cost and time of the project. V K Gautam, Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Maharashtra speaks to EC’s Abhishek Raval For the smart villages,how can ITbe the building block? The IT Department is at the forefront of taking up ICT & IoT related interventions in the smart cities of Maharashtra. Directorate of Information Technology (DIT) is steering the prestigious Nagpur safe and smart city project. While doing so, it is conscious of the fact that IT has to be leveraged for the benefit of close to 28000 Gram Panchayats in the rural areas of the state. In Nagpur district, the CM has declared 5 gram panchayats- Khasala, Tarodi (Bk), Dabha, Khandala and Vihirgaon as "smart villages" on May 1 2016. These villages have high speed Internet connectivity provided to them under the Bharat Net project. This high speed Internet connectivity is being used as a backbone to deliver services like e-education, telemedicine etc., which will improve the quality of services being delivered in the rural areas. e-economy can be an important driver of the rural economy. On August 15, 2016 we plan a massive upscaling from the initial 5 smart villages to transform 500 Gram Panchayats of Nagpur into smart villages. Under the Bharat Net program, all Gram Panchayats of the state will be provided with high speed Internet connectivity upto 100 Mbps by December 2018. The state has taken up GIS based geo tagging survey of the electricity poles of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company to plan the route for laying optic fibre cable for the same. This will optimise the cost and time of the project while retaining the mesh ring architecture for the sustainability and 22

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The CM witnessed the telemedicine initiative live. During the telemedicine session conducted in Khasala sub centre of Nagpur district on May 1, 2016, a young 4 year old girl was diagnosed with a hole in the heart condition and was immediately referred for specialised intervention of JJ Hospital. We intend to expand this initiative to all smart villages in the state.

enhancement of monetisation potential of the backbone. Also, with near universal Aadhaar coverage of the adult population in the state, IT Department intends to use Aadhaar enabled services and Direct Benefit Transfer for smarter service delivery and to eliminate leakages. The state has identified 150 such schemes which would be brought within Aadhaar based Direct benefit Transfer (DBT) fold in phases during the year. Telemedicine initiatives The IT Department has partnered with the Health Department and JJ Hospital in Mumbai to provide a telemedicine facility in Khasala sub centre of Nagpur district. This initiative was launched by the CM on May 1, 2016. The Health Department had carried out an outreach camp in the village and identified patients who needed expert tertiary care. These patients present in the health sub centre in the village interacted with expert doctors (gynaecology, oncology) in JJ Hospital situated nearly 900 km away, using the high speed connectivity infrastructure available in the village.

What is the role of ITin magil tyala shet tal (Farm pond on demand) ? Maharashtra launched a major campaign of construction of 50,000 Farm -ponds in the State called “Magel Tyala Shet tale” (Farm-pond on demand) to promote water conservation. This was taken up in mission mode across the state in a time bound manner. The entire process of selection of beneficiaries (all of whom were farmers in the rural areas of the state) which was to be done on a "first come first served" principle posed a real challenge. This was addressed in a record time of less than 10 days by development of an easy to use software application with a payment gateway which was secure and robust. The application was also configured to handle the burst loads which were likely to be encountered in a first come first served model. The application was provided online as well as through the network of more than 5000 Common Service Centres across the state which farmers could access. The software successfully received and processed around 1.5 lakh applications without any hitch. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

CASE STUDY

JM BAXI

JM BAXI EMBARKS ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION USING CLOUD AS THE FOUNDATION As the group embarks on a digital transformation drive across the group, the cloud is the first step and foundation for enabling this transformation BY JASMINE DESAI

stablished in 1916, JM Baxi & Co, is a shipping services company with 31 locations across the country. The organization has a strong presence in most of its business lines and leadership in several of the shipping support services. As the company grew, each individual business thought of moving onto a website. Earlier, they had websites created and spread across different vendors. There was no approach to look at the right platform for those websites. Despite having large number of partners for hosting, many of them were on a shared hosted platform. From a security point of view, when it came to customer data there were concerns around security. Prasad Patil, CTO, JM Baxi says, “Firstly, we decided to consolidate all of them onto a single platform on the cloud and have a dedicated slice for us, where we will have the control of the security aspects of that particular installation with the firewall routes, etc. From a discreet, spread-out environment which was there we moved onto consolidation on ESDS cloud.” 24

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Cloud not just for cost savings The move to ESDS’ literal pay-as-you-go model was a major boost in selecting it. Most of the organization’s websites are B2B or B2E, which don’t touch customer base like a retail company would do. The amount of hits on the website is quite less. While the install would take a certain amount of compute, the daily utilization is quite less. The pay as you consume model actually helps JM Baxi to optimize cost. Talking about other benefits Patil mentions, “Having them on a single platform I can monitor them centrally for the entire group. The managing cost and the effort going into each group looking into it individually has come down because of it.” Going further, there will be a resource looking at development of these websites. Traditionally, every development would have an external partner with a certain amount of money. Now, this resource will do development centrally as a service for the group. Since there is a dedicated slice on the cloud, the time to delivery for the website has become very quick. Earlier, every website of individual group would be done with service provider of his choice and

liking. Now with the slice already there, it take a day or two for the website to be created. One of the aspects of choosing the cloud partner was the simplicity with which the team could manage it. There was no training required, and the only feature taught was how to create hosting and manage the resources. There was no additional cost on scaling the team. This has also empowered the team by learning a new set of skills. Absence of a solution or platform was one of the reasons for various companies to look for options that they did. The lacunae was that there was no central platform to avail of. “We have fixed that so they can focus on core business and not be shadow IT. There was no change in terms of changing business processes. Once we consolidate from a platform perspective, the standardization will come in,” explains Patil. Cloud is not for cloud’s sake at JM Baxi. Says Patil, “As we are embarking on digital transformation drive across the group, cloud is the first step and foundation for it.” The organization also has a central platform for it i.e. PHP/MySQL. Also, the resource for OCTOBER, 2016

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PHP/MySQL are very easily available. The organization is also looking at integrating WordPress features due to ready-made templates and quick integration with social media. The main priority is to ensure that the websites created should be responsive in nature. Patil emphasizes, “By doing this consolidation we are giving out a message to our businesses which says that we have this for you to drive your web initiatives. They have now the ability to think only of business and take up new initiatives as they don’t have to worry about the platform part.” Initially, the organization has targeted eight websites. There are smaller group companies which also have their websites which we will be brought on this platform. Laying down the importance of web presence Patil says, “The scale is not of a retailer, but it is very important for us because whoever is visiting the website is giving us business, which is huge amount. There could only be ten customers but they do huge transactions.” For websites ESDS will be their primary cloud partner. The organization is also working with Amazon and Netmagic for other EXPRESS COMPUTER

Cloud should not primarily be for cost savings.It should be for business outcomes Prasad Patil CTO,JM Baxi Group

initiatives like DR or DC in the cloud. Cost saving is often touted as a primary for cloud adoption. Patil disagrees with this and says, “Cloud should not primarily be for cost savings. It should be for business outcomes. For example, speed for access, user experience, security of transaction were our main motivators to go on cloud.” Giving an example within the organization he says, “One of our offices in Pune where local connectivity is an issue, primary application on cloud is a better option. Customers have frequent disruptions. On cloud they have a very good experience. Over a period of time people have in-house developed applications. Ability of a worker of having tools to do testing of the code , capabilities, security for a couple of sets of applications onpremise will be very less as compared to putting on the cloud and using it as a service. He says that sometimes cost of cloud could be the same as in an in-house set-up, but manageability, efficiency, customer experience are very important which cloud delivers. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

FEATURE

ERP ON CLOUD

CLOUD-BASED ERP GAINS TRACTION More and more companies are turning to cloud-based financial management systems to replace their legacy ERP systems BY ANKUSH KUMAR

ith an aim of bringing efficiency and boosting flexibility, a majority of enterprises have moved their applications or infrastructure to the cloud. According to Gartner, by 2018, at least 30 percent of service-centric companies will move the majority of their ERP applications to the cloud. The research firm also says that by the next year, 70 percent of organizations adopting hybrid ERP will fail to improve costbenefit outcomes unless their cloud applications provide differentiating functionality. This is an indication of how more and more companies are turning to cloud-based financial management systems to replace legacy ERP systems says Ajay Kumar, Director Sales Consulting - ERP at Oracle India. “ERP on the cloud helps organizations saving the money on IT maintenance and hardware. Employees can also use their time to work on technology driven innovations.” Current adoption of ERP solutions are basically of certain modules like HCM, HRMS, procurement solutions, sales and distribution etc. Most of the

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critical and core functionalities are still on-premise. However as time progresses and as business, internal IT organizations, customers, service providers, vendors mature, we will see increased adoption.

On-premise or cloud-based ERP software?

With innovations in the enterprise application space, cloud computing is no longer a hype, but, is being considered as a valuable transformation. While considering an enterprise application, there are a couple of critical factors to bear in mind such as cost, security, customization, implementation, etc says Shyamala Jayaraman, Senior Vice President – ERP Solution, Ramco Systems. “Most organizations have different approaches when it comes to ERP adoption. There are companies who prefer to retain most of their core ERP on-premise, having a minimal number of applications on cloud. This is usually witnessed among large organizations where a legacy system is already in place. Other organizations

prefer to slim down their core ERP and move a large amount of applications like HCM, Procurement, Travel & Expenses, on the cloud. On the other hand, some organizations push the entire ERP on the cloud,” says Jayaraman. Every organization, hence, needs to evaluate its core ERP system and analyze how other cloud applications can be integrated with the core system. In order to reap benefits to the fullest, organizations must strategize their ERP requirements, and keep themselves in pace with cloud-based technologies.

