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Tuesday, 28 October 2014 01:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Sri Lanka CIO Summit provides Sri Lankan top level IT executives with a unique opportunity to interact with innovative global solution providers, with whom they can partner to build innovation in their IT department.
Welcoming participants, Anees Ahmed, Publisher and Group Director at UBM India spoke about the importance and purpose of this summit. “We started this initiative – Sri Lanka CIO Summit – three years back, for creating a platform for IT heads in Sri Lanka to interact with their peers and also with vendors. This event has become a brand with excellent recall. Today we are addressing a gathering of more than 100 IT heads from top companies across verticals in Sri Lanka,” Ahmed said.
Next Generation of IT Infrastructure
The keynote address themed ‘Next Generation of IT Infrastructure’ was delivered by Ramesh Shanmuganathan, Executive Vice President/Group CIO of John Keells Group of Companies.
Ramesh introduced the idea of the changing IT infrastructure. “Today what we are focusing is the personal cloud around us, which is driving the way how infrastructures are built. You are saying that BYOD [Bring Your Own Device] is becoming a concept which is pushing cooperates to re-identify assets. A lot of the basic principles and philosophies that we practice, in the architecture of infrastructure is now changing. This is because we have created a challenge of responding to consumers who have that personal cloud and want to bring that personal cloud into the corporate environment,” he said.
He described the changes that occur in our lifestyles as we move on to a new era of IT. He pointed out that megacities are on the rise along with a shift towards city dwelling.
“We also can’t forget what’s happening in the world. Urbanisation is happening at a phenomenal rate. In future you will see more than 25 megacities, these are cities where there is a population of more than 10 million, like Bombay, Dhaka, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur. Also, China and India would take a precedential place in economics in future. From a Sri Lankan context when you define infrastructure you should also understand what our market is and whether it is planning to serve in Sri Lanka or beyond Sri Lanka,” Ramesh added.
Discussing the scarcity of resources he mentioned that we cannot be in isolation and think about our business alone, when moving to the next generation of IT infrastructure. He stressed that today it is difficult to hire capable people for positions such as SAP consultant, network engineer or security architect. He then explained why it is important to expand our infrastructure and capacity to accommodate the best and brightest employees or contractors regardless of where they may reside.
Looking at it from an economics point of view, he said, entities like Amazon did not start by having the kind of infrastructure required for the business but they saw the potential to grow. “Today we say a person’s ability to innovate does not just lie in the knowledge they possess but by the future potential they can predict.”
He further pointed out that even though the majority of us use smart phones today, the value of these devices depends on how frequently we use them. “The value of the phone is there, only when it’s being used. In general, the value of the devices we use increase when the time we use the device increases. Today that is where the world is moving, it is moving in speed with the utilisation by time, whether it’s devices, IT services or something else.”
Challenges faced in an enterprise context
Moving on to the challenges faced in an enterprise context, he said: “Today hypothetically all of you can work while being here, so what is the need for you to have an office, desk, PC or a laptop? Hence what is the need for you to have a data centre or own network in your office? If you say virtual office and virtual teams is a possibility the entire infrastructure becomes a huge question mark.”
He then posed the question of what differences would be made if there was a chance to design the IT infrastructure of the organisation from the scratch.
“Today we talk about cognitive computing because all of you have computing power in your palms that is hundred times faster than what you had ten years ago. If we use all the computing power we possess, the information that can be processed by businesses would be humongous, but it has to be architected and done in a proper way,” he continued.
Ramesh further explained that most of the computing power we possess is wasted. “Suppose I have a high-end laptop sitting on my desk but I use it for only two hours a day. So is there a way to repurpose that power so someone else can use it the rest of the time? That is where the power of the cloud comes in – the personalisation on the cloud and how you reimage computing along with adaptive security systems to ensure privacy.”
The problem today, is that we define computing by the devices we use or what we have and not in terms of what we need, he said.
He emphasised that what the CEO of an organisation expects from an IT department was not about the type of software or hardware implemented but the processed data of their business. Data is the most precious raw material in the 21st century. However, only 15% of the information used today is structured, he added.
Explaining the situation with an example, he said: “If 15% of structured data comes up to about 20 Terabytes and if I’m thinking of structuring the rest of the 85% of data, it would be another 120 Terabytes. If I ask for a procurement for that 120 terabytes, the management will think I’m off my head and ask me to leave, simply because it doesn’t make any economic sense. But if we see the potential of that information in terms of expanding markets, opportunities and creating new products then the data becomes useful. Therefore the infrastructure needs to grow exponentially because data is growing exponentially. Unless data is not relevant to your business at all, your infrastructure cannot stay static.”
Ramesh further mentioned that today it has come to a point where the service provider chooses the customer and not the other way around. “For instance if we contact the telecom service provider of a customer and check how much he pays on an average month and the frequency, we can gauge his earning capacity. This kind of information can be relevant when accepting or denying a customer.”
