Infosys-Oracle Blog

Coming back to the debate, there were some interesting points and examples put forth and based on that it was concluded that IT is enabler of Business. But later, when I thought about it, I felt that IT can be a Business value creator also.

For example, one of the leading private sector banks in India could think of banking in a different way through use of technology. Around 15 years before, when they established in India, If they wanted to follow the conventional way of banking, they could have still become one of the leading private sector banks because there are a lot of areas that needed improvement from the banks available that time. Few improvements needed could have been in quality and efficiency of service, timeliness in delivering the same and the lethargy that existed during those times. But the bank went on to create Business value by going in for a technology upgrade of their systems thereby customers can do many of the transactions themselves. Now the bank is recognized for the list of online transactions they offer. This made the other private banks and many government banks also to toe the same line to survive in the market. Banking may be their core business for which they implemented software, but customers were also pulled in due to the list of online transactions they offer.

One another example I could think of is the point of sales (POS) information being used by the retail industry. For a retailer, a Point of Sale information system is critical to gathering and applying information effectively in today's ultra competitive markets.  The point of sale information helps in:

• ensuring that the products required by customer are present in the store, thereby assured business and no loss of customers to competitor
• better tracking capabilities during product promotions etc.
• efficient utilization of employees for serving customers rather than to look out for a lost product
• better ordering frequency considering the pulse of the business thereby reduction in inventory carrying cost of the product
• better negotiation terms and smooth vendor management relationships.

So, implementing POS can be a business value creator for the company.

Please put forth your views on this and we can take this discussion further....

- Valliappan Thanneermalai
Valliappan T is a Consultant with Oracle Practice at Infosys Technologies.  He has consulting experience in Oracle Manufacturing and Planning Applications with domain expertise in the manufacturing industry.