IT Next March 2012

it next

march 2012 / ` 100 Volume 03 / Issue 02

40

Insight: Joy of shopping online with IT innovation

06

boss Talk: Hail customers with caution: Sasken’s Chief

32 bIG Q

interview: Casey King on using cloud to communicate

Mind Your

Tablet pc: Boon or bane Pg 51

Mind Your Business

Business...

volume 03 | Issue 02

Editorial

Taking on New Roles

Innovation and transformation are the need of the hour in any industry and more so in the IT industry. Constant business expansion calls for this change, and it

may be either individual or company specific.

However, I have centred my discussion specifically around the information technology industry, which can be seen to be playing a lead role in business transformation. The major players in this change are the IT managers who are donning the new mantles to meet the rising expectations of business, finance, HR and other groups.

As IT departments align resources with company goals, their expanding responsibilities demand that they arm themselves with sufficient knowledge of the various functions in the business. It is fascinating to find that IT managers have realised this and are, in fact, reincarnating themselves to fit their larger profiles.

Experts say that IT managers are limited by the lack of their knowledge about business, finance, HR and other crucial aspects of business and this is what is proving detrimental to their career progression.

IT Next in its cover story ‘Mind Your Business’ takes up this issue to drive home the changing profile of IT managers and the need to increase their grasp of the business and its various components in order to climb up the ladder of success. It is time for them to realise that the senior management expects a much larger role and deeper understanding of issues from them.

‘Mind Your Business’ provides insights into the challenges that IT managers encounter in dealing with other groups, the expectations that CEOs, CFOs and HR heads have from IT, the differences and synergies IT can find with other groups and so on.

There is positive change and our study indicates that IT managers have already realised the business expectations as reflected in the endeavours most of them are undertaking to fill out the bigger shoes. They are busy honing their financial intelligence, strategic role-playing, and learning the importance of symbiotic relationships in a business environment.

“IT Managers are donning new mantles to meet the rising expectations of business, finance & HR” Geetha Nandikotkur

Blogs To Watch!

The Top 25 HR Blogs http://www.hrworld.com/ features/top-25-blogs-121907/ CMO/CIO Alignment Imperative http://cmocioalign.org/ resources/blogs.php Aligning Business and IT to Improve Performance http://www.ventanaresearch. com/ How To Get Beyond Alignment http://blogs.forrester.com/ nigel_fenwick/11-11-28-how_to_ get_beyond_alignment Aligning Business And IT: There’s No Other Way http://www.ebizq.net/topics/ bpm/features/4892.html

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Mind Your

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boss talk

interview

15 Insights into why IT managers need to be clued in to business, finance, HR and other groups in order to move up the career ladder 17 Get the Numbers Right: Need for Financial Intelligence 20 Get Proactive to Progress: Strategic Interplay with Business for Agility 22 IT & HR: A Symbiotic Relationship to understand human pain points

insights

26 Chief Integral Officer

CIO playing an integral decision-making role

28 Keeping Pace with Business Changes

Business Process Management technologies for refining the process

36 Mobility transforming the workplace itnext | M a r c h 2 0 1 2

06 Hail the King: Caution| Nagamani Murthy, VP-Worldwide Delivery, Sasken Communications on customer management

32 Casey King| Chief Technology Officer, LifeSize finds cloud making communication & collaboration easy

itnext.in

MANAGEMENT Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Vikas Gupta

EDITORIAL

Page

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Group Editor: R Giridhar Executive Editor: Geetha Nandikotkur Consulting Editor(Online): Sanjay Gupta Senior Assistant Editor: Manu Sharma Managing Editor (Desk): sangita Thakur Sub Editors: Radhika Haswani, Mitia Nath

Workplace transformation | IT managers are trying to find ways to handle threats through mobility which are transforming the workplace

DESIGN

cube chat

opinion 08 3-Pronged IT strategy | Dr B Muthukumaran, Head-Operations, Secure IQ on strategies adopted to drive growth

15-Minute manager 43 Tweak or Trash| Accen-

ture’s tech investment leading to tweak or trash tech debate

Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Directors: PC Anoop & Atul Deshmukh Visualisers: Prasanth TR, Anil T & Shokeen Saifi Sr Designers: Sristi Maurya & NV Baiju Designers: Suneesh K, Shigil N, Charu Dwivedi Raj Verma, Prince Antony, Binu MP, Peterson & Prameesh Purushothaman C Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

62 Bridging the Tech Gap | Aniket Kate of M&M is keen

on teaching, to bridge the technology gap between the industry & academic curriculum

off the shelf 60 Vision | Bluetooth Headset

for high audio quality

sales & marketing Brand Manager: Siddhant Raizada (09873555231) Senior Vice President: Krishna Kumar (09810206034) National Manager-Events & Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) National Manager -Print , Online & Events: Sachin Mhashilkar (09920348755) South: B N Raghavendra (09845381683)) North: Deepak Sharma (09811791110) West: Hafeez Shaikh (09833103611) Assistant Brand Manager: Swati Sharma Ad co-ordination/Scheduling: Kishan Singh

44 Tips & Tricks| Learn how

to cope with depression in the workplace 47 Outsourcing| It isn’t the end

of outsourcing in India yet, what with virtualisation and cloud

the big Q 51 Tablets: | Boon or Bane—

experts tell you how to work out a cost versus benefit blueprint

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advertiser index IBM IFC Ricoh 5 ISACA 7 Asia Power 68 Patel India IBC Microsoft BC

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m a r c h 2 0 1 2 | itnext

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INBoX IT NEXT

FEBRUARY 2012 / ` 100 VOLUME 03 / ISSUE 01

32

INSIGHT: Challenges and RoI for server virtualisation

06

BOSS TALK: People leadership tips from NavSemi chief

48 BIG Q

INTERVIEW: Manish Goel on tackling sophisticated threats

Big Data: Problem or Solution?

64%

have a goal to put enterprise strategy into actionable entities SOAR TO NEW HEIGHTS

61%

of IT managers expect innovations around enterprise mobility in 2012

55%

61%

aspire to be associated with business operations besides IT

of IT managers hope to acquire skills in strategic thinking

SOAR TO NEW HEIGHTS VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 01

Use strategic perspectives to drive the alignment of technology with business goals Pg 14

FEBRUARY 2012

IT NEXT thanks its Readers for the warm response

IT NEXT values your feedback

We want to know what you think about the magazine, and how we can make it a better read. Your comments will go a long way in making IT NEXT the preferred publication for the community. Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editor@itnext.in.

Good Initiative. I am a regular reader of IT Next. I appreciate the initiative taken to bring to the readers various technologies and solutions that would make an impact in the next one year. Most of the innovations that are going to happen in 2012 would be in the areas of social networking, NFC, mobile payment, enterprise applications/mobile apps and green IT. As an IT manager, I would like to get into consulting and business operations roles which will help me in speeding up my career growth.

Skills in strategic thinking and planning and an eye and ear for business, pricing and negotiation skills would be an added advantage for me.

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read this issue online http://www.itnext. in/resources/ magazine

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itnext | m a r c h 2 0 1 2

Grace kumar Associate Director, IT Infrastructure Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions

IT Next My Partner As the IT manager of a leading company, I feel that top technologies like cloud solutions, IT security, mobility and green IT would make an impact in the next six to 12 months. I see major innovations happening in 2012 in the areas of touch computing, enterprise applications/mobile apps and big data. The ongoing boom in mobiles and tablets will continue this year as well and shall see tablet PCs and tablets cannibalising laptop sales. I also predict an increase in adoption of cloud-based service models and increased use of Flash memory for consumer devices along with BYOD evolving. So my priorities for 2012 are to build team management skills and acquire technology know-how to translate business strategies into IT action. All this can be only done in association with a major brand like IT Next.

Gautam Makker Manager, IT, Motwane Mfg Co

Erratum: In the Next100 2011 Award Winners List, my name has been printed against Subhasis Nayak’s photograph, also an awardee.

I have received several calls seeking clarification over name change.

Would really appreciate if you could look into this and do the needful.

Rahul Purohit Sr Consultant, Program Management (SeMT - Delhi), NISG

Expand Your Dimension At the outset, let me thank you for publishing my story in the online version of IT Next (www.itnext.in) ‘Philanthropy that Goes beyond Money’. I would be glad if you take this in the print version of the magazine too.

While the articles in IT Next make a good reading, they should cater to all generations and communities associated with IT. You can find ways to reach out to colleges and the youth, which can help expand your reach. The content needs to focus on how technology can be simplified. The magazine can be used as a guide and reference material for technical content and help everyone understand technology better. While the technological focus on content is a must, you can also include puzzles, gaming, etc, in the magazine. Some global coverage like IT updates and news would be make it more appealing.

As an IT head, I also feel that a lot of focus should be on how IT can help non-IT sectors. A monthly section like ‘Tips and Tricks’ on

IT monthly on global IT events would be welcome. Events in the form of Q&A sessions on IT and careers would also be appreciated.

SDPL Narayana Asst General Manager-IT, Neuland Laboratories Ltd, Hyderabad

Error is regretted ITNEXT<space> <your feedback> and send it to

567678 *Special rates apply

—Editor (Note: Letters have been edited minimally, for brevity and clarity)

Boss talk | Nagamani Murthy

CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT

Hail the ‘King’, Cautiously

T

he adage ‘customer is king’ is common and ingrained into every seller’s mind, with many making ceaseless efforts to keep customers happy. But, the flip side of this mindless endeavour is that the basic rules are sometimes forgotten resulting in a bigger chaos.

The IT managers need to draw a line when it comes to ensuring customer delight.

Balance is Critical Being customer focussed is vital, but one ought to be balanced, be it in respect to external customers or internal ones. However, going overboard to please them at all times would create certain discrepancies and result in the engagement not being so successful. The reasons for this would be that each one would take the other for granted and thus lose sight of the primary task.

The idea of delighting our customers has been so deep-rooted in our psyches that we rarely stop and ask ‘how much to delight’ or ‘to what extent’.

In an effort to appease the customers, most often there is a lot of pressure put on internal teams.

It is critical to ponder over such quality issues and take a pragmatic approach. Pleasing the customer under all circumstances and giving in to irrational demands will result in chaos internally and would not help in the long-term retention of customers or business growth. It is important to know your customer, the pain points, the requirements and the urgency before pandering to irrational demands.

Be Customer Centric In case of IT managers, internal business groups form the core customer base and cannot be overlooked. Being customer centric helps IT managers see objectively. It yields a massive benefit for the customers—both internal and external. When IT managers maintain ‘centricity’, it allows them to take a step back

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itnext | M A R C H 2 0 1 2

“The conviction to say ‘No’ when necessary is a virtue that every team must aim to achieve for better results”

Suggestion BOX

every once in a while and assess the business impact of their actions and levels of commitment to ‘customer is king’. It builds confidence in the internal customers too, which ensures that quality is at its best. IT managers must be aware that trust between internal customers, us and external customers builds spontaneously.

Learn to Say No

“For business leaders and public figures it offers a unique and practical look at how trust functions in every transaction and relationship” title: The Speed of Tru st AUTHOR: Stephen MR Covey PU BLISHER: Simon and Schu ster, UK PRICE:$17.15

The conviction to say ‘No’ when necessary is a virtue that every team must aim to achieve for better results. Moves made with conviction are easily noticed and create positive impact, which further fuel strong bonding and increase the loyalty score. It is imperative to draw a line between keeping the customers happy and making the customers happy, as most often customers would like to be happy about any negotiation or a project or a solution. Today, several large organisations are implementing this art of balancing and so, experiencing fine customer relations. They are profitable, easy to maintain and almost effortless.

The author is a Senior VP, Worldwide Delivery at Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd

Key Performance

Indicator.

Exam Date: 9 June 2012 Registration Deadline: 4 April 2012 www.isaca.org/Certification-ITNEXT

Opinion

money wise Dr B Muthukumaran Head-Operations, IT Security, Secure IQ

Three-pronged IT Strategy for Growth

I

n a globalised economy, from a niche market standpoint, information technology has evolved into a commodity market with the potential to drive consumerisation.

However, to sustain business, it is envisaged that IT is a value creator.

One cannot override the fact that today information technology has adopted a bottom-line strategy to increase efficiency by reducing overall costs and a top-line strategy to generate new revenue through new products and services. However, a three-pronged strategy focussed on innovation, customer retention and supply chain optimisation will lead to a sustained growth model.

Growth Challenges An Accenture report entitled ‘India in 2012’ stated that sustaining high growth is likely to be the overarching concern in 2012, although the risk of inflation will remain, largely because of a weakening rupee. With export as a revenue option to ease out the current volatility driven by an agonisingly price-sensitive market, near zero value differentiators, continue placing downward pressure on production.

Against this backdrop, business consolidation and optimisation through the strategic use of information technology takes priority to sustain and exhibit top-line and bottom-line targets.

This is possible if IT managers continue to focus on innovation, customer retention, and supply chain optimisation.

Innovation to the Rescue Innovation has always come to the rescue and helps in sustaining growth in times of economic crisis. IT driven innovation

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“Consolidation and optimisation through the strategic use of IT takes priority to sustain and exhibit top-line and bottom-line targets” enables organisations to address costs, quality, time-to-market, productivity and increasing revenue growth. At an organisational level, interdependence of business and IT is cardinal to creating new knowledge and products and harmonising business to studiously compete and enhance its competitive position. This holds good for managing overheads, divesting underperforming businesses and gearing up to challenge business dynamics leading to better bottom line. It is evident that information technology is pivotal to the success of network and spherical firms through the various complex agreements and IT driven delivery platforms.

Companies typically combine defensive approaches like improving operational efficiency, with offensive techniques like developing new markets, investing in new assets, or both to address the bottom-line table.

Customer Retention Given the volatility of market conditions with low budgets, increased competition and so on, the business environment has reached a stage where customer attrition is addressed through metrics in the boardroom, and customer retention becomes a challenge for the organisation. The customer is keen on getting service rather than being concerned over who is providing it.

A disussion by Thoman Daven Port in Harvard Business Review on ‘Competing on Analytics’ draws attention to and triggers a series of new opportunities around customer retention tactics. Customer analysis models and measurements are addressed through IT systems and big data networks as seen by the spurt of activities on Hadoop initiatives.

Supply Chain Dynamics Changes in the market situation demands increased efficiency in the supply chain and its processes which will drive down costs. For instance, PricewaterhouseCoopers has outlined the capability of web networks for driving cost savings and supply chain efficiency. By amalgamating and accrediting core competencies, tangible and intangible assets of connected parties, organisations add value through collaborative advantage. IT has enabled the surfacing of sustainabilityoriented businesses that incorporate cyclical flows in development, delivery and ‘reverse logistics’ related to return and reuse of products. IT has become vital to this shift as it provides information architecture that enables cyclical flow of data through businesses.

For example, the automobile sector in India is now contemplating to ship modular kits to small local business units, combining assembly, sales and service under one roof.

update

Update I n d u s t r y

Hiring to fall by 100,000 jobs; wage hike to grow 8-10% only

TECH TRENDS | India’s IT and IT services sector will cross the $100

billion-mark this fiscal but the growth rate will slow down in the next fiscal as concerns over global economic condition and domestic policy issues loom large, industry body Nasscom said.

Nasscom also said hiring is expected to be less by 100,000 jobs in the next fiscal and the growth in wages hike will also be only 8-10 per cent. “This has been a very good year for the industry and we have seen a growth of 16.3 per cent. This year (fiscal) the industry will

Mobile Industry Predictions Survey of 2012

Mobile The chart draws upon the collective wisdom of folks who are at the centre of the mobile evolution Continued growth of mobile data around the world Amazon’s entry into the mobile arena

The chart indicates 40% of mobile stories are centred on mobile data growth

Microsoft/Nokia resurgence 4G deployment and marketing battles Google and Android Security and Privacy Apple Tablets and iPhone Facebook Mobile Platform Others Operator and/or OEM M&A Policy and Regulation Network overloading and collapse 0%

Source: Annual survey by C hetan Sharma C onsulti ng

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5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

cross the $100-billion mark,” said Rajendra S Pawar, Nasscom Chairman.

As per the industry body estimates, total revenue of the sector will be $101 billion, out of which $69 billion will be from exports and $32 billion from the domestic market. Stating that the current environment has become uncertain due to a variety of factors such as the elections in the US, Eurozone crisis and India’s own ‘policy paralysis’ among others, Pawar said for the fiscal 2012-13, the industry is expected to grow between 11-14 per cent. “We will revisit this forecast in October.

The mood is more sober now and these uncertainties are forcing us not to look at the whole year,” he said.

The industry can meet the vision 2020 target of touching $225 billion provided it grows at a compounded annual growth rate of 13 per cent from fiscal 2012-13, he added.

Commenting on the hiring prospects in the industry, Nasscom President Som Mittal said, “There is a strong hiring pipeline of over one lakh offers, however, it will be less than the projected number” On the salary hike front, Nasscom said the growth could be in the range of 8-10 per cent in 2012-13 as compared to 10-14 per cent in the current fiscal.

Exports from the sector are also set to grow more slowly for the year ending March 31, 2013.

The growth will be between 11-14 per cent from IT and BPO firms compared to a projected 16.3 per cent in the year to March 2012.

I llustrations : Shig il N

Nasscom: Slowdown in IT Sector FY13

trends deals products services people

Lenovo All Guns Blazing

Amazing Apps & Features

Camera with optical zoom

The YOGA ultrabook-cum-tablet is an exclusive product and offers users the option of a touch-input tablet and a traditional keyboard on a Windows 8 operating system.

Price: Rs 60,000

Nokia Lumia 900 has a 4.3 inch blow-up version of Lumia 800 and sports a WVGA touchscreen and comes with a Gorilla glass ClearBlack Amoled panel. Price: Not Disclosed

Canon PowerShot SX220HS makes for a good buy since it offers better image quality and more manual control.

Performance-wise it is much better as it has a 14X optical zoom and comes in a compact form factor. Price: 15,515

Oracle Unveils Big Data Solutions Platform TECH TIDINGS | Oracle recently

introduced its Big Data Solutions Platform to help customers tackle Big Data and make decisions faster. Oracle is the first vendor to offer a complete and integrated solution to address the full spectrum of enterprise big data requirements.

