Embrace IT with Open Arms

Emerging: English adjective form of emerge; rising (coming to maturity); the rising generation

Emerging enterprises are, without doubt, the new poster boys of the Indian industrial landscape. Not only are their graphs rising in the India Inc index, most of these organizations are well on their way to attaining business maturity. Albeit, there is still some distance to traverse before they are catapulted into the same bracket of emerging enterprises in developed countries, but the gap is, no doubt, vanishing very fast. Automation has arguably been the most powerful catalyst in the growing maturity of these emerging enterprises.

his brings us to the more fundamental and probably the most difficult question. How do you define an emerging enterprise? Or, more precisely, what are the criteria for an enterprise to qualify as an Emerging one? For one, the definition would obviously be time and geography-dependent. Many emerging enterprises of developed economies would probably fit into the significant or the very large category of Indian enterprises. And this is precisely where even the IT vendors in India (the architects of automation for emerging enterprises) get mired in confusionfollowing the global definition of emerging enterprises makes little sense in the Indian context. These and several such issues were debated during the Dataquest CIO Summit for Emerging Enterprises, recently organized across the four cities of Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi.

Esoteric Spread

One singular measure of the good health of the Indian industry and consequently, that of the emerging enterprises could be gauged from their spread across sectors. The ecelectic mix of panelists and delegates from cross verticals reinforced these sentiments. From small regional banks to stock brokers to travel agents to small retail chains to auto ancillariesthe palate was not just a la carte, it was esoteric enough to draw the attention of IT vendors of all hues and sizes. Therefore, it was not just Ketan Parekh of Angel Broking, Mumbai, or a Niti Batra of Joy Travels in Connaught Place, Delhi, who participated, but we also had Prof Krishnendu Sarkar of NSHM Knowledge Campus of Kolkata and Bobby Varghese of SlashSupport BPO in Chennai.

Many of these emerging enterprises would tomorrow graduate into the big league; and, IT would definitely play a major role in this transformation. This, however, should not mean that those who will be left behind would not be taking the IT pillchances are that their transmutation would take a longer time, but little doubt that ultimately, only automation would prove to be the elixir of change. Also, remember, tomorrow a new crop of emerging enterprises would step into the court; and hopefully, the experience of their predecessors would ensure they too embrace IT at the first opportunity with open arms.

Srinivasan beaming at Chennai during a keynote session

All across four cities we had an esoteric mix of speakers who delivered keynote addresses: while the SI community was represented by Ranjan Chopra, MD of Team Computers in Delhi and Rajarshi Ghosh of Epitom Networks in Kolkata, the consultant/analyst angle was well represented by Amitava Dutta of Thirdplanet Technologies (formerly of Pwc, Tech Mahindra among others) in Kolkata and Alok Shende of Frost & Sullivan in Mumbai. Most importantly, the user side too was represented by SS Srinivasan of Sundar, Sridhar & Srini (a chartered accountant firm) in Chennai and also by Akhil Chandra of Times of India, Delhi.

Taking Notes: (from L-R) Bobby Varghese of SlashSupport gives an ear while Rajneesh De of Dataquest moderates, Somick Goswami of PWC takes points, and Mahesh of Maverick Systems and Ravi Pinto of BEA Systems join in!

Lessons for All

Most of them concurred that IT spending by emerging enterprises has surpassed or is poised to surpass IT spending by big businesses. This combined with the fact that SMBs usually come free of the baggage of legacy systems and integration issues, frequently seen in large businesses, seem to present a sizeable business opportunity for IT vendors. However, both the CIOs and the consultants present across all cities agreed that vendors should strike the right balance between providing solutions, which offer an immediate value in select domains as opposed to those which provide significant value across the enterprise when systems and processes mature. IT solutions with long deployment times are unlikely to be effective given the dynamics of this segment. Deployment of quick win solutions in revenue linked areas such as sales force automation technologies would be effective in garnering the much needed initial client commitments. Vendors need to educate customers to adopt a value-driven approach as opposed to investment-driven approach.

Destination Chennai: (from L-R) Ariff Kamil of eG Innovations, besides SS Srinivasan of Sundar, Sridhar & Srini, KK Raman of KPMG, and R Ramesh of Cholayil, and Gurkiran Singh of Fortinet

Discussion in Full Swing: (from L-R) Akhil Chandra of the Times Group, Rajneesh De of Dataquest, Vijay Sethi of Ranbaxy, Edward David of Holy Family Hospital, Abhijit Ranade of PWC, and Anand Sengupta of Daikin Airconditioning

Panel Poses for Photographs: (from L-R) Athar Haque of eHealth-Care, Niti Batra of Joy Travels, Ranjan Chopra of Team Computers, Kusum Vasudeva of Tristar Intech, and Gautam Dua of Fortinet in Delhi

Kolkata Calling: (from L-R) Prof Krishnendu Sarkar of NSHM Knowledge Campus, Dr GP Srivastava of Albert David Pharma, Rajarshi Ghosh of Epitom Networks, and Anjan Mukherjee of Belle Vue Clinic

Though a majority of the emerging enterprises are yet to consider IT as strategic, there is no denying the fact that the picture is gradually changing. Many of these organizations are slowly coming around to the point that IT can help them serve customers better, improve employee productivity and, most importantly, understand their business better and, therefore, judiciously foresee the future.

Some of them have already witnessed more measurable benefits: IT has enabled them to substantially reduce their inventories, improve bottomlines and thereby increase their market shares. Automation is also enabling many of these emerging enterprises to achieve a complete image makeover: not only is the degree of IT usage of individuals increasing, organizations are adopting IT to move with the current trends and subsequently enhance their company images.

Minds at Work: (from L-R) Rajneesh De of Dataquest moderates the panel at Kolkata and Prof Krishnendu Sarkar of NSHM Knowledge Campus, Sushant Saha of InuvaSoft Technologies, Vishnu Gupta of CMRI Hospital, Amitava Dutta-Thirdplanet Technologies, Partha Kundu of PWC, Satish Chowdhary of Leading Edge and Gurkiran Singh of Fortinet take note

Listening Carefully: (from L-R) Sushant Saha of InuvaSoft Technologies, Vishnu Gupta of CMRI Hospital, and Amitava Dutta of Thirdplanet Technologies

Together at Mumbai: (from L-R) Subhodeep Bhattacharya of HP ProCurve, Sagar Kunte of Wanbury, Sona Saha Das of TSR Darashaw, Ketan Shah of Angel Trading, Ravi Pinto of BEA Systems, Ritu Madbhavi of FCB-Ulka, and Sam George of Ddamas

Two to Tango: (from L-R) Bhushan Akerkar from ACNielsen listens carefully while Anthony takes notes

But, most of the panelists admitted there are still problems galore for most emerging enterprises. There is the common litany of complaints against the vendorsthey do not provide the preferred tailor-made solutions, they make tall claims but do not demonstrate the functions enough and most often they end up pushing expensive products down the throats of the CIOs. In addition, different quotations from different vendors for addressing similar problems often create confusion.

Shortage of trained IT manpower is another major bottleneck confronting these emerging enterprises: not only is there a general lack of technical know-how among employees of emerging enterprises, but even the proprietor or chief operating officer (CEO) is usually a non-IT person who unfortunately takes most of the IT decisions. Since most of these employees lack confidence in operating IT, they naturally resist most IT adoption attempts in these organizations. And as it is difficult to retain IT people in most cases due to lack of career prospects, these emerging enterprises often cannot go for high-end IT products which require complex management skills.

Team DQ

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in