EDITORIAL
CONTENTS
“Everybody gets so much information all day
SummIT : The InfoTech Cell
long that they lose their common sense”
Mehul Mohta…………………………….. 4
Well Manthan is not one of them. Manthan
Corporate Governance in IT:
as the name suggests is “sacred churning”
Satyam Fiasco Nilofar………..……………………………… 6
which brings the elixir out of the rest for you. The student driven magazine is an attempt to
The Indian IT Industry –
bring you a host of luminaries from budding
Opportunities in threats
managers
Sakshi Sood & Nitishi Gupta………..11
viewpoints on management issues as well as
raising
and
sharing
their
discussing emerging trends in management
IT can help cut Carbon Emissions Achal Maloo & Khushboo J…………..17
Diminishing Strategic Value of IT:
and their importance both as prospect and as application. In this issue we have tried to cover current
The Road Ahead Shubham Kulshrestha..……………….20
and relevant trends in the industry. The magazine is divided into 3 main sections. The
SME’s – An attractive market for
elucidate section consists of the winning
IT Vendors
articles of elucidate – based on the theme of
Onkardutta Deshpande……….……..23
eLuminate. The Business section tries to explore new areas in terms of technology
Where does the Future Lie?
implementation. The Technology section
Dishant Sidana………………………….26
gives an insight of the latest technologies in
The Upcoming Project Management
the
Techniques
implemented for business.
Shivraj Shetty & Bappaditya……….31
market
and
how
they
can
be
With this issue we hope to gather new
Latest Technologies that can help
insights on the current scenario of Indian IT
Businesses
industry.
Abhiram M & Shivam K……………….37
Please do send your valuable feedbacks. Tushar Tejawat
Sub Editor - Ankur Agarwal
tushar.tejawat@nmims.org Design – Kartik Gupta 2
FOREWORD NMIMS has always had a unique culture of being open to all student driven initiatives and it gives me great pleasure to say that one more such event, ELUMINATE 09, is coming to fruition. ELUMINATE 09, organized by the InfoTech cell of NMIMS, SUMMIT, is not a new entrant to the NMIMS activities scenario and had run successful events in the past. The importance of such events in management education cannot be over stressed. We at NMIMS, as a progressive management institute, have always been at the forefront in encouraging such bold initiatives for student driven learning. The topic for this year “Opportunity in Threats” – The Indian IT Industry” is one that is exceedingly relevant today and one that the entire corporate world is struggling to come to terms with. Through ELUCIDATE 09, a B-School paper competition, SUMMIT was able to churn out different perspectives of ‗Opportunity in Threats‘ from the various B-Schools across the country. In addition the cell also invited articles on trends in business and technology. The student initiative of harnessing this knowledge through their publication MANTHAN is commendable. MANTHAN means ―churning‖- churning of ideas to create new knowledge. The enthusiasm of the students creates a chain reaction that manifests itself in various initiatives taken by the cell. I wish this student initiative all the best and look forward to seeing many such events and publications in future.
Gita A Kumta Professor & Chairperson, Information Systems Area, School of Business Management, NMIMS University
3
SummIT: The InfoTech Cell Mehul Mohta, President SummIT A manager today can‘t survive without information: at the right time and right place. Blurring the boundaries of time and space, this is what has set the development of mankind on an exponential trajectory. We at SummIT realize this and thus implement and enlighten the managers of today on how IT can help them achieve more with less. The cell focuses on IT to be understood at a macro level. The rapid changes in the business environment have resulted in increased complexities and responsibilities for the information manager today. The club members therefore regularly bring to campus distinguished people from the IT world to interact with students and to get broader perspectives on pertinent issues of future importance. The club is also responsible for providing the IT support to various other student bodies like Students Council, Placecom etc. Cell’s Major Activities 1. eLuminate : The IT Seminar An IT centric event that involves a seminar and a paper writing competition on various disciplines in IT in association with the corporate world. Every year, eLuminate sees participation from the premier B-schools of India including the IIMs and IITs. 2. Ideas: From Apples to Chips A unique event organized by SummIT with the view of increasing industry-student interaction. It saw the most interactive debate session involving industry stalwarts and an enthusiastic participation by all the courses in 2006. 3. Manthan: Processor Power Manthan is a unique initiative undertaken by SummIT. The only student magazine in print, Manthan has also enabled the confluence of diverse industry perspectives on IT and business. 4. PHS and RHS: Driving Placecom The cell is responsible for providing IT support during the placement week. The placement process at NMIMS is entirely automated with the help of Resume Handling
4
5. Student Council: Automation The Students Council website was developed by SUMMIT and is currently being hosted on an independent server. It is planned that the site would be a single point access to all clubs to access and host their own sub-sites. 6. Paragana and Euphoria: Logistics SummIT is responsible for putting in place the Paragana website, manage creatives and provide IT Logistics during Paragana. 7. Pratyancha and Eldorado: Simulate and Stimulate SummIT organizes the Business simulation games and also online games that are a tad different from what other similar games have to offer. Very popular last year, the games saw a pan-India participation with every major B-school trying to find the elusive Eldorado. 8.
Knowledge Management System SummIT plans to enhance the Knowledge management system at NMIMS for the students which will be built around a central knowledge database. A KMS would give the students an opportunity to benefit not only from their information sources but also give them a ready reference when looking for information.
9. Software Workshops SummIT conducts workshops on the commonly used software packages like SPSS, MSExcel, SAP etc. Besides this the cell also plans to have a few workshops introducing safe information practices and data security and cyber laws. 10. Knowledge sessions These sessions are aimed at providing learning and insights into the fast-changing business environment. Distinguished people are invited to the campus for knowledge and experience-sharing that enables students to ponder over diverse business perspectives.
eLuminate 09 eLuminate is the Flagship event of SummIT. The daylong event witnesses plethora of activities – panel discussion and guest lectures by eminent personalities from the corporate world, Elucidate the paper presentation contest and simulation games. The theme for this year‘s eLuminate is ―Opportunity in Threats‖ – The Indian IT Industry which is quite apt with the current scenario. 5
Corporate Governance in IT: The Satyam fiasco 1st Prize
Nilofar, IIM Shillong
The Turmoil Ramalinga Raju resigned as chairman on Jan. 7, revealing profits had been overstated for years and that $1 bn of cash and bank balances on the company‘s books did not exist. Satyam fraud is a microcosm of the greed that has infected the world financial system and is the real cause of the current meltdown. The world would never have known about the fraud had a few shareholder activists not been persistent in opposing the unanimously approved resolution of December 16, 2008, acquiring two property companies (Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra) owned by the son of the promoter at extortionate price of 1.6 billion dollar (about Rs 8,000 crore). It is difficult to comprehend that the accounts have received clean audit reports from auditor (PricewaterhouseCoopers) when assets have been fictitiously included in the accounts. These incidences put question mark over the corporate practices of companies in India and also on the credibility of auditors. Key Events Date 16 Dec
17 Dec
18 Dec 23 Dec
25 Dec 26 Dec 28 Dec 29 Dec 30 Dec
Event Satyam announces plan to buy two building firms part-owned by the outsourcer‘s founders for $1.6 billion. It does a rapid U-turn, killing the deal just 12 hours later following a 55% plunge in the company‘s share price in hectic US trading Ramalinga Raju says the about-turn reflected negative investor reaction. Satyam shares continue to slide, falling by a third on concerns about corporate governance. Satyam board says will meet on 29 December to consider a share buyback in a bid to restore confidence. Satyam barred from business with the World Bank for eight years for providing Bank staff with ―improper benefits‖. Its shares fall another 14% to their lowest in more than 4-years. Satyam says it asked the World Bank to withdraw ―inappropriate‖ statements. Mangalam Srinivasan, an independent director, resigns. Satyam defers board meeting until 10 January to give itself time to consider options to shore up investor confidence. Three more directors quit, but Satyam shares rise on hopes for moves to improve shareholder value and corporate governance. Shares extend gains on talk of private equity interest and a management change. One of Satyam‘s largest investors says it could sell its stake. 6
02 Jan 05 Jan 06 Jan 07 Jan
Satyam says its founder‘s stake fell by a third to 5.13%. Analysts say this means the company is a more attractive bid target. Shares tumble 9% on concerns of corporate governance issues. Shares rise more than 7% on a newspaper report Satyam had been approached by smaller rivals Tech Mahindra for an all-share merger. CEO and Founder B. Raju resigns. Shares plunged by 77%.
