IT has given business a new life

In the last two decades, information technology’s scope of involvement has widened in business ventures, driving a large number of business processes. In fact, across India Inc, companies are increasingly realising the importance of IT. By 2009, the enterprise spend on IT is expected to exceed $36 billion. Yet, a lot more needs to be done to increase IT penetration across large, medium and small enterprises.

Realising the role of IT in deriving high performance from enterprises, ET brought together top executives and experts from the industry at The Economic Times IT Intelligence Conclave 2008 held in New Delhi on Friday to encourage and explore opportunities for a competent integration of technology with business initiatives. Gartner was the knowledge partner for the conclave and Nasscom’s ex-president Kiran Karnik was the conference chairman.

“IT has given India visibility on a global scale, taking development to the hinterlands and enabling expansion of skills development,” said Ashwini Kumar, minister of state for industry, in his keynote address to a select gathering of over 100 CIOs and business leaders. However, real growth is possible only if we can grow in manufacturing and agriculture, the minister added.

Mr Karnik noted the need for fostering a relationship between advanced technology developments and business modules for boosting efficiency and revenue performance of a company. “Advanced IT operations incorporated by a company give it a global face to stimulate competition,” he said. He emphasised the use of IT for enhancing top line performance and revenues of companies.

Partha Iyengar, regional research director, Gartner India, focussed on the need for chief information officers to assume leadership roles in the business. “CIOs need to move from being a risk to becoming a trusted ally of the CEO, involved in strategic decisions made by the company. CIOs must not merely be IT leaders but must also be responsible for key business functions,” he said.

A whole host of industry experts were among the speakers dwelling on the importance of IT in enterprises. These included Jai Menon, group CIO, Bharti Airtel, Manish Gupta, CIO, Fortis Healthcare, SB Roy, director, passenger services, Centre for Railways Information System and Sandeep Phanasgaonkar, president & CTO, Reliance Capital.
The conclave discussed a spectrum of topics including the use of IT for business transformation, issues surrounding business continuity, green IT and sustainability, security aspects of IT and how information can be transformed into a profitable asset.

Courtesy – Economic Times