CIOs: From tech savvy to biz savvy

GOA: A CIO has come a long way from being a mere technology person to a business savvy person and along the way has learnt to take the heat off the hot seat. This was the perception that came out of the CIOs at the CIOL organised three day C Change event held at Goa, starting today.

Addressing a power packed panel discussion on "CIO as a Change Agent", Vikas Gadre, CIO, Rallis India, said, "In today’s scenario, being just a technology person is not enough, the CIO is expected to talk, think and breathe business language. Change is inevitable and is constant. However to be the change agent, what a CIO needs is wholesome support from the CEO. More importantly, he needs to communicate to his people effectively by creating awareness and generating interest among users in the organisation and outside as well."

Another observation made by panelist Sunil Kapoor, Head-IT, Fortis Healthcare, was when he likned the situation of the modern day CIOs to the epic hero Abhimanyu, who faced all kinds of odds.They enter the vortex of technology and business but unlike him, find their own way to come out if it.

CIOs need to keep pace with Change-Change in people, process and technology. They need to act in prudence when it comes to technology decisions. As another panelist Ishwar Jha, Head of Information Systems, Sony Music, puts it, "CIOs have an advantage over their CEOs wherein they have accessibility to entire organisation and have the pulse of the users. This enables them to know how to handle change management issues, be it the people, process or technology."

He also revealed that worldwide there is 75 per cent turnover of CIOs and average career span of CIOs is 2.5 years in an organisation and after this, he said in a lighter vein that ‘Career Is Over (CIO)’ for them.

Because of technology, CIOs are in a better position to address and communicate to the users and bring better value proposition to the enterprise. Not only this, CIOs have come a long way from addressing their internal customers to addressing their external stakeholders. Recollecting the evolution in the banking industry, CN Ram, Head —IT, HDFC Bank, noted that the earlier focus of the CIOs or EDP guys were on self automation catering to their internal needs. However, banks have come off age since the last decade where in the focus has shifted to customer services."

However, the focus on customer services has gone overboard, he added. "With Tele-banking, Internet banking, ATM and all of that, it has led to de-personalization. And where once interaction with customers led to creating new products and services, today one has to depend on data mining."

Reiterating the fact on how technologies have brought about a major change in the life of consumers, Anwar Bagdadi, CTO, Epicenter Technologies, said, "The CIOs have come a long way from being just tech savvy to being business savvy. Today’s CIOs need to put on ‘multiple hats’ and they have a tall order to in delivering value proposition to the organisation. The CIOs have created partnership with vendors, management buying and increased user participation."

The panel discussion had quite a few debates like whether the CIOs focus should be on information technology or information management, few of the participants felt that management was the key thing in addressing ‘change’ issues and being business savvy helps in better handling of the issues. However, there were many who felt that CIOs need to handle what they are best at, To manage IT. CIOs cannot be as knowledgeable as functional heads. CIOs cannot be super heroes all the time.

One of the participants noted that CIOs were being humble about themselves. They have brought about the huge transformation in the way an organisation works and interacts with its customers.

CIOL Bureau