country, and more control of the sales force and partner claim disbursements. IT has not only helped us keep pace with the rapid growth in our business but has also helped us beat the competition.
What business insights do your CIO contribute? At Marico, the CIO is a business leader first and then a technology expert. The CIO ensures that resources are not wasted on initiatives that do not deliver real benefits. This calls for a CIO to be a shrewd business leader and a technology expert. In fact, our CIOs have come from functions other than IT. As a result, despite our investments in IT being considerably smaller than similar companies, we get many more benefits. The IT function at Marico, led by the CIO, acts as
a business enabler. IT plays a pivotal role in simplifying business processes through e-enabled workflows. For example, it e-enabled workflows and transactions and it has simplified the capital expenditure approvals process. Using IT as a tool, we turned the entire buying process on its head. By e-enabling our purchases, our vendors can come to our portal and bid. This has simplified the process of procurement and has allowed us to drive process and savings.
SNAPSHOT
IT has given us an edge. We will continue to maintain this edge with the help of IT. To sustain profitable growth, we Headquarters: plan to invest in IT solutions Mumbai that strengthen corporate Revenue: performance management. As Rs 1,907 crore a result, the process of strategy Employees: dissemination, budgeting, 2,211 planning and reporting IT Team: will become much stronger 40 leading to better allocation of CIOs: resources and better financial Girish Rao and Udayraj Prabhu performance. We also plan to experiment with technologies such as Web 2.0 to enable collaboration and innovation. CIO
Marico Industries
How will Marico use IT to maintain its position?
Sneha Jha is correspondent. Send feedback on this interview to sneha_jha@idgindia.com
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