Raju‘s predicament has occurred despite Satyam observing all the norms of governance. Evidently it is not rules alone that matter but their implementation. In Satyam‘s case the independent directors failed in their duty, the auditors have blundered, all internal and external checks and balances went haywire and the regulatory authorities, the SEBI, the stock exchanges and the company law administration have been lax. It does not speak well of governance in practice. While India Inc. aspires to be benchmarked against world class bodies, it cannot achieve this without streamlining its regulatory process or enhancing its disciplinary provisions. Regulatory Loopholes in India 1. Clause 49 - In the Listing Agreement between a company and a stock exchange, Clause 49 protects the interests of investors by ensuring good governance practices and disclosures. Here are the provisions of the clause:
Executive and non-executive directors should make up the board of directors. At least 50% of the board must comprise non-executive directors.
Independent directors should comprise at least 50% of the board if the chairman is an executive director. If not, the figure should be at least 33%.
A qualified and independent audit panel should be set up with at least three members. All should be non-executive directors, with the majority being independent.
The clause defines the responsibilities of the audit panel in all matters of financial reporting and enhances the accountability of top management, especially CEO & CFO.
The revised Clause 49 clarifies the standards of independence for directors by defining 'independent' and excluding any relatives of promoters, senior management, former auditors or consultants.
Drawback:
SEBI
doesn‘t
have
the
teeth
Result: Clause 49 is practiced in letter, not in spirit.
7
to
penalize
non
compliant
firms.
2. ICAI Accounting Standards - Indian accounting standards were to be aligned with the International Financial Reporting Standards by 2008. However, Indian company law must be amended, and full convergence can happen only by 2011. Drawback: ICAI is lenient towards erring auditors. Result: Action against faulting members often gets delayed. The Global Trust Bank case is still pending. 3. SEBI - Since 1992 SEBI has introduced several stock market reforms, but it has been slow to react on many issues. Drawback: The body is not proactive. Result: Scams every few years; the Ketan Parekh fiasco in 2001, the IPO scandal of 2005-6. Steps Taken Government named a three-member board, including Kiran Karnic, Deepak Parikh and C. Achuthan, to oversee the functioning of scam-tainted Satyam. L&T, Essar, Spice and the Hindujas have shown their willingness to take over the whole or part of Satyam. A S Murty, a Satyam veteran of 15 years is named the new CEO of satyam on Feb 5. Company has received bank sanctions for Rs 600 crore as a planned fund infusion towards its working capital requirements. Bitten by the Satyam fraud, SEBI is finally waking up to a more proactive role in ensuring corporate governance. Internal audits have been made mandatory and it must be done by external auditors for listed companies. Following are some important actions taken: 1. Share-pledges to be disclosed - SEBI has made it mandatory for promoters of companies to disclose details of shares pledged by them.The details of disclosure should be made in two stages: event-based and periodical. Details of pledge of shares should be made to the company and the company should in turn inform the same to the public through the stock exchanges 2. Peer Review - To boost investor‘s confidence SCODA has recommended the peer review of audit of accounts of large companies. Review would be in relation to the last quarterly results and the last audited annual financial results and for this purpose, a panel of auditors would be prepared by SEBI. It will involve to independently review the
8
1) Working papers of the audit/limited review relating to the quarterly financial statements of the company for the quarter ended December 31, 2008. 2) Working papers of the audited annual financial statements of the company for the last financial year. For this purpose, working papers pertaining to the audit of financial statements of the listed entity and the process of consolidation shall be seen (Working papers of consolidating entities shall not form part of this exercise). 3) The peer review may include working papers in the ‗permanent audit file‘ and ‗current file‘ as defined under SA 230 on ‗Documentation‘ The objective of the peer review would be: 1) To ensure that the audit/limited review working papers provide adequate comfort for placing reliance on the financial statements filed with the stock exchanges. 2) All significant accounting and auditing matters have been appropriately dealt with in the audit report/limited review report. 3) To ensure that the auditor has considered AAS-4, "The Auditors‘ Responsibility to Consider Fraud and Error in an Audit of Financial Statements". 4) To ensure that there is no material misstatement of assets and liabilities as at the reporting date. 3. Restatement of accounts - A company could reopen and revise its accounts even after their adoption in the annual general meeting and filing with the Registrar of Companies in order to comply with technical requirements of any other law to achieve the object of exhibiting true and fair view. The revised annual accounts would be required to be adopted either in the extraordinary general meeting or in the subsequent annual general meeting and filed with the Registrar of Companies. 4. Open-Offer Rule - According to Sebi‘s current regulation, an investor who acquires 15 per cent of a company needs to make an open offer for another 20 per cent at a price, which is not less than the average share price of the previous six months. But in Satyam‘s case, the largest shareholder L&T holds 12 per cent and the six-month rule means that the buyer, who already has acquired 15 per cent stake would have to make an open offer at a much higher price than its current market price. Recognizing the abnormal situation, SEBI has decided to amend the regulation.
9
5.
Corporate Governance issues - The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is likely to come out with a concept paper on revamping Clause 49 of the corporate listing agreement to give independent directors more powers and strengthen disclosure norms.
6.
Dividends declaration - Listed companies must declare dividends on per share basis instead of percentage basis as different practices of declaring dividends create confusion in the minds of investors.