Oracle’s big data strategy is driven by its overall approach to data management with engineered systems in which hardware and software are engineered to work together for performance, reliability, and scalability. The platform includes Oracle Big Data Appliance, which in conjunction

A complete solution to address the full spectrum of big data requirements

with Oracle Exadata, and Oracle Exalytics offers the broadest, most integrated product portfolio to help customers acquire and organise diverse data types, and then analyse

Around The World

them alongside existing enterprise data to discover new insights and make the most informed decisions.

Oracle Big Data Appliance gathers, organises and loads unstructured data into Oracle Database for advanced analytics. The Oracle Exadata Database Machine provides extreme performance for both data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) applications. Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine uses in-memory technology to deliver fast analytics, data visualisation, and performance management, complementing the Exadata system. In combination with ZFS Storage Appliances and Pillar Data System, customers can implement a very robust and scalable data management infrastructure.

quick byte

I llustrations : Shig il N

New Player in the Market Will Compete with LinkedIn Rumours are abound about the imminent introduction of Masterseek.com’s professional profile site to the World Wide Web. Still under development, it boasts of the world’s largest business database with over 145 million personal/ professional profiles from around the world—that’s more than LinkedIn which is currently estimated to have just over 125 million professional profiles.

Masterseek is already the largest B2B search engine, with 40 million more businesses listed.

Kapil Sibal, Minister for HRD, Communications & IT, Government of India, at ISA Vision Summit 2012 says.

Aakash tablets will be free in the hands of every student in India. We would be launching Aakash 2, which is a faster and a more efficient version

m a r c h 2 0 1 2 | itnext

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update

Pingar Signs Indian Pact

with CMC Ltd TECH TRENDS | Pingar, an inno-

Interview Cameron Purdy VP-Development, Oracle

IT NEXT: What are the benefits of Oracle WebLogic Server 12c?

The agreement will provide an increased ability to manage unstructured data and improve business process optimisation

a number of regions worldwide in industries including: banking and financial services, insurance, government, manufacturing, energy resources and utilities, transportation, shipping, high tech, telecom, retail, fast moving consumer goods, defence and space, education and training.

Symphony and Teleca Merge approved by the board of directors of both companies, will build upon and Teleca, a supplier of product development services and solutions for the complementary strengths of each company to create a truly mobile appliance Original Equipment global leader in the transformation Manufacturers (OEMs) and telecomof software, connected devices and munications operators, has entered enterprise mobility. “The strategy into a definitive merger agreement to driving this merger is compelling,” create Symphony Teleca Corporation. said Romesh Wadhwani, The company said that the Founder, Chairman and newly formed company will Chief Executive Officer, focus exclusively on helping Symphony Technology clients rapidly develop, per cent Group. “Enterprise software, manage and support software growth in cloud and mobile technologies for emerging cloud and merger and acquisition in are at the beginning of a enterprise mobility solutions 2010 significant convergence and in the connected world. source: witness transformation,” he added.

The transaction, which is

I llustration: photos .co m

tech trends | Symphony Services

34.3

PURDY: It provides significant enhancements to help customers and partners lower their total cost of ownership and derive more value from their current application infrastructure, while accelerating the development cycle and reducing timeto-market for their applications.

Does the new software support cloud, Java EE 6 and Java 7?

Oracle WebLogic Server 12c is being billed as the cornerstone of the company’s Cloud Application Foundation and a core component of its Oracle Fusion Middleware product line. This version is designed to allow developers to leverage the features and capabilities of the Java Platform Standard Edition 7 (Java SE 7) and the Java Platform Enterprise Edition 6 (Java EE 6).

The new edition is the first major update of the app server since the WebLogic 11g, released in 2009. There is a big emphasis in this release on moving Oracle customers smoothly to the cloud. In fact, the ‘c’ in WebLogic Server 12c stands for ‘cloud’.

What verticals does the Weblogic best cater to?

I feel that the telecom and BFSI are best suited primarily due to their business needs of a reliable and secure platform. As the centrepiece of Oracle’s Cloud Application Foundation and a core part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family, WebLogic Server 12c delivers new capabilities for building, deploying and running Java Photo graphy: Jayan K Narayanan

vative New Zealand provider of unstructured data management solutions, has announced the expansion of its global partner network with the signing of an agreement with CMC Limited.

The agreement, Pingar’s first partnership in India, will provide CMC and its enterprise clients with an increased ability to manage unstructured data to gain efficiency and improve the quality of business process, collaboration and content management programmes.

The CMC agreement validates the global enterprise need for unstructured data management solutions that integrate with existing content and database management systems. The agreement between the two companies represents an efficient reseller channel for Pingar, providing access to a vast network of clients in

Platform and Enterprise Edition (Java EE).

By Manu Sharma

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itnext | m a r c h 2 0 1 2

update

Mahindra Satyam to Buy Stake in Dion Global

imaging; photos.com

It will help Mahindra Satyam increase presence in the capital markets vertical

Tech Tidings| Mahindra Satyam has signed a MoU with Dion Global Solutions, under which it will acquire a strategic stake in Dion. It will acquire a significant minority stake via fresh issue of equity shares. The new equity shares will be priced at in accordance with the applicable SEBI regulations.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory and board approvals and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.

“We are extremely impressed by Dion’s product and solutions, its ability to truly partner with its clients and most of all, its top-class management team. We are convinced that in the time to come, Dion will become one

News @ blog

of the foremost software solutions providers to capital markets globally and we are keen on participating in Dion’s promising future,” CP Gurnani, Mahindra Satyam’s CEO said.

“We are delighted to have Mahindra Satyam as a strategic investor in our company. Working with such an esteemed partner and combining the unique skills from both companies will allow us to cooperate on developing new innovative business focussed solutions for all tiers of the financial services industry including many of our common clients. This alliance will help us further expand our solutions capabilities,” Ralph J Horne, Dion’s MD and Global CEO said.

Tech Tidings

Wipro Eying Another Acquisition After last year’s acquisition of SAIC, which has proved to be “hugely positive”, Wipro is now looking at similar acquisition in the mining space. Wipro acquired SAIC, which was headquartered in the UK and had operations in the US, for $150 million in April last year. SAIC, a consultancy and system integration company, knew oil exploration and production well.

Wipro married SAIC’s capabilities with its own IT strengths to offer an end-to-end solution to clients.

Anand Padmanabhan, Senior Vice President (Energy, Natural Resources and Utilities), Wipro Technologies, said that the acquisition had not only deepened Wipro’s engagement with clients in the oil industry, but also brought more clients. Wipro would be interested in acquiring a company that has capabilities in the mining sector, similar to those that SAIC had in the oil and gas sector, he said.

“The process is the same, but the technology is different,” Padmanabhan said. He observed that the process of producing a natural resource is similar but there could be sector-specific peculiarities.

New Features on Google for Jan 2012 Ask Your Friends, Pseudonym addition and Search+ Your World are new on Google

Google+ has come up with another feature which says Ask Your Friends. This feature allows users to ask friends for answers on their queries. Google + gives an option of Want to Ask Your Friend about XYZ? And the question gets posted on Google+. This crowdsourcing feature lets people turn to their social networking sites to get their queries answered. m a r c h 2 0 1 2 | itnext

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IT IN BUSINESS | cover story

Mind Your

Privy Organics Ltdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Team From Left: Vijay Rao, Technical Director Jayant Meshram, Head-HR Narayan Iyer, VP-Finance Sitting: Kaushal Shah, Head-IT

IT managers need greater involvement in business functions to enhance organisational benefits

BY N Gee tha

IT

no longer functions in a silo. With roles expanding and demands on them growing daily, it is easy for IT managers to get completely sucked into the daily rigmarole of corporate existence and lose sight of the bigger picture and the real scope of their role. With growing competition, business expansion and geographical progression on their growth radar, the expectations of senior management from IT are also multiplying. The business and finance functions now look to IT for reduction of overall cost and improvement in bottom line.

m a r c h 2 0 1 2 | itnext

Photog raphy: Jiten Gandhi IMAGING: Pe ters o n

Business 15

cover story | IT IN BUSINESS In my opinion, the role of IT or the IT managers doesn’t end here. If the top management has not carved out a vision map of growth for the IT manager, for whatever reasons, it is time that the IT manager creates a path for himself. Of course, to do so, the IT manager will have to undergo a certain amount of learning and unlearning to take on these new expanded roles and responsibilities.

The most pertinent question here is what is hindering IT managers’ growth in an organisation.

Most industry experts say it is their limited knowledge about business functions that impedes their growth.

personality of the IT manager is exposed during turbulent times, when the expectations from the business are huge—pressure to ensure complete automation, evolve better business techniques, enhance business process through appropriate technology, real-time collaboration with right set of information, etc.

On the brighter side though, it is clear that IT managers are now coming out of their cocoons, conscious of the new demands of their role and are making concerted efforts to create a blend of technical knowledge, strategic skills and tactical thinking.

The New IT Manager

Keen Understanding, Wide Knowledge

IT Next tries to find out the various languages that IT managers must now learn to understand the enterprise in depth, if they intend to grow professionally. There has been a noticeable change

Most often, challenges arise due to lack of understanding. Concepts need to be framed in the language of the party in reference, and if one takes this pain, the job is half done. It is all about how well you heal the cracks within various groups and change their perception about your role.

Narayan Iyer, VP, Finance, Privy Organics says, “If IT managers have

“Basic understanding of finance, debit, credit, assets, liabilities comprising the general ledger, will enable them to evolve as effective persons” —Narayan Iyer

Photo graphy: Jite n Gandhi

VP-Finance, Privy Organics

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in the way IT managers think—a testimony to their ambitious growth plans.

In the fluid economic scenario, organisations increasingly find the need for more leaders evolving from the IT team who can boldly handle crisis management and work out a cost-effective financial plan for the organisation.

There is a clear indication from the top management that they expect IT managers to shed their lackadaisical approach and take on a progressive outlook as a stakeholder in the business.

BLV Rao, VP-IT, Infotech Ltd, says that the core

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basic understanding of finance, debit, credit, assets, liabilities comprising the general ledger and understand why they have been asked to do so, it will enable them to evolve as effective persons.”

One way to assured growth for IT managers is to be pre-emptive about business expectations, draw synergies, list out challenges, and have face-to-face communication, logical negotiations and be articulate about what the IT expects from the respective departmental heads, if these have to be met.

Most experts say that understanding nuances of finance, getting clued into business functions and developing clarity on people and processes would enable IT managers to stride ahead.

IT IN BUSINESS | cover story

Get

The Numbers

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Right

ne of the hurdles in IT managers’ career path has been their lack of financial acumen. However, with most companies aligning IT with finance, IT heads can no longer afford to remain ignorant of the finance function.

While collaboration with finance is essential to drive best business results and gain due recognition, there is more to it than that.

To really exceed expectations, IT managers must consciously work out a blueprint of the expectations from finance, understand the challenges that finance faces, take up strategic initiatives to meet their requirements and build necessary skills to seamlessly blend with it.

Most finance heads echoed the view that the key challenge that IT managers face from finance is the lack of understanding of the latter regarding information technology and its functions. Finance heads also agreed that financial literacy is imperative for the personal and professional growth of IT managers in today’s evolving business era.

What Irks IT Managers The most obvious challenge for IT managers is that they are accountable for each penny being spent on IT, irrespective of the great benefits that it brings.

Narayan Iyer, VP-Finance, Privi Organics rightly says, “The perennial problem for the IT managers is that every paisa that IT spends needs to be measured and IT managers are answerable to the finance.”

From his experience Archie Jackson, GM-IT of

Financial intelligence is critical to IT managers’ growth in their profession

Steria India Ltd says, the key performance indicators around finance need to be understood—this cannot be ignored. Irking questions on finance, according to him are: does the predicted budget match the actual expenditure; does IT provide expected level of income and profit; does management feel more confident about IT’s ability to predict costs in IT planning, and so on.

Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO and President, Business Excellence, Adhunik Group of Industries says, the challenges in the past were due to the fact that accounting principles and practices were still following the legacy systems. However, according to him, globalisation led to the multi-currency handling, merging legal boundaries that called for speedier understanding of IT to aid adoption of global practices. “Many of my peers, the CFOs, are now taking a keen interest in understanding how best they can add value to the business by imbibing IT knowledge and skill sets,” says Kumar.

Kaushal Shah, Head-IT of Privy Organics finds a continuous and timely coordination with finance team members to be a challenge. “Gaps in the manual reconciliation by the finance team members versus system reconciliation, accounts scrutiny along with business process transparency are some challenges,” says Shah.

Expectations of Finance IT managers need to work in synergy with finance team and see the value in their expectations. BLV Rao, VP-IT of Infotech Ltd, clearly states that in

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“Financial know-how is a must for IT team”

tough times, IT is expected to do more with less, which is reasonable. Finance controllers find certain learnings to be critical for IT managers to drive business results. For instance, Sujoy Banerjee, Sujoy Banerjee, Financial Controller, Trident, Bandra Kurla Financial Controller of Trident Group says, “A good emphasises the need for finance and IT collaboration understanding of the fundamentals of accounting, such as debit and credit, documentation and Q: As the Financial Controller, what are the challenges that IT transaction flow, profit and loss account, balance managers face from finance? sheet, etc, make IT relevant.”

A: In today’s world, a working knowledge of and insight into the Privi’s Iyer finds finance department expecting financial world are imperative for a person to grow to a senior IT teams to evolve simple reporting and data flow management level, even if he/she does not have any formal training formats which must be relevant to financial concepts in finance. As far as IT is concerned, any development of financial and have clear dashboards. and accounting tools cannot be conceptualised unless there is a good Ondot’s Head-IT, Manish Sinha agrees that the understanding of finance and accounts. A good IT manager needs to finance department is be armed with financial know-how. always concerned about Q: What kind of expectations does the investments made, the finance department have from IT team? exceeding budget and A: A good understanding of the invisible RoI. It is not that fundamentals of accounting, such as they do not understand concept of debit and credit, documentation the requirements of IT, and transaction flow and the ability to make but finance deals with IT relevant to profit and loss account and numbers and expects balance sheet. A good IT manager is usually every solution to come strong in processes and common sense and with a measurable RoI. this comes easy for them.

To explain his point Q: Elaborate on the areas where the IT Sinha says that if a team meets the needs of the finance company buys a central department. mobile connection for A: Development of software to eliminate all-India location then manual intervention, ensuring they are the billing centre would glitch free, educating finance team on be their corporate office developments in their field and advising only, or it could be MPLS them on opportunities for streamlining VPN connections as well. deliverables through enhanced use of IT, The bill would come to are some of the areas where collaborations the corporate office and Sujoy Banerjee take place for the overall benefit of the finance would look at organisation. it as a burden on the corporate budget. But when finance views it as a tool which could turn down Q: Where are the loopholes between the departments that need their recovery cycle that could then lead to fund to be plugged? collection, it then becomes a must buy.

A: Timely identification and rectification of bugs in software and Adhunik’s Kumar gives a different analogy, saying information in real time need to addressed immediately. in most cases where the company size is big, finance is Q: Where is the synergy between IT and finance? handled as a shared service function, which is typically A: The two functions go hand in hand and can only deliver exceptional an implementation of IT-enabled processes that bring results if they collaborate with each other. in total synergy, give the larger picture, and make people work with uniformity and efficiency across the Q: What skills does IT managers need to possess to understand enterprise. IT empowers the finance department even the finance department better ? at the bottom layer of workforce to accomplish the task A: A structured course in ‘Finance for IT Managers’ should be with a broad business vision. developed if not existing already, and must be part of the curriculum Jackson says that the expectations are mutual. for IT degree and diploma courses. This can help them in their growth.

“While the finance department not only remits the Q: Do you (as the finance head) decide the IT budget and salaries to the employees, they provide financial project sanctions? management to IT, based on ITIL processes, which A: Yes, I do. In our structure, the IT department is part of the finance. is the best practice framework,” he says.

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IT IN BUSINESS | cover story He argues that the finance department ensures that the IT infrastructure is obtained at the most effective price (which does not necessarily mean cheapest) while calculating the cost of providing IT services, so that an organisation can understand the cost of its IT services and value it.

IT at Finance

Changing Dynamics CFOs are pleased with the way IT teams are evolving and making efforts to understand the finance role and consciously aligning with it. Iyer remarks, “IT managers are a motivated lot and are making the end-users happy. They are trying to understand as to why they have been asked to perform a particular task.”

“For instance in our company the user departments manage the budget part. The requirement is placed before the IT department, which then has a brainstorming session with finance and takes the final call to implement a proposed project,” says Iyer.

“It is natural that in turbulent times, IT is expected to do more with less which is reasonable” —BLV Rao

VP-IT of Infotech Ltd

The positive change in this relationship that Sanjeev Kumar observes is that the finance department has realised the need for possessing knowledge in IT, and this, he says is increasing the bond. “In our company, it is mandatory for individuals to have an understanding of various functions if scaling up, and for making the person fit into that slot,” says Kumar.

Photography: SuRESH

KT Rajan, Director Operations and IT, Allergan Technologies finds growing synergy between finance and IT as they have started speaking each other’s language and are closely knit in executing projects for the benefit of the organisation.

Privy’s Iyer opines, “If a company plans to scale up its growth and implement high-end projects, in our case Oracle e-Business Suite implementation, to streamline its business process for better efficiency, I strongly believe that a team comprising IT managers and finance members should be instituted to deploy that project for better results.”

Kaushal Shah admits the fact that IT managers should gain functional understanding of finance while making continuous efforts to train the finance department to upgrade the latter’s technical skills and understanding of IT function.

The success formula is that IT should understand the real pain points of internal customers and try to ponder as to why finance has such a huge concern for investment requests made by IT. Sinha finds growing synergy between the two functions with IT having the capability to select the best of breed solutions and finance a freehand in procurement process. “Both should understand the business goal and the ingredients required to achieve it, and work as a team during negotiation with vendor on exit policy, price renewals, escalation matrix, capital, operational cost, uptime, downtime refund, and stand by commitments, stretch it on credit days, per unit comparison and free resources associated with the deal, payment days,” adds Sinha.

