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With 91 branches and over 8,000 professionals spread over 50 countries across the globe, Havells India has achieved rapid success in the past few years. Its 20 state-of-the-art manufacturing plants spread over India, Europe, Latin America, and Africa churns out globally acclaimed products like Switchgear, Luminaires, CFLs, etc. Behind the success story lies a strong technology backbone and the urge to deploy the best of solutions. In an interaction with VOICE&DATA, Vivek Khanna, VP, Information Systems, Havells India, shares the company's vision on technology and the future expectations from the vendors. Excerpts

How important is the technology infrastructure for your company?
Technology infrastructure is of utmost importance for our company, as it is the backbone of our business. We have around sixty locations connected through MPLS VPN WAN Network supported by ISDN backup. On this we are running our various applications-SAP ERP along with APO, BIW, ESS, Lotus Notes, and videoconferencing. Apart from this, our data center also handles servers for Blackberry, firewall, and security.

How did the IT infrastructure evolve in your organization?
At Havells, IT infrastructure creation started in 1982 with the purchase of HCL S2 machines. At that time only the accounts department was computerized with standalone machines. By 1989, we established a LAN infrastructure in all factories and offices for running an in-house software package for accounting integrated with purchase and sales. Data movement between locations was on floppies.

Our steep growth necessitated online consolidated information from all departments/locations which was not possible without having a reliable WAN network. For this, in 1998, we decided to implement an ERP with a centralized server connected to all offices and factories through lease line/ISDN, and we made it by the end of 1999 with a big-bang approach in our organization that consisted of nine factories and a head office.

Besides, we also implemented the messaging solution.

Between 2000-06, the in-house IT team created a WAN network of around fifty locations; rolled out ERP in two new companies acquired, around thirty-five depots, and seven new plants established; and deployed videoconferencing solutions at around twenty-five locations in 2002.

What is the status of technology solutions deployed at your organization?
At the end of 2004, the need was felt to go for tools that can provide analytical reports instead of static ones along with software for an advanced supply chain management to take care of the organization's growing list of product-line and dealer network.

It was also envisaged that the time had come to go for CRM and SRM tools. To take care of these things, along with handling a huge increase in staff, we decided to go for ERP products-BI, supply chain management tools, CRM, SRM-vendor portal, employee self service tool, and a good warehouse management solution that should work with Barcode/RFDC so that the warehouse activities can be managed seamlessly.

Initially, we tried to achieve all these things with our existing ERP; however, to have the benefits of a common platform, and to take care of our future multiple growth, we decided to move to SAP. SAP implementation was started in December 2006 and it went live in December 2007.

During the last two years, we have also upgraded our mailing system to Lotus Notes and, along with Blackberry, equipped the staff with the latest technology in communication.

What were the initial challenges in the adoption of technology at your place?
The success rate of any IT implementation is dependent on the degree of involvement of top management. At Havells, our top management is very quick in adopting new technologies, provided the same satisfies the business requirements and helps them in stepping up the growth ladder.

The top management does not even look at the cost which is reflected in the decisions taken since 1982, when, at the mere turnover of Rs 1.9 crore, the management decided to buy HCL machines of Rs 6.5 lakh, or going for full ERP at the direct cost of Rs 2 crore in 1998, when the company's profit and turnover was Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 62 crore, respectively; or going for the deployment of videoconferencing equipment at all the twenty-five offices, spending around a crore in 2002 at a turnover of Rs 222 crore. All these investments had proved to be right decisions as they not only helped in handling the steep growth of the organization but also acted as a catalyst for growth.

What security measures have you taken, and how secure is the network in your organization?
We have installed and configured firewall at the Internet gateway, and created Web security suit for scanning and cleaning viruses/worms/spyware, URL filtering and providing Internet access through its proxy. Moreover, all desktops have anti-virus software, which get updated automatically on a regular basis. All our WAN locations are connected on private VPNs, a few are connected through Citrix server. All desktops/laptops operate on Windows XP, enabled with their own firewall. We are also implementing domain server for network authentication and implementation of associate policies.

How prepared is your IT infrastructure to handle man-made or natural disasters? What about your data backup and DR plans?
We have defined backup policies for daily, weekly, and monthly backup, and the same are moved to different DR sites. All infrastructure details are being documented. We plan for a hot DR site in a separate, systematic zone.

Who is your preferred telecom service provider? What are your expectations from your IT and telecom vendors?

Vivek Khanna VP, Information Systems, Havells India

For data connectivity, the best solution nowadays is to outsource the activity to a service provider who is using the services of several service providers in order to exploit the best capabilities of each and has a single-window entity for management, trouble-shooting, and payment. We are using the services of Tulip for this and are quite satisfied.

For communication, MTNL/BSNL still have huge resource but they have to go a long way in the services front. In such case, Bharti is quite all right. IT vendors should be realistic at their pre-sales meets, and telecom vendors should be quick in resolving issues, especially those related to billing.

What is your future plan regarding the improvement of your existing IT and telecom infrastructure?
We are creating an in-house data center at our new corporate office at Noida. Additionally, there is also a plan to move the data center of our new acquired company, Sylvania, from Germany to India.

Kumar Anshuman
anshumank@cybermedia.co.in