IT Next June 2013 by Manan Mushtaq

INTERVIEW | Michel van Woudenberg, Vice President, CRM, Oracle Asia Pacific | Pg 36

How CRM is revolutionising Cloud

f o r t h e n e x t g e n e r at i o n o f c i o s

YES!

I IMPACT BUSINESS Ashok Jade AGM-IT, Videocon Industries

PLUS

Portrayal of how senior IT Managers are inextricably linked to innovative trends & impact business Pg 15 BossTalk

Sandeep Kejriwal, CFO, EMC India says IT spends one-third on Innovation Pg 08

Editorial

Yes! You Impact Business I recall Charles Darwin’s most popular theory—“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor

the most

intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” To what and why am I relating this theory? This relates absolutely to senior IT managers who are responsive to change and drive the change in enterprises. While the industry has been skeptical about the role and existence of IT teams, the sheer value that these IT managers bring to the table makes a lot of difference and helps in the survival of this tribe. Well, why this sudden re-invention about roles and responsibilities? It is to reiterate that senior IT managers are walking that extra mile to justify their role and contrary to expectations, they are going beyond their regular chores of keeping the lights on and making a real impact on the business. The cover story, ‘Yes! I Impact Business,’ in the current edition of IT Next depicts how senior IT managers across enterprises have been innovative in their approaches and using technology to turn around the business. While one cannot rule out their intelligent decision making capabilities, their sense of responsibility in engaging the business stakeholders in the project is commendable. One should note that IT teams, contrary to the belief largely held, no longer work in silos. They rub shoulders with the business teams, functional groups, and others on the shop floor to empathise with the real challenges their non-IT teams face and devise a strategy to address their pain points. Interestingly, these IT managers have been able to lay thrust on transaction accuracy, process maturity, team bonding, gear up to fire fighting with the top management and if need be, to rope in the right process among other things. In short, a portrayal of how ‘YOU’ impact the business and nurture growth – now, that’s a must-read.

“While the industry has been skeptical about the role and existence of IT teams, the sheer value that these IT managers bring to the table makes a lot of difference and helps in the survival of this tribe” G ee t h a N a n d i k o t k u r

Blogs To Watch! To Understand Where We’re Headed, Written 64 years ago http://andrewmcafee.org/blog/ 3 Trends That Impact Every Business from Intuit’s CEO http://www.forbes.com/sites/ maribellopez/2013/01/03/3trends-that-impact-everybusiness-from-intuits-ceo/ When did you last measure the business impact of your technology investments? http://www.infosys.com/ building-tomorrows-enterprise/ Documents/businesstechnology-investments.pdf

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Witness how senior IT managers are inextricably linked to

innovative trends combined with right strategy, team spirit,

business acumen and effective communication skills to

Page

make a difference and impact businesses

cover story

boss talk

interview

18 Walking that extra mile to drive success How Ashok Jade, AGM-IT, Videocon Industries helped his team to walk that extra mile with unique strategy and approach to make the project a success

20 Comprehensive Strategy from Start to Finish How Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan, Head-Core banking, ING Vysya Bank and his team automated the procurement system with ERP

22 Rigorous Reviews, spotting bottlenecks

K N Swaminathan, GM-IS, TVS Motors ensured to have rigorous reviews, spotting logjams eary which led to success

24 Increased Business via Wire How Pawan Bakshi, Sr Manager-IT, Amway enhanced productivity INTERVIEW | MICHEL VAN WOUDENBERG, VICE PRESIDENT, CRM, ORACLE ASIA PACIFIC | Pg 36

How CRM is revolutionising Cloud

F O R T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F C I O s

YES!

I IMPACT BUSINESS PLUS

Portrayal of how senior IT Managers are inextricably linked to innovative trends & impacted businesses Pg 32

cover Design: ANIL T

BossTalk

Sandeep Kejriwal, CFO, EMC India says IT spends one-third on Innovation Pg 27

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08 EMC’s CFO, Sandeep Kejriwal on how IT can give direction to the business and prove its leadership

36 Oracle’s Woudenberg, VP-CRM on how CRM as part of Oracle’s Fusion strategy is revolusionising the customer space

Counterstrike to a data breach| Verizon’s DBIR report on devising security strategy to prevent the growing data breaches

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Agility & Efficiency I Bank of India’s network infrastructural reform has helped the IT team harness the full potential of its core banking solution platform

Update 10 SAP’s unified strategy and

vision for cloud around HANA platform for the real-time enterprises. IT serves as the foundation for the full portfolio of cloud solutions

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INBoX INTERVIEW | KEVIN HUGHES, DIRECTOR, SCHNEIDER | Pg 36

Techniques to build a cool data centre

CLOUD BI & ANALYTICS | COVER STORY F O R T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F C I O s

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD Cloud based BI & analytics is creating a level playing field across small & large enterprises, which benefit from these solutions Pg 10

Managing Storage Made Easy: Utility based model to drive efficiency Pg 32

PLUS

Nuances of a Cloud Pilot: Have an experienced service partner Pg 27

may 2013

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

INSIDE How to Plan Cloud Level Play Interview Pg. 22 Cloud Business Pg. 13

Pg. 16

Pg. 20

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 3

Cloud based BI and analytics is creating a level playing field across small and large enterprises, which benefit from these solutions BY N GE E TH A I L LU ST R AT I O N BY S H I G I L NA RAYA NA N P H OTO I M AG I N G BY PE T E RS O N PJ D ES I GN BY RA J V E RM A

IT NEXT thanks its Readers for the warm response

ow users can benefit from using cloud based BI and analytics is now becoming a reality. Whether it is about reducing cost, avoiding hardware and infrastructure related cost, resource allocation etc., it’s all thanks to cloud based BI and analytics. In fact, Gartner has projected that Indian business intelligence (BI) software revenue will reach US$101.5 million in 2012, a 17.53 per cent increase from the 2011 revenue of $86.4 million. This forecast includes revenue for BI platforms, analytic applications and corporate performance management (CPM) software. While analysts are slightly skeptical about the cloud based BI and Analytics model becoming as ubiquitous as other cloud forms, application vendors have a different view. They argue in favour of the cloud model pushing intelligence

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We want to know what you think about the magazine, and how we can make it a better read. Your comments will go a long way in making IT NEXT the preferred publication for the community. Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editor@itnext.in.

On why breaches occur? Most IT departments have little or no security. They buy a ‘firewall’ and assume they are protected. The biggest weakness is a rogue computer inside of the firewall; hence monitoring and even limiting outbound traffic is critical. Outbound traffic can be limited to ports used for internet, email, and IM only. So, for most viruses use strange ports so they are easily blocked this way.

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Gunjan Sharma AVP IT at Jabong.com

On Top Priorities of an IT manager in 2013 Senior IT professionals, these days, need to look at this from a higherlevel. Personally speaking, I would break my own list down as follows: 1. Security 2. Cost Savings 3. Managing Big Data 4. Value-add IT 5. IT Consumerisation To elaborate: Security: this area spans everything that has to do with the business and the customers we support. Whether it’s a detailed patching regiment (servers-to-desktops) to the protection of highly proprietary intellectual information, this is absolutely key to any IT success – in 2013 and beyond. Cost Savings: this is one of the largest (and sometimes, most difficult) areas within IT. We continue to be pressured to reduce costs, yet increase services. There are countless methods by which you can accomplish this, but having/implementing an IT cost strategy (balanced with your IT strategy and business goals) is imperative. Managing Big Data: This is an industry buzz word these days, but there is a problem - no matter what you call it. Companies (large and small) have been capturing data for the last 15+ years, and now we’re finding

itnext | j u n e 2 0 1 3

that: 1) We need to retain production data in real-time and 2) Our storage ability to save and dissect all of it is difficult-to-impossible these days (not to mention, extremely costly). Value-add IT: In my experience, this is the hardest but the most important of all. On the one hand, many IT professionals simply assume that IT is indispensible; however, many business leaders may tend to disagree. IT has become a commodity that is comprised of techno-savvy people that no one understands. Any CIO worth his weight will tell you that IT must consistently and continually demonstrate its worth – and that means that we must find ways to add value back into the business. IT Consumerisation: This is another industry buzz word, but none theless, it is something that many/most IT professionals need to embrace. The world of smartphones and tablets is increasing, and IT isn’t always ready for it (but we should be – or, at a minimum, preparing to be). This is what enables our business partners and customers the speed and flexibility to do business anywhere and on their terms. If we ignore this, then we are potentially doing a disservice to our business partners and our ability to value-add back into the business. These are the 5 items that should be on every senior IT person’s mind these days . Craig T GROUP Senior, Global IT Manager | Application Development, Portfolio Management, Server, Network and Telephony Support, Motorola

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Error The cover story titled ‘Handbook on Cloud’ in the IT Next April, 2013 issue, inadvertently printed Bikram Seth’s designation incorrectly. Bikram Seth is Ex CIO, VLCC Health Care Ltd. The error is regretted. —Editor (Note: Letters have been edited minimally, for brevity and clarity)

Boss talk | Sandeep Kejriwal

L e a d e rship & I n n o vati o n

IT Can Direct the Business

he role of IT heads has now changed dramatically and they have been given a mandate of influencing the non-IT functions and business groups to ensure that technology is put to the best of use.

IT’s Standing IT’s standing across organisations is currently going through an overhaul and is at an interesting intersection where the technological trends and evolution are paving the way for changed thought processes. Going by the statistics, it is observed that about 67 per cent (67%) of the budget is spent towards running the business as it is, which is a concern that needs to be addressed. Only one-third is being spent on innovations. Organisations of the old school of thought still interpret that IT teams need to be working in a service environment. However, the future is going to be different. Numerous technological trends are driving the transformation needed among the IT teams in each organisation in the industry.

“Efficient IT heads empower business groups to drive better growth and efficiency and understand business perspectives better than the business”

Be the Change The clear road map for future CIOs is to be the change and bring about change within their organisations. Considering the innovation scenario, any leader gets his or her due recognition by the kind of innovation he or she brings in. It could be in any form or manner which entails the caliber of a leader. The question often revolves around who are the efficient IT heads and those who are empowering business groups to drive better growth and efficiency and are able to understand the business perspectives much better than the business itself. The change here would mean what kind of business flexibility they can build and innovatively collaborate with other business and non-IT functional groups to bring in the required change.

Innovations Galore While speaking of innovation, what do we really mean by it? And how can IT heads be made responsible for it? It is not about creating new technologies, but taking innovative approaches to extract

Suggestion BOX

maximum benefits from the existing technologies and working out ways to drive business agility and growth.A few innovative initiatives in the field of IT will bring in the necessary novelty. a. IT managers need to think of innovative procurement strategies with regard to both hardware and sw. b. New licensing models will require new approaches to drive maximum business benefits. c. Innovative approaches are imperative to track customer expectations and the changing requirements. d. Leading the business in the right direction to drive efficiency. e. Creating a level field of play among the IT services teams and business functions can help businesses.

Does Hierarchy Play a Role in Innovation?

