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.
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.
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.