CIO 3.0

S P I N E

CTO FORUM

Technology for Growth and Governance

December | 07 | 2010 | 50 Volume 06 | Issue 08

IMPROVING DATA GOVERNANCE | OF PRIVATE JETS AND SUPERMARKETS | GET EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE

RS R-MANAGE E P U S E M HE BECO CIOS HAVE ESS FOR T

BUSIN F THE TOP OF IT AND E. 25 O THEIR ENTERPRIS RS SHAREO SPECIAL IT LEADEO VER TW . | PAGE 28 S T H G U O H T ISSUES YEAR-END PART 01

Volume 06 | Issue 08

A QUESTION OF ANSWERS

NEXT HORIZONS

Into the Tech Heartland Irritants PAGE 14

A 9.9 Media Publication

PAGE 55

TECH FOR GOVERNANCE

Choosing a Security Consultancy PAGE 66

EDITORIAL RAHUL NEEL MANI | rahul.mani@9dot9.in

From One of Your Own Closing the year with a big bang.

Y

ear 2010 is almost at an end. It too will have its share if things not done, but what I'm sure will stay with us for years to come will be the effort that bore fruit during the year – the projects that gave us a real sense of accomplishment.

We at CTO Forum sought to keep you company on this journey, in your quest for excellence.

We made genuine efforts to help you find insights through the experience of your own peers.

We brought you features, reallife case studies, interviews and

EDITOR'S PICK 28

opinions from people in India and around the world.

When I and my team were planning the December [year end] issues of the magazine, we wanted to do something extraordinary. It should encourage you, help you, maybe even scold you to never lose sight of the larger picture of CIOs as change makers way beyond the IT enterprise.

That's how we decided to invite a CIO, one of your respected peers, as our ‘Guest Editor’ who could guide, men-

CIO 3.0

You think CIOs have moved from being managers of IT to enablers of business? 25 CIOs over two special year-end issues, pen their thoughts.

tor and (if required) criticize us. Trust me, this was no stunt.

The idea wasn’t new as some dailies and business magazines have already experimented with it. For us, this wasn't about 'Jazzing up' our issues: clearly if we wanted our message to get across, it had to come from someone YOU recognised and respected, and we had to work hard before Vijay Sethi, CIO of Hero Honda finally agreed to come on board as our first Guest Editor – for the two December 2010 issues.

We began with a bang, but many unforeseen hurdles (which we are still grappling with) came between us and success. The plan (which continues in the next issue as well) was to get 25-30 CIOs to write on topics mostly outside the technology domain. Some of our contributors turned in their copies well on time, and

followed Sethi's guidelines properly. Others, who weren’t comfortable writing, talked to us, reviewed our drafts and then signed off on their copies. A few didn't like the idea and courteously declined.

In the end, we are proud to say we were largely successful.

Here’s the first of the two-part cover feature: CIO 3.0 for your perusal. I hope you’ll like the idea, and the effort that has gone into producing this. The next issue will conclude this feature and will be accompanied by the results of our second annual CIO Survey. As always, I eagerly await your feedback so that this engagement becomes even more intensive and meaningful.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

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DECEMBER 10 THECTOFORUM.COM

COV E R D E S I G E N BY P C A N O O P

CONTE NTS

28 COVER STORY

28 | CIO 3.0

COLUMNS

You think CIOs have moved from being managers of IT to enablers of business?

25 CIOs over two special year-end issues, pen their thoughts.

04 | I BELIEVE: CIO: BUSINESS LEADER OR TECHNOLOGY PIONEER?Sarabjit Anand Head IT, Standard Chartered Bank on how CIOs need to speak business.

65 | HIDDEN TANGENT: CHROME LINING ON THE CLOUD Google introduces the Cr-48 Chrome Notebook.

BY GEETAJ CHANNANA

Please Recycle This Magazine And Remove Inserts Before Recycling

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COPYRIGHT, All rights reserved: Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. is prohibited.

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CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

FEATURES

66 | TECH FOR GOVERNANCE: CHOOSING A RIGHT SECURITY CONSULTANT Key points to remember.

BY JAVVAD MALIK

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

www.thectoforum.com Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Kanak Ghosh Publishing Director: Anuradha Das Mathur EDITORIAL Editor-in-chief: Rahul Neel Mani Executive Editor: Geetaj Channana Resident Editor (West & South): Ashwani Mishra Senior Editor: Harichandan Arakali Correspondent: Nipun Sahrawat DESIGN Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Binesh Sreedharan Associate Art Director: Anil VK Sr. Visualisers: PC Anoop, Santosh Kushwaha Sr. Designers: Prasanth TR, Anil T Suresh Kumar, Joffy Jose & Anoop Verma Designer: Sristi Maurya Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

14 A QUESTION OF ANSWERS

14 | Into the Heartland

Mahindra & Mahindra Financials is taking the banking expertise of a modern India corporation to the millions who live in Bharat.

55

62

REGULARS

01 | EDITORIAL 08 | ENTERPRISE ROUND-UP advertisers’ index

55 | NEXT HORIZONS: TECH-IRRITANTS Technology for humans should be easy not annoying.

BY PATTY AZZARELLO

62 | NO HOLDS BARRED: PETER COFFEE, HEAD OF PLATFORM RESEARCH, SALESFORCE. COM on how private cloud is like a private jet.

MICROSOFT REVERSE FOLD EMC IFC APC 5 SAS 7 SCHNIEDER 11 SUN 13 IBM 17 BEETEL TELETECH 19 SYBASE 21 ACE DATA 25 LG IBC CANON BC

ADVISORY PANEL Ajay Kumar Dhir, CIO, JSL Limited Anil Garg, CIO, Dabur David Briskman, CIO, Ranbaxy Mani Mulki, VP-IS, Godrej Industries Manish Gupta, Director, Enterprise Solutions AMEA, PepsiCo India Foods & Beverages, PepsiCo Raghu Raman, CEO, National Intelligence Grid, Govt. of India S R Mallela, Former CTO, AFL Santrupt Misra, Director, Aditya Birla Group Sushil Prakash, Country Head, Emerging Technology-Business Innovation Group, Tata TeleServices Vijay Sethi, VP-IS, Hero Honda Vishal Salvi, CSO, HDFC Bank Deepak B Phatak, Subharao M Nilekani Chair Professor and Head, KReSIT, IIT - Bombay Vijay Mehra, Former Global CIO, Essar Group SALES & MARKETING VP Sales & Marketing: Naveen Chand Singh National Manager-Events and Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) Product Manager: Rachit Kinger (9818860797) GM South: Vinodh K (09740714817) Senior Manager Sales (South): Ashish Kumar Singh GM North: Lalit Arun (09582262959) GM West: Sachin Mhashilkar (09920348755) Kolkata: Jayanta Bhattacharya (09331829284) PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS Sr. GM. Operations: Shivshankar M Hiremath Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics: MP Singh, Mohd. Ansari, Shashi Shekhar Singh OFFICE ADDRESS Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Kanak Ghosh.

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Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur For any customer queries and assistance please contact help@9dot9.in

This index is provided as an additional service.The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

CTO FORUM 07 SEPTEMBER 2010

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THE AUTHOR, HAS close to two decades of experience in the technology, ITES/BPO environment in a bank.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JITEN GANDHI

I BELIEVE

BY SARABJIT ANAND Head IT, Standard Chartered Bank

CIO: Business Leader or Technology Pioneer?

CIOs need to speak business, while keeping a firm grip on technology.

IT IS A natural tendency for technology professionals to talk jargon and sound technical. IT is ingrained in their basic DNA, so they can easily understand and get excited about new technologies and concepts.

The world has changed and it is imperative for these professionals to transform into people who also fluently speak the language of business.

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THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

CURRENT CHALLENGE IT IS IMPERATIVE FOR IT PROFESSIONALS TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

I must say, that this transition is easier said then done, but a conscious effort can really do wonders.

To speak the language of business, we need to understand the business first. As we go through this learning, we need to apply these thoughts in terms of the services and products that we deliver. This will certainly help us simplify what we want to communicate and the manner in which it needs to be said.

What does this transformation entail, then?

This transformation means creating a business model that is flexible, resilient, scalable and strong enough to explore opportunities for profitable growth. 'Strong' in this context relates to people, process and technology capabilities that form the core enablers of an organisation's move forward. Business models need to be aligned with customer needs, changes in the market, enhanced productivity, market share and profitability.

This transformation will help us to contribute in two ways. One, we will be able to drive top-line growth through improved customer value, innovation and speed to market. Secondly, improve bottom-line through operational excellence through consolidation, standardisation and automation.

IT has become a vital enabler to spearhead business growth and bring process stability. In the past decade, technology has helped the industry scale new heights. It helped organisations streamline processes, improve productivity and manage risks better and simultaneously expand their geographical reach and business coverage at a much lower cost.

To conclude, as technology preofessionals, it is imperative for us to think, act and talk business. A CIO has to be more of a business leader than a technology pioneer.

LETTERS TE LECOM

COVE R S TO RY

CASE STUDY

DEEPER INSIGHTS

PRIVA CY, BETT ESS ANAL YTICS

Amrita Gangotra CIOs Director-Information Technology ( India of comp Indian teland South Asia), Bharti Airtel ani their IT es are reiecom exploit strategies, nventing ing ana NUMB ER PO lytics, 3G and into RTA his back-end systems. By doing this, New Paths BILITY SOChadha's CIA , business functeam aided other At Vodafone Essar Ltd., India's second largto attract L ME tions as well asDIA catered to Vodafone's cusest GSM mobile service provider, director of and cus tomers tomersreta in and enhanced their experience. The IT Navin Chadha saw that he could integrate | the intelligence the company gleaned via its social media efforts and provided feeds

PAGE 25 effort paid off in helping Vodafone discover complaints that were going unnoticed and

NAVIN CHADH A Vodafone Essar

ROI | INTEL

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

| 21 | 2010 | 50 e 06 | Issue 07

Volum

DIE

IT strategies in sync with business goals and all the while keeping customers happy.

They all agree that innovation will play a AMRITA GANGO TRAin helping their companies stand vital Bhartirole Airtel out for all the right reasons, in the eyes of the customer.

| BUSIN

—Amrita Amrita Gangotra

Director-Information Technology ( India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel

November

INNOV A OR TE

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

CTO FORUM 21 NOVEMBER 2010

PHOTO BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

LESS RITY

CTO FORUM 21 NOVEMBER 2010

“WE SEE MORE CONSUMPTION OF SUCH (APP) SERVICES IN SMALLER CITIES AS THERE IS HUNGER FOR CONNECTIVITY AND INFORMATION. THERE IS A PENT-UP DEMAND FOR THE MODEL.”

ER SECU

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with the call to an agent’s desktop, where it appears in a pop-up window. The solution helped the company segment calls based on various factors such as product or service, preferred language, and the caller’s overall value (for instance, a Platinum customer) and route the call to an appropriately skilled agent. This helped increase the first-time resolution (FTR) rate substantially. With millions of customer calls, it translates into significant savings in time and money.

That these incremental innovations are happening all the time establishes only one thing: CIOs in these companies must shoulder the added responsibilities of cutting cost of IT services and keeping their

FOR UM

Tech all the way But what do these figures mean for the CIOs of Bharti Airtel Ltd., Vodafone Essar Ltd., Reliance Communications Ltd., and other leading wireless services providers in the country.

They are on their feet at all time. IT has to meet both customers' needs and expectations, be innovative, and churn out new services and products in the shortest possible time as conventional revenue sources slowly give way to new services and applications. Declining Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is also a major concern for them.

“In such a scenario, understanding customer profiles and their needs is important,” says Amrita Gangotra, Director-Information Technology (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel. “We are looking at how IT can help increase revenue as voice ARPUs decrease and we need to offer other services that will compensate them.”

For example, Airtel was able to resolve customer queries and complaints via selfservice interactive voice response systems (IVRs) routed through a Customer Interaction Management (CIM) platform, which is linked to Airtel’s Oracle customer relationship management (CRM) solution. The caller’s account information is then sent along

For example, many device manuor us data analytics is a facturers offered customers app big ticket item. Unstrucstores deployed on mobile phones. tured analysis of data is Early this year we were the first fast gaining currency as Indian telecom operator to launch an important way to get customer a mobile applications store (Airtel insights. This involves elements App Central). This enabled Airtel such as recorded customer calls, mobile customers to transform emails, VOCs from chat sessions their basic phone into a Smart and blogs. Unstructured feeds can Phone by accessing over 1250 be complex to analyse and the Apps across 25 categories for their accuracy of their inferences can be business, games, books, social questionable. Building a marketing P I N E networking and other needs. OfferstrategyS based on deep customer ing an easy single click purchase insights can give a firm a powerful – with no credit card required – the competitive advantage. cost is automatically added to the While there are tools available customer’s mobile bill or deducted to examine such data to extract from the available talk-time. meaningful content, deciding on We see more consumption of the right approach and analysing such services in smaller cities as the data can make a lot of differthere is hunger for connectivity and ence. We have a major focus in information due to limited broadterms of how we need to segment band penetration in these parts of our customers and carry out camTech nology for Gro the country. This has clearly indipaigns. This will help us to have wth and cated that there is a huge pent-up better conversion rates and create Gov ernance demand for the model.

This will stickiness with our customers. increase the data usage and the With 3G on the horizon, the plan ARPUs around it. for us is to provide more services Everything on the network side is and data applications like video streaming, portal or Internet brows- moving towards an IP-based infrastructure and the application layer ing to make it more interesting for the customers. So we have to inno- is going to play the role of a differentiator. Managing and handling vate around how we can provide the scale is going to be a challenge services on the data aspect which that has to be dealt with on a reguwill interest the customers and crelar basis. ate more usage around the data services.

CTO

The penetration of mobile connections in India has skyrocketed in the last couple of years. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), India added more than 18 million subscribers in August alone this year, taking the total number of mobile users in the country to 670.6 million, which translates to close to 3 percent growth month on month, further consolidating India's position as the largest wireless market in the world after China.

Mobile services revenue in India will grow close to 20 percent this year to $19.8 billion, according to Gartner Inc. The Indian wireless industry is expected to score a doubledigit growth rate till the end of 2012 and the penetration of mobile connections is projected to reach 72.5 percent by 2012 and 82 percent by 2014.

CTOForum LinkedIn Group

F

he Indian telecommunications industry is an excellent example of how end users usually benefit from increased competition among service providers. If anything, the intensifying competition among the mobile phone services providers in India has left the consumers happy and always wanting more. If fact, they want the world from their service providers.

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ALPNA DOSHI Relianc Communicati e ons

Join close to 500 CIOs on the CTO Forum LinkedIn group for latest news and hot enterprise technology discussions.

Share your thoughts, participate in discussions and win prizes for the most valuable contribution. You can join The CTOForum group at:

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Some of the hot discussions on the group are: e 06 | Issue 07

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VIRTUAL ISATION Ba A 9.9

ng on

Media

Public

Target Bold and

ation

Virtua l Boost ing IT

Manag ement Lean and

Virtua l

KEY COMPETENCIES TO MAKE THE CIO A BUSINESS LEADER

Communication - Most important of all is the ability to communicate both internally and externally.

Change Management - Change is 70% Sociology and 30% Techonology. Ability to integrate, drive new ideas from top to bottom requires your ability to influence and socialise with business and create a atmosphere where everybody is a winner.

Does a CTO needs to be an expert on "security"? is network and information control part of that security matter ?

Of course, need to ensure that network communications will support the appropriate security protocols for the business. In addition, administrative access to network security and should be aware that, increasingly, these baseline capabilities must be built into organization that IT connects to the business network.

—Ashfaque Ahmad K. GM Information Technology RR Group Are CIOs the right architects of Change Management? If yes, How? A CIO is a bridge between IT and Business. He has to understand what changes will bring value to the organization and how it will impact other resources i.e process, applications, IT and People (Organization). This is the basic quality which has to be in a CIO.

—Sanjay Dhulia Sales Manager- India at Ids Scheer

CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

http://www. thectoforum.com/ content/lessprivacy-bettersecurity

BEYOND THE SUPPORT. IT can be a profit centre instead of just a cost centre.

“One needs to move away from quantifying the return, but look at qualitative improvement of the business process execution that IT is able to bring out.”

To read the full story go to:

WRITE TO US: The CTOForum values your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and how to make it a better read for you. Our endeavour continues to be work in progress and your comments will go a long way in making it the preferred publication of the CIO Community.

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Information is the lifeblood of not just corporations but organised crime terrorism, says Steve Durbin of the Information Security Forum in conversation with Rahul Neel Mani.

The ISF’s released its Threat Horizon Report, and Durbin says we may have to give up some individual privacy in return for responsible governance and security.

OPINION

D.D.MISHRA, HEAD IT-OUTSOURCING VODAFONE ESSAR

Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editor@thectoforum.com

CTOF Connect

CHANDRASEKARAN N SPECIAL DIRECTOR - IT ASHOK LEYLAND

http://www.thectoforum.com/content/ business-analytics-roi

FEATURE INISDE

Enterprise

Chip Technology Lights the Path to Exascale Computing Pg 10

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

ROUND-UP

Study Finds More Takers for Risk Frameworks. DSCI-KPMG find BPO firms

taking steps to free up CISOs for strategic work

INDIA'S BPO firms are increasingly adopting 'Third Party Risk Assessment Frameworks,' according to a survey by accounting firm KPMG and the Data Security Council of India, an industry body. The study, State of Data Security and Privacy in the Indian BPO Industry, conducted in a team up with Cert-In aimed to assess the current state of data security and privacy practices being adopted by the Indian BPO industry, KPMG and DSCI said in their statements earlier this month.

