Transforming others while transforming within

IT consultancy firm, ApON, run by a group of former CIOs, is trying to transform organisations into digital enterprises while building its own digital capabilities at the same time

SANJEEV KUMAR

APON INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS

Engaging start-ups to drive transformation and change has many advantages. Their small size, agility and speed, less process confinement and no bureaucracy gives them an edge over bigger players.

In an on-demand world where every IT need, right from an email server to a core banking solution is fulfilled through specialists without spending too much extra, getting a CIO on demand can often be extremely fruitful.

ApON, a conglomeration of experienced CIOs, has been leveraging its collective experience to drive digital change among Indian enterprises. In a recently executed project, the task at hand was to digitise a large organisation.

The organisation had multiple businesses with a variety of sourcing needs: raw material, spares, transportation and contract buying. It was inefficient and more personalised.

The organisational structure that used to handle the purchase function was siloed at multi-locations, multi-stages and multi-points. Every purchase officer had his own database with preset perceptions. Outside-in view was missing while tuning based on changes in market pricing in different scenarios was missing. The organisation was unable to control the timing of demand and supply which resulted in missed opportunities. Transparency and audit were the other areas that required attention. Many performance-related points in internal audit meetings were linked to the functioning of this approach.

This was when ApON stepped in. “We deliberated at length and came out with a structure whereby we combined purchase functions of all plants and created a common shared function. We also formed an eProcurement division and then evaluated options available to go ahead with online procurement, eAuction, reverse auction, online bidding, on-line technical and commercial comparison combined with analytics integrated with online transaction processing system (ERP),” explains Sanjeev Kumar, Director and CIO, ApON.

After initial hiccups on the management front, the organisation started experiencing benefits and within six months, Kumar and his team managed to break-even with paramount ongoing gains. Instant audit and transparency were used as bi-products.

The organisation is now moving on Cloud, Software Defined Network and implementing Advanced Threat Management tools and processes to overcome legacy infrastructure barrier to plant seeds of complete agility, speed and transparency. Within two-three years, a complete refresh is possible with all new vibrant infrastructure triggering high speed innovation and growth.

Collaboration is the key for executing any large project, more so a transformational one. It becomes more important when the teams are scattered and decision-makers are on the move. The challenge remains as how to bring in anytime anywhere concepts, combined with chat and video assists with conferencing, ability to create social media for internal projects, departments and people.

“Creating a kaizen group that worked on small improvements were another requirement. Digital transformation to enable support and training on newer changes, products, pricing and usage to address the above-mentioned points was a need. We zeroed down a comprehensive solution for implementation across all groups,” Kumar shares.

Kumar suggests that enterprises should engage proactively with start-ups to bring in continuous innovation.

I have always worked with start-ups so that quick steps are taken without delays and the results are yours without a long wait,” he says.

ApON itself is trying to transform, with the focus now shifting to IoT, deep learning, AI and 3D printing. The organisation is working on creating software-defined network, software-defined storage, mobility, security and its management.