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Proactive To Progress

Strategic interplay with business will drive agility and career progression for IT managers However, from a career growth standpoint, IT managers have to tide over these business challenges, meeting the requirements of their role and the demands of the business by handling the tasks that drive interdependency. This forms the foundation of the larger role that they are required to take up in future.

Business Hiccups For productivity gains, IT function has to be agile, else instead of aiding business, IT would make it more chaotic. According to Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO and President, Business Excellence, Adhunik Group of Industries, the primary hiccup occurs when there is a communication or knowledge gap between business and IT. “Many a times parameters other than business dominate the situation, for instance, personal egos, that widen the communication gap,” says Kumar.

The impasse between business and IT, as Dr Rebecca Parsons, CTO of ThoughtWorks points out, is that business finds IT unresponsive while IT perceives business to be unreasonable.

“Some businesses still use a ‘throw over the wall’ approach for engaging IT. No wonder IT organisations hesitate to move forward unless they

“I expect major disagreement between the two groups in the areas of capital investment and change management” —Kaushal Shah

Head-IT, Privy Organics

Photog raphy: Jite n Gandh i

T

he maturity and career focus of the IT manager would reflect in his zeal to increase the agility of the business and take it forward from a concept stage to the customer.

IT is deeply ingrained into the business fabric, and most industry experts opine that the issues between IT and business are common everywhere.

Healing the Cracks To address the gap, it is ideal for IT managers to introspect their KRAs and analyse the importance of including business functions as a part of it. This will be a primary step in their growth path.

BLV Rao, VP-IT of Infotech Ltd that says that some IT leaders may feel that too much is being expected of them, but then they should remember that risks and rewards come together. Taking on a larger role will help an IT manager stand out in the crowd, and if s/he can work with a collaborative leadership style taking on the role of a facilitatorleader who can re-architect IT, this transformation would be all the more rewarding in the race to the top.

IT managers can bridge the gap if they perceive themselves as leaders trying to meet all the requirements

Photogr a phy: Subhojit Paul

get the business requirements nailed down,” says Parsons.

Obviously, till these behaviour problems remain unaddressed, the relationship between the two will not be as productive as needed, and true business agility will remain an unrealised goal.

Chairman and Managing Director, Ondot Couriers and Cargo Ltd, AM Amit Madan says that the biggest challenge for the IT team is noting down requirements of finance accurately in meetings and on the basis of it, prepare a logical flow of project to convince business groups.

“The key problem stems from the head of the department’s ignorance about IT department’s style of functioning and the resources that need to be made available to it,” points Manish Sinha, Head-IT, Ondot Couriers and Cargo Ltd. What hurts Kaushal Shah, Head-IT, Privy Organics is IT being taken for granted for activities done in limited delivery time and the assumption that IT is more for infrastructure and not for better business cycle information management.

“Money given to IT is hard earned money”

A M Amit Madan, Chairman and Managing Director, Ondot Couriers & Cargo Ltd, explains how IT teams have to align themselves with business groups to make a difference Q: From a CEO’s perspective, what are the challenges for the IT team with regard to business groups?

A: The biggest challenge that the IT team faces is in noting down the requirements in meetings and preparing a logical flow of projects to convince business groups.

The business requirements enable IT managers to work out a master plan, transaction screens, their linkage, master data insertion, testing, and to go live within the stipulated time.

Q: What expectations does the business group have from the IT team?

A: As a business group we want our IT team to be capable of delivering solutions that are user-friendly. The other aspect is cost control, which is a major factor. They must understand that the money we give them as budget is hard earned money after investment and received as profit after 50-60 days interest free circulation in the market. IT teams need to be accountable for the usage of assets and solutions bought with that money and justify the RoI. Q: Where are the loopholes which you think need to be filled?

A: The IT team is doing a thankless job

and is a huge cost centre which does not understand our pains—this perception is solely due to the communication gap that exists between departments.

The IT team just gets away by sending an email or SMS that systems won’t work and they are not at fault, but finally it is the business that suffers. These gaps need to be bridged by holding informal meetings among department members and by making them undergo some leadership courses together as crossdepartment teams.

For example, if the IT has a budget of Rs 1 crore, the CEO is under constant fear whether that budget is being utilised judiciously and whether proper IT systems will be developed. However, it works both ways, as the CEO has to join hands with the IT team to enable business growth.

Q: How can IT managers understand business functions better?

A: I intend to link all the stakeholders of a project, wherein all departments including the IT department will sign a commitment to come up with ideas for the project. The management will institute an incentive or a reward for implementation of these ideas successfully across the organisation.

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cover story | IT IN BUSINESS of business, delivering business value, with a 360 degree view and a balanced approach by partnering with other stakeholders.

According to Archie Jackson, GM-IT of Steria India Ltd, IT can heal the cracks by being the

customer for some business groups such as finance, supply chain and HR, and a supplier for others like marketing and management.

As CMD Amit Madan says, IT’s responsibility is not only to provide business application but to crosscheck its usage, upgradation, costing and also take part in identifying revenue leakages with the IT heads find the following factors help in business capabilities. finance department.

ThoughtWorks’ Parson admits, 24 0 Adapting to changing requirements 76 “Lack of clarity, visibility and 19 5 Improving time-to-market 76 transparency hinder collaboration 25 3 Improving Quality 72 and joint decision-making.

Fixing 26 3 Increasing productivity 71 these will enable the business not 34 5 Improving success ratio 61 only to stay engaged and participate 36 6 Improving collaboration between Business and IT 58 actively throughout the length of a 36 10 Reducing cost of software of development 54 project and overcome the ‘throw over 38 9 Improving project visibility 53 the wall’ syndrome, but stay ahead of 41 9 Fixing problems in existing process 50 competition too.”

Source: ThoughtWorks

Factors for Agile Adoption

Empowering teams

49

Customers asked for it

36

Extremely Important

43

8

39 Moderately important

25 Not Important

No Love Lost The industry has witnessed various disagreements between IT and

IT & HR:A Symbiotic

Relationship Using IT to understand human pain points while nurturing the leaders in making

T

he relationship of IT and HR is like a marriage that will never end in divorce. HR heads are still trying to dig into the minds of IT heads to understand how they perceive HR and IT heads wonder as to what makes HR managers tick.

Most HR heads feel that the general perception of human resource in CIO circles is that it is merely a provider of resources and that HR is not successful in sourcing appropriate resources at the right time and at the right cost. However, it is also agreed that a strong bond between IT and HR exists that can only facilitate organisational growth albeit with certain

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twists. There can be absolute synergy between the two. There are, however high business expectations, serious disagreements and certain skills to be developed to leverage each other’s strengths, before that can happen. HR heads are making conscious efforts to make the IT team a part of the leadership council and also framing processes to evaluate their non-IT related skills in order to enable them to move up the value chain.

Where is the Synergy?

HR is expected to play a dual role in keeping IT managers motivated and understand their pain points. KT Rajan, Director, Operations and IT,

IT IN BUSINESS | cover story business groups, when it is critical to work in synergy and the IT managers, in particular, need to be clued in to business technicalities and complexities, if they expect to scale up in their career.

Privy Organics Head-IT, Kaushal Shah expects major disagreement between the IT and business functions, especially in the areas of capital investment and change management. However, here, the mandatory tasks for the IT managers, says Shah, are to monitor and control service levels, improve regulatory compliance and improve and secure business processes.

KT Rajan, Director Operations and IT, Allergan Technologies believes that IT managers should be given sufficient entry into business to enable them to find answers for every problem and come up with cohesive and comprehensive results.

Jackson highlights certain mandatory tasks that increase interdependency between IT and business.

They are: procurement, budgeting planning, compensation, administrations, talent management, resourcing, etc. IT managers must increase their understanding of these business areas in order to work in consonance with business.

Necessary Evil for Growth Some of the business expectations that need to be met by IT to prove its strategic value are: turn cost and impact estimation into core competencies and handle risk; use technology to increase profits while thinking outside the IT box. IT professionals like BLV Rao, recommend that IT managers expand their expertise to improve effectiveness and efficiency of business processes, reduce IT costs, innovate new business models, provide managements across levels with right information for planning and decision-making, build new competencies, products and services, ensure compliance with regulations in emerging markets and manage risks globally.

Sanjeev Kumar strongly recommends them to be on the same page during the progression of a dialogue and end by staying on the same page with a deeper understanding of the issue. While Rajan says that IT managers should practice selling their concepts to business groups in such a way as to manifest the importance of IT to business. Sanjeev Kumar strongly recommends that IT managers speak the language of business.

Allergan Technologies thinks that IT managers should make the effort to take cognisance of HR policies and build an IT succession plan with the former’s help. ThoughtWorks CTO Rebecca Parsons highlights the actions the IT managers need to address to bring in synergy. These include developing people capabilities, implementing effective tools, tuning the organisation structure and roles and responsibilities appropriately that impact human behaviour and organisational structures and make the process change easy.

Kaushal Shah, Head-IT of Privy Organics admits the need to hold programmes in management for IT managers for them to be able to gel well with their various roles. The synergy comes from the fact that the teams develop a common goal as they see the real working of IT teams in terms of matching their old master data with new software master

“IT managers should develop people capabilities, implement effective tools, tune their roles and responsibilities” —Dr Rebecca Parsons CTO, ThoughtWorks

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cover story | IT IN BUSINESS data. Manish Sinha, Head-IT of Ondot Couriers and Cargo Ltd says, “The IT department realises the value of HR department when it comes to sudden need for using medical policy. At that time, it is the HR department that comes to the forefront and gives required support to the employees—coordinating with the providers. The other areas are counselling sessions, family gettogether activities and training workshops arranged by HR department that really help IT personnel grow further.”

“The concept of e-HR is evolving and prevailing in many progressive companies resulting in strong bondage between the two departments” —Sanjeev Kumar

Expectations Galore

Group CIO and President, Business Excellence, Adhunik Group of Industries

There is a lot of expectation from HR. Chief People Officer, CSS Corp Kumar Ekambaram says, “I expect IT to provide me with hi-tech solutions every time I change the HR process. About 6,000 people’s expectations have to be met with the technological expertise. For instance, a high-level e-learning system needs to be brought in to cater to these many employees.”

Q: What are the challenges of IT team with regard to HR function?

A: There is a change in perception about IT department. While IT was a support system earlier, now it is more a partner for HR. The challenge for IT as always is around justifying its cost and optimising the RoI for us, given that the cost of manpower is going up. They are under terrible pressure to deliver everything on time and implement business realignment at a faster pace.

Q: What kind of expectations does HR have from IT teams?

A: I expect IT to provide me with hi-tech solutions every time I change the HR process. About 6,000 people’s expectations have to be met by bringing in technological expertise. For instance, a high-level e-learning system needs to be brought in to cater to these employees.

Q: Elaborate on the areas where the IT team meets the needs of the HR department?

“Create new opportunities for better performance” Kumar Ekambaram, Chief People Officer, CSS Corp emphasises the importance of IT managers connecting with leadership council

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IT IN BUSINESS | cover story

Archie Jackson, GM of IT, Steria India Ltd, finds that HR expects IT’s support in training for inputs on monthly and annual training requirements, in executing HR policies and e-learning initiatives.

While Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO and President, Business Excellence, Adhunik Group of Industries finds the concept of e-HR evolving and prevailing in many progressive companies resulting in strong bondage between the two departments. However, Kumar agrees that HR expects IT to automate all the transactions related to its department.

Sinha observes HR has a set expectations, such as, the salary should be processed in time by the IT system, PF, TDS, ESI calculations and attendance system should be accurate and whenever they require any old data it should be available with the IT department as that may be used in certain court cases of the organisation. Once these things are in place, the IT department is sure to command tremendous respect from the HR team.

Where is the Dilemma

A: If HR is to be effective, IT support is not only essential but crucial. However, there have been disagreements over each one’s priorities at work.

We, in HR, always try to identify the potential person who has the capability to scale up to become a CIO, and have an assessment format that assesses the potential candidate’s number of years of experience, competitiveness and understanding of varied businesses and so on.

Q: Where do you find IT lagging in its understanding of HR and other businesses?

A: IT managers feel that they cannot play any other role than that of an IT head. They should be given the opportunity to play different roles to do their job better. We encourage several cross-functional roles to drive the synergy and have initiated a leadership council and every IT manager needs to get connected with it.

Q: What are the skills that IT managers need to build to understand HR functions better?

A: They need to develop skills around resource allocation keeping users in mind and develop soft and behavioural skills to be able to deal with other groups effectively. We have a rating where any employee below the 3.5 scale will be ticked off and has to go through a developmental programme—an onsite HR training.

The issue is more to do with the self-perception that IT managers have created, which is hindering their rise above purely IT functions to realise the true worth of IT and in the process themselves.

“IT managers generally think that they cannot play any role other than IT. They should be given the opportunity to play different roles in order to help them do their job better,” says Ekambaram.

“HR fails to understand that it is not easy to find resources to maintain and work on legacy applications, and the IT industry demands decent packages,” says Sinha. This is primarily due to HR’s lack of awareness about industry trends.

Jackson says that that disagreements evolve due to HR policies that impact IT business by hiring improper resources; having employee-centric policies and so on.

What IT can do Industry experts recommend programming models and mentoring programmes for IT managers to impart techniques to them that would help them buy into the HR line of business.

For instance, Allergan’s Rajan suggested introduction of Linear Programming module to bridge the gap between the two, which involves rotation of roles as IT managers are nerds.

Kaushal Shah strongly recommends crossfunctional roles to bring the necessary change management. This allows key business users to concentrate on defining corporate business process improvements aligned with IT.

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C hief i ntegral o fficer The CIO is set to play an integral decision-making role in 2012, as technology becomes central to every department in an organisation. He will have to move in the real-time collaborative zone to build an effective and adaptive IT ecosystem

By S u n i l K u m a r S o n i

T

he 2012 IT forecasts by Gartner predicting that 35 per cent of enterprise IT budgets will be controlled and managed outside IT departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget, is set to influence the role that the CIO or IT head plays in an organisation.

The reason for this, as cited by Gartner, is the industry being dominated by fragmentation and consumerisation of enterprise IT due to cloud computing and mobile innovationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the two most talked about tech trends.

It is true that at the face value most industry commentators are taking these trends to be an indicator of the diminishing role of CIOs in budgetary decisions.

However, one should understand that the IT function is juxtaposed with enterprise business functions. As information technology becomes central to every department in an organisation, right from marketing to manufacturing, CIOs are also becoming an integral part of every business decision.

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enterprise trend | insight

Where is the Change?

What we are witnessing is a move from the traditional ‘procure, provision and maintain’ model to one of rapid, realtime collaboration model that is aligned with every part of the business function or group. The new role demands CIOs to rise above technology expertise, while carrying the mandate of ensuring a basic IT environment that is stable and efficient.

The IT head needs to play a dual role: the first concerns his technical know-how and second role demands that he collaborates with each business division and builds an agile, adaptive IT ecosystem.

It is no longer enough to be able to analyse what happened yesterday.

Staying in control of sales volumes and market share is about knowing what is happening in real-time and adapting to anticipated changes.

Besides, the IT heads are expected to manage an increasingly fragmented IT function taking into account newer business platforms that are evolving at a rapid pace. This in turn further amplifies existing security and data management concerns.

Data Protector Gartner’s prediction about continued discovery of new vulnerabilities which will increase the financial impact of cybercrime by 10 per cent per year through 2016 adds another dimension to the role of IT head. The use of cloud services and employee-owned devices will lead to more targeted, financially motivated attacks. The analyst firm also predicts that more than 85 per cent of Fortune 500 organisations will fail to exploit big data for competitive advantage through 2015. Growing connectivity and smarter devices are resulting in increases in both the volume and complexity of data.

Under the new and ever-increasing threat landscape, the IT heads will have the responsibility of collecting and analysing data and protecting it in real time to improve productivity and profitability.

“As information technology becomes central to every department in an organisation, right from marketing to manufacturing, CIOs are also becoming an integral part of every business decision” —Sunil Kumar Soni, CIO of Ester Industries

The business and consumer environment today allows for very little margin of error. Hence, there is an element of pressure on everyone to constantly anticipate what could go wrong. With each department taking control of their own IT decisions, the CIOs are much more responsible for enterprise security than earlier. While everyone in the business will become responsible for enterprise security in 2012, the IT department will take the lead in guiding individual department heads to greater efficiency through cooperation and consolidation.

Build on Relationship The year 2012 will witness CIOs making a concerted effort to direct more budgets towards search capabilities, real-

time tracking and collaboration tools, and creating automations to predict outcomes. Any organisation that wants to remain on the path of steady growth and maintain a competitive edge in 2012 will need to invest time and resources in training their people and providing them with the right tools to become relationship managers. As the tech infrastructure becomes more fragmented, the onus of coordinating distributed activities will firmly lie with the people. It is important to build strategies and implement applications that not only adapt to technological innovations but also enable seamless collaboration between both internal and external business partners.

Chief Information Officer, Ester Industries

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insight | Business Process Management

I llustratio n: Binu MP

Companies are increasingly employing business process management technology, as they realise the need to refine their processes to keep pace with changing market dynamics By To n y Ko n t z e r

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Business Process Management | insight

alk into any Athletes’ Performance Fitness Centre, scattered around the country,

and you will find that each computer-controlled piece of exercise equipment has been updated with specific settings and instructions for each regular client. Enabling its highly skilled trainers to tailor personal workout plans for a large number of customers allowed the chain to quickly scale its expert-driven business model and rapidly expand the business.

In the past, the company, known for training some of the world’s top athletes, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Olympic teams, NFL players and the German soccer team, relied on its trained staff to apply its steady flow of research findings in fields such as nutrition, metabolism and neuroscience. But management was ready to take its sophisticated approach to fitness directly to the consumer with a network of consumer training facilities called Core Performance.

To achieve that goal, Athletes’ Performance had to automate the process used to adopt rules so that it could deliver its services at a consumer-friendly price. One thing stood in the way: The company needed a simpler way to distribute the rule set that guided its customised training regimens.