Roadblock in adopting cloud-based ERP

It is believed that the early ERP adopters, particularly large enterprises in manufacturing and distribution industries and energy are paying the penalty of a decade or more of excessive customization. According to Evan Quinn, Director of Marketing, QAD, there are certain roadblocks that companies must evaluate while considering whether or not to implement a cloud ERP system. OCTOBER, 2016

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In order to reap benefits to the fullest, organizations must strategize their ERP requirements,and keep themselves in pace with the disrupting cloud

The speed and ease of cloud-based deployments stand in starkcontrast to the somewhat daunting memories of early ERPdeployment

Shyamala Jayaraman

Anish Kanaran

Senior VP – ERP Solution,Ramco Systems

Channel Director - Middle East,Africa & India,Epicor Software

Since cloud ERP systems are used via the Internet, companies must consider the reliability of the Internet connection at each facility where the ERP will be used. Therefore bandwidth remains a key. Security has been a worry for companies that consider implementing cloud ERP. Executives must decide whether or not they feel comfortable relying on the cloud company for security. Ironically, however, many cloud ERP and related cloud service providers now offer tighter security than what is available from internal IT. The reason is the internet and mobile – the old days of on-premise literally meaning “inside the 4 walls” running on private networks is gone for most organizations. The old security argument against cloud is now far less of a concern than in the past. The other factor as per Quinn is that some of the companies, though less than in the past, feel uncomfortable having another company managing their ERP. Business continuity is another key factor as when critical business systems like ERP go down, it literally can bring a EXPRESS COMPUTER

company to a half. Some enterprises have done a great job internally of developing business continuity capabilities. Then again, so have some cloud ERP vendors.

Key benefits “The growing momentum of cloudbased ERP solutions is well documented, and many companies are beginning to realise that it can mean higher reliability and lower management costs than on-premises deployments,” says Anish Kanaran, Channel Director - Middle East, Africa & India, Epicor Software. The speed and ease of cloud-based deployments stand in stark contrast to the somewhat daunting memories of early ERP deployment. He was of the view that, cloud-based ERP solutions eliminate many of the barriers that keep companies from implementing or upgrading their ERP system—more importantly it enables them to focus on growing their business instead of managing software. Sangram Kadam, AVP and Head -

The need for legacy modernization has also resulted in tremendous uptake of the different cloud computing services Sangram Kadam AVP and Head - Oracle and Manufacturing IBU (India and South Asia),KPITTechnologies

Oracle and Manufacturing IBU (India and South Asia), KPIT Technologies sees a very bright future for cloud-based ERP in India. “India is witnessing increased adoption of cloud across big as well as small enterprises. Several initiatives including Government of India’s flagship ‘Make in India’ program, which is encouraging global companies to set up shop in the country, will create more demand for cloud-based ERP services to bring operational efficiency.” He further added that the need for legacy modernization has also resulted in tremendous uptake of the different cloud computing services. “Few years back, only the CIO’s office would run the cloud. The adoption has now become more pervasive and more and more business leaders are driving ERP cloud initiatives in their areas of operations. For example, CFOs are using ‘everything-as-a-service’ for their planning, budgeting, accounting and other functions and logistics heads are running supply chain as a service.” ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

OPINION JAYANT SARAN DELOITTE

MANAGING FRAUD RISKS IN ACLOUD COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT When an organization adopts a cloud solution managed by a thirdparty, dependencies get created with the Cloud Service Provider (CSP), with respect to legal liability, the risk universe, incident escalation, incident response, and other areas.

From a fraud risk perspective, a large number of challenges may arise from the way cloud computing is deployed at organizations.This could also be because each type of deployment model allows a varying degree of resource sharing and corresponding security limitations. 28

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s consumer banking preferences continue to change, it is important for financial institutions to transform their branch net. Cloud computing is increasingly being adopted by organizations worldwide due to its ease, cost benefits, and usage flexibility. However, despite its advantages, cloud computing has also exposed individuals and organizations to various security and fraud-related threats. Various studies reveal that as much as US$ 3 billion has been lost to frauds perpetrated over cloud computing networks in the past few years.

Understanding the cloud computing environment Cloud computing, typically, consists of three service (i.e. Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service) and four deployment models (i.e. private, public, community and hybrid). The characteristics define the capabilities/ benefits available to users, whereas the service and deployment models define the possible means of utilizing cloud service. From a fraud risk perspective, a large number of challenges may arise from the way cloud computing is deployed at organizations. This could also be because each type of deployment model allows a varying degree of resource sharing and corresponding security limitations.

Potential hurdles in managing fraud risks When an organization adopts a cloud solution managed by a third-party, dependencies get created with the Cloud Service Provider (CSP), with respect to legal liability, the risk universe, incident

escalation, incident response, and other areas. The actions of the CSP and fellow cloud users can impact the organization in various ways. Some of the challenges could include difficulty in integrating enterprise risk management programs; inclusion of risks faced by the CSP; lack of transparency; security and compliance concerns; non-availability/ accessibility to certain critical information; high value cyber-attack targets and risk of data leakage.

How these hurdles can impact investigations on the cloud Complexity of the cloud infrastructure and the volatility of data create various challenges for digital forensic investigations. These include recovery of deleted data; authorization and access to data; challenges with system architecture; authentication and chain of custody; privacy protection; jurisdictional and geolocation issues; dependencies with multiple cloud systems; different meta data, multiple log formats and differing time zones; seizure/ confiscation of a computing resource and data on virtual machine environments.

Managing fraud risks on the cloud through forensic readiness It is important that companies assess their fraud risks in context of opting for cloud based services or solutions. To achieve this they need to understand inherent risks and gaps in the control mechanism and prepare a forensic readiness program. In the absence of adequate controls and forensic readiness, it may not be possible to collect any data that can be processed for discovering evidence. Forensic readiness refers to the level of preparation an organization has in OCTOBER, 2016

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Deployment model

Extent of resource sharing and risks

Private cloud

Minimum.The infrastructure is operated solely for an organization, managed by self or third parties.

Community cloud

High.The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns.

Public cloud

Very high. Infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.

Hybrid cloud

Depends upon the level of customization.The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more cloud entities.

order to respond to forensic investigations in the future. These could be in response to internal and regulator driven investigations with sufficient provisions and support obligations in the SLA with the CSP. Depending on the type of incident, the nature of investigation and methodology for gathering evidences may differ. The SLA and Service Level Objectives (SLO) should adequately address all possible issues that can come up during an investigation process.

Identifying an appropriate fraud risk management model for cloud environments Some of the important aspects to consider before finalizing SLAs and SLOs from a forensic readiness standpoint include: ● Is your cloud service provider complying with any international security standards, (e.g. various ISO 27K standards) that can reasonably safeguard your cloud environment? ● Do you extend your Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) to the cloud environment? ● Do you have a vendor risk management plan in place to manage fraud risks associated with your CSP? ● Are your senior management and corporate legal counsel aware of your cloud service providers and do they review service level agreements with the EXPRESS COMPUTER

technical teams prior to initiating business with CSPs? ● Have you identified forensic readiness and support from your service provider as part of your SLA? ● Have you finalized the processes for authorizing a forensic investigation in the cloud? ● Have the provisions of privacy, regulatory and legal concerns based on the rules and regulations of the controlling geography been introduced into the SLA? ● Do you have a team of specialists to deal with incidents? While this can be an in-house team or an outsourced one, it is recommended to entrust this task to a professional team under a Master Services Agreement (MSA), as incidents need to be responded to quickly considering the dynamic nature of storage media management in cloud environments. ● If an in-house team manages investigations, do they have the

Forensic readiness refers to the level of preparation an organization has in order to respond to forensic investigations in the future.

necessary skill sets and tools to pursue investigation in a cloud environment? ● Have you finalized and shared plans for responding to incidents/ incident management plan with your cloud service provider? ● Is your incident management team aware of legal and other implications of carrying out a forensic investigation in the cloud environment? Cloud infrastructure poses very different sets of challenges for digital forensics investigations. Most tools currently used for digital forensic investigations are largely intended for offline investigations with the assumption that the storage media under investigation is within the control of an investigator. Limited tools and methodologies that can assist in extraction and analysis of potential evidence (in a manner acceptable in legal proceedings) are significantly dependent on the service models or deployment model opted on a cloud infrastructure and the way a cloud service provider is managing those models. Non-availability of expert advice and inadequate oversight, right from the initial stages of planning a migration to a cloud infrastructure, can expose a user to legal or compliance issues later. – By Jayant Saran, Partner – Forensic, Financial Advisory, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP OCTOBER, 2016

OPINION RAVI PRATAP SINGH NUCLEUS SOFTWARE

WHYTHE TIME IS RIGHTFOR INDIAN BANKS TO MOVE TO THE CLOUD Globally, many banks have successfully used the cloud to drive greater operational efficiency, reduce time-to-market for new products, provide better customer engagement, improve productivity and consequently achieve greater profitability.