The Way Forward This crisis can be used as an opportunity to learn and implement practices of good governance to add long-term value to an organization. Market has become extremely savvy. The good news is that the market has first time acknowledged the gains from good corporate governance. While some companies lost almost 25% due to Satyam fall out, a number of companies with good governance like Tatas, Wipro, Infosys either gained or suffered marginal loss. It is an opportunity for India Inc. to enhance transparency, efficient allocation of resources and maximizing stakeholders‘ value. Company‘s board should adopt the accounting standards as stipulated by the ICAI, a duty to maintain proper books of accounts, prepare final statements that conform to acceptable standards and to exercise due diligence before signing the report. Listed companies must comply with RTI Act. Company‘s board should frequently assess and monitor risk across the organization. Corporate need to define and implement properly well defined process of recruitment of independent directors. It should be possible to provide detailed information on accounts including the ledger accounts with individual details of debtors, creditors, Bank accounts, inventory, etc in e-form. Rating agencies and Bankers can do independent analysis of the accounts and the type of frauds that were possible in Satyam can be avoided. Let us hope that the Satyam fraud was a derangement and that the lessons learnt from this pusillanimous crime will help us put into place new regulatory mechanisms that will prevent such acts of shame and disparage in future. This incidence should not color the contribution of the Indian IT industry, which has been a role model for setting standards in corporate ethics and governance for the country and has also pioneered the fundamentals of meritocracy. This episode may be a good opportunity for all of us: governments, private sectors and individuals, to self-reflect and continue to probe deeper internally about our business depth, governance culture, and sanctity of business.
10
The Indian IT Industry – Opportunities in Threats 2nd Prize
Sakshi Sood & Nitishi Gupta, SIBM Pune
The Indian IT Industry for more than two decades has shared high growth and led to country‘s economy boom and also increase in consumption power. The Indian software industry has grown from a mere US $150 million in 1991-92 to a staggering US $ 60 billion in 2007-2008. No other Indian industry has performed so well against the global competition. A major chunk of India‘s GDP comes from the services industry. And also, a major portion of the IT sector consists of services. Various IT giants like TCS, Wipro, Infosys etc are known for the services they provide to the clients. A SWOT analysis of the Indian IT industry can help us answer certain pertinent questions that the industry faces currently.
11
India and China – The two emerging World Giants One of the key competitors for the IT industry is China, as it has surplus human resources like India. There exists a difference in ideology between India and China. For China the trade mission is to Produce in mass, with low margin (i.e. low profit) and earn more whereas Indian ideology says - produce with good margin (i.e. good profit). In the recent past China addressed its weaknesses by
Improving the communications
Opening up of policies for trade
Renewing the education system
China is a strong competitor to India. There is a steady push from the government to all provinces in China for increasing FI and increasing a stake in the IT/ITES sectors. Proposed Solution Instead of competing directly with China, India needs to concentrate on ―How to value add on service and make it more professional‖. In India and in U.S. SONY products sell more because of their High Quality. No longer is ―Quality is cost, but Quality is the profit maker‖ for us. The Indian Government has to set up a committee/ forum to improving the quality consciousness in Indian IT & BPO industry. A subsidized support on consulting, materials from government front to the Industry in establishing and embarking high Quality will help a lot. Between India and China it is not exactly a relationship of equals. So measurably India lag behind on virtually every indicator - except, notably, in the size of the software industry and the number of billionaires. Another Question to be answered The next obvious question is, whether China will use the current situation to grab a pie out of the outsourcing deals? McKinsey has reported that China has an opportunity to grow its outsourcing industry at this juncture. It cites the reason that, in this economic crisis of global recession, many companies in the world are now looking to cut the costs by outsourcing their 12
IT operation and China can benefit by this move. Along with this opportunity, the recent happenings in the Indian IT industry (like the Satyam fiasco which has questioned the integrity of the whole system setup in India) can be a bonus point for China. Chinese IT sector relies heavily on the projects from the booming manufacturing industries in china and also from the neighbouring Japan. Since, China's manufacturing sector has slowed down due to less demand in exports; the government has taken the following measures: 
Identified the outsourcing industry as the next engine and has vowed to pull foreign money.

Planned to improve small sized companies by awarding them projects and by building cities and towns dedicated to the outsourcing industry.
India’s Current Position
As a competitor to India, China has a long way to travel to catch up deals that are destined to India. Some Indian companies even bought the small sized Chinese companies, which serve as a threatening competitor to the home grown companies. Also, though Chinese companies get projects from the western clients, the development work is more of product type (like networks, embedded systems etc). But, to thrive as an Indian competitor, the companies should get projects that are executed in the in-house IT department. These projects generate money and also help in acquiring further development projects. It also helps to gain knowledge in that particular business. Another factor where China has both advantage and disadvantage is 'cost'. There are lot of hidden costs which includes communication issues including knowledge transferring time, data security protection and regulatory issues. These issues demand a completely new strategy for the western companies to kick start its outsourcing plans. Comparison of India and China in the present context The happening issue in the Chinese industry is the number of skilled professionals with good experience. Though, the number of computer graduates is more than India, the experienced professionals are far less. More than 80% of the IT professionals in China are with less than 5 years of experience (42% with less than 2 yrs). This was the situation with India, few years ago. But as the market grows, China will compete heavily with the Indian clients. But, at the
13
Same time, India would have produced more experienced professionals with higher domain (Finance, Retail, Telecom etc) and architecture experience. But one cannot compare the China's current stage with India's early years. Indians' entrepreneurial approach helped to create thousands of small software companies, which later helped to produce skilled professionals. Also, the Y2K problem definitely served as a break point. Though, Chinese are growing in a steady phase, backing of Chinese government is so strong that it can be a great trigger.
If Chinese grow at the current rate, there are more probable chances of India and China collaborating more in the future IT industry. There are two main reasons attributable to this: 1. Indian IT professional knowledge and global experience which is a great asset. Not using it will be a great mistake. 2. Indian companies‘ presence in China. Today, Indian companies like Infosys and TCS have good reputation in Chinese markets. Considering the Pros and Cons, China cannot be definitely ignored in the outsourcing industry. So is India. We will see India gaining domain and execution expertise over the years and China growing on technical side. So, it is not India or China. It is India and China. After all, dragon and elephant can never fight against each other. Whether or not Indian IT majors should enter into Development of Products? India has to decide whether or not to move up the value chain by providing end to end solutions to problems or continue by just providing services (which are capital intensive in nature) as and when a project comes their way. Here, some of the threats can be taken care of to some extent, but the problem of global recession is the major one. Service providing means providing IT related support services to a process of an industry. This is related to just one aspect of the process whereas a product relates to providing of services on every aspect of a certain process. Solutions providing can be extended to multiple sectors some of them including: 
Banking Sector

Agriculture Sector 14
Insurance Sector
Healthcare Industry
Hospitality Industry
Fig: Service providing Vs Product Development Benefits of moving up the value chain
Generation of more revenues and hence profits for the IT firms.
Boost to the economy due to excellent performances of these firms.
Generation of many jobs due to expansion of IT firms.
Boost to other sectors of the economy which work in tandem with the IT sector.
Generation of wealth for the country as a whole.
Improvement in international trade and thereby strengthening of India‘s position in the global arena.
Increase in GDP and growth rate of the country.
Encouragement given to technology and innovation.
