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Oracle to Replace Legacy at Atul
By Sonal Desai
Mumbai, Jan 05, 2009 1446 hrs IST
Atul Industries currently has six businesses including chemicals, dyes (colours), polymers, pharma intermediates, areomatics, bulk intermediates and agro chemicals, has plans to enter the pharma vertical in the near future. "This is a business decision taken to enhance the value chain, since the company is organized into a business and services unit," said Satya Dev Adurti, president IT, who was roped in by the company early 2008, to streamline the IT infrastructure.
The company missed the ERP bus, said Adurti. "TCS had developed a local ERP module that was integrated with Oracle financials. However, it is not properly functional for the last four years."
Atul used ERP only as procure to pay and order to cash, and it was in a big mess, said he. "There was nothing called SLA or peer-to-peer benchmark. To being with, we have brought back the basic transaction capability into place. Plans are afoot to gradually consolidate." The plans include a green data center where power will be procured from renewable energy sources.
The other major area of focus will be the research and development wing of the company, said Adurti. "The department generates and gets loads of information each day. The information has to be streamlined for better use. Simplifying the use of IT for the researchers so that they get all the information at the click of button will be the key. In other areas, automating supply chain management will also be a priority."
While Atul may be one among the few chemical companies to wake to the IT needs this late, the industry in India started adopting technology about five to six years back. Worldwide, the chemical industry started IT deployments over a decade ago, and Dow Chemcials was one of the early adopters. Over a period of time, many companies including small and medium have taken advantage of the system to streamline their process and gain business benefits.
Atul now wants to use technology for three categories: chemical structure, molecules and in pharma. It will leverage Oracle for this expansion. Why Oracle? "Because of the cost factor. Also, internally people are comfortable with Oracle. They have used its ERP module before. Our applications are running on Oracle 12g. The servers are from Intel," said Adurti.
He is currently developing a three-year-old strategic road-map for the tech deployment. "My approach for technology will not be that of one size fits all. I am listing requirements of each department and its users. We have about 800 main users in the next three years. I want the person on the shop floor to use IT, and be on the same plane as his department head. That is when I will feel that my endeavour has succeeded. Hence my approach for the strategy is 'C-C' from chaprasi (peon) to the chairman. I will be able to calculate and show the ROI and TCO."
Related links:
<a href=' http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=96929&cat_id=480'>BI, Now More than Ever</a>
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