Jury’s Voice

The Computer Associates Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2004 Jury Panel

(Held at Orchid, Hotel Mumbai, on the 9th of October 2004)

Anjani Agrawal, Partner, Ernst and Young

The process of judging the Intelligent Enterprise Awards was an exciting one because of the competitiveness and efforts in all the IT initiatives. Perspective is critical and it was tough to vary the expectation according to the category.

For example, ICE as a segment is already comfortable with IT. So expectation from those companies would naturally be more than some others. Besides, companies competing for extremely similar implementations made decisions harder to make.

At the end of the day however, innovation has three dimensions. One: how you better the business. Two: how you change the lives of stake-holders, employees and partners. Three: can the project be furthered to contribute to society at large?

L Sundarrajan, Senior VP, Corporate IT, Aditya Birla Management Corporation Ltd

Every segment had projects that were focused on the customer. Today, the focus is on improving customer satisfaction levels while also improving productivity—especially in the ICE sector.

In the government sector, it is good to see that there is interest in how technology can provide the next step. The government is now becoming customer-focused. They are now deploying cutting-edge technology to ensure that both the people and the government benefit from it. The segment is slowly moving away from the practices like getting approvals from the Babus. Today, the officers are taking the initiatives and managing things themselves.

Among the FMCG companies, I was really impressed by the ITC initiative. While trying to improve customer service, they are also reducing the cost by cutting internal costs.

Sunil Mehta, Senior VP & Area Systems Director-Central Asia, J. Walter Thompson

It’s very difficult to define or describe innovation and in some cases even demonstrate the benefits tangibly.

Having said that, any innovation follows the 80:20 rule. Every application has 80 percent features that are standard and commonly used. But it's usually the 20 percent of the application that makes all the difference.

Of the nominations judged, the SUMUL initiative impressed me the most not just in terms of its concept, but also its scope of impact. It's the best case of technology implementation at the grass-root level. Not only does it serve a clear business objective, but it's also high in terms of social impact.

NDPL is another example. The application doesn't just offer definite topline and bottomline benefits for the enterprise but also provides a clear advantage to customers by bringing transparency and thus providing a sense of empowerment.

Harish Bharuka, CEO, Goodlass Nerolac Paints Limited

A good aspect of the awards is that it's commendable to see so many Indian companies come forward to talk about the various ways in which they have used technology innovatively. This makes one company aspire to be better than the other.

Even if an organization does not receive an award, it realizes that someone else has done things better. So it can go to that company, study the innovations, and learn from it.

Every CEO of a forward-looking organization has realized that if he/she has to survive and prosper he/she must have investments in IT. The important thing for CIOs is to prepare a business case for the IT project.

Companies should look at the deliverables for the company and how they will be measured. If there is a sound case of ROI, deliverables, and the key measurable factors, I don't think that any CEO worth the while will reject the project.