Consolidation leads to cost effectiveness. Air Deccan, a low-cost carrier, has given a testimony to this in its low-cost tickets. Arvind Saksena, CIO, Air Deccan, who thinks IT as an investment rather than expenditure, says that they could achieve this due to an integrated system, in an interaction with B.V. Shiva Shankar and Sigi Achappa of CIOL. Excerpts:

CIOL: What calls for the integration of IT assets in an organization?

Arvind Saksena: At a stage when an organization grows to a critical level, the consolidation of infrastructure takes place. Then the organization should mobilize all of its resources to do the consolidation. It is not that they don’t do consolidation at the beginning, but they cannot do at that stage.

When the organization rises to a critical level, growth is so much dependent on IT that they start thinking IT as a main tool for their revenue segment. IT remains as a functional asset till a particular point, beyond which it will be transformed into something that we can call ‘the asset that saves the cost and enhance revenue’. At that point of time, the organization realizes that it has to consolidate its assets.      

CIOL: How can you identify critical points for integration in this disruptive era, wherein the assets are fast getting outdated?

AS: In IT, things change very fast. You have a technology that is discovered, propagated and populated normally over three years. People will keep on sending upgrades and you have to upgrade your assets to the next level. In terms of functionality improvements you can be talking to software, import and export data. And data keeps on changing with more kind of functionalities. You have to upgrade your infrastructure along with the change in technology and your business growth. At this stage if you have your infrastructure integrated, it is not only easier to go to next level but also cost effective.

CIOL: Integrated infrastructure may lead to a cost-effective system, but integration itself involves cost factor. How do you justify this to the management?
 
AS: I won’t justify the cost or the RoI, however, the business has to justify it. My job is to facilitate the organization with the system that is synchronized with the growth of the business, besides being an escalator to it. To do this you have to look into the whole architecture of the company. If you know where your company would reach in five years, then you can plan and build scalability. For example, I receive 25,000 calls in a day. Then, I must be able to receive more calls than this figure tomorrow. That demands complete homework from my side. It depends on the number of my clients, population of Web users, offerings of my organization, etc.

I must be able to extrapolate all of this. So, when I am designing the call centre, I have to plan for the infrastructure, whether it is space infrastructure or tech infrastructure that can address the future needs.

In order to tackle the cost factor you have to have a clear vision. And based on the vision, which is clear, the cost will transform into effectiveness.

CIOL: How easy or how difficult for you to get the required IT budget?

AS: Budget will always be a challenge in any organization. If someone says that he doesn’t have a problem, he is wrong. As I said earlier, business should justify the cost. In our company, we take IT as an investment. We have not taken it as expenditure. We have been able to maintain low-cost tickets basically due to IT. We handle everything through the Web. Otherwise, the cost of handling people, manpower, and paperwork is so voluminous that it is next to impossible.

Here, everything, including logistics, training, etc., is automated. We don’t require that kind of manpower that would eat away our budget. We are still accurate because we have an automated and consolidated system such as airline resource management system. Thereby, we are saving costs.

CIOL: What are the challenges involved in the process of integration of IT assets?

AS: Challenges are internal. There are two types of systems – a legacy system that is old and a new system. To make them talk to each other is the major challenge. Making old systems perform at their optimal in a consolidated and new atmosphere is another challenge.

CIOL: What are the points that an enterprise needs to keep in mind during any implementation process?

KS: Integration is very complicated process. It is not like we have decided and we can do it. As it is a complex process, one should be very cautious that all steps taken for the integration should not fail. He must know the purpose of integration and the ramification of failure, if any. Otherwise, things may go wrong. In this aspect, he has to be very particular.

The team has to be taken into confidence. Otherwise, you are pushing on them and when it comes to integration, the team itself may be demoralized. Team management is another aspect. You must know your points of failure. Your correct leadership plays an important role. The point is: you must know where the points of failure are and how to work around those.

 Source:CIOL Bureau