J A N U A R Y 2 0 21 | V O L 3 I S S U E 1 0
2021 THE CHANGE-SPOTTERS AND CHANGE-MAKERS
NANI M. BUTTI,
Acting Director of Information System, Ministry of Youth and Sport Affairs Kingdom of Bahrain
LEADING BY EXAMPLE A true leader leads by example. Nani Butti Says that the most effective team leaders build their relationships on trust and loyalty, rather than fear or the power of their positions.
BROUGHT BY
#StrongerTogether
GCF DESK THE CHANGE-SPOTTERS AND CHANGE-MAKERS
MANAGING DIRECTOR Tushar Sahoo CEO Ronak Samantaray
It Takes a
‘TITAN’
Apart from the health crisis, economic losses and various other ripple effects of the pandemic, the year 2020 taught us few things in particular— Uncertainty is inevitable, Transformation is evolution, Leapfrogging is the way ahead, and Technology is the ANSWER to all the above. Situations made it mandate for all businesses, small or large, to go online with their services. We saw the largest of brands who never had the intent of having an online store (owing to the sheer grandeur of in-shop experience they wanted the customers to have) establishing an online platform. Cloud was no more a choice; cyber security became the epitome priority as more and more workforce became remote and organizations had to keep a tight reign on data security. The 4IRs also rose swiftly as one of the most sought after attributes and know-hows for a IT professional. 2020 was an eventful year for Global CIO Forum (literally and conceptually). We managed to have meaningful conversations with the CIOs from over 26 countries through various events, collaborative programs, cross border panels and a host of training sessions that took us many steps closer to the CIOS’ territory of work and way they collaborate with their internal and external stakeholders. CIOs from across the world told us how the situation suddenly shifted for them in the organization and how CFOs became their best friend. Budgeting plans were done in a new light keeping technology at the heart of all investments and companies started putting the CIO at the forefront to lead business operations. In this brand-new issue of Titans, we explore stories and experiences of some leading and successful CIOs from various parts of the globe who have shared pieces of their lives as a CIO and how they sailed smoothly in this pandemic. Some succeeded in working and building a remote and diverse workforce; some succeeded in making a complete digital transformation against the odds; some succeeded in remaining unaffected by the pandemic by realizing the catastrophe early; while some succeeded in creating new pipelines and growth tangent for the next 5 years. Each story a different lesson. Pandemic was definitely not for the faint-hearted! And for organizations and business, it showed us that ‘it takes a Titan’ to thrive, succeed and lead from the front. We dedicate this issue of The Titans to all the CIOs and IT decision makers across the globe who have made a mark in their organizations with their path-breaking thought process and unwavering commitment. Global CIO Forum salutes you and looks forward to striking some meaningful conversations throughout the year. Stay Safe!
ANUSHREE DIXIT GLOBAL HEAD, CONTENT AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES anushree@gecmediagroup.com
GLOBAL HEAD, CONTENT AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES Anushree Dixit anushree@gecmediagroup.com GROUP SALES HEAD Richa S richa@gecmediagroup.com 056 215 1157 VISUALIZER Manas Ranjan LEAD VISUALIZER DPR Choudhary DESIGNER Ajay Arya ASSISTANT DESIGNER Rahul Arya DESIGNED BY
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Honoring the best #iamacatalyst
CONTENT COVER STORY/ 36
LEADING
BY EXAMPLE
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
08 SHAKER ALOWAINATI, Senior Manager, IT and Operations, Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance
10 SAIFUL BAKHTIAR OSMAN, Head, ICT, Malaysian Aviation Commission
14 SRINIVASAN MAHALINGAM, AGM- Information Security, Matrimony.com Limited
JANUARY 2021
16 TRAN VIET HOAN, CIO | Independent IT Thought Leader | Keynote Speaker | CEO, Asian Dragon
THE TITANS
5
Business qualified person who understand the language of business, finance and investment
Responsible of a yearly income to the organization
Will be a business head inside the organization
Tight coupling the business objectives with technology-led innovation roadmap
Curious and learning continuously
The CIO of tomorrow
Many Voices, One Vison
Business acumen
Digital Savvy with customer centric
Focus on integrating the 4IR technologies which will reflect positively on a post 2020 era
6
THE TITANS    JANUARY 2021
Servant leader with Agile mindset
Ability to hire, develop and retain high-quality IT professionals
Business orchestrators helping the CEOs rethink the business models
Able to build business plans and products road map for the new digital services and products Understand the customer needs and become more customer centric
Technology Visionary Driving Transformation & embracing Digital
Brings balance between both world, business, and technology
expertise in aligning and leveraging technology for the advantage of the enterprise
A Business Strategist, a Financial Advisor, a Marketing Expert, a Product Specialist, and a Customer Experience Champion
Have a solid technical knowledge of the working area
**The inputs presented here is based on the opinions of several CIOs interviewed for this issue.
JANUARY 2021
THE TITANS
7
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Stabilizing
e-Learning WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
I can see that the next five years will be the golden period of digital transformation across the globe. This will emphasis and make use of all the 4IR technologies such as IoT, Big Data, AI, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing etc., in all industries. It will not be a choice. It will instead be mandatory to be able to sustain business post 2020.
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
We came up with a new initiative, BIBF+, which is an exclusive digital courses solution. It allows our clients to browse and purchase fully online digitalized courses with no faculty interaction. The BIBF+ initiative allows our faculty to design new digital experiences for our students. Moreover, it diversifies the course offerings available to our corporate clients by providing them with a new way of training to their staff. Such an eLearning offering can help the BIBF engage different stakeholders through a new business model created to strive in a post COVID-19 world.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
My approach in building my team is to ensure setting the appropriate goals to every individual, focusing on their progress, valuing their contribution and giving them enough space to express themselves. Moreover, I gave them trust while delegating tasks based on capabilities. I always celebrate their success, while still giving them enough support to avoid a failure or at least minimize its impact. I set the communication rules between the team and I communicate clearly as I believe that effective communication enhances teamwork.
