IT Turnaround At An Infrastructure Company

Ashutosh Pednekar, Partner - M.P Chitale and Company, shares his experience of working with an Indian infrastructure company on overhauling their IT operational set-up. In conversation with Biztech2.com, he brings to the fore some unique aspects of IT challenges and remedies that CIOs across verticals can put to good use.

What were the key challenges the company was facing in terms of IT?

The infrastructure company in question has locations across the country, from the foothills of Kashmir to the interiors of Bihar to Southern India. IT resources are deployed across the country and are being used by variety of employees with varying awareness levels with regards to using these devices. The on site employees were quite lackadaisical in terms of record keeping.

The challenge was to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information. With operations spread across many states, power was another challenge to ensure reliable performance from the computer systems. As a result the inter-site connectivity (typically including the site, store and workshop office) as well as the hub and spoke connectivity were weak.

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Usage of pen drives was another big issue. The nature of operations required use of the USB drive, unlike in closed door offices in cities where the USB ports of desktops and laptops are closed. There were a lot of on-site mobile equipments having in-built technologies - like the typical tripod being used at road construction sites with a camera mounted onto it to take photographs. The camera carries large amount of data, having captured and stored information. With some cameras having USB drives, it became very easy to transfer data. The associated risks were data breach, virus attacks, etc.

What was the remedial action taken?

The top management took some critical decisions. They set up an IT steering committee, which also constituted the MD and an Independent Director, and spent a lot of time in creating awareness and conducting training.

Employees were mentored about the powerful IT tools at their disposal. While the committee acknowledged their good job in terms of constructing roads, tunnels and bridges, they also sensitised them about the criticality of information handled by them and how it can be of help to them and the company. It took about 2 - 3 years to complete this programme, which was followed up with the setting up of a helpdesk to resolve any issues.

How has the company benefited from this initiative?

Some of the key benefits accrued include relative improvement in the accuracy of reports and timely submission of MIS. However, the overall benefits are of a more intangible nature. Earlier the system was designed for preparing reconciliation statements for registering data regarding the quantity of cement, stones, etc. being procured, but was left unused. However, now the concerned employees have started using it, resulting in timely information availability, in turn allowing pricing decisions to be taken swiftly.

Talking about intangible benefits, the co-ordination between the Datacentre (DC) and the on-site employees has also improved considerably. During the training process, the DC employees were taken for a field tour to understand the conditions under which the field employees have to work. It started with the challenges faced by the workers - something as basic as how workers have to find a plug point at every different location, what to do if it rains, to installing systems keeping in mind the placement of the VSATs. This made the DC employees sensitive to the situation of site workers. The site workers, on the other hand, were also given a DC tour to make them aware of investment and effort put in by the company. This two-way sensitisation programme helped bridge the gap between the two employee sets, leading to clearer and closer communication between them thereafter.

Besides bringing in power and connectivity redundancies, the current set-up in terms of hardware was not really changed. However, what has changed is that the machines are now being used more effectively and the issues are resolved in a standard manner. Contrary to this, hitherto the issues were resolved by local solutions, which was basically a workaround to the problem and not a long term solution. The programme, thus, brought in a consistent and standardised approach to completing routine activities.