Event

IT as a business enhancer

IT is emerging in its new role as a support system to the business and moving away from its traditional image of a cost reduction agency. By Kushal Shah

We all know that IT automates processes and reduces operational expenditure and that it is an inevitable aspect of any organisation. Over time, IT has got the new responsibility of driving business by helping in business decisions and increasing productivity as well as by various other means. Considering this, Microsoft TechMela 2007 hosted a panel discussion with the help of some industry experts in IT. The discussion concentrated on the topic, “Does IT drive the levers of change in business?” To make this session interesting Microsoft invited some pastmasters of the field such as Anantha Sayana, Head – Corporate IT, Larsen & Toubro Ltd; Shrikant Gathoo, Executive Director – Information systems, BPCL; Anand Deshpande, Founder, Chairman & MD, Persistent Systems; CN Ram, Head – IT, HDFC Bank Ltd; and S Krishnan Thyagarajan, Managing Director- India & South Asia, Quest Software India Pvt Ltd. This expert panel was moderated by Saurine Doshi, Partner, A.T. Kearney & Co.

IT has come a long way from being just an automation tool to a decision making support system. “As we go around, we find that many organisations have found IT significant for their business in addition to acting as a tool for automation and cost reduction,” said Doshi. Furthermore, he went on to ask various questions of the panel members around the same topic and got insights into their views on the subject. Ram was asked whether IT can be a significant source of change within a business. In reply he opined that IT is another function of an organisation and compared its importance to that of the finance department. IT is another driver of business as per Ram. “We have gone beyond automation. Many CEOs have realised that and are considering IT as another core function of the business. One needs to manage IT to prosper at the global level,” said Ram.

From Left to Right Anantha Sayana Head – Corporate IT, Larsen & Toubro Ltd; Shrikant Gathoo, Executive Director – IS, BPCL; Anand Deshpande, Chairman & MD, Persistent Systems; Saurine Doshi, Partner – AT Kearney & Co.; C N Ram Head – IT, HDFC Bank Ltd; S. Krishnan Thyagarajan MD, India & South Asia, Quest Software India Pvt Ltd

Convincing CEOs

There is one more aspect to this IT- Business relationship as to how the top man needs to be convinced of the importance of IT. For most CIOs, convincing the CEO is a mammoth task. According to Gathoo, CIOs need to show the importance by demonstrating how IT can be used to maximize the potential and choices and not just reduce cost. “If we limit our vision to cost then we are restricting ourselves. We need to come up with innovations,” said Gathoo. He gave the example of Petrocard and what it took to convince the CEO. Once the latter analysed the product it became successful and has not been replicated to date. He further suggested that even if CEOs put too much pressure, CIOs should keep some budget apart and come up with innovations which will make it easier for them to convince the bosses.

Changing times

Gone are those days when IT was just another enabler to business functions. Now the impact of IT on productivity is immense. According to Sayana, it has given us the ability to do business faster, increased scale, increased revenues and the reach of the business. “IT can help things to be done in a faster way, it can enable us to do things differently and can allow us to do something which we could never do before,” said Sayana.

For growth, one needs to change continuously. There can be no growth without significant change in strategy and technology. Deshpande answered the query on how does one actually change and what can be changed to achieve the desired growth and success. There are many parameters which can change the business completely. According to Deshpande, computing devices are going to make the foremost difference in the change process followed by innovative ways of operating them. With growing age of connectivity and networking, mobility is going to be one of the important agents of change. “I think we have to agree that without IT we are not going see growth and IT related things will change business dramatically. We stand at the unique place where we have better connectivity and more devices,” said Deshpande. Apart from the mentioned drivers, analytics is going to be an important driver in the decision making process.

Measuring IT

How do you measure IT and what are the KRAs to be taken up? Thyagarajan believes that what gets measured gets done and that there is a need to follow a different approach which classifies the measurable aspects of IT. “Companies have to be very careful in measuring. We have always confused ourselves with the general term IT which includes hardware, software, network and everything. We now need to have another level of IT classification as core IT and differentiator IT,” explained Thyagarajan. According to him, core IT should include all core ERPs and differentiator IT as the IT which makes a difference to the business and the measurement of which is radically different.

It is often found that IT projects tend to become more of a technology project than a business project to solve a problem. Answering as to how a CEO makes sure of a successful project, Ram said, “If a CEO is looking at a project as a pure IT project then you have lost it at the beginning itself. It is dependent on CEO to look at IT as a strategic tool and they have to be clear about the objective.”

The session was coupled with the participation of the business audience and all shared their experiences in dealing with IT and their CEOs in the process. Such sessions give an altogether different perspective of IT.