Top 10 CIO challenges for 2009: Arun Gupta

MUMBAI, INDIA: Talking about top 10 CIO challenges for 2009 is easy! All you need to do is look up the Internet, or research by any of the major publication houses, or even easier, get it from the IT research vendor. Almost all of these have been falling over each other to predict the top 10 for the next year. This is a regular phenomenon every year and people love it.

Having read a few in recent weeks, I was amused to be invited to write about the top 10 challenges for CIOs. So, it took a lot of determination not to use the information sources listed above to create my own list. The list below is all my own and some of you may disagree with it, and that’s fine because the challenges are always to be taken in context of your business, domain in which you operate, the company standing in the market, culture, and finally the economic situation.

At number 10, I would put evaluating new technologies that will become mainstream over the next two to three years. These are discretionary investments you would have typically done in good times to pilot a few. Vendors will have to work with their customers a bit more innovatively to get a foot into the door.

Number 9 goes to data protection and retention which is becoming a challenge with the ever exploding amount of data that is getting generated every day.

Outsourcing comes at number 8, with the hiring freeze across, CIOs have to learn how to manage vendors and outsourcing relationships by managing the change that it requires within their teams and the users. Thus a formal way of working will possibly need to be enforced.

Number 7 on the list is improving process and operational efficiency, which comes up when times are tough. People look upto IT to deliver unreasonable efficiency.

Number 6 is managing talent and people; uncertainty brings insecurity and people start departing when they do not see any direction. Retention of key talent will be important for the CIO.

In the middle order or number 5 is technology refresh as everyone is in cash conservation mode. Older hardware will have to survive and deliver.

Green is the flavor of the times with environmental concerns to reduce the carbon footprint, conserve energy and safe disposal of e-waste. That’s at number 4. This will translate into initiatives like virtualization and consolidation.

Every investment will be carefully evaluated by the management teams and thus communicating the value IT creates with every new project or investment will require considerably higher effort. That’s number 3, value of IT.

At number 2 is getting funding for new projects or investments into existing ones. Capital expense management will require high focus of the CIO.

And the top most challenge for every CIO will be reducing the IT operational cost without any adverse impact to the service levels. This is a tall order with network traffic increasing, application maintenance costs going up and AMCs that have to be paid with no recourse.

This is the time to rework some of the old contracts, challenge the IT team to do things differently and set expectations with the rest of the organization that beyond a point, reductions will be detrimental to even business as usual.

The author is Customer Care Associate and Group Chief Technology Officer, Shoppers Stop.