Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2005

Celebrating innovation

Change is a constant companion for an enterprise, and progressive change requires innovation—initiatives that differentiate the intelligent enterprise from the rest. Network Magazine highlights the achievements of the best in the business. by Anil Patrick R

Business needs typically drive enterprise IT deployment. This creates a scenario where organisations look for distinct competitive advantage with the aid of IT innovation. To keep up with these expectations, CIOs need to innovate. These innovative deployments define the concept of an intelligent enterprise.

The Concept

An intelligent enterprise is an organisation that has developed and applied an IT solution related to its business in an innovative manner, one that has had a significant impact on cost, time, and quality. These organisations are often pioneers who chart the way their industry vertical deploys IT.

Here innovation is of two types: either a company is an early adopter of a new or upcoming technology, or existing technology or technologies have been implemented in an innovative manner resulting in significant benefits.

Innovation has special relevance in the Indian context since our organisations are almost on par with the rest of the world when it comes to IT. For example, India has some of the best enterprise automation implementations worldwide—be it ERP, SCM, or CRM.

This is visible in ‘first-of-its-kind’ initiatives (globally) like the SAS Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2004 winner Hero Honda’s Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) using mySAP’s Supplier Self Service (SuS) sub-module. Such efforts have helped these organisations gain a competitive edge over their local competitors as well as bridge the technology gap on a global level.

Next come home-grown innovations of international standards. Indian organisations are able to blend technologies (both existing and emerging) with their business processes innovatively to develop unique IT solutions that add business value. While delivering business benefits such projects also help improve the common man’s quality of life.

A good case to illustrate this point is ITC’s e-Choupal initiative (winner of the Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2003 for The Most Innovative Enterprise). Yet another example is this year’s Intelligent Enterprise Awards (Infrastructure category) winner, the Centre for Railway Information Systems’ (CRIS) online reservation project. Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation’s kiosk-based citizen facilitation centre deployment (Intelligent Enterprise awards 2005 winner in the Government sector) is yet another noteworthy example.

Initiatives like these have garnered top-notch rankings for Indian enterprises globally due to the following focus areas.

A CTQ Focus

The CTQ (Cost, Time, Quality) factor is of paramount importance in the intelligent enterprise concept. Projects can be competitive only if they are economically viable and provide maximum ROI with the least possible TCO and time.

At the same time, a stringent quality focus has to be maintained to ensure that a project is world class. These objectives are not easily achieved. This is why the Indian enterprise has stood firm despite adverse conditions. Instead, it has focussed more on making the best out of available resources.

Network Magazine realised the need to recognise these outstanding leaders as well as create awareness in Indian enterprises for the need to innovate. As a result, the Intelligent Enterprise Awards were conceptualised.

Recognising Innovation

• The Awards, now in their third year, aim to honour Indian organisations that have:
• Successfully conceptualised a ‘ground-breaking’ and innovative information technology initiative

Used or implemented the above initiative in an innovative manner within the organisation, or built a solution using a concept or technology that is emerging and is considered a leading practice amongst the industry.

Divided into nine categories (seven in 2004) to encompass all the industry verticals, the Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2005 brought to you by SAS provides positive feedback to the enterprise and motivates industry peers to develop intelligent solutions. The awards celebrate IT’s potential to fundamentally transform how business is done. Its success can be judged from the acceptance that Indian organisations have accorded to the awards.

Today, the Intelligent Enterprise Awards are widely recognised as an industry standard for recognising innovation in enterprise technology implementations. The Awards’ popularity is obvious from the 101 applications received from Indian organisations.

Evaluation of Enterprise Intelligence

When it is the elite of India Inc competing with their best projects, it is not easy for a single entity to decide the best. This is why the Intelligent Enterprise 2005 Awards selection process involved a jury panel consisting of industry experts and a business process advisor.

The jury panel consisted of five eminent personalities from the Indian corporate arena. These included a CEO, a CFO, a consultant, and most importantly, prominent CIOs to bring in the peer perspective.

