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Dataquest holds 9th CIO panel discussion

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CIOL Bureau
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Bangalore: Dataquest held its ninth CIO panel discussions in Bangalore. The

discussion was aimed at IT departments in Enterprises as business developers.

The panel included Mukt Bihari, AGM (IS and IT), ITI Ltd.; N Kailashnathan, vice

president - IT, Titan Industries; P K Nigam, head - Infrastructure Management

Center, Hindustan Lever Ltd.; B Gopalakrishna Bhat, additional general manager

(IT), Bharat Electronics Ltd. from the Enterprise segment. Sujit Banerjee,

country manager - Strategic Outsourcing, IBM India Ltd. from the Industry and

Atul Chitnis, consulting editor, PC Quest and Prasanto K Roy, chief editor,

Dataquest Group who also moderated the discussion.

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The role played by the IT departments in organizations to contribute to the

company's business was one of the key points of the discussion. It was seen

that, there are a lot more issues that the IT departments have to pass through

to ensure implementation of a new IT system and in turn influence the business

process. "IT department's role ends only when benefits are realized,"

said P K Nigam.

Adding to this, Sujit Banerjee said it is important for an organization to

keep all the issues in mind right from the discussion stage and build it into

the business process, so as to get the full benefit of any system.

Usage of IT system to reap the benefits is a very important part of the

implementation process. "Internal marketing of the new system, training the

users and preparing them to accept a new environment is a crucial role the IT

department has to play to make the process work," said Mukt Bihari.

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One of the key issues that were highlighted during the discussion was the

need to quantify the return on investments in IT. "There is pressure to

quantify the metrics of implementing new IT systems. In our case, where the

number of users is high, there are other administrative measures taken along

with the implementation, so it becomes difficult to quantify the actual

benefits," said Mukt Bihari.

"It is difficult to quantify the actual benefits of any system.

Sometimes cost benefits are visible, but what is important is the increase in

speed of operations. It is survival of the fastest and not the fittest in this

case. But these are intangible benefits," said B Gopalakrishna Bhat. Return

on investment must be looked at as a moving target. There is a need to look at

the benefits prior to implementing a new system and work on it through the

entire cycle, and also the post implementation, as there will be variations in

parameters through the cycle," said Atul Chitnis.

The other issues raised at the discussion were the cost factors, efficiency

as a measure of return on investment, visible benefits that cannot be quantified

and the need for the IT departments to justify their plan for an upgrade,

whether it is hardware or software, something that cannot be neglected.

Finally, Atul Chitnis highlighted the need for IT departments to take the

initiative of keeping the employees updated on the latest technologies and the

future technologies so as to prepare them for what would be coming in the near

future and hence ensure the success of a new system in an organization.

Dataquest's CIO series 2001 on enterprise issues have included eight panel

discussions so far -- in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. Subjects included

obsolescence, enterprise security, outsourcing, e-business, and others.

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