When I set out a few months ago as Conference Chair to devise the conference program for Interop Mumbai 2009, I had similar apprehensions. Where would we find so many speakers? Would the speakers be good enough? What about the workshops and demos? Would we be able to put together and deliver a conference and exposition of this scale in Mumbai? (a city notorious for its woeful lack of world-class convention infrastructure).

After all, the Interop brand has huge equity and a legacy that goes back to the time when TCP/IP was still being perfected and the fledgling Internet was just about spreading into the realm of business. That’s way beyond what any TV reality show can ever hope to claim. To get a sense of the Interop heritage, let me quote from A Brief History of the Internet (Barry Leiner, Vinton Cerf, et al): “…Dan Lynch [one of the TCP/IP and Arpanet pioneers] in cooperation with the IAB arranged to hold a three day workshop for ALL vendors to come learn about how TCP/IP worked and what it still could not do well… After two years of conferences, tutorials, design meetings and workshops, a special event was organized that invited those vendors whose products ran TCP/IP well enough to come together in one room for three days to show off how well they all worked together and also ran over the Internet. In September of 1988 the first Interop trade show was born. 50 companies made the cut. 5,000 engineers from potential customer organizations came to see if it all did work as was promised. It did. Why? Because the vendors worked extremely hard to ensure that everyone’s products interoperated with all of the other products—even with those of their competitors. The Interop trade show has grown immensely since then and today it is held in [several] locations around the world each year to an audience of over 250,000 people who come to learn which products work with each other in a seamless manner, learn about the latest products, and discuss the latest technology.”

Over the years, as interoperability became less and less of an intractable problem, Interop evolved into a more broad-based business technology event. Now, 21 years on, after Las Vegas, New York, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Moscow, Interop has finally arrived here in India and I am pretty confident that Interop Mumbai (7-9 Oct 2009) will be everything that everyone has come to expect from the leading business technology event worldwide.

We have over 60 speakers from all over the world spread across 20-plus sessions, six keynotes, three plenary panel discussions, and several workshops and special sessions, in four parallel tracks. My approach has been to provide a mix of subject experts, experienced practitioners, distinguished analysts, tech gurus and promising young enterprise-IT professionals from India. To give a realistic practical dimension to the conference, most of the sessions will be chaired by leading CIOs from various industry verticals. The icing on the cake is the large exhibit floor adjoining the conference halls, where delegates and visitors can see the latest technologies being showcased and demonstrated by close to 50 leading vendors, all in one place.

India is at a critical juncture in its quest to achieve “developed country” status, and I firmly believe that prudent deployment of Information Technology is one of the important factors that will help us get there quicker. I am further convinced that events such as Interop serve as enablers and triggers for enterprise IT managers, aiding them in making sound decisions for rapid and effective deployment of IT solutions in their organizations.

As the date for the event approaches, the excitement is palpable, and inexorably rising to a crescendo. Interop Mumbai 2009 will definitely be a landmark event in the annals of the evolution of enterprise-IT in India. Do join me on October 7th at the Bombay Exhibition Centre—and be a witness to history in the making!

- Val Souza

Conference Chair, Interop Mumbai 2009

 (valsouza at ubmindia dot com)

Management guru Joseph Juran, based some of his pioneering concepts of quality management on Pareto’s original postulation, speaking of “the vital few and the trivial many.” I’ve heard the 80-20 Rule being cited on many occasions, mostly to highlight how we often miss the forest for the trees, and focus on areas that are not necessarily key. Indeed, anyone who’s managed a project of any considerable size quickly comes to the conclusion that 20 percent of the work invariably takes up 80 percent of the time, effort and resource, so it becomes pretty obvious where one needs to focus one’s attention. But the 80-20 Rule is sometimes misunderstood and taken to absurd levels. Even Juran himself later modified his original credo into “the vital few and the useful many,” ostensibly to indicate that it could be perilous to ignore that other 80 percent of the big picture, however trivial it might seem. 

Such an approach seems to assume even more significance in times of economic grief, and this applies very much to the management and governance of IT in enterprises, wherein most CIOs are seeing IT budgets shrinking, but are still expected to achieve more with less. At a recent Smart Enterprise Exchange event that I moderated, Professor S Sadagopan, director at IIIT in Bangalore, advised CIOs to get back to basics and find a million different ways that each save a dollar, rather than seeking only that elusive single, big-ticket, million-dollar saving.   

