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For a CIO to be effective and add value to business, it is indeed a no-brainer that he or she has to be aligned with the business leaders of the organization.  While a CIO is squarely responsible for technology, his decision today is not being micro managed by his higher-ups. In this context, the CIO position has evolved, from being the back-office enabler to being a business driver. So how did this evolution happen? 

With the growing automation and proliferation of technology in almost all fields of business strategy and operations, IT has got weaved into a multi-threaded business environment. Being an enabler of decision making process and business workflows in a company, the CIO has not only become the most informed person after the CEO, but also a trusted partner for other business leaders in the organization.

Not so long ago, a Gartner study had gone to the extent of declaring that the CIO species may become extinct. But what we see today is the CIO has mutated, evolved to become an integral part and trusted member of organization leadership.  He or she is now considered the person with business insights and understands business impact, which makes him or her worthy of being on the board of a company.

In large organizations, no longer is a CIO needed to throw tongue-twisting technical jargons to push for IT implementation; it is given and understood that IT is inherently required to improve business processes and productivity.  The emphasis now is on value derived from IT implementation.  In choosing a solution, a system integrator is largely the one who is sought-after as opposed to betting on the technical superiority of the solution since business transformation or benefit can only be achieved by successful implementation.  Hence there are two high impact areas where CIOs are steadily becoming quite indispensible in the organization development: innovation and transformation.

Business intelligence gained through the analytics of organizational data positions CIO in an advantageous position, thereby nurturing innovation that and enhancing productivity.  By continuously improving the business processes through a ‘package-to-process’ approach, the processes prescribed in mature packages are utilized to empower industry learning, bring in significant time-to-market advantage.  The need of customization in the packages is getting lesser as these packages mature over the years, encompassing and improving the business processes that make an organization much more flexible.

With the advent of the next wave of applications and services being heralded by cloud computing, the CIO community will have to don its innovation cap to find avenues that create multi-faceted advantage for overall organization benefit.  The journey through the cloud maybe a daunting one, but only a CIO can tide an organization through the technology challenges and take it to the next level.

The author is CIO, MTS.

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For a CIO to be effective and add value to business, it is indeed a no-brainer that he or she has to be aligned with the business leaders of the organization.

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 Over the last couple of years, a lot has already been spoken on how CIOs can manage expectations of all stakeholders of a company. In spite of a lot of debate and discussion, it is ironical that aligning IT with business still remains one of the key challenges that the IT community faces today.

CIOs often struggle to strike the right balance between IT delivery and business expectations. Managing aspects like IT standards, compliance and security, while delivering quick and robust IT solutions, often give nightmares to the IT team.

Many will argue that both IT and business teams in most organizations have evolved today and have a perfect IT-business alignment. However, I am sure these organizations too come across such a dilemma, maybe less frequently than others.

Even today when I meet my peers in any IT conference, the issue of meeting business expectations invariably comes up. One hears comments that businesses will never be happy, whatever IT does. There are others who complain that business still thinks IT is at its beck and call.  Are these concerns valid? Are we missing tricks that others have been able to successfully apply? I don’t think we can single out any particular reason for our inability to align IT with business, as each one of us operates in a different business environment.

What might seem as an easy way for a few could turn out to be an extremely difficult solution for others. For example, engagement of IT team with business folks on upcoming projects or initiatives in the initial stages may be reciprocated by a few business houses, but there are more chances that such a proactive approach from IT may not be seen in the right spirit.

There is no particular formula for striking perfect alignment with business. However, I would like to share some tips that have worked for my company. These best practices have helped us improve the quality of our service delivery to our internal stakeholders and earn their faith in the IT teams.

First and foremost, CIOs must try and understand business challenges by being present in all critical business meetings. I would suggest they gatecrash, if not invited. CIOs should make a place for themselves in the senior management by participating in such meetings and sharing valuable inputs that can boost business growth.

It is important for critical members of the IT team, other than the CIO, to understand business objectives clearly. This is imperative as they are the ones who would build or deliver a solution. CIOs must give exposure to their team members by sending them for business meetings and reviews.

Identify ‘business owners’ from within the IT team to be a single-point-contact for a particular function. This owner should provide inputs on business challenges to IT.

Appreciate feedback openly about limitations or drawbacks of a particular IT solution in a business meeting, rather than being defensive about it. Get the same critics on your side by seeking a possible solution to overcome challenges.

Advise your business owners to have monthly or quarterly review of IT services delivered to their customers, e.g. the function they represent. Such reviews can also be a platform to get information and understand expectations on upcoming business projects, initiatives, etc.

Business often feels that there is nothing ‘impossible’ in IT and there should always be a solution available. It is important to articulate it clearly if there is a technology limitation or a challenge with the organization’s IT infrastructure. In such a situation, it is critical to provide information on possible short-term alternatives and long-term solutions.

Business also needs to own up decisions related to IT investments and solutions. CIOs should get business involved while making a decision rather than making it an ‘IT call’.

Involve business users equally in identifying the right IT investment or solution as it helps identify the improvements a particular IT solution will bring in to their existing process.

Make business leaders, especially CFOs, realize that IT investments are value for money rather than just an expense or cost. It is a CIO’s responsibility to keep business aware of the technology that supports business objectives, as IT investment decisions need to have a buy-in from other business leaders as well.

Most of the best practices mentioned above are not something that I have developed myself. This is a culmination of what I have learned from my past experiences and emulated from other successful organizations and fellow IT leaders.