I liked this book because it lucidly explains - with anecdotes and simple words of wisdom Writer: Subroto Bagchi Publisher: Penguin Price: INR rS.250/-

Innovative ideas have nothing to do with hierarchy. Leaders are expected to give ample freedom to their teams to be creative. We do not live in that era where creativity or innovation has to be from the top management only. The leaders need to only set expectations, assign tasks to the teams and give them enough room to be creative. CIOs also need to ensure that the task performed gains necessary prominence. Sandeep Kejriwal, CFO, EMC India.

itnext | j u n e 2 0 1 3

Taru

Email Sharad

Documents Rashi

Meetings Work has gone Google.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Going Googleâ&#x20AC;? means running your business on Google Apps, a suite of online tools including email, calendar, meetings and documents.

google.com/work

Update I n d u s t r y

SAP’s Cloud Strategy around HANA TECH TRENDS | SAP a unified strategy and vision for its broad cloud portfolio, combining the proven depth of enterprise solutions with the simplicity of cloud on SAP HANA® Cloud Platform for the real-time enterprise. SAP HANA Cloud platform will serve as the foundation for the full portfolio of cloud solutions from SAP. With this integrated approach, companies of all sizes can gain the flexibility, choice and lower cost needed to innovate for growth across their entire business in the cloud. To offer maximum flexibility and lower total cost of ownership (TCO), the unified SAP cloud portfolio will empower customers to

CLOgUtD M

Source: Gartner

Simplicity and Flexibility Offered With Single, Modern RealTime Cloud Platform as Foundation for Entire Portfolio

IT Budget Allocation by Activity 19% of the IT professionals spent the budget on transforming the business and 81 spent on running the IT

Gartner in this survey among IT professionals indicated the percentage spending on various IT activityspreading across administration and planning, infrastructure including servers, computing, WAN etc, new development, application support and maintenance, major enhancements within the enterprise and help desk for end-user support.

itnext | j u n e 2 0 1 3

IT Budget Allocation by Activity Administration, Planning, Other 22%

New Development 10%

Mainframe Midrange Servers, Distributed Computiing, Wide-Area Network voice

Major Enhancements 9%

Help Desk,End-User Support 47%

trends deals products services people

Application Support/ Maintenance 11%

19% spent transforming the business, 81% spent running IT

leverage and extend their existing investments with multiple deployment choices — whether in their data center, the public cloud, the managed cloud or a hybrid environment to help meet the changing needs of any organization. And with SAP HANA Cloud platform as the underpinning, customers will be able to rely on maximum scale for all cloud-based SAP solutions, including line-of-business cloud applications, cloud-enabled business network and social collaboration solutions, and a managed cloud environment for SAP HANA. Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, co-CEOs of SAP AG said, “Our message to customers is simple: You can have your cloud, your way in real time, with a beautiful user experience, from the trusted leader in enterprise business solutions.” With the industry’s only cloud platform built on SAP HANA, SAP aims to help customers rapidly sense, analyze and respond to changes in their business for continuous innovation, in real time. SAP HANA Cloud Platform, including application development and integration services, database and analytics services and foundation services, will be the underlying platform for the overall SAP cloud portfolio. SAP HANA Cloud Platform is also an integral part of the recently launched SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, which powers the deployment of applications powered by SAP HANA and SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW).

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7 Reasons to participate in TPL TECH TRENDS | IT Next and CTO

Forum magazines (published by 9.9 Media) got together to bring the second Technology Premier League to the Indian IT market — the industry’s first unique model to identify and honour IT teams that have what it takes to solve complex technology problems and who do it with style and substance. Seven reasons to participate in TPL: 1. Solve real business problems The Technology Premier League competition uses realistic business case studies. All teams participating in the contest will be exposed to a variety of industries and verticals. 2. Show innovation The Technology Premier League

India’s biggest inter-corporate IT team challenge

competition rewards out-of-thebox thinking. 3. Collaborate and Cooperate The Technology Premier League is a team competition that celebrates smart and efficient teams.

Sonic ScrewdriverUniversal Remote Resembling the fabled Sonic Screwdriver from the cult British show (or a mysterious glowing probe), this programmable universal infrared remote lets you interact with any TV with gestures. Price: Rs 999.

4. Leadership There is usually more more than one way to solve a problem. The real challenge is to convince others to consider alternatives, and persuade them. 5. Networking The intense two-day immersive experience helps you forge new contacts and connections, and build lifelong professional relationships. 6. Demonstrate your skills and talent The Technology Premier League provides a platform to leverage your learning and professional experiences, and demonstrate knowledge and creativity. 7. Win prizes, praise and plaudits Like all contests, Technology Premier League rewards hard-and smart work. All participating teams have the opportunity to win.

quick byte

Around The World

Asia/Pacific Lead in Mobile Phone Sales According to Gartner, worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled nearly 426 million units in the first quarter of 2013, a slight increase of 0.7 per cent from the same period last year; according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales totaled 210 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 42.9 per cent from the first quarter of 2012. The Asia/Pacific region was the only region to show growth in mobile phone sales this quarter, with a 6.4 per cent increase year-on-year.

Larry Page, CEO, Google

“Technology should do the hard work so that people can get on doing the things that make them the happiest in life. “We as Google and as an industry, all of you, we’re at 1% of what’s possible”

j u n e 2 0 1 3 | itnext

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IT in Business | cover story

Witness how senior IT managers are inextricably linked to

innovative trends combined with right strategy, team spirit,

business acumen and effective communication skills to

make a difference and impact business by N G e e t h a I MAGI NG by ANIL V K

Ashok Jade AGM-IT, Videocon Industries Story on page 18

photo imaging by p et erso n pj

Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan Head-Core banking, ING Vysya Bank Story on page 20

D es ign by R A J V E R M A

K N Swaminathan GM-IS, TVS Motor Story on page 22

Pawan Bakshi Senior Manager-IT, Amway India Story on page 24

j u n e 2 0 1 3 | itnext

Most often, IT managers are confronted with the plausible question, ‘Have you measured the business impact of your technological investments and initiatives?’ The phenomenon is changing, and IT is way ahead in its journey and no longer in the frame of mind to answer such questions or evolve metrics for measuring RoI on business. IT impacts the business to such an extent that it is now initiating transformational process changes, and unlocking the key value levers of the business. IT managers clearly articulate that business groups themselves will be empowered to manage IT costs effectively to take the business as they desire and that IT will help in accelerating the growth.

IT Next which embarked on the cover feature ‘Yes! I Impact the Business’ is an attempt to unlock the potential of IT and showcase how IT teams have been innovative and changed the processes to impact the business and deliver the expected results. Most senior IT managers that IT Next spoke to agree that IT’s role is no longer confined to keeping the lights on, but making a difference within the organisation in bringing powerful waves of change and creating opportunities for the business.

Making a Difference

ARTICULATING BUSINESS VALUE Involving Critical Stakeholders from Business Functions Team Bonding Clean and Simple Implementation plan Giving 100 per cent of the self to make it success Effectively manage the business groups and create the comfort Develop the scope for quality Implementation to Transformation Effective Communication to articulate the benefits Collaborative decision making process Rigorous review for better results Spot the bottlenecks early

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The story relates to the IT journey of IT managers and their effort in understanding the true business impact of their projects, software implementation, technology purchases, consulting, devised strategies, unique approaches, team management, intelligent decision making and so on. The fascinating aspect, contrary to the existing belief, is that IT managers have had much success in making a difference to the entire project and also in driving the business value, which is much appreciated by the critical stakeholders from the business groups. Ranjeev Tiwari, Sr Manager-IT, Max Hypermarket India Pvt Ltd (Landmark Group company), who was associated with the first Oracle Retail ERP implementation for any Hypermarket chain in India, had to address the complexity surrounding the processes. A testimony to this effect: Tiwari emphasised on a collaborative decision making process within the project team right from the beginning to provide a sense of ownership among all stakeholders and to deliver the project successfully within the stipulated timeframe. “With this approach we have successfully completed the three crucial phases of the project on time and are not only

IT in Business | cover story Vij faced many challenges: shortcomings in the induction systems, enrolment in assessment, ensuring transaction accuracy and lack of acknowledgement of results for fear of stretched targets or tighter budgets. “The only way to address this challenge was to believe in team bonding, building trust between core teams and unit teams, besides working from shop floor to get closer to the real issues and resolve them,” says Vij. The clear benefits of such strategy that Vij witnessed was reduced fire fighting, improved working capital cycle and cost reduction efforts getting facilitated, besides improved productivity, both for the blue collared and white collared.

“We spent a good amount of time on planning the various project activities well in advance with greater emphasis on quality and schedule adherence” Ranjeev Tiwari Sr Manager-IT, Max Hypermarket Retail

hopeful but also confident that we will complete the remaining phases well within stipulated the timeframe,” says Tiwari. “We spent a good amount of time on planning the various project activities well in advance with greater emphasis on quality and schedule adherence. We set realistic timelines and clear ownership for the various project deliverables to avoid any schedule and resource conflict within the team,” says Tiwari. Tiwari managed to set up an effective change control mechanism to control the scope creep that often created issues and impacted the project schedule/budget in such large implementation projects. He further emphasised on not accepting change requests at face value, rather conducting a thorough technical feasibility and cost/benefit analysis for better results and accepting a change request only when it passed all the criteria set. Atul Vij, AGM-IT, Minda Industries Ltd, was associated with the SAP project where he along with his team had to develop DWM (daily work management) points across all departments, wherein the data would be drawn from SAP BI and reviewed in morning meetings on the shop floor. The unique aspect about the project related to People involvement, systems focus, ease of analysis, integrated seamless planning, policy linked to rating, process plus sustenance focus in design etc.

“The only way to address this challenge was to believe in team bonding, building trust between core teams and unit teams, besides working from shop floor to get closer to the real issues and resolve them” Atul Vij AGM-IT, Minda Industries

Impacting the Business IT managers have made a conscious move to involve critical stakeholders from the business groups in the IT projects, as most often the projects are aimed at driving business and operational efficiency resulting in growth. Effective team management is observed as a critical component behind the success of the project, besides training modules. Communication skills have contributed significantly in the IT teams articulating the requirements very clearly to the business; this has had a positive influence on the business. (for further details… read the story within: Strategies and initiatives of IT managers who impacted the business).

j u n e 2 0 1 3 | itnext

How IT Ensured Business Quality yy The organisation lays thrust on quality at every level, be it with regard to product, work or process yy Real time analysis of product quality was the main demand from users yy Very complex business logic to have results up to 4 level decimal accuracy yy Laid down my strategy of conceptualisation, project planning and monitoring, designing the solution, various technology evaluations and selection, justifying investments and leading project development and implementation yy Constantly fine-tuned and made adjustments to reflect the needs of our business during the complete implementation and post implementation. yy Awareness at each level for product quality has increased and now every person is qualityconscious yy A daily morning discussion was construed, fortnightly reviews with the Steering Committee, to seek formal sign-off

itnext | j u n e 2 0 1 3

IT in Business | cover story

Ashok Jade | AGM-IT, Videocon Industries

“ We Walked that Extra Mile

to Make the Project a Success” Cherished Project

My Involvement & Approach

Videocon Industries implemented several interesting projects in the last financial year including BI implementation for its R&D and quality and manufacturing users. However, the most cherished project for Ashok Jade, AGM-IT, Videocon Industries was the BI implementation, for which he thinks the IT team walked that extra mile.

After seeking initial suggestions from the stakeholders, which was followed by major brain storming, the line of business gave the go ahead with a clear management objective: to roll out the project and mandate successfully. I then laid down my strategy of conceptualisation, project planning and monitoring, designing the solution, various technology evaluations and selection, justifying investments and leading project development and implementation. We made a clear statement: “Think big, start small, and deliver value” and worked accordingly. We strictly avoided a big bang approach and decided to work out an iterative approach of improvement. We adopted a flexible approach, keeping in mind that BI strategy is a living artifact.

What is Unique? VQINS (Videocon Quality Integrated Network System) is a BI System, which has various manufacturing facilities, a large number of SKUs. The organisation lays thrust on quality at every level, be it with regard to product, work or process. Real time analysis of product quality was the main demand from users. Without proper analytical tools, that was a very difficult task. Doing quality analysis up to the component level was thus a huge task. Monitoring accuracy was also a big task. Ensuring that everyone followed the same formula, the same calculation logic, and took 100 per cent raw data were other challenges. The solution VQINS is used for various Product Quality Analysis like Failure Analysis, Defect Ratio Analysis, Trend Analysis, M Graph and Improvement History, among others. The stakeholders were essentially CTO, Chief Manufacturing Head, Factory Head and Team, Quality Head and Team, R&D Head and Team, Service Head & Team, among others. Key aspects were: 1. System integrated with Service CRM, Sales System and Manufacturing System 2. Large volume of data for analysis 3. Around 50+ various analyses 4. Detailed Analysis – Up to vendor wise component level, individual customer level 5. History Analysis for past 4-5 years 6. Very complex business logic to have results up to 4 level decimal accuracy

How I Address the Challenges The users wanted to visualise the dashboard and various analyses: how it would look, up to what level the drill-down would reach, how minute details would be captured and how correlation of data would be done so on. To address these challenges, we first created a prototype, which offered a good understanding and visualisation of the proposed system; this helped instill confidence in our capabilities in the top management. The IT team had an excellent understanding of the business processes, business challenges and the need; therefore, we created an As-is and To-be document and gave it to the key users for a review.

Impacting the Business A daily morning discussion was construed, weekly reviews with key users, fortnightly reviews with the Steering committee, and formal sign-off for each document, risk and assumptions sought. The approach has given tremendous benefits to the organisation. In case of any unfortunate epidemic failure, it is reported and analysed immediately, and immediate decisions on further production and quality improvement are taken. This has resulted in further remarkable improvement in Product Quality.

