Business is becoming more dynamic and challenging and it’s not enough to facilitate business using IT. It’s important to use IT to give business the competitive edge. I strongly believe that IT is for business and business is not for IT.

In the fast changing world, it’s important to have speed to deliver solution, while at the same time maintaining agility. We are used to talking about the complexities of technology, but technology is more or less tested and the challenge lies somewhere else.

For me the challenges lie in people management, expectations manIT is for Business [and not the other way round] agement, change management and confict management.

In the fast changing business conditions, top management is always concerned about Return on Investment. While discipline on RoI is warranted, it’s important to differentiate the more-or-less routine technology initiatives from the strategic ones.

There's another aspect: RoI for the solutions and systems which are basically business enablers must be termed as cost of doing business. However, the solutions that determine the competitive edge for business must be looked from the RoI perspective.

In our industry, we get an opportunity to work with employees from different departments. Wearing the technology hat is not enough. Our functional and business knowledge should be equally good. Our ability to sell the concept to the business owners, create acceptance, build teams and bring in the right technology is put to the test.

Respecting individuals and using a mix of young blood and experience is the key to successful IT deployments. In Honda, PDCA (plan, do, check and action) and QCDMS (quality, cost, delivery, management and services) is central to all evaluations and implementations.

One should not try to be the leader in the market to deploy a specifc solution or concept for the sake of technology. We need to understand the business case clearly and establish the relevance to business before deciding on the implementation of a
particular technology.

At times, the ability of the partner (vendor) to sell and their ability to implement do not match. The partner community must understand that unless they have conviction, focus, commitment and capability, they should not try projecting a solution.

BY Hilal Khan Head, Corporate Strategic Information Systems, Honda Motor India

The Author has over 18 years of experience in information systems.