Backed by an open source IT environment, Athletes’ Performance looked at Drools, but eventually chose the rulemanagement system sold by ILOG (later acquired by IBM)

because of its speed and flexibility. By fall 2008, Athletes’ Performance had put an implementation of the renamed IBM WebSphere ILOG JRules into production with about 23,000 rules, according to CTO Jon Zerden.

Using ILOG as it would a business process management (BPM) system, the company was able to change everything about how it incorporated business rules—from shedding its reliance on Excel spreadsheets and the knowledge in its trainers’ heads to slashing the amount of time it takes to complete research studies and change its rule set.

Most importantly, Athletes’ Performance could instantly deploy rules to all its facilities, with its computerised workout equipment automatically adjusting settings for each client and providing specific instructions to trainers. That, in turn, allowed the firm to scale its business to service consumers much more cost-effectively than it could its elite athlete clients.

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insight | Business Process Management addressed, can yield cost reductions of as much as 20 per cent. Consider Liquid Controls, which wasn’t looking to head down the BPM path in 2004 when it set out to address a simple problem.

The maker of liquid-flow metres and measurement equipment, based in Lake Enable more flexible Bluff, Ill, needed to get a handle on the business policies and rules hundreds of documents detailing how it Help in shedding builds its products—which were stored dependency on Excel as an unwieldy collection of paper files. spreadsheets After deploying a web-based workflow tool with document management Save time in completing capabilities from iMarkup (since BPM Market is Growing research processes renamed BP Logix), the company was Such stories are the reason for BPM Business processes can able to speed up product assembly and technology to be on the rise. In a July be analysed in detail which simplify the internal auditing process.

2011 report, Wintergreen Research will drive process efficiency Over time, as Liquid Controls discovered predicted that the BPM market, which it the value that workflow features could pegged at $2.3 billion in 2010, will grow Open source environment bring to other processes bogged down to 5.5 billion by 2017. Clay Richardson, will drive flexibility and by manual procedures, the software Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, ease of use (now called Process Director) evolved predicts that the market for BPM into a more powerful BPM solution. software—which is typically webThat enabled the company to build business based, with integration into back-end systems—will exceed process models to provide new visibility into $3 billion this year, with large companies investing as much where bottlenecks were occurring, says Bruce as $15 million in a BPM solution. “Companies using BPM Lawrence, Group Network Manager. technology can analyse business processes and identify It wasn’t long before employees opportunities to become more efficient, cost-effective and responsible for processes such as order profitable,” says Richardson. management or measuring the accuracy Unfortunately, many companies don’t realise that they need BPM. Richardson points out, for instance, a company of products—both previously done manually, resulting in may not know that two separate groups are managing lost paperwork, inaccurate information and lots of wasted identical processes in very different ways. That situation, if time—were benefiting from dashboard views of each process, complete with up-to-date related financial data and a clear picture of where each step in a process stood.

The impact has been tangible.

Lawrence says 85 per cent of orders are now entered within 24 hours, up from 60 per cent prior to the BP Logix deployment. In addition, equipment repairs and calibrations are now completed in 20 days, less than half of the 44 days that they used to take.

Other processes, such as issuing credit memos, approving credit and Dhananjay C Rokde, Global payment terms, and making approved changes Head, Information Security, Cox to address book entries, & Kings Ltd have been shortened by one-third or more, simply by replacing all the hardto-track paperwork with

While up to 14 of the company’s specialists work with any given professional athlete, each trainer at the Core Performance facilities can work with up to 16 consumer clients at a time.

“We’ve used the technology to automate the rules and bring speed and consistency to the methodology,” says Zerden. “BPM has allowed us to adjust the rules in a much more granular and expeditious way—and to do it at a much more palatable price point.”

“No single BPM tool would resolve the problems at the workplace and bring about the necessary business change”

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automated workflows that give employees visibility i nt o the end-to-end processes to which they contribute.

“Knowledge is power,” says Lawrence.

“You know where things are being hung up, rather than wasting your precious time during the day —Manish Sinha tracking something IT Head, Ondot down.” Still, with 60 Courier & Cargo Ltd processes now running in its BP Logix system, Liquid Controls has only skimmed the surface of the software, says Lawrence. “It’s getting to the point where it’s providing information that will help us to make it happen,” says Scott. “In the current market, nine improve,” he says. months just does not cut the mustard anymore. You’ve either missed your market opportunity or lost your customer.”

Consider how BPM provided Athletes’ Performance Starting Down the BPM Path with the agility to offer fitness training to consumers and Liquid Controls’ inadvertent adoption of BPM serves as a textbook example of how the technology can work its way into corporate wellness services to companies. Shortly after the an organisation. Bob Scott, leader of the BPM global service Athletes’ Performance ILOG deployment had wrapped up, line at IT consultancy Capgemini, says most companies don’t corporations began inquiring about fitness programmes for start BPM deployment by taking stock of their processes and their employees. With its newfound ability to deliver more identifying possible improvements. Instead, they are looking cost-effective services, the company gladly obliged.

Today, in addition to its four Athletes’ Performance to solve a much smaller problem. “Clients rarely say, ‘I want to buy a BPM solution,’” says Scott. “What they say is, ‘It’s clear facilities, the company provides fitness training to consumers we have a problem with our warranty management system.’” and corporate clients at six Core Performance centres That said, business and IT managers are likely to find around the country. It also plans to increase that number themselves looking at BPM technology in the coming years as “significantly” in 2012, according to a company spokeswoman.

What’s more, the company’s revenue has more than they’re forced to contend with one big change or another. In a recent survey, Technology Evaluation Centres found that over doubled in the three years since the ILOG system went live—a the next five years, 35 per cent of business managers expect compelling return on investment. With corporate wellness their companies to make acquisitions or divestitures; 39 per now the fastest growing part of the business, says Zerden, the investment in BPM should look even better cent anticipate a change in their company’s down the road. business model; and 57 per cent expect to It’s clear from the experiences of Athletes’ expand into new lines of business.

Performance and Liquid Controls that Such large-scale events are expected BPM technology can deliver far-reaching to become a driver for increased BPM benefits. As more enterprises rethink their adoption. Experts like Scott say that the processes to keep up with an increasingly technology is becoming increasingly connected and real-time world, BPM could critical as companies, especially those find itself beside ERP, HR and CRM as one saddled by aging legacy technologies, of the staples of an enterprise IT stack that struggle to refine their business processes Wintergreen Research brings real value to the business. quickly enough to keep up pace.

“When asked to introduce a new service, legacy systems often can’t editors@baselinemag.com. do it, or they require nine months

“Business Process Management technology is very critical to the business and the IT team needs to have perfect understanding of the same”

$5.5

bn by 2017 from $2.3 bn in 2010

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Photography: Subho jit Paul

BPM market will grow to

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Casey King | interview

Cloud Makes Communication Easy

LifeSize, a video and audio telecommunications company finds cloud-based video collaboration platform catching up in a big way. Casey King, Chief Technology Officer of the company, in conversation with Manu Sharma, shares his views on how enterprises have leveraged the cloud-based delivery trend to enable seamless high-definition video communication over multiple devices

How does cloud make sense to communication technology and what kind of pricing strategy have you evolved?

Cloud-based platform is the most sought after technology these days and communication technology cannot be an exception to the rule. While taking a conscious decision to foray into the cloud model, we at LifeSize have introduced a new way to improve productivity and collaborate in ways that was not thought possible earlier.

Known as Lifesize Connections, the new service is designed to work directly with PCs, running Mac OS or Windows, as well as dedicated video conferencing end points. The service supports

many simultaneous users on a call, with 720p resolution, although this will depend on both the quality of hardware and the available network bandwidth.

The connection service includes firewall traversal, for call setup, as well as directory services and call encryption.

Guests can join the service free of charge via a web link using our own cloud platform. Today we have many SME customers who are utilising our cloud platform.

A large company can deploy on-premises cloud implementation like our LifeSize Bridge 2200 hosted on a private cloud or have the providers host the application on the UVC platform, which is a virtualised software solution

for HD videoconferencing infrastructure.

With regard to the pricing, we have priced at $100 per-user-permonth for an endpoint connection to the service and $30 per-userper-month for a desktop client, which would include a camera and hardware to host and manage a videoconference.

The subscription allows unlimited use of the service.

From a solution perspective, LifeSize new Passport Connect is a high definition (HD) videoconferencing endpoint that is optimised for cloud platforms, including LifeSize Connections.

The product provides an easier user experience, and is the first to leverage Logitech technology—in this case, an HD camera.

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interview | Casey King What technological evolution have you witnessed in the collaboration and communication space and with influx of tablets and other mobile devices?

Enterprise communications and collaboration have come a long way and the industry has seen a rapid shift to newer and better ways of collaborating in a business environment. Five years ago, IP telephony was the cuttingedge, must-have technology, an obvious improvement over analogue phone systems in cost and efficiency. Fast-forward five years to the present, and it is easy to see evolutionary improvements in IP telephony solutions that are available in the market now, compared to the very first solutions.

Video solutions of the past had teething problems due to their complexity. Unlike an audio communication setup, video communications requires a careful synchrony of both audio and video over diverse network infrastructure, with many hidden challenges, such as network latency, speed, compatibility, etc. It has taken almost 50 years to solve these sets of complex problems. Superior recording and broadcast capabilities due to the UVC Video Centre is made available on the cloud, supporting an unrivalled number of concurrent recordings, on-demand streams and simultaneous live streams, all in 720p30 HD video. With the simple push of a button, you can record and broadcast executive updates, business presentations, sales meetings and training sessions as well as share data, charts and images.

You can also upload up to 1080p30 video files for playback.

On the mobile and tablet front, the technology supports two major platforms and multiple operating systems (OS). One

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of the platforms is the Apple iphone iOS for smartphones and tablets. On the iOS side, we have various applications that are available for free on the Apple App Store. So all one needs to do is to download the apps and start using them. Likewise, for the Android smartphones all one need to do is the same— download all that is available for free. In fact, our parent company Logitech recently acquired Mirial, a company that focusses on enterprise desktop and mobile video collaboration.

The key technology from Mirial allows its software to traverse enterprise firewalls and connect to iOS and Android devices.

Overall, LifeSize is looking to

“LifeSize Connections, the new cloud, service is designed to work directly with PCs, running Mac OS or Windows, as well as dedicated videoconferencing end points” bring mainstream HD video conferencing systems to market and connect to interoperable systems from the likes of Avaya, Microsoft and Shoretel.

How is the uptake of videoconferencing solutions amongst customers?

According to Frost & Sullivan, the market for videoconferencing

Casey King | interview the number of video downloads has grown to multifolds over the years and content of 45 minutes is uploaded every minute. So the culture is very video-centric. Everyone is playing with video streaming and the products around it today.

Why is all this happening? Mainly due to HD TV and other devices that help us build products while providing high-quality video streaming catering to all the devices. Also, semi-conductors are getting powerful, making it accessible. Some of these devices like my iPhone 4S were not available four years ago. IP Network and technology are helping us build this broad ecosystem.

With regard to competition, Cisco acquired the Norwegian firm Tandberg and with this we have two large players along with Polycom as the competitors, though we have synergy in a few aspects. We add value by providing IT infrastructure even on a cloud platform.

products amounts to about $2 billion globally and the endpoint alone amounts to about $1.6 billion while the IT infrastructure is about 25 per cent of it. In fact, Asia-Pacific has been a very robust market for us and we have seen a positive growth of 25-35 per cent in these markets.

What are the factors fuelling growth for collaboration and communication solutions and how is the competition growing?

There are many factors fuelling the growth in communication solutions industry. I just got back from CES 2012 in Las Vegas in January 2012. Everyone is talking about video and HD. Like Youtube,

Find other interviews online on the website www.itnext. in/resources/ interviews

What are the major hiccups that enterprises face with regard to collaboration technologies?

Some of the biggest challenges are in the networking management. However, I believe that it is more a myth than reality and these call for increased awareness amongst the users. Security is a huge challenge, particularly when you deliver the collaboration and communication services on varied devices. While firewall still remains a problem for most enterprises, we enable our solutions and offer them with security features and boxes embedded.

LifeSize UVC Transit is a complete firewall and NAT traversal solution that enables secure Full HD (1080p30) video calls within and across networks so that you can connect securely with distant offices, vendors or customers. With standards-based

H.460 and SIP firewall/NAT traversal, UVC Transit ensures a reliable video experience inside and outside your organisation. It is now available on the UVC Platform, includes the UVC Transit Server and Transit Client. Together, they make IP video more secure, more scalable and easier to manage.

Can you describe how some Indian customers are utilising LifeSize products? How are Business Intelligence tools enabling smart videoconferencing?

As far as videoconferencing is concerned, we can give the example of Virgin mobiles in India. When they came to India about four odd years ago they were looking for solutions to connect their sites like their site in New Delhi with Mumbai with multipoint sites connected through a bridge purely for communication and collaboration. They used to videoconference within the city and outside. In this case we observed increased productivity and reduced operating costs. We learnt that Virgin Mobile India saw reduction in travel by 20 per cent with the implementation of our collaboration tools. The company saw an RoI in about six months, just taking the savings accrued by reducing travel. Another customer from a small-scale handicrafts industry Obeetee Inc, deployed LifeSize high-quality video, crisp HD resolutions that allowed trade show attendees in Atlanta to view the exquisite craftsmanship of the fine carpets in great detail and the bandwidth efficiency delivered quality video without hassle. Having witnessed greater benefits, the company has initiated to view its e-commerce transactions over the video conferencing and creating necessary interfaces.

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insight | mobile computing

Mobility Transforming the Workplace

Increasing demand for mobile computing capabilities is forcing IT Managers to fret about everything from device support and application development strategies to a whole new set of security concerns, with huge rewards awaiting those who tackle these issues most effectively.

By To n y Ko n T z e r 36

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mobile computing | insight

The most logical place to look is in the app categories that have fuelled business adoption of cloud computing. Over the next four years, the research firm Yankee Group predicts that the number of users of mobile sales-force automation apps in the United States will grow from fewer than 6,000 to more than 13,000, pushing industry wide revenue from less than $400 to nearly $700 million. Even more dramatic is the expected growth of mobile field-force automation apps, with the number of users expected to rise from 4,000 to nearly 10,000, resulting in a corresponding increase in revenue from less than $700 to nearly $1.5 billion. These numbers only scratch the surface. Companies are building countless mobile apps to augment business processes.

While it’s tough to estimate how many US workers are using consumer apps downloaded from Apple’s App Store or the Google App Marketplace to conduct business, the numbers are likely to keep growing.

he state of Utah in 2010 completed a comprehensive use-case analysis of iPads, looking closely at some 20 different ways state employees might make use of the popular tablet computer. The result was an iPad user guide that outlines all of the iPad-friendly software—including Apple’s Safari browser and Evernote’s mobile note-taking application—that’s been given a stamp of Security at Stake approval from the state’s IT leadership.

Increasing demand for mobile computing capabilities is Elsewhere, Robert Sampson, CIO at DES Architects forcing IT executives to fret about everything, from device & Engineers, a 100 per cent design firm whose projects support and application development strategies to a whole have included the corporate campuses of Roche Molecular new set of security concerns, with huge rewards awaiting Diagnostics and Gilead Sciences, discovered in November those who tackle these issues most effectively. “The mobility 2011 that the firm had exhausted all of its 256 available IP platform in the enterprise is becoming a key area of value addresses. He quickly expanded the range by an additional for the CIO to deliver,” says Chris Marsh, Senior Analyst 256 addresses—meaning the company can now accommodate with Yankee Group. “Even among companies that are more than five IP addresses for each employee. reducing their overall technology investment, a significant Meanwhile, the push toward mobility is so prominent at portion of (them) are increasing their investments in mobile financial services marketer Primerica that CIO David Wade technologies.” accepted a seat on the AT&T Financial Utah’s CTO, Dave Fletcher, sees a direct Services Advisory Council, which connection between reductions in overall requires him to attend in-person meetings tech investments and a simultaneous twice a year and participate in monthly increase in mobile investments. conference calls. The council’s dozen or Fletcher says the state, which boasts one so big-company CIOs discuss their most of the nation’s youngest—and thus mobile pressing mobile computing issues. technology-savvy—populations, is eyeing In fact, organisations of all sizes, and mobility as a way to make the delivery of in just about any industry, are looking government services as cost-effective as for ways to tap the growing popularity possible. That, in turn, is expected to free of smartphones and tablets. And make up funds for an education system that no mistake: The number of workers who faces higher than average per-capita costs rely on their mobile devices for more than because of Utah’s large student population. exchanging calls and texts with their For example, by enabling highway spouses and children is growing. patrol officers, state inspectors and social Yankee Group

Il lustratio n: ANIL T

$1.5 bn

revenues from mobile field-force automation apps from $700mn owing to the growth in the number of users of the app

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insight | mobile computing

to aggregate their feeds and make them digestible for citizens via a tool such as Flipboard, which graphically presents Twitter posts as magazine-style displays on devices running Apple’s iOS. Utah has even established an app that alerts journalists to accidents and other breaking news, complete with links to media tools that might help in the construction of a story.

When it comes to managing Utah’s growing mobile capabilities— especially those provided to employees—Fletcher always has security concerns in mind. Along those lines, Utah has established a mobile-device policy that, while fairly permissive about the devices employees choose to use, is stringent about how data is treated.

Employees are strongly cautioned against saving confidential data on mobile devices. But, just to be safe, the state requires them to use a screen saver password to prevent unauthorised access to information.

State-issued devices are configured with all the necessary controls, including Symantec virus protection and security tools. With employee-owned devices, some of the burden falls on the user, —Kanaka Durga Bhavani Prasad Senior IT Manager, Fifth Avenue Sourcing Pvt Ltd. while basic virus and VPN configuration support is provided over the phone. That said, employees using their own devices are mobile app to view critical data from the state’s IBM Cognos required to agree to the policy, thus accepting the potentially business intelligence system. Surveyors and others who drastic actions the state might be forced to take if a device depend on geographic data can get at the maps they need suspected of containing sensitive data is lost or stolen. using a mobile extension provided by geographic information systems vendor Esri.

