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SAP and data consolidation: Super Religare's top IT priorities in 2010 |
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By Yuga Chaudhari, Principal Correspondent
03 Dec 2009 | SearchCIO.in |
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Join G Radhakrishna Pillai, the CIO of Super Religare Diagnostics, as he talks about his corporate IT vision for 2010.SearchCIO.in: Can you tell us about the IT priorities of Super Religare for the year 2010?
Radhakrishna Pillai: IT is an ongoing process for us. For the coming year, customer-centric IT investments will be our major IT focus. Apart from this, we are also considering data consolidation. We have data at multiple locations. So we plan to move everything to centralize storage. Currently, we have 46 Indian locations and a new location in Dubai.
SearchCIO.in: What are the new deployments in pipeline for 2010?
Pillai: Since our focus is on data consolidation, we plan to have a data center in place by end of December 2009. It is already in the testing mode. We also have a planned SAP rollout in December 2009, which is expected to go live in January 2010.
Other than this, we plan to enhance our customer relationship management levels with an in-house call center. To start with, we will have 25 people located at our Gurgaon office. Although the management of this call center will be outsourced, infrastructure will be provided in-house.
SearchCIO.in: When was the need for a SAP deployment felt?
Pillai: Almost two years, we started our plans to have a SAP deployment. Currently, we have a two-way application setup — one takes care of the patient's requirement and reports, whereas the SRP solution takes care of my billing and accounting. We plan to replace the SRP solution with SAP. With this initiative, my core team can focus on the operational application. This will help us to better standardize our processes.
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Remote management is another area where I see many developments in India. Since organizations have operations at multiple locations, it becomes necessary to outsource IT infrastructure management.
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SearchCIO.in: Are any training initiatives on the anvil, since you will have many changes on the IT front?
Pillai: Training is a continuous process for us. On this front, we trained people within the organization at different levels. As the first stage, we identified our key users and trained them. Subsequently, these users trained the second level.
I have also ensured that my IT team is involved in the entire process. We have plans for online training, as well as classroom training. This has already been done in two locations — Mumbai and Delhi. Another session of training will be conducted after the implementation.
SearchCIO.in: What are the upcoming technology trends that you look forward to in 2010?
Pillai: Cloud computing is definitely the buzzword at the moment, since it will bring in major enterprise technology changes. However, there is much apprehension in Indian organizations with regards to cloud computing adoption. People need to have confidence in the new technology.
Remote management is another area where I see many developments in India. Since organizations have operations at multiple locations, it becomes necessary to outsource IT infrastructure management. This is definitely going to be a major trend in 2010. Since Super Religare operates through multiple locations, we also plan to opt for remote management.
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