For the past two decades Anant Pai, better known as Uncle Pai, has been running a feature in his Tinkle magazine, namely, Tinkle tells you why. Month after month, Uncle Pai fields questions from children across India and all over, explaining to them why the sky is blue or why do bats sleep upside down or how do we know that the universe is actually expanding. He patiently answers even the most inane questions, and, even today, in the times of Google and Wikipedia, the feature retains its novelty.

Yet, the all-knowing Uncle is grappling with something novel himself. Technology, or to be more precise, computers. In his late seventies, Uncle Pai has decided to master the computer in his own way. After much practice, he now uses email like a pro, replying to scores of mails that fill up the Tinkle mailbox. He comfortably writes on a computer, though he seems to prefer the rustle of paper and stiffness of a pen.

Nonetheless, while Uncle Pai has been updating himself, the company born in the late sixties has already adopted the latest in printingyou can see sub-editors scripting on Word storyboards and designers doing the layout in Quark. Even good ol Amar Chitra Katha has a space for itself on cyberspace, and people can buy past issues from the website. Not content with that, the publishing group is now embarking on a new journey, embracing the Internet, mobile and other media like never before. Thus, India Book House (publishers of Tinkle) is as modern as any can be.

Angelic Issues
In stark contrast is Angel Broking, a modern trading and broking firm. Even though Angel employs the latest technology that is on offer to enable trading via Internet, newer innovations keep Ketan Shah, CIO, Angel Broking, busy all the time. The biggest issue according to Shah is implementing new technology while ensuring that things continue to run smoothly. "It is really difficult to implement a new technology in the existing infrastructure with a very small maintenance window and least amount of downtime, as the new technology requires a lot of effort in terms of rigorous testing during that stage. We interact with vendors constantly to understand the product thoroughly, and during this stage we also obtain market statistics/information about the product," says Shah.

It is often said that SMB CEOs are stingy when it comes to IT spend and CIOs have a tough time convincing them for IT buy-in. Not for Shah, he dispels the notion instantly. "Any top management needs a business justification for any investment, be it technology or otherwise. We at Angel make sure that any technology adopted is not obsolete and is scalable enough to address the ever-growing business requirement. We make a business case before implementing the technology so that advantages of the technology are clearly visible to the business and top management," he says.

A Matter of Scale
Vishal Retail is a fast growing chain of supermarkets all across India. Starting off in Kolkata in 1986, today the chain has sixty-six showrooms in forty-six cities and even that number might change by the time the story is printed. For Ranjan Sharma, CIO, Vishal Retail (Megamart), change is the biggest challenge. The systems that he puts in now should be able to bear the weight of growth in the coming days or even years.

Often SMBs make do with home-grown solutions, but in todays racy times it can be a risky proposition. So, after much deliberation, Sharma settled for a SAP Retail solution over the rest, simply because he wanted a system that was not only robust but also extremely scalable. "For us, it was critical that systems were able to bear the load. Everyday, we are handling thousands of new footfalls at our numerous stores. We also wanted a system that could be replicated at a new store without much fuss," he says.

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