Premium on Security As a financial services company, Primerica places a premium on security. And with its business model inextricably tied to Business on Mobile As for the public, Utah’s residents can use their tablets and a network of 90,000 independent sales representatives, most smartphones to check the status of professional licences, of whom have selected their own devices, the company has view graphical representations of recent crimes in their a policy in place to ensure that data is encrypted at rest and neighbourhoods, or check out the latest traffic reports. The during transmission, and that data is deleted at the end of its state also is looking at ways to enhance the usability of the life cycle, says CIO Wade. Most importantly, Wade says he 350 Twitter feeds currently managed by all state and local needs to be certain that data related to Primerica’s customer agencies. Fletcher says he’d like to work with those agencies base is adequately protected. “You want to make sure you caseworkers to submit reports via mobile applications, the state has eliminated the one to two hours per day that each worker previously spent returning to the office to fill out paperwork, says Fletcher. The apps were built using Google Forms, which the state’s IT staff then integrated with the appropriate databases. Additional apps—some built using HTML5 so they can run on any popular mobile platform, and others provided as extensions by app vendors—enable a growing array of business processes and citizen services.

Executives are able to tap a

“A robust security solution to address mobility aspects in enterprises is crucial that can help in better productivity amidst providing security on laptops, smartphones and tablets to operate from anywhere”

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mobile computing | insight

don’t have any data loss protection issues,” says Wade.

Primerica’s security focus is reflected in its careful approach to mobile apps. One of the first rolled out thus far is Roambi, an Apple iOS-specific tool that integrates with and graphically presents data from the company’s IBM Cognos BI system. When a sales representative wants to check, say, how much insurance s/he has sold in the past quarter, Roambi checks Primerica’s LDAP server to verify the user’s permissions before unlocking the requested data.

As security conscious as Primerica has been about its mobile activities, the company considers itself out in front of the competition. To wit, the company has developed a mobile browser-based app called Term Now, which enables sales reps to underwrite and issue a life insurance policy worth up to $250,000 from a mobile device in just three minutes— down from a process that previously could take up to 90 days to complete. “Nobody’s doing that,” says Wade.

“We’re five years ahead of anybody else.” Meanwhile, Wade says the company is evaluating “everything that’s out there right now” as it considers what technologies it will rely on in the long-term for such challenges as device management and mobile app development. When it comes to the latter, Wade seems to be leaning toward a waitand-see strategy rather than having his IT team write distinct apps for iOS, Droid, BlackBerry and other platforms.

device: network access, company email, and Box, a web-based file-sharing and file-synching service. Architects working at DES use Box to collaborate on huge project files and to synch files across their devices. They also use it to improve the client experience. Architects who once went to client sites juggling paper drawings can now, instead, use iPads to display PDF files of their renderings. These files are stored and accessed via Box. They’d like to be able to do much more, and Sampson says the company is looking at mobile apps that would enable limited mark-up of architectural drawings. But he’s also anticipating the eventual appearance of cloud-based versions of those heavy-duty design programs, as well as apps that would let an architect simply point a device at a job site and view a superimposed representation of what the finished project will look like.

Until then, the company is considering developing a human resources app that’s envisioned as a kind of social networking orientation tool for new employees, says Waibun Lee, Director of visual communications.

Lee says he’s also been working on mobile forms for vacation requests and expense reports that would eventually be incorporated into the HR app.

While DES supports employee iOS-and Droid-based smartphones (it strongly discourages use of BlackBerrys), it’s been sending a not-so-subtle message about Who which device is likely to become The SMB Tale IT leaders from Primerica, the State the preferred mobile platform.

For DES, the architectural design of Utah, and DES Architects &Engineers among others Last summer, Sampson launched firm that ran out of IP addresses, a contest in which employees mobile application development What who came up with good ideas hasn’t been as much of a priority as it Discussing how enterprise mobility is reshaping their business processes, for putting the tablet to work has been for the large organisations and what they’re doing to manage its would win an iPad 2. In less than featured here. Because the company impact on the workplace six months, the company had relies on particularly complex Why given away 30 iPads. Among the software that currently can’t run on To give CIOs an inside look at how winning submissions: an idea for mobile devices, such as computerorganizations large and small are using an iPad as a collaborative aided design and apps that model tackling today’s heterogeneous monote-taking, brainstorming and building information, it doesn’t bile enterprise environment sketching tool during meetings yet face the demand for mobile with clients; and a suggestion that solutions that companies in other the firm give iPads to prospective industries do, says Sampson, the clients to serve as an electronic portfolio of DES’ work. Both firm’s CIO. That’s allowed DES to pursue a cloud-centric mobility ideas speak to perhaps the most underrated benefit of having strategy in which it plans to migrate, whenever possible, an advanced wireless strategy.

Quite simply, it impresses customers and prospects. to cloud-based services that employees can access via any browser. “As soon as something becomes a cloud-based “Showing up to a client meeting with a roll of drawings is application, it becomes much more easily accessible from probably not going to win you as many points as if you show anywhere on any device,” Sampson says. What’s more, he up with an iPad,” admits Sampson. says, business-grade cloud apps assume much of the security burden, minimising potential risks posed by allowing mobile editors@cioinsight.com. devices to access the DES network.

DES sets up three components on each employee’s mobile

In Summary

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insight | e-commerce

T

echnological evolutions in the personal computing space are influencing customer behaviour in a big way. Emergence of smartphones, tablets and kiosks have enabled customers to interact with new brands due to the increased exposure they provide. Besides, social shopping (such as Groupon), social networks (such as Facebook) and user generated content (such as ratings and reviews) are changing the way consumers buy. As a result, technology is playing the role of both a disruptor and an enabler in this context. On the one hand it is enabling the consumers to interact with retailers using multiple channels and devices of their choice (web, phones, tablets and kiosks), and on the other, it is disrupting the way retailers are marketing, selling and servicing their customers.

Customersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; expectations are on the rise as they look for seamless interaction across all channels and devices, while marketers are expecting to engage with the customers wherever they are.

In order to provide a high quality and seamless customer engagement and shopping experience for customers, retailers are turning to internal IT organisations and partners to build or transform their dotcom presence and create a strong foundation for multi-channel commerce.

Effective Ingredients Given the fact that building or transforming dotcom presence involves a number of technologies and products, it is very likely to get carried away with the choice of technologies and vendors available in the market in an urge to take up large projects.

Tailorin

Shoppi

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e-commerce | insight However, it is imperative for IT managers to take cognisance of customer demand and experience before evolving a framework for e-commerce.

Technology Inside

b) Creating a digital experience which has no boundaries is of immense importance. IT managers have to evolve innovative customer engagement models that cater to different geographies, countries and C-level executives who can leverage the same. Architecting the e-commerce platform with due considerations to globalisation and localisation aspects as well as policies and governance pertaining to customer data, privacy and other local laws is critical. Global shipping and delivery is a norm today and IT managers must possess the skills to work out an effective transaction model. c) Building an effective front-end architecture is critical; given the increased number of channels and devices that are expected for providing a rich customer experience. d) Customer experience, not just transactions per second is the need of the hour. Performance

100 mn

internet users spend 16 hours per week online, over 80 per cent researching online and 19 per cent buying online

A few ingredients are necessary which can be viewed as best practices for building an e-commerce platform. The following points must be borne in mind when building or expanding a dotcom experience for customers: a) Business tools are not just another set of internal applications. They contribute to good customer experience for merchandisers and marketers.

Marketers desire to communicate fresh messages frequently. Tools that put the control in the hands of marketers need to be carefully designed to achieve the goal of easy and frequent content refreshes as well as deal with multiple content types.

ng the Joy of

ing Online Transforming customersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experience of buying via wire into joyous moments has IT managers innovating the e-commerce platform, as more and more retailers log on to tap the burgeoning online buyer community

By Pra b hu K a n n a n

requirements should no longer be viewed as just non-functional technical requirements. While it is important to test server level transactions, there should be focus on end-user experience and it is imperative to test the performance of the platform from that perspective. Another important aspect that should not be ignored is that every page on the web must be interactive. e) Security of the e-commerce application is a prerequisite. Exploitation of insecure platforms by hackers has profound impact on customer confidence and consequently, on brands. By adopting countermeasures and mitigation strategies not only when the platform is fully operational but during all phases of development cycle, ensure

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insight | e-commerce that platform security is not compromised at any point in time. Architectural tactics such as usage of web application security control libraries and web application firewalls need to be considered along with recognised security principles such as authentication, authorisation and layers of defence.

Adequate attention should be paid to internal security considerations such as access control to catalogue, price, product information, promotions and other sensitive information. It is recommended that IT managers follow a standard in categorisation of groups and appoint independent security audit firms to validate security and set up operational governance processes. It is vital to assess security strategies on a periodic basis and gauge customer experience. f) Seamless cross-channel experience requires changes to enterprise applications. Enhancing and integrating with enterprise applications is required

which product (or components of a product suite) is best suited. The best way to ensure that the right decisions are made is to make key architectural decisions upfront in a product-agnostic manner and go beyond conference room pilots and do spike solutions that prove the fitment. Firms that use a comprehensive product selection process with objective and qualitative scoring framework win. h) Infrastructure often does not get the attention it needs early on. Arrive at the volumetric after diligently considering the number of channels, traffic and usage models, and global spread of consumers, in-store needs and connectivity requirements.

Choosing the right hosting vendor, involving product vendors in sizing and capacity planning and ensuring that content delivery network is used where appropriate, are key to establishing a scalable and fully available infrastructure. i) Last but not the least, future-proof your

“Architecting the e-commerce platform with due considerations to globalisation and localisation aspects as well as policies and governance pertaining to customer data, privacy and other local laws is critical” —Prabhu Kannan Director, Digital Commerce Capabilities, SapientNitro

for single version of product, customer and their orders, promotions as well as a consolidated view of inventory across the enterprise. Enhancements to enterprise applications to support e-commerce application need to be coordinated. Most often, enhancements and rollout of enterprise applications are the most complex part, as impact on any business-as-usual activities are not desirable. g) Creating a cohesive customer-centric solution requires a number of off-the-shelf products. Best of breed products providing key functionalities need to be integrated the right way to create a cohesive solution. Converging product features and tall vendor claims make it difficult to decide

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architecture. Channels and devices that were not present or not considered significant three years back are the preferred ones today. Who knows what the next three years will bring? Near Field communications (NFC), mobile wallets, augmented reality are emerging as we speak, and many more are to follow. One thing is certain—you need to architect the e-commerce application to be as open an architecture as possible.

IT organisations and technologists need to reinvent themselves and use an agile and customercentric approach to enable channels that impact customers and systems that underpin them, to create ‘happy’ shopping experiences.

15minute manager

training Education workplace compensation workforce trends skills development personal development

Down in the doldrum Page 44

Strategy: Tweak or Trash? this page Review: Samsung Galaxy Note page 46 Trends: Long Live Outsourcing page 47

By Frank B M o d r u s o n

Tech & Investment

I llustratio n: a nil t

W

hen the time comes to upgrade IT equipment and systems, is it better to repair what you have—patching and tweaking the systems and software to keep things running—or replace the old technology entirely and start with a clean slate?

That was the dilemma facing Accenture CIO Frank Modruson I recently faced a decision familiar to any home owner. My furnace was nearing the end of its useful life, and my choices were clear: replace a few critical parts at a modest cost in the hope of extending its service for a few more years, or replace the entire system at a considerably greater cost.

As I examined these options, a key consideration was the fact that an entirely new heating system would allow me to take advantage of the latest and greatest advances in home heating technology and efficiency. That would be impossible to do if I were just going to refurbish the current furnace. As mundane as this decision was, my furnace choice exemplifies a dilemma familiar to many CIOs. When the time comes to upgrade IT equipment and systems, is it better to repair what you have—patching and tweaking systems

Tweak or Trash?

Accenture’s efforts to create a worldclass organisation became a tweak versus trash tech debate

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15-MINUTE MANAGER and software to keep things running— or replace the old technology entirely and start with a clean technology slate?

Of course, the IT ‘tweak or trash’ debate is far more complicated than replacing a furnace. IT’s operational imperative to ensure uptime and avoid downtime at all costs creates a natural bias toward risk avoidance.

A philosophy of “it works, so don’t touch it” nurtures the growth of hybrid IT environments in which multiple systems coexist, documentation and qualified programmers are hard to find, and it appears safer and cheaper to make tiny patches rather than risk transformational change.

Over the last decade, we in Accenture faced a series of decisions more momentous than, but not unlike, my furnace call. Looking back to the year 2000, when we were essentially a new company (having recently gone public), we had embarked on an accidental experiment—even though we didn’t realise it then. We inherited legacy systems from our former parent and needed to build separate technology capabilities. We had no idea that Accenture would today have more than 244,000 employees or revenues of $25.5 billion. But we had ambitious growth strategies and knew we needed the IT infrastructure to support that growth.

While we did not plan it in advance, our efforts over the last decade to create a world-class IT organisation effectively became an accidental test of the tweakversus-trash debate.

Set a Coherent Strategy Our first task was to set a coherent IT strategy and build an independent capability. Then we concentrated on running IT just as we would any other business, with a focus on efficiency.

We centralised, rationalised and standardised, cutting our global applications from 600 down to 267 and local apps from 1,500 to 255.

We migrated from multiple countryspecific platforms to a single-instance global ERP. When we came up against the tweak-versus-trash decision, we opted for trashing what we had, mainly

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HEALTHY HABITS

Depression in the Workplace Tips for IT Managers

Causes & Symptoms of Depression?

Stressful life Low self-esteem Imbalances in brain chemicals & hormones Lack of control over circumstances Negative thoughts & beliefs Chronic pain & diseases Decreased productivity Low morale Accidents Lack of concentration

Be Happy, Don’t Worry! should be your mantra to beat depression

Depression is a mental illness characterised by feelings of profound sadness and lack of interest in enjoyable activities. Below are 10 steps to help you overcome it: Step 1: People suffering from depression need to find a good psychiatrist.

Step 2: Some need to be on medication like a hormonal imbalance may need to be on medicines.

Step 3: Exercising is a great tool and when you see positive physical changes in your body you feel good.

Step 4: Eat the right food: Throw out junk food. Diet affects a person’s mood so try to stay away from white flour, sugar and processed foods.

Step 5: The foods you should eat are protein such as eggs, milk, cheese, meat, fish, chicken, seeds, nuts; complex starches like whole grains, beans, potatoes; vegetables (broccoli, spinach, squash); vitamins (vitamin B-complex, vitamins E and C, and a multivitamin).

Step 6: Sleep! Obtaining a good night’s sleep is crucial to an effective treatment.

Step 7: The importance of sunlight also alter circadian rhythms.

Step 8: Talking to your friends and family members is a big plus.

Step 9: Being involved with the community acts of altruism are strong antidotes.

Step 10: Prayer and Meditation: Spending quiet time with yourself is important.

Source: www.authorsden.com & www.thirdage.com

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“Investments in technology are not being used judiciously, partly due to rapid developments” —Makarand Joshi, DGM-IT of Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corp Ltd

“I think investment in technology widely depends on the IT maturity of the organisation” —Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager, IT Infrastructure, EIH Limited (Oberoi Hotels)

because innovations in IT kept making the newest available solutions much more powerful than any legacy systems.

By the middle of the decade, we had our IT shop in order and were in a position to tackle even bigger changes.

These included a complete network transformation, which gave us the bandwidth to build out one of the world’s largest high-definition video conferencing networks, as well as enabling us to introduce an entire suite of powerful collaboration tools.

Although my air miles for client meetings had remained roughly constant, miles travelled for Accenture management meetings had been reduced by 35 per cent because we now

do so many of our internal meetings via video conference.

No Free Lunch Just as my brand-new furnace took a bite out of my wallet, none of the changes we made in Accenture’s IT came free. We invested heavily, with some investments aimed at reducing costs and others at adding new capabilities.

When we started, we did not consciously set a policy of replacing everything, but we did not want to be encumbered by old technology because we knew that conflicts between systems impose massive burdens on performance. Looking back over 10 years of work, we discovered that we

Benefits of Technology in Business Companies today use software, computers and internet to transform their businesses from local places of business to national and global market competitors.

Better Reporting Functions: Companies that have multiple locations used technology to implement better communication services and software modules that communicate to a home base via the internet.

Increased Employee Productivity: Computers and business software packages have exponentially increased employees’ productivity by allowing them to provide data entry functions or review automated reports.

Improved Business Mobility: Technology has also improved companies’ sales and service departments by allowing employees to use personal electronic devices to create sales displays and transmit orders and customer information.

Source: eHow Contributor

consistently chose to jettison the old in favour of the new, and when we were done, we had changed absolutely everything. Each of the changes we made took time and entailed more than a little disruption. For example, we moved to our global SAP platform in a single big-bang implementation.

The downside risks were obvious, but so was the upside potential: We got to a single version of the ‘truth’ across our entire global enterprise much faster with this approach.

Our internal customers are pleased: The percentage of ‘satisfied sponsors’— the senior executives with whom we work very closely on each of our IT initiatives—rose from 67 to 92 per cent between 2001 and 2010.

Clear lessons emerged from our accidental experiment. Roughly

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15-MINUTE MANAGER REVIEWS

A Perfect Compromise?

Samsung Galaxy Note

one billion dollars in cumulative investments resulted in three billion dollars in savings. Thus, for every dollar Accenture made in IT investments over these years, we realised three dollars in savings—a very impressive return.

Our IT operation became dramatically more efficient over the period: IT spend in total dropped 22 per cent, and the IT expense as a percentage of Accenture’s net revenue fell by 59 per cent. IT expense per employee dropped by 70 per cent, even though we made massive investments over this period to equip our professionals with the most advanced technology tools.

Defining High Performers

In a world that is still grappling with the idea of how the smartphone and tablets will coexist, Samsung has decided to introduce a model in the slowly growing hybrid category. The limited demographic of tablet users aside, the masses still use their smartphone for most tasks the tablet would do. So where does the Samsung Galaxy Note fit in? Is it a bigger smartphone? Or is it a smaller tablet, walking the same path as the Dell Streak did sometime back? Is it really the perfect compromise between the tablet and the phone?