The IT company which is making that product will have the complete know- how of the product. 15
Proposed Solution Looking at the benefits, it is evident that going for the entirely new domain of products is beneficial for the IT industry, the IT companies individually and the country on the whole. Also, the domain of developing software products is not entirely new. Companies like TCS, Infosys are already developing products which are quite popular in the market. But the question which arises here is that whether it is the right time for other Indian IT companies to step into this domain? It is the period of recession when the countries like USA and UK are cutting off their outsourcing activities. Also, should the companies already in the product business think of expanding now? Would the other countries be actually interested in the products when they are actually holding on to their resources and do want to try new things? Here, the rest of the things can be taken care of to some extent, but the problem of global recession is the major one. This is beyond the control of the Indian IT industry. In Economics, Keynes and Hayek have talked about the period of recession. Keynes said if the recession is due to mismatch of demand and supply, then the period of recession can last up to 6 months. Hayek said that if the recession is due to the misallocation of resources, then the economy needs restructuring and then the recession can even last up to a decade. The global recession is due to the subprime crisis, which was due to misallocation of resources, so it can last a few years, if not a decade. The answer to ‗When will the recession end‘ isn‘t fixed. But no expert says that it is less than 2 years. According to us, the companies should start working on their products now. It would take them some time to develop their products. By the time the IT product industry will develop, the recession is likely to end. Hence, it is advisable for India to move into developing products due to all the benefits stated, but it should also try to capture the market after the recession ends. Conclusion After all the analysis is done, it can be concluded that India should work in conjunction with China which would help both of them to prosper - It should not be India ‗or‘ China, rather India ‗and‘ China. Also, India should start developing its product industry and be ready to pounce on and capture the market as soon as the recession ends. 16
IT can help cut carbon emissions Achal Maloo & Khushbu Jagwani, IIFT Kolkata There is a worldwide concern about the rapidly growing carbon footprint associated with Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including laptops and PCs, data centers and computing networks, mobile phones, and telecommunications networks, which could make ICT one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitter by 2020. However, it’s high time that we realize the various opportunities to use these technologies for reducing CO2 emissions by making the world more energy and carbon efficient. The potential of ICT can be harnessed by systematically following a four-fold approach:
Explore the opportunity set for the ICT sector
Integrate and combine the nationwide centers to share common backbone
Develop network connectivity
Create awareness towards preventing emissions and provide monetary incentives
It is also indispensable to concentrate on four key aspects for abating carbon emission as these can save more than 1 gigaton of annual emission. These include SMART grids saving around 230-480 mn tons; green buildings to prevent 360 mn tons of carbon emission (Certification should be done for government as well as other buildings that may set up as an example); more investment in infrastructure and better road transport to reduce congestion to save lot of fuel cost and cut emission up to 440 mn tons; and substitution of travel with virtual meetings by using information technology to reduce travel and do work online or through video/audio conferencing as much as possible thereby reducing emissions by 160 mn tons.
Utilizing ICT to optimize energy productivity and streamline energy use in the organizations is usually referred to as Smart Technologies and this can help in abating CO2 emissions as well as saving the global businesses the most required asset i.e. cash. It will have the biggest impact on reducing carbon by using smart industrial motor systems, smart grids, smart logistics, and smart building by annual emission reductions of 7.3 metric gigatons. While, in 17
the manufacturing sector, smart controls can make motor systems in factories more efficient; sensors in grids in power sector can monitor the distribution of power more efficiently and help reduce losses. Its use to optimize the energy efficiency of motors in China‘s plants, for example, could cut emissions by 200 metric megatons a year, as much as the Netherlands produces today. Similarly, a more efficient grid can generate 77.83 billion USD in global energy savings and abate 2.03 metric gigatons of emissions by 2020. Smart transportation systems, such as the technology used to manage complicated truck logistics by helping them work together to optimize their loads, can reduce emissions globally by 1.52 metric gigatons a year. In buildings, the lighting, heating, and ventilation systems can be monitored by more sophisticated technology. This can reduce the annual commercial-building sector‘s energy bill in the United States alone, by nearly 30 percent and the global emissions by 1.68 metric gigatons. Carbon prints can also be reduced to a large extent by ―dematerializing‖ physical goods and processes through telecommuting, video conferencing, Internet shopping, and downloading content rather than using paper, CDs, DVDs.
One more way is to optimize the process by improving the supply chain and logistics, both inbound as well as outbound. It can be given a shape by adopting the approach like the one developed by IBM consulting called as Supply Chain Network Optimization Workbench (SNOW Approach). The method has been successfully tested and implemented at COSCO, JAPAN, to reduce the logistics cost by 23% and CO2 emissions by 15 % amounting to 100,000 tons of annual carbon emission. There are many such non-optimized businesses running in developing countries. This method when applied, can work wonders by preventing a lot of carbon emissions across the globe. SNOW is IBM‘s in-house R&D and mainly covers five areas:
Product - Identify materials and look for improvements.
Sourcing - Improving the inbound logistics using IT.
Production - Using IT to measure and control CO2 emission for each process.
Warehousing - Optimisation of inventory management using available IT tools.
Transportation and distribution - Has a lot of scope for process improvement.
With the world economy moving from unorganised to organised sector and the increasing use of technology, carbon emissions are increasing. The dominance of organised players is increasing more players are entering the market. Thus, there is both a need as well as scope of optimisation techniques and algorithms. The method has huge scope and can definitely act as 18
a mid-way path for the ongoing debate of economic growth versus environmental concerns. Thus, while the company cuts on its distribution costs and manufacturing costs, the environment also gets protected.
An analysis by McKinsey indicates that such technologies could help eliminate 7.8 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2020 (fig)—equivalent to15 percent of global emissions today and five times more than the estimate of the emissions from these technologies in 2020. Similarly, a study by The BCG states that ICT has potential to cut CO2 emissions in the United States by 13 to 22 percent from business-as-usual projections by 2020, thus saving energy and fuel worth of $140 billion to $240 billion-equivalent to a 20 to 36 percent reduction in its imported oil consumption.
Today, the users as well as the vendors of information and communications technologies alike need to innovate. Increasing awareness and demand for technologies that promote abatement is creating attractive growth opportunities for the companies that are involved in the development of computer components, software and networking gear. It is also providing a big incentive to invest in energy-saving products and services and thus helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If the thinkers of such technologies keep up their blistering pace, we can surely set the waves for a green future.
