The Hindu Business Line : India has become key R&D centre, says Dell

For Ms Susan E. Sheskey, Chief Information Officer of the $54-billion Dell Corporation, India has become a strategic centre for research and development. It has come up with a series of products now being deployed globally.

As CIO of an IT major, whose eCommerce volume is more than Amazon, Google and eBay put together, and handling over 1,200 products, she has a mandate of bringing in savings of nearly a billion dollar this year (about Rs 4,500 crore).

On a visit to India, Ms Sheskey spoke to Business Line on how Dell has distinguished itself from competitors in leveraging information technology. "At Dell, IT is business," she says to highlight how the company has used IT to bring in efficiencies internally and pass on the benefits to customers globally.

She is in India to oversee the current staffing and the development work at its centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad, which account for over 20 per cent of its global R&D team.

Taking pride in the India development centres, she said the engineers here had created Integrated Dell Desktop, which provides a single point interface for various operations Dell executives handle globally. `The White papers we have created have incidentally become reference points for Microsoft and Accenture'."Traditionally, Dell has developed IT within the organisation. We have developed our own enterprise resource planning system, and built various features that support our diverse requirements. The eCommerce solution that the Indian team has developed provides a 360 degree view of the customer that provides deep insights into patterns. This effectively aligns IT with business goals," she explained.

Logistics tool

Now the Indian design teams are working on a new logistics solution that would be deployed in various locations across the globe which would help streamline the business.

Dell has grown significantly in India over the last few years and now employs about 12,000 people. It has three broad areas — Dell International Services (which provides customer support, sales among others, employs about 9,500 people in four locations), Dell IT in Hyderabad and Bangalore and Dell R&D and Dell India Sales arms.

When asked if some of the products Dell developers have created internally, would be productised and marketed globally, she said, "as of now the focus is on internal use, but may be some time later, we may consider this option."

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