Look & Feel: Samsung Galaxy Note is BIG! Till now we had considered 4.0-inch display smartphones as big, but the Galaxy Note with its 5.3-inch display just puts them in the shade.

Minimalist is a theme we have come to expect from Samsung, at least as far as the Galaxy range of handsets is concerned. And that same trait is visible here as well. Just below the display is the homescreen button, flanked by two touch keys for menu and return. We had seen this with the Samsung Galaxy SII as well, and thankfully that continues here as well.

The volume rocker is on the left side panel, while the power key sits towards the top of the right side panel. On the top is the 3.5 mm audio jack, while the micro USB port is at the bottom. Flip the Note over, and there is the 8 MP camera with the LED flash. While reviewing the Galaxy Note, we were disappointed with the battery cover opening mechanism though.

During the review of the Galaxy Note, we discovered that the camera placement is a bit of a worry as well. When the Note is kept flat, the camera is touching the surface on which it is kept. It’ll inevitably get scratched badly.

These two flaws aside, the build quality of the Samsung Galaxy Note is very good. There aren’t any rough edges to the product, and most importantly, it has kept its weight and size in check.

Features & Performance: An ARM Cortex A9 dual core 1.4 GHz processor powers the Samsung Galaxy Note. The processor gets help from 1 GB of RAM. Source: www.thinkdigit.com/

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Our experience is consistent with the latest findings from Accenture’s High Performance IT research, which looked at 226 of the world’s largest private and public-sector organisations in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. We define high performers in IT as those that achieve excellence in three distinct areas—IT execution, agility and innovation.

When we conducted detailed assessments of these IT organisations, we discovered that they spend 29 per cent more annually on developing and implementing new applications, rather than spending more on older applications that were delivering less.

They are 44 per cent more likely to recognise the strategic role IT plays in increasing customer satisfaction, and they were eight times more likely than peer IT functions to measure the benefits realised from IT initiatives.

So when it comes to tweak versus trash, the results from our 10-year billion-dollar experiment are conclusive. The faster you leverage the latest technology, the sooner you benefit from it. The longer you retain a legacy technology, the more it drags down performance and the higher the price you pay in the innovations that are sacrificed.

Frank B. Modruson, Accenture CIO (centre), with Alice Wang and Eric Lundgren, CIO Employee Council representatives

15-MINUTE MANAGER

Outsourcing

Long Live Outsourcing Virtualising everything possible while utilising cloud and leveraging knowledge management skills will make India shine on outsourcing firmament

By A rchie Jac ks o n

il lustratio n: SHIGIL N

W

hile the Indian economy was grappling with the challenges of unemployment, the early 90s ushered a welcome change with the era of outsourcing—Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) had invaded the market. The advent of BPO opened up employment opportunities across sectors and there was exponential growth.

Industry witnessed major global giants outsourcing their support segments to India, making the country the preferred IT hub, with a reservoir of skills embedded in its fabric. As a result,

the country gained the confidence of global practitioners, resulting in investment flow.

Outsourcing expanded with tributaries branching of into infrastructure, application, storage, etc, making India the centre for excellence in IT. The following phase was offshoring and most MNCs identified India as the ideal location to have their subsidiaries set up by way of acquisition, merger or extension.

Objective Behind Outsourcing The primary objective behind offshoring and outsourcing is cost saving and

initiatives around it. While outsourcing is about giving out work to a third party vendor who can perform the given task of the same or better quality but at less or competitive price; offshoring is to continue using the organisation’s legacy methods and utilising geographical benefits. In simple terms, if your business with a client earns $N as per hour contracted rate and if the same can be executed by your organisation’s unit set up in some other country at $N-X and of the same or better quality, it is wise to shift the work to that centre, which is a ‘low cost centre’.

This process is called offshoring.

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15-MINUTE MANAGER Both outsource and offshore business is driven by a goal to increase the RoI and reducing TCO. The positive outcome of outsourcing is that employment is no more a

challenge as it used be. With skills and specialisation, opportunities for employment are vast and various.

Campus selection drives are common, indicating that opportunities are

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New Delhi-110024 Vikas Gupta Indian

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Names and addresses of individuals who own the newspaper and partners or shareholders holding more than one per cent of the total capital

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exponentially flowing in. Education has shifted into professional domain with a wide spectrum of specialisation and certifications. The key aspects that the CXOs should ponder over are the low-cost offerings involved, which are drawing global attention.

Growing Concerns Looking back, the global recession indirectly contributed to India’s growth and it is time to set the house in order lest we unconsciously head towards another recession due to ignorance that may nip our growth.

Indian economy has been hit lately by inflation again and it is predicted to rise. Reason enough for all CXOs to plan some mitigation exercises. The cost of living is rising exponentially as a reflection of increased natural energy prices, food, transport costs and so on.

Given the backdrop, IT’s traditional demand-supply protocol is applicable here. Economically, many of the global organisations have already taken the hit on the RoI, with the STPI tax benefit exemption clause 2011 in India.

Under the pressure of consistent inflation, employees’ demands to meet the cost of living is increasing; and it cannot be ignored owing to talented resource crunch.

On the flip side, if organisations focus on meeting employees’ demands and make them competitive, they are proportionally reducing the RoI further.

This may lead to disinterest among global investors who have invested in offshore/outsource business in India.

The India offshore business may likely face challenge from near-shore centres or other low-cost centres (LCC) in Asia, Middle-East and Scandinavia.

What if this happens? The obvious answer is that the offshore IT jobs may become scarce. Only the highlyskilled resources will be able to sustain themselves in the limited IT offshore scope, with jobs on offer provided they relocate to near-shore or LCCs. Proportionally, Indian economy may further dip with IT recession spreading across India’s blooming real estate business. Almost every two employees out of five (40%) have invested in real

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“The India offshore business is likely to face challenges from the near-shore centres or other low-cost centres (LCC) in Asia, Middle-east and Scandinavia” —Archie Jackson, General Manager–IT, Steria India Pvt Ltd estate. With recession affecting IT jobs, the real estate may lose its investors and major national banks may experience bankruptcy. Does this sound familiar?

Yes, lack of awareness and lackadaisical approach might see India follow in the footsteps of the USA which was majorly hit by the global recession.

Plan of Action Top executives of companies should take an optimistic view and evolve

methods to mitigate risks before they turn into major issues. The first step is to analyse what needs to be done to keep the RoI and TCO competitive so that the offshore IT business of India remains offshored.

However, analysts like Gartner recommend a few steps which can regenerate interest in offshore and outsourcing activities. They are: spend less to get the same or better result; rationalise IT assets; continuous

Criteria for Selecting outsourcing Partner * Quality commitment: The vendor should be quality focussed * Cost: The vendor should have prices that enable the customer sufficient cost-saving * Additional resources and capabilities: The vendor should have resources and capabilities that are not available to the customer internally * Prior work: The vendor should have experience working with other organisations and should have delivered satisfactorily

to them. Checking with the references helps the customer understand the vendor’s capabilities properly * Contract terms: The terms of contract should offer flexibility to the client to modify the requirements or terminate the contract easily, if required * Confidentiality: How secure is the customer’s data at the vendor site? The vendor should have well-defined security policies in place

efficiency improvement and BPO. The IT heads along with the business heads should work out strategies for increasing value of IT solutions and create demand for IT services. For instance, virtualising all IT assets would enable the organisation to ensure good savings and lower TCO. A cloud model is very beneficial in cost-saving exercise. Besides this, the development of knowledge management capabilities becomes critical.

Leveraging and cross-scaling of skilled resources and re-evaluating motivation and incentive techniques will also pave the way for better results.

Un d e r s t a n d i n g customer transformation needs is crucial to the shift that is taking place—from standard PC, enterprise owned, corporate image and installed applications to multi-device, SSDs, mobiles, tablets, remotely hosted (terminal services, virtual desktops), non-enterprise owned, virtual machines, streamed applications, software-as-a-service.

The ‘big data’ is growing bigger and is drawing great attention to strategies for data management.

It is very essential for every organisation (especially IT offshore) to work on its strategies to reduce the TCO, or the Indian IT sector may be faced with a challenge to maintain the RoI and remain profitable.

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the big

TABLET PC

BOON OR BANE? EXPERT PANEL

VINAY HINGE CEO, KANDOR SOLUTIONS Pvt LtD

The Situation...

C ut it from here

How will Dilip Singh ensure a robust and secure IT environment in his organisation with the influx of tablet and mobile devices?

Dilip Singh, the senior IT manager of a leading MNC is in a muddle. The reason is increased use of tablet PCs by employees which is challenging the IT framework. To complicate matters, the organisation has decided to buy them in bulk.

Besides deciding on which device to choose from the plethora of models that have invaded the market, Singh now has to work out a scalable wireless infrastructure supporting strategy for the new tablets and build a secure framework.

While the interesting features that the tablets carry, such as improved connectivity and portability, etc, are alluring, they are throwing up a variety of issues for Singh. He has to meet the management expectations of maximising RoI and employee productivity, facilitate interactive multimedia experience to enable network intelligence so that custom applications that increase operational effiYour responses count. Log on to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit your replies. The best entry will be published in the next print edition.

Satish Pendse President, Highbar Technologies Ltd (HCC Group Company)

Sivakumar Krishnan Head-IT Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Ltd

ciency can be built. The OS and customised native apps are the keys for tablets as well.

Singh knows that tablets are an inescapable reality for an IT manager. They are raining down on the infrastructure, security policies, management systems, applications and computing devices. He is also aware that with the novelty of tablets wearing out, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to contend with the complexities that touch internal development teams and IT managers alike.

IT managers like Singh need to draft plans that allow employees access to internal business applications from their devices. In addition to emails, enterprises also need to actively consider porting Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and other proprietary in-house applications onto the tablet platform. Besides these, he has to think of the existing infrastructure, which needs to be aligned with the new device. Singh is also grappling with the task of evolving a contingency plan against the risks involved and above all, to communicate and train employees on the inherent risks of using tablets.

NEXT

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the big q

the big questions...

What kind of strategy\blueprint should Dilip Singh adopt to

?

ensure application availability, control escalating cost, device management and time with the influx on tablets? Any technologies that he can use?

?

What steps should Singh take to align resources for working out a contingency plan to protect the culture of the organisation?

Here are the answers...

Enable access via browser FIRST ANSWER

VINAY HINGE CEO, Kandor Solutions Private Limited About me: Seasoned IT professional with successful innings as entrepreneur and CIO. With more than 18 years of experience, as VP-IT of Avenues Supermarts (P) Ltd and as a GM-IT at Raymond Ltd, been instrumental in rolling out successful IT projects

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The guiding principal for Singh should be ‘adaptability and flexibility’. Instead of taking the old-fashioned way of coming out with detailed specs or preferences for a particular platform for tablets, Singh should specify a general framework to begin with.

Today, we are talking primarily about Apple and Android as the two most dominating platforms with BlackBerry and others as very insignificant players in tablet market. We also need to look at the social angle—the mobile device reflects user’s persona. Hence, I would recommend that he allow users to bring their own tablets rather than procuring them through corporate channels.

Since all the native applications are routed through the respective vendor’s appstore and the concept of ‘enterprise is appstore’, is yet to become a reality, I would suggest that he provide access to enterprise applications via browser. If he invests in developing or porting existing applications to comply with HTML5, many of the challenges will be resolved. Some of the applications could include: * Rich applications with embedded video and collaboration interfaces * Automatic device and form support (touch, aspect ratio of the screen, etc) * Being browser-based, no need to invest in the device management platforms till more affordable solution hit the market * In case he has already invested in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, he can go for the BB Balance technology which allows management of heterogeneous devices

Second Answer We don’t have to assume that tablets will have any adverse impact on the culture of the organisation. If an organisation decides to provide company-owned tablets to select users, it will create dissonance amongst the non-tablet users due to feeling of being deprived. The concept of bring your own mobile phone can be extended to tablets; one will also save on the financial resources.

When it comes to IT infra/apps support to tablet users, there can be serious challenges.

The first one is on security. Ability to draft your security policy to cover tablets and other mobile devices along with the ability to enforce the same is a big issue. My personal recommendation is not to allow storage of any company data on tablets instead it should be hosted on a cloud.

The second challenge is to provide infra support. The last person in the chain—the FMS engineer—may not be adequately trained or familiar with tablets.

I would advise Singh not to forget the big picture of enterprise IT and look at tablet as an essential device which will become more widely present and invest in developing capabilities with a keen eye on getting RoI from this investment.

the big q

Bring in conviction FIRST ANSWER First of all, Singh should list out his challenges. While technology challenges such as which devices to choose, which applications should be made available and via which framework, can be handled easily, the first and foremost aspect to look at is around the business related challenges. It is critical to analyse the business he is in and expect business related issues and work out a model around that.

The entire issue here is around BYOD or the ones that can embed varied applications on it. Singh should work out a blueprint around the challenges in maintaining these devices and skilled resources available. Real estate is a major concern when you rope in so many devices into the organisation. â&#x20AC;&#x192; Singh has to dispassionately work out a costing plan. He should take product cost, solutions to be built around it, cost of managing the applications, increased investment around security and present it to the business heads. The idea essentially is to position the IT manager as the cost controlling person in the company. This can happen when Singh starts doing the business talk and not shy away from working out an investment plan. Besides, he should draft out a plan to educate the employees about the inherent risks involved and take an undertaking from them not to leak out critical data.

Photography: Jiten Gandhi

Second Answer Cultures are time-sensitive. Most conservative companies are now evolving, so is Singhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s company. He would be playing a major role in driving the conviction amongst the users that data needs to be protected at any cost, and a culture of security has to be inculcated in the organisation, of not allowing any data to be exposed.

Singhâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s challenge here would be to highlight the fact that he finds huge productivity gains with a good number of employees using tablets. While he is open to change and fresh ideas that the new devices bring in, his top priority is to protect data against threats from several sources. Singh has to work out an effective contingency plan which can align business growth and productivity with new systems and the financial repercussions it would have if misused, and list out strategies to prevent the same with the support of the business heads.

S TABLET

Global mobile computing devices shipments during 2010-2014 in (million units) Year 2014 will see maximum shipments of mobile computing devices estimated to be at over 400 million units

Satish Pendse President, Highbar Technologies Ltd (HCC Group Company) About me: IT professional with rich and practical experience in technology deployment. Worked earlier as the CIO of Hindustan Construction Company and CIO of Kuoni Travel Group

NEXT

450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

2010

2011(e)

2012 (f)

2013 (f)

2014 (f)

S ource : DigiT imes

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the big q

PROVIDE TECHNOLOGY FRIENDLY APPS FIRST ANSWER Since tablets come with varied architecture and OS, Singh has to ensure that the applications provided are supported and have the necessary plug-ins to run his company specific applications. If possible, it should be made available as a thin client so that it can be accessed over browser eliminating the need to install client applications on the tablet. All confidential data should be password protected and encrypted while transmitting over the net and when stored on the tablet. Employees if possessing company-owned tablets will get a sense of belonging, feel proud, and motivated to work with the company, resulting in low attrition and high loyalty. TCO will definitely be less with only WiFi-enabled tablets. The users will need to be educated on the best practices of using tablets.

Sivakumar Krishnan Head,IT, Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Ltd About me: A techno-functional banker with domain expertise in e-Governance, CoreBanking, etc.

Second Answer Tablets definitely are a cheaper option than laptops/desktops and this will bring down the TCO for the company resulting in higher profits. Singh can provide dashboards, emails and other visual-rich applications to the people on the move (specifically marketing and sales teams), so that it would be easier for them to show the demos to prospects and clinch the deal. To motivate employees, they should be allowed to play games, listen to music and browse in their free time to get charged up with new energy, vigour and passion. It will improve productivity. Customers will also carry with them an impression that the company they are dealing with is technology-friendly.

Notes NOTEs

More Resources 54

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Virtual Storage Platform anniversary: http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2011/09/happy-birthday-vsp.html How to avoid information overload: http://marksblog.emc.com/2011/09/episode-108-.html

Me & My Mentor

ME AKSHAY LAMBA Associate Director MTS India

MENTOR RAJEEV BATRA CIO MTS India

“Professionalism with transparency is the key to a relationship” What qualities do you appreciate in your mentee/ mentor?

Rajeev Batra: Firstly, I look for a person who has the aptitude and attitude to be action-oriented, while being coachable. S/he should be high on self-confidence and self-esteem and ready to take initiatives and explore new alternatives. A mentee should be open to new discoveries and possibilities that would result in a higher level of potential for both him and the organisation.

Akshay Lamba: Over a period of time I’ve realised that Rajeev is able to showcase his intellectual leadership across multiple facets of business—technical, people, financial, social, customer behaviour, market understanding, etc. Also, while a number of mentors find it difficult to balance prescriptive guidance and vague directions, Rajeev is somehow able to manage this with ease! He makes me think and work hard to understand the root cause of an issue, but let’s me get to the point of eureka on my own. He’s never gone easy on me when I need to figure out something, but he will typically push me to understand the situation only through quizzing and debating (this does extend to a period of days at times!). The quod erat demonstrandum is all my own.

How do you identify and prioritise areas where the mentee needs to focus on or where the mentor needs to spend more time with the mentee?

Batra: Professionalism with transparency is the key to the relationship. Identifying strengths of the mentee and channelling them into specific goals aligned to career progression is important. There is no fixed role and the mentee may have specific attributes to build on for success.

Lamba: One of the things my mentor insists on is: if you want something to happen, go out and make it happen. There are no excuses except your own lack of ability or hard work for not achieving something.

The same concept is extended to the time available with my mentor. In our relationship, it is my responsibility to carve out the time I need with him to get the value I’m seeking. Of course, I need to work around his hectic schedule. I believe the issue is not really about time, but about being able to tap into the significant mindshare of my mentor.

I make this happen by leveraging Rajeev’s travel time. For example, I typically reschedule my flight to take the same one as him when we are travelling since it gives us a few exclusive hours—no phones or emails to distract!

How do you think the mentee can take on more responsibilities and more/bigger decisions?

