Outlook 2009: Top 10 enterprise, CIO challenges

BANGALORE, INDIA: Ajay K. Dhir, chief information officer, Jindal Stainless Ltd, presents his perspective of what could be the top 10 CIO and enterprise challenges for 2009.

1. Maximise utilisation of existing resources - Manpower, technology assets, infrastructure etc., “Do more with less, is the credo”

2. Retention, Training & Reskilling of internal talent in the organisation. With a freeze on hiring almost everywhere, identify talent within the organisation and groom it for use in IT / user areas. Strengthen People Management and Leadership Skills for self as well.

3. Identify areas of opportunity within the organisation for cost reduction and value generation, and work on the same with a focused approach. Adopt simple practices as recommended by TPM, Kaizen etc to generate quick wins and create visibility of IT.

4. Establish partnership with strategic vendors and service providers, with a focus on co-creation of value in a collaborative manner. Examine current contracts and renegotiate wherever possible, or factor in value addition to get more from the same contract.

5. Create a focused approach for Corporate Information Security and protection of Intellectual Property. With Cyber Crimes on the rise and going to pose a bigger challenge in 2009, it is time to do a rigorous assessment and fortify the security.

6. Governance, Risk and Compliance. Corporate Governance and managing Risk and Compliance is going to be even stronger.

7. Infrastructure Management – Extending the lifecycle of the investments made by the organisation. Try to identify the assets that can be used with some refurbishing and deploy. We just did one such project with a 10 year old server which was lying unused, did some minor upgrade and deployed it for a batch application. Saving – Rs 6 lakhs straightaway, small saving but as they say – “Drops of water make an ocean”.

8. Virtualisation and Consolidation. This should be taken up with a clear focus and strategy, the benefits are tremendous, and deployment has to be done with care.

9. IT enabling the organisation, to drive operational and process efficiencies. Age old saying, but always relevant, more so in tougher times. Identify areas where manual or duplicate working is still there in the organisation and enable the same through IT.

10. Extending the value chain of Enterprise Applications, to external stakeholders. Start off in a simple manner by using a Portal for Information Interchange in a secure manner, and then look at CRM, SRM, HCM etc.

Top Ten Enterprise Technologies for 2009

1. Enterprise Content Management

2. Information Security Management

3. Business Intelligence

4. Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Planning

5. Collaborative Computing (e.g. SPS)

6. Cloud Computing

7. Software As A Service

8. Green IT

9. Virtualisation and Consolidation

10. Unified Communication and Tele Presence