Day 1/ Panel Discussion

What makes an enterprise intelligent?

Before the Polycom Intelligent Enterprise Awards were presented, a panel discussion was conducted about the concept, process and methods behind the awards

The evening kicked off with a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Nitin Paranjape, Chairman and Managing Director of Maestros Mediline Systems Limited. The panelists were Nishi Vasudeva. Executive Director Information Systems, HPCL; Paul Newell, director, technical and strategic sales, Polycom Asia Pacific and country manager, Polycom India and SAARC; Sunil Chandiramani, Partner & National Director, Advisory Services, Ernst & Young and Rajesh Uppal, CIO, Maruti.

Nitin Paranjape: Intelligent Enterprise is a flexible term and each of our experts will have a definition of the same. I’m going to ask them to share the thought process behind what makes an Intelligent Enterprise—is it an early adopter, or a highly integrated enterprise, or even a company that uses the maximum features and maps these to the business context or is it a company that uses technology repeatedly in a long-term situation irrespective of the business context or the particular technology. Let me start with Sunil as he conceptualized these awards many years back and he has been associated with this process for a long time.

Sunil Chandiramani: It’s the seventh year now, but back when we conceptualized the awards it was essentially to showcase what CIOs were doing in their organizations that was unique. It could have been the use of technology in a different way. Or the fact that they would have been early adopters and done things that would have either impacted the organization or a large group of people in a significant way. Essentially what we tried to bring out was how innovatively technology was being used. We felt that a lot of CIOs tended to do things that were creative, different and gave a competitive advantage to their organization. It wasn’t about the largest budget or having no hitches in an implementation.

Paul Newell: Flexible, scalable, innovative, agile, green—these are the words that describe an Intelligent Enterprise. To me, an Intelligent Enterprise, is about enabling a company to achieve its strategy and goals.

Nishi Vasudeva: I was a member of the Jury for the selection of the awards this year. It was interesting to review the shortlisted entries which were put before the jury and the presentations made by the nominees. An Intelligent Enterprise is one that uses IT for the betterment of the business. Business is the driver and IT the enabler. While going through the entries, there were companies with very small budgets (services sector) as well as companies with no limit on their budgets. We chose to look at the ingenuity of the solutions deployed and the benefit to the organization and beyond the organization to the society at large. It was not necessarily a new technology but it could be a well-known technology used in a new way.

Rajesh Uppal: It is an enterprise where there is a business case for IT adoption. After all, we are in business of making money for our shareholders. If your efforts result in that you are an Intelligent Enterprise. The IT lifecycle is short. You do something and your competitors catch up. So you have to constantly innovate and do it before your competitors. How quickly you can do it before anybody else is the challenge for an Intelligent Enterprise.

Nitin Paranjape: It’s not about cutting-edge technology. In the process of adoption we do upgrade to new versions and we like to see the ‘What’s New’ list and get excited about it. Often we forget that what’s new is important only if what’s old is being fully utilized. Often the older version is not being utilized anywhere to the fullest and we upgrade ignorance and feel good about it. Can we manage this in a more effective way.

Paul Newell: Ignorance is bliss. Is that why we do it?

Sunil Chandiramani: This was a group discussion that we did at the previous Senate where we had the vendors and CIOs present, this was something that I had facilitated. Organizations do go in for upgrades although they have not been able to exploit the complete features of the version that they have. If you were to ask why an organization does not land up using the entire capability of the software—the time and effort that needs to go into user training is lacking. More often than not, it’s a question of turning around and getting it implemented and then things go into maintenance mode. What needs to happen is how quickly can I get it implemented and then how can I make that user into a power user. That’s a missing module in the implementation lifecycle. In most cases you’d have seen whether it using Word/Excel, a Polycom system or a new phone, etc. the basic features that a user has asked for, you’ll find that the technology function checks those off and reports back ‘delivered on that’. There is supposed to be a next phase saying that this has so much more power, have I brought the user up to this maturity level and can I do that.

We asked the technology vendors why can’t you do things to facilitate training. They responded that we have X amount of user training on our Web sites. You can get users to go out there and exploit that. If it is asked of us we would be happy to come and run Train-the-Trainer sessions but that’s another part that doesn’t get demanded. It’s because in life there’s so much more to do and you go on doing your regular maintenance management. If we build that module in and put that demand back on our vendors, then we can use that same tool and achieve far greater results. Vendors need to consider how regularly they do a refresh and start pulling out support for older functions.

Nishi Vasudeva: It’s the sales people from the vendor’s side who contact us and try to sell the latest versions. Even for fundamental things there are times when they won’t tell you the full extent of the facility that is there in that particular software. Users are, in that sense, ignorant. They may end up using less than 20-30% of the functionality. Up comes the latest version where the look and feel is so much better and they come and try to sell that to you. A lot needs to be done with regard to the scope of CIOs being able to talk to vendors about these kinds of things. There should be some user training or at least awareness programs. When you ask them, they say yes, we can organize the training but it doesn’t come as part of the package when they are selling the software to you. With regard to upgrades we’ve all faced this dilemma that the support cycle is running out and you need to upgrade. The decision should bring a business benefit or value. Otherwise going in for a major upgrade is a huge task especially for an organization like ours where the users are in thousands and going through the whole change management and retraining and disruption of business is not something that one would like to get into. I would say that one should get into an upgrade only if it’s getting you some incremental return on investment.

