CIOL: Major technology investments at your enterprise?

Sharma: a. Tier2+ Datacenter

b. ERP : Oracle E-business Suite (for Finance, manufacturing, Inventory and Purchase operations) and Peoplesoft HRMS

c. Business Intelligence Solutions (Qlikview)

d. Need based desktop environment comprising of open source technologies, be it Operating system or Office applications

e. Integration of available technologies to derive business value (Document scanning project).

CIOL: Any overhauls of significant scale or value

Sharma: a. Consolidation of all legacy Applications inside ERP

b. Automation of business processes

c. Roll-out of Open source based Operating System and Office applications.

CIOL: Strategy for future

Sharma: a. Adopting Open-Source technologies in the areas where there is a clarity about de-risking

b. Migrating to a Paperless Process Driven Organization by automating manual processes inside ERP

c. BCP should be the primary concern area for any organization and technology should be void from the same. Technology can be considered at an appropriate time.

CIOL: Areas of interest from recent tech-breakthroughs

Sharma: a. Cloud Computing

b. Green Computing : Desktop Virtualization and Thin computing

c. On-boarding of Handheld devices.

CIOL: Advice to peers in terms of lessons, mistakes or challenges you experienced

Sharma: a. Read between the lines, be it outsourcing or licensing

b. Software Licensing is a tricky part of any IT Investment. The idea is to have a backup plan ready for any fallout with your current provider in case of a major disagreement. De-risking can be achieved by investing effort and time equally in alternate Open Source solutions which are now gaining popularity and stability

c. Arrive upon the total cost of technology solution, considering future procurements required for a specific technology

d. Explore open source technology, build in-house resources for these technologies to thwart the monopolistic approach of software companies.

CIOL: IT as a competitive differentiator/innovator/business value centre at your organization - How?

Sharma: a. Innovator – document scanning solution (we can highlight the project details)

b. Business Value – Ubuntu desktops, telephony integration.