Information
Technology is perhaps the most important and integral part of any organization
today. And hence the session on “Role of IT in Manufacturing Organization” by Mr. Jason Gonsalves, Vice President,
Performance Coatings Division, Corporate Planning and IT, Kansai Nerolac Paints
Ltd. was soaked in with great enthusiasm by the Students of SIMSREE. Mr.
Gonsalves, a 1994 alumnus of SIMSREE,
has been working with Kansai Nerolac for last 18 years. While handling the
position of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) with Nerolac, Mr. Gonsalves received
the Gold award at CIOL-Dataquest Enterprise Connect Awards 2005 for his
outstanding IT achievements. Under his leadership, the company has automated
key business processes such as supply chain management (SCM), sales and
after-sales processes and product development.
Mr.
Gonsalves started the discussion by looking at the organization and its
relationship with the various stake holders. He spoke about the extensive usage
of various CRM, ERP and similar packages to deal with the different facets of
business. Starting with customers he explained the various touch points at
which the company interacts with them like while prospecting for probable
customers, converting them and maintaining a sustainable relationship with
them. Tools like CRM have enabled reaching out to a wider customer base and the
ease of having a more direct relationship with them has led to a focused way
of marketing along with above the line activities.
He also
went on to discuss how IT has completely revolutionised the way organizations
deal with their vendors, employees and shareholders as well. Speaking about more
recent technologies like BigData and CRM Web 2.0, he walked us through the
giant leaps taken by the IT industry and the impact it will have on the future.
He then
gave us a brief overview of the various career options that we can have in the
IT industry. He emphasized that irrespective of the roles we pursue in the
future, working with the various package suites will be inevitable.
Later
on when the floor was opened for questions he answered queries related to not
just IT but general queries about Paint industry and Nerolac as well. He
touched upon the various marketing strategies used by Nerolac, the thought
process behind them, the plans to tap rural markets etc. All in all it was a
very informative session and we hope we have the privilege of interacting with
him again in the future.
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