While this might seem an oversimplification at first glance, what the professor doubtless intended to convey was that in bad times, one cannot ignore even the smallest of savings to improve overall health and sustainability. This can sometimes be achieved using a common-sense approach, but there are also more structured and robust frameworks and methodologies that IT managers have at their disposal today.

For instance there’s the current Version 3 of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework, which focuses on helping CIOs align IT strategy more in sync with business needs, while simultaneously improving efficiencies and cutting costs. Another approach that’s gaining credence is that of Lean IT. Once processes have been standardized and optimized, Lean IT provides a framework for further increasing efficiencies and eliminating waste in IT operations or software development or customer-focused business processes that have a large component of IT embedded in them. The idea is to adopt…

But that was yesterday. Today, you’d more likely be met with frowns instead. In two separate panel discussions that I moderated recently, one common thread that emerged was that denoting “alignment of IT with the business” as the prime objective of the CIO and the IT department is being looked down upon as an unmitigated insult these days.

In the first discussion that focused on enhancing IT agility, the CIO panelists smugly averred that business-IT alignment was pretty much a given in their organizations. One panelist patiently explained that his IT team has been routinely sitting down with the business heads since over a dozen years, understanding their needs and strategies, and simultaneously analyzing technology trends and advancements, before deciding on the appropriate IT solutions or strategy to deploy.    

The second panel, which had global CIOs deliberating on the evolving role of the CIO, was more direct in its condemnation of the contention of business-IT alignment and attacked this peccant precept from myriad angles.

Firstly, business-IT alignment kind of implies that the IT department and the business are in fact separate entities or organizations. It would be preposterous to think in a similar way of finance or marketing or even the CEO’s office, so why then does this enigmatic epithet come to mind with respect to IT alone?

Further, the term itself is fuzzy and unmeasurable. There have been studies, models and white papers on what business-IT alignment involves and how it can be achieved. But in essence, if anything, all this has resulted in is accentuating the positioning of the IT department as a cost centre rather than as an entity that has the capability of unlocking the untapped potential within the organization while simultaneously enabling the exploitation of ever-new opportunities thrown up by changes in the marketplace and advances in technology.

With all the talk about alignment, the gap between IT and the rest of the organization is as wide as ever before in many organizations—keeping essentials like agility and collaboration messy and unmanageable at best, and a distant pipe dream at worst. 

Peter Hinssen, author of the thought-provoking and unconventional book Business/IT Fusion (and panelist on the second panel I alluded to earlier), is unequivocal in his criticism of the entire business-IT alignment imbroglio. He’s rooting for “Fusion” instead, and not just as a new word for “Alignment”.

Hinssen writes:…

Recently, I was asked by InformationWeek in the US to nominate CIOs from India for possible inclusion in the first-ever Global CIO 50 list to be published later this year. At the top of the heap, a few names kind of selected themselves. I was keen to nominate as many CIOs as possible, to maximize the probability of a greater number of Indians making it to the final list. After the first couple of dozen or so, who I was certain were worthy of nomination, the tap began to run dry. I had a lot of names with me of course, but without first-hand knowledge of their suitability, I had to turn to the Web to separate the wheat from the chaff.          

What I found–or rather, did not find–online was pretty shocking. Barring a few notable exceptions, the rest of the bunch were conspicuous by their absence on the Web, or at best, had an obscure reference here and a mention there, which in many cases didn’t do their reputations any favors. And I’m not talking of just any Om, Deep and Hari here. These are the people who are supposedly directing the IT strategy at India’s top corporations countrywide!…

In a nifty post on his How to Change the World blog a couple of months ago, he pasted an e-mail he had sent to his friend Ray Schraff back in September 2002 asking the very same question; Kawasaki says that he started his now-famous blog three years after that initial mail—by his own admission, not exactly the “early adopter” people perceive him to be!

While blogging is something that caught on and has become pretty much ubiquitous, there are innumerable IT concepts, technologies and paradigms that didn’t make it past the fad stage, but lost steam and fizzled out halfway. Persons at the helm of IT departments in small, medium and large enterprises constantly face the challenge of having to evaluate every fresh IT doodah in the context of the business and the enterprise. Early adopters are termed “visionaries” if that obscure flavor-of-the-month thingamajig they backed to the hilt actually sticks around and becomes widespread; or they’re left with egg on their faces when it tanks and sinks without a trace.

