IS 2002 provides insights into managing IT infrastructure

‘Infrastructure Strategies 2002’ a seminar hosted by Network Magazine in three cities, received overwhelming appreciation from the CIO/CTO community of India. The seminars were held in Mumbai, Bangalore, and New Delhi on July 23, 24, and 25. The event was jointly hosted by Computer Associates and Samsung.

The seminars had speakers like Val Souza, editor, Express Computer; Pranav Kumar, research director-Enterprise Application Software, Gartner; Rajiv Singh, MD, India & SAARC, Computer Associates.

Val Souza presented the findings of a groundbreaking survey conducted jointly by Network Magazine and research group ORG-MARG. The annual survey (first of its kind in India) was conducted among the IT Heads of 200 large companies in India from industry verticals like FMCG, Banking & Finance, Petrochemicals, Airlines, and the Union and state governments. Network Magazine plans to conduct this survey every year.

The IT Heads of the companies polled furnished information about issues like the technology most likely to be deployed in their organisations in the next 12 months; the percentage increase/decrease in IT budget spending over last year, and the reasons that are driving the need.

The results show that the main focus among the enterprises polled was on Enterprise Software. The average budget allocation this year has been Rs 554 lakh which was not a very high increase from last year’s Rs 549 lakh.

The other technology focus areas this year are Converged Networks, Bandwidth, Security, and Storage

The area of Converged Networks had the biggest slice of the IT budget. The average rate of increase in requirement for converged networks is 63 percent. Among the enterprises which felt that bandwidth was its largest need, 94 percent of the respondents asserted an increase in bandwidth requirement. 65 percent of the respondents use ISDN for Net access, and in 2002-03, 55 percent of the respondents plan to deploy leased lines.

In the area of Enterprise Hardware the average amount allocated has increased from Rs 184 lakh to Rs 288 lakh.

The average amount allocated for customised software has gone up from Rs 131 lakh to Rs 227 lakh. In 2002-03, most enterprises are looking forward to investing in ERP, data warehousing, data mining, and CRM applications.

Pranav Kumar of Gartner talked about ways to gain business value through IT. He presented strategy templates using which CIOs/CTOs can calculate ROI on IT for their enterprise. He also said that IT expense as a percentage of revenue is increasing in all regions of the world, and Gartner forecasts continued growth.

Rajiv Singh of CA delivered a talk on ways to manage enterprise IT infrastructure. He started with an overview of the evolving of three generations of IT infrastructure the mainframe, distributed, and the current Internet eras. He went on to explain the challenges faced by the IT departments of an enterprise today and the ways in which they can be overcome.

The total number of attendees at the three cities exceeded 300 and the events were very well received and appreciated. All who attended felt that such an effort should continue regularly.

Says Sandeep Khosla, Head-BPD, Indian Express Newspapers, “The Indian Express Group believes in doing value-related events, right from the Screen Awards (which have mass appeal), to specifically targeted events like Infrastructure Strategies 2002. Going by the feedback from the attendees, I feel the event was a huge success. We plan to hold more such events in the coming months, which will enjoy similar success.”

Many IT heads from different industry verticals have gained value from the survey findings and have expressed the survey to be instrumental to understand the IT spending trends in the market.

V Subramanium, CIO, Otis India said, “It was a very interesting, focused and informative seminar with lot of value added for CIOs to plan the road ahead. The presentations by all the speakers were very impressive and informative.”

During the seminars, the speakers fielded various questions from the audience. Some questioned the availability of more specific data like turnover-wise and industry-wise statistics. Others wanted to know if the government, a major spender on IT, was included in the survey.

The speaker presentations can be downloaded from the Network Magazine website (www.networkmagazineindia.com/is2002).

Network Magazine is a publication from the Business Publications Division (BPD) of the Indian Express group (of which Express Computer also forms a part). The magazine focuses on technology & management issues in an enterprise. Its target audience is CIOs/CTOs/IT Managers.