LG: An early adopter of technology

Excerpts... 

CMN: Can you brief on the IT landscape in your organization?

Daya Prakash: We have 2 manufacturing plants in India, 44 branch offices, 10 regional offices and over 70 remote area offices. And we have over 40 stock points, 5000-6000 direct dealers and partners, along with over 1000 authorized service providers — the third party service providers for us. Also we have a supplier base of over 300. This is how our operations and offices are spread-out.

We have a cooperate office, which is co-located at our manufacturing plant in Greater Noida. And this cooperate office takes reports from the regional offices, branch offices reports to the regional offices and the area offices reports to the branch offices. Typically the area offices are touch points with our trade partners.

All these operations are supported by a centralized ERP system; in addition, we have other systems such as a system for supplier collaboration, a system for authorized service center connectivity - a single platform for operating services, a collaborative platform for channel management called sales management system through which we are connected with the branch shops and distributors. And we are slowly and gradually expanding this system to our regional specialty stores and multi-brand outlets.

Besides, we have a call center, which is LG-owned and in addition to that we have few more call centers that are outsourced. So all these touch points are very well integrated and providing IT backbone to our organization.

CMN: Which is the latest technology that has been adopted in your organization that has been beneficial functionally and financially?

Daya Prakash: If you look at LG philosophy, traditionally LG has been an early adopter of technology. With regards to that we have implemented the latest technology whether you call it the Cloud based Computing, Enterprise Social media, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence or the Enterprise Mobility.

So all these technologies have been well-adopted and implemented by IT; and with its adoption and implementation within the organization, we have been ripping-out the benefits in terms of cost optimization, enhancement in efficiencies and improvement in productivity. At the same it is also helping us in mitigating the enterprise risk management from the corporate and government compliance prospective.

CMN: Which department or functional areas in your organization have been moved onto Cloud?

Daya Prakash: As I said earlier, our channel management called sale management system, our authorized service center connectivity platform are Cloud based solutions; however, in our case, we are using private Cloud.

CMN: The BYOD concept is getting popular across enterprises in recent years. Some enterprises have easily accepted this concept, while others have adopted it in a very limited manner. So, what approach has been taken on the BYOD front in LG?

Daya Prakash: We have taken a very cautious call on the BYOD concept. We have very strict policies in place and since we have our own LG smart devices, we mostly promote our devices.

So presently, we are looking at the maturity cycle of BYOD concept and accordingly have framed a policy, which is being followed from top to bottom. But at this time it is strictly at the level of senior management and we are waiting for our own technologies to come out and then expand to junior level management.

CMN: As a CIO, what are your views on the BYOD concept?

Daya Prakash: I think the BYOD concept has its own pros and cons. But at the same time, if you look at it as a concept then it is here to stay, and CIOs cannot either say in today's context or in time to come that we will not entertain the BYOD policy or not be working on it, because I doubt that choice would be there in the hands of CIOs.

There are concerns today in terms of security, ownership and related issues, which will get sorted out with time. As and when these issues get sorted out, users would definitely like to bring their own devices rather than working on devices provided by organizations and that trend is irreversible as per me. If that's the case then we will have to come up with strategies to make sure that it is well stitched in our strategic piece as a CIO.

CMN: Which are the new technologies that are being closely assessed and monitored by the management and is there a high possibility of those technologies and its adoption in next 6 months or so?

Daya Prakash: Majority of the new technologies have already been implemented; however, on the BYOD front we are carefully watching it and adopting it based on the maturity of the organization as we move forward.

In terms of Social media, we already have a good presence on it but there we are going to enhance our focus and energy moving forward. Beside the Social media, Big Data Analytics is another area, where we are very keen to rip its benefits as we go along.

So we have taken baby steps already in terms of embarking on the journey but as time goes by, we will be in a better position to rip-out benefits from it.