Batra: I think if my mentee is committed then the most frequently used way to increase commitment and engagement among all high potentials is to help them identify a career

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Me & My Mentor my current divisions and take on new ones with clearly defined results and timelines.

How do you resolve conflicts, if any, between the two of you? And if there are no conflicts, what do you think is the secret of your smooth working relationship?

Batra: Yes, we do have difference of opinions sometimes. I personally believe that one should look at the different opinions holistically and then weigh and evaluate the best option available. Sometimes, it happens that I get a fresh idea from Akshay, and it changes my earlier thoughts completely.

The secret of our successful relationship is trust. The currency of a successful mentor-mentee relationship lies in achieving success in the specific goals and objectives.

Nevertheless, there can be possibilities of ancillary benefits—reputational benefits, introductions to subsequent commercial opportunities and networking. However, in the moment or period when the mentor and the mentee are engaging, the ancillary benefits must be of secondary concern.

Lamba: Rajeev creates a balance between personal ease and professional decorum in the working relationship. He is easy to walk up to and discuss any topic, but you better have something substantial to discuss and have thought through the topic to be able to debate its intricacies.

He not only appreciates a debate but actively demands that his mentees have a vision for their areas of work, and have the conviction to disagree on any given topic.

This does lead to conflicting opinions a number of times, but it is mostly resolved by keeping an open mind—a mind ready to see a given topic from multiple directions, accept others’ points of views and assimilate them in your own.

On a working relationship platform—I either end up convincing him or he ends up convincing me after debating the issue!

“Conflicting mentor-mentee opinions can easily be resolved with an open mind” path. High potentials want to have a picture of where they are going and to understand next steps in terms of development, experience and movement. In addition, as high potentials receive greater responsibility, they are also looking for greater authority to make decisions that have a significant impact on the organisation.

Lamba: One of the key learnings I’ve gained with Rajeev is that if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backwards.

There is no status quo in business. The only growth path available is taking on larger scope of work and greater responsibility. Hence, to a certain extent, it is up to the mentee to identify opportunities and discuss with the mentor to take up the task while agreeing on a result/outcome between them. In our case, Rajeev has continuously pushed me to increase the scope of

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What are the two or three key things you have learnt from each other?

Batra: High energy and driven personality; ability to accept accountability and responsibility with result orientation; good interpersonal and social skills.

Lamba: I have been professionally associated with Rajeev for over 10 years so it’s difficult to identify just two-three key learnings over the last decade. One of the biggest and most dif-

Me & My Mentor What are the challenges and constraints for you as a mentor in devoting more time and effort for the development of your immediate juniors?

Batra: The time commitment to serve as a mentor is minimal: maybe a few hours every month or every quarter. However, I try to offer a portion of my limited time that will shape Akshay for the rest of his life. The challenge for me as a CIO is whether to share confidential information with Akshay or not.

Each party must listen to the other and demonstrate through conduct or give some sort of acknowledgement. A good mentor does not need to have her advice followed, but if a mentee continually ignores advice and counsel without discussing why, he runs the risk of creating for the mentor a sense that s/he is wasting his/her time. For the mentor, not listening to the mentee and modifying advice or how it’s delivered, creates for the mentee a sense that the mentor isn’t really interested in a bilateral relationship.

What are your views on the role of the CIO as a mentor and the need for mentoring an IT manager so that s/ he can realise his/her full potential?

Batra: A good mentor knows that he couldn’t possibly know everything there is to know in any given field—the world has become much too complex today. Things change, people change, circumstances change—and it’s all great. A good mentor will remain open to new ideas and even try them. The CIO has to rely on his managers and take his mentees also along with him.

He recognises that they have talent and are successful already. At the very least, the CIO recognises their potential else s/he would not have taken him/her on as a mentee.

“A successful mentor-mentee relationship is achieving success in specific goals” ficult lessons I’ve had to internalise in the last six months has been the ability to differentiate between passion and emotion.

I’ve always believed that a large part of the drive to excel in a professional comes from his passion towards his line of work. However, I’ve learnt that passion and emotion can be confused to be the same thing.

Even the best of professionals end up getting emotional about a decision or a debate; it took Rajeev months of counselling and guidance to make me differentiate between the two.

At the end of the day what really helped me understand it was to see him react on a transactional level day after day— his passion for his work is second to none; but he is able to clinically see any situation as a disengaged entity and make decisions based on sound logic and data without letting his emotions cloud his judgement.

Lamba: We live in a highly competitive world—and you need every available weapon in your arsenal to succeed. These weapons include your education, experience, training, practice, etc.

One might think that a mentor would just be another weapon to leverage; however, he can be the most important ‘source of strength’ you can imagine. There is no substitute for a one-on-one interaction with someone you admire or an expert in what you are trying to achieve.

If you’re lucky you would find a mentor who would push your boundaries of capabilities and make you see that you can achieve so much more than what you even thought was possible.

Author is Sanjay Gupta, Consulting Editor (ITNEXT Online)

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update

open Debate

book For you A platform to air your views on latest developments and issues that impact you

Is BYOA a headache for IT Managers?

Ashish Khanna Corporate Manager, IT Infrastructure, The Oberoi Group In today’s world all the end user technologies are turning out to be disruptive in nature. Gadgets like tablet, android-based devices, applications such as Skype, Gtalk, Facebook are all disruptive. It goes without saying that organisations are using these devices and applications for a competitive advantage. This poses immense challenges for IT managers as these BYO-applications also bring in several security challenges. These apps lack basic security features and it is hard to explain the consequences of BYOD to the user community.

Kamal Matta Head-IT & Telecom, Sonic Biochem Bring your own Apps is a real pain in current scenario for an IT manager as most of the apps compromise the IT security policy/procedures related to the organisation. It is a much bigger pain to find ways to stop or prevent the same as users are becoming more and more tech savvy nowadays.There are no foolproof methods to store important and sensitive documents on cloudbased apps like dropbox/ sky drive/ google docs, etc.

Besides addressing security threats and breaches it is a challenge to support these apps which sometimes do not adhere to the company policy.

Archie Jackson GM-IT of Steria India Ltd Absolutely not. Instead, this should be encouraged.

In the era of virtualisation and SaaS, this is an initiative of all major organisations and is expected to be very common. ‘BYO apps’ is very similar to tele-working which is already successful in most organisations. Information security can still be maintained at optimal level by integrating the ‘BYO-apps’ with office security console and defining a strong ‘BYOD’ policy. On the other hand, this would increase efficiency of IT managers, as they would be more comfortable using their customised high performance devices for official usage as compared to the standard devices.

Quest for Excellence TITLE: QUEST FOR EXCEPTIONAL LEADERSHIP AUTHOR: RAVI CHAUDHRY PUBLISHER: SAGE PUBLICATIONS PAGES: 286 PRICE: ` 375 REVIEWED BY: SANJAY GUPTA

In the expansive stride of this book, Ravi Chaudhry has used the metaphor of climbing a summit for traversing the ‘path of progress’ from being an average leader to an exceptional one. At the start of this meandering and uphill path is the starting point with certain physical traits (basic intelligence, energy and drive, professional will); the base camp is characterised by mind traits (realistic visionary, transactional skill, perseverance); and the summit is reached with traits of the heart (wholeness, compassion, transparency). But before that, Chaudhry emphasises the recent failure of business and political leaders, especially in the western world, in preventing the ongoing economic crisis. He minces no words in lambasting the moral bankruptcy of the supposedly best and brightest people, and then gets to the root of the leadership crisis: business–political nexus, short-termism, CSR as PR, corruption of the mind and information overload, among others. Fortunately, the author doesn’t get bogged down by the moral or ethical rot he sees around.

IT NEXT VERDICT An insightful book that shows how to take the tough climb from being an average leader to an exceptional one. Must read for existing and aspiring leaders in our challenging times.

Your views and opinion matter to us. Send us your feedback on stories and the magazine to the Editor at editor@itnext.in

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Star Value:

update

off the shelf

A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

Jabra Supreme Bluetooth headset at Rs 7,999

Exceptional audio quality for heavy users of hands-free communication

HEADSPEAKERS | Jabra has launched a new

key features

Bluetooth mono (non-stereo) headset, the * Exceptional audio quality Supreme. Jabra Supreme comes with active * Digital Signal Processing (DSP) noise cancellation, not common in mono * Chipset to generate anti-noise headsets, coupled with digital signal pro* Noise Blackout technology cessing (DSP), proprietary Noise Blackout 3.0 and wind-noise reduction technology.

Jabra says Supreme gives an exceptional audio quality at both ends to heavy users of hands-free communication, irrespective of the noise environments they are in.

Jabra Supreme reduces ambient noise around the user. It’s like having phone conversation in a quiet room. Active noise cancellation uses one dedicated microphone and an electronic chipset to generate an ‘anti-noise’ sound, removing ambient noise around the user that he would otherwise hear as well. The end result for the user is call quality that is excellent in sound no matter the noise setting he happens to be in. Jabra points out that before the Supreme, active noise cancellation was only available in high-end stereo headphones.

While active noise cancellation eliminates ambient sound on the caller’s end while receiving a call, Jabra’s latest Noise Blackout technology included in the Jabra Supreme, Noise Blackout 3.0, dramatically reduces background noise that is transmitted to the caller on the other end of the line. Jabra Supreme is HD voiceready as well and this means that the conversations sound natural.

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Lenovo gets Glamorous ULTRABOOK Lenovo India sashays into the fashion world with its new luxury laptop, the IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook.

Bridging haute couture with superior technology, this laptop is designed for fashion-conscious consumers who want a product that is cool, powerful and productive; the ultimate fusion for those who take technology and design seriously. The U300s is not only thin and lightweight but also power-packed with myriad features.

Unveiling the new Lenovo U300s in India, Rajesh Thadani, Director, Consumer Business Segment, Lenovo India said, “The new IdeaPad U Series laptops from Lenovo provides style aficionados everything they need in a slender yet efficient super chic, mobile package. The U300s laptop is slated to become the perfect style accessory this season.”

In fact, the product will deliver a great user experience and a long battery life.

Today, youngsters look for no compromise machines which combine both mobility and performance and U300s provides both, in addition to other smart features. Powered by second Gen Core processors, the U300s will deliver great capabilities with a wonderful user experience and long battery life that people increasingly want.

KEY FEATURES * Built in collaboration with Intel * It has a 13.3” ultra-slim display *smart technologies like Breathable Keyboard * Battery life upto 8 hours * Includes Bluetooth 3.0

update

SICT Introduces Silk with Dynamite of Features RICH Features * 2.8-inch real touch pad * Big speaker * 1.3 MP camera and flashlight * Music on Bluetooth headset

Handset | As part of its strategy to aggressively expand its product portfolio,

providing high feature differentiated products, SICT Mobiles has introduced yet another feature rich handset—SILK. Because of its rich features, the new offering is named ‘a dynamite of features’ and is available at a price point of Rs 2,399.

The new handset has a 2.8-inch ‘real’ touch pad and a big display screen.

This slim handset (108x56x12.3 mm) with a big speaker comes loaded with a 1.3 MP camera and flashlight. The handset is compatible with major video formats like 20fps AVI, 3GP and MP4 and supports major audio formats MP3/WAV/ MIDI/AMR. The feature list also includes call recorder and Bluetooth A2DP that enables you to listen to music on the Bluetooth headset. Silk also features a USB cable. Apart from supporting SMS and MMS functionality, it also gives handwriting hold up in message writing.

Silk also supports 16 GB external memory. Yet another salient feature of the gadget is Call Connect Notice, which vibrates the phones when the call gets connected. This feature keeps the user away from the radiations as phones emit maximum radiation, when the call gets connected. Silk’s inbuilt security mechanism also protects the phonebook, messages, multimedia files, etc, and it has a mobile tracker for theft protection. This dual sim, dual band phone with dual charging support is available with a 3.5 mm jack earphone.

Casio Launches Electronic Dictionary DICTIONARY | Casio India Company Private

Limited, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the JPY 341.7 billion consumer electronics giant Casio Computer Co Ltd, Japan, has recently launched its much awaited product Electronic Dictionary. It is a small handheld device with an integrated reference material in digital form and provides great degree of convenience in day to day life with a variety of functions like finding word meaning of any English/French word, translation, correct spelling, plural, noun or past tense of verb. Additionally, it also finds grammatical information about a word. It also helps the user in finding

LG teases Korea with Optimus Vu SMARTPHONE A Korean teaser for the LG Optimus Vu was released recently, showing a 5-inch device that takes on smartphonetablet hybrids.

For now, it is not known whether LG will release the Vu outside Korea.

The LG teaser talks about the IPS display, which features a 4:3 aspect ratio—giving users a larger visual area to play with, compared to other five-inch displays. The Optimus Vu’s display is rumoured to have a 768×1024 pixels resolution however, while the Samsung Galaxy Note has an 800×1280 pixels resolution.

Other expected specs include a dualcore 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 SoC, 1 GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, an 8 MP camera, and NFC connectivity. The LG Optimus Vu will apparently run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread—hopefully an Ice Cream Sandwich update will be available soon enough.

FEATURES * Compact handheld device * Meaning of any English/French words * Finding synonyms or antonyms * Inbuilt speaker

synonyms or antonyms of a word, collocations of a word, checking the parts of speech, etc. Inbuilt speaker of the dictionary helps in pronouncing words correctly.

Speaking about the target audience for these dictionaries, Kulbhushan Seth, Head Sales and Marketing, Casio India Company said, “This dictionary is ideally suited for variety of users like language students and others.”

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cube chat | Aniket Kate

Teach to Bridge Tech Gap “I wish to teach later and bridge the technology gap between industry and academic curriculum,” says Aniket Kate, Manager, Group CIO’s Office, Corporate IT, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

BY MANU SHA R M A

T

My sucess

mantra “99 per cent hardwork; one per cent luck”

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eachers mould the lives of individuals and often their influence is strongest on our minds. That’s what Aniket Kate believes. No wonder, then, he wishes to take up teaching later in his life. Of course, Kate is not trying to give up IT. Rather, he intends to pass on his domain knowledge to the next generation.

“Working in the industry, I am exposed to latest technologies. But the college curriculum still imparts outdated knowledge,” says Kate. “I want to teach students information security and management systems (ISMS) and IT service delivery; subjects in which I have gained profound knowledge,” he adds.

His current priority though is to become a CTO in the next five years or so. “Even though there is only a thin line separating a CIO and a CTO, I would still like to leap into the shoes of a

CTO since he drives technology, while the role of a CIO is more a managerial one,” he says.

Presently Kate is handling information security and identity management programmes for the M&M Group. He is involved with projects on the client side, in the numerous acquisitions that M&M made. “I am heading a team of 10, driving ISMS and IT service delivery projects within the Mahindra Group, covering policies concerned with information security management and IT related risks and benchmarking them against best practices.”

Kate has a diploma in computer science and a BE in computer engineering from MGM College of Engineering, Nanded. He graduated from college in 2001, at a time when the entire IT industry was reeling under recession and IT was not the most sought after career. “I didn’t get a break in software development, which was my

cube chat

Fact File NAME: ANIKET SUHASH KATE

D ES I GNATION: MA NAGER, GROUP CIO ’ s OFFI C E, CORPORATE IT, M& m LTD

CURR ENT ROLE: MANAGIN G INFORMATION S ECUR IT Y AND ID ENTIT Y MANAG EM ENT PRoGRAM meS FOR M&M GROUP PL AN AND CO NDUC T IT OPERATIONS AND S ECUR IT Y AUDITS BEN CHMAR KING AGAINST BEST PRACTI CES AND D EVIS ING METHODOLOG IES TO PRACTI CE

“I would like to leap into the shoes of a CTO since he drives technology, while the role of a CIO is more a managerial one” strength, and was put into operations,” says Kate. But he believes that no matter what job you are in, you will always find something to excel in, although it may not always give you what you desire.

He got his first break when he joined CMS Computers and worked on the client side. “I worked for ICICI One Source, a 400-seater BPO company. I was exposed to working on the client side and also learnt how to manage IT infrastructure in a 24x7 support operations role as per ISMS policies and got exposed to international clients.”

This helped Kate move up in his job when he joined Kanbay Software in Pune, handling HSBC, based out of Mumbai. Kate had to maintain redundant and scalable architecture; maintain in-house capacity for remote access to all and the client data

and their applications needed to be secured.

Also, 99.99 per cent up time across all connectivity was essential, besides 100 per cent redundancy across all networks.

Kate has also worked as a senior network analyst at Reinsurance Group of America where he handled the same ISMS and IT service delivery projects and was responsible for setting up global help desks, technical infrastructure like data centre and provide remote support to centres located in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the US. For Kate, music is a stress buster. He plays the Spanish guitar and synthesiser or simply listens to instrumental music to de-stress himself. He also admires Bill Gates.

“Rarely do you see a technologist becoming so powerful that global leaders look for an opportunity to interact with him.”

MA NAGE INFORMATIO N SECUR IT Y ASSURA NCE FRAMEWORK – DELI VERING STAKEHOLD ERS’ VALU E , ACHIEVE STRATEG IC GOALS AND PROVIdE INFORMATION RIS KS ASS ESSM ENT AND ENSUR E COMPL I AN CE EXPERTI SE: DATA CENTRE MA NAGEM ENT, IT INFRASTRUC TUR E MA NAGEMENT, IT OPERATIONS SUPPORT, PROJEC T MANAGEM ENT, AUD ITS AND COMPL IANCE

WORK EXPERIeNC E: 10 YEARS FAVOURITE QUOTE: “N OT FAILUR E, BUT LOW AI M IS CR IM E” FAVOURITE DESTINATIO N: LONDO N FAVOURITE BOOK: “THE RULES OF WORK” BY RI CHARD TE MPL AR FAVOURITE GADGET: M ICROSOF T XBOX 360 KINECT

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the web f r o m

www.itnext.in Read IT Next stories published online. The links of these stories can also be accessed through your mobiles/smartphones using QR code.

ACQUISITION NEWS

Oracle Acquires Taleo for $1.9 bn

HOT NEWS

PC Sales Down by 22 Per Cent in Q4 2011: IDC In Q4 2011, India PC market recorded its lowest shipments in the last six quarters, disrupted largely by the supply shortage and subsequent price inflation of the hard drives. The research firm attributes the decline to hard disk shortages and a higher dollar, among others.

