New age CIO in the boardroom

MUMBAI, INDIA: Despite the growing importance of IT in the optimized functioning of an organization, the topic on the role of CIO often brings out interesting discussion and outcomes from the CIO community.

Industry snapshot

Three prominent CIOs -- TG Dhandapani, Group CIO, TVS Motor Company; Prince Azariah, CIO, MRF Tyres and Satish Paendse, CIO, HCC Ltd -- shared the IT implementation journeys in their respective companies, the challenges and how they see their roles in the future of their institutions.

Dhandapani stated that his company implemented ERP in the year 2000-01 before deploying the SAP platform in other group companies.

“We have recently introduced product lifecycle management and we have integrated all our processes. IT has been taken as an important role in our organization. All the business processes are dependent on IT and they are all driven by IT and we have implemented many projects for operational excellence,” he added.

While the automotive sector is witnessing tremendous upgradation in adopting processes for excellence and fuel efficiency initiatives, the tyre industry cannot be far behind. Azariah evoked the importance of being a market leader in the tyre segment.

“We have been the market leaders for 20 years and the objective is that we want to be the market leader in the future too. I have promised only one thing: business transformation. Change the company from being a legacy company to a company which is agile and modern and get on top of whatever globalization gives us.”

“I promised to my management that I will not talk technology but talk tyres. How do we produce great tyres, get them to the market and beat the competition,” he continued.

Paendse from HCC focused on converting technology investments into real business value. HCC pioneered SAP ERP implementation in the construction domain as it was running projects in the remotest parts of the country.

What role does the CIO play today?

A decade ago, IT managers were more or less responsible for managing the computer room but the role today is drastically different.

“The priorities have always been either topline or bottom line growth,” pointed Dhandapani.

He was of the opinion that IT has a critical role to play building the businesses faster than the competition and augmenting the shareholder value.

He went on to state, “See, implementing some of the devices that we have today has brought quality augmentation to the company’s topline and bottom line. From being reactive, companies today have become reactive. I look at IT as an enabler.”

The trick according to many CIOs is to speak the language of the management.

Azariah agreed completely when he averred, “You have to drive your IT in such a way that it delivers a business benefit. It’s not easy. You have to engage with these people in their own style, talk to them their language and deal with them differently.”

“You are the change manager and as long as you are the change manager, you get your ROI, budget etc.”

Paendse laid emphasis on CIO knowing the exact agenda of the management and puts forth a thought.

“Business is not a problem but doing a business profitably is certainly a challenge. This is because the profile of the competition is changing rapidly.”

He felt that construction companies face the challenge of human resources.

“The construction business has grown manifold in the last five years and more demand is there in Gulf for civil engineers today.”

Companies such as HCC today face the conundrum of retaining the best of engineers in India and make them work in distant places such as Assam where HCC’s projects are being constructed.

It is important to note that construction entities face the brunt of ERP systems not being deployed yet by many players barring companies like HCC and Paendse agreed to this.

“Traditionally, if you look at the industry in the last 50 years, it has not been in the forefront of IT implementations and in the last 8-10 years, the growth has overtaken us and all of us are surprised by our own growth. All construction companies realize that IT is no more an alternative but it is a mandate. That’s where the companies are going now.”

But he also opined that the situation is changing fast with many embracing IT in a major way with globalization and benefits being seen by almost everyone under the sun.

India in the forefront of change

Every CIO agreed that India is becoming the cynosure of world’s eyes and Azariah affirmed, “In the last century, we had a situation where we were politely called a developing country and what would happen was the foreign experts would come and you would treat them well.”

But he mentioned that such things would be seen lesser now with R&D centers of companies being set up here and innovations in India mushrooming at a brisk pace.

“We are not going to have any mentors coming from the west and we have to make our own future.”

“Imagination is the limit to stretch the reach of IT and technology is no more a limitation,” Dhandapani pointed out.

CIOs on one hand feel that India is and would be in the forefront of world change and role of CIO would be to initiate the process of change and cream competition.