Primarily, security and regulatory compliance have been the biggest roadblocks when it comes to cloud adoption. Given that information security is paramount for the BFSI industry, banks have taken a ‘wait and watch’approach on cloud computing 30

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he Indian banking industry is facing considerable challenges right now. Firstly, the levels of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) are rising andfast becoming a crisis, especially for public sector banks. The numbers are staggering. Twenty-nine state-owned banks wrote off a total of Rs. 1.14 lakh crore of bad debts between 2013 and 2015. This is more than the amount written off in the preceding nine years. Needless to say, this has had a significant impact on their profitability. At the same time, banks need to deal with changing customer expectations driven by the digital revolution. India has over 200 million mobile internet users who shop, watch movies and chat online. Not only do they expect to be able to bank online, but they demand a seamless experience across devices and channels. With little differentiation in products, superior customer experience is a critical driver for competitive advantage. However the current infrastructure places severe limitations on banks’ abilities to deliver outstanding customer experiences. The gap has also spawned a host of financial technology start-ups. Powered by advanced technologies and agile business models the fintechs are growing rapidly, delivering disruptive services that thrive on superior customer engagement. These companies present a real threat to banks because they can potentially eat away a significant chunk of their revenue.And this is where cloud computing comes in. Cloud technology can help banks improve profitability while also transforming their customer engagement model. By providing nearly unlimited hardware and software resources on a pay-as-you-go basis over

the Internet, cloud computing drives down costs and enables innovation. Cloud also gives banks the ability to respond quickly to changing market, customer and technological needs, which is an important competitive edge. In addition, the combination of potentially unconstrained computing power and big data facilitates data mining and analytics, that provides banks with better insights into their. There are numerous examples from across the globe of how banks have successfully used the cloud to drive greater operational efficiency, reduce time-to-market for new products, provide better customer engagement, improve productivity and consequently achieve greater profitability. For example, Citibank Wealth Management, a division of Citi’s consumer banking sector, replaced its fragmented CRM system with a unified cloud based solution, which provided an easy-toaccess 360 degree view of the customer. Not only did this help the bank improve efficiency and focus on its core competency, it also resulted in greater client satisfaction. But despite its growing popularity, Indian banks have been quite conservative about cloud adoption. Primarily, security and regulatory compliance have been the biggest roadblocks when it comes to cloud adoption. Given that information security is paramount for the BFSI industry, banks have taken a ‘wait and watch’ approach on cloud computing. With established policies, standards and technology in place now, security of cloud data is not as big a concern as it was five years ago. Additionally, Indian banks need to adhere to strict compliance guidelines OCTOBER, 2016

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regarding cross border flow of banking data and geographical location of datacenters etc. In the past, most cloud datacenters were located outside of India historically, but this is changing with several industry majors announcing datacenters in India. For example, last year, Microsoft and IBM launched their datacenters in India. Recently, Amazon Web Services also launched its datacenter in India and others are likely to follow suit. Banks can also think about a private cloud for sensitive data, which can help banks accrue the benefits of the cloud without compromising on security or compliance. Yes Bank is a great example. It moved all its applications to a private cloud way back in 2011, and results are already visible. It is now India’s fifth largest private sector bank. EXPRESS COMPUTER

Despite all the challenges, the banking industry in India has tremendous potential for growth. Our country has a large ‘unbanked’ population of people, which stands at 233 million according to a recent report by PwC. The government

Most cloud datacenters were located outside of India,but several industry majors like Microsoft, IBM,AWS have launched their datacenters in India.

financial inclusion schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Jan-DhanYojana (PMJDY) have helped more than 180 million people in India enter the financial mainstream in the recent past. As this trend continues, the onus will be on the banking sector to scale seamlessly to accommodate this influx but also provide superior customer service to each customer. Most Indian banks are still ‘on the fence’ when it comes to adoption of cloud computing. However, the benefits that cloud brings are making it increasingly attractive for Indian banks. It is only a matter of time now before the cloud will be viewed less as an option and more as a business imperative by the banking industry. – By Ravi Pratap Singh, Executive Director and President – Products, Nucleus Software OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW TERESA CARLSON AMAZON WEB SERVICES

‘AWS’ JOURNEY IN THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT SECTOR IS JUST BEGINNING’ Amazon believes that the opportunity in the government space is huge, as the cloud is perfectly suited for handling large sets of data and gain rich insights. In an interaction with Jasmine Desai, Teresa Carlson, VP, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services (AWS), shares how Government departments can benefit from the agility and scale of cloud enabled innovations.

How can customers change their traditional IT-buying behaviour to take advantage of the benefits of the cloud services model, especially in the Government space? The journey of government to the cloud is a bit different due to regulations and policies, procurement methods and lot of legacy infrastructure. Having a cloud first policy is one of the ways to move swiftly to the cloud. True cloud computing is the ability to get started with no upfront cost, scale as you need to, benefit from utility based pricing and scale globally. The journey in the Indian government is just beginning from an AWS perspective. Governments have to be very clear on the security and compliance framework. For example, there is FedRAMP process in US. We have achieved every level on it. Commercial companies now are also assessing themselves against FedRAMP. It will be important for India to have a framework for security and compliance so that agencies and ministers know what they are assessing against. The most vital benefit for the government would be that once we achieve these levels, the ISVs building apps on this platform would inherit these security controls. We have a program called AWS 32

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We have a five year head-start than any other vendor.We have rich platform capability. In the previous Gartner Magic quadrant,compared to the 14 other providers of cloud,we have ten times the compute capacity.We are the largest provider for the government around the world in the cloud Educate and Cloud Academy. We will help the government to quickly train individuals. The government has the ability to procure the cloud through Capex versus the Opex model. In the old school model, most government departments have over-purchased infrastructure. For example, many ministers will say that they have 20 PB of

data that they want to move to the cloud. When we assess their storage, they may have just 10 PB of real data that they need to move. Government departments should be able to act and behave like start-ups. They should be able to try and test because they can do it at a low cost which they were not able to earlier. They need to have good procurement vehicles that are cloud friendly. They can continuously take advantage of innovations we are rolling out. The public sector business for AWS started about five years ago. The early adopters were not IT leaders but they were business mission leaders. They did it because they had a budget to run the program and all of a sudden the budget started decreasing. For example, NASA JPL had the Mars Rover. When they started the program they thought it would last only six months. However, the rover kept going and they did not have the IT budget for this because they were building traditional data centers. AWS helped them with storage and streaming. From these mission leaders we saw its evolution among IT leaders. Presently, it is again going back to mission leaders. Security is also seen less of an issue OCTOBER, 2016

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We have government competency already for partners.We have increased our partner eco-system by 80% in the last 12 months. now. The issue is more around culture, training and skill-sets, procurement. Mumbai will be one of our APAC regions. We do availability zones and in those zones are clusters of data centers. Once we get into a region, it really moves fast as it provides the local access, low latency to those application and storage. What will be AWSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;value proposition to government customers? We have a five year head-start than any other vendor. We have rich platform capability. In the previous Gartner Magic quadrant, compared to the 14 other providers of cloud, we have ten times the compute capacity. We are the largest provider for the government around the world in the cloud. What really sets us apart is our customer obsession. 90% to 95% of all our services are customer driven. That is why we have a million active customers. Our security compliance capabilities are directly driven by the government requirements. With our Direct Connect feature, we directly connect between the customer's data center and ours so that they can traverse the Internet and have quick access. There is VPC (virtual private cloud) and within that we do encryption and tunnelling. We have a new service called Inspector that will test when one is building an application and runs assessment of the application before it is deployed. It tells the security holes and remedies for it. We have government competency already for partners. We have increased EXPRESS COMPUTER

our partner eco-system by 80% in the last 12 months. The government can leverage analytics in a big way to innovate. Governments in general have the largest data-sets. Governments can leverage AWS from a data-set perspective mainly because they can take that data-set and can place it on AWS and open it to the world. They can bring insights and education research into data-sets. Sometimes we host them for free. For example, the very first data-set that we worked with government on was the Genome data-set with the National Institute of Health. In the first week of hosting it on AWS, we had 3400 new researchers crowd source on the platform. 2400 new genomes have been

processed from that in multiple countries. How do you see the consumption of cloud changing over time? We think that in time customers will only use one cloud provider. We do have many tools which support the hybrid model. We want customers to move quickly into the cloud, but if they want to move out, we want to help there too. We do not want to create any sort of vendor lock-in. Hybrid is a short term strategy. It is hard to standardize and set policies in a multiple clouds scenario. It costs customers more money to run multiple clouds. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW BASK IYER VMWARE

IT HAS NOT BEEN CHALLENGED SUFFICIENTLY In an era of digitization, VMware is looking to transform itself into a player beyond its dominant image of virtualization, and is seeking to position itself as an end to end solutions provider. This positioning has helped the firm diversify its revenues. For example, in Q1, standalone vSphere license bookings were less than 35% of total license bookings – a strong indicator of growth coming from an expanded set of product offerings from VMware such as NSX, EUC, vSAN and vCloud Air. With VMware in rapid expansion mode, its CIO, Bask Iyer, is playing a crucial role in the company’s transformation. As Iyer leads VMware’s global information and technology organization (a group that manages critical technology systems supporting the company’s worldwide business operations), his team is the first sounding board and the first customer for any new technology before the company releases it externally. Express Computer caught up with Bask Iyer, who explains his key challenges as a CIO, and why he believes that IT teams must be challenged more for innovation to thrive. Some edited excerpts: What are your biggest challenges as a CIO? I think the biggest challenge still continues to be attracting the best talent, because in IT what I tell people is you can buy every software that everybody sells, I mean you can buy what VMware sells, Microsoft sells, Google sells, Amazon sells, the decision is not just buying the tools or the software or the hardware, it is available for a lot of folks to buy, it is how do you actually implement it. To implement that you need to have the best talent and in IT, I always believe one person can do the job of a 1,000 people and most CIOs and more IT professionals look at their team as if they have more people, then they feel more empowered and they think they can get a lot done. I actually think it is the opposite, sometimes having a lot of people in your team prevents you from moving fast and IT industry is full of people who have done the job of 10,000 people. If you look at Linux very few people started that, MS-DOS was started by Bill Gates and Apple was founded by a couple of people, VMware was founded by a couple of people, Juniper was founded by Pradeep 34

