Alex had come down to India sometime back to sign a contract with Tata Technologies, it was then that I had met him. He seemed quite eager and enthusiastic about his trip to India and I had suggested some ‘typical Maharashtrian’ delicacies, like missal pav. He couldn’t try it due to paucity of time, but promised that he will next time round. Am waiting to hear from him. This interaction was published in the Dataquest Magazine: (http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/cio_handbook07/GlobalCIO/2007/107022801.asp)
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‘IT is making us a whole lot quicker… to work at speeds similar to our race models’

The date May 1, 1994, has a special significance in the sport of F1 racing. It was the day when Brazilian Formula 1 driver, Ayrton Senna de Silva died in a car crash in San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy. He was racing for the Williams-Renault team and was in a winning position, when his car crashed into unprotected concrete barrier. The death of Senna brought the dangers of the sport into the limelight.

WilliamsF1 has been in the racing circuit for around three decades and is renowned for its FW models released year after year. The company recently signed an agreement with Lenovo, who would be one of the main sponsors of the team. Sometime back, Alex Burns, chief operating officer, WilliamsF1, had come down to India to visit Tata Technologies facilities in Pune. In an interaction with Shashwat Chaturvedi from Dataquest, Burns talks about how his team is using IT and why outsourcing might not be such a bad term after all. Excerpts.

What role does IT play in the development of an F1 car?
Technology is a critical element behind the success of any F1 team. Today, without any exception, every F1 team is investing heavily in latest tech mechanisms to get the best out of their models. Take the case of FW28, used in the 2006 season, we used over 4,500 CAD drawings during the design phase. We are heavily dependent on computational fluid dynamics, telemetry and other to not only develop an F1 car but also run it well.

To be frank, the FIA has introduced rules over a period of time that effectively slow down the car. It is driven by security needs, because otherwise all the cars would be trying to increase speed aggressively. There are whole lists of tests and reports that one has to complete before launching a model. There are the wind tunnel tests and crash analysis tests. Today, with the latest cutting edge applications, not only is it more cheaper than the traditional way but also a whole lot quicker. All this is only due to IT at work.

Once the model is up and running, what is the role that IT plays?
Running an F1 car is a highly data intensive job. For instance, over a weekend of grand prix race, close to 7GB of data is generated. This data needs to be meticulously analyzed and the design changes need to be implemented quickly. Also, this requires speed. At times, we work at speeds similar to our race models. When the car is running there are thousands of sensors that are attached all across the body reporting on different parameters. To make sense out of all this data and implement changes quickly, is a job that is best done with the help of IT.

We function at the very edges of technology. Our work is quite akin to the space industry. The components have a short life, we are constantly testing and incorporating changes. It is a very dynamic industry.

There is a general feeling that F1 racing has become overtly technology driven, the cars are more like computers. Your take?
I do agree that there is a general feeling of overuse of technology but you need to understand the reasons behind it. Since racing is a very dynamic and speed driven sport, any small error can be huge, not only in financial terms but also in terms of risk to the driver. Thus, one has to ensure all the safety and security that one possibly can, this is where IT is extensively used. And to that end, I support the use of technology. But, at the end of the day, the car is just an entity in the hands of the driver and it depends on the individual skills of the driver to steer the car to the premier spot.

What is the reason behind your engagement with Tata Technologies and the benefits of outsourcing?
The very same that are driving a host of companies around the world, namely time and money. Developing an F1 model is big money, and, as I said earlier, a lot of this is in the technology costs. Using the skills and facilities of companies like Tata Technologies we intend to shorten the development time and also decrease costs. We have a production cycle from September-March. That’s when we develop models for the next racing season. We would be working with Tata Technologies (Incat) on CAD models, etc for the FW29 model. Hopefully, as time goes by, we will increase our engagements with Tata Technologies. The quality of skill at Tata Technologies is high, and they have the ability and the wherewithal to put in the requisite numbers if need be for a project. It has the makings of a great marriage. We can do things faster and also in a cost-effective manner due to our association with Incat.

A word or two on the upcoming FW29?
In many ways FW 28 did not really meet the expectations of the WilliamsF1 team. We have learnt a lot from our outings in the 2006 season and we are going to apply them during the design for FW29. As we are retuning back to using the Toyota engine again, hopefully things will be very different in the coming season.

