That charity begins at home does not look like a philosophy endorsed by Indian enterprises, especially when IT deployment is concerned. Be it hardware or software, the preference has always been toward MNC vendors over their Indian counterparts. To be fair to Indian CIOs, one must also take into account the paucity of indigenous products; and whatever limited numbers are available do not stand up to scratch in terms of quality.

Times, though, seem to be changing, at least for some enterprises, as far as acceptance of homegrown IT products are concerned, especially on the ERP front.

Desi Flavor
Homegrown ERPs are becoming a part of the CIO consideration set, more so when it comes to finding a vertically-fit ERP. Prakash Pradhan, head, IT, Jagsopan Pharmaceuticals, says that while deciding on an organization-wide ERP solution, he evaluated ERP products from India.

Budget and total expenditure play a great role in selecting the final product and thats where indigenous ERPs beat the MNCs by a large margin. My idea was to find something fit for pharma. MNCs cost almost double the investment, he says. From a financial estimate, the Indian options scored well but the only hitch was scalability and hence he had to think of MS or SAP.

Finding an ERP that is 100% satisfactory for all processes would be a difficult proposition. Readymade mapping is not easy to achieve unless one designs something from the scratch in-house. But be it user requirement or SMB-specific issues, the big suites are in use because of their wide presence and not necessarily because they fit, he admits. Much against the skepticism they were earlier met with, Indian suites, as they are surfacing, are no less than international ones when it comes to ERP applications.

Another company that had tried and tested an Indian ERP solution was Madras Cements, which incidentally was a solution from a group company. G Muthukrishnan, chief manager, IT, Madras Cements, confidently puts Indian options on a par with foreign ones: We implemented an Indian product, Ramco, and got the best product, better support, immediate response, and
customization.

Features used to be a forte for MNC suites, but as of today, Indian suites dont lag behind, whether its features or performance. They are far easier to adjust to Indian requirements and other customization needs. Not to forget there is the obvious pricing advantage, both in license fees and AMCs. More so, the implementation was done directly from Ramco and not by a third party, Muthukrishnan adds.

In another example, Henkel, too, invested in Ramco for its ERP application. It decided on Ramco e-application suite after evaluating several competing solutions as per some earlier news reports.

Ramco apparently scored over the others with its ease of implementation, integration responsibility, TCO, better understanding of Indian statutory laws, better support, cost effective AMC, and as a one-stop solution, besides being an industry-specific solution ideally suited for Henkel.

Ramco, being an Indian company, has better understanding of Indian statutory requirements. The support in terms of both ease and cost-effectiveness is much better than other ERP options, says Manikkam VS, India head, IT, Henkel Information Technology.

Existing Troubles
The troubles with Indian options continue to exist, more so in a scenario when not many options are around in the first place. Not many would venture to be the first users in India of an Indian product and so there is a dearth of convincing referrals. At the end of the day, one is left with Oracle and SAP to choose from. MS is not visible enough in the marketing front as it falters when it comes to pan-India choice and enough referrals.

In case of Shree Cements, Indian ERP player Ramco was considered but not picked because of peer feedback. Rajat Sharma, GM, IT, cites examples like Prism Cement and Parrys that had to migrate from Ramco to SAP.

To admit at the onset, this alternative would purely depend on ones priorities. If the customization needs to outscore the scale and technical know-how factors, its worth spending time and effort in building up or, as is more often the case, brushing up ones homemade solution.

For the CIO, the name is simplelegacy systems. These can be further augmented and brought at par with foreign options through hybrid routes. Disheartened at the absence of adequately tailored ERPs, Indian companies and CIOs have already started experimenting with stuff out of their own kitchen.

FCm Travel Solutions took this route after spending a good amount of time in research that ended with zilch. At last we started with our own vision and started working on a completely raw development. It took time, energy, investment but it was worth waiting. Finally, we are going to roll out our product by early next month. It is going to be a 100% customized product which will cater to most of our requirements, explains national manager, IT, Vishwajeet Singh.

Tried and Tested
The desi flavor hence is not limited to Indian vendors alone. There are instances of in-house legacy systems gaining over their branded counterparts. In fact, a hybrid model can be a killer combination had it not been for scale issues.

It would work if it is used in a distilled fashion and can be mapped across the ERP or plugged-in easily, Sharma says. At Shree Cements, there was an in-house system working well, given the domain grip and the vision of internal team but that worked till the company did not set foot in growth frontiers.

Integrating most key suppliers, key dealers, all employees, and all business processes in customized software set, is the key accomplishment that the IT team of Bajaj Electricals professes to have done with minimum IT investments.

We have been using these customized software solution sets for all areas like ERP, Intranet, SFA, CRM, SCM, extranet dealers and suppliers and customer care centers, call center and e-commerce-enabled website, etc. And we have been using some of these components like ERP, Intranet for the last twelve years, and over the period we have reached a stage where all other components are developed and implemented with in-house efforts in a well integrated manner and with centralized setup, says Pratap Gharge, vice president and CIO, Bajaj Electricals.

Now that its current IT infrastructure foundation has been laid for around twelve years, it has lived its life, and Bajaj Electricals is in the process of changing ERP, CRM, and SCM components with ready products in the coming financial year.

The IT budget (both capital and expenses put together) since the last twelve years is consistently below 0.4% of the total revenue. He feels that the IT team has been doing excellent work of delivering best functionality, integrating all the areas, including business partners, within such a small IT budget consistently for more than a decade.

Are SaaS (Software as a Service) models or open source solutions potent enough as substitutes or complements to big ERP suites? SaaS can be a very successful option in the coming days, when the industry will have enough people to work point-to-point. It can be great too, if you have expertise or capable and reliable partners to work with. There is nothing which can beat this chemistry, says Singh from FCm Travel.

Eatons Blausey feels that SaaS is just about who runs or hosts the application.

It is ASPs in a new light (or fancier term). We use SaaS for some CRM applications as well our expense management system. Deploying ERP in this fashion abdicates no one in the company from proper process, people, and data in the ERP. It just shifts the running of the application outside.

Pratima Harigunani/CyberMedia News
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

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