SHAKER ALOWAINATI,
8
Senior Manager, IT and Operations, Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance
THE TITANS    JANUARY 2021
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
BIBF MYCLASS
3.0 eLearning PLATFORM
We have given more importance to our eLearning platform and focused on the establishment and stabilization of our virtual classroom solution. That allowed our business to move forward during this challengeable period, especially with the denial of physical gathering and maintaining social distancing measures. It privileged us to offer our students with a new and unique eLearning experience. The good thing here that all our eLearning initiatives helped us to achieve a fruitful end-user satisfaction with our BIBF MyClass 3.0 eLearning platform. WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
When I see smiles on the team after achieving their goals, I feel energized to give more and vice versa. However, I consider myself as a self-motivated individual where I always spread inspiration and smiles across, and that itself encourages me to always be positive and never spread negativity because of its impact of our success.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
I have three noteworthy contributions in the BIBF since I joined. The first one was revamping the IT infrastructure and overall IT services to a stable digital environment. The second major contribution was managing the Operations department in the BIBF which allowed me to restructure and systemize many operational aspects. The third major contribution was during the COVID-19 pandemic, as I have been in charge to enable the BIBF business continuity and manage the health and safety practice
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
I feel the most difficult decision I have ever taken during my time in the BIBF was accepting the extra responsibilities to manage the Operations department. It involved me into a wide range of service areas that required even more focus and effort.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
I believe all 4IR technologies will be dominant in the coming five years. We will continue with cloud computing and big data, while embedding blockchain, AI and machine learning to enhance the customer service journey.
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
I think more CIOs will be in board positions as digital transformation will be the key factor of success.
WHO IS THE ‘CIO OF TOMORROW’ AND WHAT QUALITIES WILL HE/SHE IMBIBE?
The effective CIO of tomorrow will have to focus on integrating the 4IR technologies which will reflect positively on a post 2020 era.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
Do more digitization and do not underestimate expectations. This will give plenty of confidence to follow the digital transformation race.
JANUARY 2021
THE TITANS
9
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
SAIFUL BAKHTIAR OSMAN,
Head, ICT, Malaysian Aviation Commission
enue to enable them a fast recovery. AI would handle the customer interaction and bring a fresh new experience. Chatbots used in the customer service chats is a simple example on how AI would add value to increase Customer Experience (Cx) and to expand the customer reach via social media and emerging channels. The key to the above is to have an integration tools or middleware that able to extract, transform and load (ETL) multiple formats of feeds into our Data warehouse. This is the right approach because we do not want to tamper with any existing systems invested by the industry players. This would also seal the buy-in from the industry and mitigate any resistance because it is difficult for them to spend in this challenging times. As for our Top Management, the benefit of having a single Dashboard and overview of the whole industry would aid them in making the right and swift decisions.
Role and Team Building
Flying Smart WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
The recent pandemic crisis has left a huge impact to the Aviation Industry. Even the industry is slowly recovering, I feel that it would take 2 to 3 years for the industry to reach its state, before the pandemic hit. In this challenging time, the industry needs to place their bet in technology to increase efficiency, reducing overhead cost and expand their customer reach. I foresee that Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Analytics to play a crucial part in achieving this. While the repetitive processes be replaced by a Process Automation, they could reallocate their existing Staff to other areas to fully utilised their manpower. Analytics would assist them to focus on the route and market segment with the highest rev-
10 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS AND SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENT?
MAVCOM officially commenced operations on 1st March 2016 and it was an advantage for us for being a new organization. Hence, as one of the pioneers who set up the office, we were the ones who set the trend and foster the culture. Integrity, Professionalism, and Impartiality had become the core values that we practice here in MAVCOM. One of my best moments working with a totally diverse team was in 2019. I was assigned as the Team Lead to investigate the Total Airport Management System (TAMS) Disruption incident in KL International Airport. My ‘Nutcracker’ team members were comprised of the representatives from Legal, Risk Management and Consumer Affairs. Working with these youngsters was really a great experience. We encourage openness, healthy arguments, and respect. Everything was so smooth with each member focussing on their area while staying aligned with the outcome that I set for the team. Working in a lean organization of only 60 people requires a productive platform for Management and Staff to communicate and to better collaborate between teams. Here is where O365 comes handy with OneDrive and
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
SharePoint which all documents are available real time and accessible by everyone in the team. This was also the reason that we were able to get through this pandemic time and still deliver our Regulatory duties to the public.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
I would consider Cloud adoption as my most significant contribution to my current company. Being a new Economic Regulator, we need to pick up the pace and catch up with the other established government agencies in the country. By adopting the SaaS Cloud, we were able to deliver our Regulatory functions at the fastest speed, secure and expanding the reach to every Malaysians. As an Economic Regulator also, we need to set the trend so that our industry players would leverage on new technologies and gain all the benefits that come with it. Our FlySmart CMS (Complain Management System) which is running on SalesForce.com had received a good feedback from all consumers and we clinched the “Information Visionary” Award during IDC’s Digital Transformation Summit in 2019. Our AeroFile system which is also running on SalesForce.com had improved the turnaround time significantly for flight landing applications process from 30 days to only 3-7 days. This system which benefited local and international airlines, going into and fly from Malaysia, was also acknowledged by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), an agency under the United Nations. Nevertheless, adopting Cloud was also the most difficult decision that I had to make because the need to address all the
Saiful’s
3-Years IT Master Plan
As for us, we have set up a 3-years IT plan in 2019 for Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) to become the centre of excellence for the Aviation industry in Malaysia. These includes the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Cloud adoption, setting up a Data warehouse as well as Analytics. As an Economic Regulator, it is essential for MAVCOM to have a real time feeds and accurate data for us to come out with the relevant growth and economic projection for the industry. The source for Data warehouse is collected from various feeds i.e., airlines, airports, social media, our own publications, and industry reports. We shall make the data available for research purposes, general knowledge, and real time verifications for everyone. Even if other Aviation Authorities in the world or anyone who want to get information about Malaysian Aviation industry, we shall be the single source of reference. regulatory, security and privacy concerns. All government bodies and agencies are bound to the Official Secret Act 1972 and the Personal Data Protection Act 2010. That is why it is essential to take stock of all your data and classify them. Working on limited resources, it would not be practical to dump everything under the same category. By having it classified e.g., Top Secret, Secret, Confidential or Open, then only we could apply the necessary protection of each class of data. That was what we did, and we were able to harness all the benefits of Cloud i.e., stability, availability, accessibility, speed to market but still in compliance with all the Acts at the same time. There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” kind of solution. All CIOs should know their organization the best and to provide the best fit solutions for their own companies.