Strategy that Impacted the Business yy The primary objective of this project was to consolidate and automate the financials â&#x20AC;&#x201C; right through Procurement to General Ledger yy As the Project Manager, my journey started with Project Management and ended with implementation yy We could consolidate our technology landscape to a great extent from various cross functional integration point of view and also helped us in replacing a few legacy applications yy The single most influential factor in this project was the up-front realisation that this was not a software implementation but a far broader transformation yy Effective Governance is one of the key factors for projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success yy Managing business counterparts and the end users is very important: no ignorance in managing end user expectations is allowed

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IT in Business | cover story

Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan | Head-Core banking, ING Vysya Bank

“ A Comprehensive

Strategy from Start to Finish”

Prized Project Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan, Head-Core banking, ING Vysya Bank, has been part of many projects and initiatives within the bank. However, the most memorable and project for him has been the implementation of the Oracle ebusiness Suite ERP, which replaced its legacy general ledger and introduced automation in the Procurement to Pay cycle.

What is Unique about the Project? The primary objective of this project was to consolidate and automate the financials – right through Procurement to General Ledger. Because of this project, we could consolidate our technology landscape to a great extent from various cross functional integration point of view and also helped us in replacing a few legacy applications. In addition, the implementation helped us in seamless integration of Accounting Processes and Reporting in one single system.

My Involvement As the Project Manager, my journey started with Project Management and ended with implementation. I moved around, right from planning, budgeting, CBA, development, deployment to procurement – it was an all-round experience. At the end of the project, there was a feeling of having done something comprehensive - from start to finish. The single most influential factor in this project was the up-front realisation that this was not a software implementation but a far broader transformation. The most spectacular of the system replacement failures occurred when utilities tried to map the existing processes to the new system. No project is successful without the right strategy. Hence, it’s important to have key strategies in place, which include: Selection of the right solution, simplifying the business processes, strong Project Governance, forming Power User Group (get the right set of people for the right job), reviewing of test cases and test scenarios (upfront, using the right tool for Code

validation and data validation), do the hard stuff first – data conversion, and develop a strong interface between systems to ensure data integrity and daily tracking at a granular level in order to avoid any delays and keep the project under control. Effective Governance is one of the key factors which results in the success of any project. The benefits are two-fold: 1. Selection of Project Sponsor – it’s essential in reinforcing the importance of the project and the benefits of adopting the new system and overcoming resistance to change. 2. Conducting regular Project Boards – this will essentially help to get the support and guidance from the top management.

My Approach I looked at every challenge as an opportunity. The moment you think of the challenge as an opportunity, your mindset and approach towards that challenge changes completely. The most important requirement to overcome the challenges was patience – one should have the patience to put up with pressure and look at things positively and calmly. This will help in right thinking.

Do Skills Matter? Our implementation strategy was quite simple and clean. We looked at all the issues reported during the testing phase and classified those issues based on severity. All severity 1 and 2 issues, which were a must for go-live, were addressed first. We took a collective call, along with the users, to move the noncritical items outside implementation phase and be tracked separately. Managing business counterparts and the end users is very important: no ineffienciency in managing end user expectations is allowed. The project paved the way for the Consolidation of books, Automation of various procurement and payment processes and delivery of granular data for analytical purposes. Project had many ups and downs, but the project team was focussed and determined – hence, we could complete the project and meet all objectives.

IT-The Business Impact yy The supply chain project, the first of its kind, gave him an opportunity to stretch beyond the IT framework and involve stakeholders from the business yy IT solutions were designed in such a manner that it made it easy for suppliers to navigate the various screens, and simple to understand yy The most intriguing and interesting aspect was conducting extensive training for most stakeholders and providing a helpdesk that offered solutions instantaneously yy IT team, took up a rigorous review of the project by the stakeholders and identification of bottlenecks much early on in the project to ensure that the project was completed on time. yy The company could save a few crores of rupees through these projects yy The objective of the project was to spot bottlenecks early

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IT in Business | cover story

K N Swaminathan | GM-IS, TVS Motor

“ Rigorous Reviews + Spotting Logjams Early = Success” Top Project TVS Motors implemented around 14 projects in supply chain, all of them most cherished and noteworthy as far as Swaminathan was concerned. The supply chain project, the first of its kind, gave him an opportunity to stretch beyond the IT framework and involve stakeholders from the business.

Why was it Unique? The most refreshing part for him was that the project dealing with supply chain was the first of its kind and had active participation from business users, hitherto not the case with most IT projects. “The manner in which business users went on to gather requirements, clearly articulating and documenting the data generated, while establishing strict timelines adhering to IT’s demands and monitoring the progress at various intervals, was unique by itself.”

My Involvement The project had been assigned to two leaders. I was one of them; the other was from supply chain. Both of us worked together from scratch in terms of defining the scope, planning the entire project and its phases and also conducting periodic reviews. Since it involved supplier interaction, it was critical to ensure that the line of business was involved from the initial phase of the project. I ensured the solutions were designed in such a manner that it made it easy for suppliers to navigate the various screens, and simple to understand. Since some of the suppliers were overseas, it was essential to create very transparent solutions so that people with little knowledge of English could also understand what was required to be filled in the different screens.

My Approach to Challenges The first and foremost criterion I had in mind was to have a very rigorous review of the project, giving no room for skep-

ticism or failure. I strongly believed that early participation of stakeholders and involving them in all stages of the project was mandatory to avoid any unforeseen situation. In a normal situation, we would let users make changes in the scope as the project progressed, thereby leading to an overrun in terms of cost and time. In this project, we contained this by having the users sign up their requirements upfront at the start. They then made use of the solutions we deployed, developed, and identified improvement points. These improvement points / changes were clubbed together and carried out as a separate version. The change that we as an IT team brought in was that we did not carry out each change identified by the business. All the team members and the business groups were brought into the project from day one. Their active participation was ensured while creating the requirements and throughout the project. We, as the IT team, took up a rigorous review of the project by the stakeholders and identification of bottlenecks much early on in the project to ensure that the project was completed on time.

How is Business Impacted? The company could save a few crores of rupees through these projects. The objective of the project was to spot bottlenecks related to supplier capacity early, which helped the supply chain team overcome the hurdles. Our approach has also positively impacted the business in reducing deterrents in the manufacturing process. The interesting aspect, which made the project a success, was that the teams were not differentiated into IT and non-IT, but worked as team TVS Motor. Everyone was made accountable for the success or failure of the project. This eliminated functional silos and created equal appreciation of each other’s problems. This also helped in successful implementation, Needless to say, team management skills helped a lot.

Being Strategic to Increase Productivity yy The challenge was to move more of existing ABOs and new ABOs to the website and increase the productivity per ABO to help continue the growth over the last couple of years yy Mine was a two-pronged approach with the focus on two aspects of the project - to address the business side and technical aspect of the project. yy Approached the project in terms of base lining the current website and performance, knowing the truth from the field directly, defining the key imperatives and success factors, partnered with brick and mortar channel of physical offices to track the Amway business and shop online yy From the functionality standpoint, I focused more on stability and reliability of the solutions and strategies and provided additional features to business users. yy We gained the 30 per cent mark.

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IT in Business | cover story

Pawan Bakshi | Senior Manager-Infrastructure & eBiz, Amway India

â&#x20AC;&#x153; Increased Business via Wire and enhanced productivityâ&#x20AC;? Top Project Pawan Bakshi, Senior Manager-IT, Amway India, initiated a project within Amway towards increasing the website sales and revenue and contributed to the growth and profitability of the company.

What is Unique? I rolled out the Amway India website in 2008 in line with Amwayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Global Framework; since then, ABOs (Amway Business Owners) have taken it very well; the online business grew from less than 1per cent of overall sales to 22 per cent until 2011. The target for Year 2012 was to make it 30 per cent of overall sales. The challenge was to move more of existing ABOs and new ABOs to the website and increase the productivity per ABO to help continue the growth over the last couple of years. My Involvement As a project manager, I was given the responsibility to work towards achieving this target. I was asked to make IT strategies very much in sync with business strategies, which would enable the business team to achieve its goal for 2012.

yy Convenience and ease in managing Amway business online yy Access to new product launches or product promotion starting midnight which is about 8-9 hours prior to the opening of the Amway offices, as offices open at 9-10 am yy From a technical standpoint, I got a third party review of the complete solution to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement, and took the initiative to address these areas; also, got the load and stress testing done to resize the infrastructure wherever required.

Roped in Business leaders I discussed the new features required with ABO leaders to understand common requirements across multiple ABOs groups, to get a sense of the business impact and value addition of these features. There were challenges with regard to justifying the new investment for additional solutions, services and development; I presented a strong business case to management; demonstrated to Internal and External users the improvement in reliability, adoptability of online channel among end users (ABOs), and customer satisfaction levels.

Crucial Steps

How is business impacted?

Mine was a two-pronged approach with the focus on two aspects of the project - to address the business side and technical aspect of the project. From the functionality standpoint, I focused more on stability and reliability of the solutions and strategies and provided additional features to business users. On the business front, I roped in key business users (Internal) to understand the field feedback. I directly got in touch with key ABOs (we call them Amway Leaders) to know the truth, pain points and requirements. Also, yy Addressed their concerns related to existing features by fixing them yy Reiterated the benefits of using the website among ABOs like: yy Real time business information 24x7

I approached the project in terms of base lining the current website and performance, knowing the truth from the field directly, defining the key imperatives and success factors, partnered with brick and mortar channel of physical offices to track the Amway business and shop online. I got the buy-in of the proposed plan from internal and external users wherever applicable. The project of increasing the penetration of Amway website with ABOs and its contribution to overall sale was well achieved when we gained the 30 per cent mark. It also helped in improving the profitability as per order fulfillment; the cost at the website is lower as compared to ordering from a physical office. Management support at various stages of the project helped us to drive better profitability.

insight | data security

Counter Strike to a

Data Breach

The DBIR report released by Verizon elaborates on growing data breaches with different types of attacks, and suggests ways to counter them with appropriate tools T e a m I T N ext

ata Breach—A Growing Menace

It is disheartening to find that in the year 2012, perhaps more so than any other year, the large scale and diverse nature of data breaches and other network attacks took centre stage; and this is extending to this year as well. Rather than a synchronised chorus making its debut on New Year’s Eve, Paul Black, APAC Regional Managing Principal for Verizon and author of Verizon’s 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), witnessed separate, ongoing movements that seemed to come together in full crescendo throughout the year. The 2013 DBIR also found that the proportion of incidents involving hacktivists--who act out of ideological motivations or even just for fun--held steady; but the amount of data stolen decreased, as many hacktivists shifted to other methods such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

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These attacks, aimed at paralysing or disrupting systems, also have significant costs because they impair business and operations. “The bottom line is that unfortunately, no organisation is immune to a data breach in this day and age,” said Wade Baker, principal author of the DBIR series. “Today, we have the tools to combat cybercrime, but it’s really all about selecting the right ones and using them in the right way.”

Motive for Attacks Motives for these attacks appear equally diverse as money-minded miscreants continued to cash in on lowhanging fruit from any tree within reach. Bolder bandits took aim at better-defended targets in hopes of bigger hauls. Activist groups DoS’d and hacked under the very different—and sometimes blurred—banners of personal ideology and just-for-the-fun-of-it.

insight | data security

In addition, as a growing list of victims shared Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an interesting mix of law enforcement agencies, their stories, clandestine activity attributed to incident reporting/handling entities, a research institution, and other incident response (IR)/forensic state-affiliated actors stirred international intrigue. All in all, 2012 reminded us that breaches service firms. are a multi-faceted problem, and any one-dimensional attempt to Victims of the Attack describe them failed to adequately The authors Wade and Black find capture their complexity. victims in this report span across The 2013 DBIR corroborates this restaurants, retailers, media compaclaimed and brings to bear the perspective of nies, banks, utilities, engineering firms, that data 19 global organisations on studying multi-national corporations, security and combating data breaches in the providers, defense contractors, govbreaches are modern world. ernment agencies, and more across perpetrated by The list of partners is not only the globe. outsiders lengthy, but also quite diverse, crossing A definite relationship exists between source: DBIR Report international and public/private lines. industry and attack motive, which is

92%

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most likely a byproduct of the data targeted (e.g., stealing payment cards from retailers and intellectual property [IP] from manufacturers). The report stated that 37 per cent of breaches affected financial organisations, about 24 per cent of the respondents find breaches occurring in retail environments and restaurants, 20 per cent of network intrusions involved manufacturing, transportation and utilities, 20 per cent of the victims are hit through network intrusions attacked on information and professional services firms, and 38 per cent of breaches impact larger organisations across 27 countries.

