IT needs consistent change

SHIMLA, INDIA: Davinder Wadehra, AGM IT&C , SJVN Ltd. takes us through the key areas on his IT radar and how he is using a variety of gears like MIS, VSAT, and ERP to accelerate his strategy further and with agility.

What are the new ingredients that your IT plan has seen?

We have put in latest IT infrastructure including hardware, software, and other related peripherals with proper networking and Internet facility to all employees. There's provisioning of official laptops to all executives of SJVN right from induction level and installation of latest blade servers at Corporate office besides VSAT Network for connectivity with all project sites. Various IT applications/E-governance measures like e-tendering service, intranet, website, Financial Payroll & Accounting system, Material Management system, R&R System etc. have been implemented. We have also used

Standard Software Packages like Autocad, Primavera, Anysys, Advent Distributed control system and many design softwares etc.

What do you think would be really significant for future?

WiFi connectivity at Corporate office and MPLS Network among all sites is coming in the near future and VSAT network would act as Secondary Network.

Where next?

To develop the web based Management Information system (MIS), and to undertake ERP implementation in the organisation in phased manner and MIS shall be integrated with ERP. Development of monitoring centre with Video Conferencing facility across all the projects in India and abroad is on the list too.

Any areas of interest from recent tech-breakthroughs?

Cloud computing and latest technology for development of Data Centre look interesting indeed.

If you were to pick any mistakes or challenges you experienced for sharing with peers what would you say?

Being from Mechanical background, heading IT department from last one and half years years, I have observed that IT is a fast changing area and requires consistent updating. In government organizations specifically, implementation of IT services like ERP in itself is a big challenge where it is very difficult to get coordination from every level.

So IT is not just a support function but a competitive differentiator?

To  make IT as a competitive differentiator/innovator SJVN will take some more time since all business processes are yet to be computerised.