DOS AND DONTS FOR 2021
For 2021, I would advise that CIOs DON’T compromise on security just to save money because the threats are growing and getting more imminent. In relation to the above, if working on a tight budget, DO re-prioritization of projects and focus on the ones that generate revenue, impact the bottom line, and attracts new customers while retaining the current ones.
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THE TITANS 12
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Stabilizing
Cloud Platforms WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
Industry may go beyond traditional IT environments to widely dispersed and scattered networks caused by recent work from home trends. There will be more challenges w.r.t technology and compliance to pace up with the changes. More AI powered tech-
nologies and solutions would be developed to avoid delay due to manual intervention. Data privacy would be a game changer for some business as it may have it have serious business concern in-case of security breach.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
Stabilising the cloud platforms and undertaking the way forward concern .Addressing the Talents gap in organization in cloud platforms would be key focus.
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
Collaboration with stakeholders is always key for the buy in. Existing business stands and the technology capabilities would be updated for key stakeholders, future capabilities and demand would be well informed to business with alignment with stakeholder’s response.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
I had led a diversified team; it was easy to understand the strength of the team by means of open review and interaction. The
SRINIVASAN MAHALINGAM,
14 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
AGM- Information Security, Matrimony.com Limited
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Who is the ‘CIO of tomorrow’ ? Successful CIO’s need to focus on the transformation, Team development, Strategic thinking, Transparency, Business partnership, communication finally clear roadmap of the role and responsibilities. ideas were not cognitive but rather diversified. Addressing challenges for team members during sessions were easy since we had people from different experiences and culture; the approach was different and beneficial.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
A culturally diverse team brings new standpoints from around the world, which can lead to better problem solving. Culturally diverse teams also make businesses more inclusive and futurethinking. I believe that learning about the likenesses and differences of others creates a team that communicates at a high level.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
Energizing would be for a new scope of work, aligning with business vision and collaboration in expanding business networks. Bringing stable technologies with stable capex and opex models. What depletes me is when return on investment can't be valued against business profit.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
My significant contribution is dedication and improving the technology and maintaining the uptime to run the business without any interruption in services.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
One such difficult decision would be moving to cloud globally with careful watch on regulatory requirements such as GDPR. Result was great, but not all locations were able to do that.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
AI and ML have become the go to technologies for businesses. The internet of things (IOT) is going to be more powerful than earlier and Automation will play a major role in most of the services.
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
Yes, with recent technology improvement and leaders who come up with multiple expertise we can see even small businesses also look for such roles in their organization.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021.
Do look into the future and don’t think Big is better.
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
TRAN VIET HOAN,
CIO | Independent IT Thought Leader | Keynote Speaker | CEO, Asian Dragon
d. Intelligent Enterprise: Companies after deploying their IT & Digital systems efficiently will transform to the next milestone of an Intelligent enterprise whereas they can operate their business, make decision and interactive with their customers smartly.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
Leading by knowledge
Growing by change WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
n Technology-led business: through digital transformation and digital acceleration, business can transform into new business models to move ahead of competitors and gain competitiveness. n Total Experience Focus: Customer Experience (CX); User Experience (UX) and Employee Experience (EX) n Location-Free Operations: The business can operate and run everywhere is the trend the industry heading to.
16 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
n Improve Customer Experience is always first to drive change and improve profit n Deploy and enhance Customer Experience through CDP-Customer Data Platform, CX, Omni Channel n Enhance Operational efficiency through the BPM (Business Process Management Automation); implementing digital solutions for the operations n Maximize Data Usage and utilize these powerful resources and turn them into dollars n Intelligent Growth and Intelligent Enterprise n Deploy more Automation/ RPA: to save resources and maximize the digital advantages of unlimited capacity for time and space transactions.
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
n WIIFM: Follow “What’s In It For Me?” philosophy. Focus on the benefits and the technology of each stakeholder group and draw the ROI for them. n Assign Key user for each department so they can be a bridge between IT and business. n Focus on quick-wins and aligned with the long term IT strategy and Execution Roadmap for a sustainable long term Growth.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
n Focus on Key members: We should build key members and these are the critical roles in the organization. Percentage of key members follows iceberg rule (20/80). These members will normally function 80% of the division’s workload without any problem. n Skill matrix: should be measured for both hard-skills (tech) and soft-skills. c. Proper training and succession plan.
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
While I was the CIO for a top 5 hypermarket in the world from Europe 21 years ago, I managed an IT team comprises of different nationalities from Germany, Romania, Hungary, France and of course Vietnamese. Team from Vietnam used to be CIOs/ IT Directors from other big MNCs with diversified domains of expertise.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
The most energetic thing that brings me to the current role is my expertise as I can bring more digital transformations to companies and I can know where is the pain points of an organization so to add values to—thanks to my diversified business knowledge on FinTech, MedTech (Technology in Medical/ healthcare); AgTech (Technology in Agriculture), FMCG, Retail, Life Insurance, CyberSecurity, … On the other side, many big organizations normally have their high “bureaucracy” and this is obviously a drawback for the organizations to grow. This is more or less with the organization culture so you have to cope with that and fine-tune the way to move around for your technology deployment.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
n External: Help companies to transform their businesses through the appropriate digital transformation roadmap. This has given the business with great impact in the sense that customers can use the customer portal online to upload their documents for claims and many other stuff which nor-
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
Assign Key user for each department so they can be a bridge between IT and business.
