In 
By Subhankar Kundu
For Ravi Prakash, it was by chance and not by choice that he got into IT, but he regards it as a blessing in disguise. The turning point? He enrolled for a short term course after graduation during which the organisation offered him a job when it diversified into the ISP business. Working with the only ISP around, he was the obvious choice to set up the infrastructure when an MNC started its operations.Ravi heads the IT Infrastructure team at Himatsingka Seide. He is responsible for strategy, projects, operations, security, and asset life cycle management and also for effective utilisation and compliance of licenses of various OEMs like Microsoft Adobe etc.
His team works under stringent SLAs for resolution of incidents as it is responsible for maximum uptime of server and network infrastructure spread across locations and availability of business critical applications like SAP ERP, email and HRMS, etc.
The field of IT is changing at a very fast pace. He ensures that solutions and systems that are being deployed in the organisation are always up to date.Ravisays, “I keep my eyes and ears open with respect to new technologies available in the market. Other ways are reading various case studies, and interacting with industry peers and technology advisors.”
At Himatsingka, he embraced virtualisation for server infrastructure which helped IT to be scalable and flexible to business demands, by adopting D2D for backup infrastructure with de-dupe and replication technologies—which helped in cost savings and seamless critical data availability. He follows a thorough external audit for compliance towards operational and security processes adherence.
Ravi says, “I ensure that the team is always motivated through introducing job rotation across domains, being a mentor for new comers and being approachable.
The fact that we had only one separation in the past 4 years is an indicator of the team’s job satisfaction.”
He asserts that at Himatsingka, employees are encouraged to be innovative. Innovation is a part of KRAs for all team members. He believes the culture of freedom has resulted in many innovations which ultimately helped in increasing efficiency. Explaining a case of how the team supported him Prakash says, “The biggest challenge was during a critical project which involved the revamping of major
Infrastructure components; which was delayed and we did not have the option of postponing the delivery schedule due to the pre-announced date for applications’ launch, he says. He and his team walked the extra mile to see the project completion through without any delay and with zero compromise on quality.
Ravi says, “Challenges come in many shapes, sizes, and danger levels. Attitude often determines whether we face the crisis successfully or crumble under pressure.”
“Of all the great people, I am inspired by Bill Gates. He has revolutionized computing with windows,” says the forward thinking IT manager. Outside of his office, he loves to fly Remote Control planes. He has a huge collection of such planes. “Of course, I did manage to hard crash a few of them and lost a few, too,” smilesRavi. He has always dreamt of moving around the city in a self-driving car which can navigate city traffic.
Add new comment