The business side of evaluation from a top management view was provided by Dipak Gupta, Executive Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank. Sunil Chandiramani, Partner, Ernst & Young, provided the consultant’s perspective vis-à-vis project evaluation. The CIO’s viewpoint came from Sanjay Prasad, Head, Technology Services, e-Serve International and Arun Pande, Vice-president, IT, Colgate-Palmolive (India). N Sridhar, Chief Financial Officer, Britannia Industries examined the projects from a CFO’s point of view.

Applications received for the awards were tested for accuracy by Ernst & Young. Shortlisted nominees were forwarded afterwards to the jury panel for the final score tally. The final scores were then tabulated by Ernst & Young and the SAS Intelligent Enterprise Awards 2005 winners were chosen for the different verticals.

The Best of 2005

It’s time now to have a look at the Intelligent Enterprises of 2005. Let’s start with one of the biggest IT implementers of them all—the banking segment.

Banking

HDFC Bank’s proactive risk management system to reduce credit card related risks and fraud is the Intelligent Enterprise of 2005 in the Banking segment. According to HDFC Bank this is the first solution of its kind in India.

Energy & Utility

The Sampark customer relationship management initiative deployed by North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) won the SAS Intelligent Enterprise Award 2005 in the Energy & Utility segment. This solution provides single window customer complaint management and speeds up sanction of utility connections.

Government

The kiosk-based citizen facilitation centres (CFC) of Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) is an outstanding e-governance initiative that has helped it become the Intelligent Enterprise of 2005 in the government segment. The CFCs help create citizen-centric administration which adhere to accountability and transparency, balanced empowerment of employees and citizens.

Media & Entertainment

All India Radio’s (AIR) fully digital studio aimed at improving transmission quality to compete with private radio networks is the Intelligent Enterprise of 2005 for the Media and Entertainment category. The IT initiative has helped the broadcaster achieve a 360-degree improvement in its programme quality and has speeded up its news gathering and information processing flows.

Financial Services

The first of its kind in the Indian insurance industry, ICICI Lombard’s use of a GIS solution for risk management helps it combine risk management software along with GIS-based locational data. This helps understand spatial-level risk data representing real-world entities including both geo-referenced and quantitative attributes.

Telecom

The provisioning and CRM system for prepaid subscribers deployed by Bharti Cellular is the Intelligent Enterprise award winner of 2005 in the Telecom section. The solution has helped Bharti Cellular streamline workflow processes and reduce costs to retain prepaid customers.

Healthcare

SRL Ranbaxy’s home-grown centralised lab information system (CLIMS) is the first-of-its-kind ERP system in the Healthcare segment. It helps centralise and consolidate business-critical information.

Infrastructure

The online reservation system of Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) is perhaps the project with the widest reach amongst all the Intelligent Enterprise 2005 nominations. It has made the purchase and management of unreserved tickets a centralised and easy task with the use of simple and innovative technology.

IT & ITeS

Wipro Technologies is the Intelligent Enterprise 2005 winner in the IT & ITeS segment. This project involved re-architecting Wipro Technologies’ messaging systems to reduce downtime and create a centralised management interface.

Jury Panel
Top-level evaluation
	Dipak Gupta, Executive Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank
The financial perspective
	N Sridhar, Chief Financial Officer, Britannia Industries
Consultant expertise
	Sunil Chandiramani, Partner, Ernst & Young
Peer evaluation
	Sanjay Prasad, Head, Technology Services, e-Serve International
Peer evaluation
	Arun Pande, Vice-president, IT, Colgate-Palmolive (India)

The Intelligent Enterprises of 2005

Banking	Energy and Utility
HDFC Bank C N Ram Proactive risk management system	North Delhi Power Limited Akhil Pandey Customer relationship management
Government	Media and Entertainment
Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation Subhash Patil Citizen facilitation centres	All India Radio Yogendra Pal Fully digital studio
Financial Services	Telecom
ICICI Lombard Anuj Gulati GIS-based risk management system	Bharti Cellular Amrita Gangotra Provisioning and CRM system for prepaid systems
Healthcare	Infrastructure
SRL Ranbaxy G Radhakrishna Pillai Centralised lab information system	CRIS Dr Rajesh Narang Online reservation system
IT & ITES
Wipro Technologies Aameer Azeemi Re-architecting of the enterprise messaging system