One would be hardpressed to find a person who does not know about Disneyland. But a lot many do not know that behind all that magic there is a lot of IT & Technicality. It was amazing interacting with Noble COker, who is the CIO of Disneyland HK, he is a man without airs and seems to love the challenges that keep cropping up all time. This interaction was published on CIOL, the link is (http://www.ciol.com/content/developer/newsmakers/2007/107031601.asp)
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‘Magic @ Disneyland

Noble Coker marched into the meeting room. As the CIO of the upcoming Hong Kong Disneyland, this was his first interaction with his local team members. For the meeting, he had prepared an agenda and was ready to thrash it out with his colleagues. Strangely, throughout the meeting the team kept mum. On being pushed by Coker, the team members would only show their appreciation for the project.

“They found it incredulous to tell their boss that he was wrong, while it was much the case in the US,” he recalls. This was Coker’s first cultural shock, but he quickly learnt the ropes and next time round he was prepared with a solution.

To say that Coker is a fast learner, would in no means be an exaggeration, after all during his college days he learnt Lao language from all the refugees who were being resettled in California and later on took classes on the language, “to pay my way through college.” He joined PriceWaterHouseCoopers as an analyst and subsequently was hired by Disney as a programmer. Rising up the ranks, he took up the challenge to oversee the construction of the fifth Disneyland in Hong Kong, and the rest as they say is history.

In a freewheeling interaction with Shashwat Chaturvedi from CyberMedia News, Coker talks about the “magical experience” at the Disneyland and how IT makes it happens. Excerpts:

Can you tell us about the use of IT at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort? How much has been drawn from the other Disney parks in the U.S. and Europe and how has the HK Disney been unique in terms of technology adoption?
At Disneyland, the use of technology can be classified under four different categories, as follows. The first one is business transaction, the use of IT in hotel reservation, merchandise dale, food point of sale, etc. The second category is communication, the use of email, IP telephony for internal communication. The third category and a rather important one for us is the safety and security for our guests and visitors right from food to park monitoring. The fourth one is the entertainment; we use a technology in a variety of ways to enrich the guest experience. Hence, we extensively use IT at our parks.

Giving a precise figure on how the common technology between the Hong Kong and the international parks is a tough call, but I can hazard a guess that it must be around 80:20 international and local mix, respectively. We have used technology in very many unique ways in Hong Kong.

You have often emphasized on creating “magical experience” for the guests, can you share with some instances on how technology is being used to create that “magical experience”?
When our guests walk out of our park, I would rather have them remembering Disneyland for a great magical experience rather than a great technological one. I want people to say, “wow, how did they do this” and our technology is geared towards creating that very experience. Starting from the website, we have created a similar experience much like the one that a guest will experience at the park. At the park itself, we are using a variety of tech applications for instance, at the park there is a wireless broadcast that synchronizes the timing through the park, this ensures all the different elements work in perfect coordination, like the parade and the floats.

We also have piped music that is running through the underlying infrastructure. Or take the case of the newly introduced FastPass at Disneyland. In the past guests had to stand in long queues to be able to enjoy their rides. Now with Fastpass, they can register themselves for a slot later in the day and comeback in that slot and enjoy their ride. This helps the guests spend more time on the rides rather than queuing up. Even our park attractions use technology to reinforce the ‘magical’ feeling. Take the case of Stitch Encounter, based on the Disney character Stitch. He dynamically interacts with the guest and his responses are based on what the guest tells him.

One of the challenges (mentioned by you) was working with multi-cultural team, how difficult or easy is it to work with diverse teams?
To be honest, working with multi-cultural teams can be extremely difficult, if one is not sufficiently prepared for it. I committed a lot of mistakes and learnt through them. Such experiences forces one to remove our filters; filters that one acquires over time. The experience can be quite humbling. For instance, when I had come here, I was trying to achieve things without understanding the significance of different cultures. Typically, Americans have a bad habit of talking first, and listening later and giving away a lot content without much context. I quickly understood these issues and got down to working them out by understanding the people and learning more about their culture.

Do you think current-day CIOs pay much (more than required) attention to this aspect?
Though companies are going global, I still fell that as CIOs, we do not pay much attention to cultural sensitivity issues. By nature CIOs are naturally project driven and focused on getting the job done, and no one frets over such things. But, I personally feel, that resolving these issues can be critical to the success of a team.

