CIOL C-Change begins with a bang!

Shashwat Chaturvedi

MAJORDA BEACH (Goa): On a cool and relaxed February evening, the CIOL C-Change 2007 was kicked off in Goa. The business technology forum, running in its fourth edition, was inaugurated by E Abraham Mathew, president, CIOL and CEO, CyberMedia Dice, David Nishball, joint president, Airtel (Enterprise Services), Avijit Basu, country marketing manager (Technology Solutions Group), HP India and Anil Kumar R, senior vice president, CIOL at the Park Hyatt located here today.

The C-Change event returns to Goa after a gap of two years and Mathew dwelt on how the event has evolved over these years and how in many ways it has remained, much the same.

“CIOL C-Change has evolved into the premier CIO gathering in the whole of India. Hosting to over 100 CIOs from different industry verticals, the event has remained true to its essence, a learned gathering of industry technologists and decision makers deliberating on the course to the future,” he said.

Talking on this year’s theme, Consumaze - Understanding the Evolving Consumer, Mathew touched upon the changing face of customers and how organizations were grappling to manage them in a better and efficient way.

“The theme is very relevant and focuses on how to retain and extend the customer,” he added with a final advice, to “learn, network and enjoy.”

Alok Shende, vice president (ICT), Frost & Sullivan, touched upon the evolving consumer scenario. He talked about how modern day companies had to deal with customer management in a very complex way as the customer touch points had exploded over the past few years.

“There is also an income demographic shift and companies have to deal with consumers as individuals and not a mass,” he stated.

Nishball, on his first week of job at Bharti Airtel, brought the global perspective on how the needs and demands of the CIOs across the globe had changed.

“In the past, we used to have a lot of discussion on things like service performance levels, global reach, etc. Now it is all taken for granted,” he said.

He mentioned that CIO has turned into a “strategic enabler of business” than merely a technology enabler. “The CIO is also struggling with the complexity of their operations and the Indian CIOs specially are quite demanding when it comes to technology solutions,” said Nishball.

Meanwhile, Basu spoke on the issues concerning adaptive enterprise. “In the rapidly expanding global economy, companies have to undertake complex operations like mergers and acquisitions in disparate lands. It is imperative on the CIO to optimize IT to increase business value,” he stated.

And thus started the most eagerly awaited CIO event in the country and it promises to get more exciting and invigorating over the next two days.

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