IT In His Veins

“Today it's not just financial matters but the entire business model that can be dramatically changed by the manner in which it actually leverages information technology,” says Yogesh B Mathur, group chief financial officer, Moser Baer India. With this strategic approach, Mathur implements IT not only in his own functioning but the organization as a whole.

The fact that he directly reviews IT functioning helps spearhead this approach at a broader organizational level well beyond the finance function. As Mathur points out, it would be better to view IT applications in an integrated manner across the organization to make the most out of it. In fact, the pain area that he shortlisted as the CFO and on which the company is now working, is a single window view of the entire organization. This incorporates functions ranging from sourcing to production to inventory management to supply chain and logistics management.

Yogesh Mathur,CFO, Moser Baer

Early Orientation to IT

The man at the helm of the financial affairs of the Rs 1,732 crore optical media giant has no easy task at hand. He copes with the rampant growth while strategizing the ever-continuing expansion of the company. Being tech savvy, certainly helps. Perhaps this came from his orientation in IT, early in life. Though not having received any formal IT education, it is interesting to know that Mathur headed IT function in his previous assignments with other companies. Those experiences brought about an early understanding of leveraging IT. Besides, it certainly made him more appreciative and empathetic towards the IT function and its requirements even while meeting his own function's objectives. Thereby, learning the art of fine balancing the two fronts, personal and company affairs.

Mathur realizes the various challenges faced by a CIO.

In CFO's Avatar

The dynamics of the trade are changing and so is the finance functioning, which is no longer restricted to just accounting. It also involves strategic planning and steering the company's growth, making the job of a CFO all the more challenging and critical. According to Mathur, IT has enabled the evolution of the finance function from accounting and compliance to processes, efficiencies and profitability to support decision making to a strategic level.

Mathur relies on IT tools that help him climb this ladder of evolution, towards a strategic level. ERP, datamining and data warehousing are some of the critical applications that enable him make more accurate and timely decisions. “For the finance function, the major role for IT is to ensure that right information is available at the right time. It should give a control perspective and ensure accuracy of all financial indices,” he explains. This, according to him, forms the crux of IT in finance.

Managing Expectations

Ask him about his expectations from IT in business benefits as the CFO and Mathur appears to be quite clear on the returns. According to him, the 3Cs-cash, capacity and cost-are important in assessing the benefits. “While these are all inter-related but it is imperative to assess these three areas,” he adds. For instance, cost effectiveness is a given for any IT deployment. How much cost can IT save over a period of time is the key question. Second, in terms of a manufacturing setup, Mathur considers it important to answer if IT can increase capacity effectiveness, will IT mean more efficient utilization of capacity? Can IT be used to manage the troughs and peaks of business and schedule production accordingly to get the highest throughput the year round? Beyond the factory, on the intangible side, one needs to look at how IT can improve the capacity of each individual in the organization. Finally all this, feels Mathur, should result in higher cash availability in organization. “So if IT tracks these three areas and gets a good feedback, I think IT has done a great job,” he adds.

This CFO's wish list to the IT department-it should be proactive and try to get the buy-in from the functional heads; it has to ensure that the application owner are the process owners and not IT owners; it should try to bring in every department of the organization by leveraging usage of current applications.

Shipra Arora

shipraa@cybermedia.co.in