Breach Perpetrators According to Black, the main factor that spread the attacks has been from outsiders, as 92 per cent claimed that it is perpetrated by outsiders, with another crop of readers shaking their fists and exclaiming “No—insiders are 80 per cent of all risk!” Perhaps they’re right. But our findings consistently show—at least by sheer volume of breaches investigated by or reported to outside parties—that external actors rule. Pro-insider majority may see some justification in the results for all security incidents (rather than just confirmed data breaches), as insiders take the lead in that dataset. State-affiliated actors tied to China are the biggest movers in 2012.Their efforts to steal IP comprise about one-fifth of all breaches in this dataset. Ashish Thapar, Head-Global Consulting & Integration Services, Verizon Enterprise Solutions says that Indian enterprises too are experiencing data breaches in a big way. The reason for this is that most IT heads or individuals use the same password for internal critical applications and also for social platforms such as facebook, linkedin etc, which paves the way for cracking the data.

“It is observed that about 60,000 login attempts are made by hackers, which indicates that someone is trying to break through the firewalls” Ashish Thapar, Head-Global Consulting & Integration Services, Verizon

How do Breaches Occur? The one-two combo of hacking and malware struck less often this round, but definitely isn’t down for the count. Filtering out the large number of physical ATM skimming incidents shows exploitation of weak and stolen credentials still standing in the ring. According to Wade Baker, the proportion of breaches incorporating social tactics like phishing was four times higher in 2012. Credit the rise of this challenger to its widespread use in targeted espionage campaigns. Correlated with the 14 per cent of breaches tied to insiders, privilege misuse weighs in at 13 per cent. Insider actions ranged from simple card skimming to far more complicated plots to smuggle corporate IP to competitors.

“One thing which should be emphasised is awareness training across all levels of employees / partners / contractors, as people are the weakest link” Parag Deodhar, Chief Risk Officer, CISO, Bharti Axa General Insurance

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insight | data security

Threat Action Categories

across 47,000+security incidents

ommensurate with the high proporation of internal actors,error and misuse feature prominently among threat actions within the larger database of 47,000+ security incidents. Error consists mainly of lost devices, publishing goof-ups, and mis-delivered e-mails, faxes and documents that potentially expose sensitive information. Misuse was a mix of malicious privilege abuse and use policy violations. Due to less-detailedd reporting, malware specifics usually weren’t available, but infections of spyware, botnets, and backdoors were observed most frequently. Use of stolen credentials, backdoor exploits, and SQL injection topped the list in the hacking category.

Malware

20%

Hacking

11% Social

Misuse

20%

Physical

Error

48% Environmental

source: DBIR report

The report indicated that the 52 per cent of the respondents stated hacking to be the tool for data breach, 40 per cent said it was incorporated malware and 35 per cent found the breaches involving physical attacks, while 29 per cent said that breaches occur due to leveraging social tactics. Thapar adds, “Attacks on end user devices, mobiles, corporate network are increasing; about 54 per cent of the attacks are hitting servers.” According to Thapar, about 60,000 login attempts are made by hackers, which indicates that someone is trying to break through the firewalls.

Necessary Steps to Counter these Breaches The report indicated that there are a few imperative steps which can be followed to address this issue. While there is no single solution available, a methodical approach would help enterprises to protect their data. They include: Eliminate unnecessary data; keep tabs on what’s left Ensure essential controls are met; regularly check that they remain so

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Collect, analyse and share incident data to create a rich data source that can drive security program effectiveness Collect, analyse, and share tactical threat intelligence, especially indicators of Compromise (IOCs), that can greatly aid defense and detection Without de-emphasising prevention, focus on better and faster detection through a blend of people, processes, and technology Regularly measure things like ‘number of compromised systems’ and ‘mean time to detection’ in networks. Use them to drive security practices Evaluate the threat landscape to prioritise a treatment strategy. Don’t buy into a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to security If you are a target of espionage, don’t underestimate the tenacity of your adversary. Nor should you underestimate the intelligence and tools at your disposal. “Take steps to better understand your threat landscape and deal with it accordingly,” said Baker. Parag Deodhar, Chief Risk Officer, CISO and VP-Process Excellence, Bharti Axa General Insurance Company Ltd., agrees with the findings of the report. “I would tend to mostly agree with the report. The point which is difficult to believe is that insider threat is only 14 per cent; as in my experience, many of the incidents discovered have involvement of employees / contractors / outsourced vendors or partners,” says Deodhar. “Probably organisations are wary about reporting such breaches. The methods used also seem to miss out on misuse of authority (access rights / access to confidential data).” According to Deodhar, “Threats / breaches related to new trends like cloud / BYOD / mobility which are adding to the data breaches form a separate study by itself.Also, data breaches occurring through loss of mobile assets (laptops / tabs / mobile phones) seem to be missing in the report.” Further, “The solutions to mitigate the risks are summed up quite well. One thing which should be emphasised is awareness training across all levels of employees / partners / contractors, as people are the weakest link and must be strengthened through training,” adds Deodhar. As a recommendation to mitigate highly targeted attacks, DBIR report suggests that in addition to the SANS critical Security Control mapping project, it is vital to focus on the kill-chain approach which is effective against highly targeted attacks largely because these attacks typically have long event chains that involve several assets.

management | insight

The

Four Roles of the New IT Leader The roles of the new IT leader include trend spotter, negotiator, mediator and innovator By Charles A r au jo

called upon to be equal parts opportunist and risk manager. was having lunch the other day with a friend of mine On the one hand, you will be asked to sift through the endwho is a CIO at a large organisation in the bio-pharma less array of emerging technologies to identify those that may space. As we discussed what the future of IT might look be leveraged by your organisation to create a distinct marlike, I asked him what he was thinking about these days ket advantage. In some cases, the emerging technologies will — i.e., what was keeping him up at night. be able to be combined with business practices or other tech“I am really beginning to wonder if the role of the CIO nologies to create defensible innovations (see role #4). In othwill continue to exist in the future,” he said. “At the very least, ers, they will represent no more than a temporary it’s going to look a lot different than it does right now.” advantage, so speed will be critical. In either case, I agreed, and as we continued the conversation, the key will be to be able to find the “diamonds in a few things became clear to both of us. First, there the rough” and to curate the right mix of emerging would be a continuing role for the CIO and the IT technologies that can create marketable value for organisation as a whole. The use of IT is simply too Roles of CIO the organisation. strategic, but the role of the organization and its that would At the same time, the new IT leader will leaders would change dramatically. The first of those drive the IT also be asked to identify emerging risks in changes will be the essence of IT leadership itself. evolution that same evolving landscape. Are there It will no longer be only the senior management team emerging technologies that have the potential that will be called upon to lead the organisation. to disrupt the organization’s market advantage? Have It will be everyone. Every one of us will be called upon to be a competitors innovated in a way that requires a rapid part of leading the IT organisation into this future. response? There will be no one better than the IT leader to As our conversation concluded, we settled on four key be able to act as this strategic trend spotter identifying both roles that the new IT leader, which means almost all of us, will risk and opportunity from among the flood of emerging be called upon to perform. Begin building capabilities and technologies. IT leaders that can effectively fulfill this role will expertise in these areas and you will be in high demand as the be extremely valuable. evolution of IT organizations continues. IL LUSTRATIO N BY SHIG IL NARAYANAN

Role #1 Trend Spotter

Role #2 Negotiator and Meditator

Part of the reason there will be a continuing role for IT and IT leaders is that the pace of technology continues to accelerate. It will be impossible for business executives and managers to keep track of or make sense of it all. The new IT leader will be called upon to constantly scan the horizon, looking for both emerging technologies and emerging threats. You will be

As the role of IT continues to evolve, we can expect that as much as 80 percent of IT assets will live outside the walls of the enterprise. As this happens, a second critical role for the new IT leader will emerge. IT organisations will no longer be able to simply mandate terms and conditions to their technology providers. Instead, a delicate dance will be required to bring

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insight | management together the myriad constituencies of service providers, customers and internal IT organisations to create the complex IT ecosystems that will power the modern IT era. This will require that the new IT leader become an expert negotiator. There will be a large number of conflicting priorities and technology demands that will need to be balanced. IT leaders will be in the best position to ensure that the competing demands are balanced in the best interests of the overall organisation. This type of negotiation will not be about getting the best price or driving every last concession out of service providers. Instead, it will be about constructing a web of interconnected and mutually beneficial relationships. In addition, those relationships will not remain static. The minute they are established, they will begin to change. So, the new IT leader must also be an expert mediator. You must be constantly standing in the gap between the various parts of the ecosystem to ensure that the relationships continue to evolve and adjust in concert over time. It will not be an easy task, but it will be a vital role.

one of the few remaining engines of innovation and growth that drives competitive advantages. However, it is also clear that technology innovation will not occur within the walls of the enterprise. Technology innovation will be driven by technology companies, but that doesn’t mean the IT organization is out of the innovation business. Rather, it will fall upon new IT leaders to create business process innovation out of existing and emerging technologies. It will take a significant amount of both skill and insight to be able to see opportunities where others only see business-asusual. Using the skills that will also make you an effective trend spotter, negotiator and information weaver, you will be able to create discrete combinations of technology and business processes that become unique differentiators for your organisation. The new IT leader will be best positioned to serve in this role. Your ability to see across the organisation, combined with your view of existing and emerging technologies, will make you a valuable asset in any organization.

As the role of IT continues to evolve, we can expect that as much as 80 percent of IT assets will live outside the walls of the enterprise

One of the side effects of services being delivered via these IT ecosystems is that key data elements important to the enterprise will now reside in different places outside of the organization. While that may work for the specific function that is using a given application, it will likely leave huge islands of isolated data scattered across the enterprise. This will create a huge risk that vital information that must be created through the interconnection of disparate data elements will be lost. This will create the third key role for the new IT leader: Information Weaver. The IT leader of next-generation IT organisations will be adept at identifying those key data elements and ensuring that they are intricately and dynamically woven together to deliver strategic and competitive advantages to the organisation. Using the previously described negotiation and mediation skills, you must build deep relationships and an intimate understanding of the business processes leveraging the organisation’s data assets to excel in this role. Your success or failure in being able to harvest and weave those data elements into a mosaic of meaningful and actionable information will likely be reflected in the ultimate success or failure of the entire organisation.

Role #4 Business Process Innovator The final role of the new IT leader may be both the most challenging and the most important. Technology will be

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Getting Comfortable With Your New Role As we enter this new era for IT organizations, your role as an IT leader will change. You will still be focused on technology, but not necessarily on the technical aspects of it. Your success as a trend spotter, as a negotiator and mediator, as an information weaver and as a business process innovator will be driven by business acumen and interpersonal skills. Your ability to understand and assimilate technology will be key. However, it will be your ability to understand the business challenges and opportunities and to build deep cross-functional relationships that will set you apart. It is a new world that we find ourselves living in. It can be difficult to grasp that the technical skills that have gotten us where we are may be our undoing. But for those new IT leaders who understand the changing landscape and can adapt to the needs of this new environment, it will be an exciting time. It will be a time in which we are able to serve a vital role to the organisation and fulfill the promise that IT has always held. — Charles Araujo is the founder and CEO of The IT Transformation Institute, which is dedicated to helping IT leaders transform their teams into customer-focused, value-driven learning organisations. He is the author of the book The Quantum Age of IT: Why Everything You Know About IT is About to Change, is presently at work on two new books. — This article was first published in CIO Insight. For more stories please visit www.cioinsight.com.

Courtesy : CIO & LEADER

Role #3 Information Weaver

interview | Michel van Woudenberg

CRM-Cloud Relationship Management What are the key considerations for Cloud among large enterprises, what are the challenges you see for them? A lot of organisations are adopting Cloud for flexibility for the ability to switch it on very quickly and the flexibility in scaling their user base from a few to so many; a lot more also, because it presents them a way to spend on operation from an operational budget rather than from a capital expense budget - because you rent the application rather than invest in servers and hardware, software infrastructure etc. Cost can be a factor as well, depending on the size and complexity of your organisation--sometimes it’s cheaper to rent the stuff in the Cloud than it is to buy a license, buy infrastructure, buy hardware and do it all yourself. And finally, I think, and it’s often overlooked, but when you rent a Cloud application, the innovation is actually coming from the vendor; meaning, every time we release new capabili-

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ties in the application, it becomes available to our customers over the weekend and they can switch it on if they choose to do so on Monday rather than having to create an IT project to upgrade that software that they bought previously. So when the innovation comes from the vendor, you can focus on really making these technologies work for your organisation in a differentiating way rather than focus on really benign things such as patching software, keeping servers up and running, etc., etc..