According to the survey, Indian organisations are taking a hard look at what they need to do to address

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CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

rising concerns over the security of their clients’ endcustomer data. Further, organisations are bridging the gaps in their security skills by availing services of external consultants for the specialised security tasks, according to the statement.

“It is encouraging to see that security leaders are getting increasingly involved in strategic business decision making, thereby reflecting the recognition of security as a business enabler,” said Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, DSCI. “A significant number of the surveyed organisations have reported presence of a dedicated privacy function.”

25% DATA BRIEFING

Predicted growth of PC shipment in India in 2011.

SOURCE: GARTNER

E NTE RPRI SE ROUND -UP

THEY JULIAN SAID IT ASSANGE

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

During an Internet chat with Spanish daily El Pais, Julian Assange, Founder of whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks asked Obama to resign if he had asked officials to spy on UN leaders.

India Public Cloud Sales to Grow 40 Percent. Adoption to touch 7 percent of enterprises by 2012.

THE INDIAN 'Public Cloud Computing' market was estimated to be $66.7 million in 2009 and projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% over the next five years to 2014, according to market research firm IDC’s October report, India Cloud Computing Market: Current State and Future Roadmap.

“In recent quarters, in the backdrop of the global economic slowdown, the phenomenon of Cloud Computing has gained wide interest amongst business leaders and CIOs,” said Kamal Vohra, Lead Analyst, Software and Services Research, IDC India, in a statement earlier this month. “The most attractive feature of this new technology deployment is the prospect of converting large, upfront capital investments in IT infrastructure into smaller, manageable 'pay-per-use' annuity payments. This feature has sparked a high degree of interest and debate amongst technology vendors, users and channel partners alike," Vohra said.

According to Indranil Dutta, Lead Analyst, User Research, IDC India, “As the market matures and more industry vertical specific and business function specific applications become available, we expect more and more Indian enterprises to see the benefit of adopting cloud computing solutions.”

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

QUICK BYTE ON GLOBAL WEB SECURITY

“Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign.”

—Julian Assange, Founder, Wikileaks

German prosecutors are accusing two local hackers of breaking into the computers of over 50 pop stars, including Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, Justin Timberlake and Ke$ha. The two hackers infected the machines with malware in order to steal files that had credit cards details, private pictures, emails and unreleased songs.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

E NTE RPRI SE ROUND -UP

Chip Technology Lights the Path to Exascale Computing. IBM Silicon Nanophotonics uses optical signals to connect chips together faster IBM scientists have unveiled a new chip technology that integrates electrical and optical devices on the same piece of silicon, enabling computer chips to communicate using pulses of light (instead of electrical signals), resulting in smaller, faster and more power-efficient chips than is possible with conventional technologies. The new technology, called CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics, is the result of a decade of

development at IBM's global Research laboratories, IBM said in a statement. The patented technology will change and improve the way computer chips communicate – by integrating optical devices and functions directly onto a silicon chip, enabling over 10X improvement in integration density than is feasible with current manufacturing techniques, according to the statement.

IBM anticipates this work by its scientists

GLOBAL TRACKER

E-reader Sales 11 mn.

Worldwide connected e-reader sales to end users

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CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

6.6 mn.

3.6 mn.

2009

2010

2011

SOURCE: COMSCORE

are forecast to total 6.6 million units in 2010, up 79.8 per cent from 2009 sales of 3.6 million units and surpass 11 million units in 2011, according to Gartner.

Yurii Vlasov, William Green and Solomon Assefa will dramatically increase the speed and performance between chips, and further the company's ambitious Exascale computing program, which is aimed at developing a supercomputer that can perform one million trillion calculations, or an Exaflop, in a single second. An Exascale supercomputer will be approximately one thousand times faster than the fastest machine today.

“The development of the Silicon Nanophotonics technology brings the vision of on-chip optical interconnections much closer to reality,” said T.C. Chen, vice president, Science and Technology, IBM Research, in the statement. “With optical communications embedded into the processor chips, the prospect of building power-efficient computer systems with performance at the Exaflop level is one step closer to reality.” In addition to combining electrical and optical devices on a single chip, the new IBM technology can be produced on the front-end of a standard CMOS manufacturing line and requires no new or special tooling.

With this approach, silicon transistors can share the same silicon layer with silicon nanophotonics devices. To make this approach possible, IBM researchers have developed a suite of integrated ultra-compact active and passive silicon nanophotonics devices that are all scaled down to the diffraction limit – the smallest size that dielectric optics can afford. “Our CMOS Integrated Nanophotonics breakthrough promises unprecedented increases in silicon chip function and performance via ubiquitous low-power optical communications between racks, modules, chips or even within a single chip itself,” said Vlasov, Manager of the Silicon Nanophotonics Department at IBM Research. “The next step in this advancement is establishing 'manufacturability' of this process in a commercial foundry using IBM deeply scaled CMOS processes.”

The development of CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics is the culmination of a series of related advancements by IBM Research that resulted in the development of deeply scaled front-end integrated Nanophotonics components for optical communications, IBM says.

E NTE RPRI SE ROUND -UP

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

New UC Portfolio Gets Boost. Acquisition adds innovative web conferencing and collaboration to OpenScape portfolio

SIEMENS Enterprise Communications has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire FastViewer GmbH & Co KG, extending its OpenScape Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) portfolio to include multimedia conferencing and collaboration solutions.

Based in Neumarkt, Germany, FastViewer is a

premier provider of software-based collaboration tools, delivering innovative, enterprise-grade collaboration in an extremely affordable and simple to use package.

FastViewer currently has channels in 12 countries and serves more than 4,000 customers.“Enterprises increasingly view web, video and mobile collaboration as critical components of their communications infrastructure for the cost savings and employee productivity improvements they provide,” said Chris Hummel, chief marketing officer of Siemens Enterprise Communications. “We have selected FastViewer to be part of our portfolio due to its highly efficient and simple to use application for enterprises that are looking for an affordable, flexible enterprise-grade solution. This acquisition further demonstrates our commitment to our open architecture UCC solution that is unparalleled in terms of functionality, reliability and end-to-end security.”

Siemens Enterprise Communications will offer the FastViewer solution under the name OpenScape Web Collaboration, as part of the newly updated OpenScape UC Suite 2011 edition. The OpenScape UC Suite includes a set of collaboration, mobility, video and other tools to securely and reliably deliver improved productivity and significant cost savings to enterprises.“FastViewer’s collaboration solution fits nicely with the Siemens Enterprise Communications OpenScape portfolio. The combination of the two portfolios will deliver the most advanced communication and collaboration solution available to date based on an open platform which provides maximum flexibility and ease of use,” said Steven Fursch, CEO of FastViewer.

FACT TICKER

India PC Shipments To Grow 25%. New device launches, robust delivery by vendors fuel growth.

INDIA PC shipments will total 13.2 million units in 2011, a 24.7% increase from 2010, according to the latest fore forecast by Gartner.

PC demand is growing beyond India’s largest cities. Vendors are seeing an increasing demand from smaller cities in India where PC penetration has grown considerably. Rising income

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and declining PC prices are significantly contributing to this growth. Gartner estimates that roughly 35 percent of PC vendor revenue today comes from Tier III and IV cities. This will grow to 50 percent by the end of 2013.

“There is an increased aspiration to own a PC in India. The younger generation is contributing to the large scale

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

adoption of PCs in India in a significant way,” said Vishal Tripathi, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner. “Besides reading and surfing the Internet, the usage of PCs for watching movies, listening to music, and gaming are playing a pivotal role in driving demand.”

By the fourth quarter of 2011 mobile PCs will outgrow desk-based PCs in India, though the total number of desk-based shipments will be higher than mobile PC. In 2011, the deskbased PC market will grow 5 percent totaling 7.2 million units year-on-year, and mobile PC shipments will grow 61 percent with 5.9 million units.

MS LYNC

Microsoft has released its unified communications tool, Microsoft Lync, a single platform that integrates instant messaging, presence, audio, video and web conferencing, and voice, according to a company statement last month.

“Lync delivers on our vision to unify all of the modes of modern business communication, giving people a more collaborative, ‘in person,’ experience with features like HD video, conference recording, and social features like status updates and activity feeds,” said Sanjay Manchanda, Director – Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft India, in the statement.

Microsoft Lync Top Features include High Definition video including Audio/Video federation with Windows Live and Kinect and integration with SharePoint, Exchange and Office Microsoft Lync Online will be available as part of Office 365, with voice capabilities available in 2011. Lync Online will include instant messaging, presence, audio and video conferencing, and PC-to-PC voice calls.

Microsoft Lync is the new family brand for the products formerly known as Microsoft Communications Server, Microsoft Communications Online and Microsoft Communicator, and now also includes Microsoft Lync Web App, and Microsoft Lync Online.

A QUESTION OF ANSWERS

RAMESH IYER

Into the

RAMESH IYER | MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA FINANCIALS

Heartland PHOTOS BY JITEN GANDHI

Mahindra & Mahindra Financials is taking the banking expertise of a modern Indian corporation to the millions who live in Bharat, says Ramesh Iyer, Managing Director of the biggest non-banking finance company in rural India. Mahindra will soon start an asset management company focused on the rural market, Iyer tells Ashwani Mishra in an interview.

14

As the MD of the company, what are your expectations from IT? Technology has a critical role to play in providing our customers the best services in a user-friendly manner.

IT, essential to timely delivery of services, also plays an important role in managing the quality of business, and profitability. Managing credits, reliability, asset liability and risk are

CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

some of the aspects of profitability. At the same time pooling data from the thousand of branches, and ensuring that this data is consolidated and can be used for the purpose of analysis, interpretation and taking informed decisions is what I expect from IT. IT must design systems that provide operational flexibility. Only then can innovative ideas translate quickly to changes in products and

services for customers.

I have always viewed technology as an enabler. It facilitates rapid growth while enhancing the service experience to our customers. I expect IT to deliver on all the project initiatives that help meet this objective in a timely and cost-effective manner.

On Governance and Transparency: A robust IT infrastructure is also vital to good governance and transpar-

STEVE DURBIN

A QUESTION OF ANSWERS

IT the enabler: IT must design systems that provide operational flexibility.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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A QUESTION OF ANSWERS

RAMESH IYER

ency. One of the tasks IT has is to help a company configure the systems that will enable better governance. With such systems in place, the scope of manual interventions is reduced and so are the problems associated with them.

Internally, we look at IT to ensure better practices, faster dissemination of information, and better management of our finances. This also supplements the efforts of others within the organisation and helps them realise that there exists an environment of good governance supported by quick and accurate information flow.

You've increased local hiring in rural areas – a sign that business there is ramping up perhaps? How's this panning out?

We have always focused on inclusive growth, in terms of business and employment opportunities in all the markets where we operate. Customers in the low-income groups have proved to be a catalyst to step up rural growth. Hiring local candidates has also helped us gain the trust of customers and business associates.

The company currently drives more than 80 percent of volumes from rural markets and we have tapped around 2,00,000 villages through 500 branches.

With rural market growing at 30 to 35 percent and with liquidity in the hands of the farmers, we decided that the rural focus had to be stepped up to expand business volumes. The growth in the rural markets has also helped the company bring in more people into the credit system.

What are the IT solutions that you are currently offering the workforce in these rural areas?

The company has offered 5,000 hand-held devices that are connected by GPRS to a central server that offers information to handle

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“IT facilitates rapid growth while enhancing the service experience to our customers.”

customer queries for our collection executives.

This also enables better internal checks and controls. Our monthly receivables are around 500 crore rupees, of which more than 80 percent is in cash. Around 91 percent of the total 500 branches are online.

Besides collecting cash, we also provide services to customers in terms of providing statement of accounts, calculating internal rate of return (IRR) through mobile branches. We are designing products according to the needs of the consumer, keeping in mind that there would be huge volumes involved.

You have already applied for a banking license. What changes can we expect in terms of your business strategy and how will IT support them?

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

THINGS I BELIEVE IN Governance A robust IT infrastructure is vital to good governance and transparency.

Empowering We look at IT to ensure better practices, faster dissemination of information, and better management of our finances.

Profitability IT plays an important role in managing the quality of business, and profitability.

Yes, we have applied for a license for setting up an asset management company, and expect an in-principle approval by the end of this financial year. We have one million customers and we are adding 25,000-30,000 customers each month. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to take financial products to this market.

In terms of IT, our branches are geared up with the latest technology systems and some of them already function as a standard bank branch office.

BEST OF

No one group can make the determination of what information to keep or when to dispose.

PHOTO BY PHOTOS.COM

BREED

AUTHOR SAYS

DATA BRIEFING

33% MORE SPENDING ON EDISCOVERY BY COMPANIES WITHOUT DATA GOVERNANCE STRATEGIES

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Improving Data Governance

Discussing a New Framework for Defensible Disposal.

BY LORRIE LUELLIG DEIDRE PAKNAD

A

ccording to analyst firm Gartner, data governance is the way to mitigate ediscovery problems. In fact, they predict that companies without data governance strategy and technology in place will spend one third more on ediscovery than their peers (Cooperation is Key for Managing Ediscovery, THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

March 2010). Gartner rightly identifies data volume and IT environmental complexity as the two sources of high cost and high risk in discovery.

In some companies, data growth started to spike at the same point that legal hold obligations and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were revised because “save everything” was the risk mitigation

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plan. During the last five years there has been a 50% year over year growth of data volume. IDC now predicts an even greater acceleration of this growth, forecasting an increase in data volume by a factor of 44 in the next ten years.

Historically, IDC consistently understates its growth projections. This far outpaces revenue growth so the tension between the “keep everything” risk mitigation plan and the company’s financial condition is rapidly mounting. New strategies and tactics to drive better data governance at more reasonable cost to the company are required.

Employee turnover very high 1000s of servers and 1000s of IT staff Spreadsheet tracking of custodian lists Phone and email notes

Cooperation, collaboration and convergence

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THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

"Keep everything" approach instituted to avoid recurrance Late awareness requires unfortunate disclosures Outside counsel invoved in SSS recovery effort

Discovery costs increase with volume Data managment costs increase with volume Process did not improve Risk did not decrease

Employees overlooked or their depature missed IT moves or retires data on hold improperly

to link legal obligations for information that arise in litigation and regulation and the business value of information to their actual information and data management practices. They lack structural connections of holds and retention schedules to data and they lack collaborative and transparent processes between the stakeholder organisations. This is a predictable result to "keep everything", which results in massive and often mindless build up of more information without the corresponding reduction in risk initially sought.

IMRM – A catalyst for transparency and a responsibility model - The information management and reference model IMRM will be as important as EDRM as a catalyst for process improvement.

25%

IT outpaces Revenue Growth

Change in IT Spending

Data governance requires cooperation, collaboration and convergence of processes between legal, RIM (records and information management), IT and business groups.

Collectively, these stakeholders can and must determine what legal duties apply to information, what value the information has and then manage accordingly. As individual or isolated functions, no one group can make the determination of what information to keep or when to dispose.

A recent survey conducted by EDRM and CGOC revealed, however, that while there is complete agreement between legal, RIM and IT that defensible disposal is the benefit of good data governance practice, there are many organisational and operational barriers today: 100% of survey respondents agreed that defensible disposal was the purpose of data governance practice.

Most of IT and half of RIM respondents said their current responsibility model for data governance didn’t work.

80% of respondents had little or very weak linkage between legal obligations for information and records management and data management.

Only 13% had a systematic process for linking holds to sources of data and records.

80% had retention schedules that applied to electronic information, but only 38% said IT followed these schedules.

The single biggest pain point cited by legal, RIM and IT was lack of transparency and collaboration across stakeholders What these results so clearly demonstrate is that companies are struggling

Company data volume increases Collected data volume increases

Tribal knowledge used to determine scope of legal holds

-25%

Revenue Growth outpaces IT -25%

Change in Revenue

25%

In many ways, it is more ambitious and constructive because it goes beyond the legal function to the enterprise. Unlike traditional information lifecycle and case lifecycle models (including EDRM), IMRM illuminates the multiple stakeholders in data governance, their responsibilities and interdependencies, and the critical importance of linking legal duties and business value to information sources to enable defensible disposal. More than 90% of survey respondents felt IMRM could help them organise cross-functional efforts and serve as a management catalyst -- its primary purpose.

The “first generation” model is a responsibility model that helps to identify the stakeholders, define their respective “stake” in information and highlights the intersection and dependence across these stakeholders.

IMRM can provide a framework for cross functional and executive dialogue and can serve as a catalyst for defining a unified governance approach to information that links value and duty to information assets.

Elements of IMRM - As you will see in the diagram above, the information basics are distilled out and at the center of the model (with the notable inclusion of “dispose” as the end state of information). Note the

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“information gates” in the middle, where information accumulates.

The business segment has an interest in information proportional to its value or the degree to which it helps drive the profit or purpose of the enterprise itself. Once that value expires, they quickly lose interest in managing it, cleaning it up, or paying for it to be stored. One of the things that the IMRM does is distinguish value from regulatory obligation or IT efficiency. The diagram defines the business group’s responsibility to define and declare the specific value of information; all data doesn’t have value and the value of data isn’t constant.

Legal and RIM on the left side are chartered typically to manage risk for the company. The diagram underscores that it is legal's responsibility to define what to put on hold and what and when to collect data for discovery. Likewise, it is RIM’s responsibility to ensure that regulatory obligations for information are met including what to retain and archive for how long.