19
Diminishing Strategic Value of IT: The Road Ahead Shubham Kulshrestha, SPJCOM Singapore The role of IT in today‘s business is like that of riding a tiger, businesses have to keep riding it or they are swallowed. So, what do businesses do, even if they don‘t know how to control this tiger – still ride as it questions their survival? IT has eventually become a necessity (in form of new industry standards and IT enabled processes) for running the business, rather than a tool for differentiation and competitive advantage. In economic terms, IT has become the cost of running the business. One has to incur this cost for running the operations. Let‘s look at a bank for understanding the above concept. The bank needs to provide facilities like ATM and electronic fund transfer etc. What were once unique features (late nineties) to attract more customers have now become the most necessary functions provided by the banks. Let‘s look at how we arrived at this situation, and what are the implications of this fact on running a business going forward. With the growth of Information technology‘s effectiveness and omnipresence, it seems safe to assume and rather natural that the strategic importance of IT has also increased. According to Nicholas Carr, an editor of Harvard business Review, What makes a resource truly strategic- what gives it the capacity to be the basis for a sustained competitive advantage is not ubiquity but scarcity. The primary services provided by IT like storage, processing capabilities and communication, are all available at a competitive prices by numerous vendors. This is a result of commoditization of IT, which caused the diminishing of its strategic value. IT has become a commodity input which is widely available. A commodity good means that the good is made on a large scale and easy availability of it has taken the differentiation component away. There are various factors which point out at the rapid commoditization of IT. First, the characteristic of being a infrastructural technology. It means that like other infrastructures like, railroad or road network, the effective use of IT is when shared rather than when used in isolation. Due to this even increasing need for sharing, the path of growth has been toward standardization of processes and technologies. Thus, the benefits of customization and a differentiated IT product will bear the cost of isolation and less
20
collaboration. Second being the fact that IT is highly replicable. And, unlike other goods in past, IT has got most rapid and virtually free replication. The standardization of processes and software module logic has ensured that various businesses share the same commodity and thus the strategic importance of this common or rather shared resource has diminished. Also, in the name of IT development, the companies providing IT services have gathered the knowledge from various businesses and put them together in the software labelling it as ―Industry‘s best practices‖. This sharing of ideas and expertise has contributed to commoditization. On top of it, the increased penetration of internet has accelerated the commoditization of IT. The development of third party web services and Software as a service (SaaS) has contributed to increased homogenization of IT potential. Third, as the growth of IT has increased, the price associated with per unit of IT infrastructure has come down heavily, in terms of hardware, software, services and vendors. Initially IT did provide better opportunities to the companies for their strategic position in the market. This was due to the first mover advantages to the new emerging technology. It caused a lot of market restructuring. There was an era where, the business grew by realigning the business processes according to the advantages provided by IT. The traditional values of doing business were on a back seat, and the concentration was on improving efficiency and through new media to reach out to the stakeholders. By the rapid development, decreasing process and an over investment in this cause has again put the creation of economic value on top, rather than IT which is a support processes. Another concept to understand here is that of the distinction between the proprietary technologies to that of infrastructural technology. The proprietary technologies can be owned or controlled by one organization and this technology is unique from the technology available to other businesses. This unique technology creates a strategic position for the company enabling higher profits. With this huge commoditization and standardization of IT infrastructure, one can argue that as the necessity has replaced the strategic importance of IT, the IT resource provides more risk than the advantages. As Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard University puts it Because the Internet tends to weaken industry profitability without providing proprietary operational advantages, it is more important than ever for companies to distinguish them
21
through strategy. The winners will be those that view the Internet as a complement to, not a cannibal of, traditional ways of competing. Now let‘s see the road ahead after this bump in the way growth has happened in past two decades. The main theme of today‘s business growth is the return to fundamentals after achieving operational efficiency and restructuring of the strategic position due to advent of the information technology. There is a phase of reconsolidation of market after the dot com burst and the downfall of smaller companies who could no longer sustain on the back of IT strategy as their key driver. The players in the market are the ones who are on the same level as IT maturity is concerned. The low barriers to entry and sharing of business knowledge have eventually increased the number of competitors. As we have understood till now that in future, IT does not equal business success or innovation. Information technology will be most effective when it will leverage the talents of people. IT will be useless unless the right people know what to use and manage it at the right place and time. This has profound implications for the corporate IT management.
The current trends include less IT budget. The commoditization of IT and previous over spending will only increase wasteful spending, and it will in turn lead to loosing the cost leadership advantages. Another corollary is that the longer you wait to make an IT purchase, the less is the risk of getting flawed or redundant software. It also ensures that you adhere to standards of the current trends. Once the standards are set, you are sure to reap the benefits with less pit falls. So it is always better to follow rather than lead. Also, the focus has to shift from creating opportunities to eliminate the vulnerabilities. It calls for the least downtimes in IT infrastructure as it has a disruptive effect on the carrying out operations.
Finally, the job of IT management is no longer to drive innovation and create competitive advantage. It has new role of minimizing cost, provide efficiency and manage risk prudently. The spending have to be probed to derive the effectiveness. Also, the major innovation and changes of industry best practices are best to be left with vendors, as it is their job to keep updating the IT standards for better functionality and their own quest for growth will check the growth of IT.
22
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) – An attractive market for IT vendors Onkardatta Deshpande, IIM Indore Some months back a small textile weaving plant in small-town Maharashtra bagged a contract to supply textiles to US retail giant Wal-Mart. As expected, the small-scale unit was delighted to have bagged this prestigious deal. The elation was momentary as the unit soon found out that it needed to be connected to Wal-Mart‘s online supply chain network as WalMart places orders through its online supply chain management system. So the textile firm brought in a software solutions provider, Aztechsoft1 to build an online secure network from the scratch for the company and directly linked it to Wall Mart. Well, this case demonstrates a paradigm shift in the approach of IT companies to sense a huge business opportunity in providing software solutions to the Indian SME‘s. The bullishness of the IT companies towards this emerging market segment can be gauged from the fact that many IT companies have begun to have separate sales divisions to focus on the SME market. According to HP Customer Solutions Group this market is expected to grow at 25% over the years to come. It is expected that 20% of Cisco‘s India sales will come from the non-metro cities where the SMEs are located. With increased spending by SMEs on their IT infrastructure, this market segment is expected to continue its growth. A recent study by Zinnov Management Consulting states that Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) spent a whopping USD 6.6 billion on IT in 07-08 which is around 30 percent of the total IT spend in India. The study further reveals that the total size of the Indian SMB space today is about 35 million units. The SME market poses unique challenges to the IT companies as these market players are totally different from traditional clients. IT companies realize that catering to SMEs is an entirely different ball game. Unlike the big boys, they are extremely sensitive to price, demand quick implementation, want continuous support as they don't have IT departments and often are not located in metro cities. The size of their transactions too is much smaller. So 1
All resemblances to any existing IT company of similar name are purely coincidental.
