CIOs should go beyond their roles

MUMBAI: The CIOL-Dataquest Enterprise Connect Award function called for the need for CIOs to go beyond their conventional roles to ensure proper business continuity in their respective organizations.

Twelve CIOs from various organizations were presented the coveted CIOL-Dataquest Connect Award here at a function organized at the Hyatt Regency.

Speaking at the award function, Sridhar Mitta, chairman of the award jury and founder of e4e, said the CIO should contribute in the overall business rather than just managing IT in the organizations.

"In short they must do more with less. A CIO is as important in an organization as a CEO or CFO. IT in an organization is becoming like a utility service. It is the CIO who is in charge of the infrastructure. CIOs should be involved in the business functions. IT is in the boardroom, not in a basement. Are CIOs ready for this change,” Mitta asked.

In his opening address, CIOL president E Abraham Mathew reiterated the fact that the CIOs should move beyond their conventional roles of managing IT in their organizations.

Recalling the recent monsoon mayhem in Mumbai, Prasanto K Roy, chief editor, Dataquest Group, echoed similar sentiments. He said that the role of a CIO becomes important in such critical conditions. Roy added that the CIO should ensure proper business continuity in organizations during such conditions.

The winners

In the above Rs 1000 cr category, Pravir K Vohra (ICICI Bank) won the Champion CIO award. The gold and silver went to Akhil Pandey (North Delhi Power Corporation) and Ashish Chouhan (Reliance Infocomm) respectively.

In the below Rs 1000 cr category, the Champion CIO award went to GS Ravi Kumar (Gati). Jason Gonsalvas (Goodlass Nerolac) and AS Bhatnagar (Bank of Rajasthan) won the gold and silver awards respectively.

The Process award this year went to Prakash Pawar, CIO, Intrex group. Amitabh Pandey, CIO, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) bagged the Pioneer award.

Sanjay Sharma, CIO, IDBI won the Innovator award. The Advocate CIO award went to M Visweswaran of Macmillan India.

Mani Mulki, CIO, Godrej Consumer products and Arindam J Bose of LG jointly received the Extended Manager award.

Awards questionnaire

Forty-three companies from the large and mid-sized enterprise segments participated in the second edition of the CIOL-Dataquest Enterprise Award. The awards questionnaire was split into two sections.

Section one focused on the organization's business strategies, business processes that were IT enabled and the impact of IT across various functional areas.

Section two looked at specifics like the deployment of IT in a pioneering manner, the use of IT in an innovative manner to improve business efficiencies, the implementation IT solutions within the organization and outside the organization so that it would include and benefit external stakeholders too.

Scores

The scores were based on a framework that was built last year comprising leadership, vision and mission (including risk-taking ability), strategic deployment of IT, business benefits and value, pioneering use of technology, innovative use of technology, process improvements, internal and external customer orientation (understanding business needs) and people orientation.

The awards were conferred the championship on a CIO who has best demonstrated virtues such as: Pioneer - by adopting cutting edge/ emerging technologies ahead of time; Innovator - by innovating on an existing technology/application for use originally not intended for; Advocate - by contributing towards acceptance of IT within the organization-top management and end users; Extended Manager — by creating value for the business by connecting strategic external stakeholders and Process discipline — by positively impacting business processes through successful use of IT.

The jury

Apart from the chairman, Mitta, the seven-member jury comprised Varun Jha (VP, Tata Steel), Sunil Kapoor (CIO, Fortis), Alok Shende (director, Tech Practice, Frost & Sullivan), Prof Raghunath (Prof of Strategy, IIM-B), Shyam Malhotra (editor-in-chief, Cyber Media Group) and Prasanto K Roy (chief editor, DQ Group).