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Sindhu and a few other people. The history of technology companies has a lot of revolutions, lot of major technology has been founded with a small team. Talent becomes the most important thing, it is not the number of people you have, it’s the kind of people you have. That’s the biggest challenge and as we go forward it is going to get even worse because the same people I have is what everybody else seems to want. One of the things I have learned after a long time is in IT one person can do the work of 1,000 people, but you need to get the special person who can do the work of 1,000 people. Every other technology company, everybody seems to want to get the same person– for example, if you pick something like cloud computing there is a finite number of people who know how to do cloud computing. Lot of people have titles to say that they are running cloud computing because they just call the datacenter job as cloud now and people are saying that’s cloud, but in truth there are very, very few people who know how to run a cloud system, a private cloud or a public cloud and everybody from Amazon to VMware to Google to Facebook and so OCTOBER, 2016

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on are just going for that talent. So how do you attract that talent, how do you keep them motivated, how do you keep them plugged in, I think that’s the biggest challenge in technology. It always has been, it’s actually even worse now. From a technology point of view, what are the biggest challenges? I think if we look at it right now, couple of things that is not quite happening is in the mobile industry. Enterprise mobility has not kept up with the mobility in consumer, it’s just night and day and if you look at the number of mobile applications you depend on for just your private work, there are thousands, at least 20 of them you use pretty regularly. On the enterprise side we are still using mainly for email and calendar. That’s what 99% of the people do. I think enterprise mobility has not kept up. One of the reasons is that IT departments are just trying to buy solutions from vendors, they are not spending their time actually thinking creatively of how to add value. They are generally shopping around to see what the big vendors have and they even sometimes implement the ecosystem or they buy all the software. But it does not mean that you create a big environment where you can actually use it to generate value. I think this is a big gap and I see elements of it getting caught up. Even in a company like VMware, when I started about six quarters ago, the number of mobile applications available for general employees were not much, so generally people just used the email and calendar. We had to challenge our team and now they have developed about 10 and they have road mapped to do 40 and they are really critical applications that can really improve productivity and people love it when you roll it out to them. But I think that has not taken off. When I ask other companies what are those critical mobile apps they say they have an expense reporting system which is not really I think that they have developed, it’s pretty much they would have bought a company which has a mobile client. That is not thinking through, people are EXPRESS COMPUTER

Talent is the most important thing,it is not the number but the kind of people you have.So that’s the biggest challenge and as we go forward it is going to get even worse because the same people I have is what everybody else seems to want getting buried with emails, almost everyone of the approvals for systems comes through some email and it gets lost in an email. What is the kind of innovation you expect? Can you give some examples? Let me give you this example on the same topic. Typically a day in a manager’s life these days would look like- you have got to approve some expenses, you have to approve a headcount, you have to approve some purchase order requisitions, you have to approve some new vendor who is signing, some legal document, etc and it goes on and on. If you look 20 years back, the way you did approvals or 30 years ago when I did my business in Bangalore, my assistant or somebody in the office would give me a vanila folder with all the things I need to sign, in one place. I could just take a pen and sign it. Believe it or not, what has happened now is while we have automated all of them. I am going into the Concur Expense System on my mobile, download the client, put it on my computer and then I have to log in and approve for expense report. I download something called BrassRing on my computer again, log in to approve a

headcount. I download a Workday client to go log in and approve my workday salary increase and then I go into a DocuSign, it goes on and on, so it may take me a full half a day and people are chasing me saying all these approvals are in your queue, either I have to go through my email, try to approve them from my email or log on to these various systems. Some clever guys tell their assistants to do it just because they can’t deal with this. What we have done is we’ve looked through this problem as an IT team and my team developed in a very short time a universal approval application that you download this, all the approvals I have, come in one system, it is pushed to me on my mobile and it takes me two seconds to approve, it works with the restful APIs, Concur, Kupa and Ariba and DocuSign and everybody else has and you do all the approval from one end. It’s probably one of the most productive applications. When I’m travelling to India, on my way from the airport I could approve million dollars worth of purchase orders or people’s requisitions and so on, it would be much easier, but we don’t have those kind of apps developed. That’s one example and I have several like that. We have developed and have pipeline of 40 odd applications that people are going to just love. Do you believe IT is not being challenged enough? I think IT has – I mean I’m generalizing here, because I run up across lot of CIOs who are extremely innovative, but in general IT has still been stuck on back office systems, our jobs have been pretty much set on- let’s implement the ERP, let’s implement the new financial system, there is a new regulatory system that we have to do, there is a new revenue recognition system, here’s new sales system, sales automation system and then we finish all of them and by the time we finish it is time to start all over again saying there is a new HR system, new sales system and so on and so forth. So we are implementing versions on our vendor’s calendar rather than sayinghow can I move the business forward. It is OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW BASK IYER VMWARE

okay to have an older version of the software if it doesn’t really do anything. You don’t have to update it just because the vendor says they have to update it. How does it move the two things? That is, are you cutting cost, are you increasing revenue, are you reducing friction for your employees ? So I think we have not challenged ourselves sufficiently to use those technologies. The second thing is, we’ve become too conservative, in the sense we wait for a long time to ascertain whether it’s a trend or not. For example, if there is a new software or product out, we wait till 80% of the people implement it before we even look at it. So somehow we become too skeptical in looking at new product introductions faster and being innovative, so we’re still doing it but we are waiting for everybody else to do it before we boldly go for it. Lot of the software sits on the shelf and are not implemented. So those are two places I’ll push pretty hard. We’re not pushing innovation hard enough and get buried in just back office functions. It’s almost like Y2K over and over. What are the kind of innovations as a CIO you would like IT to do? The CIO’s role is to be like a surfer, because there are so many waves coming in IT and you have to be riding those waves. Some people just sit on the surf board, they don’t ride the wave, they wait for the next wave, the next wave and the next while some people just jump on the first wave they get and they crash out. So I always believe like you have to ride the wave and then ride the next wave and the next wave and the next wave. We can’t look too far ahead and too far beyond. What’s happening in technology is, when the waves are coming faster and faster and that’s what people are not able to handle. Previously you got one wave and then a year later you got another, now the waves are coming in three months and two months and so on. I like it, lot of people like it, I want it to come even faster. So I think unless you like it and ride it, it gets stressful. I tell people, if you don’t want to 36

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ride the wave you have to sit on the beach. You can enjoy and watch somebody else playing it but you have to go ride it. The two waves that are in front of you that we haven’t ridden well still is mobile and cloud. Everybody talks about the cloud and say that they have written a lot about it, but people are not taking advantage of it. People believe cloud and they just immediately go into Azure or Amazon. Okay, that’s fine, that’s a big trend. But your data centers that people have are still not run the way those data centers are run and 80-90% of your compute will still be on your private cloud, so how do you really run a private cloud most efficiently. One of the things I spend time with my CIOs is to talk about how VMware runs a private cloud and how we also put things in public cloud. But don’t forget that you still have to run this efficiently and very few people can automate and run it. You have to give an Amazon like experience or Azure like experience for your internal users as well regardless of where the actual compute is and then you need to be able to hook up to the different clouds as they happen. So That’s still not completely exploited yet. The second thing is the mobile- the wave has not started like I explained to you-but then when I talk to everybody and say what you have on mobile most people have not thought through that. You would like to have an app store for mobile- when there are 2 million applications for consumers, you should have at least 100 for enterprises, because not everybody would use all the application. The approval application I talked about, you know you may not download it, it may not make sense to you, but you may download something we call People

Search where you can find anybody, who he reports to, where does he sit, how can I get to his office etc. You may like that but I may not use that. So you need to have a cross-sectional application that majority of the people would like and use on a regular basis. Mobile is not still exploited completely. The next few waves that are coming are related to Internet of Things. Even I looked at it a few years ago and I said this looks like a lot of buzz and hype and so on, but what is happening now is – all these things and gateways are getting connected to the internet. If the CIO and the IT department are not jumping into it early, your customers are going to hook up to it. In mobile computers what happened is the IT department didn’t take control of it early, so people started bringing their own phones, just tried to get on the corporate network and then we had to figure out how to make it work and then we got AirWatch and other kind of tools. It was still a reactive play instead of proactively saying if you have a phone connected to my network, here are 50 applications you can use. That would have been an innovative IT. IoT is in a similar space where we are all saying- well let’s just go to a conference, let’s see what somebody else is talking about, let’s see what GE says, and let’s learn. I think it’s dangerous because now everything in the company, every factory is going to be hooked to the Internet and the IT function is going to be bypassed if they are not. I tell people to get involved, set the architecture, define the standards, pay attention, you can add tremendous value to the business. srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW

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TUKARAM MUNDHE NMMC

NMMC plans to use drones for capturing land related data The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) commissioner is known for taking affirmative action against illegal construction. He is planning to use the LiDAR technology, to keep tabs on the properties owned by NMMC. Abhishek Raval speaks with Tukaram Mundhe, Municipal Commissioner, NMMC Land records is an important component in any municipalities. Drones,VR are gradually becoming mainstream in enhancing efficiency in land data recording, evaluation, visualisation. Does NMMC plan to use similar technologies for NMMC? We have already moved a proposal in the upcoming general body meeting of NMMC, to use drones, 3D images for capturing and mapping every public property, be it roads, water bodies, buildings using the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology. This data will be used for creating further efficiency in providing citizen services and planned development of Navi Mumbai. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your vision of using IT for municipality or a local body ? IT is a means to achieve the goal. As far as the municipality is concerned, we need to deliver the citizen services, so that the footfall at civic offices is lower and they can get the services at their doorsteps or on the mobile whether it is about grievance redressal, payment of taxes, smart solutions for transportation, water or property taxes. Even for that matter, assessment of properties can be done through IT enabled solutions. Technology reduces the scope for corruption, the reason being the interaction between the citizens and the government should be minimal and once that happens, the face to face conversations will be replaced by the IT systems. You have just taken charge as Commissioner of the NMMC, what steps EXPRESS COMPUTER

are you taking to use IT for fulfilling the citizen objectives ? NMMC will adopt a new IT architecture. A consultant has been appointed. A roadmap will be prepared for delivery of IT services. A process reengineering is also underway. Subsequent to the roadmap completion, tendering will be completed and NMMC will be ready to serve the citizens on not only online platforms but also social apps, public utility apps like tax payments, water and health services,

transportation, etc. The idea is to set up a front and back end for the IT architecture to automate the citizen service delivery and reduce the turnaround time of service delivery. It will also not require the citizens to visit the civic offices. We will also take into account the smart city requirements and include them in the IT architecture in advance so that when required we are ready from day one. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