23
to make money, an IT company has to look for volumes. The SMEs require high amount of customization and post-sales support. They require a reworking of products tailored to their specific needs. IBM has incorporated an automatic rescue and recovery of data facility by portioning a part of the hard disk in some of its PCs because SMEs do not have the luxury of a backup server. HP has a simple offline and online trouble shooting facility, which is available at the press of a button. The demand for IT solutions to business problems is maximum for hardware and enterprise services. Hardware In the desktop market, growth in 2004 in the large business segment is projected at around 24 %, as opposed to 25 percent for medium businesses, 33 percent for small businesses, and 19 percent for small offices according to an IDC research. Enterprise applications A Gartner study points out that the current inclination towards ERP is highest among organizations with employee strength between 250-500 i.e. mid-sized companies, as opposed to large enterprises, as was the case till about a year ago. According to Tariq Farooqui, country manager, JD Edwards India, SME is the place to be if one is serious about ERP in India since at the enterprise level, i.e. the top 500 companies, almost everyone has already installed ERP. According to Gartner, the SME market for enterprise applications is growing faster than the large enterprise market in terms of volumes. However, the latter‘s growth will still be higher in terms of value owing to the larger size of deals. The main factor driving growth in the IT budgets of SMEs is their increasing awareness of the scope for improving operational efficiency and effectiveness by using IT systems. SMEs are today going in for some level of enterprise application usage like ERP, SCM, CRM, HRIS apart from regular office automation and electronic communication Intensified competition The growing interest of top-tier vendors in the SME market will further intensify competition. This is already visible in the new product launches and price slashing that this market is presently witnessing. Oracle‘s E-Business Suite Special Edition comes with a price
24
tag of Rs 26 lakh for a 10-user license, with the option of a Rs 16 lakh package for 10 users for back-end accounting and financial management processes; the implementation time ranges from 10-40 days. mySAP All-in-One promises a 40 % reduction in implementation time and 30 percent reduction in cost. Both the solutions include software, hardware, implementation and support. Soon after these launches, ESS, a traditional SME player, announced that it will be offering its solution, ebizframe, at a price of only Rs 3.5 lakh for Indian SMEs across industry verticals like auto, textiles, manufacturing etc. According to industry experts, even though there will be some amount of price slashing driven by intensified competition in the hardware industry as well as other software segments, it will not be as aggressive as that in the enterprise application space. Challenges The SME market is emerging as a lucrative business opportunity, but vendors are also faced with challenges and issues when dealing with SME clients. These include issues like fragmented markets, lower levels of technology awareness, the need for hand-holding, much higher number of support requirements as compared to enterprise sales, and large-scale use of pirated software. How do vendors ensure quality when they are working through so many partner organizations? It requires heavy investments in partner training, and working on the processes that will ensure the right products and services get delivered to end-customers. Also there are challenges in terms of justifying the cost to customers, especially since they do not have surplus funds like large enterprises. According to Gupta of Wilhelm, a major hindrance in the adoption of IT by SMEs is the initial cost involved; in other cases, there is simply resistance to change from the status quo to the systems/practices being offered. Conclusion Though the opportunities are evident, vendors are aware that the SME market is no cakewalk. Slashing prices doesn‘t always get the customer‘s attention. Although price-conscious, SME customers are today finding more value in selecting the right IT partners. What will matter the most over time will be the deliverables and the strategies vendors evolve around these deliverables. Meanwhile, wait and watch for what might turn out to be the next growth wave in the Indian IT industry.
25
Where does the future lie? Dishant Sidana, NMIMS The agriculture scenario all over the world is undergoing a rapid change particularly after WTO Agreements came to existence. In order to take full advantage of the changing global agricultural scenario interconnecting of policies related to pricing, marketing and trading of agricultural commodities are also reviewed. Simultaneously there is also need to review and revitalise the mechanism for transfer of technology under changing environment. It is readily accepted that increased information flow has a positive effect on the agricultural sector and individual firms. However, collecting and disseminating information is often difficult and costly. Information Technology (IT) offers the ability to increase the amount of information provided to all participants in the agricultural sector and to decrease the cost of disseminating the information. It is a fact that access to information holds the key for successful development. Ex. Indian states with high mobile penetration can be expected to grow faster than those states with lower mobile penetration rates, by 1.2% points a year more on average for every 10% increase in the penetration rate (ICRIER REPORT on the impact of mobile phones). Improved communications and information access is directly related to socio-economic development of any nation.
India produces 134.5 MT of fruits and vegetables but due to inadequate cold storage and preservation facilities and improper supply chain infrastructure; there is enormous loss or wastages (International Marketing Conference, IIMK). Rural population in our country still have difficulties in accessing crucial information in the forms they can understand in order to make timely decisions for better farming. For this purpose electronic communications infrastructure needs to be established in the country for remote rural areas. The challenge is not only to improve the accessibility of communications technology to the rural population but also to improve the relevance of information to local development.
Following are the areas where IT can be useful in the field of Agriculture : 
Management and Information in Agriculture
26
Application of the Internet Technology in Agriculture
Electronic Commerce in Agriculture
Education and Training
Rural Communication
Internet Technology in Regional Agriculture
Agricultural Extension Services
Precision Agriculture and Information Technology Database for Agriculture
Geographic Information System and Global Positioning System
Remote Sensing and Image Processing
Modelling Agricultural Systems
PC Application Software for Agriculture
The National Agriculture Policy lays emphasis on the use of Information Technology for achieving a more rapid development of agriculture in India. In pursuance thereof, the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation (DAC) has formulated information technology (IT) Vision 2020. This vision inter-alia envisages that: a) Information relating to agriculture sector would be available to the ultimate users – the farmers - for optimizing their productivity and income b) Extension and advisory services making use of information technology would be available to the farmers on round the clock basis; c) The tools for information technology will provide networking of agriculture sector not only in the country but also globally and the Union and State Government Departments will have reservoirs of data base d) The long term vision on ‗Information Technology in Agriculture Sector‘ is to bring farmers, researchers, scientists and administrators together by establishing ‗Agriculture on-line‘ through exchange of ideas/information. Implications of IT on Agriculture Information technology provides answers to a number of questions to the farmers. For example, what are the benefits of more irrigation? Is it cost-effective to apply additional chemicals? When is the best time to sell crops or buy inputs? With improved record-keeping,
27
more detailed cost analysis and more sophisticated marketing strategies, farmers are making better decisions and earning higher profits. It is to be noted that, the farmer is in no position to use IT directly. The literacy levels, language barrier as most of the application software are predominantly in English, cost of computers, poor communication infrastructure make it impossible for individual farmers, particularly small farmers to directly adopt IT. This calls for institutional effort to harness to create the necessary IT based services to farmers.
Table1: Barriers to uptake of e-agriculture by region (FAO)
But in India, one prominent problem is that most of the farmers own small holdings, this seems to be difficult. In this situation, it may be made possible by adopting the corporate farming system, which is the need of the hour with advent of new agricultural policy. By taking up corporate farming, a group of farmers can install a computer and any educated young man from that group can undergo training of how to browse the internet. He can provide the farmers current commodity, analysis reports on world markets and trade for different commodities.
28
IT can help to provide the information on the likely price distribution of key commodities over the coming years. Such information helps farmers and traders make decisions on when and in what ways to market their grain. Whether, to sell at harvest or store on-farm in anticipation of higher later in the season. IT helps producers monitor and respond to weather variability on a day-to-day basis. Solarpowered weather stations in the field can be hooked up to a farmer's computer to relay information about current air and soil temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, leaf wetness, soil moisture, day length, wind speed and solar radiation. Producers use the Internet to monitor prices quickly and as often as they like. Farmers from around the world can exchange ideas, post questions and get answers about specific topics. Thus, it is said that the importance of information technology in the field of agriculture is emerging. The challenges of cost intensive, highly technical agricultural technologies are knocking the door to the farmers which is ignited by the globalisation. There is significant shift from agriculture supply driven to demand driven paradigm in new emerging and changing economic policy. It is viewed that future agricultural growth would be information driven. New information must reach to the ultimate user at the fastest speed to harness its potential benefits.
Some Important Initiatives combining IT and Agriculture
ITC's ‗E-Choupal‘ Initiative : A Novel Model For Rural India ITC's ‗e-Choupal‘ makes use of the physical transmission capabilities of current intermediaries - aggregation, logistics, counter-party risk and bridge financing With a judicious blend of click & mortar capabilities, village internet kiosks managed by farmers called sanchalaks - themselves, enable the agricultural community access ready information in their local language on the weather & market prices, disseminate knowledge on scientific farm practices & risk management, facilitate the sale of farm inputs and purchase farm produce from the farmers‘ doorsteps . As a direct marketing channel, virtually linked to the ‗mandi‘ system for price discovery, ‗e-Choupal‘ eliminates wasteful intermediation and multiple handling. Thereby it significantly reduces transaction costs.