What is the IT strategy roadmap for the future, i.e., technologies that are being tested for the future?
Going ahead, we have created a New Technology Group that has representatives from all the major Disney Parks like Hong Kong, France and the U.S. The group examines all the emerging technologies across the world and then uses them at the parks. For instance, some years back, the mobile penetration in Hong Kong was much ahead of what it is in the U.S., so we perfected the mobile applications out here and now they can be cross deployed in the U.S. market.

In the times to come, convergence across varying media will be big thing in the days to come. Today media is ubiquitous; there is a plethora of devices like iPods, mobile phones, etc. The challenge will be to deliver multi-dimensional experience. Guests in the future would want a more enhanced experience, so when they visit the Tarzan tree house, they would like more information on Tarzan or even like to see a movie clip of the film. We are gearing to deliver that enriched user experience. Disneyland will always be magical.

Scott Griffin is well-respected in the industry for the way he has turned the tables at Boeing. For the past few decades, the battle between Boeing and Airbus has been more than just 787s and A380s; it is war that will continue for as many years. And in such a scenario, the IT infrastructure can give a strategic advantage like none other. At least for now, Boeing seems to have it processes under control more efficiently than the European giant (which was beset by quite many technological issues in the past). Griffin is ensuring that Boeing does not give away the lead. My interaction with him was published in the Dataquest Magazine, the link being:(http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/cio_handbook07/GlobalCIO/2007/107041201.asp)
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‘My biggest challenge is to speed up IT absorption to meet changing business requirements’

In 2006, Boeing overtook Airbus to become the world’s largest civil aircraft company in terms of orders. In many ways, IT has been the driving force behind the company with over $60 bn in revenues.

Founded in 1916, Boeing was the first airline company to employ digital technology to designing an airliner, and under the aegis of the current CIO, Scott Griffin, it is committed to technology. Griffin has been with the company for over two decades, working his way up through various departments. Currently, he is entrusted with the responsibility of not only ensuring that the 155,000 employees spread across the world are connected and productive but also that the company stays a step ahead in the face of onslaught from across the Atlantic, ie the Airbus A-380. Scott Griffin, CIO, Boeing, shares his experience and vision with Shashwat Chaturvedi of CyberMedia News. Excerpts.

Boeing as a company has been evolving over the last many years, especially so in the last few years-from an aircraft manufacturing company to being an aerospace and defense technology firm. How is IT being used in this transition?
Information Technology is the lifeblood of a technology company. It is used to create digital (3D) design of parts, plan tools and processes. It enables “design anywhere, build anywhere”, design reuse, design partner collaboration, globalization of the supply chain, and provides tools for increasing productivity and growth.

777 was the first commercial airliner to be designed using CAD. How have technology systems evolved at the company and how has IT been strategic to it?
777 was the first commercial, digital airplane. For the first time, we did not test the fit of the roughly 4 mn parts by building a mockup. We designed the parts and assembled them in the computer, using the Dassault Systemes CATIA CAD/CAM software. Then we checked their ‘fit’, using computer simulation.

Today, Boeing and our design partners do concurrent, 3D solid design of parts, plans, tools and processes. This has enabled us to take significant cycle time out of the design/build process, and will allow us to create derivative models with minimal effort.

With over 155,000 employees based across the globe, how do you ensure connectivity within the organization and what kind of IT infrastructure is in place?
Our infrastructure is global and standard. Boeing has customers, suppliers and partners in over 100 countries. The only way to provide a reliable IT infrastructure is to provide a standard IT infrastructure.

How has your role of a CIO undergone a change at Boeing?
Boeing IT has become a proactive partner in helping the Boeing business units achieve their growth and productivity objectives. Boeing IT employees support the Boeing enterprise, but we also provide revenue-generating IT through our existing programs.

Which component or technology (enterprise) will be take the major share of your company’s budget pie in the future?
Collaboration systems and infrastructure will continue to be a key investment for us in the next few years. Boeing has also been closely working with various Indian IT firms. How has been the engagement so far and can you also touch on all the work that has been done through Indian soil?In 1997, I became the CIO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and within my first year, I had built partnerships with 5 Indian IT firms. We are still working with all of them today, and have added several more. My Leadership Team and I visit those IT partners in person at least once a year.

