Every country’s might is determined by the kind of defence force it has. Now with the pervasive impact of IT, defence establishments across the world are embracing information technology in a big way. With defence becoming one promising vertical for IT solution providers, Dataquest took upon the mantle of understanding the levels of IT adoption and usage in this area. To this end, a panel of eminent defence personnel gathered in Delhi for the Dataquest-SAP CIO Meet and deliberated on the topic—"IT in Defence". The panel consisted of Capt Ganesh K Vanapalli, joint director, directorate of IT, Naval HQ; Col LR Kar, Joint director, directorate of standardization, Ministry of Defence; Brigadier Jagdish Malhotra, Army HQ (Signals); Sq Leader Sudhir Saxena, research fellow–IDSA and moderator of the event; Wing Cdr V Kumar; Commodore Navin Chandra VSM (Retd) & CEO (Indian Operations), Infinite Computer Solutions; Wg Cdr BG Bhalla (Retd), VSM; Cdr Anil Saxena, Convergent Technologies; Lt Col BD Jayant (retd); and Air Marshall PC Vajpayee (retd), Maintenance Command, IAF. Excerpts from the discussion:

The state of information technology
Sq Leader Sudhir Saxena: The subject of discussion is indeed macroscopic. I would broadly classify IT implementation into two broad areas—one is the classical application of IT as it is available and applicable to the corporate world or any large information management organization. The second relates to operational applications. It is important for us to dwell on the kind of IT applications that power our defence establishment and look at the larger vision the services have envisaged in the early years which set the course for the present IT initiatives.

Air Marshall Vajpayee: IT and other related subjects play a very important role for defence. It is really a force multiplier. We have been using this word quite often but essentially their particular field multiplies the effectiveness of any force. We started our IT initiatives in the early 1970s with the formation of the national development council at that time. We also invited industries, and defence personnel to get their point of view. But the exercise was not much of a success for the simple reason that the order was not for the private industries and it also called for huge capital investments. Nevertheless this process has continued in small forms over the years. And as a result we have implemented customized components and are going in for major systems.

Capt Vanapalli: In the Navy we have put in place an Integrated Logistic Management System (ILMS), the first successful enterprise-wide inventory management system in the defence services. The system has really taken off successfully, mainly because the officers within the navy developed it totally in-house, with no industry participation other than outsourcing the original software used for it. The other reason the system succeeded is due to the domain expertise of the developers. The IT industry has developed so many applications, but many had failed when it was implemented in the defence establishments. They have failed, because the developers lacked the domain expertise.

Standardization

Sudhir Saxena: How do we visualize outsourcing requirements? Hidden in that is a very basic agenda whether defence wants to open itself for complete application and engineering integration along with a set up or we want to do all the things ourselves?

Col Kar: I think the major issue here is standardization. We would endeavor to have a single standardized system for the defence services. But the problem is, as individual organizations, these entities are too big by themselves to have standards of their own. Furthermore the operating models of the army, navy, and the air force are different. As far as the hardware is concerned, standardization is inevitable.

I agree with you to a certain extent. For instance the Navy has created their logistic management system. So have the air force and the army. The case in point is three different organizations are helping this activity. This is where standardization is required.

Brig Jagdish Malhotra: Inside the army DRDO and outside, I have handled some of the largest software projects in the country. So when we talk of things like standardization, we need to clearly map the quality requirements and should aim for integration of the solutions with other sub units within the system.

Com Batra: The dilemma we have been talking about is not due to the failure of the industry of not understanding the quality requirements. The problem I think is related to the fast obsolescence in IT. I think the IT industry has matured now because of the bandwidth. Moreover, the hardware is much ahead of what we need. What we now need is to get both the industry and the defense to sit together and put in place a common IT architecture that really adds value. I somehow do not agree that we should pursue our own systems in house, because of the basic reason that there are frequent transfers. Even the people who are managing projects keep shifting.

Fostering interaction

Sudhir Saxena: Another point, which I would like to touch upon, is security, and that brings to a very important feature of IT application in defense set.

