Sundaram Infotech Solutions Reduces Total Cost of Ownership by 30% to 40% and System Development Costs by up to 30%
 
 

Sundaram Infotech Solutions Reduces Total Cost of Ownership by 30% to 40% and System Development Costs by up to 30%

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Headquartered in Chennai, India, Sundaram Infotech Solutions provides enterprise resource management solutions to businesses across India, including its parent company Sundaram Finance. Sundaram Finance was established to support the growth of modern India’s road transport industry. The company offers commercial vehicle finance, leasing, asset management, and automobile loans to nearly 100,000 customers.

Built on technologies, such as Oracle Forms and Oracle Reports, Sundaram Finance’s previous lending system had expanded to support more than 300 sites across India. The company wanted to upgrade to a Web-based solution, to take advantage of reusable application modules that would reduce development times and costs, while offering faster financing services to customers in remote areas of India. It also wanted to attract and retain developer talent that was keen to work with the latest Oracle technologies.

Sundaram Infotech Solutions upgraded to Oracle Application Development Framework 11g to overhaul Sundaram Finance’s lending system. The company reduced development costs for the upgraded lending system by 25% to 30%, while cutting total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Sundaram Infotech Solutions

  • “Choosing Oracle allowed us to offer better financing services to our customers in a competitive market. The ability to deliver a robust, end-to-end solution while reusing Oracle Application Development Framework modules was a significant benefit, reducing development costs by up to 30% and the total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%.” – R. Krishnamurthy, Group Manager—Projects, Sundaram Infotech Solutions

  • Overhaul Sundaram Finance’s lending system, to support business growth and more than 300 remote financial services branches across India
  • Reduce waiting times for customers in remote areas during approval processes for commercial vehicle finance, and individuals’ vehicle loans 
  • Adopt a system-development methodology, based on reusable application modules to help decrease development costs
  • Shorten the learning curve for an in-house development team by eliminating the need to work with AJAX, CSS, Java scripts, and framework patterns
  • Embrace the latest technologies to attract and retain developer talent
  • Offer a rich, user interface that retains the look of the previous system to ensure a smooth transition for end-users

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Reduced development costs for the upgraded lending system by 25% to 30%, by using Application Development Framework 11g’s reusable modules, such as restricted, packaged procedures and form-validation triggers
  • Cut total cost of ownership by 30% to 40%, by using existing in-house Oracle expertise and resources and reducing ongoing system management costs for remote locations
  • Shortened customer waiting times by almost a day in remote areas by shifting to an online finance and loan approval process
  • Increased the speed of development by 15% to 20% in the later stages of the project by using knowledge gained in earlier stages and identifying pre-existing components for reuse
  • Improved deployment and support capabilities in isolated locations by switching to a Web-based lending system, which eliminated the need for technicians to visit remote offices to deploy the system
  • Avoided extra, end-user and technician training by retaining a familiar user interface, using technologies, such as Application Development Framework’s partial page rendering rather than AJAX to offer client/server functionality over the Web
  • Enhanced the efficiency and productivity of its IT team by attracting and retaining developer talent that is keen to work with the latest Oracle technologies.
  • Significantly improved system performance after upgrading to Oracle Database 11g and introduced the company to new features, such as Oracle Advanced Queuing

Why Oracle

Oracle Application Development Framework 11g was a natural fit for Sundaram Infotech Solutions, as the company could upgrade Sundaram Finance’s lending system using existing Oracle assets—such as Oracle Forms 5, Oracle Forms 6i, Oracle Reports 5, and Oracle Reports 6i—and in-house expertise.

“Choosing Oracle allowed the business to offer better financing services to our customers in a competitive market,” said R. Krishnamurthy, group manager—projects, Sundaram Infotech Solutions. “The ability to deliver a robust end-to-end solution while reusing Application Development Framework modules was a significant benefit and greatly reduced development costs.

“Technologies, such as Application Development Framework’s partial-page rendering also helped us seamlessly offer client/server functionality over the Web without the need to train staff on technologies, such as AJAX,” he said.

Implementation Process

Sundaram Infotech Solutions upgraded to Oracle Application Development Framework 11g, Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports, Oracle Database 11g, and Oracle WebLogic Server in August 2010. Using the Oracle applications, the company overhauled Sundaram Finance’s lending system in just two years.

“Staying with Oracle technologies and a solution based on Java Platform, Enterprise Edition helped ensure a smooth development and implementation process,” said Krishnamurthy. “We also kept down development time and costs—as well as the eventual total cost of ownership—by switching to a Web-based system, so we could deploy and manage the lending system without visiting remote offices.”