29
Launched in June 2000, 'e-Choupal', has already become the largest initiative among all Internet based interventions in rural India. 'e-Choupal' services today reach out to more than 3.5 million farmers growing a range of crops - soyabean, coffee, wheat, rice, pulses, shrimp in more than 38,000 villages through nearly 6500 kiosks across nine states namely Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Kerela.
Reuters Market Light (RML): The future for Rural India The global information services company operates an Indian-based mobile-enabled information business for farmers, Reuters Market Light (RML). Farmers purchase a 3 month, 6 month or 12 month subscription for which they receive daily agricultural information through text messages. RML service achieved one-lakh subscription on January 22,2009. LAUNCH DATE
October 2007 (Pilot In January 2007)
NATURE OF DELIEVERY
SMS-Text Message
NO OF DAILY MESSAGE
4
COST
Rs.175 for 3months package Rs 350 for 6months package Rs 650 for 1year Weather Crop-Advisory Market Price of 2 crops and 3 markets of choice News of general and specific commodities
INFORMATION PROVIDED
What is the Future? It can be rightly stated that though Information Technology in the agriculture is in growing stage in the Indian context. It has just started to spread its shoots, but with its immense potential to standardize and regulate the agricultural processes and solve the problems, it is sure that IT will be one of the most important areas in the near future for agricultural development. It is hoped that Information Technology will bring a highly developed agriculture by its worthwhile contributions to the society by narrowing down the enormous gap between the researchers and farmers. The effort in this direction has to come both from the private and the public sectors which complement each other. 30
The Upcoming Project Management Techniques Shivraj L. Shetty &Bappaditya Thakur, KJSIMSR The contribution of project management technique to the success of a project cannot be undermined. Traditional ways of project management are Critical Path method, Project Portfolio Management, Agile, Waterfall, PERT etc. Beyond the traditional ways, there are approaches which are finding increased application among the variety of projects from the software industry to the construction industry. Some of them are discussed below. Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) It is the first major advance in Project Management principles since the 1950's. It is a new methodology for doing projects that allows you to complete projects with high quality deliverables in 10% to 50% less elapsed time. CCPM works on the philosophy that ―It is far better to be approximately correct than exactly wrong‖. CCPM an application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to projects and puts more emphasis on the resources required to execute project tasks. 1. A project plan is created in much the same fashion as with critical path. Critical Path is the longest series of dependent tasks. The plan is worked backward from a completion date with each task starting as late as possible. Two durations are entered for each task: a "best guess," or 50% probability duration, and a "safe" duration, which should have higher probability of completion (perhaps 90% or 95%, depending on the amount of risk that the organization can accept). 2. Resources are then assigned to each task, and the plan is resource leveled using the 50% estimates. The longest sequence of resource-leveled tasks that lead from beginning to end of the project is then identified as the critical chain. Critical chain is resource-conflictresolved version of Critical Path.
31
3. Cut the task durations to induce aggressive behavior and avoid S-Syndrome & P-Law. Aggregate the cut portions (that represent safety) into a common safety task (called ‗project buffer‘) at the end of the project to protect due date against uncertainties. 4. Feeder chains must perform work depending on the progress on Critical Chain (the constraint). Adequate feeding buffers must be provided to protect Critical Chain from any delays on feeder chains and finally a baseline is established 5. With no slack in the duration of individual tasks, the resources on the critical chain are exploited by ensuring that they work on the critical chain task and nothing else; bad multitasking is eliminated. The key rule for status measurement is ―It does not matter how much work gone done. The only thing that matters is how much more time remains till project completion‖. It involves comparing two numbers:
% Critical Chain Completion (% CC) = (Original CC length – Remaining CC length)/ (Original CC length)
% Buffer consumption (% buffer) = (Original buffer length – Remaining buffer length)/ (Original buffer length)
Whenever % CC is less than % buffer, we must take actions to speed up and close the gap. Focus coupled with commitment to do whatever it takes is the key to results from TOCCCPM. Softwares like Concerto are based on CCPM; work is prioritized according to buffer consumption vis-à-vis chain completion status. Chains in danger (Red) in the graph shown below get the higher priority. Organisation‘s throughput (global optimum) is protected by prioritising multi-project work (avoiding local optima).
32
Extreme Project Management (XPM) It is a methodology used to describe how to deliver projects on time and budget based on the scope. A complete list of all the functionality for a project is defined. The business owners determine what the most important pieces are and what functionality should be delivered first. If a piece of functionality cannot be delivered within a few weeks, a further breakdown of the item is needed. At the end of the process, the customer has all the functionality they need, but it was delivered to them in pieces. This approach also helps to keep the customer involved throughout the process since they can see verifiable results every few weeks. XPM allows for changes on the fly, and requires constant communication among all team members. XPM should only be used during the project execution and change control processes and should not be used for overall strategy, vision, or project prioritization. Extreme project management differs from traditional project management mainly in its open, elastic and undeterministic approach. The main focus of XPM is on the human side of project management rather than on intricate scheduling techniques and heavy formalism. Other names for extreme project management are- radical project management, agile project management, project leadership.
Event chain methodology It is the next advance beyond CCPM. Event chain methodology is an uncertainty modeling and schedule network analysis technique that is focused on identifying and managing events and event chains that affect project schedules. The event chains methodology can contribute to reducing uncertainties in project scheduling through mitigation of psychological biases and significant simplification of process of modeling, tracking, and analysis of project schedule. Event chain methodology is based on six major principles. 1. An activity (task) in most real life processes is not a continuous uniform procedure. It is affected by external events, which transform an activity from one state to another. Events (risks) can have a negative impact on the project. 2. Events can cause other events, which will create event chains. These event chains can significantly affect the course of the project. Events may instantly trigger other events or
33
transform an activity to another state. The notion of state is very important as states can serve as a precondition for other events. 3. Once events and event chains are defined, we can perform quantitative analysis using Monte Carlo simulation to determine uncertainties and quantify the cumulative impact of the events. 4. The event chains that have the most potential to affect the projects are the ―critical chains of events.‖ By identifying critical chains of events, we can mitigate their negative effects. We can identify these critical chains of events by analyzing the correlations between main the project parameters, such as project duration or cost, and the event chains. 5. Probabilities and impact of the events are obtained from the historical data. Monitoring the activity's progress ensures we use updated information to perform the analysis. 6. Event Chain Diagrams are visualizations that show the relationships between events and tasks and how the events affect each other. By using Event Chain Diagrams to visualize events and event chains, we can simplify the modelling and analysis of risks and uncertainties. PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) It is a process-based method for effective project management. PRINCE2 recognises that there are four layers in a project organisation.
Corporate or Programme Management Corporate strategies and overall constraints Project Board Direction and accountability for the Project Project Manager
Project Day-to-day management of the project Team Manager / Team members
Management Team
Producing products
PRINCE2 stipulates that there are three interests involved in senior management presentation in a project.
