Open-minded about emerging technologies

Meet an IT veteran with 16-plus years of experience in IT operations planning & management in manufacturing across sectors—Farhan Khan, AVP - IT, Radico Khaitan in conversation with Subhankar Kundu

Farhan Khan

Khan has seen the evolution of IT and with his vast experience of ERP implementation, he could be considered as a sought after CIO who is proficient in developing and streamlining systems with proven ability to enhance operational effectiveness and meet operational goals vis-a-vis cost, time and quality parameters.

Computers have always been his passion. Having graduated from Rohilkhand University in the commerce stream, he went on to pursue an MBA from Amity University with a specialization in Information Technology. During 1992-93, he pursued a one year computer diploma followed by specialized courses in Oracle 7.1 and Developer 2000 (Forms 3.5 and Reports 3.0) in 1997, e-commerce and Web administration in 2000 and SAP - Solution Manager in 2006.

Having undergone technical courses covering operating systems (UNIX, AIX, Windows), programming languages (C, C++, Java), relational databases (Oracle 7x, SQL Server 6.5/7.0), ERP(SAP R/3, Baan Ivc4, Scala), Business Intelligence (Business Objects XI), CRM (Saleslogix.net, Smile), retail applications (Retail Pro 8.0, Polaris Excel) and messaging (Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange) he has executed mission-critical projects in the various organizations at which he has worked.

Career line

Starting as a developer, Khan moved on to management roles. He started his career in 1994 with Pashupati Spinning & Weaving Mills, Ltd. as an EDP-in-charge where he developed financial applications. He continued there till 1998. After that, he moved to Fedders Lloyd Corporation as a senior manager and implemented BaaN ERP. This was the first ERP implementation of his career and he rolled out BaaN to 40 plus locations. In February 2001, he joined Max Ateev as a project leader and consulted for various clients. He implemented Scala for Autotech in China, Hong Kong and Thailand. Khan also implemented SAP for Autotech India’s domestic operations.

Next up was TCNS Clothing Company which he joined in 2002 as the Manager - IT followed by Radico Khaitan as the J. General Manager - IT in 2004. He joined Lafarge India in 2007 as VP-IT; Video Industries in 2008 as the GM-IT; Xavient Information Systems as SAP practice Head in 2009 and in 2009 December, he rejoined Radico Khaitan as the AVP-IT.

Khan's software skills let him handle the technical aspects including project documentation, system design & integration, coding of modules, monitoring critical paths and taking appropriate actions. He has rich experience in designing and executing test plans, test cases and test scripts/procedures, UAT activity and gap analysis to ensure that business requirements and functional specifications are tested and fulfilled, verifying change requests and defects; tracking and reviewing test plans, test results and unresolved problems; reviewing test reports and taking corrective action.

In the process enhancement and implementation, he designed and developed the business process for a retail organization from manufacturing, distribution and selling—right from analyzing the organization-wide business requirements to implementing a suitable solution, from mapping the then current business process in SAP to understanding the gap and enhancing SAP functionalities so that the organization could get the best from its ERP system.

Among the prominent technology initiatives that he undertook in his career was that of implementing a virtual private network (VPN) based on MPLS and disaster recovery (DR) for business critical solutions e.g. SAP, BI, messaging and migrating from SAP R/3 4.6c to MySAP.

Manufacturing perspective

Khan said that cloud computing was the most hyped technology of late but he felt that there were areas of concern that played on a CIO’s mind before he could consider opting for an “immature” technology”.

Khan said, “Firstly, the feasibility of the technology is always in question. Secondly, there are huge concerns over security in a CIO's mind. Data protection with respect to hacking is an issue that revolves around the cloud. On the other hand, these concerns will be addressed and, going forward, cloud computing will succeed provided that all the concerns that I have listed are addressed.”

Khan believed that, on the flip side, rising ROI and TCO could be addressed through cloud computing which might lead organizations and businesses to go for it.

He continued, “Most organizations are looking for the right, secure cloud computing model. In fact, we are also looking at this as we are exploring the concept in one or two projects that we are planning to deploy. One such project is the intranet portal which we are trying to deploy on the cloud. We are in talks with three vendors to source an apt solution.”

Khan pointed out that vendors were not ready with answers to critical questions that cropped up when it came to the cloud. He said, “Most CIOs and IT managers are reporting to the CFO and the CFO being a non-technical professional often wonders about the benefits that the business might get from cloud computing or what would happen if the system malfunctions. CIOs are not getting answers to their queries in a convincing manner from vendors.”

He cited an example, “IBM said that they have cloud computing offerings but when we went to them with certain queries, they took their own time to respond as it's a new technology for them as well.”

Taking accessibility or the commercial perspective into the picture, Khan’s queries are often with regard to the services that his business needs and if there would be any compromise from going on the cloud and the impact of such a move on the existing infrastructure.

“One certainty is that mission-critical applications won't be put on the cloud as our people need to have control over them and I firmly believe that these can be handled better in-house than by vendors.”

Khan is talking to IBM, HCL and Siemens with regard to his plans to deploy applications in the cloud.

The intranet portal is handled by Siemens, the servers and the entire set-up have been deployed by IBM in a three-tier architecture with SAP and now Khan is looking to implement virtualization.

A Bharti data center houses Radico’s applications. There is no scope for on-demand storage for this reason. On the server front, recent investments have been made on POWER systems.

Last year, Radico Khaitan went in for a disaster recovery solution from IBM Now, it has gone for the managed services model from the same vendor.

Looking towards tomorrow

“Cloud computing is definitely a technology that's gong to catch on in the future if certain concerns are aptly addressed,” said Khan.

In storage, deduplication is a technology that will be adopted by buyers who are going for fresh implementations. However, it will not be a good idea for companies that have already invested millions of dollars in existing technologies.

Converged infrastructure might catch up big time as going in for multiple vendors is always a pain. Getting end-to-end services from one vendor would definitely help CIOs solve their issues more efficiently and in a much faster timeline.

Farhan said, “If you have multiple vendors in the same architecture then you have had it. I had a tough time when I had servers from HP and a SAN from EMC. It was tough for me to settle one issue between these two vendors as they were passing the buck to each other. Nobody was taking the responsibility to solve the issue.”

In networking, Khan endorsed Cisco when he talked about mission-critical networking equipment such as routers or switches. “There is no doubt that Cisco should be the first choice, going for any other vendor in networking is like facing the music,” he added.

Also, he forecasted that unified communications was the technology that held the greatest promise for the future.

“Companies that are cost-conscious and have offices at multiple locations will definitely go for unified communications. We are evolving an application in this area. Video conferencing and telepresence solutions help organizations to work faster, smarter, cheaper, more effectively and efficiently across distances to keep the business moving forward. Time is money and video conferencing solutions turn travel time into effective time for the maximum organizational efficiency. Indeed, our customers tell us that the time that they save by not traveling is more valuable than the dollars saved.”

Coming to social networking and social media, Khan loved the concept but thought that there was a long way to go for this particular concept to flourish in terms of audience-critical aspects and the complexities of branding and its reach in India.

subhankar.kundu@expressindia.com