CIOs felicitated with CIOL Enterprise Connect Awards

Shashwat Chaturvedi

MUMBAI: The chief information officers of the public sector State Bank of India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and of large and medium private enterprises like Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company, Rajasthan Spinning and Weaving Mills Ltd and Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation were among the winners of the country's biggest IT awards - the CIOL Enterprise Connect Awards.

The awards were announced at a gala function held here today evening in the presence of an impressive gathering of  CIOs of the country's leading enterprises.

The tone for the evening was set by  R Anil Kumar, CIOL vice president, who gave details of the elaborate selection process of the award.  “We spent over 500 man hours in short listing and selecting the winners. The chief criteria applied included pioneering ability and leadership quality of the CIO.  I would like to thank all the readers and partners who have stood by us, over the past decade and promise to continue delivering on our promise of high quality content and business value in the coming years,” he said.

Ibrahim Ahmad, group editor, Dataquest and Voice & Data, shared a few statistics on the important role played by the CIOs in setting the course for future growth. For instance, according to Dataquest figures for the year 2005-06, CIOs were responsible for the purchase of PCs, ranging from notebooks to mainframes, worth around Rs. 17,600 crore.

They were also responsible for purchase of peripherals worth Rs. 5200 crore in addition to the purchase of packaged software worth Rs. 6000 crore. Altogether, they were responsible for an IT spend of around Rs. 52000 crore on products, equipment, software, and etc. “CIOs are playing a very important role in the new paradigm. They have the courage to take bold decisions and also the knack to play hardball in negotiations,” he said.

Anirudh P, chief operating officer, 3i Infotech, was of the view that now organizations are trying to foster innovation as a measurable business value. “The CIO has become more attuned to business needs. The emphasis has shifted from doing more to doing much better,” he said. According to him, organizations are not solely interested in saving cost and hence are embracing innovation in a big way. “Innovation is no more just an important element of success but rather a requirement by itself,” he added.

Chairman of the jury and chief guest of the evening, Anand Sudarshan, group president, Manipal Universal, touched upon the need for closer connection between technology and business and the emergence of ‘contextualized IT’.

“Change is not as rapid and unpredictable as many pronounce. There is an overall standardization in the way things are done. The CIO of today, needs to do things not only differently but also more efficiently and in an innovative manner,” he said.

Shyam Malhotra, director and chief editor, Cybremedia, traced the history of CIOL and elaborated on how the technology portal continued to break new grounds. “A decade back, we were looking out for something new. Internet was yet to happen in India. It was then that we decided upon launching CIOL,” he said. “CIOL is one of the very few Internet ventures to have survived the boom and the bust that followed. We spanned the whole spectrum from irrational exuberance to irrational pessimism,” he confided.

Following were the winners for the ECA Awards:

P Venkata Ramanan, deputy chief information officer, WeP Peripherals (Entreprise Connect Innovator Award)

Syed Shahbuddin, chief general manager (IT), State Bank of India (Entreprise Connect Advocate Award)

JB Bhaskar, Head-IT, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company (Extended Manager Award)

Arindam Sinha, CIO, Rajasthan Spinning and Weaving Mills Limited (Process CIO Award)

M Thyagaraj, CIO, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (Pioneer CIO Award)

The Champion CIO winners for below Rs. 1000 crore category were as follows:

Subash Patil, CIO, Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (Champion CIO Award)

Ravikiran Mankikar, chief information officer, Shamrao Vithal Co-operative Bank (Gold CIO Award)

KT Rajan, chief information officer, Allergan India (Pvt) Ltd. (Silver CIO Award)

The Champion CIO winners for over Rs. 1000 crore category were as follows:

Probir Mitra, chief information officer, Tata Motors (Champion CIO Award)

Ashish Kumar Chauhan, president- CIO, Reliance Industries Limited (Gold CIO Award)

Subrato Das, CIO, CESC (Silver CIO Award)

The jury for the award consisted of Anand Sudershan, Sudhin Apte, senior analyst and country head (India), Forrester Research, Pravir Vohra, senior general manager, ICICI Bank Ltd., Ravikumar GS, CIO, Gati Limited, Shyam Malhotra, and Abraham Mathew, president, Cyber Media Online Ltd. The event was sponsored by 3i Infotech and SAP.

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