A Vertical Horizon for Technology : Ashok Malhotra

Interview Questions

Full Interview with Ashok Malhotra

Ashok Malhotra:

The actions we put in place in the last quarter of 2000 were the need of the hour. We needed to bring in technology to ensure instant communication in our various offices and service networks across the country. After establishing connectivity and uniform hardware, we improved our key processes that had an impact on internal and external customers. Over the next few years, our company continued to leverage IT to streamline and make our business processes more efficient and effective. For instance, it has enabled us to decentralize certain processes as well as helped various teams to handle larger volumes of work, while reducing cycle times. Currently, we are in the process of refreshing and upgrading our connectivity and hardware, so that we can enable employees to leverage the full benefits from the J.D. Edwards integrated systems, which we introduced very recently.

Ashok Malhotra:

Customers in today's competitive world expect more than quality products and services. They also expect quality response both in terms of time and completeness. It is in this area of quality response that IT plays a crucial and enabling role. It has been and is still our endeavour to leverage IT by providing reliable infrastructure in terms of connectivity and hardware. Part of this endeavor requires that we provide efficient application systems, which will help employees meet and address the response and expectations of customers effectively - be it internal or external.

I believe that constant evaluating and leveraging new technologies and solutions are important to maintain an edge in delivering value to customers. I also believe that IT plays both a crucial and collaborative role in ensuring an efficient and optimum  turnaround time in the organization. In this context, we have recently introduced JDE integrated systems that will provide our employees with online information. This will, in turn, improve the speed and quality of their decision-making apart from strengthening organization wide internal controls.

 

Ashok Malhotra:

We implemented an ERP system as part of our global strategy to have a commonality of systems, integrating business functions across the enterprise. The implementation of the ERP across Otis India was a major change-management project right from the time we moved away from legacy, home-grown systems to an enterprisewide integrated and controlled system. At every stage of the project, we ensured the complete involvement and participation of our users.

By educating and training them on the functionalities and features of the ERP system, we created awareness. We expect benefits in terms of standardization of processes, availability of information, integration and further strengthening of controls. We expect this to lead to an enhancement to the productivity of the people involved, improving their turnaround time.

It was a challenge for the project team to drive implementation while training users across the company, considering the complexities of business processes and requirements. They created infrastructure readiness to support ERP, and integrated to country specific requirements that were simultaneously in line with the Global Governance Model that I referred to earlier. As a team, we worked together to address the challenges in a focused and structured manner to minimize the impact on business operations.

Without the total involvement and dedication of the core project team, the external consultants and the users of Otis across the country, the success of the implementation of such a major change management project would not have been possible. With the systems now stabilizing, our focus is now on leveraging the systems to derive the expected benefits.

 

Ashok Malhotra:

It has famously been said that if there is one thing constant in life, it is change.

However, I feel that it isn't just change but the increasing pace of it that is constant. It is a common characteristic of all successful companies. I also believe that pain always accompanies change. Nevertheless, there are methods, tools and techniques to reduce the level of pain and make change more acceptable and manageable across an organization. IT plays a key role in not only reducing the level of pain, but also in introducing major change programs. These can be instrumental in bringing about total change in the way business processes are handled.

 

Ashok Malhotra:

The Enquiry to Handover (E2H) process has been one of our key processes. It requires that we leverage IT on both the hardware and software ends. This has enabled various functional teams to reduce response cycle times and, to a large extent, helped them meet customer needs. The project has consolidated various core functions of the organization, including sales, marketing, manufacturing, modernization, construction management, finance and HR. E2H automates a number of processes that earlier involved a lot of paperwork.

It also helped us decentralize some activities to our regional offices, and gave them the ability to access and process information directly and in a timely manner. It dramatically reduced our response times to both our internal and external customers, besides improving accuracy.

One of the examples is the time difference from enquiry generation by the customer to a proposal. Earlier, this workflow took at least two days. Post E2H, our sales executives are able to quote their best prices in less than an hour. I can now say that the E2H process has given our teams confidence in meeting response time requirements of a major section of our customers.

 

Ashok Malhotra:

What started with us as a small measure has today become a way of life. I am referring to the change that our products have witnessed. They went from being electro-mechanical systems to fully electronic and microprocessorbased elevator control systems.

What was cutting-edge technology some years ago has now become a basic need for all safe, reliable and efficient elevator systems. There are a number of ways by which we leverage the latest technologies to incorporate user-friendly features in our elevatoring systems.

For example, we can now group a number of high-speed elevators in a building more efficiently and also ensure optimum dispatching of elevators to various calls from different floors. Security access can also be given on our systems, so that only nominated individuals can take elevators to designated floors.

 

Ashok Malhotra:

Otis India's IT strategy is aligned with the company's global IT policies as well as local business strategies. In terms of IT policies, we are strongly governed by UTC, and compliance is very important and mandatory for all entities. On the infrastructure side, we have a Standard Operating Environment (SOE) to ensure that infrastructure is standard across the entity, and runs in a common environment to support systems and applications besides enabling effective monitoring.

As far as connectivity is concerned, key Otis India locations are connected through domestic WAN, which in turn is connected globally to support both global as well local applications by users across locations. We continuously review and enhance domestic and international WAN to support changing business requirements in terms of speed and reliability. On the applications front, we have identified processes specific to local requirements in conjunction with the governance model driven by UTC. We have implemented global enterprise systems in line with the governance model, with adequate enhancements and customizations to support local business operations as well.

 

Ashok Malhotra:

I strongly feel that IT plays a critical role in ensuring that systems are SOX-compliant at all times in the organization. This is important since all key business processes are IT-enabled across the enterprise. Strong controls both on infrastructure and applications fronts are critical to ensure compliance with the requirements of SOX and other internal controls.

At Otis Elevator, compliance with all control requirements is mandatory and is one of the top-most priorities apart from safety and business ethics. To ensure compliance, we educate our users, create awareness about the importance of adhering to policies governing the organization, and work as a team to build controls in processes and systems. Our endeavors to be compliant are monitored and reviewed periodically. These are followed by regular audits to ensure 100 percent compliance at all times. We believe that a secure and controlled system leads to a secure enterprise in compliance at all times.