The Hindu Business Line : Building a new platform

With technology playing an increasingly pervasive role in business, it has begun to be accepted that technology management cannot be separated from business management.

The gap between CIOs and CEOs is gradually being bridged, as is the gap between IT functionalities and business outcomes.

Not surprisingly, therefore, IT major Hewlett Packard is now focussed on aligning IT with business and developing business outcomes with a suite of offerings that comprise Adaptive Infrastructure, BTO (business technology optimisation) and BIO (business information optimisation).

While Adaptive Infrastructure is aimed at lowering costs, BTO helps to mitigate risks and facilitates management optimisation through better control of the infrastructure. BIO enables better decision-making and drives the growth of the enterprise.

HP’s Adaptive Infrastructure solutions and related services are part of a broad portfolio of HP’s business technology solutions.

These solutions reflect a shift from technology that supports the business to a new model where technology powers the business and where IT managers are measured on business results.

HP’s business strategy towards this end was unfolded before journalists at the HP Asia Pacific Enterprise Media Summit ’07 held in Singapore recently.

Three layers to IT

According to Durgadutt Nedungadi, HP’s Director, Marketing & Alliances, Technology Solutions Group, for an enterprise, IT today is a business in itself and is measured by business outcomes.

While HP’s offerings in this regard are spread across all three levels — Adaptive Infrastructure, BTO and BIO — customers are free to choose one or all of them to meet their specific demands.

“For best IT business outcomes, customers need all the three layers. This business fits into our go-to-market strategy. Whatever business we do in India will cover at least one or all of these three layers”, he says. Nedungadi feels that the Indian market is mature enough for HP’s BT suite offerings.

“Given the relative low rate of legacy, the Indian market offers great scope to leapfrog and get to this state-of-the-art offerings. In markets such as the US and Europe, migration of legacy poses huge problems and is the biggest retarding factor in this regard.

We believe our customers in India, as elsewhere in the world, are looking at either growth or mitigating risks to their enterprises.

As such, the Indian market, across all segments, is absolutely ready for this kind of change. We at HP are bullish on India”.

Last year, India as a geography was HP’s fastest-growing market in the world.

For Som Mittal, Senior Vice-President, HP Services, HP’s philosophy is based on “technology for better business outcomes”.

This is applicable in a diverse array of sectors, such as financial services, communications, media & entertainment, manufacturing & distribution, public sector and health & life sciences organisations, among others.

“HP Services has made progress with our customers, from helping to deliver IT infrastructure outcomes to business outcomes.

We continue to make our customers’ business goals our business agenda, through accelerating business growth, reducing costs and mitigating risks”, he says.

According to Anthony McMohan, HP’s Vice-President, Enterprise Server & Storage, Technology Solutions Group: “Adaptive Infrastructure is understanding the enablers that help you to get there. You cannot do this with legacy systems”.

According to him, storage is a key part of HP’s Adaptive Infrastructure offerings.

Adds Eric Goh, HP’s Vice-President, Marketing, Technology Solutions Group: “CIOs have to market themselves in terms of what business they are bringing to the organisation and how they are utilising the IT infrastructure for optimisation of business outcomes”.

The idea is to run IT as a business in itself.

Says Choon-Chiat Lee, HP’s Marketing Manager for Adaptive Infrastructure: “HPs Adaptive Infrastructure is focussed on delivering on the next generation data centre trend. This will be a 24x7 lights out environment based on standard building blocks, automated using modular software and establishing the supply chain for IT services.

The result: lower cost of IT operations, higher quality of service with lower risk and speed in introducing IT change for business flexibility”.

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