Palanidurai Subbiah, Vice President & Head of IT at Wellness Forever
In an exclusive interview with CIOTechOutlook Magazine, Palanidurai Subbiah, Vice President & Head of IT at Wellness Forever, elaborates on the significant challenges faced by enterprises when integrating multiple systems while maintaining its integrity and also touches upon the importance of a cloud infrastructure when it comes to the matter of scalability and data management. He has driven technological transformation in numerous fields and has a proven track record when it comes to driving innovation and improving financial management.
According to him, data management can be streamlined by,
What are the biggest challenges companies face in integrating various systems, such as ecommerce platforms, delivery apps, and CRM systems, while maintaining data integrity and security?
Retail operates in a highly distributed and decentralized ecosystem, making technological advancements in infrastructure and application modernization essential. One of our biggest challenges was maintaining our legacy systems while handling the massive scale of operations—processing 150,000 invoices per day and ensuring seamless data flow from stores to the back office.
Existing point-of-sale (POS) systems are built on an outdated tech stack, making integration with other systems complex and inefficient. These limitations led to inconsistencies and frequent challenges, which made real-time data processing difficult. However, replacing the entire POS system across all locations was not a feasible short-term solution. Instead, we focused on strengthening our back-office operations, leading enterprises to select products like NetSuite as the ERP backbone. This decision laid the foundation for a more flexible and scalable ecosystem without disrupting front-end operations.
With this addition it is possible to achieve end-to-end integration across retail operations. Transactions from POS flow seamlessly through the order management system (OMS) to ERP, ensuring accurate data processing. Sales transactions are batched for efficiency, while critical data like accounts payable and invoicing are processed in real-time via API. Additionally, our delivery ecosystem is now fully integrated with OMS, streamlining logistics and commercial workflows.
How do organizations prioritize ERP initiatives to support both short-term goals and long-term growth strategies?
In our case, we adopted a minimum viable implementation (MVI) approach. Our strategy focused on leveraging native ERP functionalities as much as possible, minimizing the need for custom development in the initial phase. This approach streamlined internal processes and change management, reducing complexities and ensuring a stable rollout.
One of the key challenges in ERP implementations is over-customization, which often leads to increased complexity and maintenance efforts. To mitigate this, we prioritized a phased implementation. In Phase 1, we launched the ERP with core, out-of-the-box functionalities, ensuring minimal disruption to operations. Once the system was stable, Phase 2 focused on step-by-step automation initiatives, addressing resource-intensive processes through custom scripts and automation only where necessary.
This structured approach brought two major benefits. First, it minimized disruptions during the ERP go-live, as we avoided widespread changes in the ecosystem. Second, it provided a controlled environment to assess system performance before gradually expanding automation.
Once we gained confidence in the ERP environment, we identified and automated high-resource-consuming areas, streamlining operations and improving efficiency. By implementing targeted high-level automation, we successfully reduced resource and time requirements by 30-40% in key processes. This strategic balance between native ERP functionality and selective automation has allowed us to create a scalable, future-ready system while optimizing operational efficiency.
Cloud technology plays a significant role in modern IT infrastructure. How are you utilizing cloud computing to enhance your systems, and what benefits have you seen in terms of scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency?
We collaborate with all major hyperscalers for various purposes, leveraging their infrastructure to run multiple proof-of-concept (PoC) initiatives. Currently, AWS hosts a significant portion of our workload, notably for high-availability and supercritical applications, ensuring seamless performance and scalability. While we manage a substantial number of servers, we also utilize modernized stacks, including serverless computing, Lambda functions, and containerization, to enhance efficiency and flexibility.
To optimize performance and cost, we strategically distribute our applications across both cloud and on-premises environments. Some applications are intentionally hosted on-premises while maintaining backups, replicas, or read-only instances on the cloud. This hybrid approach enables us to balance cost-effectiveness with high-end service delivery. Additionally, we are actively evaluating ways to further optimize cloud infrastructure expenses, aiming to rationalize costs without compromising on performance.
Our infrastructure strategy includes a mix of SaaS products, where direct management of infrastructure is unnecessary, and cloud-based solutions for other critical applications. Our in-house team of architects and solution experts ensures that all new applications are developed as cloud-native solutions using a modernized technology stack. Today, most of our applications are entirely serverless, leveraging APIs and advanced infrastructure capabilities to maximize efficiency.
By adopting a modular, service-based architecture instead of a monolithic infrastructure, we ensure scalability, cost efficiency, and adaptability. However, selecting the right infrastructure model is crucial to maintaining an optimal balance between performance and expenses, ensuring that we pay only for what is necessary while delivering high-quality services.
Your company spans multiple functions like retail, pharmacy, and healthcare. How do you ensure that your IT infrastructure supports seamless communication and collaboration between departments like finance, HR, and customer service?
The ecosystem has significantly evolved over the years, with increasing expectations from users, stakeholders, and partners. Previously, many distributors and vendors lacked the readiness or willingness to integrate their systems with ours. However, today, integration is a standard practice, and vendors recognize the value it creates. Most vendors now have mechanisms in place, such as API integrations, EDI, or CSP uploads, to facilitate seamless data exchange.
For instance, vendor ERP systems can now generate invoices and instantly share them with us through real-time APIs. This enhances efficiency and eliminates manual intervention. On the customer side, we leverage our e-commerce platform and micro-applications to engage with them. These micro-pages, embedded in SMS or WhatsApp messages, allow customers to access invoices, explore offers, navigate stores, and provide feedback. Customers can also connect with our command center, reorder medicines by uploading prescriptions, or seek assistance—all through a single interface.
For employees, we have transitioned from desktop-based interfaces to mobile-first applications over the past few years. Every critical application, including HRMS, learning platforms, gamified interactions, dashboards, and operational utilities, is accessible on personal mobile devices. To ensure security, we have implemented geofencing and network white listing, restricting access to authorized locations and networks.
Looking ahead, our next phase of digital transformation involves shifting towards a fully conversational interface. While we already leverage third-party conversational AI solutions, our goal is to unify interactions through widely used messaging platforms like WhatsApp. By doing so, we aim to create a seamless, 360-degree digital experience for both employees and customers, ensuring that all essential services are accessible through a single, intuitive interface.
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