Focus on quick-wins and aligned with the long term IT strategy and Execution Roadmap for a sustainable long term Growth.
WIIFM: Follow What’s In It For Me?” philosophy. Focus on the benefits and the technology of each stakeholder group and draw the ROI for them.
mally hard to process for remote areas. And thanks to this, the sale revenue is much higher as they get buy-in into the system and fast response from their customers. n Internal: We have deployed Business Process Management with paperless office, enhancing total experience for our Customer Experience and Employee Experience and maximizing our data so we can agilely act on any response.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
n Cloud computing: will be dominant as agility and adaptability. b. Artificial Intelligent, Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics: to transform a business to an “Intelligent Enterprise”. n IoT and Edge Technologies: are for automation and digitization in the areas of smart cities, connected vehicles, MedTech and AgTech.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
n DO: 1. Digital transformation & acceleration 2. Investing more on Cloud 3. Data Utilizing 4. Enhancing Total Experience 5. Strengthening cybersecurity n DON’T: 1. Neglect digital transformation 2. Cut IT budget, especially Cybersecurity 3. Ignore customer experience
JANUARY 2021
THE TITANS 17
Distance is NO BARRIER
Introducing D-Link Smart Wireless Solution for Point-to-Point Deployment
ESD Surge Protection
DAP-F3711-I Range: Upto 5 Kms Antenna Gain: 15 dBi High-Power Wireless 5Ghz 11ac Bridge
2x2 MIMO
ü
IP 65/66 Complied
Point to Point or Multipoint Application
Centrally Managed
TDMA+Polling Avoiding collision/ Interference between channels
DAP-F3704-I Range: Up to 5 Kms Antenna Gain: 10 dBi High-Power Wireless 5Ghz 11n Bridge
ACK Timeout adjustment Improves long distance Transmission
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Intelligent Rate Control Improving stability of Bandwidth
Self Healing Useful in extreme noisy area
Connect to more |
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
TEJAS SHAH
Head IT Infrastructure Axis Finance
Should listen and resolve all types of Team issues including professional and personal. n Set the Timelines and measure the Plan regularly. n
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
Breaking Barriers Through Collaboration
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
n n n n n
Business needs quick results and analysis of trends and customer behaviour. Lots of AI and ML requirement, Bots and Automation will be most required tools for all business aspects. Cloud and End point security will be the key aspects for Technology Digital transformation will be the key
Future plans would depend on the Business needs and requirement. We all need to move along with market trends and latest technologies that gives benefits to Business Teams. Most of the organizational plan is to provide Omni channel experience to the end customer. Internal and external customer satisfaction should be end objective for technology team
Always keep the Team motivated n Give confidence and provide them ownership of all tasks and problems. n
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENTS?
Regular Communication is the only factor to keep the departments in sync. Conduct regular technology and info sec trainings and awareness programmes. Technology like Enterprise chat, Video Call/Conference call will help to keep the connections intact across various departments.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
I feel that diverse team will bring wide range of ideas and innovative perspectives to work. The best way is to discuss differences in team meetings and share expectations about working style. Essential points is Trust your team, break the language barriers and give liberty in their work.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
I feel that the most energetic part in current role is to keep learning and updating on new technology aspects. Networking with fellow industry leaders and colleagues and to know the latest trends and happenings in the industry keeps me going. One of the factor that depletes me is to make understand the end user/customer that there are lots of efforts put by Technology team to ensure that systems/application is up and running.
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
A Day in
I WAKE UP AT
6 AM
The Life of a CIO
MY MORNING ROUTINE IS USUALLY
a little bit of warming up exercises (Mostly stretching and yoga), checking emails and getting ready for work.
MY MORNING CUPPA IS A
A bullet coffee
MY BREAKFAST INDULGENCE IS
Usually Eggs and some veggies, but diehard fan of south Indian dishes like Dosa, Idly etc.
MY TYPICAL WORK TO OFFICE DRIVE IS ABOUT 40 minutes
SONGS/ACTIVITY EN ROUTE INCLUDES
All sort of music.( Mostly Melodies)
HOW I ORGANIZE MY DAY AND DESK IN THE MORNING?
For me a good workstation makes a perfect day which keeps me focused and is very particular about having it setted up properly in the morning. Focusing more on accessibility of how to grab the things when it is required, usually organizers on right, gadgets on left and a small of piece of greenery in the corner.
MY TEAM COMPRISES Of
15 members
TEAM BUILDING TO ME IS
Paradigm requirement for existence and growth of any organization.
20 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
NITHIN GEO THOMAS
Head of Information Technology Amity University Dubai
I REPORT TO
VP Finance
MY OFFICE LIFE/WORK IS MADE EASY BY THESE TOOLS
Mobility devices and technologies
HOW DO I LIKE TO MEET NEW SOLUTION PROVIDERS OR POTENTIAL PARTNERS?
I am a Virtual meeting person (Call/Meeting/Virtual meeting)
GADGETS I LOVE
Mobility, AI and IOT devices
GADGETS I OWN
Quiet a few and most share on use goes to iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
WHAT TURNS ME OFF AT WORK ?
Nothing
WHAT ENERGIZES ME AT WORK?
Positive feedbacks ( About myself and the team)
TECHNOLOGY MY COMPANY IS READY TO INVEST IN 2021
Mostly focusing on saving more man hours to help the existing manpower to have more productive time and helping to maintain accuracy. Mostly RPA, AI and ML.