Despite these advantages, why do you think Indian IT heads are not so enthusiastic about the Cloud? We now have the option to bring applications into the Cloud and to rent them rather than buy them. I think a lot of industries in India are actually quite in the forefront on adopting cloud in order to be differentiating towards their customers. I would say the government in India and BSFI, especially

the public banks, are a bit behind compared to other regions in Asia Pacific. But if you look at retail, or mobile telephony or telcos in general, or private banks, or even local manufacturers, or typically industries that are more in the forefront on focusing on customer experience, they’ve actually adopted Cloud already. Now, that’s from an industry perspective. If you take a functional area, I think there’s a difference in adoption. I haven’t yet seen a lot of companies in India go, for example, and take their ERP into the Cloud. But if you look at customer management or CRM, there are a lot of organisations that have invested in Cloud to manage their sales force, to run social marketing campaigns on Facebook, to manage their customers’ web service. You know, we’ve got a customer MakeMyTrip, who’s done so. So, CRM’s one area customers in India have been quick to adopt, which is really my area. The second one is HCM - Human Capital management, not just from a core HR perspective but

photo by: jite n gandhi

Michel van Woudenberg, Vice President, CRM, Oracle Asia Pacific, who was part of Oracle’s Cloud World in India, elaborates on how enterprises are evolving a cloud strategy. In a freewheeling chat with N Geetha, Woudenberg provides insights into how CRM, as part of Oracle’s Fusion strategy, is revolutionising the customer space

MichelÂ vanÂ Woudenberg | interview

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interview | Michel van Woudenberg also from the talent management and recruiting perspectives.

A lot of talk is on around Fusion and rewriting Fusion applications; How much does CRM fit into Fusion? What are the new things you brought when you rewrote the application? Yes. Fusion is our new family of products focused on leveraging the Cloud from a development perspective. The cool thing about Fusion is that you have a pure choice whether you take this application in the Cloud or on Premise or even whether you move it from the cloud to on Premise or the other way around. Unlike any other software vendors, we actually have the same code line with Fusion in the Cloud as we have for on Premise. In terms of functional areas, you know what we have done with Fusion; we have all these applications such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards etc. that have really cool capabilities and we’ve amalgamated all into one product set, firstly from a CRM perspective. Let’s consider, for example, an electrical gadgets manufacturer here in India who uses our Sales Cloud application to manage its sales force; one of the business problems is attrition, right? It loses 10 to 15 percent of its sales staff every year. So when I give this customer pipeline management that’s good, account management that’s good, great, or lead management that’s fantastic, he also needs to make sure that his sales team is complete. In Fusion, I have the capability to simply switch on a recruiting module and a talent management module -all of a sudden, he can do work force management in the same application making sure that he stays, keeps track of which reps are underperforming, which ones need some help, some coaching, etc. and then he creates a pipeline of new reps coming into the company

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to replace those reps that actually have left the company.

The concept of CEM against CRM is picking up. What do you have to say about this? Well, if you look at CRM and CX and you compare them - it’s not one or the other. CRM started 10 to 15 years ago against the backdrop of what does the organisational management want, what does the management of a company want, rather than what do the customers of this organisation want. A lot of organisations have implemented capabilities applications to provide efficiency, for example, in the call centre or to provide a system to manage the pipeline. Customers directly didn’t really profit much from this. Customer experience

“We actually have the same code line with Fusion in the Cloud as we have for on Premise. Applications like Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards etc. have really cool capabilities with CRM” is really about taking that sort of capability to the next level and saying, okay, what kind of capabilities can we deploy towards the end customers that make their life easier? The reason for doing so is that a lot of organisations operate in industries that are very competitive, where it’s very hard to differentiate your products and your services based on price and product features. The opportunity for you

Michel van Woudenberg | interview

have a long list of road map items for that product. We’ve delivered a lot of versions of Siebel since acquiring the company in 2006 and we continue to do so. And we have a lot of organisations including in India that are using Siebel as their core CRM system. What we are doing with our new innovative products around Social, for example, or around marketing etc., is that we integrate these with Siebel such that our existing customers can leverage these innovation pieces and use them in conjunction with Siebel. We don’t say to Siebel customers you need to move to the Cloud; but if they want to, we can certainly move them to the Cloud with their call centre application or sales application or marketing application.

is to say, well, if we don’t compete on price and product features, how are we going to compete? Well, one of the ways is to make it just a lot easier to deal with us as an organisation: to really focus on this cross channel customer experience phenomenon. The reason why this is extra important is because of the advent of Social. It’s a way of giving a lot more focus to customer feedback. A lot of it is happening in the social space as you probably have seen. We’ve quite a number of organisations in that space and a number of applications around Cloud monitoring, around Social marketing; even in India, we’ve already had success selling these applications to organisations that want to understand what their customer sentiment is out there on Twitter, what they can do to further and deeper engage with their customers on places like Google Plus and Facebook etc.

So then, what happens to the existing legacy applications, the CRM applications?Do they fit into the Cloud model or do customers need to change the architecture? Well, if you look at, for example, the core CRM system like Siebel, we

Find other interviews online on the website www.itnext. in/resources/ interviews

You have a lot of customers using Social, CRM…. What have been their challenges and what are the benefits they have seen? Let’s take a step back; first of all, Social was something that a lot of organisations started experimenting with two or three years ago depending on what industry they are in. But if you are Telco, or a financial service company, if you are anybody with a lot of customers, chances are that you’ve been experimenting for the last two years. The realisation has come on the basis of that experimentation that Social is not some plug under some far away closet. It is some-

thing that needs to be a part of an overall customer strategy, something that is relevant not only in the sales or service department, but also in the marketing department; and that deploying Social tactics should make sense in the broader customer strategies perspective, and then it needs to be supported by softer things such as: how do you drive your employee behaviour, what kind of values do you espouse, do you fear this thing or do you embrace it, do you become more open and engage with your customers or do you create a lot of rulebooks? What I have seen in many organisations now is that this has gotten a lot of body; people have been assigned roles like the Chief Experience Officer or Chief Customer Officer or Chief Digital Officer. I was speaking to a large automotive company in India where the CIO told me that the CMO has a bigger IT budget. I think that it’s a challenge both for organisations as well as for particular roles that they invest in this space from a knowledge perspective and organise accordingly. And what we do is we help them with a concept called customer journey mapping; a lot of organisations start project from the inside out - they don’t necessarily think about their customers’ perspective. So what we do is, we say okay, let’s take the customer perspective, let’s take a persona and the persona could be a 34-year-old mom of two, who works part time, who is looking to buy Product X using the web. And we take that customer perspective and follow through what kind of obstacles she encounters as she goes through this process from a customer perspective and therefore recognise all the improvements we can make. And we then combine these improvement areas with the areas of the greatest value to that particular organisation, that’s where we then focus on and that’s where we create projects around.

j u n e 2 0 1 3 | itnext

cube chat | Mayank Malik

Managing People, an Art “The biggest challenge in one’s career is neither related to technology nor business, but managing people efficiently,’ says Mayank Malik, IT & Automation Engr., Bharat Oman Refineries By Nidhi verma

My sucess

mantra Do it with focus and right actions to see the spark

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eaders are problem-solvers by talent, temperament, and choice. Inspired by a drive to tackle problems head-on, Mayank Malik, IT & Automation Engineer, Bharat Oman Refineries Limited (BORL), believes that his passion to solve problems and achieve results the technological way creates tangible benefits to the business. He feels energised when portraying information to future strategic decisions via dashboards, turning problems into solutions, delivering IT services 24 x 7 and dealing with unhappy customers. “Do it with focus and the right actions and you’ll see a sparkle in the eyes of your customers,” adds Malik with a twinkle in his eyes. The world of computers always fascinated him. “Since childhood, I was drawn to the magical boxes in computer labs at school. At 10, I had my first handshake with them. I started programming in GWBASIC in 1989, then gradually

mastered QBASIC & TurboC,” says Malik. Malik counts a number of awards as his career-shaping milestones. During his stint at Infosys, as part of the Infyplus Initiative, he won an award for designing and implementing a service operations dashboard to enhance productivity & operational efficiency at Infosys from the current CEO, S D Shibulal. While at Microsoft, he was adjudged the Gold Star Performer for his outstanding contribution in service automation and optimisation. The NEXT100 awardee’s plate is full, with responsibilities ranging from leading a service desk, mentoring developers, scripting tasks on windows for business process automation, procurement of end computing devices, running a project, that of implementing a datacenter to optimising/maintaining/scaling current resources, and planning Capex to run IT at BORL. The IT paradigm is evolving at whirlwind pace.

cube chat

Fact File Full Nam e: Mayank Malik C urrent Des ignat io n: IT & Auto m ati on Manager C urrent Role: Site IT & Auto m at io n Manager Experti s e: Bus i nes s Proc es s Auto m ation & Syst em s Managem ent

PHOTO by: ji ten gandhi

“Peer networking is the key which helps one to keep track about the latest trends in the tech-domain and one way of bridging the gap for most IT managers” The aspiring social entrepreneur is very clear about ensuring that the solutions and systems deployed at BORL are always up to date. Says Malik, “Networking with peers helps in keeping track of the latest trends in the tech-domain, which is one way of bridging the technological gap among IT managers.” Innovation is a major driving force for Malik. His team recently started unlocking the potential of windows scripting and implemented a couple of business process automations. These had a direct impact on the cost savings of implementing third party solutions, while also motivating the IT department to maintain complex business solutions in-house. Malik believes the biggest challenge is neither related to technology nor business, but about managing people efficiently. “While technology can

be tamed/learned through manuals, and business problems can be solved, there are no manuals for handling the people around you. “Patience, acceptance, communication, bonding, creativity and doing the right thing are a few skills which have helped me in people-management.” On the personal front, he loves visiting new places, trying local cuisine and interacting with new people. He plans to visit Lahaul and Spiti in his newlyacquired SUV. “I believe in living life to the fullest and consistently strive to maintain good health and this has led me achieve my fitness goal of completing a 4.5 km run in 21 minutes, 10 seconds, he says. With a strong will to help the society, he is driven by his parents’ message: “Your value is not measured by what you get in the end, but who you become,” he signs off .

Work Experience: 14 Years Favouri te quot e: “The day you stop recei ving proble m s from peers or tea m m em bers is the day yo u stop lead i ng them ” “Your m ost unhappy custo m ers are yo ur greatest s ource of learni ng” Favouri te boo k: “Awaken the Giant Wi thi n” by Antho ny Robbi ns Favouri te food : Ind i an C haat Favouri te d esti nat io n: Kinnaur Valley, Him ach al Prad esh Favouri te gad get fo r wo rk:L aptop Favourite gad get for pers onal us e:iPa d

j u n e 2 0 1 3 | itnext

special coverage | Network Infrastructure Refresh

Network Overhaul for Agility & Efficiency Bank of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s networkinfrastructural reform has helped harness the full potential of its core banking solution platform besides increasing agility

iven the exponential growth in the BFSI sector, banks and enterprises in general need to be in-line with the changing demands. For a sector like banking, it is critical and imperative to build an infrastructure which is agile, efficient and always accessible. One among many public sector banks, Bank of India (BoI) came to realise the necessity and the challenge involved in making its network agile and efficient to harness technological innovations. BoI had been running a Core Banking Solution (CBS) on its legacy network and its applications and the networks were not supporting the desired momentum. Besides, the business expansion also demanded much more agility in the network infrastructure to make operations more efficient. The IT team led by Pushpinder Singh, GM-IT, Bank of India, had the daunting task of bringing in the necessary agility to be in conducive with the technological demands. Singh and his team had a clear mandate from the top management to build a system which would help improve operational and transactional efficiency.

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Network Infrastructure Refresh | special coverage The Situation The team did a thorough evaluation of the network’s infrastructural technologies and solutions to get insights into how to plan an overhaul of the networks without disrupting the existing framework. After a series of debates and discussions, Singh and team zeroed-in on deploying Cisco Solutions across its data centre, along with DR, WAN & LAN which could have an efficient interface with its core-banking solutions, while simultaneously upgrading the CBS platform. The team decided to partner with Dimension Data and HP to initiate its network-infrastructure optimisation project for BoI.

Needed Task Elaborating on the existing framework, Singh informed that BoI’s DC leveraged both LAN and WAN networks based on Cisco’s Catalyst 6500 platform with Catalyst 2950 switches. The WAN was built around Cisco 7500 series routers for WAN termination from the NAP locations and with VPN head ends with the Cisco 7206 routers. Singh informed that the legacy network devices and applications consumed major bandwidth which also resulted in higher demand and scalability. In addition to this, the end of sale and support of network security devices were putting a lot of burden on the network infrastructure, which in turn was causing unfavourable circumstances for the bank in terms of transaction delays, downtime, etc. “We needed an architecture that was scalable enough to accommodate the expansion of branches and to provide a robust and secure platform for the future application landscape and the IPV6 compliance network”, explains Singh.

