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Prabhakar Rao

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Prabhakar Rao

CIO

K. Mohan and Co. Exports

Prabhakar Rao is a member of:

- Expert

Briefly tell me about your company and the IT strategies you have in place.

K. Mohan & Co. Exports is a 2 decade company who are into Garment
manufacturing business. We mainly export to US & UK. We started up
with 40 systems and now grown up to couple of hundred systems with 5
factory location all connected through RF-Links. We use Debian Linux OS
with Postfix for our Mail server and an HP server running with 2007 for
loading other, applications. Fast React is our Planning Tool that is
used for planning our orders. Gerbers Accu Mark, CM200MT & Cut works
are the softwares that are being used for Marker making and Cutting.
Around 25% of our machines r deployed as Thin Clients by using Terminal
services and the rest r working with Windows XP/Win 7 OS. The main part
of our data is shared through our Windows based server & as well as
couple of NAS deployed over the network.

What do you think about new technologies like cloud and virtualization?

As of now, "anywhere at any time" is the mantra & the same can be
obtained by using Cloud technology which not only increases the
productivity but also helps to deploy systems as and when required, no
need of going in for longtime investment and then look for benefits
instead use this technology and reap the benefits immediately in the
same way Virtualization of server, network or storage could help us to
increase the performance.

How do you keep yourself updated with latest technologies?

I keep myself updated by attending seminars and reading few of the subscribed mails over the internet.

How big is your team?

Following are my team details:
IT-Hardware consisting of 6 People.
IT-Software – Consisting of 2 people.
IT-Admin 1 Person & EDP – 15 people.

What is your biggest pain point?

Managing the network, Securities and added to that monitoring the network is our biggest pain.

Will technology help to address those pain points?

Yes, technology would surely be helpful in addressing the above mentioned Pain Points.

Did IT innovation become more critical during the slowdown?

In our case it was not much, as many things are yet to be deployed.

What are the challenges in securing your information system or data base?

Presently, most of our database is on DOS (FoxPro). Hence, database
getting corrupted & backing up online data has become a challenge.

How cloud plays an important role in securing your information?

As an individual, it is not possible to constantly monitor our security
threats which are increasingly on a daily basis. If we get on to cloud,
this would be taken care.

What is the annual IT budget that you spent on IT systems?

Being in garment manufacturing business where IT being only a support
hence we don’t have any fixed budget moreover will spend only when it is
the last resource of overcoming the problem.

Should an IT leader be a manager first, or a technologist first?

In our kind of industry you need both. Manager as well as a technologist as both go hand in hand.

What is the ROI on the technological investment that you make?

Not much of deployments have been made. Hence, may not able to quote anything in specific.

What are the new technologies that you are looking forward for?

As of now, I am looking to move my mailing system on to the cloud.

How do you describe the relationship of CIO with the CEO’s?

My CEO is aware of little bit of technology. Hence, more & more work
needs to be done to create a collaborative working relationship.
Moreover, in our kind of industry where IT is just a support base which
takes more effort in terms of bringing new technologies.

What is your advice/ suggestions to fellow CIOs in the industry?

Studying and knowing to make the right decision to implement continues
to be the key role of CIOs however the way the technology is changing
we should always update ourselves this is the only way to keep ourselves
in demand.