'Technology is not the panacea for all ills'

BANGALORE, INDIA: Public Service Undertakings (PSUs) are an integral part of India, which generate thousands of employments and contribute significantly to the economy. Of all the PSUs in India, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd (RCF) enjoys a respectable position. It is working closely with the government on certain missions.

The company is committed to increasing the national agricultural productivity by providing agricultural inputs and services. RCF also promotes self-reliance in all activities in relation to its operations, including process know-how, design and engineering, erection, commissioning, operations, maintenance of plants and marketing of products.

The company has long been looking to harness IT to take its business to a new level and has succeeded in doing so. Its visionary leader, DGM (IT) Narendra Kumar Verma, who is also its CIO, has worked hard to bring in some drastic changes that have started to reflect in the company's operations now.

Now, RCF is planning to cash in on the power of cloud computing solutions in recent future to further its growth. Here, in this interview, Verma talks about the importance of various IT solutions at RCF, and how they helped in terms of growth and revenues.

CIOL: What are the major technology investments at your enterprise?

Verma: Deployment of ERP (SAP) software has been the most significant part of IT investment since 2005, accompanied by appropriate upgrade of data centre and necessary support infrastructure.

The server hardware, storage systems, peripherals and network communications infrastructure form the core of the technology investment at RCF. Periodic refreshes of software and hardware at the data centre and user end also contribute to these investments.

Based on the threat perception and security threats on installations of national importance, a major investment decision has been taken recently for deploying an IT-enabled CCTV Surveillance and Access Control system for individuals and vehicles entering our premises.

All the groundwork for this project has been completed, and the system integrator for this work has been finalized. Physical installation of complete surveillance system is expected to be completed in the second quarter of the current financial year.

CIOL: Any overhauls of significant scale or value?

Verma: ERP saw its major overhaul in 2010 with upgrade from ECC 5 to ECC 6 and BW 3.5 to BI 7. Also included in this upgrade were several new implementations (Enterprise Portal, ESS and MSS, BI Business Object, GRC — Access Control and Process Control). These add-on modules were specifically procured to coincide with the ERP version upgrade for better integration.

Another important upgrade has been executed on campus network, enabling it to bring Gigabit to the desktop and to obtain uninterrupted Internet traffic; leased lines of higher bandwidth from multiple service providers have been acquired.

Mailing and internal communication infrastructure is due for a major overhaul since its implementation over a decade ago. RCF is currently looking for a suitable mailing and messaging platform as part of its immediate plans.

CIOL: What are your future plans and strategies?

Verma: As mentioned earlier, mail and messaging with directory services implementation in phase one and collaboration in phase two are in project planning stage. An elaborate Document Management System for archiving, indexing and retrieving all kinds of documents are also on the cards.

To have better transparency and corporate governance, physical file movement tracking, SMS alerts for customers/vendors on despatch of material and bill tracking are also in our mind, in addition to the Document Management System. ISMS implementation, mobility solutions for sales force automation are also on the radar.

CIOL: What are your areas of interest from recent tech breakthroughs?

Verma: With a plethora of new services being offered and deployed, management of these services is going to be a huge challenge with inadequate internal resources in terms of qualified technology people.

Skillsets requirements have increased phenomenally with evolution of cutting-edge technology and this may compel us to harness the power of a cloud-based managed hosting solution in the recent future. RCF is currently in the process of identifying areas for managed hosting within the broad framework and regulations of the PSU.

CIOL: What is your advice to peers in terms of lessons, mistakes or challenges you experienced?

There are certain key learnings that are all pervasive, yet remain relevant through the technology changes:

1. Make a project user-driven for it to be widely acceptable and successful. This happens only when the users see themselves as an integral part of the entire process.

2. Change management is not merely changing the ways businesses are done; it is more of conditioning of minds of the people, who are part of the process, without ever making them feel that things were not being done efficiently before.

3. In-built redundancy in technology and support personnel form the backbone of a robust and resilient IT set-up.

4. Technology is not the panacea for all ills. Often business issues need to be resolved with human intelligence and common sense.

CIOL: IT as a competitive differentiator/innovator/business value centre at your organization. How?

Verma: The role of IT in RCF has always been as a provider of business value to its operations. We have taken the role of innovator from time to time to bring in technology changes and facilitate business transformation as and when the situations demanded. The impact of these innovations can be clearly seen from the consistently improving performance and enhanced image of the organization.

CIOL: Are there any other points to consider?

Verma: Ubiquitous presence of IT in any organization does not guarantee realization of its true potential. The technology has to be fully in sync with the corporate objectives and accepted by every individual in the organization, which is possible if the emphasis remains on achieving higher productivity with simplified procedures, irrespective of the complexities of the technology.

Garnering the trust of top management and confidence of users are the main two pillars, that support a successful information technology solution.