Revenge of the CIO!

That's what it appeared to me at least! I was moderating this event focused at some of India's top CIOs at the Taj Connemara, Chennai's only heritage hotel. Well, within minutes into the panel discussion, a particular CIO started commenting, and soon, most of the others joined the fray.

It became a lively session as the CIOs had lots of things to say regarding certain IT-related technologies, including business continuity planning, business service management and intrusion detection systems.

Sometimes, rather most of the times, it appears that vendors keep pushing CIOs to buy their solutions. However, the reality is quite different. CIOs have a whole lot of issues to grapple with. They are learned, tech savvy, and know most of the times about the technologies on offer. It's their job!

CIOL called them as Super CIOs -- they are expected to do everything -- and even more, sometimes even more than even CEOs -- and still have to fight tooth and nail for their IT budgets, which are said to be ever reducing, and justify RoI.

It was interesting to witness CIOs take shots at vendors and others who offer solutions. In fact, some of their questions, were left partially answered. I felt that CIOs were simply waiting for a platform to make themselves heard. Definitely, this day was a day they chose to hit back. Some of the CIOs made their points known very well.

This particular event threw up several critical points. Some are:

* I hope vendors realize that CIOs have other issues as well;

* Vendors should not only look at offering solutions -- sometimes those that don't deliver;

* There's a need to write and discuss more about standards -- and I felt that CIOs know more about those than anyone else;

* There's a need to talk to CEOs too, about the needs of enterprises -- instead of simply having CEO Summits and CEOs talking about globalization challenges and other issues;

* There's a need to educate those below the CIOs -- the middle and lower levels.

I hope I can contribute somehow and make all of these happen.