For instance, till a couple of years ago, companies could sit on huge databases of precious customer information and yet manage to do little about it because the technology to leverage the data down to the last detail was either non-existent, or terribly expensive.

With the emergence of the Internet though, the cost of such technologies have been driven down. More pertinently, it is possible to use such data more efficiently in the marketing effort.

Then there is the supply-chain management angle. Companies are increasingly realising that they can increase their external efficiencies by using technology to interact with their suppliers and distributors. Even as these changes take place, the cost of ERP solutions, which essentially fine tune the internal processes of a company, have dramatically gone down. Once again, the driving force behind these changes has been the Internet.

"I feel that Indian companies are superbly placed to take advantage of these changes," said Ashok Pandey, co-CEO of the Intelligroup. Explaining why, he said that in the USA, companies have had to carry the burden of legacy systems.

As against this, by some quirk of fate, Indian companies don't face such problems, because very few, in any case, have older systems (legacy) that need to be integrated with the latest in technology. But, there is another problem, Pandey added, in a lighter vein. "Systems work. People don't."

Douglas Shinsanto, VP, Interactive Intelligence and one of the speakers at the event, said that wireless telephony and the Internet will drive convergence in the world of data and voice. This, he reckoned, would be increasingly true in countries like India and China where the average individual does not have access to either a desktop or a notebook computer.

Instead, mobile phones, with increasingly superior capabilities will be the main driver. Coupled with the fact that their prices are being driven down, it is the reality of the future, he said. Neil Dibb, director business development for India of JD Edwards, highlighted the fact that among the most common question his company faces every day is, "Is ERP dead?" His answer was no. Because, he said, "the original reasons why ERP was developed still remains and it is still evolving." The three-day event will dissect these issues and provide a platform for speakers to debate the pros and cons involved.

The theme for the event, organised by The Indian Express group and Miller Freeman will, at the end of the day, try to answer what the future of enterprise management is going to be. Speakers at the conference include, among others, FC Kohli, TCS, Amitabh Kumar, VSNL, Ganesh Natarajan, Aptech, and Gary Mink, Lucent Technologies.