According to a recent report published by Unisys Corp-On a worldwide level
there is a considerable gap between executives' business and IT goals, and the
estimation of their organizations' ability to achieve those objectives. This gap
indicates that executives are not utilizing the most from their business
initiatives and IT investments, and they need new methods to modernize their
business processes, strategic applications and IT infrastructures to address
their core business challenges.
The report indicates that while building an IT infrastructure of a company,
the solution providers (SPs) need to do a thorough analysis rather than just
getting into the details of technical requirements of the customer. They have to
go far beyond just deploying the solutions. Besides knowing the client's IT
requirement, SPs need to study their business plans, objectives and roadmaps for
future.
Bridging the gap
Building up IT infrastructure of a company in order to achieve business
goals, demands extensive involvement of SPs in a company's planning procedure.
If a company is not able to achieve its pre-set targets and business goals, it
reflects that the IT potentials are not fully harnessed. Therefore, the
objective of the SPs should be to bring out the maximum utility from the
existing infrastructure and to bridge the gap between the IT investments and its
actual benefits.
When a SP takes up the project, he should be aware of the ongoing plans and
business goals of its customer too so that the IT layouts could be designed
accordingly. The challenge is to give the best solution to the customers in the
given timeframe and budget assigned.
“The practice of engaging SPs in pre-budgeting session is essential for the
enterprise customers so that the right estimation could be done for the required
technology. The IT strategy should be shared at the planning stage so that the
project deployer can suggest the amount to be invested for IT infrastructure and
its operation,” shared Sanjay Bakshi, CEO of Gurgaon-based Quantm Net
Technologies.
Allocation of cash
For any project, the crucial factor that an SP needs to consider is the
selection of the right technology that fulfills the requirement of the customer
within the limited budget. It is customary that clients design their IT budget
in presence of the SP so that the latter is aware of the availability of capital
and can design the IT project accordingly. However, the better and strategically
wise method is to involve the SP in the entire budgeting procedure of the
company so that they understand the strength of the stakeholders and design the
IT infrastructure in such a way that brings maximum utility of the resources.
“Budgeting should be done in presence of the owner of the company, the
stakeholders as well as the SPs. Customers are beginning to realize the
importance of making SPs aware of their plans and upcoming projects,” added
Prateek Garg, CEO of Noida-based Progressive Infotech.
The current scenario
SPs admit that in most cases, CIOs of a company fail to realize the
importance of engaging them in the internal matters. Treating SPs as a part of
the company is not prevalent in India in an extensive manner.
Even today a huge distance persists between the CIOs and the SPs. The gap
prevails in terms of the requirement of the customers, the budgeting of the IT
implementation and the final execution.
SPs are observing a gradual transformation of the mindset and today companies
are looking forward to engage IT project deployers in the internal business
decision-making process.
expense or investment
SPs are observing that business organizations consider building IT
infrastructure not merely as an expense but as an investment. It is being looked
as a medium on which the company grows and moves ahead. This eventually helps in
improving customer's satisfaction.
S Premdoss Samson of Chennai-based Exelan Networking Technologies accorded
that SMBs as well as large enterprises consider spending on IT as an investment,
but the profitability from IT investment is visible on the long run.
Upgradation
Technologies today get obsolete faster. Hence the SPs need to keep this
under consideration when allocating the budget.
Sharing his view on the technical upgradations hitting the budget constraints
of its customers, Harish Shetty, CEO of Bengaluru-based Binary Systems said,
“Modifying the budget limit to meet the requirement of technical enhancements
depends on the size and nature of the company. For large enterprises it could
not be a big issue to expand their IT budget, but for small and medium
enterprises, it could be a important matter.”
Accountability of SPs
If an SP is engaged in the internal decision making process of an
organization, he is responsible and accountable for the profitability execution
trend. If the client is unable to bridge the gap between his IT investments and
set targets, it should be the task of the concerned SP to look into the
loopholes and tighten the required area. As a part of the deployment process, he
should take regular feedbacks from the customers, once the project is completed.
“It depends on whether the SP should be accountable for meeting the business
goals of its customers. It cannot be generalized, as it differs from company to
company. It also depends on the nature of area that the customer is dealing. If
a company is not able to increase its profitability because of the slow down of
that particular industry, one cannot blame the IT infrastructure for that,”
commented Sudhir Kothari, CEO, Embee Software, Kolkata.
Involving SPs
To bridge the gap of difference in IT investment and business objectives,
Garg believed that in it coming days, the CIOs will have to take a partnership
approach with the SPs in respective domains in IT, ie infrastructure,
applications and managed services, which means that the chosen SP should be
involved right from the stage of understanding the business problem to designing
a solution and going on to implementing and improving the solution, with a clear
business case developed on delivering a measurable RoI to the client.
According to Bakshi of Quantm Net Technologies, “Enterprise customers put the
budget in one basket for IT. Instead they should demarcate it in
two-infrastructure building and operation and application. What happens is if
there is over expense on one side, they end up subsidizing on the other that
affects the profitability of the investment.”
Kothari further added that if the building and implementation of IT
infrastructure is done in a proper manner, a company can save up to 30-40
percent at their back office operation.
AMRITA TEJASVI
(amritat@cybermedia.co.in)