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The erstwhile Satyam Computer Services used to run about 190 different IT systems for internal management, making it easier for Mr B. Ramalinga Raju and his cohorts to cook the company's books, a top company official said.
In order to prevent a similar fraud at the now rechristened Mahindra Satyam, the company management has embarked on a process to move to an automated management information system (MIS).
“Since Satyam had close to 190 MISs earlier, in many cases, the data from one system had to be manually transposed to another system. Wherever it was manual, there were chances of discrepancies. Even with honest guys there are chances of mistakes since the job involves entry of data,” Mr Vineet Nayyar, Chairman of Mahindra Satyam, told Business Line .
The MIS systems at Mahindra Satyam will now be integrated with the Oracle- PeopleSoft platform being used at Tech Mahindra. According to Mr Nayyar, this ‘complex' process will take another six months to complete. This will further help the two companies function as a single entity even before they eventually decide to merge. Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam are now looking at a March-April time frame for a potential merger next year.
Business operations
MIS is a general term for the computer systems in an enterprise that provide information about its business operations.
One of the challenges facing Mr Nayyar and his team when they took over the scam-hit Satyam Computer Services was the legal notices that were filed against it by the promoters of three companies that Satyam had acquired in the past.
While Mahindra Satyam had amicably resolved two of the three acquisition-related disputes that had surfaced after the sensational disclosures made by former Chairman Mr Ramalinga Raju two years ago, there was ambiguity on the status of Satyam's acquisition of a market research and customer analytics business unit from Caterpillar. (The company was acquired by Satyam for $60 million.)
However, Mr Nayyar has now clarified that Mahindra Satyam had settled the row with Caterpillar by giving away the software product that was acquired as part of the deal.
“Caterpillar was an acquisition of a technology which made no sense. The settlement was that you take your product back and keep whatever money has been paid already,” said Mr Nayyar.
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