Stepping in a CIO's shoes

MUMBAI, INDIA: He has to justify the wallet. He has to make practical sense of technology. He has to take risks with new stuff that may look cool but can turn either a hit or a flop over implementation.

He has no clear crystal ball to gaze into the outcome. He has to listen to vendors. And he has to talk sense and convincingly to his CEO and CFOs too. In short, all the many spots where the shoe pinches when it comes to understanding the travails of being a CIO.

It couldn’t have come out much franker or clearer than the way it did in a discussion steered by CyberMedia’s Shashwat Chaturvedi in a panel round table at Enterprise Connect Mumbai.

As senior CDAC veteran S Ramakrishnan aka Ramki, pointed out rightly, “It doesn’t matter how cool your technology is unless the CIO finds it worthwhile and amenable so as to package and present it confidently to the ultimate boss, the CEO. Why not help him in doing that better and easier?”

A CIO from the audience couldn’t have agreed more, when Ramki hit the hammer right upon the nail. “Yes, we need some way where we can package a new idea in such a way that it appeals straightaway to a CEO.”

So, it isn’t enough just convincing a CIO, but what’s needed is helping him package it simply and stoutly when it comes to talking in front of someone who controls the purse strings. Another ongoing complaint that keeps popping up is the lack of adequate support by vendors, something that many CIOs talked about both on and off the panel at the event.

Manjit Singh Birma, deputy general manager, IT Center at Tractor Engineers Ltd, a subsidiary of L&T, categorically talked about the inadequate hand-holding and post-sales support that vendors really need to pay attention to.

Shashwat brought this issue up at the panel and posed the question to both CIOs and some vendors on the panel too.

In response Robert Healey, marketing evangelist, APAC and Japan, Riverbed and Amdrew Knott, VP-Marketing, APAC, Salesforce.com admitted the significance of support to a technology implementation and explained how their companies, in their own unique ways, are addressing this issue.

Satish Pendse, CIO, Hindustan Construction Ltd also seconded this hot problem. “Gone are the times of vendors being the box-sellers. The slowdown has added to the paradigm shift between the vendors and CIOs. It’s time to sell and buy solutions, not just technology and this, calls for vendors playing more of a partner role than just a salesman. The new role change has started, thankfully, but they still have a long way to go.”

In addition, other issues that were posed to the panel were – the risk factor of adopting a new technology; the constraints of budget; unique needs of Indian CIOs etc.

While vendors like Knott, Healey, and Parimal Pandya, director, Emerging Customer’s Group, Akamai Technologies as well as Sameer Garde, country general manager, Dell India took the debate sportingly amidst all the cross-questioning by CIOs to vendor community, CIOs gave a candid view of how it really feels to be a CIO.

As it turns out, the partner Vs a seller distinction has started and though it’s long way still, it’s a race that vendors can only ignore to their own disadvantage. Unless, they put the right shoes on!