The shipments stood at 2.39 million units ie a sequential drop of 22.7 per cent over the previous quarter even as the overall year on year decline was noted to be at 3.8 per cent.

Oracle has entered into an agreement to acquire Taleo Corporation, a leading provider of cloud-based talent management company for $46.00 per share or approximately $1.9 billion, net of Taleo’s cash and debt. Taleo’s Talent Management Cloud helps organisations attract, develop, motivate and retain human capital to improve performance and drive growth. Together, Oracle and Taleo expect to create a comprehensive cloud offering for organisations to manage their human resource operations, retain talent and optimise costs and improve employee experience. The merger will also empower the duo to offer employees and managers effective career management and collaboration. http://www.itnext.in/content/oracleacquires-taleo-19-billion.html

http://www.itnext.in/ content/pc-sales-down22-q4-2011-idc.html OPINION

INNOVATION NEWS

Innovation Bug Bites KPMG KPMG India launched its Technology Centre in Bengaluru at the iconic World Trade Centre, Bengaluru. It houses technologically advanced teams specialising in enterprise applications, BI, analytics, etc. http://www.itnext.in/ content/innovation-bugbites-kpmg.html

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Deluged by Data?

Technologies such as de-duplication and archiving can help you manage information growth in the age of e-governance, says Vijay Mhaskar, VP of Information Management Group, Symantec. http://www.itnext.in/content/delugeddata.html

ANALYST NEWS

Indian CIOs Keen on Innovation and IT Growth: Gartner CIOs in India are using technology to “amplify” the enterprise and their IT budgets are expected to grow 12.8 per cent in 2012, while CIOs globally expect flat growth, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner Inc’s Executive Programmes. CIOs from India said their budgets are supporting business strategies for growth and innovation.

These results are part of worldwide CIO survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2011. It included 2,335 CIOs, representing more than $321 billion in CIO IT budgets and covered 37 industries in 45 countries. The Gartner Executive Programmes report, ‘Amplifying the Enterprise: The 2012 CIO Agenda’ represents the world’s most comprehensive examination of business priorities and CIO strategies. http://www.itnext.in/ content/indian-cioskeen-innovation-and-itgrowth-gartner.html

from the web VENDOR NEWS

soft NEWS

IBM has announced the launch of a Smarter Commerce Centre of Excellence (CoE) at the India Software Lab, Bangalore. The CoE will consist of a team of 25 technical experts selected from the B2B and Commerce Enterprise Marketing Management teams from India Software Lab. By bringing together a powerful combination of technical expertise, domain knowledge, and best practices from IBM’s extensive global engagements, the CoE will offer innovative solutions to automate and accelerate the purchasing, marketing, sales and customer service functions to organisations across India, South Asia and Asia Pacific.

While money is important and equally significant, the need today is to share our time and love, feels NEXT100 winner Gracekumar, Associate Director–IT, Cognizant Business Consulting.

Kumar says more than just monetary contributions, spending time with children

IBM Launches Centre of Excellence in Bangalore

Beyond Money

http://www.itnext.in/content/ibm-launches-center-excellence-bangalore.html

APPOINTMENT NEWS

McAfee appoints Jagdish Mahapatra as MD of India & SAARC McAfee has strengthened its India management team with the appointment of Jagdish Mahapatra as the MD of India and SAARC. He was earlier Sr VP of IT Services Sales at Cisco Systems India.

Based in Mumbai, Jagdish will report to Wahab Yusoff, Vice President of South Asia, and will spearhead the company’s growth in the subcontinent. In this role, his key responsibilities will include driving enterprise and consumer driven product revenues, strengthening customer base across verticals and leading channel partner and alliance engagements. http://www.itnext.in/ content/mcafee-appointsjagdish-mahapatra-mdindia-%2526-saarc.html

GOVERNMENT NEWS

Aakash to attract students: Kapil Sibal Minister for HRD, Communications & IT, Government of India, Kapil Sibal, who was the chief guest at ISA Vision Summit 2012. said that based on the feedback from Aakash 1, they are launching Aakash 2, a much better version.

The cost of Aakash 1 is Rs 2,276 but is slated to come down to Rs 1,500 per unit. The cost would further be subsidised with indigenisation of production and private funding. http://www.itnext.in/content/ aakash-attract-students-kapilsibal.html

and elderly is appreciated.

He not only believes in this philosophy but has been actively following it for some time now. “I believe that if you believe in humanity, you should get into such philanthropic activities. Huge contributions in terms of money and grants are already coming in from charities and people abroad.

What these people really need is contribution in terms of your presence. We need to show them that the world still loves them, and not merely cares for them.” http://www.itnext.in/ content/philanthropygoes-beyond-money. html

HOT PRODUCT NEWS

IP Camera for Multi Surveillance A weather and vandal proof 2 MP IP camera with real-time streaming capabilities Dax Networks has launched DX-372DVP-A, an IP camera for multilocation surveillance. Priced at Rs 61,880, this 2 MP camera delivers HD quality (1600×1200) video images and is also suited for surveillance within the campus or premises. The IP66 camera comes with an audio port for two-way communication and has 3 GPP support. http://www.itnext.in/content/ip-camera-multi-surveillance.html

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update

indulge

The hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next generation gadgets and devices for you

Now make your home your playground with new products from CES 2012 that make you go “whoa”

HOT Mercedes F125 This car only lacks flux capacitors. The F125 features a hybrid electric/ hydrogen propulsion along with e4MATIC all-wheel-drive.

The design is stunning.

Powertrekk Now charge your phone using water. Powertrekk from MyFC produces power equivalent to four AA batteries using just a teaspoon of water, to charge your gadget.

Price: `15,000 for fuel cell

NEW HP Envy Spectre Razer Project Fiona Crazy idea of compacting an entire gaming PC into a tablet, and the result: Project Fiona. This is powered by Intel Core i7 and runs on Windows.

Ultrabook comes with a Gorilla glass and nearly the entire notebook is made of glass – the lid, the palm, rest, the track pad.

Price: `70,200

Price: Not avail able

Like something? Want to share your objects of desire? Send us your wish-list or feedback to editor@itnext.in

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Sanjay Gupta

my log

Consulting Editor IT Next (Online) & CTO Forum

The Urge to Merge We continue to see mergers and acquisitions around us, especially in technology. So, what does it matter beyond size?

While some may argue that small is beautiful, most people—in particular, the folks in the corporate world—seem to have a penchant for size. In addition, by extension, for companies that grow bigger and bigger until they look like immovable mountains. (However, do not worry; some mountains do get to dance!) Thus, we keep hearing of big-ticket mergers and acquisitions (M&A), such as Google acquiring Motorola Mobility or Oracle buying cloud HR firm Taleo.

About a couple of years or so back, Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes made the astounding admission that the merger of AOL with Time Warner was one of the biggest mistakes in corporate history. The two companies were demerged in 2009, and in 2002 Time Warner had to write down $99 billion in losses attributable to the merger. In an interview to The Daily Telegraph, Bewkes said his lesson from the whole process was that the recipe for success of any company is this: You have to know what you are.

The words are full of impact and pack a lot of insight into what makes a company what it is. Still, the world of M&A keeps on spinning, engulfing smaller companies into the fold of the big. With technology firms especially, when one looks at the heightened M&A activity in the recent past, one wonders where all this vendor consolidation will stop.

More pertinently, should there be a stop switch for M&A? In addition, what do mergers mean for the companies involved, their customers and their business partners? There are several theories and explanations for acquisitions—some for and some against. Proponents say that M&A bring in economies of scale, cost savings, improved efficiencies and easy access to new markets or customers; detractors aver that they stifle innovation, cause job losses and lead to erosion of choice for consumers.

Like in most mother-of-all arguments, both sides have valid points.

In the context of tech firms, we have seen that yesterday’s behemoth is often rendered less relevant or relegated to a diminutive role (Novell, SGI, for instance); the startup of a few years is today’s 800-pound gorilla (Google, Facebook); and today’s new kid on the block is either slated for future greatness or set to become hors d’oeuvre for the fat boys.

In my opinion, as long as the wheel of innovation rolls on, allowing new companies to emerge and offer better solutions at compelling prices, there is nothing wrong with M&A. They serve as a useful vehicle for clearing up the roads clogged with too many companies.

However, if the acquisition spree is so unabated as to make only one or two companies gargantuan monopolies or duopolies in their particular segments, it is a cause of concern for everyone.

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CaSEy KInG | INTERVIEW

CLOUD MAKeS COMMUniCAtiOn eASY

lifeSize, a video and audio telecommunications company finds cloud-based video collaboration platform catching up in a big way. Casey King, Chief technology Officer of the company, in conversation with manu Sharma, shares his views on how enterprises have leveraged the cloud-based delivery trend to enable seamless high-definition video communication over multiple devices

How does cloud make sense to communication technology and what kind of pricing strategy have you evolved?

Cloud-based platform is the most sought after technology these days and communication technology cannot be an exception to the rule. While taking a conscious decision to foray into the cloud model, we at LifeSize have introduced a new way to improve productivity and collaborate in ways that was not thought possible earlier.

Known as Lifesize Connections, the new service is designed to work directly with PCs, running Mac OS or Windows, as well as dedicated video conferencing end points. The service supports

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for HD videoconferencing infrastructure.

With regard to the pricing, we have priced at $100 per-user-permonth for an endpoint connection to the service and $30 per-userper-month for a desktop client, which would include a camera and hardware to host and manage a videoconference.

The subscription allows unlimited use of the service.

From a solution perspective, LifeSize new Passport Connect is a high definition (HD) videoconferencing endpoint that is optimised for cloud platforms, including LifeSize Connections.

The product provides an easier user experience, and is the first to leverage Logitech technology—in this case, an HD camera.

many simultaneous users on a call, with 720p resolution, although this will depend on both the quality of hardware and the available network bandwidth.

The connection service includes firewall traversal, for call setup, as well as directory services and call encryption.

Guests can join the service free of charge via a web link using our own cloud platform. Today we have many SME customers who are utilising our cloud platform.

A large company can deploy on-premises cloud implementation like our LifeSize Bridge 2200 hosted on a private cloud or have the providers host the application on the UVC platform, which is a virtualised software solution

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Casey King, CTO-Lifesize, on using the cloud for HD video communication Pg 32 INSIgHT | E-COMMErCE

E-COMMErCE | INSIgHT However, it is imperative for IT managers to take cognisance of customer demand and experience before evolving a framework for e-commerce.

t

echnological evolutions in the personal computing space are influencing customer behaviour in a big way. Emergence of smartphones, tablets and kiosks have enabled customers to interact with new brands due to the increased exposure they provide. Besides, social shopping (such as Groupon), social networks (such as Facebook) and user generated content (such as ratings and reviews) are changing the way consumers buy. As a result, technology is playing the role of both a disruptor and an enabler in this context. On the one hand it is enabling the consumers to interact with retailers using multiple channels and devices of their choice (web, phones, tablets and kiosks), and on the other, it is disrupting the way retailers are marketing, selling and servicing their customers.

Customers’ expectations are on the rise as they look for seamless interaction across all channels and devices, while marketers are expecting to engage with the customers wherever they are.

In order to provide a high quality and seamless customer engagement and shopping experience for customers, retailers are turning to internal IT organisations and partners to build or transform their dotcom presence and create a strong foundation for multi-channel commerce.

effective ingredients Given the fact that building or transforming dotcom presence involves a number of technologies and products, it is very likely to get carried away with the choice of technologies and vendors available in the market in an urge to take up large projects.

b) Creating a digital experience which has no boundaries is of immense importance. IT managers have to evolve innovative customer engagement models that cater to different geographies, countries internet users and C-level executives who can spend 16 hours leverage the same. Architecting A few ingredients are necessary per week online, the e-commerce platform with due which can be viewed as best over 80 per cent considerations to globalisation practices for building an researching and localisation aspects as well as e-commerce platform. The online and policies and governance pertaining following points must be borne 19 per cent to customer data, privacy and in mind when building or buying online other local laws is critical. Global expanding a dotcom experience shipping and delivery is a norm for customers: a) Business tools are not just another set of internal today and IT managers must possess the skills to applications. They contribute to good customer work out an effective transaction model. c) Building an effective front-end architecture experience for merchandisers and marketers.

Marketers desire to communicate fresh messages is critical; given the increased number of channels frequently. Tools that put the control in the hands of and devices that are expected for providing a rich marketers need to be carefully designed to achieve customer experience. d) Customer experience, not just transactions the goal of easy and frequent content refreshes as per second is the need of the hour. Performance well as deal with multiple content types.

100 mn

technology inside

tAiLORinG tHe JOY OF

SHOPPinG OnLine Transforming customers’ experience of buying via wire into joyous moments has IT managers innovating the e-commerce platform, as more and more retailers log on to tap the burgeoning online buyer community

BY P R A B H U K A N N A N

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requirements should no longer be viewed as just non-functional technical requirements. While it is important to test server level transactions, there should be focus on end-user experience and it is imperative to test the performance of the platform from that perspective. Another important aspect that should not be ignored is that every page on the web must be interactive. e) Security of the e-commerce application is a prerequisite. Exploitation of insecure platforms by hackers has profound impact on customer confidence and consequently, on brands. By adopting countermeasures and mitigation strategies not only when the platform is fully operational but during all phases of development cycle, ensure

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Prabhu Kannan discusses some best practices for building an e-commerce platform Pg 40 CUBE CHAT | anIKEt KatE

CUBE CHAT

FAC T F I l E naME: a n I K E t S u H aS H K at E

Teach to Bridge Tech gap “i wish to teach later and bridge the technology gap between industry and academic curriculum,” says aniket Kate, Manager, Group cIO’s Office, corporate IT, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd

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MY SUCESS

MANTRA “99 per cent hardwork; one per cent luck”

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CurrEnt rOlE: M a n aG I n G I n FO r M at I O n S EC u r I t y a n D I D E n t I t y M a n aG E M E n t p r O G r a M M ES FO r M&M GrOup plan anD COnDuCt I t O p E r at I O n S a n D S EC u r I t y au D I tS BEnCHMarKInG aGa I n St B ESt p r aC t I C ES anD DEVISInG M E t H O D O lO G I ES tO p r aC t I C E

“I would like to leap into the shoes of a CTO since he drives technology, while the role of a CIO is more a managerial one”

BY MANU SHARMA

eachers mould the lives of individuals and often their influence is strongest on our minds. That’s what Aniket Kate believes. No wonder, then, he wishes to take up teaching later in his life. Of course, Kate is not trying to give up IT. Rather, he intends to pass on his domain knowledge to the next generation.

“Working in the industry, I am exposed to latest technologies. But the college curriculum still imparts outdated knowledge,” says Kate. “I want to teach students information security and management systems (ISMS) and IT service delivery; subjects in which I have gained profound knowledge,” he adds.

His current priority though is to become a CTO in the next five years or so. “Even though there is only a thin line separating a CIO and a CTO, I would still like to leap into the shoes of a

D ES I G n at I O n : M a n aG E r , G r O u p C I O ’ S O F F I C E , C O r p O r at E I t, M & M lt D

CTO since he drives technology, while the role of a CIO is more a managerial one,” he says.

Presently Kate is handling information security and identity management programmes for the M&M Group. He is involved with projects on the client side, in the numerous acquisitions that M&M made. “I am heading a team of 10, driving ISMS and IT service delivery projects within the Mahindra Group, covering policies concerned with information security management and IT related risks and benchmarking them against best practices.”

Kate has a diploma in computer science and a BE in computer engineering from MGM College of Engineering, Nanded. He graduated from college in 2001, at a time when the entire IT industry was reeling under recession and IT was not the most sought after career. “I didn’t get a break in software development, which was my

strength, and was put into operations,” says Kate. But he believes that no matter what job you are in, you will always find something to excel in, although it may not always give you what you desire.

He got his first break when he joined CMS Computers and worked on the client side. “I worked for ICICI One Source, a 400-seater BPO company. I was exposed to working on the client side and also learnt how to manage IT infrastructure in a 24x7 support operations role as per ISMS policies and got exposed to international clients.”

This helped Kate move up in his job when he joined Kanbay Software in Pune, handling HSBC, based out of Mumbai. Kate had to maintain redundant and scalable architecture; maintain in-house capacity for remote access to all and the client data

and their applications needed to be secured.

Also, 99.99 per cent up time across all connectivity was essential, besides 100 per cent redundancy across all networks.

Kate has also worked as a senior network analyst at Reinsurance Group of America where he handled the same ISMS and IT service delivery projects and was responsible for setting up global help desks, technical infrastructure like data centre and provide remote support to centres located in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the US. For Kate, music is a stress buster. He plays the Spanish guitar and synthesiser or simply listens to instrumental music to de-stress himself. He also admires Bill Gates.

“Rarely do you see a technologist becoming so powerful that global leaders look for an opportunity to interact with him.”

M a n aG E I n FO r M at I O n S EC u r I t y aS S u r a n C E F r a M E WO r K – DElIVErInG Sta K E H O l D E r S ’ Va lu E , aC H I E V E St r at EG I C G Oa lS a n D p r OV I D E I n FO r M at I O n r I S KS aS S ES S M E n t a n D EnSurE COMplIanCE EX p E rt I S E : Data C E n t r E M a n aG E M E n t, I t I n F r aSt r u C t u r E M a n aG E M E n t, I t O p E r at I O n S S u p p O rt, p r O j EC t M a n aG E M E n t, au D I tS a n D COMplIanCE

WO r K EX p E r I E n C E : 10 yEarS FaVO u r I t E Q u Ot E : “ n Ot Fa I lu r E , B u t lOW a I M IS CrIME” FaVO u r I t E D ESt I n at I O n : lO n D O n FaVO u r I t E B O O K : “ T H E R U L ES O F WO R K ” By rICHarD tEMplar FaVO u r I t E Ga D G E t: M I C r O S O F t X B OX 3 6 0 K I n EC t

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Aniket Kate, Manager, Corporate IT, M&M, wishes to pass on his domain knowledge to gen next Pg 62

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