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You are a strong votary of open source technologies. How are you using open source to benefit your business?
Our open source thrust runs in two parallel directions. We use open source applications and technologies internally in the IT department to organise our operations. Simultaneously, we are also using open source technology for our business operations.
In the IT department, we have employed open source tools for IT Helpdesk Ticketing, IT Asset Management and Service Level Management. It has been close to two years since we began using this technology and today, our management of them is quite mature and stable. It took us around three months to deploy it and another three months to internalise the systems. Now all the applications are working on auto-pilot with minimal intervention.
On the business side of things, we use an open source database for our core business ERP. At the end of the month, when matters are at their peak, the database handles multiple simultaneous users and we get either the same or better performance as other proprietary products.
We also use open source technologies for our management of customer complaints (using it globally has cut down the resolution time) and project management (new product development & capex projects).
At the moment, we are in the process of implementing an open source CRM system for our sales process.
Why do you leverage open source at Kancor Ingredients?
The reasons are threefold – flexibility, freedom and control. Cost does play an important role in the decision-making but only at the entry point. Because if you take any instance and compute the TCO over a five year period and compare it with reasonably priced proprietary solutions, you will notice that the difference is very slight. Of course, there are exceptions and exorbitantly priced solutions exist as well. The difference comes in the flexibility to customise, the freedom from lock-in and the control you have over what you want to use.
What are your views on how open source should be looked at by IT managers?
First, the cost of the license should never be a criterion when evaluating any open source technology. One should look at the fit and the manageability. Use any of the publicly available frameworks to take an informed and objective decision for implementing open source applications.
Second, don't fall into the trap of fitting your requirements into what is provided by the technology. Freeze the requirements and then evaluate the technology. If then it does not match what you want, give up and move away from open source technology.
Because open source technology is not a one-stop solution for any problem, there will be instances wherein a licensed/proprietary solution fits your requirements better and makes more sense. In such a situation you should not hesitate to opt for a proprietary solution.
What are some of the myths about open source?
Open source applications are free: The initial license fee is only one of the components of all the costs that an application incurs over its lifetime. If one does not get affordable/timely support for the open source application, then it might very well turn out to be costly rather than free.
It must be understood that Freeware is not open source. Open source is freeware but is not free as one still needs to spend money on running the application.
Open source applications are risky and have less security: Actually it’s the other way round. Unlike proprietary solutions which can only be patched by the vendor, open source applications are available to the public for auditing, testing and patching. So there are multiple instances wherein vulnerabilities can be found and closed faster in open source technologies
Open source applications are only for small organisations: Nothing can be further from the truth. Some of the largest and busiest applications run on open source technologies. Facebook runs completely on open source technologies. The UIDAI initiative in India runs largely on open source technologies (along with some proprietary technologies).
When do you think open source technology will find more acceptance?
This depends on three factors - the licensing policies of the big players in the proprietary software solutions market, the policy of the Indian government with regard to the use of open source technologies and the adoption of courses on open source technologies by the UGC/AIU/AICTE.
How are you using cloud computing and to what benefits?
We are using cloud computing extensively for our businesses. We use a mix of public and private cloud computing technology. Our emails are hosted on a public cloud.
We use shared cloud for hosting our allied applications. By doing this we have been able to dispense with four physical servers from our data centre which cuts down on our carbon footprint.
We also use a private cloud for conducting our video conferences. No hardware appliances are used. It is an on-demand platform. We have been able to scale up very rapidly and we are now able to connect six locations seamlessly using the cloud video conferencing.
You referred to some work around ERP and adding capabilities to it, could you expand on that?
We are currently working on two interesting projects. They are interesting from both the technological perspective and the business perspective.
At one of our businesses, we sell active ingredients which are extracted from spices like turmeric, ginger and chilly. The key indicators based on which we sell the final product are the percentage of the active ingredient (potency) and the colour of the product measured in Colour Units (CU).
We are creating an application which will take in the requirements and then, based on existing batches suggest how the different batches need to be blended in order to arrive at a product that matches our requirements. The project is unique because it integrates the software applications with the machinery and analytical measuring instruments, and suggests the blend in real-time.
We are also working on a project to provide decision-making capabilities to our pricing team. So that when we have to provide offers to our customers, we can see the market prices, budgeted prices and current inventory valuation to arrive at the best price. All of this works in real-time and provides the information to the sales team.
What technology are you planning to use in the future?
We had not really taken to virtualisation in a big way until now. The primary reason for this was that we had already invested in physical servers and we did not want to disturb this running setup. But with a server refresh coming up, we are keenly looking at the option of virtualisation.
We are also looking for ways to create value proposition for analytics in the organisation.
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