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He is very much unlike most CIOs in the country. Yet his profile is the closest to what a CIO should be-business and general management experience combined with the expertise in applying modern information systems theory to impart value to the organization.

R P Singh, executive director-integrated information systems, Bharat Petroleum Corporation has been heading information systems since 2002, but his career is steeped in a wealth of business experience. Singh's experience in the petroleum and power industry spans areas like project planning, project management, materials management, maintenance management, corporate planning, operations management and information systems.

However, the ever-changing IT acronyms and the myriad technologies at various points in the hype cycles doesn't baffle Singh. He says, "most CIOs get disconnected with business or have only had the exposure to IT and are more concerned with technical excellence." The proverbial manager that he is, Singh is able to wade through jargon and doesn't rest unless a strong business case is justified. "I don't touch a project that does not give at least 30% return. That's a qualifier," declares Singh.

In 2002, when Singh took over the mantle of IS at BPCL, the organization already had two stream of systems functions. One was ERP or business systems, headed by a business person and the other was information systems, headed by an IT person. The integrated nature of the business and its dependence on various non-ERP applications called for a unified systems portfolio and Singh was brought in to achieve this integration.

For any CIO, this would have been a unique challenge and Singh was quite up to it. "The first task was to make IT people think business and the business people think in terms of IT," says Singh. Any project within the company had to have a business front-end and an IT back-end.

Singh's closest allies are his team of eight officers who report directly to him. Through weekly meetings, Singh gets a handle on the IT affairs and is able to maintain a strategic perspective for IT even as he interacts with his peers in business. The eight officers cover the whole ground of IT operations like infrastructure, data centers, non-ERP applications, ERP applications and development, business processes, business intelligence, and services.

The eight officers are rotated across various areas so that they gain an appreciation of each other's areas. In a truly democratic fashion, all project proposals are deliberated upon and consented by the eight officers before the projects are finally taken up. Inter-departmental issues too get resolved. Says Singh, " Conflicts don't go vertical, they are resolved and don't come to me."

Singh and his team are just out of a record-breaking implementation of a new version of SAP, version 4.7E. The version was launched late last year and BPCL took it up for implementation this February and in August it completed the rollout within 48 hours across the nation. The task was mammoth:nearly 3,200 people at 28 locations were trained in two months by about 150 trainers.

BPCL is a global showcase site for SAP implementation and a SAP-certified ERP Competency Center, with over 3,100 user licenses. BPCL's competency team has 67 certified members in functional modules, each of whom have an average of 12-15 years of business experience and 27 certified technical support specialists with an average of eight years of experience in IT systems.

The ERP competency center plays a strong back-end, integrating role in managing business processes and enabling businesses to succeed in their new ventures by providing quick and sound technology solutions.

It is important to note that the organization has chosen to retain such talent in-house, a task which is difficult in itself. BPCL has been even hiring out its team members on external SAP implementation projects. Says Singh, "Last year our businesses evaluated the impact of IT: the saving to the corporation was Rs 100 crore due to SAP implementation alone." He adds, "we are the only company that has been able to get returns on any IS project within two years. This could be categorized as the best in the industry, in my opinion."

Iishwar Dass Nair in Mumbai

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