JANUARY 2021
THE TITANS 21
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
How GB Auto Created a Winning
Transformation Strategy? WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
The following 3 to 5 years is considered the start of a new paradigm shift as a result of the changes happened during the last year. If we have a closer look at the Automotive industry within the middle east, we can see a decrease in showrooms’ walk-in rate, which used to be the main sales channel. In addition, work from home policies decreased the need for transportation, and eventually it decreased the number of service centres’ visits as well as the need for spare parts. Both together caused a severe negative impact in the industry revenues. Accordingly, in the coming 3 to 5 years, most of the Automotive companies will change its strategies. On the production level, plenty of new technologies, like IoT and RPA, will be used in order to provide a better efficiency and reach a lean manufacturing process. More custom production will be introduced to provide customers with tailored solutions or designs that fit their needs. On the selling part, online car sales will be available, which has been done in GB Auto since June-2020. These portals will provide online payment gateways to provide a contactless payment method for the buyers. In addition, many companies have started to focus on the CX area to provide a better customer experience
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW
WISSAM AL ADANY,
24 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
Group Chief Information Officer, GB Auto Group
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
MOST
Significant
ACHIEVEMENT
In 2013, an academic paper was published from the American University highlighting GB Auto failure in digitalization and ERP implementation plans after 3 successive trials in 3 years. This paper pushed the board to take an immediate decision to replace the CIO and seek someone who can fix it and perform a complete digital transformation. I joined the group in late 2014 and put a 5 years strategic plan to convert this group into a fully digital corporate. By 2020, GB Auto received several IT awards recognizing the digital transformation effort done, and to the massive change it made to the automotive industry within the region. By 2021, the group will be delivering several digital services for the customers to become the fist Automotive company in the MENA region to do so.
DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
I expect a major change in the IT department role in the coming 3 years. For years, IT department was considered a service department within the organization and a cost centre. In the coming few years, IT department will be a partner in increasing the corporate revenue by introducing new digital products and services to the customer. Accordingly, the IT department’s skills should be developed to match the new role. Accordingly, we have prepared a medium-term development plan for each IT member, to elevate his/her business skills. We need our team to start thinking differently and focuses on the projects’ ROI not only its TCO. From the technical perspective, we are providing a new set of technical training to learn new skills like AI, IoT, cloud development and RPA.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
To build the right Team that leads the corporate to success, you need to consider several points: - Selecting the right team members: This does not mean selecting the most talented ones. You need to select the best fit. The ones who can be part of a team and believes in the team. In addition, each member of the team has to have a passion of success and endless learning. - Clear Goal: Identifying a clear goal for the team is very important
as having the right members. The team has to understand the goal and how it’s linked to the main corporate objective. - Right Skills: It is important to make sure that the team members have the skills needed to achieve the goal. This could be done by providing different technical trainings and coaching sessions.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
In 2007, I headed the IT Cement division in OCI (Orascom Construction Industry). The cement division had operations in Egypt, Nigeria, Spain, Turkey, Pakistan, Kurdistan, North Korea, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and UAE. Managing a team from different continents across the globe was challenging. The most important part in leading a team, is the ability to understand their motives and their passion. Having a diversified culture in your team, needs you to use to different leadership tools with every group in order to reach a one synced team working together toward a common goal.
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
M. UMAPATHY SIVAN,
Group Chief Information Officer (Group CIO), Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM)
and Machine Learning improve, we expect to see a rise in adoption of these technologies in helping us to be more efficient. These technologies adoption will also enable us to introduce more flexible product offerings where customers can “pick & choose” and “pay per use” according to what they need instead of packages that are automatically bundled. By having A.I. handling our network / traffic, we will be able to give the best speeds and suggest to customers for upgrades or downgrades based on their usage. This will translate to better customer experience by having the freedom of leveraging the services.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
Lean, Mean & Clean via transformation WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
Customer experience is one of our main focus in the next three to five years. It is all about improving our services while optimising cost. With that in mind, we will work towards automating most of our processes especially with the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Also, as Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
26 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
We had our “cold hard truths” session to reflect our positioning and the areas that we need to focus on and improve, before coming up with 3 years roadmap for the new TM. This will be our blueprint in enabling the business and unlocking key values to fit our unique role as the enabler of Digital Malaysia’s aspirations. The “Value Programmes” will be supported by multiple technology enablement projects ranging from RPA, consolidation of systems, Business Support Systems (BSS)/Operations Support Systems (OSS)/Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) transformations, to setting up single data lake for cognitive enablement and to engaging customers on a personalised level via analytics and A.I.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
All my working experience involve working in a culturally diverse team. I have worked for multiple Multinational Companies (MNCs) and Government Linked Companies (GLCs) and being in a multi-racial country like Malaysia, it is normal for us to be part of a culturally diverse and inclusive team.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
Our biggest contribution is that we are driving the vision of implementing a Lean, Mean & Clean organisation via
Some wait for Thursday Some wait for Sunday
www.fitsmea.com UNVEILING THE FUTURE AT #FITSMEA21'
transformation activities. This influence the implementation of automation via RPA and consolidating our IT delivery capabilities.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
Nurturing talent, watching them grow and letting them go to expand their future career. However, to watch them become great leaders on their own, making beneficial contributions in their fields has been satisfying.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
A.I. & Autonomous Operation. The Enterprise IT will move to data driven organisation which will focus on hyper personalisation and automations. Traditional platforms like ERP and BSS will need to evolve to support these needs.
TEAM BUILDING PILLARS
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
WHO IS THE ‘CIO OF TOMORROW’ AND WHAT QUALITIES WILL HE/SHE IMBIBE?
The CIO of tomorrow will need the encompass the qualities of: 1. Inspiring the organisation to become ‘outcome based & drive for result’ 2. Strategic Alignment to enable the future of Digital business platform and process
2
Promote two-way communication and encourage each member to speak-up and provide ideas. Consider each employee's ideas as valuable; no such thing as a stupid idea.
3
Be open. Always alert and aware of unspoken feeling. We need to be open with employees and respond effectively to non-verbal feedback.
4
Build strong teamwork. Encourage trust and cooperation among team members.
5 6 7 8
We had our “cold hard truths” session to reflect our position
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
1
Acknowledge every member’s strength and work on their weaknesses to deliver results.
