Surging Ahead with IT

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

Vijay Sethi,

VP Information,

CIO, HeroHonda

Key challenges faced by industry, but not resolved by using IT

The Industry primarily faces the following 2 major challenges today — we at Hero Honda IT are working with business on these:

Managing and Sustaining Growth -

The industry has seen huge growth

last year and managing and sustaining

this growth is putting a major

pressure on both internal systems and partner

eco system. Each organization in industry

would like to proactively capture and fulfill customer

needs and stay ahead of the competition.

As a result, systems get stretched and

distribution networks, supply chain and logistics

are becoming more complex, managing

which becomes extremely challenging.

Managing Costs — With volatility in commodity prices and increasing costs of production, distribution,

logistics etc — the industry is facing

major cost presssures as it is not possible to

pass on all costs to customers

IT solutions seriously considering to deploy

in the near future

Hero Honda has a wide distribution network. To

further enhance customer satisfaction and

enhance collaboration across the network we

are in the process of deploying a system which

would bring the entire dealer network on a single

platform which would channelize the flow of

information and

ensure efficient delivery of service to our customers.

In addition, we are working on various

areas where IT can help organization further

improve its customer satisfaction, improve productivity,

reduce costs and improve risk mitigation

capabilities. We are also working on areas

like workflows, reporting and mobile enablement

of applications.

AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

Umesh Mehta,

VP-IT, Asia MotorWorks

Key challenges faced by industry, but not

resolved by using IT

Key challenge in the

automotive industry is

of integration of the

supply chain and to

make it more responsive.

As the world is

becoming a global village

and countries borderless,

organizations are sourcing, manufacturing

and selling across countries, with

already over production capacities and cost

pressures in the Automotive industry, integration

of supply chain is a big challenge.

Information Technology only can overcome this

integration of supply chain across countries to

make organization lean, responsive and profitable.

IT solutions seriously considering to deploy

in the near future

Security, Product Life Cycle Management,

Dealer Management Software, Corporate

Portal (Customer, Dealers, Vendors &

Employees), Document Management System

are some of the solutions which we plan to

deploy. Also We are actively looking at innovative

models for solutions and trying to link with

our revenues.

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

Nitin Doshi, Head-Business Systems, Sterlite Technologies

Key challenges faced by industry, but not resolved by using IT

Handling Material and capacity planning in

cable business(as our product is customer specific

and number of variables are very high)

Order wise profitability (prediction and analysis)

Inventory control and traceability - face system

performance issues due to large amount of

data. A good project management system for

the division which gives a turnkey solution

IT solutions seriously considering to deploy in the near future

HR Implementation Manufacturing Excellance

systems Active Directory & single sign-on

Document Management Workflow solutions

INSURANCE INDUSTRY

Parvinder Singh

VP & Head- IT

Service,MNYLI

IT solutions that you seriously considering

to deploy in the near future

We have already started

off a lot of IT projects like

server virtualization, data

centre upgradation, etc

and our first priority is to

take it up to the level

where we can sustain it

for a long period. Apart

from this we are contemplating on cloud computing

and using open source technologies and we are ready to explore these. For us, the customer

is of prime importance and we want to

ensure that customer gets maximum benefit

out of technology that we are implementing.

Going forward we would like to explore technologies that increase convenience to customers.

For example, mobile computing is

catching pace and the end-user may like to

see a complete dashboard on his/her mobile

device and browse their policies from their

mobile devices. In future we would definitely

like to explore technologies in this direction.”

UTILITIES EXCHANGE INDUSTRY

Ashish Dandekar,

CIO, Power

Exchange India

Key challenges faced by industry, but not resolved by

using IT

Firstly, the utilities are not

able to get enough power on

the exchange due to low liquidity

and less generation.

IT solutions create a transparent

price whose effect is

seen to take time than

usual. Today's requirement

of power is ever increasing

but we haven't been able to cope up to meet

this requirement. Demand/Supply of power is a

key factor where the role of IT would have minimal

effect. Secondly, power market in India is

niche. The largest challenge is transformation

in minds of utilities, which is dominated by

Government sector. IT cannot change the

mindset to start trading more power on Power

Exchange as they are still happy to trade bilaterally.

Unless mandated by regulation to trade

a fixed percentage of power requirements on

the Power Exchange platform, IT strengths

would remain untapped. Development of

financial products on the Power Exchange

would open up horizons for new market players

and FII's to tap this potential as is done in

the developed countries.

IT solutions seriously considering to deploy in the near future

PXIL will continue to develop IT solutions for

transforming power markets including use of

Open source systems for few of our developmental

initiatives.

REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

-Sharmishta Mitra, Godrej Properties.

Key challenges faced by industry, but not resolved by using IT

IT has solved several problems in the real

estate industry from tools for project planning

to tools for leads management. One problem

that remains to be solved is automatic project

tracking. The project tracking tools depend on

manual data entry - there should be a software

which tracks the progress of the project

through visual inputs like photographs and

Google Maps. The second problem is 3D tagging

of flats. There should be a software which

creates a 3D image of the project and tags

customers to the concerned flats. This will give

customers and sales executives a clearer idea

about the available flats and their attributes.

HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

Ravish Jhala,

Systems Manager,

Trident

Key challenges faced by industry, but not resolved by

using IT

We have implemented multiple

operations-oriented

software in our hotel, like a

real-time Visitor

Management System, “Go

Concierge” software at the

front desk to handle all

guest requests and information

updates, “Glitch process handling” for

operations teams to be able to resolve

issues and identify trends and an RFID

based system for elevator and guest room

access.

Business models like cloud computing,

virtualization and new services software are

going to have a major impact on the hotel

information technology industry in the near

future.

The I.T. Manager of the future needs to

keep a close watch on the development and

utilization of these models and literally “surf

the trends” to enable him to be at the right

place, at the right time...with the right I.T.

solution!

IT solutions seriously considering to

deploy in the near future

Consolidation of IT, MPS and DPS technology

to save printing cost, Virtualisation, etc.