Leading the IT-driven business

Being one of the pragmatic leaders in the industry, Satish Pendse, CIO at HCC, believes that CIOs need to be in a driving chair and not in the driven chair. By Nivedan Prakash

A graduate in Production Engineering from VJTI, Mumbai, and also holding a MBA-Finance degree from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, Satish Pendse, CIO of HCC Group, possesses a vast amount of experience in the field of IT.

Apparently, he got into the field of IT by chance. Pendse describes, "I got into this field more by chance. During my last year of engineering, I worked with Mahindra & Mahindra. Then, my seniors had suggested that mechanical production engineering was getting saturated and I should try my hand in IT, as it was coming up big time. Fortunately, through college campus, I got a placement in Godrej's IT department. And once I joined Godrej, I didn't look back."

Career path

From the year 1996 to 1999, Pendse worked with Jet Airways as a Senior Manager-Information Systems with a mandate to set up an IT system that can take the organization to new heights. Pendse's stint with the company provided him with international exposure for the first time.

“At that time, the airlines industry was in the nascent stages and aviation software was not a commonality in India. Earlier, we were dependent on overseas providers of these software. And that's where I get to see and understand the international market,” added Pendse.

Then, he moved on to work with Marico as Head IT from 1999 to 2002. After joining Marico, Pendse realized that the IT set up was just in primitive stages. The target was to bring the company to the level where high-end ERP software like SAP can benefit the business as well as the organization as a whole. And then subsequently, Pendse focused on building an ROI model. Pendse highlighted, “I got a lesson at my stint with Marico that if you have to implement IT, you have to look at two components—one is technology component and the other part is handling the softer issues. The latter is more significant if you really want to make IT a success.”

After Marico, Pendse joined Kuoni Travels, wherein he worked as a Group CIO from the year 2002 to 2005. Pendse is quick to point out here that the company was formed through various acquisitions and each of these companies was in some different business of travel. Therefore, it required a different kind of IT set up.

“Each of the business was more or less independent with independent set ups including independent IT. The challenge was that when we acquired different companies, we had to focus on how to mould them into a heterogeneous set up, and at same time how to keep them separate as far as business needs are concerned. So, managing all these aspects effectively was a point of concern for us. And after the acquisition, integrating them into the mainstream was also a challenge in this job.”

As a CIO of HCC

In 2005, Pendse joined HCC Group as the CIO. Soon, he realized that the construction industry is not at the forefront of IT usage as compared to other sectors like banking, pharma, etc. But when he joined HCC, the construction industry was growing very fast. So the need was felt to have IT to manage the scale the construction companies were reaching.

And at that time, when the industry mindset was not ready for the IT based functioning, HCC implemented SAP ERP in 2006 for the first time in the industry, thus shattering the myth that this kind of ERP is not going to work for the construction industry. In fact, this deployment became a national as well as an international case study. The company even ran it in very remote corners of the country including Kargil, Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan, and Bihar amongst other places. Pendse considers this as one of his biggest achievements.

Highlighting his other achievements, Pendse said, “We have also focused on transformation management, integration of the specialized construction software with our ERP, taking the automation level to our suppliers, and deployment of document management software. And presently, we are in the process of implementing SAP’s employee portal.” Pendse believes that cloud computing will transform the role of a CIO. Besides, mobility-based solutions are being looked at by Pendse seriously.

Pointing towards some the interesting business trends, Pendse, said, “In our construction business, business dynamics are changing rapidly. Earlier, government was the sole customer for us. Now, infrastructure business is getting privatized with Public-Private partnership coming. So, our customers come from private sector as well. These two different customers will have different sets of expectations. And hence we modify our way of working to address these different expectations.”

Looking ahead

With the size of the construction industry increasing, Pendse feels that there will be more and more demand of IT. In his opinion, companies are realizing that IT-based functioning is the only way to go when you need to scale up.

“In the year 2010, the size of IT market will grow only. The opportunity for the workforce is going to be far more. Unfortunately, our workforce, is not up to the mark. I am envisaging workforce shortage to become more acute as we go along,” opined Pendse.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com