Vikas Malhotra has more than 20 years of experience in implementing IT-based solutions and in enhancing business productivity and competitiveness. This breadth of experience has helped him appreciate the business needs and how IT actions and priorities can be aligned to business priorities. He has a well-rounded experience, both with IT service providers, and in the manufacturing industry. His knowledge and experience encompasses project management, application rollouts, hardware, and systems support.
In his current role at Hero MotoCorp, Malhotra leads the Business Solutions Group and is responsible for providing IT solutions for Human Resources and the Sales & Marketing departments. Apart from this, he is responsible for the implementation of business analytical and dashboard solutions across the organization.
His mentor Vijay Sethi, Vice President and CIO, Hero MotoCorp, feels Malhotra has a good blend of infrastructure and project management skills, having spent a number of years at Hero MotoCorp. He also has a good grasp of processes and process mapping.
CHALLENGES
Malhotra has to ensure timely delivery of solutions not just to internal stakeholders, but also to external stakeholders (dealers and SSPs). Internally, change management is perceived as a “tough” challenge; but it is even tougher when one deals with external stakeholders. For instance, during the rollout of the Dealer Management System (DMS), Malhotra had to deal with the change management issue that affected all stakeholders, including different dealer organizations’ staff and internal departments, covering more than 6,000 users.
“Vikas did a great job there and ensured we rolled out to more than 530 dealers in a record time — making the DMS rollout one of the fastest implementations. He is also working on analytics, where making it pervasive in the organization needs a culture change, and he is again fairing quite well. He has my support and that of the team to help him cope with these challenges,” said Sethi.
PROJECTS Malhotra has been leading the Business Solutions Group where he handles all IT solutions for Sales, Marketing and HR departments - primarily on SAP and Siebel platforms. One of his most notable projects as Project Manager was the implementation of the DMS, which is regarded as one of the largest IT projects of its kind in the country (within the manufacturing sector). This project provides a platform, which connects all the channel partners through an integrated system with the primary objective of enhancing the customer’s buying and after-sales experience — resulting from the standardization of customer facing processes at the dealerships.
Prior to his current role, he was responsible for IT infrastructure, which included LAN, WAN, SAP and other applications. He has been instrumental in the implementation and upgradation of the Business Intelligence solution, Business Partner Portal (for dealers and vendors), Supplier Relationship Management, Customer Relationship Management, and SAP ERP.
One of his strengths is evaluating platforms and designing solutions to enable end-to-end business and IT transformations across complex environments. He is also adept at managing IT and consulting teams and user expectations.