Together they both play an enormous role in how information is maintained by IT and when companies can dispose of it. As with the business segment, it calls on legal and RIM to be specific about the duties for information -- what they are and when those duties end.

IT stores and secures information under their management. Of course, their focus is efficiency and they’re typically under huge pressure to increase efficiency and lower cost. One of the most valuable aspects of the diagram is that it highlights that, without collaboration and unified governance, IT

UNIFIED GOVERNANCE Business Profit VALUE

Create Use DUTY

LEGAL

ASSET

Hold, Discover

RETAIN Archive

Risk

IT

Dispose

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Efficiency

N IO AND EXECUT

RIM Risk

doesn’t know and can’t speak to what information has value or what duties apply to specific information. Typical legal hold and retention practices don’t connect to IT data management practices.

For companies with hundreds or thou-

There are more than a billion choices for what information in which systems is of value or subject to a legal duty. IMRM can help companies recognise that for IT to manage data efficiently, it is essential to link specific duties and business value to the information assets.

22

Store secure

sands of legal matters, hundreds of codes on their retention schedule and which operate in multiple countries that have thousands of file shares, SharePoint sites, ECM and business applications, this is an impossible situation for IT. There are more than a billion choices for what information in which systems is of value or subject to a legal duty.

IMRM can help companies recognise that for IT to manage data efficiently, it is essential to link specific duties and business value to the information assets.

The inner ring of the diagram calls for that structural linkage of duty and value to information assets. This requires policies that can be articulated in departmental procedure and are executable by IT in practice; and specific rather than generic communication of legal holds and retention requirements that enables enterprise execution and disposal.

The outer rings of the diagram call for unified governance, which implies:

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ment; and assessing true cost 1.Transparent cross-funcof information and discovery by tional processes for legal holds, business unit to enable practice discovery, record retention, improvements and behavior information value assessments, change. and information and data manHAD A SYSTEMATIC The IMRM can help start the agement.

PROCESS FOR conversation in your company 2.The end of a silo approach to legal holds and record retenLINKING HOLDS TO and the associated information governance process matution practices -- these are enterSOURCES OF DATA rity model can help companies prise rather than departmental AND RECORDS. assess where they are today and processes. set the course for improvement.

3.Unified vocabulary across The process maturity model stakeholders which recognises offers a plan of action tied directly to process and reconciles their different interests in risk and cost, so stakeholders understand information the implications of current practice and the These enable stakeholders to understand benefits of change. true costs and to make better decisions, which reduce total cost through more precise determination of what to preserve and — Lorrie Luellig is of counsel to, and a founding collect; optimal approaches for streamlinmember of, the Ryley Carlock & Applewhite ing and even consolidating data manageDocument Control Group. Lorrie has extensive

13%

experience counseling clients about retention policies and procedures for both litigation related matters and overall company operations.

Deidre Paknad is CEO of PSS Systems, an IBM company, and is widely credited with having launched the first commercial applications for legal holds, collections and retention management in 2004. She founded the CGOC in 2004, a professional community on retention and preservation that IDC labeled a "think tank". She has been a member of several Sedona working groups since 2005 and leads EDRM IMRM sub-group 6. Deidre has been inducted into the Smithsonian Institution for technology innovation twice.

To see more articles on this or any topic affecting IT today, please visit www.cioupdate.com, a premier destination site for CIOs, CTOs, and IT executives from around the world.

MENTOR’S VIEW VIJAY SETHI | VICE PRESIDENT IS & CIO, HERO HONDA MOTORS LTD. guesteditor@thectoforum.com

DOSSIER COMPANY: Hero Honda Motors Ltd. ESTABLISHED: 1984 IS A joint venture of: Hero Group, India and Honda Motor Company, Japan PRODUCTS: Two-wheelers NETWORK: 4500 customer touch points across India

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V I J AY S E T H I

MENTOR’S VIEW

A Tough Choice

Thinking of technology and maintaining it in the backroom marked the old era. Thinking about business strategy, value, EBITDA and shareholder value is the new normal for a CIO.

PHOTO BY SUBHOJIT PAUL

T

wo questions that almost always come up in any CIO discussion: a) What next for the CIO – is it “Career Is Over?” and b) Can CIOs make it to the Board?

To my mind – these questions are linked and the answer to both of them lies in a simple choice – a choice that each CIO makes for himself or herself.

The choice is about whether the CIO considers himself or herself a Technologist who ensures IT works at all times (be it servers, storage, LAN, WAN, internet, e-mail or applications), or a Business Leader who has a good understanding of technology and one who has to work with other business leaders in the organization on how IT can be used to help business achieve its objectives.

That choice will determine if it is really “Career Is Over” or “Career Is (now full of) Opportunities” – including being on the board or being a CEO. If one is asked to make a choice – obviously everyone would like to go for the second option but it is easier said than

done. Why I say that is because all of us know this option for ages but how many CIOs actually have made it to the board, how many are actually business leaders in their own right, how many of them have actually become CEOs – it is not that the number is zero, but it is not a very significant number either.

So, why is it that while we know the option that is good for us we still don't take it. I think an important reason for that is that we feel secure in the ‘comfort zone’ of technology – most of us feel comfortable when we talk about servers or networks, about RAM and hard disks or when we are among IT people, but we get tongue-tied or feel out of place when we are in business meetings, when the discussions relate to areas such as business strategy, business benefits, ROI, EBIDTA, shareholder value, and market conditions. I think a justification that we give thereof is that as IT people – our grooming has been more ‘inward’ looking while most ‘business managers’ would be ‘outward looking.’

There are many other reasons or justifications... but it is not that no one has made it – there are many examples today. For them, I am reminded of a poem

by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken – “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both... I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” It's the same for CIOs, the ones who have taken the path less travelled have made the difference.

I believe that each one of us can make this difference, and for that a CIO needs a number of other Cs as well, the most prominent in my view being Conviction, Commitment, Communication, Competence, Confidence, Creativity and Courage. Many of us have all these, I think only that extra bit is required.

Talking about Cs, let me also talk about another C – CTO Forum. Rahul approached me sometime back with this ‘innovative idea’ – of having a Guest Editor and asked me if I would like to take it up. There were

two important reasons for why I agreed: a.It would give me some insight into an area (publications) which till now had been a black box for me b.It would motivate me to read all the articles contributed – as most of the times one reads a few articles, glances through a few and skips many. Here as Guest Editor – I read each article with fascination (and concentration) and must confess I got some great insights.

Thank you each of the contributors and thank you Rahul for this opportunity and the CTOF team for all the support and back-end work. I can now tell you all that being an editor is not an easy job, and we always thought it was not easy being a CIO. I look forward to your response to this and also the next issue of the magazine.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

Best Wishes —Vijay Sethi Vice President IS and CIO, Hero Honda Motors Limited.

CTO FORUM 07 DECEMBER 2010

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COV E R S TO RY

First of the two part CIO 3.0 cover feature includes 12 CIOs from various verticals and different parts of the world talking about their

experiences on elevating the role of CIOs in the organisation. We hope they would show you the mirror and act as a crystal ball into the future at the same time.

P PC AN OO TI ON BY IL LU ST RA

I N S I D E

30 | Keep it Simple 32 | Stop Being an Order Taker 34 | Value Opportunity and Speed 36 | Split in the Middle 38 | The CIO as Earth Champion 40 | When Projects Fail 42 | CIO as Nation Builder 44 | Partners in Business 46 | Chief Business Enablers 48 | Melt Resistance, Use ICE 50 | Least Preferred Enabler 52 | When IT Meets Business

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2

009 and a good part of 2010 was a year of great revelation. For the first time in my career I realised that IT plays a significant role beyond just productivity or tooling, a goal entrusted to us to help the company stay competitive in the market.

The adage so true for IT professionals – to seek opportunities, cost cuts and speed – turns out to be truer now than before. I would also add another principle, which is simplicity, to complicate the 3 point agenda even further: It does not need a lot of skilling/ re-skilling yourself to be able to match up to these expectations of the business in trying times.

What are the traits that a CIO has to deal with agility, frugality and opportunity: I work for a telecom service provider so my examples will pertain to the telecom service industry in general, but can be used elsewhere as well.

COST All IT managers have these three skills.

Remember the day when your management or boss never expected a certain percentage cut in costs from you? At least I can’t remember that day, maybe one day we will only be expected to spend, so I see nothing difficult in doing this. But what is challenging then to attain this objective?

A normal process of cost cutting, which is budget versus actual status, and driving

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THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

In order to deliver the most on the three fronts a CIO is always familiar with – cost cuts, speed and opportunities – keep it simple. BY TAMAL CHAKRAVORTY

your teams to get good negotiations is not the only route to reach this goal. It is understood and expected of you to do it. Business expects you to deliver cost cuts through a systematic process of reviewing all your deliverables, costs of the delivery and if that is actually core to running your IT function.

There are times you will be surprised that it will throw up compelling cases to cut costs further. So this is actually a drill down into how you run a function and see if you can further scavenge left-overs that are unimportant but eat into your resources.

In my current company I realised that the PC to man ratio was at 1.22 which means every man has 0.22 machines more than he should get. If you multiply the number of heads with this ratio you will find that the costs hidden in this are as follows: 1. Cost of hardware (leasing cost of outright purchase cost) 2. Depreciation for outright purchase cost 3. Cost of asset reconciliation or physical verification 3. Cost of service 4. LAN ports

5. If used at users’ homes it also means cost of connectivity to your office systems and therefore service desk calls being generated 6. Printing costs for these additional machines 7. Monitors, spares, licenses If you put all of these together you will realise that for 25% additional machines you are actually spending 25% costs over and above what you should pay for servicing users. Of course, all users are VIPs and need these machines, but if you ask them for justification and find ways to meet their requirements you will see most of them returning the assets. We have found a way of doing this effectively. We have transferred all the assets to the employee’s name and he remains liable till the day he resigns. This makes him actually think about the implications of owning more compute assets – fear of loss is too large for him to overlook. Compounded by the fact that the unit heads or cost centre heads get reports on how much more they spend for these 'extras.' This is just a small example, you may find more such examples, which you may have overlooked.

IMAGING : ANIL T

OPPORTUNITY

SPEED

A while back one of my bosses used to say “Stay foolish, Stay nervous.” Great maxim.

Keeps you nimble footed looking for oppor-tunities to cash in on. Opportunities are not in the realm of business development alone but also in back end functions like ours.

Look for opportunities to team up with your peers in the business.

We spotted an opportunity to help the company’s sustainability agenda. We pushed a telepresence and videoconferencing agenda. You will be surprised with the offtake of telepresence. Our top management have used it well, and overall we have saved around Rs. 2.6 million in one month along with the environmental benefits that come along with it. We have also taken the opportunity to work with our services sales team to build a model for a pre-sales bid from an IT stack point of view. This model works well and we are able to capture project management details for all the managed services or outsourcing bids. Outsourcing is a good way of freeing yourself up to spend more time in the business to look for these opportunities.

Absolutely pertinent in today’s world. Speed is all about decision making, quicker turnaround time and be able to deliver applications or infrastructure or maybe a new service at breakneck speed. That’s only possible if you have expert bodies within your function to take charge and accomplish. Speed comes from simplicity. If the architecture is simple to create and use then new services can easily be bundled on top of it. Therefore, skilling on architecture designing and ability to understand is important for a CIO. An example of speed is our in-sourcing of various contracts from our service operators.

We have modularised work space design, far end design and basic support services.

It is like a quick call-off when we are given information on a new deal that our company may have signed up. The whole setup process is only about 1 month, barring a few cases where PC/laptops may get delivered late. We have our Citrix farms and applications ready to in-take more numbers at the click of a button.

“Stay foolish, Stay nervous.”Great maxim. Keeps you nimble footed looking for opportunities to cash in on.

—Tamal Chakravorty CIO, Ericsson India

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COVE R S TO RY

INTERVIEW

From MIS/ERP/Data Centre head to vital contributor to the business, how has CIO's role evolved?

From someone who ensured that systems and applications were up and running – an order taker for what business colleagues wanted – to a frontline technology expert who can talk the language of business, the CIO has come a long way in the 25 years since the role first emerged. This also means the CIO, instead of looking at what has already happened, is increasingly focusing on what is likely to happen, the MIS is making way for business intelligence.

The role of the CIO had evolved from operations manager to internal consultant.

The order taker on what business required from systems and applications has evolved into a 'chief innovation officer' – an enterprise leader who knows how to leverage information technology to drive top-line revenue and create sustainable business value.

The new business-savvy CIO has become a full c-suite partner, helps create and drive business strategy, leads innovation and knows how to acquire, develop and retain high-performance teams who are globally de- centralised and virtually connected ondemand. There has never been a more exciting time or a better opportunity to be a CIO. CEOs want the CIOs to look outside the company walls to find new business opportunities. Is this demand justified?

Most CEOs recognise that modern innovation is not about delivering better widgets but rather about evolving global business models – being more competitive by focusing their time, attention and energies upon sourcing customers, staff, and supply chain resources where ever in the world makes economic and good business sense. A major trend in today's enterprises into this 'new normal' involves leveraging collaborative partnerships with third parties (as opposed to outsourcing) which allow the enterprise to focus upon those core competencies that differentiate it in their chosen market and create a "value web" of external partners who can deliver, where appropriate, quality non-differentiated (commodity) services and related resources at a significantly reduced cost and time frame without impacting externally facing customer relationships.

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THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

“The inflection point for me in my own career came when I learnt how to speak the language of my business partners.”

CEOs are keenly aware that CIOs are uniquely qualified to drive these business models and supporting business process innovations and lead business change because CIOs are often the only functional executives who have an end-to-end view of the complete business processes that they support. CIOs also bring a highly disciplined framework and the necessary experience with managing complex re-engire-engi neering projects to support these changes to the fundamental operation of the business.

Based upon the research that we have perper formed at the Center for CIO Leadership, acquiring and building the skills required to develop effective relationships with external parties (including customers) is an area where many CIOs report meaningful opporoppor tunities and challenges. That said, businesssavvy CIOs are more and more becoming innovadrivers of this new form of business innova tion leaders of business change.

—Harvey Koeppel

Executive Director, Center for CIO Leadership

What did you do to be seen as a serious contributor to business growth and corporate strategy?

I believe that the inflection point for me

S top

order taker being a n

CIOs need to stop talking jargon to their business colleagues, says Harvey Koeppel, Executive Director, Center for CIO Leadership. Have conversations around the business benefits behind that jargon and you will immediately get active support right up to the CEO.

BY RAHUL NEEL MANI

in my own career came when I learned how to speak the language of my business partners. For example, I learned how to talk to the marketing and sales teams about new customer acquisition, cross-sell and up-sell, and needs-based sales approaches to relationship management. The conversation was no longer about customer MIS reports or selecting the best CRM system.

I learned how to talk to the CFO about our balance sheet, cash flow and earnings. The conversation was no longer only about streamlining the financial management system so that we could close in 5 business days instead of 3 weeks after month-end. I learned how to talk to our CEO about what business initiatives would positively impact the stock price, how to create sustainable shareholder value and how to ensure the safety and soundness of our operating environment, partner with our regulators and

still reduce our technology and operations budget year over year.

I knew that I had become a serious contributor to the business when I was invited to actively participate in the formulation of our business strategy because my c-suite peers acknowledged and respected my contributions, not just because I had a "C" in my title.

What does it mean for a CIO to be strategic? Does he need to think like a CEO or a CFO or what?

Here are some of the more popular uses of the term. Some would say that dealing with the day-to-day running of the IT and operations functions would be 'tactical' as compared with the CIO's involvement in enterprise-level initiatives that materially

impact the broader base of stakeholders (customers, staff, shareholders, citizenry, business partners), which would be considered 'strategic.' This definition would be closely associated with the notion that CIOs need to think like CEOs, CFOs and other c-suite partners since they are the executive management team who, by definition, must have an enterprise-wide view on most everything that they do. Another perspective of how CIOs can be considered strategic would be differentiating between those activities or initiatives that are in support of the enterprise's vision or mission, i.e. longerterm goals and objectives or 'roadmap,' as opposed to those programs or projects which are short-term tactical activities generally associated with keeping the lights on and running an efficient shop.

This distinction is often characterised by explicit budget allocation to new development or significant enhancement efforts (discretionary spending) versus allocations required to support the maintenance of the business-as-usual (non-discretionary spending) activities, for example, bug-fixes, minor enhancements, regulatory or compliancedriven enhancements, operational or data centre consolidations and so on. Another way to characterise the difference would be a skills-based view, where strategic CIOs are THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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COVE R S TO RY

OPINION

proficient and innovating and exploiting IT to support new business models, enter new markets, radically streamline processes, etc., while tactical CIOs are much more proficient at ensuring that the day-to-day operations are run smoothly and cost-effectively.

Research done by the Center in collaboration with IBM suggests that business-savvy CIOs need to be both strategic and tactical depending on the needs of the enterprise as driven by their mission, goals and objectives, industry outlook, competitive position, economic conditions. There are clearly times when CIOs must step into leadership roles to move their enterprise forward and there are other times when CIOs must focus on ensuring the safety and soundness of their IT and operations to provide a solid foundation for future business growth.

A CIO's thought leadership on business technology will only work if the business colleagues are receptive to those ideas. How do they work together?

