IT Shared, IT Amplified

JAIPUR, INDIA: Ashok Asawale is a man who literally wears many hats. His card and daily roster of roles is etched with so many versatile caps — he represents Group CIO’s office. He is the VP, Corporate IT, BPM as well as Head IT, SYSTECH, MTWL and Real Estate sector at the giant called Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. For a corporate group spread strongly across 18 businesses, a reinvention stride taken by visionary Anand Mahindra ahead of his peers, IT is definitely not something that can work in an ordinary manner. We get some moments to understand how and why IT is architected in a different fashion at this conglomerate.

Too many roles mean too much overlap or confusion?

Not at all. I handle overall IT and steer strategic thinking from Group CIO office while specific verticals like Real Estateand Two Wheelers or horizontals like Systems and Technologies required for various verticals across the industry (under SYSTECH) are also part of my radar. Neither. I would actually call it a gradual extension.

Wearing the Group CIO’s office hat, we work on strategizing IT initiatives, formulating implementation roadmaps and devising a governance & security framework for individual sectors to operate. Process improvements as you would understand forms an integral part of this journey and thus VP — BPM role fits in to a T. Heading IT at specific industry verticals like Real Estate, Two Wheelers or Systems and Technologies (under SYSTECH) is the obvious continuum of putting plans into action. Hitting Rubber to the Road. In fact, this logical extension has helped us devise and implement the Shared CIO concept — an unique initiative at Mahindra Group.

Has the idea of a shared CIO worked well?

Yes, because there are so many young companies under the group who can notafford a full-time CIO mandate and the level of IT penetration makes it easy to handle this part as a shared office. The group has a federated model and it is running smoothly. Yes, this idea has worked brilliantly and there are 2 primary reasons attributed to its success, First, as you are aware, our Group has many upcoming & nurturing businesses, who are yet to amass critical scale. During this initial period, getting a full time CIO is not very high on their priority list. Availability of right talent at right costis also one of the challenges they face during this period. Hence a Senior Corporate Resource overseeing the entire IT operations provides a unique value proposition to these businesses. Secondly, it was carefully devised as a part of our Group IT Talent management program. We have our upcoming talents working with me on these Shared CIO assignments. Being from Corporate they are completely aligned to the Group IT strategy and hence act as robust change agents in smooth implementation of IT initiatives.  

Does that insinuate that there is a top-down angle to IT for all or many of these 18 businesses? Every sector is allowed to take its own decision.

Corporate level is there for overall policies and governance but individual sectors can chase their IT decisions without any diktats and with enough flexibility. The only criterion is that they should be able to validate their choices. Procurement and IT management is at sector level while license costs, governance etc happens at corporate level, and that in turn is readily available to sectors. They are allowed to tread a different path if they want but they have to justify it properly. Corporate headquarters are like a parent or a guardian who nurture individual companies as young kids with all guidance and resources possible. Hardware, systems, skills, database etc are readily available and that makes implementation faster. At Corporate, We also have a Centre of Excellence team that keeps a watch on new technologies continuously.

Any instances that illustrate this branching-out?

I took a cloud option for a DMS solution (given the nature of unstructured data at dealer levels) and since I could argue for it with the right approach and information, I was allowed to go for a different choice for the Two Wheeler division So IT has a different strategic connotation altogether at M&M? Yes, in 2008, we started Project Harmony. There were five SAP instances and 3 non-SAP instances and a lot of silos across 45 top companies of the group. So we initiated a drive to bring everything together under a single ERP instance which is now present across 90 companies. There are still 50 more to be covered but it has helped us with a lot of uniformity and resiliency that was missing earlier. The trick to managing a federated model is the best of eastern (collaboration) and western (ownership of performance) ethos.

Does that mean that you have solved that usual IT dilemma between single vendor vs. different answers?

SAP itself is a well-integrated, tight and also a complex answer. The domino effect is not to be ignored though. It’s like the organ heart which runs great and without any problems in itself. Its own functioning is very easy and without complications. The complexity happens because it is connected to other organs. That’s why with SAP we tried to standardize master data, processes and understand the power wielded by vendors in different situations. Debates always help in making processes deep and simplification happens as a journey. That said there are areas like sales marketing etc where each sector can have unique approaches in the way they use and configure SAP. There are times and levels where huge vendor advantage is possible with standard procurement and policies, so why to let go of that.

Any people issues in Project Harmony?

Yes and No. Every person different whether it is at a database level or at an ego level. It’s about how to convince them without affecting their egos. It’s about making IT, his demand rather than mine. This drive must have affected processes at a basic design level also? Yes, that was a little challenging; For example, we came up to standardizing 19 processes in HR. But it’s a good slate now and the organization is better and ready in case even if any new acquisition happens. Integration at process level won’t be a spoiler.

How is Anand Mahindra’s level of interest and attention to IT?

He is not only extremely tech-savvy but one of those few business leaders who are experimental enough with new trends and are eager for disruptive innovation as long as it can deliver ahead-of-the-curve answers. The philosophy of Mahindra Rise reflects these through the 3 pillars —“Accepting No Limits, Alternative Thinking, Driving Positive Change”