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'The future need is for mobile business management'

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

N Chandrasekaran, who spearheads the IT strategies at Ashok

Leyland, the Indian flagship of the Hinduja Group, is planning to roll out, with

the help of HP, a Score Card system based on Oracle to address performance

measurement and incentivization of dealerships. In an interview with

VOICE&DATA, Chandrasekaran, spoke about challenges from vendors and service

providers, while sharing plans relating to IT infrastructure including a

disaster recovery center at Hosur

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Ashok Leyland has been investing heavily in IT infrastructure.

What are your future investments?



We have built our own ERP system-the backbone for the business. The
investment in these and related support mechanisms is to the tune of Rs 60—70

crore. This has helped us in establishing a framework that is scalable and

adaptable, in tune with business needs and technology advancements. While we

consolidated our central architecture with Compaq Alpha servers, we are now in

the process of migrating to the HP Itanium platform. We are also progressing

with our disaster recovery center at Hosur, which would be commissioned soon.

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What will this IT infrastructure achieve?



Our IT plans emanate from business strategy and our IT initiatives are
designed as one of the key enablers in our accelerated journey towards market

leadership. The enterprise agility demands can only be achieved through process

refinements, measurement and management of enterprise KPIs, and enhancing skills

of people to perform their roles effectively and easily. This is key to the

transformation needed. Being a heavily knowledge-based industry in terms of the

engineering strengths required, we give utmost importance to information

integrity and confidentiality, and provide technology enablers and physical

processes that catalyze this. A careful blend of creativity and confidentiality

is the formula for success.

How unique is your ERP system?



Enterprise transaction processes cover our end-to-end needs of business,
used by over 3,000 users, with an average concurrency of 1,100 and peak

concurrency of 1,500. With multiple manufacturing units focusing on different

activities, it is a challenge to have the ERP address business and operational

needs effectively and efficiently, and this is something we have ensured in the

way we have architected and integrated. We are currently rolling out what we

have named "Customer Connect"-an initiative that provides an

integrated business solution with CRM and Dealer Management processes. The PLM

solution based on Matrix One that we are implementing is an effective aid in

providing customer value enhancements, and is integrated with the other

initiatives towards achieving this.

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What is the focus of the disaster recovery back-up project? Can

it ensure real time recovery?



We are in the process of commissioning a disaster recovery center at Hosur.
The main objective is to provide business continuity to prevent total disruption

of operations. The operational switchover to a mirror infrastructure has been

created to address up to the last committed transaction before the failure of

the first data center at Ennore. In order to ensure the health of the backup

center, a planned periodic switchover has been made part of the operational

strategy

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What are your innovations in order to offer better customer

experience?



The centralized Customer Connect system we have put in place is first a
customer centric solution that takes into account not just the routine

transaction processes but the interaction aspects as well. This helps us

understand customer needs better. HP is helping us in rolling out the solution

across dealerships covering vehicles, service and parts operations. The rollout

progressively planned in the next twelve months will provide our customers with

uniform experience. We are also rolling out, with the help of HP, a Score Card

system based on Oracle to address performance measurement and incentivization of

our dealerships. Also the system would provide us valuable feedback on how we

could improve our support level to our dealerships in effectively addressing

customer needs.

Ashok Leyland received BS7799 certification for its Information

Security Management System. What is the major impact?



We became the first auto manufacturer in India to receive the world-renowned
BS7799 certification for our Information Security Management System (ISMS).

Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate, a globally

recognized certifying authority of the Government of India, under the Ministry

of Information Technology, has certified our data center at Ennore (EDC), the

system headquarters of the company. Information is an asset, which like other

important business assets, adds value to an organization and consequently needs

to be suitably protected. In line with Ashok Leyland's tradition of imbibing

best practices, we went in for this certification, which is not really a

pre-requisite for a manufacturing company. Apart from identifying and minimizing

security threats, the certification brings tremendous credibility.

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What are the major challenges?



While there has been an order of magnitude improvement in terms of
connectivity infrastructure, it is still a major challenges when we approach

service providers for linking every nook and corner of the country for

sustaining mandatory business operations such as in the dealership processes. We

are using both MPLS and VSAT technologies based on business volume, transaction

process needs and infrastructure availability from service providers. The other

challenge is the mobility of people and the resulting skill impact this has in

the dealerships. We are building business process as well as system user

training programs for use by dealerships, which would largely mitigate the risks

associated with the learning curve.

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What are your demands?



Today, technology expertise is easier to get or supplement through
outsourcing partnerships. It is the process understanding and ability to bring

about process refinements through IT enablers important for enterprise success.

Software engineering processes and discipline are hygiene requirements in this

scenario and we should be able to take them for granted. People mobility is

another ongoing tussle even with large enterprises and this is best addressed by

proper knowledge management techniques, process orientation in approach and

continuous skill upgradation. The future need is "mobile" business

management and this has to come from both service provider and vendors. Single

view of operations across the enterprise, 24x7 availability, aligning IT with

business dynamics, resource optimization and utilization, integrated

architecture ensuring secure infrastructure, data and applications and an IT

framework that provides standardization, modularity and scalability and

consolidation to address new initiatives are business imperatives.

Have you achieved your goals?



We have improved manageability and reduced operating costs by consolidating
disparate systems and processes onto single centralized infrastructure. This has

enabled easier rollout of new initiatives, brought about resource optimization

and balanced utilization, increased productivity by automating workflow and

triggering actionable system driven tasks. Main business benefits include

increased productivity, process standardization, and transparency with suppliers

and dealerships resulting in partnership approach, optimized inventory control,

re-deployment of manpower and an infrastructure geared to support inorganic

growth. As far as achieving goals are concerned we always aim to be better than

what we are, and this is hence a continuing journey.

Baburajan K





baburajank@cybermedia.co.in

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