Interview with Dr. Ganesh Natarajan

Dr. Ganesh Natarajan
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan
Deputy Chairman and Managing Director
Zensar Technologies Limited
Zensar Technologies Limited

Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Zensar Technologies Limited, a Glob

What do you deem as Zensar’s expertise in key verticals?

While Zensar services a wide spectrum of verticals of manufacturing, retail, distribution, logistics, telecom, utility, financial services etc. Its focus verticals going with market trends and the potential there are retail and financial services.

What is Solution BluePrint (SBP), and how does it benefit your clients?

" Solution BluePrint (SBP) Framework addresses strategic Product Development challenges by streamlining the entire product development process and ensuring reusability, interoperability, and reduced time-to-market. The SBP Framework covers the entire Product Development Lifecycle starting from identification of product features to product implementation. In case of redevelopment of the existing product in new technology, the existing product is reverse engineered through manual/semi-automatic/automatic process to platform agnostic models or Solution BluePrints. Any functionality enhancements to be incorporated in the product are embedded in the Solution BluePrints at this stage. These Solution BluePrints are then forward engineered for automatic generation of readily deployable product on the target platform. If new product features have to be incorporated using a new technology, but without changing the existing product, the framework facilitates development of a wrapper around the existing product so that the new functionality can communicate to the existing product seamlessly in an object oriented way. Key Benefits to Customer: Model once – Deploy anywhere paradigm Reduced time to market Model based maintenance Reduced time to response Model based documentation Platform independent designs Platform for domain and technology to collaborate Flexible to cater to agile and deliberate"

since its establishment in March 2001, how has Zensar Technologies charted its destiny?

"Zensar is a healthy and vibrant leader in the Tier II Indian IT market-place, having established a niche leadership position in technology and process innovation. The company has moved into a focused IT & BPO service provider, providing strong core services for profit growth, develop new business for volume growth, and to create a portfolio of service for future growth. The Company has shown significant performance with key strategic initiatives and transitioning from a geographically aligned sales and delivery structure to an SBU based business model, supported by a practice driven delivery engine aligned horizontally with IT services. What Zensar needed and what Ganesh transformed it into was a business model that would convey to customers that Zensar is a focused organization, having a large enough canvas to deliver from and focused practices to meet their customized their needs and expectations. This saw the inception of the Strategic Business Unit model supported by sound and experienced practices, transitioning smoothly from the territorially aligned revenue charts and the laundry list ‘A-Z’ model of services. Zensar is now positioned in niche focus areas with strong market differentiation and the SBUs drive autonomous focused strategy, each as a profit center. The model has been uniquely crafted for Zensar with its tailored strategies for specific territories and industry verticals too. The SBUs are supported by strong practices which are bundled under each SBU. Other key initiatives include strengthening of the business engine by leveraging power of strategic business alliances and the ability to look into the distant future and make strategic investments into geographies like China and Continental Europe, way before Zensar’s peer companies gave these geographies any serious thought. On the people front, the most tangible influence is the fresh energy and culture that the organization was infused with. From being a people friendly company that was very tolerant and patient and had never laid off poor performers, as a commitment to excellence and performance, the company went through a transformation in this situation by coupling people-development with performance. The aim was to attract good talent, retain the better and to advance the cream of the lot, converting mediocre performers into high performers. "

How do you rate BPO and other outsourcing opportunities in India, and what is Zensar’s strategy to cash on the latest trend?

Outsourcing opportunities within India are on a sharp growth and organizations are realizing the value of engaging world-class outsourcing partners. Going Blue-Ocean, Zensar has identified a unique set of opportunities and created a niche for itself in multiple areas for instance the HR back-office function. Zensar's strategy is to build a pool of functional experts and manage the entire technology to provide end-to-end hire-to-retire services. Another strategic initiative is to offer turnkey back-office transactions processing under the shared services model.

How is the China facility performing, and what are your expectations from this venture?

