“Our most challenging task was revamping of legacy system'

Any big IT projects at Rallis India now?

There are some major projects going on right now. The most significant one is the project 'SARANSH' wherein we have deployed BI tools with the help of Microsoft. There was a need for such deployment as we had most of the applications running on legacy systems. We are currently outsourcing most of the IT work like payroll, running of SAP, Intranet etc, to third parties. A very challenging task we have come across is the replacement of legacy ERP systems with SAP-our standard ERP system. Another very important IT activity is to make company fit for e-business.

What are the other technology challenges ahead and your strategies to cope-up with that?

The next step is to stabilize SAP. We also need to integrate various applications so that we can reduce cost and eliminate all intermediaries of people that don't add value to work. This year probably we would be able to do so.

During the next year we expect a growing demand for a closer collaboration and cooperation between customer and supplier and the transformation of classical business processes to e-processes. IT, with its technical tools, will be the enabler for this type of new relationship and processes. The Internet, as an easily accessible communication tool for customers, and a relatively inexpensive marketing tool as well, will influence dramatically and in a positive way the relationship between customer and supplier.

How does Rallis measure the performance and savings attributed to IT projects?

Rallis measures the return of its projects in several ways. Enhanced productivity and improved customer service are key factors for successful projects. Financial contemplation has also been used to measure the return of our IT projects. This is mainly valid for non-infrastructure IT projects. Infrastructure projects normally do not show any direct return on investment.

What upcoming technology areas do you consider ripe for adoption in your company?

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) seems set to change the future of the supply chain, once privacy and pricing issues are addressed. There are other technologies too that we want to deploy but because of various reasons we are not in a position to move forward.

As appeared in Dataquest CIO Handbook