Stages of Implementation In order to build sufficient network capacity to unleash the full potential of its core banking system, BoI decided to rope in the

Team BoI Butchi Babu, Deputy General Manager Kamesh Mantha, Chief Manager R Ganapathy Nageswaran, Senior Manager Arun Prasad Jadiyana, Senior Manager Mayank Sharma, Senior Manager

“We needed an architecture that was scalable enough to accommodate the expansion of branches and to provide a robust and secure platform for the future application landscape and the IPV6 compliance network”

“As a proof of concept, we simulated the entire setup as per the newly designed architecture in our lab in the US and show cased to the Bank of India team how PSU banks in the US are using the solution to increase transactional perfection” — Pranay Jhaveri, Manager, Regional Sales, BFSI, Cisco India & SAARC

— Pushpinder Singh, GM-IT, Bank of India

Cisco team to audit their network infrastructure. The team proactively conducted a DC network/security audit to find the gaps in the current network structure. The findings were presented to the Bank’s senior management and its consultant. Post the gap analysis, the Cisco team proposed a new DC architecture. As per this proposed architecture, there was a change in the configuration as well as in the replacement of the core devices with new devices and inclusion of the Load Balance and Intrusion Prevention System in place of Intrusion Detection System. “After studying our architecture in detail, Cisco then came up with a proof of concept to demonstrate/test the performance and capabilities of the new architeture, after which we decided to go in for the implementation of the solution. Cisco

simulated the entire setup as per the new architecture in their lab based in the US, and thereafter was vetted by our core technical team as well as our technology Partner, HP" explained Singh. As a part of the new infrastructure, Bank of India deployed the Nexus Switches, Aggregation Service Router (ASR) Routers, Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), Wan Optimizers, Application Control Engine (ACE) and a Load balancer.

Challenges Encountered The process was not devoid of challenges, and according to Singh, his team had to make sure that load balancers were introduced ahead of the VPN concentrators. They also got the core routing platforms and VPN terminations migrated to the ASR 1006 platforms. “Another challenge

j u n e 2 0 1 3 | itnext

special coverage | Network Infrastructure Refresh

Nuts, Bolts & Strategy zz Build sufficient network capacity to unleash the full potential of its core banking system zz Cisco team audited BoI’s network infrastructure zz Cisco team proposed a new DC architecture. And change in the configuration as well as in the replacement of the core devices with new devices zz Cisco simulated the entire setup as per the new architecture in their lab based in the U S, and thereafter was vetted by BoI's core technical team zz Partnered with Dimension Data and HP to initiate its network-infrastructure optimisation project for BoI. zz Deployed Nexus Switches, Aggregation Service Router (ASR) Routers, Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), Wan Optimizers, Application Control Engine (ACE) and aload balancer. zz Dimension Data also formed a steering committee to ensure that plans were being followed without any deviation. zz Project rolled out in May 2012 and expect completion by 30th June 2013. The value of the project is Rs 20 Crores

that we faced was with regards to keeping the data centre accessible all the time. Scheduling the migration activity without impacting the business was a huge challenge. Also, the availability of the space for new devices and configuration of the new devices as per existing setup with the new features made available was a challenge”, explains Singh. He adds that “In one of the migrations, our branch was not able to negotiate the Authenticate Header (AH) with the hub, due to which the configuration on the branches had to be changed to support 3DES.” The partners were very efficient in overcoming the challenges and helped BoI to complete it on time, in spite of all the roadblocks. Dimension Data provided the detailed plan(High Level Design and Low Level Design) for the devices as proposed by Cisco, and with due deliberation with BoI and HP. “Both our partners worked in close co-ordination and implemented the solution without any downtime. The project valued at Rs 20 crores got started in May 2012 and expected completion by 30th June 2013.

Pay Backs The data centre network has been improvised to support 10G in the core allowing for higher compactness and more powerful servers. The performance and availability of the network has also improved substantially. Scalability for the next 4000 to 5000 branches has also been addressed.

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“This will allow us to scale forward for the next few years without having any issues. This agility and scalability was something our legacy networks were not able to give us”, says Singh. Besides the operational benefits, BoI also found lowered total cost of ownership (TCO), besides enhancing performance and scalability reflecting positive RoI analysis.

We had multiple sessions of planning with BoI and all the stakeholders and did a lot of hand-holding for about 3 months before signing off on the implementation plan" —Raghuveer H R, Director,Sales, Dimension Data

Dimension Data Point of View The Proof of Concept & Implementation Dimension Data found the right solution for the BoI’s problem and carried out proof of concept before full implementation. As a proof of concept, we simulated the entire setup as per the newly designed architecture in our lab in the US and show cased to the BoI team how PSU banks in the US are using the solution to increase transactional perfection," informs Pranay Jhaveri, Manager, Regional Sales, BFSI, Cisco India & SAARC. Dimension Data along with Cisco

also show-cased that these networks were providing backbone for new levels of transactional capabilities.

The Implementation Strategy Dimension Data had to also satisfy many stakeholders who each had their own set of issues regarding the implementation. "We had multiple sessions with BoI and all the stakeholders and did a lot of handholding for about 3 months before we signed off on the implementation plan”, says Raghuveer H R, Director Sales, Dimension Data India The plan encompassed aligning the projects along the business units and technology channels and creation of an implementation matrix for phased deployment and to measure the RoI.

15minute manager

training Education workplace compensation workforce trends skills development personal development

Product ReviewKarbonn S5 Titanium Android Page48

Strategy: Good, Bad & Ugly THIS page Healthy Tips: Rosemary Aroma improves Memory Page 46 Triggering Thoughts on outsourcing Pag e 47

By Craig A Tinsley

he decision to implement, or possibly continue with an Outsourced (aka: Contractor) IT model or to migrate to a Managed Service model is one that is on many IT leaders’ minds these days. Let’s assume for a moment that your organisation has already outsourced some - or maybe all - of its IT personnel to a third party, or maybe you are considering moving from an in-sourced model to something else entirely and are simply not sure which one to choose. This decision will not come easily, but if you’ve spent time in IT over the last 10+ years, then it will (or should) definitely be on your mind. Having survived many years of living among all of these models. Please note: there may be a fair amount of dissension about what makes something “Bad” vs. “Ugly”.

PHOTO by: photos. com

Level Playing Field To begin, let’s level the playing field by defining in simple terms the two different models: Outsourcing (aka: Contractor) Model: Most often, this is where an IT group or business has elected to hire non-direct IT employees (aka: contractors) from an agency to perform an IT support functions. These individuals are typically paid by the hour by the agency, and, in turn, the agency is paid an agreed-upon flat-rate (hourly, weekly, monthly, whatever…) by the hiring group. The contract would comprise the number of resources

Strategy

Good, Bad and Ugly Understanding the multiple facets of Managed Service or an Outsourced model is critical to make a choice J U N E 2 0 1 3 | itnext

15-MINUTE MANAGER

Good, Bad and Ugly Every model has all these three features which one must evaluate before taking a final call. Let’s analyse how each model reflects these variants.

Outsourcing (aka-Contractor) Model The Good

Healthy tips

Rosemary aroma improves memory A recent study by researchers from Northumbria finds that rosemary oil can improve memory amongst healthy adults. They presented the results of the survey conducted at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society. The study suggests that this essential oil may enhance the ability to remember events and to complete tasks at particular times in the future. Earlier research had indicated rosemary aroma improved long-term memory and mental arithmetic.

Consistency: for the most part, the same personnel are expected to perform the same or similar job function(s) each and every day. Customers get to know and rely upon the same people, schedule and level of support on a day-to-day basis (note: this can actually go “Bad” if a person’s sick or PTO time comes into play). Flexibility: you can push and pull support personnel to perform different functions as needed. Adjusting resources and resetting priorities is relatively simple and painless.

The Bad Costly: there’s little doubt that off-shore resources are cheaper than on-shore

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Rosemary oil acts upon the bio-chemical systems that underpin the memory

In the most recent study, the researchers focused on prospective memory, which involves the ability to remember events that will occur in the future and to remember to complete tasks at particular times this is critical for everyday functioning. In this study, rosemary essential oil was diffused into a testing room by placing four drops on an aroma stream fan diffuser and switching this on five minutes before the participants entered the room. Sixtysix people took part in the study and were randomly allocated to either the rosemary-scented room or another room with no scent. In each room, participants were given put through a test that assessed their prospective memory functions. All the tasks had to be done with no prompting. If prompting was used, the score would decrease. Participants completed questionnaires assessing their mood and their blood was analysed to see if performance levels and changes in mood following exposure to the rosemary aroma were related to concentrations of a compound present in the blood. The same compound is found in rosemary oil and acts upon the biochemical systems that underpin the memory. The test results showed that participants in the scented room performed better than the participants in the room with no scent.

PHOTO /I LLUSTRATIO N/IMAG ING CRE DIT

needed/provided, a high-level (or sometimes detailed) description of what they will be doing, how many hours per week are expected and what pay-rate will be used. At the end of the day, the IT manager is still accountable for the quality and delivery of IT services, and regardless of how good the contractor is, the expected deliverables and pay-rates will remain the same. The positive caveat is that if the contractor fails to meet the requirements, the IT manager can simply ask to have him replaced by the agency. Managed Service Model: While the overall functional responsibilities and expectations are often the same as the prior model, the accountability and methodology of how the job gets done change drastically. In this model, the hiring manager specifically defines the IT service to be delivered and what these services will be measured against. He no longer has a say in “how” things get done, but rather only “what needs to be done and how it will be measured.” The responsibility of the finite personnel and provision of the IT services now fall squarely on the service provider.

15-MINUTE MANAGER resources; regardless, each one comes with a price-tag – just as hiring a directemployee does but without the fullyloaded cost implications, and depending on the function, you can expect to pay big money for expert resources. Scalability (in terms of time and cost): if you find yourself short on resources, this becomes an immediate problem – both in terms of funding and timing.

…and The Ugly Management Overheads: since this model is most typically nothing more than staff augmentation, the client has to manage the personnel, projects, processes, issues, etc.., which will continue to require management overheads, time, effort and leadership.

Managed Service Variants The Good Simple: once the contract is rock-solid and the new model securely in place, it is relatively simple to manage the provider against the services they provide. Management of your services comes down to frequent functional operational reviews, whereby you review your supplier’s performance against agreed-upon service levels.

The Bad Lots of Up-front work: this model requires clear and concrete definition of 100 per cent of the provided services, countless key metrics and painstakingly defining expectations. The additional work may ultimately take away from the (ROI), it is a necessary evil if you expect success; in the end.

The Ugly Inflexible: you no longer have a say in “how” things get done. You no longer manage or control the day-to-day minutia. When your customer escalates issues and needs to you, your only remaining recourse is to fall back on measured service level degradations to incite change, and this doesn’t always bode well for shortterm customer issues and needs. Also, you may have gotten yourself in a bad predicament if you have not done a good job up-front to define the accountability and associated service measures that are right for your business/organisation.

To Sum Up I did not include “Less costly” as a benefit (ie, “The Good”) in the Managed Service model. This is because this is not always the case. An immediate advantage is reduced management overhead – which will result in your ability to spend more time focusing on customer and business needs; which is exactly where your CIO wants you to spend your time; however, from a finance perspective, a managed service model may lead to some level of cost reductions related to the potential reduction of your underlying technical and management staff, as these responsibilities now fall primarily on the shoulders of your service provider. The downsides are: the added work upfront to succinctly define the contract and associated measures (SLAs, KPIs, etc..) will add work and risk the success if not done correctly. Lack of flexibility after implementation of this model will prove challenging and frustrating-–to both IT leadership and customers – particularly in the early stages.

“Any CIO worth his weight in feathers will tell you that “IT must consistently, continually and successfully execute in order to demonstrate value” — Craig A Tinsely, Sr Global IT Manager, Motorola

Triggering Thoughts Outsourcing: Paid by the hour by the agency, and, in turn, the agency is paid an agreed-upon flat-rate The positive caveat is that if the contractor fails to meet the requirements, the IT manager can simply ask to have him replaced by the agency Managed Service- the hiring manager specifically defines the IT service to be delivered and what these services will be measured against Depending on your IT organisation’s annual spend, you may find that a managed service contract actually becomes more expensive The downsides are: the added work upfront to succinctly define the contract and associated measures (SLAs, KPIs, etc..) will add work and risk the success if not done correctly; however, depending on the longevity of this particular service provider, you will need to weigh this time and effort against the overall RoI to make the decision.

