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“We are looking at deploying wireless application to realize significant cost benefits”

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CIOL Bureau
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On recent tech initiatives at Titan:

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The most prominent has been the development of web services for our partners. This has helped us in ordering, tracking, catalogue management and pricing.

What was the business need?

To step up business speed and accuracy. Also flow of information became faster and easier to monitor. The money that we spent in this process got recovered within three years.

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On the tech challenges ahead?

There are certain technology challenges in the form of security as value of data is doubling. Storage has also become a challenge for us. The 24/7 availability, business continuity and disaster recovery are the other major challenges ahead. We are looking at deploying wireless networking applications as it generates significant cost benefits.

How do you measure the returns?

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IT is a tool and its value can only be measured with the business benefits we are getting. Today, organizations outsource most of their activities but my perception is that only routine activities like facility management should be outsourced, domain knowledge should remain within the company. Also stick to standards and don't go for too many things at one time. Return on IT is becoming critical due to rapidly changing technology and high obsolescence. We need to measure many more parameters, if IT has to deliver higher value for business.

On his relationship with vendors:

One should go with only top two vendors otherwise it can create chaos. There are certain things that sometimes ruin the relationship with the vendor like licensing policies, lack of flexibility and cost.

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On management concerns:

The management is mostly concerned on whether we get ROI or not. Other concerns are on optimal use of IT systems and how responsive is IT for organizational needs. Also we need to cut down IT spending, yet effectively use IT for business benefit. Retaining IT talent has also become an issue now. Also what should be in-sourced and out-sourced. Whether data and systems are safe or not and lastly how do we measure performance?

On the CIO's personal challenges:

The CIO faces two types of challenges. On the business side, he has to link the IT strategy with business strategy, monitoring service levels, reducing expenses and business value of IT. On the IT side, he has to take care of better management of human capital, customer satisfaction, project management and resource allocation.

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