A Ray Of Discipline

Commodore Ray D'Souza is from the 26th NDA Course.  He

entered the Defence Services with a bang.  The day he joined the National

Defence Academy, the Khadakvasla Dam burst.  The day he passed out from the

NDA, Pandit Nehru passed away. Ray D'Souza says “Having had all my joints

suitably lubricated by the Naval College of Engineering, Lonavla, I was

subsequently 'shocked into action' in 1968 in the Navy's Electrical School,

INS Valsura.” 

Ray had served tenures in the Navy as Commanding

Officer INS Tunir, GM—Technical, Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnam.  He was also

a leader of an Indian Software Design Team in Los Angeles, USA.

In 1995, he decided to drop anchor after 34 years in

white uniform and entered the eccentric world of advertising.  He now

steadfastly refuses to wear white shirts, and sports a variety of colorful

shirts and ties, at Lintas India, where he is director of systems and

technology.  His current ambition is to channelize, the few hair he has

left, into a ponytail, something that continues to be a long-term goal.

Though he left the electrical branch of the Indian Navy

in 1995, Ray D'Souza continues to be fully charged. Apart from being charged

for his choicest sports, Ray also gets his creative adrenalin rush by

dappling with IT at Lowe Lintas.

Given the work environment where everything is in

'needed it yesterday' mode, Ray has devised innovative methods to suit the

eccentricities of the advertising world. He has systems and processes in

place that allow him to not only set up systems on the fly, but also be able

to meet the simple needs such as a CD drive to be fixed optimally without

causing extra cost to the company. Especially the advertising industry where

the IT spend is not in the range of BFSIs and the manufacturing, Ray D'Souza

is constantly torn between the deliveries of top of the class IT solutions

at low or no cost.






 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Success Stories

The agency has two applications, which are widely used

in all the offices; a customized ERP system using Oracle as the database-all

users connect via Citrix to access this application. Apart from this they

have knowledge management developed using SQL and Web based interface.
Implementation of LINWIZ-the first ERP system for an ad agency was the early
success stories in Ray's cap at Lintas.

Ray opined that being from a naval background,

innovation and cost effectiveness was the only way of life. Though there are

mandates to be followed for IT usage from the parent company he tries to

innovate with existing solutions and also look for cost effective solutions

that can address other related issues. For example, the company wanted to

save cost on an e-mail client and looked at innovating with product. For

Lintas, Gajshield was a solution, which would be cost effective and allow

innovation too. Worldwide Lintas uses Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange,

but Ray implemented Lowemail by using a local vendor Gajshield for the mail

client.

Ray is known to innovate and optimize on resources and

cost. The early VoIP adoption at Lintas is a legendary story, but not in the

way we know VoIP. Lintas had their STD bills running over Rs 2 crore in a

year. Ray implemented a cost effective solution-built a VoIP set up around

the existing EPBX with 250 lines. The cost came down to Rs 5 lakh.

My

Success Mantra

I

empower and support my deputies and allow them a free hand thereafter. 

How would you like to

retire?



As an advertising man, I would like to use the slogan coined by my own
agency 'To retire from work, but not from life'.

What are you at 'when

not in office'?



I spend a lot of time pursuing physical fitness and hit the gym regularly.Â
Even at my age, I enjoy weight training as well as cardio-vascular

exercises.  My gym gave me a 'Super Achiever Award' for being the youngest

58 year old.  I also thoroughly enjoy astronomy, natural history, and

outdoors activities.  For intellectual stimulation away from work, I dabble

in the stock market with mixed results, and am a cryptic crossword

aficionado.

In the office what

takes most of your time?



In the office, most of my time is spent in technical co-ordination and
technology planning.  I also spend a lot of time interacting with users and

appreciating the practical difficulties they face.

How do you handle your

team?



I practice in 'The one minute manager and leadership' tenet, which states
that the best leader is one who “When the job is done, the people say, we

did it ourselves”.  I believe that unobtrusive leadership, mature guidance,

and unqualified support are the keystones to success of any technology team.

In Control

What really surprises one while interacting with Ray is

when he receives a mail from HR-a resignation letter from an employee in the

design team. On being questioned why the resignation letter copy to you? Ray

the man of surprises he is, pulls out an excel sheet on his desk top-their

Bangalore office layout-and shares that he has the complete break up and

specs of who has what computer and what peripherals with it, and in this

world when everything is in 'we needed it yesterday terms' it allows him to

avoid unexpected costs on hardware of all kind. For example, if the IT team

gets a request for a DVD copier from an employee he reallocates the device

from another user who has resigned and will not be using it. Also it helps

in avoiding duplicating as, if there is a need for a particular device,

gadget or disk etc and if he knows an employee will soon be quitting he can

reallocate or assign the inventory in an optimum way.

Similarly, the way the printing cost is under control

at the agency is a case study in itself. Ray has the printing software

running on his desktop where at any given time he can see who is printing

and how many pages. There have been alerts created to inform Ray if the

certain numbers are crossed. So if you are under Ray's IT setup you can

forget about printing online books and all the forwards etc you like to

decorate your soft boards with.

For Ray, the profession is not without its challenges.

He has to deal with a creative lot who are indifferent to IT and the

management who only understands the cost language. IT by its nature, tends

to be a back office function and therefore not visible unless there is a

problem.  If the organization is considered a human body, then IT is the

nervous system.  The only time human beings realize they have a nervous

system is when they are in pain!!  The challenge therefore is to make IT

more visible and quantify achievements in terms, which others appreciate and

understand. In the IT profession, we need to demystify the jargon and be

seen as a partner rather than an adversary.  By nature, our work is “cut and

dried” in its approach, and so our professional temperament is similar.   We

need to be more tolerant of human inconsistencies in framing specifications

and actively help users in resolving ambiguities. We need to convince our

CXOs and CFOs to sanction our budgets with conviction rather than

resignation!! It is important that the top level is far sighted not only on

the business front, but also have a vision and road map for IT. For Ray the

qualities needed to succeed as a CIO is the ability to adapt to both

organizational as well technological changes.  To be able to see “the big

picture” and harness technology for the greater good and prosperity of the

organization.

Minu Sirsalewala







minuvs@cybermedia.co.in