The best way for CIOs to ensure that business leaders are open to their ideas on how technology can best support their business is to ensure that ideas are geared towards enabling tangible and measurable business benefit and that their ideas are communicated in business terms that their c-suite and other business partners can understand. For example, if a CIO attempts to talk to a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) about a new approach to data extract, transformation and load (ETL) or the latest technologies to enable better data warehouses using a service oriented architecture (SOA) the conversation will likely be a very short one with less than satisfying results for both parties. If, however, the CIO can explain how their idea for a new business initiative can reduce the cost of acquiring new customers from $1,200 to $500, can increase existing customer retention from 70 percent to 85 percent, can increase the average number of products per customer from 1.5 to 2.5, and that all of those benefits taken collectively can result in an increase in annual revenue by 13 percent while increasing annual earnings by 15 percent, the CMO be interested and engaged, and the CEO, CFO and the rest of the c-suite will be very interested in how to fund the effort.

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The power of ICT can be huge, with a little counter-intuitive application, says Painter, Strategic ICT Advisor. Many CIOs have done 'more with less for more' once they understood the opportunistic value of a problem and acted with speed.

T

he burst of the US housing bubble in 2007 triggered an era of turbulent economic times.

In the period between 2008 and 2009, summary measurements of economic activity reported concurrent declines in consumption, investment, spending and international trade. This contraction reflected in underlying drivers such as employment levels, corporate investment decisions and government policies.

What to do next?

Governments responded with expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. Smart companies used the slowdown to take a fresh look at opportunity and to re-purpose business models. Today, the global economy is showing signs of resilience against a backdrop of optimism.

True value is realised at the intersection of many disciplines. Internet-based information and communication technologies (ICT) have thrived in these turbulent times. Cloud computing, social networking and Web 2.0 companies have

Value

Opportunity &

Speed

“Trust, speed and cost are interrelated.

Low trust decreases speed and increases cost.”

—John Anthony Painter Strategic ICT Advisor

emerged as major players.

Businesses use ICT to enhance affordable and sustainable innovation. Apple gained nearly 150% in market capitalisation in 2009-2010. At the start of this new decade, eight of the fifty largest firms measured by market capitalisation are technology firms: Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, HP and Intel.

Governments use ICT for more effective governance. The early development of a secure and reliable Internet banking system in Estonia offered a springboard to launch other online public services such as e-voting. Estonia now serves as a model for public sector ICT effectiveness.

Individuals use ICT to construct more cohesive societies. This bonding agent has morphed into an array of business-related opportunities tied to social networking.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Today, for-profit organisations have an opportunity to collaborate with citizen-sector organisations (CSOs) by forming never-before-seen hybrid

value chains (HVCs) to solve large-scale problems neither group has been able to solve on its own.

CSO partnerships are creating jobs three times as fast as traditional sector counterparts.

The Nordic region serves as the best example of how governments, businesses and individuals are collaborating together and using the interlocking potency of ICT to drive unparalleled results. The United Nations recently named Norway as number one on the Human Development Index (HDI) as the country with the best quality of life.

In fact, the World Economic Forum reports that the five nation-states who make up the Nordic region achieved top 10 Networked Readiness Index (NRI) rankings in 2009-2010. Indeed, there is clearly a correlation between countries who invest a level of GDP for ICT and its impact on the overall quality of life for all citizens.

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More With Less For More Opportunity is often found in odd places. Executives instinctively play it safe during difficult times. While this tendency prevails, history is busy teaching a different lesson. Necessity is often referred to as the mother of invention. Consider that eighteen of the thirty firms listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Index were founded during economic downturns.

Best practices within the CIO community can often trace its origins elsewhere. Bhaskar Chakravorti of the Harvard Business School signals a call to action to round-up “unusual suspects.”

His insight brought to light the vision of investment banker Iqbal Quadir.

Quadir reached his venture to bring universal phone service to his native Bangladesh. It’s significant that Bangladesh is one of the worlds most resource-and infrastructure-poor countries. 80% of its population is dispersed across 86,000 villages.

Counter-intuitive thinking breeds success. A strange alliance was fashioned between Norwegian GSM leader Telenor, Grameen Bank and Bangladesh Railway. The result of Quadir’s idea is Grameenphone.

In 1993, there was only one phone per 500 Bangladeshis. Today, one in three has mobile access. And Grameenphone continues to show signs of growth with a 14% revenue increase this year. Bangladesh is currently ranked 118th out of 133 countries on the Networked Readiness Index– up 12 places from last year.

Quadir’s determination bears out a valuable lesson for CIOs. Being the first to know about a problem is less important then being the first to understand its true nature and opportunistic properties.

Consumers in the United States and Europe are asking for inexpensive products and services. Billions of firsttime consumers in China and India will join the middle class in the next decade and can only afford the cheapest offerings.

Gandhian innovation calls for learning to do more with less for more

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people. Bharti Airtel best illustrates this way of thinking with a groundbreaking business model that offers affordable and sustainable services to a more inclusive customer base.

Bharti charges 1 cent per minute of talk time – compared with 2 cents in China and 8 cents in the U.S. The correlation of respective cost ratios to 2009 GDP in China (+9.1%), India (+7.4%), and the U.S. (-2.6%) concludes a salient outcome.

In his new book “The Speed of Trust,” Stephen Covey identifies trust as the one thing that changes everything.

“Business leaders around the world have made it increasingly evident that speed to market is now the ultimate competitive weapon.”

In short, trust, speed and cost are interrelated. Low trust decreases speed and increases cost. Friction slows down the decision making process and results in a higher cost “tax.” On the other hand, high trust increases speed, lowers cost and results in a dividend.

“Trust (and therefore speed) is the new currency of the global economy.”

“Gold standard” CIO credibility is earned and a premium should be placed on character, integrity and positive intent. Behaviour takes into account what we do and how we do it. There is a reciprocal nature to trust. When we give it, we receive it.

When we receive it, we return it. In doing so, a cycle of uplift and speed is accomplished.

Trust should be considered in context.

Francis Bidault and Alessio Castello of the MIT Sloan Management Review score a different perspective on “Why Too Much Trust Is Death to Innovation.”

—John Anthony Painter is a Strategic ICT Advisor at JohnAnthonyPainter.com. John is a senior IT executive with 15 years of experience driving results in global strategic IT development. Jap@johnanthonypainter.com

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

“If the CIO goes to the board and does not know the business part, he will cut a very sorry figure.”

—Anjan Bose

CIO, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd

Would you say the CIO's role is more operational or strategic?

It depends on the state that the organisation is in. When the organisation is in growth mode, the role of the CIO is to ensure that the business growth is supplemented by faster roll-outs in the right places in the organisation. At this time the CIO’s role is operational. When the organisation is changing, especially during times of economic crises like in the last couple of years,

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A smart CIO knows when to stay out of tactical initiatives within the company, let his team get on with it, and focus on the big picture, says Bose. He equips himself to always see IT as a component of business and never business as means to deploy IT. BY GEETAJ CHANNANA it is important that the CIO takes a strategic role. The C in the designation implies that s/he sits in the management committee or the board of operating directors. While there is an element of operations and a day to day role that is given to the operations employees, most of the CXOs meet for strategic reasons.

Can CIOs make a tangible difference in growing business, how?

There are organisations such as banks, insurance companies, telecommunications providers or retail businesses where after finance or business per se it is IT that decides if the business can grow or not. We come from the manufacturing side which is

essentially B-to-B. In this scenario it is more about building relationships.

We have a highly capital intensive plant with a few customers. The same is true for our vendors. Further, in our business, the relationship between the vendor and customer is very blurred. We do not know who is the customer or the vendor, there are frequent role reversals. They supply us some products and they buy other products from us. The chemical industry is always in a group. It is a group that shares common molecules. In that environment the technology piece is of extreme importance because of the robustness of information needed; to ensure the level of transparency in what is being shared and if there are changes they

are informed in advance of the changes.

At any point of time, because our fixed costs are high, we always balance what grade to produce at what point of time. If the residency of the molecule in our plant is high, it means that it is taking longer to produce, which implies that it is taking more asset time and is thus more expensive to produce. Business decisions are taken based upon this fact.

If I have committed a product that takes longer time to produce in the plant and I am not getting enough revenue from the market, I have to tell the customer. Either he can pay more for the product or we give him a choice to move away from our product. We develop that market for him.

We must optimise the product mix on the fly and that is where the value of IT comes in. This is because we cannot control the prices as they are governed by indexes.

Please cite examples where you have been able to achieve this?

I will give you a crude-based example that will help understand what we do. We THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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produce LPG, the cooking gas you normally use. Look at the complexity, we get LPG after we crack Naphtha.

We can do three things with it – we can either sell it in the market, we can crack it further to create ethylene or propylene; or we can burn it in our power plant. This runs into crores per hour. For instance, currently, in real time we are not cracking any LPG. We are feeding 244 tonnes of naphtha per hour, and we are producing LPG at 24 tonnes per hour. We are selling it in the market because the price of LPG is high in Europe because of freezing winters in the region. The market price of LPG there has doubled.

This is where IT is beneficial in deciding and anticipating the market conditions before we produce. For instance, if the global market is on the way up, we do not crack LPG or burn it in our furnaces. In our case the use of IT is more internal than external.

Should CIOs be on the management committee – what should they do to get there?

It is very difficult for a CIO to be in this position unless the company believes that IT is of strategic relevance. He can push himself to the board but nobody will listen to him, and it is hard to find anyone that does not think like this.

The issue is that if the CIO goes to the board and does not know the business part, he will cut a very sorry figure. There are all kinds of CIOs, and my thinking is that a majority do not look at business as a business but they look at it as an opportunity to deploy IT. This is not going to work.

This also makes it difficult for the next CIO to get on the board too.

Finally, it is extremely important for the CIO to speak the language of the business that everybody understands.

He negates his importance himself if he is not understood by the business.

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The cio as

Earth Cham pion

It doesn't take highfalutin ideas to make a positive difference to the only planet we have, said Alpna J. Doshi, CIO of R Com. Even a wellimplemented ERP has an impact.

Excerpts by Harichandan Arakali.

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hen it comes to saving the planet, action lags ambition, and the way to bridge the gap is to start with what we can easily influence, says Alpna J. Doshi, CIO of Reliance Communications. "The most important aspect is that from a sustainability perspective, in fact it is primarily IT that can actually introduce this idea of the social environment." Doshi tends to relate both business and society as a merger, "a good marriage between the two." This means that overall, "we must do things in IT which are affecting not only the business growth and overall business sustainability, but also as a result of all those efforts, generating some social and environmental dividend."

For instance, even an implementation of

SAP ERP system, if one has done a good job of it, the immediate output in terms of dashboards, reports and so on can be "so streamlined and targeted that a lot of paper use can be avoided."

If there is an office printer, and "this is something that we are implementing across our company," one can aim at very limited paper usage, she said. In a 'hi-tech' world, the need for looking at paper documents should be completely eliminated. "I'm sure that will take some time, but we are certainly on the reduction run right now."

Sustainability is certainly a must in large corporations and without it, things can go into such a tailspin that the effect on the environment can be disastrous. "While we get carried away by the so called IT initiatives, I've really made it clear that these ini-

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tiatives will be informed and driven by the need for the proper balance with respect to our place on the only planet we have."

If one doesn't institute a strong governance mechanism here, with a clear target, enabling the proper and effective use of all technology, reducing carbon footprint will be impossible.

Measurement is the toughest part. Finding ways to quantify accurately what impact a particular effort has had takes time, however, consider this simple example: With printer and copier papers, "we track the usage and look for reduction on a month-on-month basis." They do this by figuring out what it is that people are print-ing, connecting the output with the number of copies – see if they really needed to print a certain document. Barring exceptional

“If one doesn't institute a strong governance mechanism, reducing the carbon footprint will be impossible” —Alpna J. Doshi

CIO of Reliance Communications Ltd

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cases where it's unavoidable, "we try and discourage printing." Even activities such as demo-presentations today can all be done electronically, Doshi said.

Here's another very simple idea: If a customer wants a re-print of bills, "we are trying to target particular sections of customers who we know are the most likely to use the Internet and computers a lot." "We are encouraging them to look online on our web site where we have already provided them all the information that they need."

Having spent the last two decades in the U.S., Alpna has seen "a dramatic reduction in the use of paper in that part of the world."

A simple benchmarking with western world with our scene here, can also help, she said.

What all of this means of course is a lot of hard work to persist and get people to change their habits to more environmentfriendly ones.

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w he n

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hould the CIO own the responsibility of an IT project failure?

There is no straight answer to the question. Very few CIOs will accept any kind of defeat upfront. But theoretically, a true CIO or business leader is the one who accepts the ownership of the IT organisation and the projects deployed and run by it. At that stage it doesn’t matter whether the project was initiated by IT or the business.

Under all circumstances, the CIO is the one who owns the responsibility of every IT project. A lot depends on a CIO’s ability, experience and wisdom, how s/he identifies the glitches in the early stages of the project to prevent catastrophes.

In practice, the ownership of an IT project can vary from being totally in the hands of the CIO to one where the CIO organisation is merely doing the bidding of the business enterprise. In the first case, clearly, the buck stops with the CIO, in the second, perhaps one can see a failure as a joint one at best.

An IT project can fail due to different reasons, including poor need-identification and mismatch between stakeholders' expectations and the action taken on the project.

Issues such as scope definition, cost estimates and ROI calculations – each one of these too has a role to play in either derailment or failure of a project.

I would say that the cost, stakeholder expectation mapping and the risk assess-

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The best of intentions can go awry says Daya Prakash, Head – IT, LG. When they do, ensure that everyone started with a sense of collective responsibility, learn your lessons and move on. BY DAYA PRAKASH ment of any IT project fall directly in the CIO’s domain and in case of a project failure the CIO has to bear the brunt. But in the second scenario where CIO is just an enabler, s/he can’t be held responsible for any sort of failure clearly because he is just one link. It may be a classified as a joint failure of CIO and the business.

To save the projects from meeting an ill fate, it is very essential for a CIO to assess the risks associated with that project.

S/he has to ensure a thorough and continuous communication within and outside the team so that the issues can be identified in the early stages of a project. But even after all of this, if the project fails, it is good to accept the failure rather than keep the stakeholders in the dark. We all learn from failures. This is how we evolve and improve.

Collective Responsibility Not doing this presents various stakehold-

ers with the undesirable opportunity to play the blame game. A CIO, however peoplefriendly s/he is, needs to set some rules of the game. Every role, responsibility and function has to be defined and explained to its bearer. Before even taking the first step, it is essential to have everyone commit to the success and/or failure of the project.

You may have seen how the critical space missions work. Everyone knows what role they have to play. But if the project meets a disaster, there is no one person singled out in the team. It is considered as a collective failure and that’s the best way to accept defeat and rebuild the whole thing to make it successful.

Similarly, in IT, it is imperative for the CIO to lead from the front and keep the team informed about the scope and implementation road map. In my personal experience, the majority of these issues crop up because of the sense of insecurity. Everyone

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is scared that if anything goes wrong, they will be blamed. That thought needs to go.

Going back my example of space missions, everybody knows about his/her role. S/ he performs that role and similarly others also do their job. In those cases, not only the project failures are minimised but also there’s always a sense of collective responsibility. An organisational matrix plays a big role in this.

Don't Look for Losers No CIO starts a project to have it fail. In almost all instances, when an ambitious project starts, it is assumed that it will be successful. When a project fails, even those who played their part very diligently become part of an unsuccessful project team. Do we really call them losers? The answer is no. A project may have failed but to put the onus on one person or to single out one member of the team will be a little immature. Yes, I agree that the team members may need counseling or guidance or may be hand-

“Cost, stakeholder expectation mapping and risk assessment fall directly in the CIO’s domain.”

—Daya Prakash

Head-IT, LG Electronics

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holding too and that’s where a CIO needs to be playing the role adequately but certainly not single out anyone to put the entire blame of the failure.

Even with external partners, the intent is not to highlight that mistake and reprimand someone even if he is an external partner.

I will reiterate my point that a CIO should work more on identifying the risk early on so that every possible casualty is avoided.

The risk should be mitigated to the extent that even if something happens, it doesn’t bring the project to a standstill. Yes, you do tell your partners about things which could have been better. Even the partner needs to be forthcoming in accepting the mistake and move ahead with a positive attitude.

If you have convinced the team on a project and that team is committed to taking on the job, you have won half the battle. This very team will ensure that it keeps failure out of the radar screen. It all depends on how much a CIO involves himself with the team to keep the morale high. A lot depends on those kind of soft skills of a CIO. THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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The CIO plays an important role in building an organisation. The same effort can be applied to build the nation, writes Arun Gupta, Group CTO, Shoppers’ Stop

CIOas Na

tion B uilder A

CIO’s role as a change agent has been talked about quite often but only as a change agent for the organisation. Why can’t we as CIOs be change agents for the nation and be a part of nation building initiatives?

To start with, just look at the various CSR activities that every organisation engages in.

Just like the corporate initiatives that may be driven by the CEO but executed by the CIOs, even the CSR activities could be driven by the CEOs but executed by the CIOs in terms of enabling the activity with the use of technology.

CIOs can also go into some educational institutes and teach for the benefit of the industry.

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While the number of educational institutes in the country is in itself not sufficient, the students coming out of these institutes are often not equipped with the right skills to be absorbed in the industry. The problem lies with the curriculum. It is important to tackle the problem at source instead of having students to do extra courses post their graduation in order to be employable. We can influence the curriculum in the schools and higher education institutes in a way that the change in education patterns are aligned to the industry needs.

Take for example an IT organisation.

