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Power Man

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CIOL Bureau
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 Rajneesh De

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Subrato Das is a quintessential Bengali. You sit with him for some time and all the common Bengali traits become pretty evident in his mannerisms and characteristics-an intellectually superior posture, the garrulous nature of having an opinion in almost all matters, and obviously, an innate pride in Kolkata and its culture.

However, this should not give a wrong impression that the man is short of substance. The CIO of Calcutta Electric Supply (CESC), an RPG group company, not only boasts of a series of successful IT initiatives in his current company, but in more than 25 years of working in a number of large enterprises. He can certainly be rated as one of the topmost CIOs in India Inc today.

Fight for CIOs: But bring up before him his twin passions and the fighter in Das comes out in full-the first concerns a common complaint of most CIOs: The lack of interest amongst the top management to recognize CIOs as a crucial strategic cog in the organizational cycle; and second, the need to get CIOs from the eastern region gain more national level recognition.

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publive-image Subrato Das

CIO, Calcutta Electric Supply (CESC), an RPG group company
Personal Diary

Date of Birth: October 29, 1958

Education

  • National scholar in High School Examination from West Bengal Board of Higher Secondary Examination

  • Merit scholar; ranked fourth in Bachelor of Electrical Engineering with first class honours from Jadvapur University

  • Silver medal in Masters of Business Management from IIM Kolkata

  • Pursuing research work in Computer Science at IIT Kharagpur leading to PhD

Other Courses

  • Identified as a 'high-flier' in internationally benchmarked core competencies evaluation process designed by SHL (Saville & Holdsworth) Advanced Managerial Tests format

  • Participated in a five-week course from Oracle University on 11i eBusiness Suite version 11.5.10.2

  • Participated in a workshop of Indian database research community to identify and explore the evolving areas of temporal database and data mining applications

  • Qualified as an Internal Auditor cum Lead Assessor in ISO 9000 implementation program

  • Member of six sigma initiatives in CESC

Work Experience: 25+ years, Currently working in CESC for six years

Previous Organizations: Kolkata Stock Exchange, Bharat Heavy Electricals

"Most CEOs/CFOs still consider IT as only a support function and the perception won't change till the CIOs devise a direct revenue generating model for their departments. Till then, the CIO would never be a part of the strategic decision making team, but if any interruption occurs in implementation of the strategy, he would be the one to receive the maximum flak," he says.

"The point is, many CIOs do generate revenues for the company, albeit indirectly in the form of savings in opex, but CXOs still look at them as only second class corporate citizens," he adds. He cites his own example, where CESC has started carrying different bill face advertisements based on consumption pattern; this has started generating revenues, but still the proportion being small in the overall scheme of things, it has not yet catapulted him into the core decision making team of the organization.

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Das' prescription for CIOs on this front, "According to me all CIOs and CEOs should ask themselves a very basic but key question while considering any new IT implementation-Should I change my tried-and-tested business processes to suit the new IT implementation, and repeat this every time there is a software upgrade or version change? Or, should I stick to my business processes and adapt my IT implementation to suit and increase the efficiency of my business processes?"

He, however, feels that the impact and benefit of IT implementation is best perceived in an FMCG company, where there are multiple levels between the company and the end-user/ consumer. The impact in a public utility such as CESC (where even the profit margin is regulated by the Electricity Act of 1885) is more difficult to measure and evaluate, according to Das.

However, he feels that there is an immediate need to redress the continuing negligence of CIOs from the eastern part of the country. "This become obvious in any kind of national forum, where CIOs from all parts of the country would be participating, except those from even large enterprises in Kolkata or other eastern states." What galls Das even more is that in many cases, CIOs from other regions would represent relatively smaller enterprises, but still CIOs of large organizations continue to remain neglected. Other than CESC, the eastern region boasts of large enterprises like ITC, Haldia Petrochemicals, Kolkata Port Trust, Tata Steel, Hindusthan Motors, UCO Bank and the likes, but still the region gets a step motherly treatment in terms of national participation of their CIOs.

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Achievements@CESC

He has credits for a host of automation initiatives in CESC. A few of the recent applications implemented provides ample proof: An SMS Pull Service for billing and payment query (4646) or a contact center solution for CESC's entire command area of 567 sq km.

Then, we have the recently launched duplicate bill printing facility available from any of CESC's 36 cash offices and six regional offices irrespective of commercial regions, and the Simputer based validated meter reading with road code guidance to meter inspectors. But what really takes the icing in the cake is the facility of monthly bar coded bill presentment for 2.1 mn consumers with six monthly comparisons between current and previous years.

Das can also claim credit for other major achievements in CESC on the IT front, especially on the electricity distribution side. The major systems developed include a fast track MASD that can track an application right from the moment it is received at the counter till the supply is given and the information flows into the billing cycle. Next is a GIS system that is used to digitize the HT Sketch Books, which contains the exact location of CESC installations on and under roads of the city.

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Informs Das, "Out of 240 books, we have digitized 183 till date." In addition, he has been instrumental in the computerization of loss control cell activities and mains district site office activities and interfacing it with the ERP. The major systems developed by sub-stations include one for keeping inventory of plant and equipment, one to track life cycle of distribution transformers and also a point-to-point SCADA system.

Looking forward, Das has a mission of making CESC the most IT savvy power distribution-company in the country. Identifying Mumbai's BSES (now Reliance Energy) as a benchmark, he is undertaking various initiatives that would help him do so. However, bigger challenges for him would be to succeed in his twin passions of gaining greater recognition for CIOs, especially the Kolkata ones. Will he succeed? Only time will tell. 

How CESC Stands Against Reliance Energy

Process in Reliance Energy

CESC's Way Forward

Indent to payment including stores & inventory management

Already covered by ERP, except inventory status on High Tension and DC to AC conversion, which will flow from the site office systems of distribution shortly.

Asset maintenance & tracking

Technical issues done by Engineering. Financial issues covered by ERP which will get a better definition once the Project Costing module is made live in 2006-07.

Financials

Covered by ERP

Meter to cash including call centers

Covered by the billing system for High Tension and Low Tension. The information is on CESC website and CESCNET Intranet Applications and extended to call centers.

GIS till service point

GIS up to High Tension. Extending to service points will call for extensive survey and CESC will have to take a call on this.

HR, Payroll, Travel Leave & Recruitment

Payroll in legacy system, which feeds ERP.

IVR for outages and integration to SAP and maintenance order generation

Site office systems are generating and feeding such information to ERP.

Reporting & analysis

All financials from ERP, commercial issues from billing system, technical issues from relevant engineering platforms.

 Rajneesh De

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