Haja Mohideen

In an effort to provide enterprises with the ability to achieve improved economic returns from their capital assets, Singapore-based Datastream recently unveiled its flagship product datastream 7i, in the Indian market. The product will be marketed in India in conjunction with Mumbai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. 7i is a completely Web-enabled asset lifecycle management system that looks at management of assets from a financial angle. This is expected to enable enterprises to obtain better return on assets and increase net profit. Said Haja Mohideen, managing director of the Asia Pacific region for Datastream, “Our product evaluates and manages each phase of an asset’s lifecycle, which chiefly constitutes of buying, tracking, managing and selling the asset. The solution enables companies to operate more efficiently by significantly cutting down on time spent on procurement and decision making. Through the e-procurement module a company can cut its procurement costs by more than 50 percent.” The product thus enables a company to realise greater return on investment (RoI) through efficient management.

According to Mohideen, 7i is not only completely Web-enabled but has also got workflow and special templates for various industries. Said he, “Before implementing our solution we conduct a business process study for our client and then tailor the product according to their requirements.

Datastream also provides 7i through a hosted or ASP solution. The solutions are hosted at the company’s central data centre, where the client company can load and store their data. This eliminates the need for the client to purchase a database and application server hardware and licenses thus reducing total cost of ownership. But according to Mohideen, this model has still not taken off in India due to tepid reception that the ASP model received.

Datastream is currently focusing on the manufacturing industry, which is one of the key areas where asset management is required. Other than this the company also plans to tap diverse industries like power, chemicals, ports, mining, pharmaceuticals and even telcos. The company is also looking at the hotel industry as a prospective growth area. It recently implemented 7i at the Hyatt in Mumbai. The low TCO and early RoI has ensured that the company can already boast of giants like Hindustan Lever, Godrej, BMC, Praxair and others on its client roster.