The china facility is picking up lot of momentum. We are looking at a different paradigm for exponential growth in China soon. Overall 2006-07 should be the defining year for our China operations.

Can you provide information of the types of retail solutions you offer, particularly for big ticket retailers in apparel, fashion and accessories business in India?

We offer a comprehensive choice of solutions right from implementing world-class ERPs like Oracle Retail (Retek), mySAP Retail and also provide custom-developed solutions, if they so desire. We have ready patterns on Merchandise Management, Franchise Management and Store Systems which allow for speedier time to implement and also cost benefits.

What is your outlook for the retail industry in India and what new trends do you foresee in the coming times?

The Organized Retail industry, after its many past predictions of revolutionary growth in late 90s, is actually seeing that boom now. More than retailers and their growth plans, it’s the consumer behavior which has taken a quantum leap in its expectations from shopping and that is going to be the engine for the future of retailing in India. Obviously when foreign players come in, especially in the discount format, not all malls and not all retailers are going to survive, but this decade is going to be the inflection point of modern retailing in India and that appears to be an irreversible phenomenon.

RFID technology is the ‘most happening tech’ today. Is it happening in India or no? What has your company to offer in this area?

RFID, without any doubt, is going to change business practices by 2010. RFID, per se, is not a new technology but the mass adoption of its use, especially in the Retail industry, is going to be a major phenomenon. We predict that RFID will see more adoption in the Manufacturing industry before it reaches the Retail industry in India. Zensar assists the industry in providing a roadmap to the use of RFID adoption, right from business case preparation to process identification for pilots along with benchmarks for measuring the success of the pilot.

We want to be the best, not the largest' - what actually you mean by saying that?

The focus will always be to enhance business through transformational engagements with the customer, offering innovative technology and BPO solutions, with high quality standards. We see a distinct advantage in being a strong flexible Tier II player. The best of businesses have been through an intimate relationship between the client and vendor with uncompromised customer service and flexibility of operations. As a Tier II vendor we have some very good focused skill sets and quick ramp up capabilities, however still small enough to be customer focused.

What special offerings do you have in the supply chain logistics sector, specifically for the textile and apparel sector?

"Through our recently acquired SAP company – OBT Global we have enhanced service in the Textile vertical. In textile and apparel Zensar OBT offers innovative and cost effective SAP Solution ‘mySAP™ All-in-One’ for the prominent segment of the industry, Textiles. This solution is developed for the Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) to address typical textile industry business scenarios. OBTTextile is an integrated solution that covers complete textile business process needs of textile and garment business segments. This has enabled OBT Global to offer high quality solution at affordable cost on a fixed time and cost basis. As a one-stop SAP Solution Provider, OBT Global offers turnkey solution consisting of SAP Licenses, Computer Hardware, Implementation, and Annual Maintenance to all its clientele. The powerhouse of this model is the industry-focused Centers of Excellence (CoE). The CoE focuses on Textile and is staffed with top quality Business Analysts performing continuous industry and technology research and evolving the best possible way to address the requirements using SAP. This research allows OBT Global to offer clients, of all sizes, the most current business best practices, processes and technology and the subsequent SAP mapping. After having implemented as many as 23 SAP projects, OBT Global has zensar-technologiesed its pre-configured Textile industry vertical solution under the SMB category. Titled, OBTTextile, this solution offers relevant comprehensive business functionalities with a ready-to-use reporting system, complying with regulatory bodies. OBTTextile has been developed based on OBT Global’s hands-on experience of implementing SAP in this segment along with a team of business process experts, who had gained considerable experience and business know-how of this industry. The foremost benefits gained by the customer lies in the ready-to-use complete set of functions starting from planning to delivery, covering about 90% of day-to-day business tasks. Adding more to the benefit is the timeframe by which this solution is implemented – little over 75 days, which means Faster Return on Investment. OBTTextile reduces the implementation time drastically while maintaining all the required functionality. OBT Global will continue to mould this vertical, by adding more functionalities and expanding the features. "
Published on: 17/04/2006

DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.