We intend to differentiate ourselves from our competitors in the way we use IT products, not in building the best IT products ourselves. That being said, Boeing has a healthy IT business selling IT products to our customers, and we will continue to build IT solutions where we see external customer need.

What is the IT roadmap for the future and can you touch upon some of the innovations that have been brought out by your teams at Boeing?
My systems strategy in support of Boeing is to ‘buy and integrate.’ Our intention is to buy commercial, off-the-shelf applications and integrate them into our architecture rather than write the applications ourselves. We intend to differentiate ourselves from our competitors in the way we use IT products, not in building the best IT products ourselves. That being said, Boeing has a healthy IT business, selling IT products to our customers, and we will continue to build IT solutions where we see external customer need.

Your views on the subject of cross-cultural teams?
Diverse and cross-functional teams provide the most innovative and timely IT solutions. Boeing is a global company, and our employees, suppliers and partners are diverse in terms of culture, nationality, and geography.

You have been associated with Boeing for over 2 decades, how has the journey been, and what would you term as your high-points and the biggest challenges faced?
I have had fun in dealing directly with airline and government customers. We are a customer-centric company, and it is challenging and rewarding to work directly with our customers. My biggest challenge is shared by my CIO peers, it is speeding the absorption of enabling information technologies in order to meet changing business requirements.

When will we have a Google or a Microsoft from Indian shores? Is a question that bugs me quite often. We are the undisputed leader in software services, but there has been little attention paid to creating IP or to be specific, software products out of India. It is a shame that only a handfull of companies in India are developing products; considering the kind of experience we have in the IT domain. But things might change, as these few players are getting ambitious by each passing day and their successes might herald a whole new shift to product development.. In the article, published recently in the Dataquest Magazine, I spoke about a small revolution that is taking shape, and how this just might be it..(http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/top_stories/2007/107051001.asp)

“India is not an IT super power, how can you even call it so, we account for a few percent points in the total global IT pie. Look around you in India, the benefits of computerization have yet to really percolate to the commonest of the common. It is a fallacy to call ourselves an IT power house,” he virtually thumps the table.

Pola-rising Market
Sometime in 2001, Polaris did a reality check. It was established in 1995 and doing reasonably fair for a services company, but Arun Jain, CEO, Polaris, knew that it would not be able to compete with the likes of TCS and Infosys. For all its efforts, it would be tough to break into the big club. It was around this time that Polaris changed tracks. It adopted the Blue Ocean strategy; instead of slogging it out in the highly competitive services domain, why not coast along in the relatively newer space of product development. The company’s expertise in the banking domain would also come very handy. But even the banking domain had a few strong players like i-Flex and others. There were quite a few players competing on the plank of technology and cost. Polaris decided to bring its technical expertise on the table, and introduced componentized products based on SOA principles.

“The idea was fairly simple, but complex at the same time. Rather than selling a product, we decided to present a platform to our customers, whereby he or she could pick and choose modules or applications that were required by the business rather than going for a big-bang implementation. We termed it as Non-Disruptive Measured Steps Method or NDMS,” says Jaideep Billa, CTO, Polaris Software Lab.
With NDMS, companies were able to migrate from another core-banking platform to the Polaris platform with little or no hassle. And the results were there for all to see. “Today, top 7 banks from the top 25 use our solutions in some way or the other,” says Billa. Though Polaris could not be a shining star in the services domain, it certainly emerged as a force to reckon with in the product domain.

Does it Tally?
Till a few years back, Tally was the poster boy of Indian IT industry. A homegrown solution aimed at the small domestic players, Tally really grew in real stature. Since Tally package was customized for Indian needs and requirements, it had completely dominated the SMB space.

Over the years, the big ones like the SAPs and the Oracles of the world were focused on the big companies in India. That was till a few years and now the very same international have woken up to the immense opportunity in the SMB space. Suddenly, Tally was under attack with international players products at lower price. Its price plank was removed, the growth was stagnant and suddenly the company seemed vulnerable.
To counter the situation, Tally is trying to reinvent itself. After being funded by Reliance Mukesh Ambani Group, that also picked up a stake in the company, Tally has been trying to reach out to different markets like the Middle East. It has also decided to take the game to the enemies’ court, by venturing into the ERP space. Tally also came out with a solution for the retail sector. Time will tell if Tally will be able to tally all the different things that it seems to be doing or will it, just not tally.

——-EOM