What are the things they’ll look for in a candidate in order to hire him? It’ll be mathematical skills, logical skills and they would need some specific technology skills

which they would typically provide once the candidate joins them. Instead, what some these companies can do is to tie up with some of the institutes and offer the technical training as a part of the final semester so that the students are absorbed as soon as they graduate. This isn’t new and corporations are going into the institutes to sign up agreements to hire students if they modify their courses to suit the needs of the organisations. With such tie-ups the employees that come on board are productive much quicker than those who come from traditional courses.

I have been involved in influencing the curriculum in some of the institutes like SP Jain, where I have been a part of the academic council. Lately, I’ve been involved

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with the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan. I am trying to create some of these things that the industry needs and helps not just the industry but also the students as the institute gives them the industry experience of what is relevant in the current market context.

Federal CIO The Indian government has been investing heavily in e-governance initiatives. We as citizens rarely get to see the benefits of this initiative. There are multiple ways in which we as CIOs can contribute. Look at the way the US has seen huge benefits in terms of collaborated efforts across different states, across different government organisations after the appointment of a Federal CIO — Vivek Kundra. The simple thing he did was to cut down parallel projects. There were several projects running across the country trying to

“Government needs to open up to the CIO community and leverage the vast talent that already exists.”

—Arun Gupta

Group CTO, Shoppers’ Stop

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do achieve the same thing. This is typically what we as CIOs do in our organisations to improve productivity and reduce cost.

Even in our country we have exactly the same issues. Every state and government body works as an autonomous body and there is no central control. Ideally a CIO within the government and today NIC is playing that role to an extent. Why aren’t they cross leveraging across states, across functions. Why does every state or city have to create a different technology for land registration, why can’t we have a national grid running that uniform technology, which could be a great direction towards the government cloud. Success in such initiatives impacts everyone in the country as the government expenses are brought down drastically and these funds could now be used in other development activities such as education an food security.

The role of CIO associations could be big in building the nation by providing the right skills to implement large scale IT projects for the government. But the challenge is whether the government would listen and would want to involve us in the process, considering we are not a part of the government. Your starting point could be, if there is a meeting of those similar functions happening anywhere in the country, that is where we can go and start asking those questions.

The overall process in which the government works, doesn’t lend itself to outside help. The government has taken some people from the private sector to drive these initiatives but they had to move out of their corporate roles.

The government needs to open up to the opportunity from the CIO community and leverage the vast talent that already exists.

CIOs keep talking about good governance and good IT practices but now they need to start raising the bar to say why we are not taking such initiatives for the rest of the country. That is another way of creating awareness about good governance. Mainstream press should be shown the impact good governance can have on the country so that there can be some awareness in the country as to how we can improve the overall governance of the country using the best practices from the industries.

These are just some small steps that can create a huge difference to our nation.

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s s e n i us CIOs need to position themselves as 'Change and Innovation Officers,' says Vodafone Essar's Navin Chadha. This will help them fight undesirable perceptions within the business about IT and give them the leverage to become significant partners in business, he says.

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he role of the CIO has transformed from technology steward to business value creator in last decade and much of this goes to recession where the spending capability of CIOs came under scrutiny from various stakeholders.

CIOs can no longer spend in the same manner on technology as they used to do a decade ago unless they deliver substantial business value. This created a unique opportunity for CIOs to look at the business needs and align technology with them. It also created a need for CIOs who understand business and technology, and link the two. This alignment brought CIOs the opportunity to become partner in business.

As technology changes, CIOs need a vision on how such changes can create value for business. In my view CIOs are uniquely positioned to understand the technology vision and business vision and marry them.

This helps in converting the traditional view

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of an IT organisation from support function to enabler or partner in business.

Delivering business value is often not easy and CIOs need unique competencies to do that. They have to manage and lead change which is often more sociology and less technology. In order to do this, CIOs have to be smart and maintain a close personal touch with business and influence them with their thoughts and vision.

For CIOs to become value creators, Business will also have to treat the CIO with equal respect. This can happen when CIO has managed to position his or her role in the organisation. Visibility is another aspect where CIOs can create maximum impact for the business and this can come by communicating internally and externally.

Communication is one of the strongest requirements for CIOs and it also creates value for the role as Information needs to be communicated. As the state of the CIO is changing, we see larger representation of

CIOs from industry across various forums, technology events and panel discussions.

Meeting business and communicating success through newsletters brings CIOs much closer to business and changes perceptions.

We have to fight the real enemy responsible for the lack of partnership from business, which is not often the attitude of business but perception of business. As the role of the CIO moves to the next level of maturity, they will have to deliver value and impact the top line and bottom line of the business. By creating such impacts CIOs do find their place in boardroom and become business leaders. This transformation from cost centre to value creator is not easy.

For this the CIOs must have the knowledge of the domain of the business, take active interest in day to day affairs, participate in business and strategy meetings and understand the organisation's direction and goals and align IT strategy to business strategy. By managing the IT portfolio in

OPINION

line with business goals, CIOs can create distinctive values and by measuring those values and ROI, CIOs can demonstrate abil-ity of the IT organisation as a value creator and bring the paradigm shift to the tradition view of the cost centre.

The next important aspect is strategy and architecture to handle business growth.

Today organisations are growing at a rapid pace and technology should not only enable growth but CIOs should also bring the knowledge and 'know how' by which they can fuel growth. Just meeting the expectations is reactive and as a business leader, one should be ahead of time and expectation to create differentiators. This is the reason IT strategy and architecture is one very important aspect for CIO’s success and should remain in direct control of the CIO. Today’s business is very dynamic and a rapidly changing world also creates tremen-dous demand to secure the environment and support the dynamism. This cannot happen without the robust security and compliance in place. There is an increased dependence on CIOs to do so and meet the compliance and security requirements through effective governance of IT organisation, vendor management, risk manage-

“The real enemy responsible is not often the attitude of business but perception of business.”

—Navin Chadha

IT Director, Vodafone Essar Limited

ment and technology implementation. This is something new but plays a significant role in protecting the business interests.

Growth is important but managing the growth is also equally important and experience tells that management of growth is

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more challenging then management of downturn.

Above all these, one of the expectations that usually business does not have from the CIO is to fuel innovation or bring in a culture of innovation, though innovation is extremely necessary for the organisation to succeed when business is under pressure of declining margins, falling revenue and so on. Though it is matter of debate, I believe a crisis is also a breeding ground for innovation. CIOs have a very important role to play in innovation by creating either the platform for innovation or managing cultural change around it or helping business with innovative thoughts and ideas which can dramatically change the outcome of the business.

In my view CIOs should also call themselves 'Change and Innovation Officers' (CIO) by leading the change and innovation in the organisation. This will help the CIOs to position themselves uniquely within the organisation and will pave the way to the boardroom.

CIOs cannot do it all alone and they will need to be supported by competent resourced around them. The CIOs must possess leadership skills to lead people to generate future CIOs and mentor them to lead. Success is not in isolation and when excellence breeds excellence, leadership thrives. We see more smarter and aspiring people especially in growth market and retaining them requires lot of leadership skills. Retention of key staff is important and CIOs should take leadership seriously and mentor teams under them as I agree that people leave and join their managers.

To sum it all, I believe that we have a lot of opportunities for CIOs and I view the threat of constraints of budget as an opportunity to align with business. The myth that CIOs cannot move up to the boardroom no longer exists and we see more cross pollination of CIOs and Business leaders and some CIOs moving up the value chain to become CEOs. Leadership, skills and passion can always help the CIOs achieve what they want and change the state of the CIOs. In my view CIO is an important role and equally important is the careful selection of the CIO. The organisation structure should also support the role as not positioning the CIO at a significant level on the hierarchy is a recipe for disaster.

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he CIO's role as it evolved over a period of time first stared with the guy who was basically the chief infrastructure officer.

Then it moved into the systems area where the CIO (Chief Information Officer) would provide the systems to ensure that the company was running well.

Over a period of time, the role has moved to become that of a chief integrating officer. This means that the systems provided the integration of business. As technology emerges, there is a crying need for someone to articulate how businesses can gainfully use these technologies to improve/enable businesses, which then means that it is also a role of the chief innovation officer trying to tie technology to business.

"Should a CIO be a technologist or a business guy? This is becoming a moot point," Badiga said. "Unless you understand the business, how will you take all your technology suggestions and figure out which is best for your business?"

As business technology infrastructure

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“Do we need technology innovation as part of the manager, the answer is yes.

Does he need to be a good technologist, yes again.”

—Laxman Badiga CIO of Wipro Ltd

becomes increasingly commoditised and provided on tap, the CIO will evolve into one who can evaluate technologies for their value in enabling business. In the process, the CIO will himself become a Chief Business Enabler, Badiga said.

"In our own case, in what we call Wipro on Wipro, as technologies emerge we have to say whether this will work or not – for instance cloud computing." So Badiga's team created proof-of-concept projects to show how this might work well. "This was post virtualisation and all that. Then we said, it works well and why don't we create a mechanism to provision for all our development projects."

Using discrete components for equipment and software used to take up to six weeks, every time a new project requirement came up. Now using the cloud environment, "we are provisioning it in between 35 minutes to 6 hours." Earlier, with each requirement, "you had to go and buy separately with all the attendant issues of reuse, control an so on." With the integrated cloud, it was about

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As technology infrastructure becomes increasingly commoditised and provided on tap, the CIO will evolve into one who can evaluate technologies for their value in enabling business, Laxman Badiga, CIO of Wipro Ltd., said. In the process, the CIO will himself become a Chief Business Enabler, Badiga said, in an interview with Harichandan Arakali.

keeping track, ensuring licensing – "even the vendors were evolving."

"To gain six weeks, we improved the provisioning cycle. From there to move to self-provisioning, you give more control to the user," Badiga said. The CIO is now an infrastructure provider after innovating on the provisioning cycle and creating a mechanism to be able to do that in the first place, he said. "So now with a day's notice, we have the environment to do this."

Consider a different example – physical security: "Can we provide it as a practice, as a service," Badiga wanted to know. With no single vendor, they had to figure out how to bring in all the various requirements

of access control to buildings, fire safety, attendance of personnel, alarms, employee safety, anything else one can think of and integrate them into one centrally controlled service – "again using technology."

"So, do we need technology innovation as part of the manager, the answer is yes. Does he need to be a good technologist, again the answer is yes." He or his team should be able to say "this is what the business needs and this is how we can be enable it with this technology."

Next, new ways of delivery of services is another area of interest for the modern CIO. This involves timely transfer of information to the right person in the organisation.

The key is that apart from the technology involved, one needs to know how the business works – "so there is no one answer."

What is happening, however, is that the role of the CIO is evolving into one that encompasses the ability to talk technology from the point of view of how it will boost business.

Eventually, infrastructure will get commoditised and the CIO will increasingly become Chief Business Enabler.

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Get people to believe they have a stake in the change that is coming, equip them to handle the change and hand-hold for as long is necessary, says Satish Pendse, CIO, HCC. That, and acceptance that change management too is integral to a CIO organisation's success, will get you there, he says.

m elt , e c n a t s i Res

e c i e s u

W

hen it comes to the success of any project, three things form the key — people, process and technology. Technology would be the easiest to handle considering technologies are more mature today and you have a good number of skill sets in India. Managing and changing the processes is slightly trickier as you need people to do that, and it is the people part that is the toughest as a project can only be successful if people start using it. If you can manage people well through change management, then you’ve achieved your goal.

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The best way to deal with change management is by using what I call ICE technology.

ICE stands for involvement, communication and education. If you’re involving people in the process of change that you want to bring in, if you involve them in the process right from the conceptualisation, then more the involvement, more the ownership, more the participation and thus fewer the chances of project failure.

Involvement: Involvement can happen in various ways. Take for example an ERP project implementation. Suppose you involve people in selecting the ERP packages, you need to involve them in deciding why you

need an ERP an organisation. And if they think you don’t need an ERP, then let them speak up and let there be a debate on that.

Then involve people in project implementation. Implementation teams should ideally be chosen from the team which would subsequently get benefited from that implementation. The basic point is to involve people in the changes that you want to achieve.

Communication: Most problems in the world happen due to the lack of communication. If you’re working on an IT initiative and if you communicate what the initiative is, what it’s going to do, what it would do to each individual, what it means to the organi-

OPINION

sation, then the possibility of resistance from the sudden change is reduced significantly. If you say upfront that these would be the problems but these are the solutions and this is the reason why we’re doing it, the more you communicate to people about the initiative, the better it is.

Moreover, communication is a two way process. You can’t just tell people about the project but also need to listen. You listen to people’s problems, their doubts, their suspicions, and then address each of the issues.

If you make that kind of communication, the intent behind the change is well communicated, you let a good amount of debate to take place and once there is good amount of agreement about the intent of the change, about the difficulties of the change, about the difficulties that people would have to face and what the solutions are for it

“The best way to deal with change management is by using ICE — involvement, communication and education.”

—Satish Pendse CIO, HCC

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— all these things if well communicated throughout the change process, create less uncertainty in the minds of people when the change actually happens because before the change actually takes place, you’ve already equipped people to handle it.

There are various ways to communicate to the employees — through in-house journals, projects teams can conduct debates at various places, you can do an e-mail campaign, ask people to send their doubts through e-mail. Depending on the type of organisation and the organisation culture, any of the means can be adopted. The important point is to make regular communication about the change until the change actually takes place.

Education: The third important thing is to educate. You need to educate people about the change. For example While deploying a new technology, you require people to use sophisticated systems which they are not used to. So you need to educate and train them about it. If people are unable to use the technology or if they are finding it too complex, then immediately people develop negativity about it. If you train them adequately, then the change becomes much smoother. Education needs to be done at various levels of the organisation in various ways. At senior levels, you may not have to train people hands on but you still need to educate them about the concepts, about the benefits etc. At operational level you’ll need to tell people more about the tools and techniques. What’s important is that you educate people about the initiative much before it is launched and you need to continue educating and training them even after the initiative is launched so that the change gets ingrained into the system. A kid who’s learning how to walk doesn’t start walking on day one. You don’t just teach him how to walk one day and expect him to walk perfectly. You’ll teach him until he’s confident of walking.

These are the three basic principals to smoothen change. Moreover, you always need to under promise and over deliver. Let people be ready for eventualities and work in such a way that eventualities don’t happen.

Whenever we deploy an organisation-wide change through IT, we do face this kind of challenge. When we deployed ERP for the first time, five years back, we did face these THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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challenges and we were prepared for it with the principals mentioned. One learning from the deployment, however, was that the time that we envisioned for people to start using ERP was much longer than we anticipated. Time to use the new system may be shortened but time to actually start getting business benefits from the deployment can take much longer and so we need to constantly train and educate people till the time they start getting business benefits out of the deployment.

In a scenario where you feel that the change management issue is so big that you’ll have to rollback the project, you should instead look at an elongated change management initiative. Since you didn’t do that proactively, now you’ll have to do it reactively. The reactive change management would take at least 1.5 times to twice the time compared to what it’d take with the proactive approach because by this time the negativity has already been set into the organisation and you have to undo it.

Middle Down Approach There are some organisations where the top down approach works well.

However, it is the middle layer that is the strongest in most organisations.

While the top layer comprises people like the CEO and Directors, the middle layer comprises department heads and regional heads. This is the layer that runs an organisation on a day-to-day basis. Therefore it is important to connect to the middle layer for change management and it is better to drive the bottom through the middle layer.

Middle is strong in terms of operational decisions. The top is required to give the strategic support, middle is required to drive it operationally.

Middle layer is also the toughest layer to manage in terms of change management. Top works at a strategic level and looks at the business advantage and thus is sold to very easily. The bottom layer typically is driven by the bosses. If the bosses decide to adopt the change, then they are also willing to accept it.

However, it is the middle layer that really decides to accept or reject the

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change in their minds. It is also a very intelligent layer, which operationally and practically runs the organisation. If the middle layer is managed well, it is the best way to manage change.

Even our organisation is one where the middle management is very strong.

Project managers manage typically a 300-400 crore rupee business and in effect they are the MDs of a 300400 crore rupee company. So if they decide not to deploy a project, it won’t happen. So, when we implemented organisation wide ERP, we focused on the project managers as supporters of our initiative. So, we tried to show the project managers the benefits for them to adopt ERP. Yet, convincing them wasn’t very easy as they would challenge whatever you would say. So we had to arrange one day workshops for them every three months where different functions of ERP were discussed and after 4-5 such workshops then we realised the usage is really happening.

We used to listen to them on a one-onone basis and talk, even talk to them casually to get their honest concerns and feedbacks and then we tried to address these. The whole exercise took us more than a year.

Change to Drive Change I would say that in order to drive the change, we as IT people first need to change ourselves. I’ve found various times that IT people feel their job is just to deploy technology, offer training and support and that change management isn’t really their job because from their point of view it is a very boring job. They feel change management is not technology and is just a soft-skills job. Even in my team I’ve people who want to go on and implement other technologies even before the business users are ready to accept the previous one.

So, first, all IT people need to understand that change management is really their job because unless the business user accepts the change, it is the IT people’s job to drive change management. That change first needs to happen in the minds of the IT people.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

“I think that many top managers still do not see IT innovation as being important to grow their business.”

—SS Mathur

Centre for Railway Information Systems

I

nnovation drives wealth: this has been an undeniable fact throughout human history, and most business innovation is dependent on technology.

Businesses depend on innovation for long-term growth, so it is surprising to find that many businesses do not see technology as the obvious solution for managing and accelerating growth.

This is evident from the fact that the first reaction of most businesses during a down-

OPINION

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leas t

preferred

enabler!

