Page 20 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Planning and Managing IT Infrastructure

Notes

Notes In today’s corporate world, IT departments are, for the most part, by default in the
middle of action. Everyone is becoming aware of the values that computerisation can
bring to an enterprise. Wineries, toy shops, bookstores, and sandwich places — supposed
havens for the non-technical — now have sophisticated computerised inventory systems,
customer service mechanisms, online ordering counterparts, and — gasp — even fax
machines to take preorders. Information technology is everywhere.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
11. The IT manager interacts with ............................ to help define project scope, schedules,
budgets, priorities and milestones.
12. The role of an IT Manager can often vary widely within an organisation, depending on
who is making the ............................ at the time.
13. An ............................ can mean many things to many people and the job changes as technology
and needs advance and evolve.

14. The ............................ in use can vary tremendously from organisation to organisation.
15. Organisations expect IT managers to have knowledge of technology trends and assist in
............................ planning to incorporate new technologies into acquisitions and training.

Case Study IT Networking in Government

` 6.25 crore. is the amount recovered from an iron-ore exporter in Bangalore. What’s
interesting is that the tip off came from the department’s Tax Information Network. This
is only one instance of the phenomenal change brought about by replacing a 55-year-old
manual system, with the Tax Information Network, a repository of tax payer information,
and allied technology implementations. The Tax Information Network was launched on
July 22, 2005. Before the network came on, members of the IT department depended only
on market intelligence, random scrutiny and on ‘search and seizure’ to determine tax
evasion. It was difficult to manually match and tie in high value transactions. The sheer
number of documents that the IT department was inundated with, made reconciliation
almost impossible as well as arbitrary.
The way the system works is simplicity itself. Under the provisions of (AIR) Annual
Information Return, agencies like banks and investment funds are required to file a report
on transactions above a specified threshold. Then the department uses an intelligent and
identity-blind system in tandem with data-mining and AI tools to identify tax evaders. In
effect, the tax department can track spending patterns, making compliance the only choice.

Laying out and organising tax filings also enabled the department to pick out information
and complete the jigsaw puzzle business entities create. Policing tax payers better is
what’s prodding the department to consolidate information from all of its 36 regional
computing centers to create a single data repository in New Delhi.
Contd....

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