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Published on August 21, 2007

From having a variety of IT systems run separately in each subsidiary, today all systems are integrated and connected to the main data centre and this allows the group to better utilise computing resources.

"Three years ago we realised that the exponential growth of our IT systems, which each subsidiary developed separately, was no longer an answer to increase our competitive advantage, so we started to find a more efficient way and IT consolidation became our target," said Sirichai Rasameechan, executive vice chairman at Samart Corporation.

As the group found that it had a large number of servers scattered round various offices, and many servers were not fully utilised or sometimes handled redundant work, the idea to consolidate them under a centralised system was hatched. The group decided to pool resources and make better planning for further IT expansion.

Samart Group allocated Bt500 million for the IT consolidation project. It has set up a new data centre and consolidated 230 servers into two main Risc-based computer systems and 32 blade servers.

Front-end applications which are used by each subsidiary have been migrated to the new data centre, while back-office applications for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) are pooled under the ERP system.

Samart Corporaton's chief information officer Payoongsak Silagul said IT consolidation offered the group easier management of IT systems and importantly, the ability to pool information from each subsidiary to be processed at one place. This is vital for the group, especially when it comes to bringing information from all the subsidiaries to be processed by business intelligent (BI) software and presented to executives.

In the past, he said, when making an executive summary, IT staff had to collect sales reports and inventory information from each subsidiary's IT system and then bring it all together to be analysed with BI software, which took at a least a week to complete. With the new centralised system, it takes only a day as all the information is on the same system so it's much faster to make information analysis.

"Now we can make a summary for our executives each morning. They find the latest information from the previous day waiting on their computers," Payoongsak said.

Sirichai added that this information was necessary for executives to see the overall status of the business so they could do further planning.

"If we can get the latest information faster it means we will have advantages in business. Our IT consolidation project not only gives us better resource utilisation but also increases our competitive advantage," he said.

The benefits, he added, included cost savings of around 30 per cent that the group will gain from IT expansion in five years.

Of the total consolidation process, so far Samart has completed around 80 per cent and the group hopes to achieve 100 per cent by the end of this year.

To handle the IT consolidation the group set up a new department called Corporate IT to oversee consolidation as well as the overall IT development plan and operation. It has also consolidated IT staff in each subsidiary into the new department. The department has around 72 IT staff.

As the data centre is the group's core IT infrastructure, security is also a major concern. Sirichai said the group aimed to have the data centre reach world-class standard and late last year it achieved ISO 27001, a world standard for information security management systems. Samart's IT data centre was also the first private data centre in Thailand to achieve this security standard.

The group is also planning to be certified by the International Technology Infrastructure Library, which is a standard for IT service management, as well as Capability Maturity Model Integration Level 3 in the near future.

Sirichai said all the moves were intended to turn the new department from a cost centre into a new profit centre.

"From our internal experience on IT consolidation, we do believe that we can use our expertise to provide customers with a consultancy service to assist them with IT consolidation," he said.

Meanwhile, with its IT data centre infrastructure and security standard guarantee, Payoongsak added that the department could also provide other services including data backup and co-location services to other customers.

"We have started to provide services such as data backup to outside customers and we plan to turn this into a profit centre within two years," Payoongsak said.

IT consolidation, according to Sirichai, is a must for businesses to create competitive advantages with their IT systems.

From Samart's experience, he said strong support from top executives for the change was a way to bring success. Executives of an organisation have to play a key role and have a clear policy on IT consolidation.

They have to show the benefits to IT staff and the organisation itself will gain from the change.

"To avoid resistance, at Samart we encourage our IT staff to achieve technical certification in their areas of expertise so they can take another step in their career.

"This will make them confident and more secure with the change and ensure a smooth transition," Sirichai said.

Pongpen Sutharoj

The Nation