Career Track
How long at the current company?
I have completed 6.5 years in Iffco-Tokio General Insurance
Co.
Most important career influencer:
H S Manjunathan, then CIO of Rourkela Steel Plant, under whom I
started my IT career in 1974 remains the most important career
influencer. An industrial engineer by qualification, he inculcated
system approach in me at a young age.
Decision I wish I could do over:
I have no regrets.
Vision
The next big thing for my industry will
be…
Mobile computing for reaching out to masses in rural India to
increase insurance penetration.
Advice for future CIOs
Keep abreast with technology, as well as business domain
knowledge.
On The Job
Top three initiatives
In-house data center: I was the head of IT in
Hindustan Organic Chemicals in Rasayani from 1981 to 1987. Those
days worker’s unions were dead against computerization. After
extensive dialogue with union representatives, they agreed to allow
us to use computers but did not agree to procure/install computers
in the premises. We hired computer time in night shift at some
establishment in Mumbai and our team members used to go alternate
nights for processing jobs. In 1984 when Shri Rajiv Gandhi became
prime minister and advocated for computerization, worker’s
unions also fell in line and we could install our in-house data
center in 1985.
Common standard application: Indian Farmers
Fertilizers Co-operative had four production units in India. Way
back in 1980s and 1990s, each production unit had their IT teams
and each of them had developed and implemented their own
applications like finance, material management etc., using
different platforms. Around year 1994, we initiated the idea of
having a common standard application to be used by all production
units. All the IT teams and business stakeholders were convinced
and we could implement common standard applications across all
units.
Siebel CRM: At Iffco-Tokio General Insurance
Co. we are using core policy administration system of M/s Computer
Science Corporation. The product is AS400-based application written
in COBOL and uses green screens. It was difficult to expose this
core application to our business partners, dealers and franchise.
In the year 2005, we initiated the implementation of e-insurance
module of Siebel CRM. This facilitated exposure to outside world,
as well as integration with the legacy core application. Today the
new platform is extensively used for point-of-sale, claims
processing, opportunity management, renewal retention, call center
and many other applications.
Favorite project
Point-of-sale application developed using e-insurance module of
Siebel CRM. The application is integrated in real time with the
core policy administration system and provides straight through
processing. It is the backbone of all B to B, and B to C
transactions.
How I measure IT effectiveness
I measure IT effectiveness in terms of providing simple and
easy-to-use applications of technology to the satisfaction of
internal, as well as external users. It must provide great business
value at an optimum cost.
CIO UNPLUGGED
Leisure activities: Reading Hindi literature.
Best book read recently: The Argumentative
Indian by Amartya Sen.
Unknown talents (singing, painting etc):
Instrumental Music.
If I weren’t a CIO, I’d be... An Army
Officer.
About Author
Vinita Gupta is Principal Correspondent at InformationWeek India. Vinita has over six years experience in IT reporting and has interviewed more than 500 business executives. She has a PG Diploma in Business Management from NMIMS and Post Graduate Degree in Communication and Journalism from Mumbai University
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