Brig Malhotra: Well, there is a forum that exists within the army, the navy and the air force called the steering committee. It is chaired at a very high rank and they do take care of the security aspect, which is common to the all the three services and is well taken care of. The basic point I would like to stress is that the industry must support our systems for longer duration. The industry has to come to us. And we are looking at support for the next 15 years even if the systems get a little outdated vis-à-vis the current market trends. Defence cannot chase technology, particularly in our country because of the economic constraints. Everybody wants the moon; I would like to have it as well. It is feasible and practical. As far as security is concerned, we need to follow the policy of some little development within, without compromising our issues.

Sanjay Dhingra (SAP): In the last ten years, the scenario has totally changed. As far as the defence forces are concerned, all over the world, if you look back, particularly after the demise of Soviet Union, we have paradoxically seen a large number of conflicts. So all the nations today around the world should be geared up to respond. It is very important to keep some aspects, within the organization where the security levels are required at a very high level but from the operational point of view. Being from the industry I feel that we can add a lot of value. The US navy, which is one of the accounts we implemented an enterprise IT wide solution for, has more than a fleet of 300 ships and when we started implementing IT systems for them, they had 99 legacy systems. If you see any government organization, not only in our own country, anywhere around the world would have thousands of legacy systems already running because IT has been there for a number of years now. The challenge of how to incorporate the legacy system into a standard system without compromising on the security is the key issue.

Wing Cdr Kumar: I have seen sides, defence, and industry. I was in the US for four years. The important point, which was raised, was how to economize the defence requirements because the funds are limited. I think there are three or four aspects to it. The fist aspect is that unless the industry knows the requirements it cannot produce good solutions.

Vajpayee: Some kind of beginning has already been made. If you have seen MoD’s website, they have promised that all the future contract requirements, projects will be posted on the website. So one can have a look at it. But still we have a long way to go. But we are certainly making progress in that.

Sanjay Dhingra: We should start focusing on the larger picture like post planning and command management, acquisition, investment management, asset management system so that you can have global visibility of your assets. Taking the other point of how we can interface the industry with defence forces—In fact SAP has got a forum, which we call as the Industry Forum in which we have 21 industries. We are going to start this forum from the next year in India where we would also invite people from the defence to understand their point of view of IT and support issues.

Overcoming deterrents

Brig Malhotra: I think in defence, IT has to be used in a better way. A project starts with a Rs 100-crore outlay, it goes on till Rs 600 crore and then, it is shelved.

Sudhir Saxena: So how are we going to enable the industry to know that we need this relevant domain knowledge?

Capt Vanapalli: Let me make it very clear to the industry that our focus or the instructions from the top is to outsource and not develop as our senior colleagues have already brought out. We are not here to develop software for the navy. Our core competency is something else; let this be very clear to the industry. There are no limits, let me repeat, there is no shortage of money in the services as long as it goes into the right projects and for the ultimate aim for which it is going to be used. But it takes time. The industry should realize that if today you give me a proposal, tomorrow you cannot expect to get an order. It takes time and it can range even between two to four years.

There are many sanctioned projects, which are already in hand by services or DRDO, or R&D units. Now these organizations are looking at subcontracting modules out of these, which they are doing already. Because they want to reduce costs and the effort in that area. The industry should target those projects, which are already sanctioned, and the budgets are there where the local organization have the power. You don’t have to go to defense or Army HQ for sanctioning it. These organizations have full powers to offload and they are looking for good organizations to come and interact with them.

Sudhir Saxena: Let us be realistic that IT is a force multiplier but not a force by itself. Since they are termed as force or effort multiplier, they do essentially form the core part of the entire modernization endeavor, which is taken up by defence HQ and MoD. We also need to submit that we do not have budget constraints as far as defence of the country is concerned. It is a non -planned expenditure, which is not planned by planning commission. So we do not have any constraints. But we do work under a procedural framework, which we have inherited over a period of time and have served the country well. So keep that in mind when you decide to clash with the warriors head on!

G Shrikanth

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