Collaboration to drive transformation

Use of video collaboration to enable faster execution of critical projects to help increase revenues

SANDEEP KOTHARI

TECHNOLOGY EVANGELIST

The problem is far more acute in companies established over decades, with multiple generations of IT systems and different systems for each line of business (often a consequence of mergers and acquisitions), with limited enterprise-wide integration.

Technology evangelist Sandeep Kothari is trying to transform a CIO's role in current enterprises. While today most of the time spent by a CIO goes in keeping the lights running, Kothari is certain that he would be able to cut down on such activities to take up only 5 per cent of time over the next three to five years.

Kothari hopes to spend his time spent as a business strategist expanding from the current scenario to a dominant one in the next one or two years. His vision can be observed in one of the major projects that he implemented which solved a major consumer problem. “It was observed the hosts / fliers anxiously waited for their flights at boarding gates and did not visit nearby food outlets or restaurants even if they felt hungry or maybe they had some restrictions to get there. Being in the business with airport authorities with security being the foremost requirement, we were not able / allowed to open our outlet at every nook and corner so that we could reach every unattended guest,” he says.

To overcome the problem, Kothari, along with his team, created an app through which a passenger could order food sitting at the boarding gate without worrying how far the outlet was located at the airport. The food was delivered minus hassles, kept the customer happy while it generated additional revenue for the company from the existing infrastructure.

To achieve the desired result, Kothari introduced collaboration tools within the organisation to reduce errors and increase productivity. “The use of video conferencing has the potential to increase productivity and efficiency by reducing unproductive travel time, preventing meeting delays, creating shorter and more structured meetings and allowing greater reach of a message. Video conferencing allows for an increased number of participants. It is often difficult to get information to everyone at the same time but with video conferencing, all individuals who need data can get the information when it is the easiest for them,” shares Kothari.

The collaboration tool is now helping the company in several other projects as well. But the shift from legacy to digital technologies has not been a cakewalk for Kothari. The biggest barrier to go digital from 'legacy systems is the effort and time required to introduce these changes to the system.

In this circumstance, adopting a change policy where the company slowly moves toward updated and state-of-the-art technologies, as already explained above with legacy data in legacy systems only, is the solution,” puts in Kothari.