34
B u s U Senio r U
i
S
s
n
u
e
e
p
r
s
Senior Sup
plie p r and external Suppliers – Internal l
s Users – Internal and s e external i Projects exist to meet a rbusiness need and the business is usually identified as the customer, e
or in some cases the sponsor (Project Executive). The final users are represented by the role r
of Senior User. The users usually come from the customer organisation and, on some projects, the project executive and the Senior User may be the same person. The person who provides the expertise and resources to do the actual work on the project is called the Senior Supplier. All these interests need to be organised and co-ordinated so that the project delivers the required outcome within budget, on time and to the appropriate quality.
SUPPLIER PROJECT BOARD CUSTOMER PROJECT Senior User
BOARD Executive
Senior
Customer
Senior
Supplier
Account
Supplier
Skill
Manager
Executive
Management
Senior Supplier
User
PROJECT BOARD
PRINCE2 is defined in terms of a Customer / Supplier environment. The Project Board is the forum where senior management representatives of the Customer and the Supplier come
35
together to make decisions and commitments to the project. But, there may be times when the Customer management needs to meet separately without the Supplier to discuss confidential matters, or prepare a joint approach and vice versa. Therefore, separate management groups as shown may be created. But, within PRINCE2 the Project Board is a joint forum. Lastly, remember that in Customer/Supplier situations there will always be two Business Cases, one for the Customer and one for the Supplier.
Directing a Project
Starti
Initiat
Contr
Mana
ng
in
oll
gi
g
U
g
in
ng
a
p
a
St
Pr
a
Pr
ag
oj
Pr
oj
e
ec
oj
ec
B
t
ec
t
t
g Managing a Produ St ct ag Planning Delive e ry Time/Progress
ou nd ari es
Fig: The Price2 environment
Fig: The Prince2 components
36
Closin
Latest Technologies That Can Help Businesses Abhiram Mahajani & Shivam Kataria, IIM Shillong Information management is the key to the success and productivity of an organization irrespective of its business. The technology behind being able to do that is Information Technology (IT) to put it in simple words. IT started with a perspective of it being a business enabler which is very true even today. But the sheer success of IT in being able to do what it was meant has caused the formation of an entire industry and a whole new business out of it. This caused IT to be introduced as a main line subject in the academic system world over. Here we talk in brief about five new technological revolutions that have either been developed recently or are in the process of development and their impact on their areas of implementation. Google Earth 5.0 It comes equipped with a detailed bathymetric map (the ocean floor) so you can actually drop below the surface and explore the nooks and crannies of the seafloor in 3D. While you're there, you can explore thousands of data points including videos and images of ocean life, details on the best surf spots, logs of real ocean expeditions and much more. Google CEO, Eric Schmidt quotes, ―About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere ends up in the oceans. Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30 years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can't see it. This is why today's launch of Google Earth 5.0 is so important - it gives us an opportunity to change everyone's perspective.‖ Niviolite This technology or to put in better words business model revolution is about infrastructure outsourcing for online storage. The world is expected to see a shift from desktop operating systems and personal computers to CPU free online consoles, where the user would have only input and output devices at his end and the entire processing would be done at the central server. NivioLite Free allows people to reduce the risks of local data loss by providing
37
safe online data storage for critical information. Anyone signing up for NivioLite Free receives 1GB of free storage (can store around 400 photos or 200 songs). Users who want additional storage space can purchase extra storage on a pay-per-use basis. Alternatively, for a small fee of £3 a month, users can upgrade to Nivio Full Service which allows full access to Nivio's virtual Windows Desktop where one can create and edit files. This would include the nDrive, a user intuitive tool that facilitates an easy and quick transfer of files between a local computer and the Nivio online desktop, according to the company. The next step in this domain would be the elimination of the CPU. All businesses would be keen on this as it would drastically reduce processing costs and improve stability and reduce data related risks. Mobile Advertising The next big thing which we see is the revolution in mobile technology and the market potential therein. The mobile devices have surpassed the personal computers in number across the world and as we have been constantly leading to miniaturization ―small mobile devices‖ are going to be the next personal computers! Keeping this in mind the paradigm is to shift from online advertising where Google is the market leader to mobile advertising which is way different from what Google currently does. The concept is the same but the implementation, the business model, revenue model and most importantly, the impacts are way different. The technology is different because generally online advertisements similar to those catered by Google‘s AdSense are enabled using JavaScript. But mobile phone browsers don‘t support JavaScript and thus any website made this way becomes useless for advertisements when surfed through a mobile device. This concept deals not only with web development but also with telecom service providers and thus the model is more intricate. The leader in mobile advertising currently is, AdMob, a company founded by a Wharton school dropout Omar Hamoui. This industry has a huge potential and a lot of scope for players to venture in. Virtualization and e-tailing The fourth technology that we talk about is just a thought as of now and would take some time for implementation. But once done at a full scale would be an amazing way of doing business and would show a definite increase in consumer satisfaction. Virtualization and the concept of e-tailing deals with making the consumer experience a virtual world of shopping much similar to the real world with real time purchases and trials. ―Second Life – the 3D social networking service‖ has started this model on a very small scale. It has partnered with
38
the real retail outlets and now some of them have stores in Second Life! Second Life user Avatars can actually go for shopping with friends (in their Second Life network) and can make purchases whose real counterparts are delivered at home! But this is just the beginning. A lot needs to be done to increase the feasibility of such a service in terms of local collaborations, bandwidth availability and transaction reliability. But doesn‘t this excite one! And if this clicks it would have a real impact both ways, good for new players who directly cash in the virtual world and bad for current players who would face a hit in their real store sales. So the entire service industry of retailing would see a paradigm shift. Localization Here there are two players identified who have tried to eliminate the biggest barrier that prevents technology from being used locally in different countries – the language barrier. If this barrier is eliminated the sales potential of technology would receive a tremendous boost. The players are Microsoft and IBM. Microsoft has introduced a host of custom-made solutions for the Indian market. The collection of tools and solutions introduced by Microsoft India today are an attempt to cater to and enable the 95 per cent Indians who still prefer their local language more than English in their work and personal life. The solutions and tools include: Language Interface Packs (LIPs) in 12 Indian languages – for MS Office and Windows. A total of 45 additional soft (virtual) keyboards, which are free to download, are also available in these 12 languages. Windows Live, which includes e-mail, Instant Messenger, online storage, photo gallery, social networking, calendar, online storage, personal home page, and more, is available in seven Indian languages. To reach out to Indic developers, Microsoft has launched the Captions Language Interface Pack (or CLIP) for Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya and Tamil. CLIP is a tool that uses a tooltip caption to display translations for user interface items in Visual Studio 2008. This is the first time Microsoft has released a tool specifically to help students and beginner developers in India use the product in their own language. IBM has planned out a step in the same direction and is working on a tool named – The Dynamic Language Translator. The concept is such that if two people from different language regions are chatting they need not share a common language. The tool would automatically translate and modulate from one language to the other both ways making the communication natural! That is both the parties would be ignorant of the fact that the other party is using a different language than his. This if successful would give a solid boost to outsourcing and globalization! These along with many others are the technologies that would change the way the world functions! So sit back and enjoy!
39