Often, businesses and governments are blind to the obvious when it comes to enabling growth and service, says SS Mathur, CRIS. Organisations that persisted with technology investments, come out winners even during tough economic conditions. BY S S MATHUR turn is to cut technology spending. In the case of IT, this has happened twice during the current decade: once during the dotcom bust of 2000-2001, and again during the downturn of 2008-2009. Spending on technology and IT saw a precipitous fall in the countries most affected by the downturn.

Businesses that persisted with technology innovation during the downturns emerged the strongest after the bad times were over.

Where Amazon.com, Google, and eBay kept the thrust on technology innovation to ride out the tough times, others such as Commerce One faltered by not doing so.

In India, we have seen Moser Baer embracing technology and thriving through its use. Without resting on its laurels, Moser Baer has reacted to changes in its business environment by giving itself a new technology direction each time, from the manu-

facture of floppy disks, to CDs, DVDs, and now solar panels. Such organisations have shown that, in the long term, continuing the investment in technology is the lowest risk approach to business.

On the other hand, some of the largest organisations have fallen by the wayside because of under-investment in technology.

Why, then, are so many businesses reluctant to invest in technology, especially IT? I think that many top managers still do not see IT innovations as being important to grow their business. For example, organised retail has been facing growth challenges in recent years. Footfalls remain stagnant, and location costs are difficult to cover. But how many technology solutions have we seen for this problem? IT, in particular, can offer a number of innovative solutions, from better warehousing, to logistics for home delivery,

to tie-ups with local retailers. It just has to be recognised as a strategic driver of growth.

Similar is the situation with governments.

When budgets are tight, and they are nearly always tight, technology, especially IT, is the first to be affected, even though IT can substantially reduce the cost of serving the citizens, be it by better targeting of welfare schemes, or by reducing the cost of revenue collection by leveraging the Internet. Imagine the impact of technology in the logistics sector, if simple things like entry tax and octroi collection could be facilitated through electronic payments. The savings for the economy would be enormous! Fortunately, the Government of India has realised this in recent years.

Clearly, technology must be the first rather than the last preference for business and government!

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WHEN IT Meets

Busines

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As his responsibilities changed, from long-time CIO at HP to Royal Dutch Shell’s first CIO-from-outside to an EVP with Juniper, Mike Rose found the best way to get the job done is not to preach technology or business. He saw his role as helping people find that meeting ground, Rose told Rahul Neel Mani in an interview.

From a CIO to a business manager and a part of a larger corporate support you have seen it all. How did you handle the changes in responsibilities?

How did you manage the transition?

The most important thing in a board situation is that you are not managing, it's an oversight position. Your job is to protect the shareholders, to help and assist the management. Many directors confuse that with their old job where they were very good managers.

The transition can be really difficult because all of your training, all of your experience is hands on, to solve problems, to work with colleagues who are trying to

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solve problems mutually. So one thing is telling yourself that it is not your job to do that. Once you do that, you look to apply the skills and knowledge that you have, to the job of a director. Once you do that, it's quite fun actually. You get to see the company from the highest level. You get to support the CEO. CEOs have tough jobs and its quite a lonely job. You really are the top of the organisation and there is no colleague inside the company for you, you're the top person, so the board can serve as a tremendous support system for the CEO, if there is a good relationship between the CEO and the total board and the directors as individuals. I

always looked to try and make that connection with the CEOs, so that they would trust me and open up to me and I could help more. It's a difficult balance, so there is a little bit of tension in there.

How should one handle these situations of tension?

I think you have to be prepared for it. I can say that I was prepared for it. There were times where I brought up positions as a director, which were positions of commitment. And there were certain requirements for me stay on-board and participate. They had to be ethical, open and transparent with the directors and we had to agree on objec-

INTERVIEW

tives for the company and live by them. I wouldn't tolerate any deviation.

When you were the CIO both at Shell and HP. What was the true perception of a CIO and the IT organisation that you were leading of these companies ?

At HP, I became CIO in 1997. One of the things when you're a CIO at a technology company is that everyone is a CIO, everyone has a lot of knowledge and they all have opinions. So one of the challenges is working with very smart tech savvy colleagues and getting them to appreciate the operational nuances and requirements of running a large IT company.

At Shell I had a very different experience.

They were, for the first time, going outside to find a CIO. It was the first enterprise CIO that had a lot people reporting directly to him. In the past they had small coordinated teams. They decided that they wanted to have a more modern approach with the

“Most important thing in a board situation is that you are not managing.

Many directors confuse that with their old job of managers.”

—Mike Rose, EVP Service, Support & Operations at Juniper Networks

COVE R S TO RY

intention that I could come in and learn about the business and teach them about IT, so that they could handle it once I left.

My successor there was Alan Matula, a very good CIO. He was with me 4.5 years and he took over once I left.

In these 2 organisations did you do anything in particular to change the perception within the stakeholders of the company?

Yes, very much so. I worked very hard at having that business level discussion.

Back 15 years ago there was the discussion about the business savvy tech people and tech savvy business people. And then we asked ourselves in CIO positions, what are we? The answer is we have to be both.

The goal actually is to help everyone meet in the middle. So if your strength is business, teach them how to infuse technology and help catch up with competitors and likewise if you are a technology person, you don't lead with technology, you lead with business. So we had conversations at my THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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level and we encouraged them at different levels. Since these organisations were very large, all you could do is lead and teach by demonstration.

Were you assertive also at times?

Very much so. If you are in a CIO position, then you're waiting to be asked and many times you may not be asked. If you are simply serving and giving people what they ask for, it might not be what they need, so it's always good to create some healthy tension.

The fascinating thing is that the stakeholders are all different people with different views of IT. Very few came from IT. Many of them didn't understand why it was all so complicated, they tried to simplify it. So you really did have to lean into them. You were serving them, you're supporting and enabling the business. But you needed to be assertive else they would trivialise the job and your contribution and ultimately not listen.

Did you ever hate being a CIO? I never hated being CIO, but there were times when I had self doubt. I thought was I sharp enough to work with my colleagues because I worked in very capable environments with people technically and intellectually strong. I just sometimes challenge myself to do the job well because you lead a lot of people and if you did not do a good job, the company would not be successful because if you are weak, then the company can overpower you, the stake holders can overpower you. That doesn't mean they want anything that wasn't good for the company. Strength respects strength and there were days when I felt that I was not being strong and articulate enough to convince my colleagues to do something different, maybe even when they were asking me to do it.

What were the things you did to be strong from within?

When I started in HP in the 1970's, I asked myself if I had the ability to move up. Frankly the decision I made was that I probably didn't, so I probably would work there for 5 years. I learnt whatever I could, asked as many questions as I could. And I followed the advice of Dave Packard, one of the founders, which is - make a contribution. The prof-

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its will follow. That's a great way to approach any job at any level. Just make a contribution, don't try and win an argument and don't try being in the spotlight, and I ended up spending 23 years there instead of 5.

How did you deal with vendors -- as just suppliers or partners?

I was really clear with suppliers. I wanted them to make a profit on my account because if they didn't then I would I have a lousy team supporting me. They would be complaining all the time. But I didn't want to be the most profit making account, I wanted to pay in the top quartile for price performance. I wanted to be among the very best in the world in terms of efficiency and proficiency. That means you have to narrow that down to number of intimate suppliers and keep that healthy tension there. So when somebody says that you're getting a great deal, I do not take that at face value. I say prove it to me, with me, show me what companies can do when they're working with a vendor because you can't do it alone, you have to do it with collaboration, not through negotiation and you need transparency and work very hard to get the right ecosystem in the company.

How do you balance your role with outsourcing?

Trust and transparency is important. That said, you have to build a sufficient intellectual base in the company, so that you can guide things architecturally and you can prove to yourself with your supplier that you're doing things the right way.

The last thing is you have to be very cautious of people claiming to be your strategic partners. In an industry that has consoli-

dated such as IT outsourcing, the game is really getting economies of scale by doing things in a very effective way, the same way for lots of customers. It's hard to see how you're a strategic player if you're doing this for my competitor and everybody else in the industry the same way for economies of scale. If you want break away and be different from the pack, you better have the intellectual horsepower in the organisation because that is not how the industry is going to support, they are going to try and help as many people as possible to get economies of scale.

You've said CIOs are actually bolted to infrastructure and have failed to focus on business models, how does that happen?

When you think about such a CIO, it happens in a couple of ways. One is the structure of an enterprise: CIO is often really a proxy for centralised infrastructure and not for business IT. I always said to the CEO, if you see me as central IT, as Infrastructure, don't use the term CIO, hire an infrastructure manager, you don't need me. But if you see me as business IT for the enterprise, that's what is important to get unbolted. There are many times business leaders want to bolt you and sometimes CIO's bolt themselves to the infrastructure because it's the one place in IT where you get very quantifiable data, you go out and deal with vendors, do comparisons, you get into the business process arena, you get into working very intimately with go-tomarket and business models, that is where the outside world actually competes, that's the most difficult part. That's where you go from being a tech person to being a business savvy tech person.

The Story Contin u Look out for the se es... co series in the Decem nd part of this ber 21 issue of CTO FORUM.

NEXT

HORIZONS

FEATURES INSIDE

Get Everyone on the Same Page. Pg 57 The CIO Redefined.

Data-room-tinkerer to master-thinker. Pg 60

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

I

Tech-Irritants Technology for humans should be easy not annoying.

BY PATTY AZZARELLO

was traveling recently, and was greeted with a card to programme a wake-up call (figure on adjoining page) in my hotel room. I was staggered. I removed the actual hotel name, but this was real. Is it just me, or are these 19 steps to program a wake-up call a bit much?

I built a successful career in technology by following one guiding principle: Make technology less painful for humans to use.

To wit: You need to focus as much (if not more) energy on the human interface as on the technology itself. Don’t ever show of the richness of your technology in the user interface. Focus completely on the user’s task. Understand how people are thinking about the task they need to do, and help them do it the way they are inclined to do it.

The point is never to show that your technology is smart and powerful, it’s to make your customer feel smart and powerful.

Patty’s 3 Laws of Technology (Break them at your own business peril.)

Technology should not rob people of their humanity.

If you present technology instead of a human interface it HAS TO WORK. Technology should never make people feel stupid.

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SIMPLICIT Y

1.Technology should not rob people or their humanity. - Probably the best example of this are those voice automated systems that make you talk to a computer on the other end of the phone. I don’t know about you, but I hate this. I would feel much less robbed of my humanity if I was greeted with a computer voice that said, "I know I’m not a person like you are, and that you’d rather talk to a person, but we think we can help you faster if you are willing to give this a try. We won’t make you talk to a computer and pretend it’s a person, and feel like an idiot shouting answers and phrases repeatedly because we can’t actually understand them … Please help us route your call by keying in your account number and answering ONE question -- then you’ll be connected to a real person."

Any time your user interface makes a person translate something they are thinking or feeling into a narrow input that your technology will accept, you have robbed them of some humanity.

Check you help desk interface. Are you engaging people like humans, “Get help with order entry” or are you asking them to submit “trouble tickets” on “dba admin support?"

2. If you present technology instead of a human interface it HAS TO WORK! If you want me to sign up for your service on your website, don’t require a special new version of a flash plug in for me to do it.

Don’t invite me to leave you feedback, only to have a link that doesn’t go anywhere.

Don’t optimise your interface so much for one platform or environment that it doesn’t work right in others.

When something goes wrong a human can recover and use creativity and judgment (and opposable thumbs) if the transaction does not work. Technology just sits there not working, and the user goes away annoyed and irritated having failed to complete the task.

I was duped recently at the airport when I accepted a boarding pass sent to my mobile phone and got to an airport that didn’t have the ability to read it.

Another time, I was promised I could pick up a prescription after hours, from an automated pharmacy dispenser, and they had misspelled my name when they input the prescription so there was no way I could

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PROGRAMMING A WAKE-UP CALL To Schedule a Self Programmed Wake-up Call 1 Pick up receiver 2 Press the “Messages” button 3 Press “U” to change user options 4 Press “C” to change call options 5 Press “A” to schedule automatic wake-up 6 Press “C” to change your wake-up call schedule 7 Press “A” to add a new wake-up call 8 Press 3 or 4 digits to select wake-up time 9 Press “A” for AM or “P” for PM 10 Choose one of the following options: a.Press “M” for Monday thur Friday b.Press “S” for Saturday and Sunday c.Press “E” for Everyday d.Press “X” for one time only (any day) 11 Press “K” to keep the wake-up call 12 Press “X” to exit the automatic wake-up main menu 13 Press “X” to exit the call schedule call schedule options 14 Press “X” to exit to the main menu 15 Press “X” to exit the system To remove all scheduled self-programmed wake-up calls: Proceed with above steps 1-4.

5 Press “R” to remove all wake-up calls 6 Press “X” to exit the call schedule options 7 Press “X” to exit to the main menu 8 Press “X” to exit the system

pick it up and no way for the machine to recover. There was a phone support number on the machine connecting me to a line which was un-manned after hours.

Make it fool proof. One of the best software tests I ever saw was a CEO who sat on the keyboard. The system broke. Test your technology in ways users are not supposed to use it, because they will always do things they are not supposed to do.

Use Standard (boring) components. Go out of your way to use technology components that are as standard and as hard to break as possible. Don’t try to make your screens extra-pretty, or use bleeding edge widgets and gadgets in your user interface because they amuse you or you are trying to be impressive, or you want to try something

new -- especially if there is to be no human back up when things go wrong ... which they will. Set your standard to, “It has to work.” Not, “It has to be leading edge.”

Don’t lose customers. If you replace humans with technology, if it doesn’t work you will lose customers because you have given them no possible alternative but to go away. There is a corollary to this law which is, “Don’t make people work hard to give you their money."

3. Technology should never make people feel stupid. - This issue is starting to go away as technology is actually working better and young people are immune to thinking that it is their fault if it doesn’t work.

Complexity is the enemy. But when technology is unnecessarily complicated and hard to use, it makes (us old) people feel inadequate because we can’t accomplish the task at hand. I don’t think I have ever got through a self-checkout lane without requiring assistance from a clerk and feeling a bit stupid.

Here's what I mean: If you buy wine or beer, for example, someone still needs to check your ID. Result: You Fail.

If you by an item that is too large to put in the bag, the system will freeze because it can’t sense that you put it in the bag after you scan it. Result: You fail.

If you buy organic produce, it doesn’t have a option for organic. Result: You Fail.

At this point you are given the choice either to wait for help (you feel stupid) or to steal money from the store because you can’t find a way to pay the organic up-charge (robbed of your humanity, and being made to work too hard to give them your money).

The good, at least mitigating, news is that most self-checkouts follow rule No. 2.

It HAS to work so they put human backup close by.

Here's a question to ask yourself: Does your help desk have a human back up for when all else fails?

Good for business I can tell you that in every business where I had responsibility to bring technology products to market, focusing on the human interface was good for business.

S T R AT E G Y

We put extra effort on the user’s thinking process, the user interface, the install, the demo, the “start here” experience, the documentation, the customer support help desk, and the sales and contracting documents and processes.

By doing this, my businesses were able to steal share from competitors who were overly focused on the features of their technology alone and tortured their customers and partners because of it.

Taking this approach is also critical for

your help desk, because 90% of the credibility of IT is based on your users’ experience with your help desk. They don’t see or understand the huge mountain of business critical technology that you build and support to keep the world turning nor do they care. They just see the screen that says, “raise a ticket” ... whatever that means.

NEXT HORIZONS

founder of the Azzarello Group. Patty has 25 years of experience in enterprise technology. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, including roles as vice president and general manager of HP OpenView, chief marketing officer for Siebel Systems, and president and CEO of Euclid Software.

To see more articles on this or any topic affecting IT today, please visit www.cioupdate.com, a

—Patty Azzarello is an experienced executive,

premier destination site for CIOs, CTOs, and IT

author, speaker and CEO/business advisor and

executives from around the world.

Get Everyone On The Same Page Using technology as the key enabler of strategy in an organisation.

BY DANIEL BURRUS

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

H

aving a strategic plan is a vital aspect of any successful organisation. While many CIOs believe they only have moderate influence on the company’s strategic plan, in reality the CIO and the IT department are the powerhouse behind it. So, even though the CEO leads the strategic plan, the CIO is both a strategy creator as well as the plan’s enabler.

In today’s transformational times, technology is driving business process transformation in ways it never has in the past -- in ways that are faster and more dynamic than anything we’ve witnessed previously. Technology can provide options and capabilities that most executives may never have considered simply because they don’t know what’s possible.

This is why active input from the CIO is increasingly more important; the CIO knows what’s possible technologically. Technology is a key enabler of strategy. Typically, once executives know what their top five strategic imperatives are, they then look at what technologies will enable those imperatives in the most cost effective, efficient, and gamechanging way possible.

If you simply ask people what they want and then you give it to them, you’ll undershoot because people will under-ask. They don’t know what’s possible. In that same way, the strategic planning committee will undershoot identifying strategic imperatives because they don’t know what is technologically possible. And today, there THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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are new things that are technologically possible every day.

Dynamic vs. static planning

These days, a traditional static plan is becoming less desirable and less effective, and a dynamic plan is becoming more relevant and Beyond the numbers imperative. What’s the difference? A static Most organisations have strategic plans that plan is a document that is published, shared are really financial plans in disguise. And the with key employees, and then put in a filing larger the organisation, the more true this cabinet. In contrast, a dynamic plan goes statement is. In other words, the goals of the beyond one-way informing and also commustrategic plan are monetary goals. Having nicates the plan in a two-way, on-going dialog goals related to profits is fine, but that’s only to everyone in the enterprise. one element of a strategic plan.

