IT: The Factor Of Distinction Date:   Tuesday , April 30, 2013 Hero MotoCorp, Ltd (NSE: HEROMOTOCO), is an Indian motorcycle and scooter manufacturer based in New Delhi, India. The company is the largest two wheeler manufacturer in India with a market cap of $6.05 billion. Significance of IT in the Automobile Industry IT at Hero MotoCorp works very closely with business to ensure organization remains prepared for the future with CIO being part of the Organization's Enterprise Management Team – which is the top leadership team of the company. The endeavor of IT function is to create value and enhancing satisfaction for both the internal and external customers by providing them with services and solutions that enhance their performance. IT today is part of all operations of the company and its eco system (Dealers, Vendors and End Customers). The company has state of the art IT Infrastructure – in terms of Systems, Hardware, Software and connectivity. Hero MotoCorp Ltd. has a strong technology base and it has in place all the relevant and leading technologies like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), DMS (Dealer Management System), PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), GRC (Governance Risk and Compliance), BI (Business Intelligence and Analytics), Legal Compliance System, SSO (Single Sign on), DLP (Data Leakage Prevention) and many other systems including in the area of engineering and design supported by workflows, portals, mobile applications, self service applications, collaboration tools, mobility applications and a very robust and scalable infrastructure and information security technologies apart from being accredited with ISO 27001- an Information Security certification. All this is supported by world class processes and monitoring mechanisms. Key IT tools being used in an Automobile Industry The automobile industry has over the years risen from being traditional manufacturing setups to becoming modernized organizations which are leveraging all the relevant tools in the IT space. Automobile companies these days are leveraging tools ranging from the basic ones like ERP and Business Analytics tools to the more complex ones like cloud driven services and mobile applications. Apart from this, solutions like workflows, CRM - Customer Relationship Management Software, SRM - Supplier Relationship Management Software, PLM - Product Lifecycle Management Software, Dealer Management System, Various design and simulation software, e-learning platforms, knowledge management systems, other solutions to help R&D and connectivity across locations & eco systems are part of automobile industry today. Many companies also extensively use portals. Information Security and Infrastructure management solutions are also used extensively. Many companies like ours also use Identity and Access management solutions. Social Media, Mobility, Big data analytics and cloud are also catching up. As I see, it is not just using these tools that matter, the real benefit is based on the way organizations harvest these tools to meet their business objectives and compliance needs. IT Challenges With increasing proliferation of IT and ever increasing rise of customer and business expectations from IT, some of the challenges which a typical automobile company is facing in the current IT scenario are: 1. Managing / analyzing the huge amounts of data that is being generated by the organizations and the eco system – this would include things like sentiment analysis, Big data analytics and others 2. M2M (Machine to Machine) communication is another area which has lots of potential in automotive sector 3. Using IT on the shop floor to integrate physical and digital processes 4. Managing change in the organization with the adoption of new technologies 5. Supporting social collaboration with the help of IT. Another area from automotive eco system is collaboration among the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and component suppliers. Here most of the companies use portals and / or supplier relationship management systems. In some cases – exchange of data is still through e-mails. This is an area where there is a huge potential of increasing efficiency – by standardizing exchange of information between various trading partners. Cloud as a technology gives lot of hope and opportunity for not just smaller organizations but also bigger organizations to take a leap from in technology – but as I see the adoption is still very limited and in pockets. As India becomes the manufacturing and design hub for the world – I think technologies like collaboration, social media (say to help in crowd sourcing), design and simulation technologies will find more and more inroads into automotive sector. Investments planned by Hero MotoCorp for IT in FY 2013-14 Leveraging the power of Cloud, Big Data, Mobility and Social Media will be some areas where the investment will be focused in the next fiscal. Besides these, there are other areas also where the relevant IT tools will be deployed to enable the organization to be more efficient. As an organization, we have ambitious growth plans for FY2013-14 and IT will play a significant role in them As regards quantum of investments - only thing I will say is that budget does not become a constraint in any IT initiative if we are convinced that it adds value to the organization whether in short term or long term. All projects / investments are looked through a business (or returns) justification filter and once that is done – rest is all mechanics.