OPINION SHIV KUMAR BHASIN STATE BANK OF INDIA

HOWSBI TRANSFORMED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE USING DIGITALMEDIUMS SBI carried out a few disruptive transformations of the SBU branches by optimizing the business processes and digitizing the paper based processes, ensuring digital presence in their day to day usage of paper.

s consumer banking preferences continue to change, it is important for financial institutions to transform their branch networks. Despite high usage rates for Internet and mobile channels, it has been found that customers still derive value from branches. Representing and protecting the brand of an organization, providing a physical presence and serving the full range of customer needs, the branch network has always been the heart of a bank’s franchise and revenue generating potential. Customers are increasingly clear (not to mention vocal) about how they view their branches. While they like the convenience of Internet banking, they also like the personal nature of branch banking.

Branches — a new multichannel/omni-channel reality

Branch Teller Application Transformation; SBI Digi Voucher; State Bank NO Queue; Digitization of customer acquisition and account opening process are some of the digital initiatives taken by SBI 38

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Any banker can easily prove that electronic transactions, like balance inquiries and account transfers, are exponentially cheaper than the same transaction conducted through a bank representative either in a branch or through a call center. Yet at the same time, face-to-face contact with a bank representative is still the most effective way of building revenue from high value sales and services. Optimizing the channel mix as part of a multi-channel strategy to service and sell to customers is the new reality — and at the heart of this reality remains the branch. Connecting with customer sentiment and tastes are significant aspects. Customers seek certainty, variety, significance, connection, growth and to contribute within their relationships. Therefore, using high-tech and hightouch tools will provide a purposeful

vision for banks. Having a “connected brand” becomes an important aspect of maintaining your customer’s attention. Bank needs to consider aspects like digitalizing the customer’s journey, creating video campaigns over products and services, launching social campaigns, and customizing the customers overall experience. Fundamental changes in consumer behavior should influence the bank’s corporate strategies, purpose and vision. There must be a value proposition for the customer. Keeping the above facts in mind in State Bank of India, I carried out few disruptive transformations of the SBU branches by optimizing the business processes and digitizing the paper based processes, ensuring digital presence in their day to day usage of paper. ●

Branch teller application transformation: Core banking application is transformed by reengineering of business processes, and re-imagining the user interface of branch teller application to provide next generation Customer Experience. It has cut down the time to serve the customers at branches by teller from 30% to 75%.

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SBI Digi Voucher : Today in the branch for most of the transactions, customer needs to fill-up paper form/voucher for cash withdrawal, cash/cheque deposit, draft issuance, NEFT/RTGS payments, etc, to carry out this transaction. These paper vouchers require paper manufactured from 50 trees/day. To digitize this process and reimagine the customer experience SBI Digi Voucher mobile application is created so that customers could fill up OCTOBER, 2016

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virtual vouchers on the mobile app before coming to branch in the comfort of their home/office. Alternatively, if customers don’t have smartphone, they can use the kiosk in the branch to fill up virtual vouchers electronically. ●

STATE BANK NO Queue is a unique app to enable customers to book a Virtual Queue Ticket (e-Token) for select services at select SBI branches. Customers can generate e-Token before reaching the branch, thus avoiding waiting in the queue at the branch and saving valuable time. The App also conveys the estimated waiting time, number of customers ahead and a map showing the direction to reach the branch. Customers will be updated about their position in the queue through instant alerts.

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Digitization of customer acquisition and account opening process: SBI Scribe facilitates digitization of customer acquisition and saving account opening process. Customer needs to fill-up paper form on the digital pad, which has customer handwriting recognition capability and transmits the data real-time to Core Banking System.

Digital mediums have enhanced overall customer experience, and saved time to make the customer account fully operational

KYC documents are photographed/scanned by the branch staff, and uploaded real-time. It enhances the customer experience several notches above, and saves time to make the customer account fully operational. And the customer walks out of the branch with fully operational account immediately during the branch visit of the customer. These are various disruptive tools and services offered by State Bank of India to enhance the customer experience in branches several notches above the current state. These are some of the key steps taken by the largest high street lender in India for complete digitization of banking process in branches and omnichannel experience across channels. – By Shiv Kumar Bhasin, CTO, State Bank of India OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW DR ANOOP KUMAR MITTAL NBCC (INDIA)

NBCC IS UTILIZING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES TO THE MAXIMUM This is perhaps a turbulent time for Indian PSUs as the Niti Aayog has very recently submitted a list of 74 sick and loss making PSUs to the government for the purpose of shutting down and restructuring. In such a scenario, NBCC (India), formerly known as National Buildings Construction Corporation is standing out as a leader in its own right. In an exclusive interview with Ankush Kumar, Dr Anoop Kumar Mittal, CMD, NBCC (India) who has been associated with the company for more than three decades, shares his leadership style, mantra for optimizing revenue for PSUs, expansion plans and the role of IT in bringing efficiency and transparency in the entire system. Some edited excerpts:

You have been associated with NBCC with more than three decades now. How do you evaluate the growth of the company so far and can you highlight few of the major achievements under your leadership? I took charge as the Chairman-cumManaging Director (CMD) on April 1, 2013. I joined NBCC (India) Limited as an Assistant Engineer and since day one I have always focused on contributing my best to keep the company growing. After successful implementation of redevelopment of Govt.’s New Moti Bagh, GPRA Complex in Delhi, now certified as the largest Green Home Complex of its kind in India, NBCC (India) Limited has started getting huge work orders in this segment one after the other. This has been followed by the on-going Rs 5000 crore, East Kidwai Nagar Redevelopment Project, another Zero Waste Disposal Project of its kind. In fact 2014 was a great turning point for the company. It was in this year that the 40

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company rose to great heights by attaining the coveted status of Navratna Enterprise. What are the key leadership and managerial skills that are required to make a PSU generate optimum profit along with its main aim of providing services to the government? The system should not put you in rigidity. Performance should be enhanced through strengthening of accountability. To lead a PSU in order to generate optimum profit, it is without a doubt that one must have the required skills and experience to deal with challenging times. Regular meetings and discussions help keeping a check on the progress of projects and thus, promote transparency which in turn helps in providing excellent services to the Government/ society. I am running this company as a private company’s CEO with a focus on persuasion skills.

Please tell us about NBCC's plan for development of smart cities in the country. How crucial will be the company's role? With respect to the smart city initiative, we recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IBM India, for strategic co-operation and joint exploration to develop sustainable smart city and green building technology. We have also signed a MoU with DDA for development of East Delhi Hub at Karkardooma, New Delhi, under TOD norms. This will be the first smart city in Delhi based on the concept of smart mobility, smart living and smart infrastructure. This is a huge project, which shall include a 100 storey tower, a roof-top revolving restaurant, a helipad and discotheques. NBCC’s exclusive expertise in the areas of redevelopment of government properties makes it a company that has an edge over others. The recent setting up of Innovation and OCTOBER, 2016

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R&D Centre by us, in association with IIT Roorkee, is also a step forward in this direction, which would facilitate innovation, technology upgradation and impact smart city implementation. So yes, we are prepared and are optimistic that we will do the country proud with our smart city projects. As the country aims to move towards smart infrastructure, how do you assess the present status of building construction norms in India? How do you think we can ensure its effective implementation? Looking at the current scenario, numerous buildings are coming up in a short span of time and most of these buildings are built haphazardly with no proper design. Most of them are built without keeping in mind sustainability concerns thereby posing a great threat to the environment. However, the government of India is making sure that EXPRESS COMPUTER

In the next 12 months, we see ourselves achieving 100% penetration through e-Office and moving towards a paperless company

at Manesar (Haryana) constructed by the company has received the prestigious Gold Rating under LEED India for new construction, awarded by Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) in the year 2012. Other Green Building projects by the company that followed thereafter include CSOI, New Delhi; Aayakar Bhawan, Noida (UP); SIB, Kolkata; Coal India Building, Kolkata, CBI HQ Building, New Delhi; 5-Star Rated National Institute for Solar Energy, Gurgaon (Haryana) etc.

all constructions fall within the green building construction guidelines. A focus on the smart city implementation, will only further the cause of a sustainable environment. NBCC (India) Limited strongly follows these guidelines in all aspects of construction. NBCC has earned a niche for itself in construction of green buildings. Office of The Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs

How is IT being used by NBCC for bringing efficiency and productivity in the company's systems and processes? IT is the backbone that helps in the smooth functioning of the company. All departments are integrated with ERP/DMS/ e-Office for internal process. ERP enables employees to access information concerning their leaves, salaries, circulars, office orders etc. DMS on the other hand encourages the OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW

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DR. ANOOP KUMAR MITTAL NBCC (INDIA)

importance of environment sustainability by supporting a paperless environment. It also helps in promoting transparency as the information is stored in a digital format. This has helped in earning a reputation of being a company that runs on cutting edge technology and also promoting our Honourable Prime Minister's vision of Digital India. In the initiatives towards transparency and corporate governance, NBCC has, under the umbrella of Digital India, introduced vendor grievance and online annual property return portals to effectively address the issues of these respective areas. The process of implementation of document management system for online tracking of official files are also under progress which after implementation will reduce the paper consumption and enhance the green footprint of NBCC. The company shall also launch a new business venture of e-commerce which shall cater to the sale of built-up properties of NBCC’s real estate, government departments, financial institutions and private developers. Do you think IT is important to ensure that infrastructure projects are completed on time? Please share some use cases? Our company utilizes digital technologies to the maximum. Understanding the importance of social media and the crucial role technology plays in sending across messages, the company practices the daily usage of such interaction, making NBCC an interactive company with global visibility. In the next 12 months, we see ourselves achieving 100% penetration through e-Office and moving towards a paperless company. With digitalization coming into the picture, the company’s way of functioning has been totally revolutionized. Easy access to data stored, digital archiving of records has also helped in faster transaction of records, thereby helping in further completing the projects well before time. In addition, we have started e-tendering three years ago and within three months of its implementation, the ratio of complaints has come down remarkably. Our online PMS system which started in the year 2013 has been a huge success 42

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for gaining employee faith. Through this initiative, employees can now see their final ratings and assess their performance in a more objective manner. The conducting of annual DPC has been made regular without any deviation in the timeline. We have also designed ‘Interact

with CMD’ – an online section which is specially designed to give suggestion to CMD directly. For handling grievances, an online vendor grievance lodging and monitoring system, has been created. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW

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DR RAJIV RAMASWAMI VMware

MICRO-SEGMENTATION IS DRIVING 40% OF NSX SALES In an interaction with Jasmine Desai, Dr Rajiv Ramaswami, Executive VP and GM, Networking and Security BU, VMware shares his insights on how VMware is witnessing adoption across all customer segments for NSX capabilities, including micro segmentation and how it can totally change the way networking is done Could you elaborate on microsegmentation stack in NSX? Presently, micro-segmentation is driving 40% of NSX sales. To explain microsegmentation, let us use an analogy of a house with a lot of rooms. Once you get past the security guard, you are free to explore, as not every room is guarded. This is also exactly the case with most modern data centers today. The other analogy is that within a house, a lot of people are moving around. Not many people come and go outside or inside, but the movement within the house can be huge. This problem gets multiplied 100/1000 times in a data center. Datacenters have perimeter firewalls, which provide firewalls at the entrance. However, sometime attacks happen on the inside. In this case, the perimeter firewall does not do anything. Secondly, if an attacker does manage to get through the firewall, the area inside is wide open. The amount of traffic inside the datacenter is 10 to 100 times more than what is going in and out. This is a classic problem that since there is too much traffic inside, you cannot protect it. The only way to protect this inside traffic is with micro-segmentation. Micro-segmentation offers protection close to the source and destination of the traffic. It could be coming from a server, VM, an application etc. With our software based distributed firewall, we put in an enforcement point or a gate. Micro-segmentation allows enterprises to do fine-grain policing of traffic as it gets distributed. Which are the most basic use-cases for micro-segmentation? EXPRESS COMPUTER

network of choice in many cases by many customers. The general notion is that Cisco does physical network, VMware does virtual network. There is some overlap between us and Cisco but we do not do physical network and they do not do virtual network overlay as well as we can do. We are also very tightly integrated when it comes to virtual overlays. We are very tightly integrated into the VMware provisioning stack. If an organization wants to automate the provisioning, then we are really well equipped to do that as we are tightly integrated into the vCentre admin. The most basic use-case is just protecting the east-west traffic. Thus, if one application or one server is compromised it should not affect anything else. Organizations that use VDI or have a lot of mobile users are also good bets for microsegmentation. In these cases, organizations want to protect and segregate users. Based on who the user is, their access has to be controlled. The VDI has a one-on-one correspondence with VM running on a server. One can provide the enforcement at the specific VM. When it comes to NSX, mostly everyone has made investment in physical infrastructure. NSX is an overlay. It is not about ripping and replacing anything. As long as they have a virtualized environment, they can install NSX. How is the value proposition of VMware NSX when compared to Cisco ACI? It is not an either/or discussion for us. We have lot of deployment on top of Cisco infrastructure. Cisco is used as a physical

Where is the growth for VMware NSX coming from? As a global business, we exceeded last year and then more than doubled in the first and second quarter in terms of bookings. Fundamentally that is happening because the opportunity is huge. We have still only captured a small portion of the market, even though we are growing very quickly. NSX has 1,700 customers and vSphere has 500,000 customers. We still have lot of opportunity ahead of us. What we find is that most of it is a matter of working with the customers, help them understand what this technology can do for them and helping them build business cases and ROI models. We have done lot of work building casestudies and how customers have used this to operationalize their environments. For example, Nike runs their whole Nike.com on VMware with NSX. Other examples are that of .Johnson & Johnson,Citibank, GE , which have deployed NSX. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

INTERVIEW VIJAY SETHI HERO MOTOCORP

M2M, IOT AND 3D PRINTING WILL PLAY A BIG ROLE IN AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY Hero MotoCorp’s CIO, Vijay Sethi is popular for being a pioneer in adopting new technologies. In a candid chat with EC’s Rashi Varshney, he tells us how his firm is leveraging technologies like IoT, Machine to Machine (M2M) and 3D printing Some edited excerpts: How do you see the role of technology in the automobile industry in India? The automobile industry has been one of the early adopters of technology from day one. For instance, in the early days, the automobile industry was the one of the first industries which adopted ERP, when other sectors were not even thinking about it. Now coming to the current trends of technology, like social media or Internet of Things, we really push for adoption of social media and IoT owing to the fact that youth is our target market. The automobile industry or the two-wheeler industry have some of the biggest examples of IoT like connected cars or a connected bike or a driver less car, or a Google car. So, the automobile industry is one of the best adopters of technology, not just within the company but in the entire ecosystem. The industry is competitive, and the margins are low. Hence, the players keep looking at ways of improving productivity, boosting efficiency, reducing waste and doing value additions in the business. And, technology is playing a huge role to achieve it. For example, all the dealers of Hero Motocorp across India are connected. That helps us in reducing our cost of serving a customer or even acquiring the customers. We are now able to give all the information that a customer may need. 44

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Technologies such as IoTfor connected cars,social media, predictive analytics and collaboration software are making an impact on the automomobile industry What are the technologies which are truly innovative and are making an impact? A lot of new technologies, such as IoT for connected cars or connected bikes, social media, predictive analytics, collaboration software are making an impact. Existing technologies such as cloud are also playing a huge role. Also, machine to machine (M2M) communication is playing a major role in the auto industry to reduce costs. The new and trending technology is digital manufacturing, which enables us to make digital prototypes. For instance, we can create a prototype of our factory, and then work on eliminating the various constraints to improve efficiency or the cost. Today, the entire design is done with IT-based systems. For example, 3D printing is playing a huge role in the

automotive industry, which enables one to create parts of a bike or even a full bike with the technology. Earlier, we used to create clay models of bikes, and it used to take a lot of time in modifying or redesigning the model. Now all these are done on a digital platform, which not only reduces the cost in a big way, but more importantly it reduces time -- such as doing repeated iterations. The auto industry, whether it is R&D, production, operations, supply chain, finance, or even for customers — some of these new technologies are playing a massive role. How is Hero MotoCorp leveraging emerging technologies? We are leveraging all these technologies at Hero MotoCorp. For instance, we are using AutoDX for suppliers, and all our transactions with the suppliers are Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) enabled, which has resulted into zero manual intervention, zero error and zero delay. This deployment has enabled our company to reduce cost of doing transactions by 90% -95%. On the front end, we have linked dealer and sub dealers on a single cloud based system with all our customers. This gives the same level of experience, in terms of IT to all the customers, whether they are in Delhi or in a rural area. Moreover, we as a company give a lot of focus on R&D. We have recently set up OCTOBER, 2016

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a R&D centre- Centre of Innovation and Technology (CIT) in Jaipur, which is fully IT-enabled with cutting edge technologies such as simulation, 3D printing and IoT. We have also setup a Global Parts Centre (GPC) at Neemrana, which can be claimed as Asia’s most automated warehouse of any company. We are also setting up a new plant in Halol, for which the entire planning has been done in a digital platform. Please tell us more about the GPC The centre is the most automated of its kind in Asia and the state of the art technology used has ensured that manpower usage has been minimized to the minimum possible levels. Solar-based energy sources have made sure that a major chunk of the energy requirements of this facility are fulfilled internally. With a green ecosystem, we have ensured that the carbon footprint has been minimized drastically. The way the systems at the GPC are integrated with the enterprise systems SAP and Hero Connect (Dealer Management System) makes sure that the supply chain is fully integrated. The orders for parts which flow from the field through Hero Connect and the dispatches are in sync with the help of the strong integration which has been built. The ecosystem ensures that the supply chain starting from the suppliers of raw materials for parts to the retailers/dealers is streamlined and transparent. The spare parts business at Hero MotoCorp has been growing at a steady pace since the past few years and this increase in the business volume had led to increasing complexity in the operation of the old part centre, which was operated manually. This led to a host of problems for us, as all operations at the old part centre were manual. Thus, increase in business volumes brought incremental cost of additional manpower. Dependency on manpower was not only creating manageability issues, but also the storage system was manual with fixed location for each part. The overall result was a decline in the service ratio, loss of productivity and, EXPRESS COMPUTER

are in line with the order processing requirements coming from SAP. A unique thing is the underlying concept of “goods to man” which essentially ensured that the company minimized manual movement and the goods reached the right spots rather than people reaching out for the goods. This concept brought huge benefits to the organization in terms of minimizing errors and reducing manual fatigue for the manpower. The technology used for minimizing manual intervention resulted in increasing the throughput of the operation significantly and also ensured minimal discrepancy in inventory. This will enable us to meet and surpass our business targets through enhanced shelf availability and ensuring in time delivery of spares. This will also help in further improving our inventory norms. This is the first warehouse with complete automation in the automobile industry in India.

