Enterprise Next: Innovate, optimize, realize

BANGALORE, INDIA: While consolidation and rationalization has been part of the CIO agenda, innovation optimization and readiness should become the next key elements for them.

According to an internal survey by Philips, a majority of consumers disliked waking up in the morning because the dark and cold ambiance in the room prohibited them from stepping out.

Based on this observation, Philips launched a product called wake-up light alarm that emits rising sun-like rays in the room, half an hour before the alarm rings. This readies human body to get out of the bed. This was a simple example of innovation in technology but it helped significantly in providing benefits to the company in terms of sales and customer acquisition.

Taking innovation as one of the key parameters, CyberMedia India Online limited (CIOL) organized Enterprise Next to help the CIOs understand the need of innovation and optimization to sustain and grow in the market.

The event covered four presentations on topics like Interoperability: Optimization and Innovation in R&D by Jelle Rieske, Senior Director, Consumer Lifestyle Division, Philips Innovation Campus; Need for a Smart and Robust Enterprise Architecture, by Kanwal Rai, Practice Partner, Enterprise Architecture, Wipro Consulting Services; Session on Force.com: A New Force for Innovation by Vipul Nagpal - Account Manager, Medium Business Segment, Salesforce.com and Impact of Open Source Software on Enterprises, by Rahul De, Hewlett-Packard Chair Professor in ICT for Sustainable Economic Development at IIM Bangalore, followed by a panel discussion on Outsourcing IT: Still a Question Mark.

Speaking about interoperability, Rieske gave an example of the wake-up light alarm and also health care solution. He said that innovation starts with identifying customer needs, working on a solution by using mark ups or prototypes and introducing products at the right time that can link to the customers.

He added that bringing simple innovations like introducing interoperability in the consumer products through USB, bluetooth, HDMI, WiFi and many more, has added value to company offerings. Rieske presented a brief profile of the Philips innovation center in Bangalore and its contribution to the company.

In the presentation on Enterprise architecture, Kanwal gave insight on how a company should prepare to gain competitive edge by 2012-2015.

He said that the year 2009 is the phase of readiness, and next two years (2010-2011) will be inflection phase where enterprises can achieve, sustainability, cost-effectiveness and optimization by adopting various technology processes like Green IT, Web 2.0, Web oriented Architecture, Unified Communication and Cloud Architecture.

Enterprises should start with a quick scan of present architecture, defining an IT vision, pointing out the target architecture and finally adopting the roadmap.

Another presentation by Vipul talked about platform as a part of the innovation and the switch that has happened in the business application.

Taking an example of energy generation he said that as the large turbines channel energy to a press of a switch, similarly with the help of Salesforce products enterprises can plug and play with the applications over the browser. The multi-tenancy infrastructure helps companies use the application without thinking about the version of the application or the code.

The platform helps to build customized application with only 20 per cent code and 80 per cent clicks requirement. These application are also available on mobile platforms and provide minimal investment with high security level.

The last presentation of the event by Rahul focused on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and highlighted its benefits in terms of economics of scale and innovation. He presented a few case studies in BFSI, education, manufacturing and welfare, where a company saved around Rs 490 million by introducing FOSS in their 3500 server and 30,000 desktops.

Based on some statistics, he measured that the country could save around Rs 101 million even if fifty per cent of the PCs countrywide adopt FOSS. He insisted that like state governments of Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Assam, other state governments should adopt FOSS for their projects as these not only save on the total expenditure but also reduced the cases of virus attacks and help in bringing more skills and innovations in place.