9
Encourage team members to share information. Emphasise the importance of each team member's contribution and demonstrate how their jobs operate and link together, to ensure we could move the entire team closer to the goal. Coach and nurture. Provide opportunities to team members to demonstrate problem-solving skills. Let the team work on creative solutions together.
Encourage listening and brainstorming. Encourage intellectual debate because it inspires creativity. This will spur the team for better results.
Respect and Care. Regardless of positions, it is important to exercise respect and care among team members.
Clear communication. Be objective and precise.
for the organisation 3. Intellectual horsepower to drive economical autonomous operation of Dev/Ops to No/Ops 4. Visioning a cognitive Enterprise IT system to provide hyper personalisation & automations.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
Dos: Inspire and enable the workforce to drive for results Don’ts: Distorted communication to workforce
28 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
THE
INTEGRATOR NAME OF RECENT PROJECT
Integrated DataCenter Module Project
WHAT MAKES THE PROJECT A TRANSFORMATIVE ONE?
Centralizing the multiple datacenters, servers across all locations of the group into one with improved availability and automation
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY BUSINESS GOAL OF THE PROJECT?
Cost saving
IF NOT A CIO, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A ...
In Airforce
WHAT TECHNOLOGIES DO YOU THINK WILL MAKE YOUR ORGANIZATION THE ‘WORKPLACE OF FUTURE’?
Business Process Automation to improve the productivity and efficiency of the organization with respect customer services with increased revenues, which makes IT as a partner in P&L and not Cost Center
MY CORE BELIEF IS ...
There is always a smart way out there to handle the toughest problems
NAGESH ASWARTHA
VP Technology Alhamra Group
JANUARY 2021
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Accelerating Highly Agile and
Innovation Culture
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
Retail banking industry driving towards customer centric approach with fast moving economic condition require Product innovation and agile delivery with relevancy to customer as part of their offering over virtual. Customer demands self-quick onboarding, real-time kyc and account opening with card issuance. Quick loan approval with immediate cash disbursement with automated underwriting. Helping them on goal-based saving, understand their financial control via PFM capabilities such as saving and spending behaviour. Easy access to money via Digital payment ecosystem players which does not restrict the digital and physical cash movement. Mobile and social media is the key channel for servicing and financial service delivery. No Ops or minimal ops processes with higher degree of decision making with data analytics and AI.
Role and Team Building HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
We have chosen the self-motivated, young and tech professional hand-picked by the CTO to build Agile team who can take risk and run extra mile.We build single squad scrum team to start
the in-house R&D and innovation team with multi-functional skill set. Later it has been scaled to multi-squad scrum team. We have positioned Singapore as HQ with Product, Design and architecture team, Setup our offshore R&D delivery center in Chennai, India and our local bank operation in Manila, Philippines. In the beginning, its difficult attract talent who has attitude towards building legendry next generation bank, we did handpicked good techno-functional agile team. After the initial establishment then it not that difficult to scale the team.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
We have handpicked self-motivated individuals from Singapore, india, Philippines, Indonesia, US and Ukraine. During COVID-19 the team completely worked from 8 different countries remotely. We didn’t find the cultural difference much since we believe in common goal and bind with common values such as Team work, reliability, honest, street-smart and Fun work culture.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENTS?
We believe in cross functional team culture. We engage all the team members as part decision making and introduce tops as servant leaders and enable bottom-up digital execution.
ARIVUVEL RAMU,
30 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
Chief Technology Officer (CTO), TONIK Digital Bank Inc, (TONIK)
BUSINESS
FORWARD
TOP GLOBAL CIOs Year 2021 Rolling out Innovation Lending products, instant card issuance, payment eco systems Extended cybersecurity implementation and Data lake Development
Year 2 Advanced Data lake, Advanced CRM, Automated Operation Support and AI based operations, CDD/KYC along with revolving credit line products.
Leadership
Year 3
Remittance and credit card issuance along with Open Banking.
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
• Regulatory and VC: Worked closely with like-minded people and regulator and got the first digital banking license. • Digital Team: Setup the Digital bank IT team from the ground-up and build Highly agile and innovation culture. • Complex Fast Program Management: Setup and rollout the neo bank as a green field implementation in less than 11 months. (Jan 2020-Nov 2020).
Yes, slowly the board recognise the importance of CIO’s uplifting from Mancom to Board is critical for Digital business growth. Since Digital banking is all about tech game. Not anymore traditional business. Importance of digital savvy is understood by most of the board level members. But it takes slow adaptation over SEA region since most of the traditional board runs with family business.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
WHO IS THE ‘CIO OF TOMORROW’ AND WHAT QUALITIES WILL HE/SHE IMBIBE?
• Scoping the MVP (Minimum viable product) for the pilot launch to meet the market to get the first move advantage, there is an lot to internal buy-in from other tower leaders. • Working with 62+ projects and run & complete with in 11 months. These two spot on us in the right mix on public to launch our bank on said date.
Futuristic WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
• AI/ML • Data Lake: • Open Banking
• Servant leader with Agile mindset • Digital Savvy with customer centric • Business acumen
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
DO: Continue to rollout customer centric technology along with minimum ops strategy DON’T: Continue not to engage and not to spend more marketing cost which can be solved via digital social marketing space and limited head-count via semi/full automations.
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
SAURABH GUPTA,
Chief Technology and Information Officer (CTIO) Batelco (Bahrain Telecommunications Company)
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
Overall, we should expect to see a much higher focus on Customer Centricity with customer experience becoming the centre of everything. This will be driven by significant Digitization in both customer facing and internal capabilities impacting both external customer & internal employee experience, driven by massive Automation of various processes to simplify all user journey touchpoints.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
Future-Inspired
Leadership 32 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
Our aim is to Transform IT to drive Digitization @ scale which is an essential element to drive organization wide Transformation. This will involve an upgrade from the current legacy systems and processes to a standard based open & modern Cloud-native & Digital-first Architecture. There is also a need to drive Agility in processes & operating model not only in our Technology function rather the entire organization to be nimbler and improve our ability to react faster to the market changes and Technology evolution. And to achieve all this we will focus on building key Skills & Talent in new age technologies within our Technology function to ensure we take control of our future and the Transformation is sustainable.