A version is also shared with You also need a plan for what strategic partners. It’s a living, you’re doing to de-commoditise breathing, and evolving entity your commodities -- those prodthat everyone engages in and ucts and services with increasORGANISATIONS supports. Think of it like this: ingly thinner margins and A dynamic strategic plan comgreater competition. You need WILL START USING municates rather than informs. a plan that outlines what you’re MICROBLOGGING It’s a two-way dialogue between going to do to differentiate PLATFORMS BY the company leaders and the yourself from your competitors. employees.

You need a plan that details your 2012 A dynamic strategic plan innovation strategies for creatreaches beyond the company ing new products and services walls and goes out to strategic partners. that drive new markets. Those key elements After all, how are your strategic partners are often missing in a financially focused going to help you if they don’t know what strategic plan. you’re trying to do?

So, yes, financial planning is a vital comA dynamic strategic plan evolves. It elicits ponent of strategic planning; it helps your dialogue and input from others. It can be company reach your financial goals. But continually refined and improved. This is in true and thorough strategic planning also contrast to a static strategic plan, which is looks at how you gain new competitive sent out to employees with the expectation advantages and other broader concepts that that they’ll adapt to the plan rather than the can accelerate growth beyond the target numbers of a financially focused plan.

Dynamic strategic planning needs to be a mix of financial planning (strategies to reach financial goals), strategy focused planning (strategies to create sustainable competitive advantage), long-range planning (using research to determine future positions), and tactical planning (to determine your execution strategies).

An old saying tells us, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” That saying has never been truer for companies than today, which is why having a strategic plan is so essential.

But just having an annual strategic planning process that creates a fixed, static plan is no longer enough. Today, it’s important to build change into the plan and have the ability to adapt it in real-time because the world and markets are changing so quickly.

In other words, it’s time for companies to do some dynamic planning.

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Once executives know what their top five strategic imperatives are, they then look at what technologies will enable those imperatives in the most cost effective, efficient, and gamechanging way.

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plan adapting to them and the market.

Why are these three points so important?

Because with a typical static strategic plan, people may not have time to read the plan, they may not agree with the plan, and they may not take action on it. In addition, they may find major flaws in the plan but have no means to provide risk-free feedback regarding their concerns.

However, with a dynamic strategic plan, you’re communicating with people and you get feedback. You’re not telling people the plan after the fact. Rather, you’re showing them the plan and asking for their help with identifying potential challenges. The goal is to solve the problems before they occur.

Following are some additional hallmarks of a dynamic strategic plan: Break it down. Remember that big lists rarely get done. Therefore, it’s important to highlight and break down the plan into its elemental strategic imperatives. And if you have more than five, you have too many.

The magic number is three.

Why break a long plan down into basic elements? Because you want everyone in the organisation to know the basic elements.

If they don’t know them, you won’t accomplish them. If people have to look them up, they won’t. However, if it’s broken down into short elements, it’ll stay top of mind.

When it’s top of mind every day, people will know what the strategic imperatives are and will be more likely to attain them. Having the plan broken down into its basic elements is like having a guide that leads your organisation to the future.

Tell stories. Bring the words of your company’s strategic plan to life by turning it into story form so that it becomes visual for people. Have the plan paint a picture in every employee’s mind’s eye so they can see what this plan will do and where the company is going.

Visuals are powerful. If you’ve never seen what E=MC2 means (the visual of it) then you still don’t understand Einstein’s theory of relativity. However, those who see it in a visual story format understand it, i.e., an atom bomb going off.

For many organisations, a strategic plan can be complex and often just as hard to understand as the theory of relativity. Therefore, take the complexity in your plan and simplify it; boil it down to what it means to

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the employees and the company, and help everyone see it in their mind’s eye. Some companies have gone as far as hiring a graphic artist to paint a mural that depicts the plan. They put the mural in the lunchroom or in the entryway to the building.

It becomes a visual that depicts the plan, including the outcome. Talk about getting a story ingrained in people’s minds!

Go multimedia. While your dynamic strategic plan could be a document, it could also be a video that people watch; and it could be an audio they listen to; and it could be a picture they look at; ... and it could be any combination of these things.

Remember that people learn in different ways. Some people prefer to read a book, while others prefer to listen to a book in audio form. The people who prefer to read the book wonder why anyone would listen Gain engagement to a book. And those who prefer to listen to How do you enact all these points? With a book wonder why anyone would purchase technology. Dynamic strategic planning a printed book. such as this is enabled by technology. That’s Since we all learn in different ways, it only where the CIO should be helping to drive makes sense to put the strategic plan out in the ideas and push them in the organisation various formats. If you put the strategic plan to the highest level. out in one format, then you’re only engaging The bottom line is that truly successful one learning style within an organisation and innovative companies will have a strathat has multiple styles. In fact, in a world tegic plan that is in motion. They’ll have a where multimedia is easy and the tools are dynamic document that can be added to, relatively free, there’s no excuse for not getmassaged, and refined with graphics, video, ting the strategic plan in multiple formats. and audio, as needed. They’ll have an interGet social. Social media is an ideal way nal, multimedia website versus a static and to make a strategic plan dynamic. There informing one. In short, they’ll have someare internal secure versions of various thing that’s dynamic and moving. That’s social media platforms, such as Twitter simply impossible to do without technology. and Facebook. Simply do a Google search Realise that the younger generations at to find them. The key word to remember work will read, respond to, and engage in a is “social.” It’s about creating engagement dynamic plan much more so than an oldand involvement. For example, as employfashioned static document. This is similar to ees execute the plan, you can be what happened in many markettweeting success stories, accoming departments. In the past, plishments, and roadblocks -- all companies would blast their in an effort to gain feedback commercials to the masses in a and ideas. Additionally, you can one-way, static, informing way OF BUSINESS USERS be using online collaborative and hope that people reacted WILL USE SOCIAL to it. But marketing is shifting tools to work with the different groups that are executing the with interactive media. Today’s MEDIA OVER plan so everyone can see where companies are trying harder to EMAIL BY 2014 the other parties are in need engage the customer and get of help. Unfortunately, most them involved. In that same way, organisations still have silos and we need to engage our employfiefdoms. A dynamic strategic plan tends to ees at all levels rather than just statically break them down and get everyone headed inform them. Fortunately, the tools to do so in the same direction. are there, and the CIO knows what they are.

NEXT HORIZONS

Get social. Social media is an ideal way to make a strategic plan dynamic. There are internal secure versions of various social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.

But this isn’t just about the younger workers who have shorter attention spans and who expect a dynamic strategic plan. The Baby Boomers and older workers running the companies are drowning in information yet searching for knowledge and wisdom.

Most of them don’t have time to read long and static strategic plans. They, too, need dynamic plans in order to cut through the clutter and become engaged. Because the CEO and other C-suite executives don’t know what’s possible, they’ll never ask for a dynamic strategic plan. This task rests solely on the shoulders of the CIO. With the rapid pace of change, the traditional static planning system is a dinosaur.

Most people do it only because they have to.

Now is the time to redefine what a strategic plan is -- for the organisation, for the employees, and for the limitless opportunities such a plan affords everyone involved.

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—Dan Burrus is one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and business strategists, and is the author of six books, including the highly acclaimed Technotrends, which has been translated into over a dozen languages. He is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research.

To see more articles on this or any topic affecting IT today, please visit www.cioupdate.com, a premier destination site for CIOs, CTOs, and IT executives from around the world.

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

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The CIO Redefined he role of CIO has morphed faster than Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde -- with about the same amount of agony.

Not so long ago CIOs were respected misunderstood master geeks who were often software developers and programmers themselves. More recently, they’ve been shackled to securing and supporting a hodge-podge of bringyour-own-tech and often derided for being behind the times.

In the beginning, the CIO’s importance to business was a given (for who else knew what the heck a server was, much less how to make the thing work). Later, the CIO role became something of a mix of head hacker-smacker, cost-shrinker and Web-weaver. Now, the role has morphed once again; this time to something a little harder to label but infinitely more respectable. In essence, the CIO role has moved from data-room-tinkerer to master-thinker.

“The new marketscape is putting the ‘Information’ back in Information Technology,” explained Elizabeth Sweigart, director of Opportune, an energy industry consulting firm.

“With a services-based economy, the category of intangibles and intellectual property goes far beyond patents and trademarks; the value in these service organisations lies in the knowledge of the individuals delivering the services.”

Those CIOs that understand this paradigm shift will advance their careers at lightning speed. Those that do not are apt to lose their keys to the data room.

CIO as profit prophet CIOs are now not only fully out of the data closet but standing on the profit generation pedestal. “More enterprises are becoming information companies directly or indirectly deriving profit from the intellectual and information assets and our ability to capitalise on those assets, in real-time,” said Rob Meilen, CIO of The Sports Authority. “Our executive teams are turning to the CIO for strategies and actions that monetise the enterprise's information assets.”

In other words, CIOs are no longer expected to sit at the boardroom table and suggest ways to move other C-seat dreams into reality, but to stand and present new revenue streams from the data the company already possesses.

“Technology is only one part of the equation. The CIO must focus

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BY PAM BAKER

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

T

From data-room-tinkerer to master-thinker.

on the quality of the data captured, not only the method of capture,” said Sweigart. “Going forward, CIOs will be called on to ensure that their organisations are able to gather, store and update the knowledge and information held within their company by a workforce that is becoming even more transitory.”

CIOs that can truthfully boast their databases are clean, and that they found a new and meaningful way to monetise that data, are on the career fast track. “In the future, for information-based service organisations, the CIO and COO will perform the same role; there is no need to have both. Why? The revenue generating operations are information based,” said Stephen Hay, founder of the New Zealandbased boutique consulting firm, People and Process Limited.

CIO as changeling Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this recent mutation in the CIO’s role is the expansion beyond the IT space. “A CIO's role is expanding from corporate leader to change agent focused on enhancing the return on investment of information technology, expanding the business impact of IT, and acquiring and managing innovation,” said Michael Meehan, co-founder and CTO of ENXSuite, a software and services company that helps organisations like Sears and the City of Chicago plan and execute sustainability programs.

For example, one of the new areas now falling under the CIO’s

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domain is energy. This is primarily because IT is an energy hog in need of slaughtering but it can also be because energy from the datacenter can be sold to the new smartgrids thus creating yet another new revenue stream. “Energy is one of the last unmanaged assets in the enterprise and CIOs can make huge gains if it is managed just like any other corporate asset or liability," said Meehan.

CIOs must also look to cutting energy costs, without cutting services, while innovating to profit from energy generation where possible. In addition, the need to protect the environment and leverage new “smart” technologies is, in effect, placing the CIO in the forefront of facility management, too. Because of this, moving facilities and energy under the scope of the CIO will become more common in the near-future.

“Changing the organisational structure such that both IT and facilities report to the CIO is a relatively simple way to align everyone in the data center around common goals, metrics and objectives,” explained Lennart Jonsson, vice president and CTO of

Eaton Corporation's Electrical Sector. “That, in turn, will help ensure that IT and facilities managers are equally motivated to lower power bills without reducing uptime.”

CIO as big picture specialist The CIO role is also breaking into specialties. While they must maintain their role as general IT overseer, they must also adapt more to industry specialization than they have had to do in the past.

At healthcare organisations, for example, “concepts being tested today, such as accountable care organisations and the patient-centered medical home, will rely heavily on growing IT capabilities within healthcare organisations, and CIOs will be heavily involved in that process,” explained Fred Bazzoli, senior director of Communications at CHIME – the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, an organisation comprised of 1400+ healthcare CIOs. “This goes far beyond getting software installed and making sure PCs have enough memory to operate new programs.”

NEXT HORIZONS

And, just like healthcare, CIOs must now work closely with federal regulators, hospital staffs, clinicians and other industry players, CIOs in every industry must also be able to form teams that include members outside of IT and even outside of the organisation. Soft skills are thus increasing in importance. However, in this massive expansion of responsibilities it is important not to lose sight of the continuing need to proactively manage IT. While career advancement for CIOs is not dependent on the CIO’s ability to master all these new roles (at least not yet), those that can demonstrate such a skill set have a definite and definitive competitive edge.

— A prolific and versatile writer, Pam Baker's published credits include numerous articles in leading publications.

To see more articles on this or any topic affecting IT today, please visit www.cioupdate.com, a premier destination site for CIOs, CTOs, and IT executives from around the world.

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OF PRIVATE JETS &

SUPERMARKETS Peter Coffee, Head of Platform Research, salesforce.com discusses with Geetaj Channana how the private cloud is like a private jet and the public cloud, a supermarket 62

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You have very strong views about the private cloud. Why do you think they are a bad idea?

When someone says that they would rather have a private cloud, I believe I know what they mean but I also believe that what they prefer is in some ways unnecessary and in other ways impossible. When someone says that they prefer a private cloud, after one or two questions, they say that they believe that the private cloud will be more secure. Then, I say let us discuss the nature of security. If you try to have security in your own operations you have – complex technology and a rapidly evolving threat environment that becomes your problem to monitor and address.

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You are in an environment where the people that you trust with the information are really your greatest source of risk.

Now if we turn the question around and ask, how is the true cloud a superior means of securing your assets? There are several reasons for this. The first is that, the legacy of IT is that ownership is possession and possession is control. There is a perimeter – inside that perimeter is trust and outside that perimeter is 'not trust.'

The true cloud is designed to be a highly shared system. There is no perimeter – now we must say that not where you are, but who you are decides what you can see. So instead of a boundary we have a representation of the right to interact with the data. Deep down in every piece of data, it knows what its ownership is and then we can say to any customer that there are members of your personnel who should be able to read certain things but not change them; others should be able to change them in a very precise way. Also, when someone uses their privilege, we can record that they have used their privilege.

Now this turns the question around, when you are in your own data centre, you rely completely on the trust that you have in your people. When you are working with our systems you can manage their privileges in a much more accurate manner, and you can have a record of what they did with their privileges.

If they, either by accident or malice, misused their privileges – you know who did it and when.

The first reason, why people believe that they would rather have a private cloud, is because they think that it is more secure. I tell them that the public cloud can be more manageable or more secure than what they have today.

The other belief that I encounter is when people believe they will have more power to build a customized business solution if they own and

operate the resource, than they will if they are using a shared resource.

For them I need to draw the picture and say that this the model that we have built, operate and maintain is in the lower level. When we improve the capacity, speed, accuracy or capability it is for everybody. In the higher layer, there are things that are specific to the clients and their work flows. There are various ways to integrate what you do in the cloud and other resources.

Those are two reasons that people think that they would rather have a private cloud but turn out in practice not to be correct.

Now, lets look at the other side of the coin, which is, when you say that you want to have a private cloud you mean that you want to continue investing in capital assets in infrastructure. That is what it means.

You are going to buy hardware and license software, when you are doing capital expenditure it means that when you have a new business opportunity or a new initiative that you would like to undertake – the first question will not be what should we do, it will be do we have capital budget? If the answer is no, then it would be next quarter or next year, before you are able to do anything.

This drastically slows the ability of the business to respond to its environment. And that is a serious cost.

Also there is a point that if you want to operate the resource your-

“When someone says that they prefer a private cloud, after one or two questions, they say that they believe that the private cloud will be more secure.”

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self, you will need many skilled staff members like database, security etc. who will not be fully occupied. Our [Sales Force. Com’s] security teams are the right size to handle 87,000 customers worth of security and they are fully engaged and they are continuously monitoring the threat environment, they are continually having interviews with regulators and policy makers. The cost of this world class security team is being spread across 87,000 customers. Which means that the cost of being that safe with us much less than the cost of being this safe on your own.

This is why I believe that the private cloud is a seduction, a dangerous label, especially, for an emerging market. Here is what it is – if I have $5 billion dollars with me to build a new global brand based in India.

What will give me greater success – spending 10 percent of those assets on cloud computing resources - I write the cheque to Amazon and say that I need 1,000 virtual servers for research and testing; from Salesforce.com I would need 1,000 seats of support for my customer outreach and 100 seats for my sales team. Now, this is all done and I have spent only 10 percent of my fund.

90 percent is available to do the real work. This is an appealing idea. It is one week since we had the conversation about starting this company and all those services are already up and running. I am now focused on creating a global brand.

What is the other way of doing things that the people who want to sell you a private cloud like to see you do?

They want you to spend not one week, but one month or a quarter purchasing hardware which is not made in India, licensing software which will be a cheque that you would be writing in USD to an American company and take up 60-70 percent of your start-up assets, send them out of the country, wait a few months, and then with the small

THE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FORUM

DOSSIER COMPANY: Salesforce.com ESTABLISHED: 1999 FOUNDERS: Mark Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, Frank Dominguez SERVICES: Enterprise cloud computing

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fraction of your remaining resources, you starting building your global brand.

That is what I see when I see somebody come to India and ask you to build a private cloud. They actually want you to pay tribute to an empire of infrastructure and slow your ability to enter a new market. Also, they reduce the amount of resources that you have available for creating differentiation and brand power. This will also hold true for an established enterprise that wants to enter a new market.

This is why I think this label is a misrepresentation and I believe that it appeals to people’s ignorance and misunderstanding, instead of appealing to the intelligence and enterprise.

CIOs have this concern that it is easy to get into the cloud, but very difficult to get out of it. Is it true?

The good CIOs understand that when they

tion of service on a local server. The CIO needs to feel a greater sense of assurance, that this a choice that you can make – or if you desire – un-make.

