Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (MMFSL) incurred huge
costs on closed source and continuous upgrades on closed source
software. The company had task forces from every branch spread
across different locations handling the business without any Head
Office/Regional Office interference.
During an analysis of software cost against each task force, the
company found that every user was worth more than ` 1.5 lakh. But
the actual cost to company of these users in remote areas was less
than ` 1 lakh per annum. The closed source cost incurred per
employee at the non-management level was very high. When multiplied
with the head count of employees, the total closed source cost was
more than the total cost of employees. Further, not all employees
had access to all the software due to limitations of closed source
procedures availability and access controls. The company had to
maintain multiple grades of employees to enable the access
controls. To resolve these issues, the company decided to migrate
to open source software.
Through a pilot project, each the company deployed a field force
automation application and an insurance product
application—both based on open source technologies. Even the
backend operating systems were based on open source with the
company adopting Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux OS.
With the open source adoption, the company estimates cost savings
of close to ` 5 crore a year. With the deployment, MMFSL has
reduced connectivity, power and other recurring costs by almost 90
percent. ROI was seen within three months of implementation.
Note: Mahindra & Mahindra Financial ServicesLimited
(MMFSL) is an EDGE winner. The complete list of EDGE winners is
published in the October 2010 Print issue of InformationWeek
India
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