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
The most important aspect is to have a very clear and aligned Strategy of what we are trying to do as an organization and how every-
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
thing in Technology relates to that. Once there is a transparent priority aligned to the overall corporate Strategy, it is important to keep all the key stakeholders engaged with a proactive, timely & transparent communication. I also believe in high Collaboration and co-creation of ideas & solutions inviting stakeholders to be part of not only the problem identification but also in solution definition that usually results in taking the best of all diverse capabilities and experiences we have on board.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
That would be my experience as the CIO at Vodafone Czech where I increased the team from a 35 to 100+ team members and in the process significantly increased the cultural diversity – having people from 3 nationality initially to more than 10 nationalities by the time I left in addition to significantly increasing the ratio of millennials and having a much higher age and experience diversity.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENTS?
The best way to drive collaboration is by building Agile & cross-functional processes as the traditional methods create silos. This requires people with an open mindset who thrive on transparency rather than hide behind opaque structures. This all underpinned with the right Technology & Tools (like Office 365) that are easily accessible to all as proven by our COVID-19 experience could lead to faster change adoption.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
We have been the first operator in Bahrain to launch national 5G last year. This was a proud achievement and a massive step forward for us in cementing our place as the foremost telecommunications service providers in Bahrain and the GCC and also making us one of the very few operators worldwide to have reached this milestone. It allows us to provide our customers with high speed 5G services across most of the country which resulting in a much better experience for our customers throughout the Kingdom.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
The most difficult decision in any leadership role for me has always been to let people go. I hold my team accountable for a high-performance standard and expect my leaders to drive as torchbearers the change & transformation in Technology and also show the way to the rest of the organization. A hard decision is required when that fails to materialize and any of my leadership fails to live up to that expectation. In one of the instances I had to let go a very senior leader who wasn’t able to drive the required Transformation resulting in conflict with the key stakeholders and with his team as well. Once we brought in the right replacement leader, we experienced a step change in our ability to move ahead with the Transformation and to drive the required changes. These decisions are never easy however I find it always better to execute these decisions with speed as that is the best outcome for the team, the organization and also for the individual concerned.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
DO: Accelerate Digitization DON’T: Become complacent against the COVID pandemic as the current situation could last a bit longer
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
SHARED IS BETTER
WHAT MAKES THE PROJECT A TRANSFORMATIVE ONE?
Shared Service Center is serving 23 Hotels, hosting 3 main back of the house applications and other two integrated cloud base systems. Hardware refresh, operating software upgarde and migration completed with 45 min. downtime.
NAME OF RECENT PROJECT IN THE BEGINNING
Shared Service Center Office Move
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY BUSINESS GOAL OF THE PROJECT?
Security & Risk Management
IF NOT A CIO, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A
Orchestra Principal Conductor
WHAT TECHNOLOGIES DO YOU THINK WILL MAKE YOUR ORGANIZATION THE ‘WORKPLACE OF FUTURE’?
Team Work
MY CORE BELIEF IS ...
Team Work
ASHRAF SALAH
Regional Director of IT Field Services - GCC, Hilton Worldwide
34 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
Sc
Huawei IdeaHub New Style Smart OOce 3-in-1
Whiteboard 丨 Projector丨Online Meeting
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COVER STORY
LEADING
BY EXAMPLE WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
IT is changing very dramatically and the pandemic push everyone to work in a way that IT filed wish since long time ago, hence now adays we are planning for the new IT trends that didn’t get chance to fully appear such us the digital transformation of the core business and not only IT services the new era of IT will force us to have IA, VR, ML services and projects in the plan and this where I find our industry in for the next 5 years, in addition to that we should not forget that today information and numbers are generating money hence smart IT industry will use this concept to have a revenue generated IT department.
36 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
We are planning to complete the e-service migration of the entire services in the ministry within a year or max 2 years and within the 3rd year I would have a revenue generating IT department
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
Collaboration with the stakeholder results in value creation for the company. It ensures that the end deliverables fully meet the customer’s needs. So usually we are trying to meet our internal and stakeholder engage with them in any new initiative or idea so they can be inline with us in the full strategy development.
COVER STORY
Most significant
contribution
MYS started the journey of the cloud since 2013 as the first government entity in Bahrain
Deployed new technology such us power apps, power BI in transforming our services to the cloud Moving to the cloud was the start point
Helped in implementing the National Cloud strategy when announced in 2018
Enabled Microsoft teams in early 2019 hence it was easy for everyone to communicate and work from home during the pandemic time.
NANI M. BUTTI,
Acting Director of Information System, Ministry of Youth and Sport Affairs Kingdom of Bahrain
NA
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
Building a successful team is about more than finding a group of people with the right mix of professional skills. Over interviewing any employee, I asked them all about the art of fostering a strong sense of teamwork. Their insights can help you lay the groundwork for a highly productive team that can communicate, cooperate and innovate in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. The first rule of team building is an obvious one: to lead a team
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THE TITANS 37
Acti Syst Spo
COVER STORY
Who is the ‘CIO of tomorrow’ and what qualities will he/ she imbibe? CIO of tomorrow will be the one who tight coupling the business objectives with technologyled innovation roadmap, and who always on the lookout for opportunities to transform, also the one who knows how to generate revenue from the business operation through the use of technology.
effectively, you must first establish your leadership with each team member. Remember that the most effective team leaders build their relationships of trust and loyalty, rather than fear or the power of their positions.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
Culturally diverse teams can help deliver better outcomes in today’s organizations. But these teams often suffer from conflicting norms and differing assumptions between members, which can keep them from reaching their full creative potential. To be a successful team leader in an environment like this one, do your best to make all your colleagues feel comfortable by Overcoming the Language and Cultural Barriers, Considering Different Cultural Communication Styles, Organize a Cross-Cultural Training, Encourage trust and cooperation among employees on your team.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENTS?
