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So the times arent good. And almost everybody is reeling under pressure of the economic downturn. But well, as the old saying goesthe best of innovation and learning happens during the toughest of times. This was proved yet again by this small group of men, sitting around a table, not to prove themselves, but precisely because they had already done that job. No wonder then that we chose to call them heroes of the slowdown.

The table that we are talking about stood silently in the hall of an event organized by Intel, called Driving Innovation and Efficiency during this Economic Downturn. Perhaps the best part of this event was that it was not merely a preaching session on how to drive innovation in tough times, it was a coming together of people who had been there, done that, to share their experiences and elucidate their learnings.

The event started with a keynote address by Pat Gelsinger, Intel who talked of technologies that could heighten productivitya key area during these times. Things like mobile PCs, business case of enterprise mobility, data centers of the future, green technology, virtualization, and solid state drives figured in his talk, that focused on increasing business efficiencies and eliminating wastages.

A couple of key technologies that he said could revolutionize the IT world were a fiber channel over Ethernet for data centers of the future, and Intels new processor, the Xeon 5500, which he claimed was their most breakthrough product since the introduction of Pentium Pro some twenty years back.

(LR): Dhiren Savla, Kuoni Travels; Pratap Ghatge, Bajaj Electricals; Pat Gelsinger, Intel; Girish Rao, Marico; Arun Gupta, Shoppers Stop; and Prasanto K Roy, CyberMedia. Under discussion: though decision making got delayed last year, the smaller projects with immediate business benefits were not scrapped

Around the Table
There is an old tale that talks about those who stray from the herd and go their own ways. According to that folk story, such people can have only two kinds of endings. Its either doom or great prosperity. The group that sat around our table was made of men who did things differently, and yes, they were certainly closer to prosperity than doom.

The discussion was moderated by Prasanto K Roy, president and chief editor, ICT Publications, CyberMedia. The panelists included Arun Gupta, CTO, Shoppers Stop; Dhiren Savla, Kuoni Travels; Pratap Ghatge, Bajaj Electricals; Girish Rao, Marico; and Pat Gelsinger, Intel.

What emerged as a unanimous voice in the discussion was the usage of IT to reduce costs. All these CIOs not only believed that IT could make this happen, but also proved that it can, and it does. While there was little dispute about the fact that some long-term projects and investments have been put on hold in most of the organizations, this was a group of CIOs who had not only made a business case for their IT related decisions but have also gone ahead and implemented their pre-scheduled projects.

If Savlas mantra was to use IT to make money and invest that money to make more money, Raos was to use more and more capex to reduce opex. But irrespective of the route taken, the destination envisioned by all of them was similara future where technology will drive innovation and efficiency.

Some of the big projects that our CIOs talked about included the data center consolidation for Bajaj Electricals, where everything was shifted to an IDC kind of environment and the server hardware was replaced to optimize energy and space.

Another big project was undertaken by Gupta of Shoppers Stop. And this was directly related to costs. In order to reduce his fixed costs, Gupta automated the electricity monitoring and store filled process and embarked confidently on the outsourcing path. Result: his fixed cost came down by 37%. And whats more, the consumption of electricity units also showed a 30% decrease. Now, these are some earnings to boast of during the slowdown!

Similar were the cases cited by Rao of Marico, who took to prototyping to scale up fast and also managed to bring down the rack space by over 25%, thanks to consolidation.

The Understanding Game
And this one has numerous players. On one hand, the company has to know itself and its requirements, on the other hand is the customer. And on a completely different plane is the understanding between the CEO and the CIO that plays a crucial role in making (or breaking) decisions pertaining to IT spends.

All these levels of this game, assume paramount importance during uncertain times. And these CIOs recognized this. So while Rao invested in enterprise mobility to better address the needs of his sales personnel, Gupta did some micro segmentation analysis to better target his consumers (his analysis showed that Gujarati communities in urban areas spend a bit more on shopping than others!), and Savla worked on centralized remote management solution in order to concentrate all key apps in one data center in Mumbai.

But the third link in the ecosystem that joins the CEO and the CIO is a more crucial one. With the saving button on high alert throughout the world, IT spend naturally took a hit. So how is it that these CIOs managed to do so much?

The answer is singular: that the best possible way to go about convincing the management is to present a solid business case, with clear benefits and relevance for the business. Although that sounds very simple coming from people who have done it, it can be better explained with examples. Raos CRM initiative for his beauty chain, Kaya Skin Clinic is one of them. He said that the only hard work that it took for him was to draft his proposal in a way that would make it relevant for the management and the organization. Once the benefits and the outcome became clear, investments came in.

Same was the case with Savlas going paperless initiative. Although everyone was cynical of the costs initially, once Savla could highlight the eventual savings and the efficiencies that it would bring about in the processes, it became a no-brainer. So, the bottomline is that if you can convince the management that what they get will be much more than what they put in, chances are that your pockets wont remain empty for long!

Delayed, not Derailed
Yes, thats exactly what happened to decision making in the last year. Since everyone was going into the hibernation mode (vis--vis spending) the decision cycles became longer than ever. While there were some projects with a longer RoI span that were either scrapped or put on hold, the smaller projects, with immediate business benefits continued to be implemented.

As per our panelists, while opex happened where necessary, capex mostly didnt go as planned earlier. For instance, refresh cycles of most organizations have taken a hit. The usual three to four years time span has been relaxed a bit, if change is not immediately required. Similarly, major hardware replacements have been put on hold. As one of the panelists said, if there is no particular problem with a laptop, even though its replacement is due, it can be extended by six months.

Well, there seems to be no problem with that, as long as you get a new laptop at the end of it!

Mehak Chawla
mehakc@cybermedia.co.in

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