 |
Press Release - 16th November 2003 National IT Seminar 2003 at XLRI Jamshedpur Talking on SCM, Mr. Ravi Kathuria who heads Pre-sales at BAAN and also responsible for Marketing, explained the evolution of business drivers with time. He went on to show how costs and economies of scales have given place to establishment of e-era where customer centricity, velocity, global outlook, and time to market have become more decisive factors of success. Mr. Kathuria mentioned that successful corporates have either of the three as their value discipline - best products which leads to importance of PLC management, best total price which lays stress on SCM and best tailored solutions which outlays the significance of CRM. Baan SC Solutions, as he mentioned, were capable of mapping out SC on GIS maps, locating them geographically, finding costs of transportation and giving information of best possible solutions, managing seasonal changes, channel constraint management analysis, planning, scheduling, consolidating shipments and almost all the functions which come under the purview of supply chain management. Mr. Avijit Roy of Tata Technologies focused on Product Life Cycle Management as a component of ERP II. As Mr. Roy put it, PLCM is 'not just a technology, but one that utilizes multiple technologies and methods to deliver business solutions which combine processes and technological know-how.' The business benefits, as Mr. Roy mentioned, apart from optimizing early stages of product development were reduction of production costs, better time to market, streamlining processes and faster sharing of information across value chain. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Milind Padalkar, GM Enterprise Business Solutions, PCS said that 'the ERP revolution gave a standardized and functionally rich data model to access and analyze data more intelligently.' He went on to illustrate how Business Intelligence touched the domains of Decision Support Systems (DSS), Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), Querying and Reporting, and Statistical analysis. At this point Mr. Padalkar presented a case study on TOYOTA that leveraged Business Intelligence at various levels in its organization to reap rich dividends. Toyota attributed its stress on Business Intelligence software to help boost its volume by 37 percent in the last few years, as well as helping it expand rail and truck routes by 24 percent - and the product mix expansion by 35 percent. He predicted that in future, reporting and Business Intelligence would merge and BI usage would move towards predictive analysis. Speaking on the current and forecasted Business Intelligence size, he indicated that revenues in the Services sector would grow from the $11 billion figure in 2001 to $18.5 billion in 2005 at a CAGR of 13.9%, while the Licenses sector would grow at corresponding figures of $3 billion in 2001 to $6.6 in 2005 at a CAGR of 21.7%. He concluded by saying, "Business Intelligence is difficult to implement. It forces enterprises to reflect upon themselves and how they actually work. Organizations would do well to tackle Business Intelligence strategically and hence leverage the pool of valuable data available with them". Mr. Ashish Bhatnagar from Microsoft Navision Business Solutions talked on Collaborative Enterprise Business Solutions for the Small and Mid-market. Mr. Bhatnagar's presentation was an interesting and informative display of his experience and Microsoft's strategy in providing solutions to the small and mid market businesses. The market trend and the current scenario were thoroughly analyzed with illustrations using the BCG matrix making it easy to understand. The main highlight of the presentation was the depth of knowledge displayed in understanding the profile of the mid market customers, and the requirements and the specific features of the business solutions. Differences between an enterprise solution and a solution for the mid market were clearly explained using numerous examples. New technology terms like XBRL (Extended Business reporting Language) were explained. Contributed by - |
 |
|
|