siliconindia | | July 20189the precautions we should take. We have basic analytics in place, and have started experimenting with big data as well; where we can capture some unstructured data to help the decision makers at the top take better calls.Q. Talking about your personal experience as a CIO, you said IT adoption in the shipping industry is comparatively resistant. Where do you see it evolving towards from an IT perspective? A. I have actually not been in the shipping industry from the beginning; I went through many other industries before coming here, which makes it easy for me to compare with other industries. A person who is hardcore shippy, comes out of Marine College at the age of 22 or 23 goes straight to the ship, he has to gain at least 15 to 20 years of sailing experience before he can get a shore post. So, the generation that works at shore right now, is all in their 40s and 50s, which is unfortunate because the IT revolution took place when they were at sea. When they started working at shore, they were completely unaware of things that happened in the last 20 years. So there is a mental block to adopting new technologies and this is a big challenge for me; convincing them to really accept anything new. Normal resistance is always there when looking to adopt something new, but here it is more because of the fear of the unknown. I don't blame them because of the fact that they are actually not from a technical environment, they spent their whole lives at sea, and have not actually experienced what was happening on land. But I can see that there is a change coming and it will slowly and gradually transform. As a CIO, it is really a big challenge for me but at the same time, it gives me great pleasure when I break through to them. I convince them to do it, it might take a little more time, but then they finally go for it. It is very interesting because you have a lot of things to do here. In the sense, there is a lot of scope for IT enhancement or introduction of new technologies. So that's an interesting thing, it isn't repetitive. The whole concept of adopting new technology is coming into the industry. Q. Is there anything else that you want to add from your end? Any interesting or personal insight or any experience? A. There is a change that I can see, not just in the Indian shipping industry, but also across regions. There is not a single good ERP system today available world wide for shipping industry. ERP is a basic level application that actually captures the root level data for all different business functions. If that is also not available in the industry, it shows that the industry is comparatively behind with the other industries. That is why we have developed the ERP system ourselves. The bottom line is this industry has a good scope for the implementation and adoption of IT. Moreover, connectivity does play a significant role because everything is remote. Everything can be managed remotely. If something is remote on land, accessing it becomes easy. If I am in New York and you are in Bombay, in case of an emergency, I can fly down in a few days. But at sea, it is absolutely remote, you just cannot fly down to a ship in the middle of the sea in an emergency. So, you have to be so accurate while piloting them and remember they are in a constrained state. Whatever is on the ship is all they have, so there needs to be continuous monitoring. I can see that there is a change coming­ there is a lot of scope for IT enhancement or introduction of new technologies
< Page 8 | Page 10 >