“Facebook acquired Whatsapp and a lot people wondered why they bought it at that price, but the reason is that it’s bringing them two folds of the customers. That means they have their online ecosystem that gives them a better capacity to reach more people. So today consumerisation of everything, data of everything and cloud of everything is becoming a reality,” he continued.
Challenges regarding proper infrastructure
Ramesh spoke in detail about the challenges faced when putting a proper infrastructure in place. He highlighted the importance of improving agility and scalability, reducing costs and achieving rapid ROI, as well as the need to increase innovation, simplify and reduce risks to business.
Finally he shared his knowledge and ideas about unravelling the next generation of IT infrastructure. He focused on the aspects of innovating with business, creating solutions that optimise mega-systems and managing IT performances versus risks. He also drew in examples of such business models to support his discussion.
He concluded the keynote by encouraging the audience to dare to go where there is no path and to leave a trail. “If we put our minds together we can form a better IT infrastructure for Sri Lanka, for our organisations.”
Panel discussion
The Summit also included a panel discussion on the topic ‘Delivering business value through IT infrastructure and services’. The Panellists were Chandana Jayasooriya, Director IT/Chief Information Officer, AIA Insurance Lanka PLC; Rajeev Munasinghe, Vice President IT, Union Bank of Colombo PLC; Crishantha Nanayakkara, Head of Technology Information & Communication Technology Agency, Sri Lanka; Kiththi Perera, Chief Enterprise & Wholesale Officer, Sri Lanka Telecom PLC and Ramesh Shanmuganathan, Executive Vice President/Group CIO, John Keells Group of Companies. The panel was moderated by Manoj Mohinani, Technology Consultant, Former Country Manager Red Hat Inc. USA.
Adding value to business
Kiththi Perera spoke about how they as the national internet service provider of Sri Lanka can add value to your business. “Almost all of you are customers of SLT in many ways. In the current context how can we add further value to your business and your customers and how can we differentiate you, is the question. This is why Sri Lanka telecom has largely invested in data centres,” he said.
He emphasised how customer data can be processed to valuable information that will benefit the customer as well as the service provider.
“The cloud computing platform that SLT is planning to offer is branded under the name ‘Akasa’ meaning sky in Sanskrit. The brand name was made relevant to the region as well because we are planning to expand into other countries. If you really look at this data centre infrastructure and our investments in cloud computing, you would understand that we are planning to offer you services in all different domains, that is infrastructure, software and data and communications as services,” he added. He then described their services and the benefits of partnering with SLT for infrastructure solutions.
Banking industry
Rajeev Munasinghe presented his ideas in relation to how the banking industry is moving into the next generation. He said that some of the banks are already using big data analysis to provide products and services based on data gathered from aspects such as the customer’s spending patterns and shopping patterns.
He also discussed how banks have moved on to providing e-banking and mobile banking services where money can be transferred without going to an actual bank. Moreover, he mentioned that in future most of the banks will try to move at least some of the systems to the cloud environment in public or private, so then we can have on-demand infrastructure, availability, resilience and so on.
Advancing IT infrastructure
Crishantha Nanayakkara added his valuable input on how ICTA is working towards advancing the IT infrastructure in Sri Lanka. He mentioned how e-services implemented by them have eased the busy lives of citizens while briefly mentioning how far Sri Lanka has come in terms of adapting Information Technology.
He emphasised that they work for the benefit of all Sri Lankans and that they consider all businesses, organisations and individuals when making decisions. Moreover he shared his views on how big data can help provide services to the public and how these massive amounts of data maybe processed.
How big data can help
Chandana Jayasooriya delivered his presentation of how big data can help businesses such as insurance companies to motivate customers to buy services.
He highlighted what the idea of infrastructure meant to him by saying, “Infrastructure, we have to know the right infrastructure. To me infrastructure is high reliability, the reliability of the service, the confidentiality of my information, how much is the downtime is going to cost me; and how will that affect our business reputation.”
‘Connected UTM with Unified Access’
The Summit ended with a presentation from the event sponsors, Fortinet on the topic ‘Connected UTM with Unified Access,’ which was followed by the networking dinner.
Kamal Dissanayake, Director, Global Events & Convention Services speaking on the success of summit said: “We are very happy to be associated with UBM India in organising the CIO Summit in Sri Lanka, as Sri Lanka has seen a dramatic increase in the scale of IT infrastructure in the past decade, which has moved from corporate basements to sophisticated data centres. This explosion has in fact been the enabler for much of the corporate growth and rise in productivity, witnessed recently. This knowledge cum networking summit provided the opportunity to interact with thought leaders, experts and industry peers to arm CIOs with tools and strategies needed to transform IT department from a cost centre to a revenue driver.”
Pix by Upul Abayasekara
