BIOCON : 'It's important that vendors clearly understand the client's requirements'

It all started thirty years ago in a garage and with a capital of Rs 10,000.
Growing by leaps and bounds over the years, Biocon has now become a name
synonymous with biotechnology in India. Radhakrishnan G, group head, Systems,
Biocon, admits the role and importance of technology and communication in the
company's success. In an interaction with VOICE&DATA, he shares his views on the
technology infrastructure at Biocon and the future strategies to combat the
global competition. Excerpts

How important is the technology infrastructure for Biocon?

It's a highly challenging area because technology keeps changing on a daily
basis, and it is very important to keep pace with technology. For a growing
company like Biocon, technology proves to be the backbone. The question is not
investment in IT infrastructure, rather the amount of awareness that exists in
the organization regarding IT infrastructure.

There is a general perception that manufacturing companies have little to do
with technology. But ours is a different case. We always emphasize on latest and
best-of-breed technologies to fight global competition in the biotechnology and
pharmaceuticals market.

How did the evolution of technology infrastructure take place in Biocon?

The upgradation of technology is an ongoing process and it happens in a
phased manner. At Biocon, the adoption has taken place at a good pace. When I
came in 1989, as a consultant, there were three computers and a very small
infrastructure to support. As the company was growing, we were relying more on
technology for this growth. Now we have 1,600 computers spread across different
locations and all connected and linked. We got various applications at different
times, depending upon the requirement at that particular time. We took some of
them from vendors, but we are also using applications developed in-house.

What is the present status of technology adoption?

We have an ERP system developed in-house. We are also using a specially
developed application called the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).
We have won the Nasscom Award for the Best Technology Employer' in the pharmacy
sector. We have our own mail server equipped with anti-viruses, firewalls, and
spam filters. Apart from that, we also have multiple VPN connections.

Radhakrishnan G, group head, Systems, Biocon

What security measures have you taken, and how secure is your network?

Being in the pharma industry, we deal with intellectual property and the
confidentiality of information is of prime importance. Along with external
threats, there are internal threats also, which we carefully look at. Therefore,
we follow a strict mailing policy.

Employees can use only corporate mail in office and every mail goes through
an automated checking process. After proper scrutiny, mails are sent to
outsiders. Employees are not allowed to use any external storage device like CD
or USB drive. Internet access is also limited to people who actually need it.

Also, we don't encourage talking on mobile phone during office hours. It may
sound that the rules are tough, but the nature of business demands such
measures. To fight external threats, we have firewalls, spam filters, and
anti-viruses in place.

Who are your preferred IT and telecom service providers? How satisfied are
you with the services?

Due to the array of services used at Biocon, we have multiple vendors as our
service providers. For servers, HP is our only vendor and we are fully satisfied
with the services and support offered by them.

For PCs, we depend on both HP and IBM. It's a 60:40 ratio between HP and IBM.
In communication, there are mainly two vendors: Airtel and BSNL. For all mobile
services and Blackberry, we have a corporate tie-up with Airtel.

Our wired service is shared between Airtel and BSNL. We have two broadband
connections-one each from Software Technology Park of India (STPI) and Airtel.
It's a high bandwidth, 4 Mbps, 1:1 connection dedicated specially to Biocon.

Earlier we had one connection from BSNL also, but we are now in the process
of switching to Airtel. On the Internet front, there is absolutely no problem.
There were little issues with BSNL broadband and as I said, we are shifting. We
are also satisfied with the mobile and wired line service offered by Airtel.
With BSNL, we faced some problems in the early stage but now they have worked
hard on their services and strategies, as a result we are getting better
services.

What are your expectations from IT and telecom service providers?

Vendors should clearly understand the client's requirements and offer
solutions that fit the client's need well. If any adjustment is required, it
must be mostly on the vendor's side. Unless the client's requirements are
fulfilled, there will be a lot of disagreements in the future over several
issues. Also, the vendor should focus more on new technology and innovations,
and it is their duty to keep the customer informed and updated about the same.

What are your plans regarding the improvement of your existing IT and
telecom infrastructure?

Presently, several things are on our to-do list. We are in the process of
getting a standard ERP system. We are in talks with vendors like SAP, Oracle,
and Microsoft.

We are also planning to take a document management solution which will work
in tandem with the ERP system. On communications front, we are going for a
unified communication solution. The main objective for choosing unified
communication is to offer mobility to employees in terms of work.

Our vision is that the employee should work from anywhere, anytime. We are
also looking at IP telephony, though nothing significant is there to share as of
now.

Kumar Anshuman

anshumank@cybermedia.co.in