Throwing Light On E-nlightenment

E-nlightenment is good, but not in an overdose. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened at a recent seminar on emerging technologies hosted by CNBC along with Dresdner Kleinwort Benson. And sponsored by RedBrigade and Jobcurry.com in Bangalore on 30 November. Some of the trends highlighted had food for thought. But that didn't change the fact that many topics would have elicited a more enthusiastic response and participation if the audience had not been bombarded with so many divergent trains of thought in a few hours. And with lunch getting postponed with every new speaker, things weren't helped much by growling tummies all around.

According to Harish Chawla, CEO, CNBC India, "Understanding and using technology to drive our businesses for greater competitive advantage has never been more critical than today." In this context CNBC India inaugurated its 'e-nlightenment' initiative as the first of a series of regular technology learning and information exchange platforms that'll be conducted across India. The purpose of the exercise is to get leading edge professionals from around the globe to share their learning and experiences with a larger audience and help make technology learning a public domain.

The day's proceedings kicked off with Microsoft discussing what's happening in the digital economy and what people need to do in order to win in that space. Taking into consideration Microsoft's paranoia of always being 2 years away from failure, TS Krishnan, Director-Strategy, Microsoft India, stressed the need to reinvent business models with agility and aggressiveness. In order to revolutionize the way industry functions one must be a rule breaker. Bhaskar Menon of MphasiS also stressed on the same idea of doing the unexpected and weird when it came to web-based financial services. The essence of Microsoft's message was to keep Internet right in the middle of our lives. Only then can organizations make their presence felt and generate revenue and profit in the Digital Economy. Similarly, Bhaskar Pramanik, Sun Microsystems, stressed on how to thrive in the Net Economy by utilizing Technology.

Another point emphasized was that leveraging the Internet also means going beyond browsing. And India is definitely on the brink of a new computing revolution that'll ensure access to information anytime, anywhere. The future is uncertain. But what is certain is that evolution has come full circle. Let's elaborate on this a bit. Cro-Magnon man was hunch backed. Evolution straightened mankind up. But sitting in front of a PC has ensured that E-Magnon man is back with a hunched back.

One of the speakers went to the extent of saying that Internet has been the single most dramatic invention and powerful phenomena of our lives. But whatever the breakthroughs in hardware, software and peripherals, no one device can ever rule supreme. Depending on the fundamental usage, different devices will be popular. It was uniformly agreed however, that key technological trends centered on advanced collaboration, wireless, voice and video, new PC forms, speech and handwriting and smart cards.

The general view of all speakers was that from technologically, XML is the core factor that impacts and will continue to be the deciding factor of intelligent analysis on the part of the Web. The general feeling that one got was that technology is an investment, not an expense. Consequently, organizations require long-term commitment of senior functionaries, partnerships with few technology providers, centralized infrastructure management discipline, departmental heads owning a business case, services including training and measurement of velocity. Incorporating this futuristic model not only prevents you from becoming redundant and irrelevant, but also ensures you a secure place in the emerging network of commoditization of Information.

The next millenium's business demands real-time, pro-active solutions for information management. And Pallab Talukdar of Compaq stressed on making the best use of his company's Clickstream opportunities for scaling and processing available intelligence. Adhering to similar sentiments, Paul Fransworth, Director of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson wondered whether organizations are ready to deliver the PPPP (Personalized, Portable, Processing, and Portal) culture to customers. According to Fransworth, in the new information age, you're never too close and you're never too personal. This sounds great but may turn a little scary if customization and personalization begin to be equated with invasion of privacy.

The Web has changed the basis of competition. But there's also a lot of hype surrounding value propositions. B2B, B2C and C2C can now easily be dismissed as back to basics, back to college and confined to college. Unless there's a tremendous amount of relationship management, you can't be anything to anybody, let alone everybody. Therefore, the mantra of our age should be P2P. That is the driving spirit behind e-commerce's success and survival. Come to think of it, we have already moved beyond e-commerce to c-commerce.

Collaborative commerce is the trademark of the new business scenario. Moving on from e-biz to c-biz involves driving e-services to the top of the value chain. And that's where RedBrigade intends to be. Not only does the name sound revolutionary, RedBrigade's agenda is to bring on a Digital Revolution.

Guil Hastings, CEO, RedBrigade offered his insights on how WAP will die and 3rd Generation Telephony will rule the roost. He was clearly one of the most interesting speakers of the day. Starting out by 'Educating India on India', Hastings elicited a quick cheer from the crowd by coming up with statements like, "America? They don't know which way to go." Moving on from there, Hastings wondered as to where and how India fits into the whole design. According to him, India excels where others fail because its culture is equipped to provide leadership, teamwork and commitment held in harmony by a sense of fun. Quoting Mohammed Ali he added "The man who has no imagination has no wings." We guess the same applies to enterprises and countries. At the end of the day everybody does the same thing and the only thing that makes you a topper involves in taking risks, creating needs and matching those needs with efficient energy.

Thanks to the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble, the Old New Economy and ERP has given way to the New New Economy and EERP. Now technology like SAP has enabled the networking of thousands of companies across the globe to elicit maximum mileage out of the new economy. As Murali Santhanam, MD of Jobcurry Systems said "Competitive advantage and survival in the new economy calls for a company to integrate, exploit technology and dynamically configure its skills and experience to help create and deliver newer and greater benefits to its customers." Along these lines Vivek Gokarn, MD, SAS Global Services shared a few insights on the role of CRM and eCRM in the world of ecommerce that helped to wake people up during the post-lunch siesta hours.

One message rang out loud and clear through the course of this 'interactive' seminar. It's imperative for IT professionals to constantly update their skills on emerging technologies and nurture a common platform for convergence of professional minds. And though the seminar was clearly focussed on this, if the organizers intend to repeat this exercise, then it's essential to infuse more vigor into the lectures. Otherwise, the 'incisive' presentations on e-transformation of corporate landscape will fail to draw any kind of enthusiastic audience response. And in the absence of mass participation much of the relevance of 'e-nlightenment' will be lost. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the seminar successfully created a balanced mix of international and Indian to give a comprehensive picture of technology today.

Amrita Ghosh
[email protected]

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