The jury may still be out on whether there’s a sustainable revenue model for most social networking firms, but there’s no doubt that Web 2.0 and collaboration are cornerstones of the biggest revolution to impact all of our lives since, well, the Web itself. In my previous column I alluded to the groundswell of scientific research or hard work or collective effort as being the mandatory preludes to most of the Eureka moments in modern history. Let me add to that list the groundswell of public opinion engineered via social or business networks online that could result in different kinds of Eureka moments for…

Undoubtedly, that qualifies as one of the classic “Eureka moments” in history. But you can be certain that it was the culmination of long years of struggle and toil by Watson, Crick and many other scientists around the world. “We were just, you know, mad keen to solve the problem,” Crick was later quoted as saying. A groundswell of scientific research, if you will, that resulted in the groundbreaking discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA. 

Is the digital divide, that alleged gaping chasm that separates the “technology haves” from the “technology have-nots” a figment of the imagination of over-zealous academics and activists? Statistics that reflect the rapid spread of Internet access and mobile telephony to an ever-increasing number of earthlings certainly seem to indicate as such. Yet the digital divide does exist, and the enabling nature of information and communication technologies causes it to widen, if unchecked.

On the other hand this very same enabling nature of ICTs means that bridging the digital divide gives us a genuine shot at alleviating poverty, increasing the quality of life for the underprivileged, and reducing the vast urban-rural disparity that’s so prevalent in the developing world. This is not necessarily achieved by putting a computer in every village or giving a laptop to every child, but rather by making effective use of ICTs to better the lives of the rural deprived and the urban underprivileged, providing them with opportunities and facilities that were hitherto unavailable to them.

While multinational corporations have been eyeing these huge untapped markets, so far it is local firms with an intimate understanding of the culture and constraints that have come up with innovative solutions that are viable and sustainable. Technology has now evolved to a stage when it can truly become that great leveller that has eluded mankind since the beginnings of modern civilisation.

Issue dtd. April 4th 2005
♦ Part II
Is the digital divide that alleged gaping chasm that separates the “technology haves” from the “technology have-nots” just a frivolous myth concocted by grant-chasing social researchers keen to keep the fund flow in full spate?

Issue dtd. April 18th 2005
♦ Part III
Could information and communication technology (ICT) be that great leveller that has eluded society from the beginnings of modern civilisation?

Issue dtd. May 2nd 2005
♦ Part IV
When the hype surrounding the digital divide was at its peak 4-5 years ago, millions of dollars were being poured into pilot projects aimed at taking technology to the deprived. Many of these projects-commendable as they might have been-were not sustainable once the funding plug was pulled. In other cases, ICTs were being touted as the solution to a range of problems, when in fact many of those problems could be better tackled by alternative conventional means. Further, the particular local needs of the people identified as beneficiaries were not always addressed, and the fact that these needs could differ considerably from region to region was often ignored. In many instances, locally relevant content in languages and interfaces that could be understood and exploited by the intended beneficiaries was insufficient.

- Val Souza

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Ken Kao had never visited India until last November. Yet his Taiwanese company, which specialises in networking gear and consumer connectivity, has had a 36 percent stake in an Indian joint venture for the last 10 years. The chairman and CEO of D-Link Corporation was gracious enough to state that he has never really needed to travel to India, as operations at D-Link India have always been super-smooth and everything has worked out just fine. But from a different perspective, Kao’s presence at the 10th anniversary celebrations of D-Link India in Goa last quarter was strong proof of the Indian partner’s increasing strategic importance to its global parent, and subtle acknowledgement of the growing market in India not only for networking products but also for mobile access and wireless gear.

The relationship between D-Link and its partner in India is a unique one—elsewhere in the world, D-Link is sole owner of its overseas business units in 24 countries (mostly sales and marketing offices). D-Link products are now designed and manufactured only in China, the US, Taiwan and India. In fact, D-Link’s Indian operations, in addition to sales and marketing, span all areas from product design and development to manufacturing and software R&D.