increased operation costs for spare parts. To overcome these issues, a fully automated state of the art Global Parts Centre was conceptualized and developed. The company used a Warehouse Management System (WMS) which was integrated to its enterprise system SAP at one end and to the Warehouse Control System (WCS) at the other end. The overall ecosystem ensured that the equipment operations

As an industry veteran, what are the do’s and don’ts that you will suggest for an IT head or CIO of an automotive company? For a CIO in the auto industry, I would say, one needs to be very cautious of the fact that the auto industry is very competitive, cost competitive, and cost conscious. So one should actually use technologies to improve competitiveness of the organization, and not just stick to legacy systems. There are times where people get stuck to their own decisions. The technology is moving so fast, maybe a decision that was right at a particular time may not be the right decision today. Today it’s creating inefficiency in the system. Hence, one should have the courage to review their own decisions. Despite being competitive, the auto industry has also shown that it is an industry which is ready to collaborate a lot. So, the CIOs should also use the power of collaboration, not just within their own ecosystem, but also with other companies within the auto industry to help them improve the sector. rashi.varshney@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

EVENT VMworld 2016

MULTI-CLOUD STRATEGY, CONTAINER, NSX RULES VMworld 2016 VMworld 2016 placed the spotlight on VMware's multicloud strategy, partnerships with IBM and enhancement to the existing solutions BY MOHD UJALEY

ike all VMworld conferences, VMworld 2016 Las Vegas was a jam-packed event. Over 250 companies and 23,000 people from different parts of the world participated in this year’s conference. The keynote addresses from top executives laid-out the broader strategy for the US-based virtual infrastructure company. Announcements around partnerships with technology giant IBM and enhancement to the existing solutions presented the path for the coming years. Underling the importance of the conference, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said, "Nowhere is the vibrance of ecosystem more visible than here at VMworld. We're innovating, and everybody is adding their value to it.” The major takeaway from this year’s event were: VMware's multi-cloud strategy, partnership with IBM for crosscloud architecture, the company going deeper into the container option, and the Virtustream announcement to incorporate VMware NSX into its cloud. The clarity around the fate of VMware after the merger of Dell-EMC was clarified by Gelsinger and Dell's 46

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Chairman and CEO ,Michael Dell, who indicated that VMware would be left alone in a similar manner as it had been under EMC's stewardship. This was assuring for VMware executives and media-pundits.

Multi-cloud strategy unveiled All businesses who want to thrive must embrace being a digital business—this was the resounding message of Gelsinger's speech on the first day of VMworld 2016. “There is no longer a distinction between digital and traditional. The cross-cloud architecture is the strategy to run, manage, connect and secure apps in this all-digital world,” Gelsinger said in his keynote address. Among many announcements, perhaps the biggest news at this year’s conference was that IBM Cloud became the first partner to offer the VMware’s Cloud Foundation-as-a-Service solution in which a unified SDDC (SoftwareDefined Data Center) platform is being offered for managing and running SDDC clouds. In addition, VMware laid out plans to offer cross-cloud services, in which customers would be able to manage, govern and secure applications

running in private and public clouds, including IBM Cloud, NTT Cloud, AWS, Microsoft Azure and others. While announcing the extension of the company’s hybrid cloud strategy by laying-out plans for cross-cloud support, Gelsinger informed that VMware's crosscloud architecture would give customers the ability to manage, govern and secure applications running across public clouds, including AWS, Azure and IBM Cloud. In fact, to give a better idea of crosscloud services functionality, Guido Appenzeller, chief technology strategy officer for networking and security at VMware, was on the stage, providing a tech preview of cross-cloud services. His demos showcased how these offerings would allow central IT to protect data and applications and control costs while enabling developers and the businesses to innovate freely in the clouds they choose.

Unified approach to Windows 10 endpoint security The second big announcement came from Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, EndUser Computing and head of global OCTOBER, 2016

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marketing and communications, VMware, who showcased a new unified endpoint management approach for managing Windows 10, along with advancements to VMware Horizon and VMware Workspace ONE. According to Poonen, the evolution of client-server applications to cloud and mobile applications is challenging businesses everywhere. With the added complication of the consumerization of endpoints, companies are adopting digital workspaces for a simplified approach for managing, delivering and consuming applications from the cloud. Poonen said that the new announcements and advancements would help the industry in addressing the challenge of supporting workforce that demands anytime, anywhere access to all applications from any device. VMware believes that with businesses transitioning to Windows 10 and its mobile focused platform, the challenge of scaling Windows 10 desktops and applications, supporting legacy applications, and integrating an everexpanding ecosystem of mobile applications used by mobile devices, will further the need for a secure digital workspace as the solution. “We believe that there is an incredible opportunity to push identity-driven secure digital work-spaces for the delivery of any app on any device, especially as businesses shift to Windows 10 and increasingly offer cloud-based productivity suites such as Office 365 to EXPRESS COMPUTER

employees,” said Poonen, adding that VMware will offer comprehensive unified endpoint management and security technology for mobile and desktop management. While explaining unified endpoint management (UEM), he said that the UEM approach has three core elements – endpoint security, endpoint management and software life-cycle automation. It costs on an average US $7,000 per year, per endpoint, to provide endpoint security but “Our approach can save companies between 15-30% on that US $7,000 figure.”

Boost in mid-market segment in India The other big news came from China during the VMworld 2016 conference. China granted the regulatory clearance to the world’s largest US$67 billion technology merger between EMC Corporation and Dell which was completed recently. The significant presence of Dell in different segments including the small and medium business (SMB) category in India is likely to help VMware explore various opportunities in the country. “India is a great example where Dell’s presence in the marketplace is meaningfully higher than VMware,” said Gelsinger. “So, not only is it an opportunity for us to co-innovate, but it is an opportunity for us to accelerate the presence of our products into that market.” VMware which has most of its products targeted at enterprise customers and has so far focused on large

enterprises in India like State Bank of India, Bharti, Maruti among others, believes that Dell's large presence in countries like India will help it to grow its pie in the strong SMBs in India. Gelsinger said ,“Dell has a strong presence in the mid-market space and in the smaller markets in India. We see this as a great opportunity for us to reach out to customers that we have not been able to till now and help them on their digital transformation journey.”

Deep dive into container At VMworld 2016, VMware also took a deep dive into the container market by beefing up the capabilities of its nascent container platform, vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC), with two new features: an enterprise container registry based on Project Harbor and a built-in management console based on Project Admiral. Both are open source projects, as is the container platform itself. Kit Colbert, VP & CTO, Cloud-Native Apps at VMware informed that the new features make it possible for IT operations teams to provide a compatible Docker interface to their organisation's application development teams running on their existing vSphere infrastructure. In another key development, Virtustream, an EMC company, said that it plans to integrate the VMware NSX network virtualisation platform into its enterprise cloud. mohd.ujaley @expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

EVENT SAP ARIBA

HOW SAP ARIBA IS UNLOCKING THE VALUE OF A DIGITAL ECONOMY The SAP ARIBA Live 2016 showcased the ambitious plans of SAP Ariba, as it plans to expand its network from two million suppliers to five million suppliers by 2020 BY ANKUSH KUMAR

ith more than 50 interactive breakout sessions, informal networking opportunities and one-on-one executive meetings, SAP ARIBA Live 2016 showcased the potential of eprocurement systems. The major focus was on simplifying the complex procurement system, using e-commerce to automate the business transactions and the company's strategy behind the digitization of business. SAP Ariba considers the Asia Pacific region as a region with the greatest number of connected and digitally savvy consumers primed for e-commerce. The software and information technology services company located in Palo Alto, California is providing a dynamic, digital marketplace, where buyers and sellers can find each other, collaborate together and get more than US $2.5 billion in commerce done every day. “SAP Ariba is the future of SAP as it is 100 % cloud based and it is established on the idea of connecting companies together. Ariba

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was acquired in 2012 by SAP and the intention was not to just buy a good cloud procurement solution but to also buy the capabilities of the network of connecting companies to each other,” said Alex Atzberger, President, SAP Ariba.

Digitization remains the key

We want to take our networkfrom two million suppliers to five million suppliers by2020 AlexAtzberger President,SAPAriba

Talking about the company's focus on digitization and the value proposition that can be derived out of it, Atzberger said that the world’s biggest companies are mostly technology companies. The world has become more digital and consumers are expecting to interact in a digital format. The supply chain has also becoming extremely digital. In order to unlock the value of the digital economy, you need to combine adoption of a solution on a truly digital platform. So digitization starts with adoption, automation and then it goes into transformation. The power of digital cannot be only ascertained by the transformation of organization from paper to digital but to also derive additional value from it. OCTOBER, 2016

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Investment and expansion plans Sharing the company's investment and expansion plans, Atzberger said, ”We have stated goals about where we want to be in terms of size of our network. When I look at our business, I don’t just look at the revenue figures. I look at the size of the network. We want to take our network from two million suppliers to five million suppliers by 2020. Because of the growth that we see in this region, we have around 500,000 suppliers in Asia Pacific region and by 2020, I would like to scale this to 1.5 million suppliers in Asia Pacific, including China. So we will triple the number of suppliers and for this we are investing in the region. We have specific investment plans around China, Japan and South East Asia. India is still at a phase where we can do a lot of things today so it is not only about investments.”

