Future Perfect: India Inc gears up for a digitally-connected business model

Next time you take your Swift Dzire for service to the Maruti Suzuki service station, chances are that the service manager will greet you armed with a tablet. The device will have the complete history of your car—last service, any recurring trouble—and your latest service request will be noted down by the manager on the tablet.
The device will help cut the normal booking time for service from about 16 minutes to eight minutes. Even as you leave the service station, the tablet would have shot off a request to the spare parts department to send any parts needed — a new air filter, engine, gear oils to be changed or new spark plugs—and send it to the designated service bay to help the mechanic get down to the job without delay.

All this is part of the plan that makes Maruti Suzuki future ready. And there's lots more which happens even before you buy the car. Says Rajesh Uppal, chief information officer (CIO) Maruti Suzuki, "it's a technology driven orchestra that drives whatever Maruti does. Robots work along side humans to roll out the right cars at the right time for the customer."

Uppal, a Maruti veteran having spent 29 years the company says this is the fourth generation of technology upgrade at Maruti with an aim to keep the country's largest auto maker future ready. "It's a sea change compared to even three years back. If IT is down for one minute, three cars get delayed in the production line. That's how critical IT is."

Across India Inc be it pharma, FMCG, banks or even online marketplaces, the key business driver is IT and CIOs are creating systems that promise to make the companies future ready. Says Anil Jaggia, CIO, HDFC Bank, "today, a bank is a technology company in disguise. There's no way we could have handled the daily volume without technology. And since that count (daily transactions) increases daily, we need to be ahead of today's needs."

For example in August alone HDFC Bank handled 15 per cent of the total interbank money transactions, that is, volumes exceeding more than one million transactions. Another sector where daily volumes are high and downtime could jepordise business is online marketplaces.

Says Amitabh Misra, vice president, engineering, Snapdeal, "we connect buyers and sellers and also do post-order processing. Our catalogue of five million products is live and we add a few lakh every month. We keep ourselves future ready by solving problems that we encounter — be it scalability or introducing new languages."

On an average Snapdeal does 70 software releases a month and technology changes are real time—like on a treadmill. So software like ERP is hygiene—the focus is more on technologies that can make work smarter and better. And that includes SMAC—Social, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud computing. "The goal of IT is to implement business strategy.

For instance, when buyers visit dealers they get to meet salesmen equipped with tablets to display various colour variations and test drives uploaded on the tablets," says Uppal. Mahindra & Mahindra, which offers its motorcycles and XUVs for sale on Snapdeal, forsees a scenairo where customers in the remotest part of the country can customise their vehicals, beyond just color.

"As the cost of IT comes down, more things become viable. Designing your own car is a real possibility in the future," says executive director Pawan Goenka. While on one hand robots are being used to be future ready, on the other hand, companies are putting devices like tablets to new uses, empowering their sales force.

For example, pharma major Lupin sees the goal of IT to support bottom line and top line. Says Mayur Danait, CIO, Lupin, "the line between business and IT is blurring. Mobility and cloud are the two things that help us get to the goal. For example, we are now giving tablets to field force. MNCs have done it earlier, but I believe given the infrastructure issues in the country (limited bandwidth) the time is only right now."

Out of its 15,000 employees at Lupin a third are on the field. "The idea is to have doctor call reporting systems, chemist reporting, leave, expense and even performance appraisal via tablets. For devices like Apple iPad the mania phase is over and now is the time to derive value," says Danait.

The company is evaluating Apple iOS or Windows devices for its sales team. Lupin spends 1 per cent of its revenue on IT. Maruti declined to share its IT spend, while HDFC Bank spends about Rs 1,000 crore a year on new technologies and that's increasing by about 20 per cent a year.

Lupin has also eliminated paper work by using a doctor call reporting system—instead of paper reports field staff now use the reporting software to send virtual reports that includes doctors feedback on new drugs.

Lupin has also introduced an SMS based anti-counterfeit solution. Lupin's 300 million medicine pack come printed with a code to authenticate whether the drug is genuine. The user can text the code to Lupin to authenticate the drug. The major FMCG companies are preparing for a situation wherein digital technology will be all pervasive in the supply chain.

"The cost of using technology to collect information has dropped by a factor of 100 in the last twenty years due to cell phones, point of sale machines and cloud computing. Real time information helps improve inventory turns, helps recue capital engagement and enables faster cycle times." says D Shiva Kumar, Chairman and CEO, Pepsi.

FMCG major Marico is in the midst of rolling out cloud based internal social network tools for better sharing of ideas and collaborating amongst various workgroups across geographies. Says Mukesh Kripalani, chief, IT & business process transformation, Marico, "the role of IT is shifting from being a solutions provider to that of helping the CEO to shape overall business strategy." Within Marico collaboration has shifted from conference calls to using social tools like Yammer and Wooqer.

Perhaps the greatest impact of technology has been on the most regulated business — banks. And with good reasons. More people like to bank from their desktops, tablets or smartphones rather than stand in long queues in banks. Also, if India has to take banking to the masses setting up physical bank branches to cover the population could take more than two decades.

Technology brings the bank faster to customers. With the age of personalisation setting in, customers want all services on demand. "I think the future bank will do everything the way the customer wants," says Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank. Customers are adopting new services fast. 85 per cent of all fixed deposits with HDFC Bank are booked online.

Says Jaggia, "We give customers a choice of transacting via any channel. Physical bank branch and virtual banking (via smartphones, tablets) complement each other. 21 to 50 year olds not just in urban areas are using mobile devices and net banking. They want to be able to do everything (transfer money, book deposits, pay bills etc) online."

The bank has 28.9 million customers, 3,403 branches and 11,256 ATMs. HDFC Bank is piloting voice biometrics, which will help people speak into the ATM to order a cheque book or withdraw money. It's also experimenting with Near Free Communication — your phone, synced up with a device at Starbucks, could pay for your coffee. The just launched iPhone 6 brings this service via Apple Pay, to be available initially in the US.

Says Jaggia, "From November 2015 customers will get a chance to use digital signatures (as mandated by the Reserve Bank). This along with use of Aadhaar identity and electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) could lead to paperless loan applications."

eKYC allows banks to verify customers without need to carry documents like address proof, identity card. Given that more businesses are dependent on IT, the system level changes are live. Says Jaggia, "We change things in motion. For example we replaced the retail banking software in 10 blocks without any impact on customer service or experience."

HDFC Bank has a 600 people IT team and it invests continuously in upgrading systems. At Maruti the refresh cycle which was earlier seven years has come down to four years. Maruti Suzuki has a 80 people in house technology team. Says Uppal, "my challenge is how do I adopt new technology all the time. Expectations of users—be it customers or at shop floor—are high and that makes refreshes easier to implement."

Lupin's IT roadmap is a three year plan. Says Danait, "obsolescence is high on the hardware side as technology changes rapidly." Marico has a refresh rate of three years. At new age companies like Snapdeal, technology planning is practically real time. Says Misra, "We have 350 people in IT, up from 100 nine months back, and this will easily triple in less than a year. We have to constantly keep a step ahead." And that's becoming true across industries.