This is important to know that we recognize the concern and we are addressing the concern by offering a greater variety of options. Clearly, I believe that once you are in the cloud you will start taking advantage of cloud capabilities. You will start to use analytics, collaboration tools, and powerful work flow capability. Once you have done that and you decide that you want to run it somewhere else – well there will now be things that you will have to implement for yourself. I do not apologize for the fact that we offer great value, and wanting you to stay with us by offering things that would cost you more to do yourself. I do not regard that as lock-in, I regard that as a job that I am supposed to do.

“Clearly, I believe that once you are in the cloud you will start taking advantage of cloud capabilities.” decide to build a windows application in favour of a Linux application they are trading greater speed and capability of development against less freedom. It is very useful for the CIO to understand that the cloud also offers a spectrum of choices. I can write very standard open source code, that could normally run on a server or I could run with equal convenience on a virtual server on the Amazon cloud. Running it there means that I can have 100s or 1000s of servers for the day and then stop paying at the end of the day. But, if for some reason I decide that I want to run the code on a server right in front of me then its fine.

We have our own initiative, with VMWare called VMForce, that will allow this capability with Java applications. This is where you can deploy a spring Java application to the Force.com cloud or apply the same applica-

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Lock-in is something that you continue to use something that does not work very well because switching away from it has become very expensive. I must tell you that for our customers, the only cause of switching away from us is needing to do for himself, what we have previously done. I do not consider that at lock-in. I do agree that it is a switching cost, not one that I feel that demands an apology.

What is the level of customization that can be done?

Enormous. There are some people who use the word platform to mean, here is our application and you can modify it, we use this word to mean that if you do not want our applications ignore them and do not pay for them. We have customers who have built applications in our platform to manage financial services, motion picture cinemas,

pizza delivery, chemical sample delivery etc.

About eight years ago, I did a web search for _RM, which is ARM, BRM, CRM, etc. I found that everything except J, Y and Z had been used, and sometimes more than once, for 'Something Relationship Management.'

Everybody knows that all business applications manage some kind of relationship – sometimes one-to-one, sometimes one-tomany, sometimes many-to-one etc. When someone says to me that is our platform only for CRM, I say that you have a very narrow view of CRM and you do not realize how many common elements there are in business applications. You have entities that relate to each other in time or space or in some kind of cause effect manner and there is much that is common here. Is it true that our Force. com platform would not be a good choice for writing the next generation role playing game on the net – Yes. There are things that this platform is not designed to do.

But, if you think about it, if you wish to create a business around a gaming opportunity online, would it not be very attractive if all of your talent was focused entirely on the game playing engine. The thing that is your distinctive asset and all of the things that you wrap around it – like billing your customers for their time, providing customer support, etc. – would it not make sense for you to take care of this by just adding cosmetics to something available online. This way you can focus all the efforts at the heart of the service you are offering.

This is one of the most important things that a person needs to understand – that the public cloud is a supermarket. Walk in the grocery store and you will find isles with rice and beans, on the other hand will be a section with delicatessen that has complete, ready to eat meals. Then there are many other things in between. The cloud has become this general. We are the delicatessen department where we offer somewhat higher degree of packaging of somewhat more complicated offering. On the other hand is Amazon which offers you the rice and the beans of cloud computing. Clearly, I would rather go to the supermarket than do what a private cloud will have be – which is to stick a shovel in the ground and begin to grow my dinner. That is what the private cloud is.

Cloud is not one thing, but many ideas – all you pay for is function.

—geetaj.channana@9dot9.in

HIDDENTANGENT GEETAJ CHANNANA geetaj.channana@9dot9.in

THE AUTHOR IS Executive Editor, CTO Forum

Chrome Lining on the Cloud Google introduces the Cr-48 Chrome Notebook.

BY THIS time next year you can have your own Chrome notebook to play with, but for now you may have to be content with the tens of reviews that have appeared on the Internet.

As with mobile phones, Google is working hard to make a mark in a different way on the erstwhile notebook.

Google has been working feverishly on its Chrome-for-notebooks platform, which it announced earlier this year.

Unlike the usual operating systems that we have, the Google Chrome OS uses the cloud extensively for everything that you would want to do on your notebook.

It is literally a thin client on the move. So much so, that the Chrome laptop won't work at all if you are not connected to the Internet. And, your interface to the notebook is the wellknown Chrome browser. Anything can be done on the notebook, as long as it is in the browser. Now, isn’t that exciting?

The Cr-48 notebook that has been given to a select few has received some very interesting reviews.

Reviewers like Techcrunch.com have described it as both “Shiny and Tarnished” at the same time.

The body of the notebook is Macbook-esque with a matte black exterior and island keys. Though most of the keys are well placed, one missing link is the caps-lock key, which has been omitted from the keyboard totally. Instead the notebook has a search key. Also, there are only a few extendable ports. There is only one VGA and one USB port on the notebook. It has in-built 3G and Wi-Fi hardware for connectivity.

One of the biggest reported problems has been with the track pad, which has an inbuilt button. It is reportedly extremely buggy and doesn't work properly at all.

Getting on to the software, the machine boots up in close to 10 seconds and is ready to use for the first time in a few minutes. The setup process is as easy as connecting to your Google account. Another interesting feature is the online print option for the notebook. For now, you can print on any printer that is connected to a computer with Google

There is a possibility of a dumb terminal that can be carried anywhere by the employees

Chrome 9. Going forward you may see functionality being built right into printers to support this feature.

But the software is also not without its own problems. For instance, there have been various reports of Adobe Flash slowing down the notebook considerably. But, this is still a prototype and can be given the benefit of doubt – I am sure these niggles will be solved in time.

Take all this in the enterprise context now – you can see the possibility of a dumb terminal that can be carried anywhere by the employees and is dependent on your servers for doing anything. With data on the move being close to ubiquitous, most of your employees can be powered by such devices easily. Just that, Google has not announced an enterprise plan for these things yet.

For me, these are great signs of things to come that are going to change the way we implement IT in an enterprise. Be it the tablet devices, or cloud powered notebooks, be ready for your world to be rocked to the core. The cloud is getting bigger and bigger.

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KNOW what you want IS IT a real infosec company?

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

WHAT'S THE income model?

UNDERSTAND THE limits KEEP IT simple

CHOOSING A SECURITY

CONSULTANCY It is important to choose the right security consultancy in order to be really secure.

BY JAVVAD MALIK

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Track record not personalities

There are hundreds if not

thousands of “Indian Restaurants” dotted around London.

However, we all know that most of these places are not owned or run by Indians at all. You have a large number of Bangladeshi or Pakistani’s owning and managing these establishments. But for convenience there’s an unspoken rule that the owners will advertise their food as “Indian cuisine” and customers will always refer to it as going out for an Indian.

By and large, it is somewhat irrelevant whether you’re eating a genuine Indian meal or not. You just look for one that will fill you up and not burn your insides.

The same traits are displayed when organisations set out to hire an infosec consultancy. There are many consultancies out there. Most of them aren’t even really geared towards security which results in the your organisation's intestines exploding and an empty wallet.

So, to help you out, here are some things to consider when choosing an infosec consultancy:

Know what you want First off you need to decide why you actually need an infosec consultancy. Is it because the work can’t be done in-house? Or there are confidentiality issues? Or someone at the golf course just mentioned how their infosec team can sort out all of your problems?

Is it a real infosec company?

Many accountants, auditors, builders, pen-pushers, retired policemen, bankers, dolphin trainers, sperm donors and benefit fraudsters have somehow positioned themselves as infosec experts. But scratch beneath the surface a bit. Is this really a security company? Or another company trying to make some money off the security industry?

What’s their income model This is a touchy subject for many organisations out there. Does the company actually have an income model based around actually making your company more secure?

Or do they simply want you to feel as if you’re more secure by writing huge reports designed simple to keep a regulatory body off your back?

Many accountants, auditors, builders, pen-pushers, retired policemen, bankers, dolphin trainers, sperm donors and benefit fraudsters have somehow positioned themselves as infosec experts.

Does the consultancy have a track record in delivering the type of security you’re specifically after? Or is it a consultancy solely built around a personality? It’s not to discredit infosec personalities in any way, shape or form. But unless that personality will be delivering the consultancy themselves, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll receive any advice close to the level you’ll be charged for.

Follow fads Check up on their research. Is the consultancy chasing after virtualisation one year and smart phones the next? Are they always looking over the horizon at the next emerging fancy threat, without having enough time to fix today’s bugs? Do their service offerings change depending upon that weeks press releases?

Keeping it simple Does the consultancy continually publish all these papers about how to protect you from these super-advanced techniques and exploits that very few people can actually develop, and most hackers will NEVER USE. It’s the simple stuff that works now, and will continue to work years into the future. Security need not be complicated.

Understand the limits You cannot outsource blame. You HAVE to take responsibility for your organisation's mistakes. Whether they be IT mistakes, vendor mistakes, even mistakes made by your most trusted employees. These are all security choices. You don’t have to be an expert in security; you just have to make informed decisions to control your organisation.

—This article was first published on www.infosecisland.com and is reprinted with prior permission from them.

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T E CH F O R G OVE R NAN CE

SECURIT Y

Enterprise Security To Be Altered Forever The next dump from Wikileaks may have a huge impact on enterprise security.

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

BY ANTHONY M. FREED

I

f the recent classified data disclosures by whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks can be said to have officials in the US and other governments in a scramble, then it would be fair to say that the pending release of confidential records from private enterprises should have executives and shareholders in a serious pucker.

In an interview with Andy Greenberg of Forbes in early November, fugitive activist Julian Assange revealed that his next target is the private sector, and the implications for the future of enterprise information security efforts is unprecedented.

Assange made clear his intentions to release damning documentation of improprieties by at least one major US bank. Also pending release are documents from pharmaceutical companies, financial firms and energy companies.

"We have one related to a bank coming up, that's a megaleak," Assange asserts. "It will give a true and representative insight into

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how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume... For this, there's only one similar example. It's like the Enron emails..."

The Enron emails revealed a calculated culture of corporate corruption and an ethical void so vast that the disclosures spurred one of the biggest regulatory reforms in American history, yielding the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which nearly ten years later is still finding its ultimate reach.

Information security professionals, both inside and outside the corporate structure, have long been fighting an uphill battle in their efforts to bring assurance to the forefront of enterprise management activities.

The widespread dependence on information technology and the dynamic nature of the challenges inherent in the protection of sensitive and proprietary data make security efforts difficult to justify to executives with a return-on-investment mindset that was drilled into them in business school.

Information security is seen as a cost-center proposition, where risk is most often evaluated in the absence of a breach event, leaving security professionals in the awkward position of proving a negative in order justify an increased need for resources to counter burgeoning threats.

This information security paradox becomes readily apparent to all involved in the aftermath of a catastrophic data security event, and WikiLeaks is pursuing just that.

The crux of the problem for enterprise security is the fact that increased regulation has not resulted in increased security, in fact the contrary may be true. Mandated audits and the threat of regulatory sanction too often appear to be greater threats to the company

SECURIT Y

The pending release of thoubottom-line than does the risk INCREASED sands of pages of confidential of a data loss event.

REGULATION HAS information by WikiLeaks will In a recent interview, Larry undoubtedly shock corporate Clinton, President of the NOT RESULTED management out of their state Internet Security Alliance said, IN INCREASED of complacency. "in short many organisations SECURITY, IN FACT So what is at stake? Well, a lot. are now devoting their cyber Potentially, the revelations security resources primarily to THE CONTRARY could shake shareholder confiaudit compliance which does MAY BE TRUE dence across multiple sectors, not necessarily correspond to and we could witness a sharp improved security. Indeed by decline in the stock prices of drawing resources away from enough companies to negatively affect any actual security to focus on regulatory comhope of an economic recovery for some time. pliance we may well be weakening our It could also, as Assange predicts, be the security." catalyst for even more regulatory reforms The focus on compliance also gives the that, while well intentioned, will again ultiexecutive class a false sense of security. mately do little to increase enterprise secuWhen all of the checklist boxes are filled in, rity while further raising the cost of complithe required certifications are in place, and ance - a cost ultimately borne by consumers. the audit teams have given enterprise secuBut on the positive side of things, it rity efforts the green light, their focus turns could be the impetus that the information elsewhere.

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security sector needs to finally garner the resources required to optimise security efforts, ultimately reduce the risk of data loss events, and realise long term savings for businesses.

This utopian feat will be evident when security best practices finally become "baked-in" to the enterprise at every stage of operations, in sharp contrast to the "we built this, don't let anyone break it" mentality that is currently the status quo.

Unfortunately, but predictably, it takes an event of such catastrophic magnitude to cause a sea change on the level we will witness after WikiLeaks decides to pull the trigger on the private sector.

Get ready to see how the sausage is made. —Anthony M. Freed is the Managing Editor of Infosec Island. This article was first published at www.infosecisland.com and is reprinted with prior permission from them.

EVENT REPORT

JU N I PE R N E T WORKS

Event

Climbing the Corporate Mountain CTO Forum in partnership with Juniper Networks organised a two-city leadership event on the rise of the CIO.

House Full - Delegates came in large numbers to listen to the leadership talks in New Delhi Mike Rose, Executive VP, Services, Support and Operations, Juniper Networks kept it very interactive and friendly with the participants.

Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, Managing Director, 9.9 Media kept the delegates fully engaged during his talk

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I

t won’t be inappropriate to quote Stephen R. Covey who said, “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

Assuming that CIOs in India are pushing the envelope to rise above merely playing the role of a technology leader, CTO Forum in partnership with Juniper Networks organised a two-city leadership event named “Climbing the Corporate Mountain: Journey

JU N I PE R N E T WORKS

EVENT REPORT

CIOs who attended the session in New Delhi paid undivided attention to the speakers while they kept questions for the last CIOs and other IT leaders in Bangalore did not shy away from asking difficult questions and took notes while the speakers were presenting.

Mike Rose, Executive VP, Services, Suooprt and Operations, Juniper Networks making a point at the session CIOs networking with each other before the start of the session in New Delhi

to the Board” during the month of November 2010 in Bangalore and Delhi.

Breaking away from the conventional format and keeping technology aside for a moment, the sessions were purely focused on how CIOs should look at acquiring the essential skills to equip themselves for the journey to the corporate board.

While talking to the CIOs about their journey from the back office to the board room, Mike Rose, Executive VP, Service, Support and Operations, Juniper Networks and former CIO of Shell and HP warned about the common traps of enterprise IT that CIOs are mostly bolted to the infrastructure. “This is the primary reason that CIOs fail to focus on business models. Instead, the business model should drive the architecture,” he said.

“CIOs should partner directly with the economic buyers of technology which are far different then end users,” said Rose.

Concluding his talk, Rose left the CIOs with a suggestion to be insatiably curious about their business to make an entry into the board.

While Mike still linked his talk with technology framework in mind, Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha, Managing Director of 9.9 Media and Founding Dean of Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad spoke about the other attributes of leadership drawn from his personal experiences. Quoting Dalia Lama in the beginning Dr. Sinha said, “It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.”

“What is the one most critical attribute/ characteristic/feature of leadership/leaders,” asked Dr. Sinha to the participating CIOs. “Leadership is synonymous with breakthrough performance. While other things are important and attributes of successful leaders, what makes it most effective is ‘performance’ of the leader that is aimed at positive, sustainable step change,” said Dr. Sinha. Dr. Sinha also advised the CIOs to ask and take risks. “One must be opportunistic. “Breakthrough achievements are contextual to opportunities and deliberate risk-taking creates opportunities,” he concluded.

A large number of CIOs who attended these sessions in Bangalore and Delhi had countless questions and points of view.

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VIEWPOINT BOB LALIBERTE | bob.laliberte@esg-global.com

Dell – The Enterprise Solution Company

PHOTO: PHOTOS.COM

Establishing end-to-end offerings for organisations

RECENTLY I attended the Dell Services and Solutions for the Virtual Era analyst event. One couldn’t help but be impressed with the progress that Dell has made in transitioning from a PC supplier to a serious contender as an enterprise solutions company.

Why do I think that? Well, for starters, only a year after buying Perot, you would never know they are two separate companies. If asked, employees will still identify themselves as Perot or Dell, but otherwise there is very little indication that integration is needed yet. In fact, there appears to be very tight alignment in messaging and go-to-market, which is very much solution focused with vertical expertise leading the way.

Dell’s mantra for the event was that they were open, capable and affordable. The open part was emphasized not only through Dell messaging, but

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with products such as VIS and AIM, and through a number of customers that they brought in to talk about their Dell Solutions. Such solutions included products from Dell as well as their competitors, which Dell is designing and supporting. In fact, one of the customers I spoke to (a detective from Florida) paid Dell one of the highest compliments for a Technology Solution: he referred to it as a “tool,” something he used to make him way more productive at his job, not a complex IT solution comprising servers, storage, networking, and applications that he had to manage.

Another proof point of Dell’s commitment to rapidly expanding its capability to deliver enterprise solutions came in the form of the number of new employees that came from the enterprise groups of companies such as HP, IBM, and Cisco, not Lenovo or

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bob is an ESG senior analyst focusing on data center infrastructure management and automation software, data center infrastructure and technologies, and professional services.

a printer company.

So while I came away extremely optimistic for the future of Dell, they still have a lot of work ahead of them.

From a brand perspective, many still consider them a PC company, but by continuing to deliver and promote their success stories, that will change.

There are still gaps in Dell's portfolio, but it has been diligently acquiring companies to fill those. Heck, even HP and IBM are still acquiring to bolster their offerings, so expect this to continue for some time.

As virtualization continues to permeate organisation and change the landscape of IT and data centres, look for Dell to make its presence felt as it establishes itself as an end-to-end IT solutions provider.