In a one-on-one with Biztech2.0, M.R. Rangaswamy, co-founder, Sand Hill Group LLC, talks about the Indian IT landscape, and the big opportunities that await Indian CIOs.

What IT opportunities, in your opinion, will 2008 bring for Indian CIOs?

2008 will bring plenty of opportunities for CIOs. There are a lot of choices available for implementing IT systems, IT software, and IT applications. The first area is that of on-demand or SaaS applications; these are products that can be rented instead of licensed or bought. There are numerous applications in this space that people can use. The second is the area of open source; there's plenty of software available on the Internet that can be downloaded and used for free, and if you like it, you can pay for maintenance and support.

There is also this whole area of Web2.0, which is now in the enterprise space and called Enterprise2.0. One can take a lot of technologies being used by consumers, such as podcasts, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds etc., and bring them into corporations and utilise them to get to customers and get feedback from them. Another important area is SOA, which can now be used to open legacy applications for use in different ways. The final area is that of off-shoring, which brings cost efficiency as well as less time to market by deploying resources from other partners.

What are the advantages Indian CIOs have over the others?

Indian CIOs have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes made in the US and UK. For instance, instead of licensing software, which is a traditional way of buying products, they can now be rented. This innovation is a big cost-saving technique for companies and also a way for them to try something before they buy it. Starting from scratch, deploying a new technology stack instead of going the traditional way, for instance, on-demand software, is a method they can use. Indian CIOs can have all the functionalities of a CIO in the West but at cheaper prices, and still look big to their customers.

Where are the major investments being made by Indian enterprises?

Most companies have already invested in the initial infrastructure; now they are busy investing in applications. ERP seems to be something a lot of Indian companies are doing. If you look at the Indian market, Oracle and SAP are growing tremendously primarily because of the applications that are being bought. Currently the primary investment in India is being made in automation of business processes. As that gets completed, there will be a lot more focus on specific applications that target customers, surround them with information, feedback and so forth. We haven’t reached there yet; the foundation is still being laid.

What is your take on India offshoring business processes and operations to other countries?

I think it’s a relatively new phenomena in India. Only a few large companies, especially those in the telecom sector, have gone in for outsourcing or offshoring so far. Being a superpower in the subcontinent, India should look at nearby countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, where the time zone and cultures are almost the same.

What, according to you, are some big IT opportunities for Indian enterprises this year?

Indian companies have the opportunity to work with all the new software as opposed to legacy software implementations. They can look at ERP, CRM and SCM applications and look for on-demand versions of those, which they can pay by the month. This is going to be the big opportunity ahead for large companies.

What is your advice to CIOs who now handle both business and IT?

My advice to them is to involve the entire management team of the company in any IT project. It is the CIO's job to make them all trusted partners in the entire project. It’s not just IT versus users, it has to be a team. Therefore the CIO's new role involves bringing businesses together and making IT partners.

Which is one IT trend that will be popular in India?

Use of open source software will become more prevalent. The open source stack has become more mature in terms of databases, applications and so forth.

Have you any message for Indian CIOs?

I would tell Indian CIOs to be bold, take risks and make India and Indian IT systems different from those that have been deployed elsewhere.