Making a Decision Not every business is ready for or capable of having or sustaining a Managed Service model; however, there are huge advantages if you have the wherewithal to put the right things in place. Here are a number of things I would recommend that you consider:

Assess & Analyse Start by deeply reviewing the following: your IT strategy, how your IT organisation is structured, what your current finite IT costs what your business and customers ultimately require.

Choose a “Best-in-class” service provider Make sure the providers have a stable and successful track record of providing “Bestin-Class” IT services. ITIL certifications aren’t an absolute requirement, but they do tell you a lot about a provider’s capabilities, work ethics and attention to detail.

J U N E 2 0 1 3 | itnext

15-MINUTE MANAGER review

Karbonn S5 Titanium Android & quadcore

Be “Surgical & Methodical” with your contract Again, do your homework…. Make sure that the contract explicitly defines all details surrounding what services are to be managed and, more importantly, what measures are critical within each; most importantly, don’t forget about including those prohibitive cost motivators!

Communicate Make absolutely certain that you appropriately set 100 per cent of the expectations with your customers, business leadership and IT personnel. There is nothing worse than changing something as large and complex as “how IT supports the customer” and not telling anyone about it. The Karbonn S5 Titanium is the latest Android smartphone to come rushing out of the gates with a quad-core processor at a budget pricepoint. Now that the Micromax Canvas HD has proved to an extent that Indian phone manufacturers can compete with the big names, it is up to the S5 Titanium to prove that it’s not just Micromax who has the capability to do that. Let’s see if it does manage that.

source: Think Digit

Features: The Karbonn S5 Titanium packs in quite an impressive amount of hardware under its hood. The aforementioned quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.2 GHz takes the centre-stage, of course. Complementing that is 1GB of RAM and a 2,000 mAh battery. The Titanium has a large 5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 960x540 pixels and a pixel density of 220 ppi. It offers 1.4 GB of internal memory directly accessible by the user and supports microSD cards up to 32GB. Imaging is handled by an 8MP camera that can shoot 720p at 30fps. Connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and dual-SIM support. The Titanium comes with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and although there is no word yet of a 4.2 update, there should be no reason the phone won’t get one (in any case, we will keep you updated on news of any forthcoming updates). The Karbonn sports a very basic version of the Android interface, so lovers of stock Android will be pleased. The S5 comes with a couple of pre-installed apps such as Kingsoft Office, Paytm, Popi, WeChat etc. but nothing that you couldn’t have downloaded from the Play Store for free yourself. All in all, the S5 Titanium has a solid set of features, especially on the hardware front. We do wish it offered more internal storage from the get-go but apart from that there’s not really much to complain about at this price-point.

Performance: The quad-core processor wouldn’t mean much if the S5 Titanium was unable to churn out good performance numbers. In Quadrant Standard and Smartbench 2012, the Titanium managed higher scores than the Micromax Canvas HD while it fell short in BrowserMark, Antutu and NenaMark 2. The Titanium seemed to not be able to perform well when it came to graphics benchmarks but we didn’t notice any issues when we played a graphically demanding game like Dead Trigger.In real-world performance, we didn’t face any significant issues when browsing the Web, as pages loaded quickly and were smooth to navigate.

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Avoid the “Big Bang” approach I would not suggest migrating 100 per cent of your global services from one model to another overnight – the repercussions here can, and will, be vast and overwhelming. Work carefully and collectively with the business: strategise and plan the migration – treating it like any large-scale transformation program/project. Be sure to put together communication plans, migration plans, and most importantly, risk mitigation plans. Our IT history is littered with the bodies of those who didn’t plan for and subsequently mitigate risks; don’t let yourself be one of them….

Finally, “Successfully Execute” In these turbulent times, IT desperately needs success stories, and our business partners are counting on us to provide them. Any CIO worth his weight in feathers will tell you that “IT must consistently, continually and successfully execute in order to demonstrate value.” Don’t let this venture be another reason for people to look down on IT….The decision to outsource any IT shop is difficult, and it is now even more difficult as we have a number of different outsourcing options before us; however, given the right level of forethought, strategy, negotiation, planning and subsequent execution, you can implement the model that best suits your business and IT organisation.

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event Report | Intelligent networks

Infrastructure with Intelligence IT managers need to make their network infrastructure intelligent enough to absorb the innovations around process automation, cloud and DCIM by T eam IT Nex t

ew technologies and architectures have put immense pressure on data centre managers to keep their networks up and running round the clock, reduce expensive downtime, conform to budgets, reduce energy usage in their networks, while evolving strategies to plan their networks and also focus on the design of the data centre to make it efficient. Data centre operators have a clear mandate: to lay down their priorities, track the ideal structures of the data centre, manage their infrastructure efficiently and intelligently for bottom line benefits, while gearing up to absorb new tools to make it efficient and flawless and offer a strong foundation for reliable computing. To examine these issues, ITNext in partnership with Commscope organised a six-city event titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Future of Intelligent Networks,â&#x20AC;? for senior IT infrastructure managers and data centre operators, towards the end of April, 2013.

Simon Cowley, Vice President, Global Technical Support, Commscope Enterprise Soluitons

James Young, Technical Director, Asia Pacific, COmmscope Solutions

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Chennai-Attentive Audience comprising senior IT managers: Also seen are the panelists for the evening-Bhavani Prasad, Head-IT, Fifth Avenue, Dr B Muthu Kumaran, DGM-IT, HTC Global Services along with IT NExt editor, N Geetha

Intelligent networks | event Report The six-city event held across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune comprised a panel discussion with top CIOs and Heads-IT on the panel along with Commscopeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top executives, all of who fielded questions from the audience. Each city had nearly 40 IT infrastructure and network heads who were keen participants. As a prelude to the discussions, James Young, Technical Director, Asia Pacific, Commscope, reiterated the importance of incorporating intelligence into the network infrastructure. Discussing the trends impacting data centres and their networks, Young emphasised the need to make infrastructure ready to absorb industry trends like cloud, process automation and DCIM (data centre infrastructure management) tools to make networks intelligent enough to drive down the cost. Young discussed the forces and factors that led data centres to cloud and also the elements which are necessary to drive intelligence into the network as well as the importance of having an overarching view of the infrastructure which helps enhance efficiency. Simon C Cowley, VP, Global Technical Support, Commscope elaborated on the cloud computing models which helped applications to be up and running faster, besides improved manageability with less maintenance. Cowley pointed how intelligent infrastructure provided the optimal foundation for the cloud, helping data centre managers in the remote management of web-based application, accurate end-to-end documentation, tracking of physical and virtual assets, automatic updates in closed loop, real-time alarms and in terms of capacity management etc. Cowley reiterated the fact that intelligent infrastructure helped in standardising process automation of the physical layer facilitating autodocumentation and records, facilitating troubleshooting, tracking device movement, integrating with CAD facility drawings, guided work orders, server deployment/decommissioning and remote management. Besides, the duo showcased how intelligent infrastructure provided vital capabilities to DCIM protecting and managing physical location of DC assets, server provisioning/location, switch port monitoring/utilisation, instant notification of connectivity events, real-time reports and dashboard/ DC visualisation. Ashok Srinivasan, the National Technical Manager for Commscope, delivered a talk on the need for intelligent infrastructure and how one can emulate ITIL framework to drive efficiency. Srinivasan explained how Commscopeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s imVision, an infrastructure management solution addressed and solved the business issues of an enterprise and helped in building an intelligent infrastructure. The event

V Natarajan, Managing Director, India & saarc, commscope enterprise solutions along with james young, technical director, asia pacific, commscope reiterating the trends impacting the data centres and the need to make infrastructure ready to absorb industry trends like cloud, process automation and DCIM tools

simon Cowley, VP, Global Technical Support, Commscope along with other panel members throwing light on how the intelligent infrastructure provided the optimal foundation for the cloud

Panel in Session in Delhi: R Giridhar, Group Editor, 9.9 Media looks on as the panel members take on the discussion and ponder over the trends prevailing in the net work infrastructure and importance of making the infrastructure ready to absorb evolving trends

culminated in a panel discussion of senior IT executives discussing the importance of laying emphasis on the intelligence infrastructure layers and technological innovations and trends impacting the infrastructure and its capacity to manage it efficiently. The discussion followed by a Q&A had the demo of imVision.

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Email via Cloud Iim Bangalore alumni association opts for reliable and scalable cloud-based email to connect 7,000 alumni

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IIM Bangalore Alumni Association | CASE STUDY

he IIMB Alumni Association (IIMBAA) was founded in 2008 by Rakesh Godhwani, an alumnus from Post Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management (PGSEM), batch of 2004, along with the Director and Deans as ex-officio members. For smooth governance of the association, it decided to deploy robust, scalable communication solution. IIMBAA deployed Microsoft Live@ Edu with the help of Gaboli, a cloud services specialist. This was later upgraded to Microsoft Office 365 for Education. This enables the alumni to interact and network effortlessly. The alumni get regular updates and can catch up with their batch mates or local alumni chapters. It also helps the alumni give back to the alma mater by coaching or mentoring students and fund-raising. Social media feeds allow alumni to share opportunities for internships and placements for the students or within the alumni community.

PHOTO I MAGING : RAJ VE RMA

Situationâ&#x20AC;Ś. Founded in 2008, the IIMB Alumni Association (IIMBAA) is the first professionally managed alumni organization of IIM, Bangalore. Rakesh Godhwani, an alumnus, along with 5 members, started the association. The association creates a platform for the alumni to connect and build support for its alma mater, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. IIMBAA aims to strengthen ties between the institute and alumni by encouraging them to participate in fund-raising, and social activities. It also manages and operates the alumni website, a bi-annual alumni magazine, periodic newsletters, hosts reunions and alumni events. After giving shape to the alumni body, Godhwani faced the daunting task of contacting and collating information of the alumni scattered around the world. The first batch at IIM-B passed out in 1976. This meant collecting the email IDs of around 10,000 people

across the globe and ensuring the list is up-to-date at all times. Instead, of tracking email IDs, he decided to follow the global trend of creating a robust and scalable messaging platform that would not only provide email IDs but also facilitate instant messaging, chat, networking and audio, video and web conferencing.

Solution As Godhwani had spent over a decade in the technology industry, he was familiar with the solutions available in the market. He decided to go with a state-of-theart messaging and collaboration platform. While evaluating cloud technologies for messaging, IIMBAA considered Microsoft Office 365 for EDU (erstwhile Live@Edu), a solution extensively used by educational institutes globally. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some of the best universities are using Office 365 for Education. During evaluation we realized this is because it offers a

Overview Organization Size: 6 employees

Organization Profile: The IIMB Alumni Association (IIMBAA) connects faculty, students and fellow alumni and aims to develop synergistic plans to support the institution and add value to all its stakeholders. Business Situation: IIMBAA needs communicate and collaborate with alumni across the world. This required the association to broaden its communication capabilities. Solution: IIMBAA opted for cloud based Microsoft Live@Edu, later upgraded to Office 365 for Education to create a robust, scalable messaging and collaboration platform. Benefits: Creates vibrant alumni community Makes networking easier Saves capital expenditure Promises scalable, reliable solution Success Factors: To address the daunting task of contacting and collating information of the alumni scattered around the world IMBAA opted for cloud based Microsoft Live@Edu, later upgraded to Office 365 for Education to create a robust, scalable messaging and collaboration platform The solution is being rolled out for 10,000 users in the alumni Created vibrant alumni community Made networking easier Saved capital expenditure Promises scalable, reliable solution Software and Services: Microsoft Office 365 Microsoft Exchange Online Microsoft SharePoint Online Vertical Industries: Higher Education Country/Region: India Languages: English

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CASE STUDY | IIM Bangalore Alumni Association full feature collaboration platform with communication tools that can be accessed from mobiles, desktops or any other device of choice, functionalities that were amiss in Google solutions,” says Godhwani. Gaboli Online Services, a specialist in offering cloud based web solutions for the education and enterprise markets, helped IIMBAA to deploy the solution. Explains Vineet Java, Gaboli Online Services, “Microsoft’s broad cloud offering made it a favorable choice over other solutions. Accessing the cloud on customers’ own terms made Office 365 for Education stand out against Google Apps.” Since no on-site hardware is required, implementation could start immediately without capital investment. The solution was deployed in August 2011 for 6,000 users initially. It provides a lifelong email identity to all the alumni. Later the solution automatically upgraded to Office 365 with same email IDs as Office 365 replaced Live@Edu. As all users have a personal and professional email address, so, it becomes cumbersome to access an additional email account to check only IIM-B information and updates. Thus, Gaboli has set up an auto forward to a mailbox of user’s choice that he or she accesses regularly. This ensures that users do not miss any updates and enables them to be actively involved. The association plans to bring year’s events onto a central calendar using Microsoft Exchange Online so that alumni can plan visits and tours around the activities. In last 4 years, the Office 365 alumni users have steadily grown to over 7,000, with highly encouraging conversion and usage rates. “Currently, there are about 10,000 users in the alumni for who this solution is being rolled out. And this is going to grow as each student who passes out will get an IIMBAA email ID by the institute,” explains Godhwani.