Where social networks and businesses meet Every day, billions of Asian consumers tap into social networks like Alibaba, WeChat and Kakao to shop and share. EXPRESS COMPUTER

Everything they need to manage their personal lives is in these networks – there’s no need to leave these networks to make things happen. SAP Ariba is trying to do the same in the enterprise space through its cloud-based applications and business network. “Procurement is no longer about buying things at the best prices, but collaborating in new, more efficient ways that create value across the entire source-to-pay process,” said David Man, AIA Group Controller. “To do this requires more than just point solutions that address specific tasks. It takes an end-to-end offering that combines the convenience and agility of the cloud with the connectivity and global reach of business networks and strength of enterprise applications. With SAP Ariba, this is exactly what we get.” And suppliers like Malaysia-based Alphamatic Systems can collaborate more efficiently with customers, streamlining sales cycles and improving cash control along the way. “With SAP

Ariba solutions, it is very easy to track purchase orders and invoices online,” said Chan Woei Liang, Sales Director, Enterprise Business Solutions, Alphamatic Systems. “Time spent on followups for payments have been reduced significantly and we have even seen businesses grow.” In the last year, the number of suppliers connecting to the Ariba Network to efficiently collaborate on transactions and boost their revenue rose nearly 200%. “Asia is among the most connected and digitally savvy economies in the world,” said Grant Clinch, Head of APJ, SAP Ariba. “And in embracing cloud-based solutions that enable them to connect in new and innovative ways, they will open the door to incredible opportunities for growth.” The company shared that more than half a million buyers and suppliers in Asia use SAP Ariba’s solutions to digitize and simplify commerce. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

EVENT NV INNOVATE 2016

VIRTUAL NETWORKING GOES MAINSTREAM ATVMWARE NV INNOVATE 2016 With complex business demands, virtual networking can prove to be a game-changer for organizations on various levels BY JASMINE DESAI

irtual networking has definitely shed its academic robes and is all ready to go mainstream with VMware NSX as was showcased at VMware NV Innovate 2016 event. VMware NSX's sales more than doubled in the second quarter of 2016 year-over-year and VMware now has more than 1,700 customers using the technology. It says more about willingness of customers who are combating multi-layered market changes to experiment and innovate on the networking layer. Network virtualization through VMware NSX delivers a completely new operational model for networking that forms the foundation of the software-defined data center. NSX builds networks in software, allowing data center operators to achieve levels of agility, security and cost savings that were previously not possible through physical networks. VMware NSX is divided into three stacks of micro-segmentation, automaton and security. Presently, micro-segmentation is driving 40% of VMware NSX sales. In his keynote, Dr. Rajiv Ramaswami, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Networking and Security BU, VMware, stated confidently, "In our vision, to simply put VMware NSX is everywhere. It will run on any platform inside both private and public clouds, across these clouds and on variety of application architecture frameworks." 50

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Dr Rajiv Ramaswami, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Networking and Security BU, VMware addressing the keynote

VMware NSX in action With businesses grappling with security challenges, VMware NSX's innovative security strategy came as a strong point for adoption. A key finding from VMware sponsored study led by EIU (Economic Intelligence Unit) mentioned that IT leaders (32%) in India regard cybersecurity as their number one corporate priority, while only 8% of Csuite business leaders share a similar point of view. Similarly, while 36% of IT leaders believe security budgets will

significantly increase in the next two years, only 21% of C-suite business leaders foresee likewise. Leaders in India are more concerned about the ‘theft of customer data’ than their regional counterparts, with four in 10 (31.8%) believing that this could cause the greatest harm to their businesses. Critical risks identified by both groups were ‘unknown cyber threats that move faster than their defenses’, ‘resources and data that may unknowingly reside in the cloud’, ‘employees who are careless or untrained in cybersecurity’, and ‘illegitimate users and devices accessing corporate networks’. “Forward-thinking organizations understand that the reactive security approach of today is no longer doing its job. They also acknowledge that people and systems can be easily bypassed or blindsided if the business lacks a ubiquitous IT architectural plan that cuts across all levels of compute, network, storage, clouds and devices,” said Arun Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India. “By taking a softwaredefined approach to IT, security is ‘architected’ into everything, empowering organizations to gain the flexibility required to succeed as a digital business.” "What's needed is an organizing framework -- a true architecture that all the leading players can align to so that security can be architected in," further elaborated Parameswaran. "By changing the dynamics of how we deliver trusted OCTOBER, 2016

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services over vulnerable infrastructure, the IT security industry has an opportunity to chart a new path forward." The micro-segmentation stack which provides security at VM level was the most talked about stack in VMware NSX. Micro-segmentation offers protection close to the source and destination of the traffic. It could be coming from a server, VM, an application etc. "The most basic use-case is just protecting the east-west traffic," said Dr. Rammaswami. Thus, if one application or one server is compromised it will not affect anything else in the environment. Other use-cases could be in many environments where organizations use VDI or there are lot of mobile users. A case in point is that of The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts leveraging VMware NSX for security purpose. Following an analysis to identify critical gaps in service and support, the team at EEA set forth on an IT modernization initiative. The team is deploying VCE VxRail hyper converged infrastructure appliances and VMware NSX network virtualization to consolidate four physical data centers into two active-active virtual data centers located within Boston, but with connections to all 370 remote sites located throughout the state. The new multi-tenant software-defined data centers will host all business and online applications, as well as serve as a central data repository. The transformation will improve the EEA's ability to protect their IT processes because security and networking can be tied to the function of each server and application; already, the ability for live migration of applications with zero downtime has enabled new levels of application security and availability. Other notable customers leveraging VMware NSX are Nike, Johnson&Johnson, Bharti Airtel and NPCI. In a very engaging panel discussion led by Arun Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India customer experiences from varied sectors were brought forth by Bharti EXPRESS COMPUTER

[L-R] Maurizio Carli - EVP Worldwide Sales, VMware, Arun Kumar Parameswaran - MD, VMware India

Arun Kumar Parameswaran - MD, VMware India, leading a panel discussion with the representatives from Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank and NPCI on the benefits and experience of using NSX

Airtel that is already leveraging VMware NSX, Indusland Bank that is currently in a POC stage and NPCI which is also utilizing the solution. Another much quoted customer case was that of Columbia Sportswear brand which is sold in more than 100 countries. It has been an early adopter of VMware's software-defined data center and business mobility portfolio, including VMware NSX and VMware AirWatch, as well as EMC storage. Columbia is now bringing innovation into its retail stores by partnering with VMware to build a fully software-defined infrastructure platform for its current and future needs. Key benefits that the organization is

looking forward to is the ability to lower costs, deploy infrastructure faster and improve operational simplicity. Dr. Ramaswami aptly summed up the change led on by VMware NSX as he avered, "I haven't seen a technology come along in my world, that has as broad an implication on future of how things get done as VMware NSX." He further said that this move from hardware to software in networking that is not just in theory, but something going mainstream is probably the most fundamental transformation that is happening in networking industry presently. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

OCTOBER, 2016

OPINION

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RANJIT SATYANATH INFINITI RETAIL

ENTERPRISE VERSUS PERSONALAPPLICATIONS Enterprise applications are thrust upon us often by project teams that do not spend adequate time with the end users or involving them enough in the design phase. The result is a solution that often only partially solves problems but is sure to create new ones.

have often wondered why we balk at the prospect of having to work on a new enterprise application. IT project teams have to conduct extensive training and workshops during the rollout phase and even then they cannot take adoption as a given, especially if their rollout is competing with Excel. On the other hand, in our personal lives we can’t have enough apps to try out and play with and the only problem we seem to have is the space on our device. Even on home PCs & laptops, we have several sophisticated applications like movie and image editing software, highend games, and applications for sound editing that have more than a simple learning curve. The dichotomy exists for the following reasons:

Need to involve users Enterprise applications are thrust upon us often by project teams that do not spend adequate time with the end users or involving them enough in the design phase. The result is a solution that often only partially solves problems but is sure to create new ones. These issues then require additional phases to resolve. In some cases if the project does not get any traction the result is an orphan application.

User Experience

If Enterprise IT teams approach their development cycles giving equal importance to their users as they do to functionality, security and project management, adoption of Enterprise Applications could be a lot faster 52

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Personal applications have great UX. The colour schemes, font size, wire-frames and other aspects are usually designed by experts. On the other hand, enterprise applications seem to be designed for nerds. In their defence, while the enterprise has started to give importance to this aspect the scale has not yet started to kick in. Building great UX requires investments of time and money. How many times have we heard the timeline mandated when the need for a solution is articulated? The project team is advised to work backwards and deliver it within the stipulated period – much akin to setting the marriage date before the

courtship has even begun. No prizes for guessing which aspect is taking the hit here. Speaking of hits, the other thing that mostly gets side-lined is the testing process. Most projects would assign time for testing functionality and data accuracy. However, regression testing, browser, multi-device and battery drain tests (for mobility projects) are not yet the norm in very many enterprise implementations. All of this leads to a less than desired end user experience.

Scalability Enterprise applications are designed to leverage the best hardware available. Personal applications are designed to also work on even very low-end devices. Due to this approach, most users get a favorable user experience if they possess a mid-line device. Also, personal applications go through several rapid upgrades with each version squashing a batch of bugs and adding functionality. Customers get a sense that they are getting better app every time they upgrade. Enterprise application release cycles are much more modest and their users have to wait longer for their problems to get resolved. Enterprise applications are built for security – probably rightly so. However, very often while building enterprise applications, processes are designed to address some border line security risk which has impacts on performance, screen design and overall usability. Finally, enterprise applications are designed to get work done and most personal applications are intended for play towards accomplishment of a personal goal or objective. If enterprise IT teams approach their development cycles giving equal importance to their users as they do to functionality, security and project management, adoption of enterprise applications could be a lot faster. – By Ranjit Satyanath, CIO, Infiniti Retail OCTOBER, 2016

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