What does rupee's slide mean for CIOs?

NEW DELHI, INDIA: On August 6, 2013, the Indian rupee plunged to a record low of INR 61.50 to 1 $ and was flanked with issues like political gridlock, serious infrastructure bottlenecks, and decreased investor confidence, all of which are contributing to a slowdown in economic growth.

The difficult economic landscape has forced Indian firms to look for new and innovative ways to grow their businesses, create efficiencies, and improve responsiveness. The pressure is now firmly on CIOs to deliver technology-led business outcomes for their organizations. To exploit this opportunity, Manish Bahl, Vice President and Country Manager for India at Forrester Research, urges CIOs to take some actions. "Develop a ‘business outcomes' matrix and map existing and planned technology projects against it to build credibility with business leaders. Expand IT's focus from managing systems of record to delivering systems of engagement. Make sustained innovation a core business outcome competency."

The declining rupee leads directly to increases in the cost of doing business, which has risen by eight to ten per cent over the past year.

Bahl advises that ROI templates are generally developed to gain approvals and are typically limited to cost savings, but very few CIOs actually link their IT spending to clearly defined business outcomes.

"Define what business outcome means to your organization (e.g., increase in sales, revenue, customer acquisition, customer satisfaction to name few) and map each of your projects against the matrix to prioritize those with greatest business outcomes. This will help CIOs win buy-in from business stakeholders on project funding and priorities, while ensuring that IT is viewed as an equal and capable business partner."

He also cited that as per Forrester's Forrsights Budget and Priorities Tracker, Q4 2012, addressing the rising expectations of customers and improving customer satisfaction is the top business priority (57 per cent) of Indian organizationsOne needs to expand IT's focus from managing systems of record to delivering systems of engagement.

"As business leaders seek to meet the rising expectations of not only customers, but also partners and employees, CIOs should leverage digital technologies (mobile, analytics, cloud, social media and big data) to create more agile and flexible IT systems that enable improved customer intimacy. However, the shift to customer experience requires a radically different organizational focus from current IT organizations as CIOs will be required toalter governance processes, and change IT team's performance metrics. Make sustained innovation a core business outcome competency. Innovation is essential for any firm that wants to master tomorrow's business outcomes and win new business. For this, CIOs need to identify staffing models and skill sets for assuring sustained innovation's success. For instance, Proctor & Gamble's innovation team applies new technologies and applications at the business services level directly to innovate and deliver business outcomes (improve time to market, reduce cost of testing new product merchandising, etc.)."