Pay Backs The IIMB Alumni Association has a reliable, robust, and secure communication and collaboration platform with outstanding support from Microsoft. Members can communicate through mail, instant messaging, voice chat, group video and social networking site features.

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“Microsoft’s broad cloud offering made it a favorable choice over other solutions. Accessing the cloud on customers’ own terms made Office 365 for Education stand out against Google Apps” Vineet Jawa CEO, Gaboli Online Services

and share updates. “Smoother interactions and information dissemination to the alumni helps us in the mammoth task of raising funds for the institute,” says Godhwani. “This platform makes it easy for alumni to engage and support the institute with their time and personal resources.”

Makes Networking Easier A central address book, and distribution groups creates networking opportunities. Alumni contribute via guest lecture or online classes, share high-resolution videos, or guidance to students from virtually anywhere. And they can reach many more students. “Each passing year, the sense of alumni community becomes stronger, and the new solution contributes to bring the alumni and institute in closer proximity.”

Saves Capital Expenditure

“Office 365 help bridge the gap between alumni, students and the institute. Its features enable knowledge sharing and allow everyone to stay connected” Rakesh Godhwani PGSEM’ Head-IIMB Alumni Association

Online services using Office 365 saves IIMBAA from any infrastructure investments on hardware, software and their maintenance. Microsoft takes care of patching, upgrading, and updating with 24x7 customer support on phone, besides software upgrades and maintenance.

Promises Scalable, Reliable Cloud Solution The cloud-based solution scales seamlessly for large numbers of simultaneous users. As such, it maintains performance and uptime as the association grows. Godhwani concludes, “Microsoft Office 365 gives an identity to the alumni, which is a great asset when they leave campus.”

Microsoft Office 365 Quick and efficient communication, disseminating information, taking regular feedback gives members a sense of ownership, and provides an avenue to contribute to, towards the direction of the association. Explains Godhwani, “Office 365 helps in bridging the gap between alumni, students and the institute. Its features enable knowledge sharing and allow everyone to stay connected.”

Creates Vibrant Alumni Community With Office 365 for Education, the alumni are able to catch up with old college mates

Microsoft Office 365 brings together cloud versions of our most trusted communications and collaboration products—Microsoft SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online—with the latest version of our Office desktop suite and companion web applications for businesses of all sizes. Office 365 helps save time and money, and it frees up valued resources and gives 99 per cent reliability. Office 365 features robust security, IT-level phone support, geo-redundancy, disaster recovery, and the business-class privacy controls and standards that you expect from a worldclass service provider.

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open Debate

book For you A platform to air your views on the latest developments and issues that impact you

Business Sutra Through Devdutta Pattnaik’s expert lenses, mythology takes on a nuanced meaning

PHOTO IMAG ING : shigil narayanan

What are the three value propositions of a Cloud?

Sandeep Mathur Managing Director, Oracle India

Neeraj Gill Managing Director - India & SAARC, Polycom

Customer adoption of cloud computing is seriously rising, and the key motivators are: 1. Cost savings 2. Speed and 3. Flexibility Through self-service access to an available pool of computing resources, users can be up and running in minutes instead of weeks or months. Making adjustments to computing capacity is also fast, thanks to elastically scalable grid architecture offered in a cloud solution. The pay-per-use model operates at a high scale and is highly automated and allows companies, to use worldclass infrastructure.

a) Always on--24 x 7 availability of the service. Within video collaboration, this typically takes the form of accessing video conference calls with the same ease and simplicity. b) Flexibility of deployment and growth--being able to pay as you use / pay as you grow enables organisations to be more flexible in how they implement next generation collaboration tools and ensures they can invest as they need. c) Operational expense delivery model--for many organisations, the primary driver to evaluate cloud delivery is the ability to move to a pure opex model rather than making upfront capital investments.

Virender Agarwal CEO, Ramco Systems The three value propositions of a cloud are: 1. Operating cost reduces to a fraction, no capital expenditure anymore 2. Scalability and flexibili ty--pay as you grow 3. Stay updated with the latest technology as upgrades come inbuilt To adhere to these values it is critical to know your journey (Evaluate the applications that can move to the Cloud with the least disruption); work through your strategy and route map. The option is aggressive strategy or gradual deployment. Free is good, but use 30 Day Trials or POCs. Don’t become a hostage--Contracts should be more than about a click.

Publisher : Aleph Book Company Price : Rs 556

“…as is belief, so is behaviour, so is business. This is business sutra, a very Indian approach to management.” Profound words, simply said. That’s Devdutta Patnaik’s book in a nutshell. But as you read along, you get the feeling that it has multiple layers of meaning. The best part is that the author lays bare the kernel of truth without obfuscation. Like any business book, this too is replete with case studies and infographics. But there’s a crucial difference. The stories are fictitious yet true to life and the quaint illustrations of mythological characters, drawn by the author, seem to be unfolding a parallel parable pictorially. Pattnaik is as intriguing as the page-turner he has written. Trained to be a doctor, he worked in the medical industry for 15 years pursuing his passion for mythologies parallelly. In 2008, he donned the hat of Chief Belief Officer at Future Group, becoming a full-time mythologist.The author presents a brilliant analysis of the beliefs prevalent in various cultures and how it has preconditioned people to see things through their particular lens of subjective reality. As is belief, so is behavior, so is busness. IT NEXT Verdict Belief plays a key role in business as it guides choices and actions of stakeholders. Pattnaik calls it the 3B framework—as is belief, so is behavior, so is business. This is business sutra, the string that connects belief with business.

Your views and opinion matter to us. Send us your feedback on stories and the magazine to the Editor at editor@itnext.in

Star Value:

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my log

Sangita thakur varma Managing Editor, India Now

: ra j

verma

Time for the Reckoning April and appraisals are not just all iterative, but synergistic for more reasons in the corporate lexicon

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3 Essential

Reads

MICHEL VAN WOUDENBERG | INTERVIEW

CRM-CLOUD RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Michel van Woudenberg, Vice President, CRM, Oracle Asia Pacific, who was part of Oracle’s Cloud World in India, elaborates on how enterprises are evolving a cloud strategy. In a freewheeling chat with N Geetha, Woudenberg provides insights into how CRM, as part of Oracle’s Fusion strategy, is revolutionising the customer space

PH OTOGRAPH Y: JIT E N GANDH I

directors, general managers and visiting vendors’ heads. After that all the work would be assigned the senior executives, who stayed late and did the dog’s work. Yet, the bosses would openly praise pay handsomely through appraisals. It was all very curious. After some time and being part of a few meetings, I realised they were the fountainheads of ideas, responsible for ensuring the company’s healthy bottom line. The example is just to illustrate the subjective nature of human talent. What appears to the eye is not always the truth. There are the ideators and the doers. Both are critical to an organisation. But only a manager working closely with both can decide what each deserves. The best way to deal with such a scenario is to remove a cog and then appraise the effectiveness of the wheel. Can it survive? Does it affect the performance of the team? Does it affect the company performance as a whole? If A’s performance is of consequence to the team, the larger group and the company, then by improving it, A will be contributing majorly to the whole. The targets of A will be aligned to the immediate tasks of individual/team and the goals to the larger company goal. With a clear vision of the company goal, A’s roadmap of personal goals will be well laid out. The appraisal will then be transparent and fair. What do you think?

What are the key considerations for Cloud among large enterprises, what are the challenges you see for them? A lot of organisations are adopting Cloud for flexibility for the ability to switch it on very quickly and the flexibility in scaling their user base from a few to so many; a lot more also, because it presents them a way to spend on operation from an operational budget rather than from a capital expense budget - because you rent the application rather than invest in servers and hardware, software infrastructure etc. Cost can be a factor as well, depending on the size and complexity of your organisation--sometimes it’s cheaper to rent the stuff in the Cloud than it is to buy a license, buy infrastructure, buy hardware and do it all yourself. And finally, I think, and it’s often overlooked, but when you rent a Cloud application, the innovation is actually coming from the vendor; meaning, every time we release new capabili-

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Oracle's VP-CRM, Woudenberg on how CRM is revolutionising Cloud Pg 36

Counter Strike to a

Data Breach

The DBIR report released by Verizon elaborates on growing data breaches with different types of attacks, and suggests ways to counter them with appropriate tools Team I T Nex t

Verizon's DBIR report on how to devise a counterstrike strategy to the growing data breaches Pg 26 CUBE CHAT | MAYANK MALIK

CUBE CHAT

Managing People, an Art

FAC T F I LE F U L L NA M E : M AYA NK M A L I K C U R R E NT D ES I G NAT I O N: I T & AU TO M AT I O N M A NAG E R

“The biggest challenge in one’s career is neither related to technology nor business, but managing people efficiently,’ says Mayank Malik, IT & Automation Engr., Bharat Oman Refineries

C U R R E NT R O L E : S I T E I T & AU TO M AT I O N M A NAG E R EX PE RT I S E : B U S I NES S PR O C ES S AU TO M AT I O N & SYST E M S M A NAG E M E NT

“Peer networking is the key which helps one to keep track about the latest trends in the tech-domain and one way of bridging the gap for most IT managers”

BY N ID H I V ER MA

MY SUCESS

MANTRA Do it with focus and right actions to see the spark

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PHOTO BY: J IT EN GA N D HI

“April is the cruellest month”. Whether you appreciate the season for its regenerative powers along with Geoffrey Chaucer or curse it with T. S. Eliot for “stirring dull roots with rain” and waking the zombies or the living dead from our mechanized existence, April or the beginning of the new financial year, is an unforgettable time in our corporate existence. Come April, it is time for the annual balance sheet to be taken out and updated. And here I mean our personal scorecard that we have to fill up and submit for the annual appraisal. Achievements against targets for the year gone by and goals against the next calendar year— a dreaded exercise for most managers! A month-long task that stretches into a few months and at the end of it some savour just desserts and some nurse broken hearts. Appraisals despite all the objective and measurable criteria to induce a 360 degree holistic assessment, remain open to criticism. Mainly because what they are used to judge are highly emotional and subjective subjects—human beings. The “how” is never easy to answer. As a junior executive on the IT team of a leading corporate house, I observed a strange phenomenon. There were some senior managers who seemed to idle away their duty hours. They would just be part of the many morning meetings with the powerful clique--managing director,

The aspiring social entrepreneur is very clear about ensuring that the solutions and systems deployed at BORL are always up to date. Says Malik, “Networking with peers helps in keeping track of the latest trends in the tech-domain, which is one way of bridging the technological gap among IT managers.” Innovation is a major driving force for Malik. His team recently started unlocking the potential of windows scripting and implemented a couple of business process automations. These had a direct impact on the cost savings of implementing third party solutions, while also motivating the IT department to maintain complex business solutions in-house. Malik believes the biggest challenge is neither related to technology nor business, but about managing people efficiently. “While technology can

WO R K EX PE R I E NC E : 14 Y E A R S FAVO U R I T E Q U OT E : “T H E DAY YO U STO P R EC E I V I NG PR O B L E M S F R O M PE E R S O R T E A M M E M B E R S I S T H E DAY YO U STO P L E A D I NG T H E M ” “YO U R M O ST U NH A PPY C U STO M E R S A R E YO U R G R E AT EST S O U R C E O F L E A R NI NG ” FAVO U R I T E B O O K : “AWA K E N T H E G I A NT WI T H I N” BY A NT H O NY R O B B I NS FAVO U R I T E FO O D : I ND I A N C H A AT FAVO U R I T E D EST I NAT I O N: K I NNAU R VA L L E Y, H I M AC H A L PR A D ES H FAVO U R I T E GA D G E T FO R WO R K : L A PTO P FAVO U R I T E GA D G E T FO R PE R S O NA L U S E : I PA D

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Bharat Oman's IT Engr Mayank Malik finds managing people is an art Pg 40