GEC NEWS WIREDigitalization has played a key role in bridging gap between various key players in an organization. Kumar Prasoon, Group CIO at Century Malls – Safeer Group, talks about the close relation shared by the IT and Marketing team in the digital age and the various tech pain points he feels and cures in his day to day role. Kumar is an ICT Industry Process Centric seasoned Enterprise Architect and Business Process Management Expert
“The digital explosion has forced the marketing teams and CIOs to work more closely together”
Kumar Prasoon, Group CIO Century Malls- Safeer Group
GRID –CIOSHow have you changed the IT infrastructure at your organization over the recent times?
We have recently implemented Oracle Retail on a Cloud Platform. Moreover, we have also implemented an Auto Purchase and Auto Goods receiving software for Safeer Group.
There seems to be a lot of buzz around –“IT as a business enabler” – so do you think a strategic relation between the marketing and CIOs is the new thing in place? How important is it?
More and more, Marketing Managers and IT Managers are seeing that they are natural partners: The marketing team has an unprecedented amount of customer data, from which they need to extract insights to increase revenue and profits. The IT Manager has the expertise in the development of IT architectures and the execution of large programs needed to create the company’s big data backbone and generate the necessary insights.
Historically, though, the relationship has often been a fractious one. The Marketing Managers have traditionally acted as stewards of the brand and have focused on large creative campaigns that generate excitement for the company’s products or services. The CIO, on the other hand, has primarily focused on a combination of business-process improvement (for example, in order-to-cash work flows) and “keeping the lights on” by managing core transaction systems, ensuring cybersecurity, supporting end users, and reducing costs.
The digital explosion has forced the marketing teams and CIOs to work more closely together. As the mix of IT spending shifts from the back office and supply-chain management (for those industries that have a supply chain) to the front office and customer engagement, tensions may arise about the chief marketing officer and CIO’s decision rights and budget authority. These tensions are reflected in research suggesting that most marketing teams today see marketing as the natural leader of big data efforts, while most CIOs see IT in that role.
What kind of technological pain points do you experience on a day to day basis at work; and what kind of solutions do you think can help you?
Some Technological pain points are the complexity of the applications that the end users at Safeer Group face at Safeer Group. We try to make things simple for all the users but still we need to spend a lot of time in training them. Also, the data which is entered into the system is not 100% reliable. We need to have strict data policy standards for them and that is one reason why we don’t get our insights right most of the times.
What is the most difficult technology-related investment decision you had to make? Why was it difficult and what was the outcome?
The most difficult technology related investment decision was to implement Oracle retail. The employees were all used to the back office legacy applications and they were quite resistant to change. We needed to upgrade our systems and implementing Oracle retail was quite a big investment. The outcome will be that most of our issues with the data quality will be resolved.
Give an example of when you implemented a new or emerging technology. How did you manage the risks?
We implemented Oracle retail completely on the cloud and there were a lot of risks involved in that process. I aligned the right resources for all the issues to be resolved and I devised a risk management plan for the project where we identified all the risks involved beforehand.
Give an example of when you helped reduce costs for the rest of the enterprise by using IT. How did you go about it and how much did you save?
Most of the applications which are used by Al Safeer are made by the IT team and that saved a huge amount. We implemented Oracle on the cloud which saved huge costs, as all the external vendors work remotely on the systems, which saved us close to 5 million AED. We also worked on a digital signage solution and a broadcasting solution and that saved us huge costs close to 1 million AED.
What percentage of your IT budget is for outsourced activities? How do you determine what to outsource?
20% of our IT budget is reserved for the outsourced activities. Even though we have a solid IT team we need to outsource some part of the process. First I calculate the in-house costs that could be avoided by outsourcing and then I calculate the total costs of outsourcing. If the total cost to outsource is cheaper than aligning in house resources I go for the outsourced option.
Green technology is trending and is definitely a very welcome change; have you implemented green initiatives in your IT set up?
At Al Safeer, we try to minimize the use of paper work as much as possible. All the billing and invoicing is done through our applications now and most of the agreements are signed online with the digital authorization now. Also most of the promotional flyers that were sent to the customers are digitized now. Even our loyalty application process is completely online now when compared to the last year.
What’s your view on hybrid cloud adoption? Are you in favor of it or do you prefer to play safe and just stick to private cloud?
I think hybrid cloud computing still suffers from significant setup and operational complexity. Finding the sweet spot – where the business is gaining the maximum benefit from a perfect balance of on-premise IT, private cloud and public cloud services – can be extremely difficult
On the other hand, we are careful of our application data and we keep it in house as it contains confidential data. Losing control of an application, or putting the organization at risk or failing compliance, is a big risk for us.
What strategies have you put in place to ensure mobile workspaces for your employees?
We offer flexible and economical workspaces that inspire people while reducing overhead and real estate costs. Most of our work is done remotely and our teams are working from different countries. This is achieved by offering easy, yet secure, access to business resources.
