'On-Demand is just a new flavor'

Can you tell us about IT initiatives at Coca Cola?



We went live on SAP 4.7 in April 2003 and since then we have undertaken

various technology initiatives. Some of the prominent ones include the

implementation of EDW, number of satellite projects, few sales and distribution

projects and implementation of MFG Pro. We are now in the process of upgrading

MFG Pro to SAP.

What are your top IT priorities for this year?



We are considering deploying Business Intelligence, Disaster Recovery and

Business Continuity Plans (BCP) solutions and pilots for these undergoing in

consultation with our partners.  We are also planning for introducing video

conferencing, VoIP with imaging and point-point communication with all our

partners and vendors. Also evaluating deployment of ERP-II project.

How do you decide on your IT needs and budget for the same?



In our company, all the decisions are taken at global level but implemented

at local levels. The global CIO, CTO, CSO drive the IT policy. We have a IS

standards committee which once every two years conducts IS audits and recommends

the changes to be made across all our global establishments. Budgets are based

on these recommendations and in India, we have budgeted for this year around 1.5

per cent of our revenue here for all our IT initiates.

What's your take-on the concept of 'On -Demand' computing touted by IT big

guns?



'On-Demand' is just a new flavor but what the companies offer is nothing

new. They (the vendors) are just trying to enter new space. It's the practice of

vendors to add a lot of value added services for their existing offerings and

this 'On-Demand' concept needs a lot of focus to provide services beyond what is

already being offered. CIOs need to drive them to provided those VAS in the

'On-Demand' space.

Have you outsourced development? What processes have you outsourced? 



Though we have team of around 140 people in our IT team, we have outsourced

most of our internal activities. We don’t have any dedicated development team

to support it. There is no problem with the outsourcing model and we have

achieved significant cost savings with this model. Also all the strategic

management and strategic direction have been outsourced. We have outsourced

security and infrastructure management to Netsol, Quantum, VSAT & VPN to

HCL, GE and facility management to Infosys. For application outsourcing we are

considering 6 vendors and plan to outsource our telephony operations also and

evaluating the top guns in the segment including BSNL, Bharti, Equant and

others.

Could you tell us about the challenges ahead?



For us the foremost technology challenge is to put enterprise data

warehousing (EDW) in place. Another biggest challenge is to manage the supply

chain by reducing top line overload and direct marketing expenses. We are also

planning to make business information available in real time. In general, IT

departments need to push back on the business more and act more like an external

supplier. This means not turning down work, but being more up-front about the

costs and consequences of a project.