Nitin Paranjape: One thing which got mentioned is the decision to upgrade or not. I’m not saying ‘don’t upgrade’. There is a problem and on the face of it, it appears that it is the problem of whoever paid for it. They don’t have the time to go through every feature of every technology. Vendors are busy creating the next version as they have to manage the satisfaction levels of their shareholders and partners, who come in between generally wait for orders from customers as to what they want, and these specs are delivered. There is a gap and it is a great business opportunity to make it a win-win for all concerned. All three should come together to ensure that every feature is mapped to the business context and then effective utilization is taken as part of the process. Then people will eagerly want to upgrade.

We should abolish the distinction of basic and advanced. The correct classification is useful or not useful for which user in what business context. Are there any do’s and don’ts that you’d like to specify to help next year’s nominees win the award?

Rajesh Uppal: The only area where I have gone wrong in budgeting has always been training and implementation. The training part of the implementation, that’s the effort that’s always underestimated. The budgeting effort to ensure the adoption of the work that you have done is the key for any CIO to go forward rather than the technology. Secondly, the Polycom Intelligent Enterprise Award jury is looking for how you create more opportunity for the business to grow, or to remove the pain from business activities.

Paul Newell: The first one goes to the impact on business strategy. You have to ensure that the IT organization and the CIO in particular are not just implementing a business strategy but are part of the strategy setting of the company. If you do that, you are going to be able to drive the business goals to make money.

Sunil Chandiramani: It’s not just a technology issue but also HR. Technology with HR can be a huge catalyst in making sure that learning is provided by chalking out a learning map for an individual. My dream wish from tech vendors would be can I buy Excel in part A, B, C & D—for my CEO just part A which is the most basic version that lets him open the file and see it for he never puts a formula in there. In part B, you get it for someone who might use it for some purpose and part D for the individual who runs all the payments and does the analysis and business models. On what needs to be done to win an award, many CIOs do innovative work but when they complete these forms the attention goes to the largest project which has been where the maximum spend has happened. If they actually thought things through and figured out what has been the most innovative thing that they have done that has had the most impact on the organization or society at large, that would result in submissions that are more likely to win.

Nitin Paranjape: Often we need to include the top management in places. Many of you have stylish and well-equipped videoconferencing rooms with an integrated setup. Those can be for face-to-face and for PowerPoint-based sessions. If you go into the room and the call has to be set up, and a peon is handling this task. There’s a card with basic features, and people ignore what they don’t know thinking that what they don’t know is not needed. What you don’t know might be more useful than what you do know. To give a business example, I’ve seen business analysts and people who are well-versed in using Excel doing extensive Pivot Tables and when the report has to be given to the boss, the boss wants it as a printout where the drop downs should not be seen. If top management is unaware of what is possible then that becomes a bottleneck as well.

Paul Newell: It has to be top-down. Whether it’s videoconferencing or Excel or SFA, whatever it is, if it is not driven as a priority and processes aren’t changed and the manpower put behind it the adoption will not be successful.

Nitin Paranjape: There are often new technologies that come up that people who frame strategy aren’t supposed to know about. Only the CIO is supposed to know about these things.

Rajesh Uppal: There has to be a regular process from the CIO’s side to look for those opportunities and tell the business that this is the way things could be done. Within the CIO’s office, making a business case for technology adoption is vital.

Nishi Vasudeva: We have something called an Executive Council which consists of the Chairman and Board of Directors and the SBU heads and individuals such as me who head particular functions. During these meetings the business shares its plans for the next year, next five years even, so the IS dept knows where the business is headed. They know from a business perspective where they want to go and it is for the IS dept to tell them which are the enabling technologies which would help them do their business better, do it differently or open up an option for doing things which they would not have thought of. One-third of the people in our IS dept are from the business. They are the people who interact with the business on an ongoing basis and know the kind of deals that are taking place and they are able to translate those business needs from a business perspective to the IT needs of the IT people so that the dialogue happens smoothly. Otherwise, sometimes the business and IT speak totally different languages and it becomes almost impossible. You think from the IT perspective that you are giving them the best and they have no understanding of it and no appreciation of it so they may not even use it. But when it comes as a request from the business in simple terms and gets translated into what enablement IT can do... It’s all about people, processes and technology with the latter being an enabler and you have to have well-defined processes that have to be defined by the people who are going to run those processes and ultimately benefit the people at large. The IT strategy or roadmap has to be in line with the long-term strategy of the business.

— Prashant L Rao