Nishi noted that it is important to also try to give each person an equal opportunity. "I come from the business side as the company decided that the ERP project should not be run by an IT department. What makes it easy is: if you have a strong tech team and you give them liberty, and manage them well, it works for us.

What are the concerns of some of the younger people? Niloufer remarked, taking the ladies' issue as primary. "Is there a glass ceiling? How far can you progress? Also, do we get an opportunity to work in new technologies? People ask us: what's their role, and what will we be exposed to! I am tempted to retain my old hand at the old function, and try to remain in the comfort zone."

Is there any way they can overcome their comfort zones? "I have to see what sort of material action should I take to avoid risks of pulling a person out," she added.

Jaya noted: "We give them the opportunity to learn, not only in technology areas, but in other business areas as well. It all depends on the areas in which they are working. We create redundancy. I mean, one person is not given the responsibility of one job. Others are also trained to handle the responsibility. That gives the person an exposure in other areas as well. Young people want to learn."

Commenting on some essential skill requirements, Vandana said: "The soft skills of managing people and managing financials are also essential, besides having knowledge of IT. For most of our people, it is a mandate that they visit the shop floor. The knowledge about the business is a must. These are some things we can sell to the new generation. When they are working with a purely IT company, they are not exposed to the business side. It is different when you work for a user-oriented company. As a CIO, you are much more closer to the business."

Impart skills that are required
This is an interesting situation! According to Jaya, you would be required to negotiate during the budget. Therefore, you would need negotiation skills to inspire your team to join you in your journey. "We give training in an organized way on topics and also hire trainers from outside," she said.

Niloufer added that job rotation surely helps and improves one's business skills. "New entrants could be too techy and may not appreciate it. We started off with on-the-job training. It has definitely helped me and given me business insights and business skills."

How easy is it to bring in people from other departments to work on or with IT? How do you go about getting people excited about this?

Subramaniam said: "When we implement an enterprise system, besides the IT team, you also need to partner with other business functions. When you create a success story, they come to see and realize that the culture of IT is good. That is when they start looking out for opportunities to get into the IT function. A partnership between business people and IT people does happen." He touched upon a variety of training programs undertaken by Otis to go about making this happen. And that led to the next question: typically, how many days of training would be necessary?