Target CXO

Ibrahim

Ahmad

The recently organized 3-city "DQ CIO Summit on Managing IT"

was not an eye opener, but it surely once again rubbed some old bruises. The

touchy areas revolved around the vendor and his relationship with the CIO, and

the CIO and his relationship with end users in his or her organization. The CIO

Summit broadly focused on three crucial aspects of IT in enterprises today,

namely storage, security, and IT infrastructure.

There is so much discussion and debate happening on storage these days that

we decided to call the theme of the discussion on storage: "Simplifying

Storage as Demand Explodes". It came out during the course of discussions

that the CIOs level of confidence in storage vendors was low on account of

several factors. These included pricing policies, lack of a clear technology

roadmap, insufficient support at the time of up-gradation, to name a few.






Similarly, the vendors felt that the CIOs are themselves not too sure of what
their real requirements are, and do not do adequate homework before placing

orders, which causes heartburn later. Clearly, the CIOs and the vendors need to

work more closely. Not that storage buying will come to a standstill if the CIO

and the vendor do not work together, it's just that the success rates of storage

investments (RoI) will be higher.

While I knew that not more than 30 to 40% of storage that organizations have

is actually utilized, what surprised me, however, was that not more than 20 to

25% of the info that is stored is actually ever retrieved for use. Panelists in

the discussion alleged that their biggest problem came from individual desktop

users.

What emerged from the discussions was that there were hardly any storage

related policies that most organizations have, especially for desktop users.

There also appeared to be gaps in terms of the CIOs' knowledge of what the needs

and expectations of their desktop users were. It was felt that sanctions for

more storage investments, was a big nut to crack before the CEO and the board.

One interesting point that needs mention here is the lack of excitement that

a subject like storage seems to be generating these days. Most CIOs, when given

an option to participate in a group discussion at the DQ CIO Summit, did not

state storage as their first choice. To be specific, between storage,

information security, and IT infrastructure management, storage was the last

option.

The other major discussion at the CIO Summit was the challenges to

information security. Most CIOs now agree that security is becoming a major

challenge, and they are finding it tough to handle all on their own. Also, they

feel that while responsibility for security of enterprise networks and

information is finally heaped on the CIOs, there are several departments in an

organization which play a role and need to be involved. Well laid out security

policies are absent in most organizations, and end-users are not involved or

given awareness lessons. Most CIOs reluctantly said that they needed expert

advice and third party support for enterprise wide security planning and

control, but were not very comfortable with the idea of outsourcing it

completely. Not as of now.

Lastly, while discussing IT infrastructure management, there was more or less

complete unanimity that it should not be the CIO's mandate, but should be

outsourced. However, most of them said that they are looking at outsourcing as

much as they can, although finding good third party infrastructure companies was

proving to be tough. On a very sensitive question of the possibility of CIOs to

convert their IT department into independent profit centers, the opinion was

sharply divided. While some felt that they dream to become independent business

units, those who seem to have gone though the experience were vehemently against

the idea.

Who said that the CIO's career is over? I think there is a long distance to

travel as far as his relationships-both with suppliers as well as internal

customers-is concerned. The CIO's next challenge is in terms of building

relationships with his CXO, and not so much in terms of selecting technologies.

The author is Editor of Dataquest



ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in