Cloud Computing and ROI

In today’s competitive world it is mandate for an organization to keep up the pace with its competitors and understand various aspects related to the organization for its continuous growth and development. It is important for the top management to be aware about the critical issues pertaining to the organization. Technology and customer demands and expectations are improving so rapidly that processes need to be redefined continuously. The old methods of production and services must be modified so that current level of expectations from market and customers could be met. In this chapter we would cover various topics such as Organization Life Cycle, Process and Workflow, Critical Success Factors (CSFs), Business Model, Benchmarking, etc. related specifically to an organization and its processes. The study of these topics would help in understanding the organization in a better way.

IT (Information Technology) has travelled a long distance very quickly to reach its current state and has a very long way to go ahead. IT mainly started with the help to accountants (Chuck 1998). The accountants used to do a lot of data interpretation and number crunching to convert numbers into strategic and tactical decisions. IT has helped to develop new business models and become an important resource for the organization. It was possible due to the continuous research and the corporate which promoted them. Innovation and new ideas were encouraged to match the day to day developing technology and extend the use of IT to a large number of areas and domains. IT has created such numerous opportunities that organizations are forced as well as motivated to develop its business models in synchronization with it. For example online marketing by Dell, e-commerce portals for buying tickets for air travel and many more. The vastness of IT has brought a big change in current business structure and added a new life to them.

In today’s world businesses are growing at a tremendous speed and so are their clients and customers. Such a fast growing pace is causing lack of resources and their proper utilization. One of the examples is the usage of IT technology. The use of IT in today’s growing businesses has expanded to such a great extent that it is posing problem for the organization to serve and satisfy their customers. The business during peak hours (time when maximum customers want to be served) is extremely difficult to handle. Some of the common examples are railway reservation when the window for ticket reservation just opens, students visiting website when results are declared, ticket bookings on weekends, etc. To serve the customers in these cases companies can’t go after continuously installing the new systems and resources because they would be unused during non-peak hours. Such a problem gives rise to a new solution which is known as Cloud Computing in which resources are shared to adjust the traffic of the requests to be served. But the question is where do we start from? With the growing hype about cloud computing there are some more questions creeping into the minds of management about implementing cloud solutions in their organizations. For example, which case it will be the most helpful? How will it improve the efficiencies? Which areas it will not be fruitful? Should we adapt to cloud-based solutions or not? These are some of the questions which we will try to answer in this chapter.

IndiaInfoline (www.​indiainfoline.​com) is a brokerage firm dealing with retail and corporate brokerages. It has also operations in consumer lending apart from realty and wealth management. The challenge faced by the organization is variable demand, spike in volumes and online security issues. The firm wanted to concentrate in its core business and reduce effort, time and investment in technology infrastructure. The CIO was asked to devise a strategy that will reduce spending on IT while all transactions will be carried out with the help of technology. This will help in consistency and predictability in performance. The CIO adopted cloud strategy. He managed to reduce IndiaInfoline’s annual IT costs by a factor of five in a time span of 12 months. During the same period the company’s revenues increased 36 %. This means not only the cloud strategy supported business growth, it also reduced spending on technology. They are, if you allow for a little exaggeration, much like commodity traders. They scour for events when the need for computing power will surge and buy it just before the spike.

Myntra was established by three IIT alumni Mukesh Bansal, Vineet Saxena and Ashutosh Lawania in February 2007. It has its headquarters in Bangalore and has three regional offices in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai.

The major objective of this project is to design an IT Implementation strategy for Dabur. Many of the FMCG companies in India have a similar structure hence this IT strategy might as well be applicable to other companies in the Indian FMCG sector. Most of the processes in Dabur have now been computerized with the advancement of technology, but there is a disconnect between various functions at Dabur and a major portion on data available cannot be leveraged for obtaining competitive advantage due to this lack of integration. We interviewed few of the professionals (ASMs and Sales Executives) working in Dabur to get an idea of the existing processes in Dabur. We also looked at the competitors of Dabur such as Reckitt Benckiser and P&G to analyze processes followed there. We also looked at industry reports on current trends in the Indian FMCG sector and current applicability of Cloud Implementation in the FMCG segment. And then taking into account the Vision, Mission and Goals of Dabur we were able to chalk out an implementation plan for IT Strategy for Dabur.

Automotive industry demonstrates complex operational challenges. It has a long supply chain and multiple stakeholders. With increasing global competition, Mahindra & Mahindra faces key challenges in quality, technology and cost fronts. In order to be successful, M&M needs to leverage technology throughout their value chain.