Lastly, I feel that it is essential for CIOs to remain highly engaged with business and re-evaluate the alignment level at regular intervals through informal feedback, formal user or survey to ensure that IT-business alignment is healthy and improving.

The author is Senior Director-IT, South Asia, DHL Express.

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It is ironical that aligning IT with business still remains one of the key challenges that the IT community faces today.

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 Cloud computing is synonymous with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, ebay, etc. There is no doubt that the cloud model has the capability for horizontal scaling. I would not have believed it if the above mentioned companies were not leading the way.

There are opportunities where cloud computing can work in an organization. But large companies that are not web-enabled, such as traditional banks, may not adopt cloud.

It is a welcome and refreshed opportunity, but I am not terribly excited about it. I don’t know how it will work as we will no longer be required to buy licenses but will be buying services. I am looking forward to how vendors will work out their business model.

A cloud is nebulous in nature but we can’t seamlessly move a cloud in a cloud computing model.

Before this jargon was coined, CIOs have been doing similar implementations. ICICI Bank has many things on a private cloud. We are able to scale as per our needs as our infrastructure is virtualized. So what is cloud and where does virtualization step in?

IT vendors claim many cost benefits in going the cloud way. India has yet to witness any major cloud adoption to support those claims. Conceptually cloud has the ability to demonstrate cost savings and business benefits. But I am not aware of any instance where it has proven to save X amount of money. No vendor is able to provide a la carte menu of their cloud offerings and show how much it would cost a company to deploy. Vendors cannot substantiate the cost benefit of a cloud implementation.

Though cloud may have certain benefits, it is not reason enough for large organizations to join the bandwagon as it has millions of dollars of spending power. Such companies also have better manageability and scaling already in place. Large companies can live without cloud. It can be left to small and mid-size organizations.  

It is a myth that cloud can convert existing CAPEX into OPEX but cloud is just passing responsibility. You are just making your OPEX somebody else’s CAPEX. That is outsourcing, not cloud.

The author is Group CTO, ICICI Bank.

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 I have been making a few public presentations for the last few months to external audiences on: “The day-in-the-life of a CIO – how to get there and stay there”. Mostly, I finish the presentation with my own seven mantras that I have followed to get to be a Leader and to have remained a leader. Somehow this last slide on my Seven Mantras seems to have caught the imagination of the most of the audiences. I thought it will be a good idea to put it into the Leaders BLOG and share it with all of you. Every idea or thought that is put into the public or “open-source”, has the potential to grow and multiply many times – so here are my seven mantras. Please feel free to comment and improve on the concepts.

To reach the top and stay on as a leader in any sphere of life - you need to have:

1.        The ability to structure and unstructured problem: Every time you find yourself in a situation where you are encountering a problem for the first time, you will be faced with the task of figuring out how to solve the problem. You will think about various related and unrelated problems and then structure your thoughts and solutions accordingly. If you do not analyze it and structure the problem, it cannot be solved every time it happens. You will never be considered a leader if you are always transactional.  You will be a fire-fighter or remain just a doer. Once you make this a habit, you will be very successful in everything you do.

2.        The ability to Multi-task: We are never doing one thing at a time. A leader has to juggle his time and his attention across several different things. This skill does not come without practice and is not learnt in old age. So for all youngsters reading this – start doing multiple things – both professionally and personally. It does not matter what you do while you practice but as you get better, you will demonstrate the ability to give priority and focus to things that matter – this is the sign of a leader. You will know how to manage a constrained resource of time.

3.        Have Persistence and Tenacity: A leader seldom gives up on an idea or action till he has exhausted all means to achieve the outcome or has reached a point where the risks for going ahead are far far greater than the rewards. You have to keep going. If the cause is right and the means are right, one has to continue pursuing their vision/goal without worry.

4.        Demonstrate Architectural Vision: In whatever sphere you lead, you need to have a vision. In IT you need to have an IT architecture or a team architecture in mind. As a business leader, you need to have a company vision/architecture in mind. This demonstrates thought leadership and gives encouragement and reason for the followers to support the leader. A leader without a vision is a frenzied administrator.

5.        The ability to have intense conversations dispassionately: Leadership is about always analyzing your options deeply and making hard choices. To analyze objectively and to take hard decisions, you need to have intense conversations dispassionately. Many a times, people get attached to the problem, the people or the solution and cannot detach themselves on time. The conversation becomes difficult and almost always do not result in a good decision. Once you can detach yourself, you will see that you are able to make better decisions every time.   

6.        The ability to articulate anything at various abstraction levels: As you lead a team, you will find that you have to work with people at all levels of understanding of the problem, solution, technology, industry etc. You have to explain things to the CEO / Chairman and then go all the way down to the shop-floor and explain the same concept in a lot more detail to the actual employee who is going to do the work. If you are good leader and want to really inspire your people and make the vision a reality, you will be able to do both the tasks. The highest level vision and the most detailed of the tasks are related and a leader can make this connection happen every time.

7.        Keep in mind the human-value or the business value of every action/decision: Never lose your humanity when you become a leader. Always look at every minute you spend, every decision to you take or every rupee you spend and see if you have take care of the human-values first. After that you can take any business decision without fear or guilt. To give you an example: many a time, we have to let people go for business reasons. However, if a leader has done everything in his or her capability and influence, to help the people first to retrain or re-staff,  he can take the retrenchment decision without getting attached to the people.

The author is Former CEO of Reliance Tech Services.

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I have been making a few public presentations for the last few months to external audiences on: “The day-in-the-life of a CIO – how to get there and stay there”