A visit to D-Link’s world-class manufacturing facilities in Goa—equipped with sophisticated Surface Mount Technology (SMT) lines—makes one wonder why other Taiwanese companies haven’t followed in D-Link’s footsteps and tied up with Indian partners for an alternative manufacturing destination. Surely it’s not entirely prudent business practice for Taiwan to put all its manufacturing eggs into a single Chinese basket, as has been the recent trend.

Why has D-Link been so successful in India? Ken Kao has a simple answer: “You have to find the right partner.” A tribute really to the efforts and perseverance of D-Link India’s chairman and managing director, K R Naik, who often speaks of how he had to battle all odds and hack his way through suffocating red-tape and bizarre regulatory obstacles in order to get things going on the manufacturing front. That it was all worth it is reflected in Kao’s telling comment: “The process and quality here is exactly…

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At the beginning of last month, I was at an IT conference which, in terms of content, I would rate as one of the best I’ve attended in a long time. Unless you were there too it would be almost impossible to guess that the conference I’m referring to is the 39th national convention of the Computer Society of India, CSI 2004. Surprised? Well, so was I.

For, if you’ve been around the Indian computer industry for a while, you probably belong to that vast majority of IT professionals who have written off the CSI as a fast-fading association that’s an irrelevant anachronism today, ill-equipped to cater to the changing needs of the fraternity. Perish the thought. As the only body in the country representing individual computer users and professionals, the relevance and importance of the CSI can only grow as computer penetration slowly but surely deepens in this country.

A handful of dedicated individuals from the Mumbai Chapter of the CSI proved what’s possible when determined and capable minds work together as a team. As a result of their efforts, CSI 2004 has become the benchmark against which all future technical conferences will be measured. [Disclaimer: Although I am on the managing committee of CSI Mumbai, I had no role to play in organising CSI 2004, nor do I intend to stand for any elections of the CSI in the near future.]

Despite the success of CSI 2004, and the great work being done by many of the body’s regional chapters, the CSI continues to suffer from a poor image at the national level. Its voice is never heard when IT-related policy issues come up for discussion, it’s nowhere in the picture when user interests and causes need to be championed, it’s conspicuous by its official absence on national IT committees of any sort.

Why has this happened? It would be futile and perhaps even dangerous to try and attribute the decline to one, two or several of myriad possible reasons. Instead, based on discussions with several senior members of the industry, and also drawing from my own experience and observations, I would like to suggest a five-point priority plan to help…

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Is Business Intelligence (BI) relevant to organisations in India? Now that’s a moot question, especially when you consider that so many of them are still struggling to get their basic enterprise IT infrastructure in place. Meanwhile, CIOs of many large corporations tell of shrinking or static IT budgets; those that are more fortunate can at best hope for a 3-5 percent annual budget increase. BI thus seems like a ludicrous luxury for most of corporate India.

Logical as the above argument against BI sounds, it misses the point completely. For, it has been categorically shown that the best way to unlock the business value buried deep within existing IT investments and enterprise systems is through effective implementation of business intelligence solutions. Indeed, with BI, that elusive “aligning IT with the business” Holy Grail is within grasp.

I recently moderated a panel discussion on the relevance and importance of BI to Indian enterprises. The panel consisted of CIOs and industry representatives, while the audience comprised CIOs and IT heads from a wide range of Indian enterprises. We attempted to ascertain how far India Inc has moved up the BI curve. From the deliberations, my overall impression is that corporate India’s implementation and understanding of business intelligence and its potential is rather sketchy. Even those who have taken the plunge seem to be stuck in the query-and-reporting mode that was so characteristic of decision support systems and management information systems of old. The big step from analysing the past to predicting the future has only been partially taken.

Business Intelligence software has made astounding progress in recent times. BI that is based on an enterprise view of the data (through data warehousing) can provide predictive analytics that surface unseen patterns in structured as well as unstructured data. This potentially provides new insights into the business and throws up new opportunities for differentiation and expansion. Few Indian enterprises have caught on to this potential. But that the indifferent attitude is changing is evident from statistics that indicate BI spending is now at a compounded annual growth rate level of over 30 percent, in comparison to the 18 percent CAGR for overall IT spends in corporate India.

A successful BI implementation results in more efficient and cost-effective processes and more enlightened decisions that are based on concrete data and facts. This is rather contradictory to the preferred decision-making style prevalent in many Indian…