PC Solutions Limited (PSL) operates in the fields of cloud computing, consulting and implementation, systems integration, managed services and business applications development. It caters to verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, health care, IT and IT-enabled services, power, media, education, and distribution. The company has signed partnerships with various IT players, like Hewlett Packard (HP), Microsoft, Citrix, Cisco, as a service or sales partner or both.

Over the years, the company has upgraded its telecommunications set-up in several phases, with the aim of keeping abreast with the latest in technology and enhancing productivity.

tele.net tracks the company’s technology road map...

Telecom set-up

According to Devendra Taneja, director, PSL, establishing a robust telecommunications network has always been a priority for the company. To this end, it has upgraded its communications infrastructure regularly as per its business requirements. “We understand the importance of telecom in facilitating the growth of our business. So, establishing an in-house communications system was a necessity from the very beginning,” notes Taneja.

In 1992, the company utilised its internal telecom network for carrying out various networking projects. Thereafter, from 1996 to 2000, it created an in-house software platform to track all business activities from when customers place their orders to service delivery. “All these activities were linked together on a common platform. This enabled real-time access to the required data, which was stored in a single database,” says Taneja.

At present, for data communications, the company utilises two leased lines, which connect to a stack of switches and routers (sourced from Cisco) at the company’s headquarters. PSL’s entire internal networking system is based on a 100 Gbps Ethernet platform, and bandwidth has been sourced from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications (RCOM).

The company also makes use of sales and workforce automation tools. The former are utilised to enable its sales team to keep track of various on-the-field activities, while the time-tracker platform is used as a workforce automation tool to track employee timesheets. The time-tracker platform also enables the company to monitor each project in terms of productivity, cost and targets.

For redundancy, the company has opted for the services of Bharti Airtel and RCOM. The company has also deployed switches with built-in redundancy in its telecom system. This implies that if any particular network experiences downtime, the switches bypass it.

PSL also has in place a data centre and a disaster recovery site. The main data centre has stacks and storage mediums  comprising three storage boxes and blade chassis, with switches and routers sourced from Cisco and HP. The data centre is used to store and manage all of the company’s data, and host all the applications being utilised.

With respect to network security, the company uses different mediums for its hardware and software. It has deployed the Cisco ASA platform for its hardware, while the Microsoft Threat Management Gateway is used for the latter. The company also uses its own private cloud, which is based on HP’s blade server system. This enables PSL’s employees to access the main database from any location.

According to Taneja, the company has been a paperless office for the past six years, except when dealing with government queries. “From an employee’s attendance record to the status of a project report, all internal and external communication is electronic,” says Taneja, “This is used to make updated balance sheets in a real-time electronic format and for interlinking all functions of the organisation.”

With respect to enterprise applications, the company uses the SAP B1 tool. This serves as the backbone supporting all the tools used for IT data capturing. To connect all its home-grown applications, the company uses the SAP PP1 application.

Challenges and benefits

According to Taneja, keeping pace with rapid advances in technology is the biggest challenge faced by the company. In terms of benefits, Taneja says that the company’s telecom set-up has driven its growth. It provides secured and improved access to business applications, faster data access and greater customer satisfaction.

Thus, investments in communications infrastructure have helped the company meet the changing market requirements and consolidate its position.