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RFID is underutilized, says Nortel CIO

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CIOL Bureau
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CMN Bureau

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BANGALORE, INDIA: Consider this: Your cabin automatically lights up as you enter, your workstation switches on, the project presentation, which you wanted to see the first thing in the morning, unfurls on the white screen…

This new cabin, which sounds straight out of a science fiction, is set to be a reality soon. Canada-based telecom major Nortel is working on developing this technology.

Steven J Bandrowczak, chief information officer of Nortel, told CyberMedia News that his firm is in the process of developing a technology that collaborates RFID and unified communication devices, which would make ‘sci-fi’ a reality. He, however, did not specify a date for the launch.

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Bandrowczak said Nortel is working on seamless connectivity. “Unified communication, RFID and WiMAX are the innovations, which will see more adoption among the enterprises. If you look at unified communication, it brings lot of value to the customer. I think RFID is underutilized. Another thing is wireless network. I think wireless will explode. Today wire and wireless co-exist, which is a pain to manage both.”

CIO as CEO

To a specific question on the role of CIOs in the changing business environment, he said the distance between the CIO and the CEO is fast diminishing. He predicted there will be a convergence of both the roles.

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“From the last five years or so, the CIO’s role has changed. Now they are involved in the corporate functional activity rather than looking at only technology adoption. CIO role is to creating value, driving customer engagement, company strategy. I think CIO is heading a functional role in any enterprise. I see the gap is closing between CIO and CEO,” Bandrowczak clarified.

Nortel’s CIO opined that Web 2.0 is not matured enough for adoption in the enterprise space, despite a lot of features it offers. “It is not a strategy to adopt in the enterprise environment. It doesn’t have any business value. But in the future companies might adopt Web 2.0. But it will be then in a different form.”

Going green

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Nortel has brought down its number of application to 100 from 1100. Bandrowczak said the company is looking at its common business process from a global business process perspective.

The firm’s business will not be hit by bring down the number of applications, he said. “Essentially you will have a lot of applications in the database side, which are not adding value to IT. There will be lot of different kind of databases. From that, we need to go for rationalization of databases.”

Bandrowczak, however, added that security concerns have to be addressed while rationalizing databases.

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Employees support any change that will bring more value, he said. “For any change, first thing is to create a vision on how things will be more simplified and bring value to the job. Try and explain why this change is necessary.”

Managing partners

Nortel has outsourced some of its daily activities pertaining to IT to partners in India, US and Canada. The firm is now looking at Europe for partners.

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“Negative thoughts prevail with those who doesn’t know how to manage. If people are looking at cost benefit from outsourcing it is only for a short period. It might benefit your profit and loss account for a small time. If you know how to manage your partners, then it would be long-term relationships. Skills and efficiency are key to the partnership,” Bandrowczak responded to a query on the negative thoughts that prevail in the industry on outsourcing to external companies.

On China, he said professionals in that country lack soft skills. “In China you will see young engineering talent, excellent execution of projects. However, they lack in soft skills.”

Bandrowczak was in Bangalore on a short visit. He visited a few IT firms in the city, including Infosys.

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He joined Nortel in July this year from Lenovo Group, where he was the CIO. Earlier, he was also the CIO of DHL Worldwide, a major player in the logistics industry.

“The role of a CIO across any industry is almost similar. In Nortel, my responsibility is to bring value through the technology adoption. There is a lot of synergy between a PC company and a telecom company. Simplify the business and bring more value in servicing the customers and managing partners,” he said.

Bandrowczak, however, said logistics business is “dramatically different” from PC or telecom companies.

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