Collaboration between departments is more than simply “cooperating” with other teams. It involves a shared vision, mutual respect, and in-depth understanding of each other’s role in a project
38 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
with the goal of achieving excellent business outcomes and outstanding customer experience. This can be achieved by making sure everyone is on the same page, encourage consistent open communication, Practice transparency from the top, lead by example, encourage open feedback, get to know other departmental processes.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
Energize me: Technology adoption Depletes me: Lack of Evocation
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
The difficult decision that I had to make recently is to decide who to terminate from my outsource team due to the economic situation, this will force us to distribute the work load on less number of employee and we have to make sure that the level of service will not be impacted.
Futuristic WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
Big data, BI reports, Cashless payment, IOT, AI, VR and Machine Learning (ML).
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
Yes of course, and my goal in the coming 5 years is to be in this position
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
Keep pushing the limits and Don’t stop.
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
'Success from the
Scratch'
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
In the next three to five years, I expect the industry to have developed further in the use of AI, robotics as well as virtual workspaces influenced by mixed reality. I also think that we need a Total paradigm shift in
DR SAMUEL SENYO OKAE,
Head of IT, Ghana Deposit Protection Corporation (as Seconded by Central Bank of Ghana)
40 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Which was your most
significant contribution
in your current company and how did it impact or influence the business?
My current company is the first of its kind in my country. The issue of deposit protection is new and I am part of a four member team asked by the central bank to set up deposit insurance in Ghana. My duty was to setup everything information and communication technology from scratch. This I have done successfully by building a deposit insurance software from scratch which is used for data collection, premium calculations and claims pay-outs. In addition to this I lead the team to build a mobile app as well as a unique portal to manage over four hundred financial institutions. All this is running on a solid infrastructure that terminates at the state of the art data centre built for the company. Amongst the key projects delivered is an ERP application used to manage the day to day running of the business. It gives me a lot of joy to realize how smooth the Corporation is running now, given that we started with nothing. Industry focus in order to meet the demands in the coming years.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
Currently, I am seconded to the deposit insurance corporation and my primary responsibility is to ensure smooth use of technology. In the next few years, I intend to ensure that most of our systems are fully automated to ensure a total paperless environment. I intend to put mechanisms in place to ensure smooth remote working and the ability of my staff to work effectively regardless of their location. I am also looking forward to ensuring that the institution becomes fully technology dependent.
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
Stakeholder engagement is the key to gaining support for projects my projects and work in general, I do my best to improve communications and gathering useful information and ideas for my work.
One of my greatest strategies is to engage them all the way. I practice an open door policy. Engage them on everything, either good or bad. I just ensure I communicate it in the best way possible. So far, I have achieved great success with my stakeholders with the above technique.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
I have built successful teams by ensuring that first of all I recruit the right people for each role. Once they are in, I focus on each role and their specific deliverables. I do my best to value each team member and ensure that team members value each other as well. To build a successful team, communication is very important on all fronts. I adopt a Two-way communication and
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
employee training for understanding employees’ needs and developing strategies that meet those needs, improve engagement, and lower resistance. I have over the years ensured that I set clear goals for each member and when they deliver, I celebrate their success but when they fail, I encourage them. I treat my team as a little family. We care about each other and support one another.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
I have worked in many different jurisdictions including Germany and UK. The key to dealing successfully with diversity is adopting a very open, honest communication. In a diverse workplace, I encourage everyone to be feel free to be themselves while treating others with the respect they deserve. We should be able to tell each other when anything bothers us. This technique has greatly worked for me in dealing with the culturally diverse stakeholders I work with in my job. I deal with both local banks and international banks and their management teams are very diverse in nature.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENTS?
In my daily work as CIO, it is important that I encourage and support collaboration across departments because first of all, other departments shy away from technology. It is therefore my responsible to make the collaboration an easy road for everyone. The first thing I do is to ensure everyone is on the same page. In order to enable empathy and understanding I communicate technology in the lay man’s language for everyone to understand. This communication must be consistent. A key part of this communication is transparency. I practice transparency on all fronts. Most importantly, I do my best to lead by example.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
The smell of success is my energy. I believe in success stories more than anything in this world. I dislike laziness and hence when I realize that people and intentionally being lazy, it depletes me quickly.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
I have made many difficult decision in my role. However, I would
42 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
speak about one. This was a key budget cut in one of my major projects. What I did was to reassess the project and concentrate on the key deliverable by allocating funds and resources accordingly without compromising on quality.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
To me, every major technology that will dominate the industry in the next few years will leverage AI in some form or another. Technology has changed the world as we knew it and is going to do so for the foreseeable future. I look forward to hyper automation, the distributed cloud, practical blockchain and human augmentation taking the lead. It is also worth mentioning Cloud Native Applications, Intrinsic Security, IoT and Edge, 5G and Blockchains.
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
This is a very interesting question because I did my doctorate thesis in this area.. Even though, it is very critical for CIO’s to take up board position. Businesses have not come to the point of understanding this view hence you find less CIO being on boards. My take is that the world is coming to a point where businesses who want to survive the future will have not choice than to ensure that every board has a CIO as a key member.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
Do: Wear your nose mask and ensure you social distance. Covid is real. DON’T: Do not remove your nose mask
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Minister of State for
Advanced Technology and UAE University
Promote R&D and 4IR Tech Among Students
H
er Excellency Sarah bint Yousif Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, today explored United Arab Emirates University’s (UAEU) innovation and research and development programmes on a tour of the institution’s departments and
facilities. Accompanied by H.E. Dr Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh, Minister of State and UAEU Chancellor, H.E. Al Amiri was introduced to the various projects the University has launched - initiatives that aim to promote innovation and advanced technologies that can be used to support the UAE’s industrial sector. H.E. Al Amiri’s visit lays the foundation for a new phase of cooperation between the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology and its strategic partners. The relationship has been established to achieve the goals of the National Advanced Technology Agenda to promote national industrial innovation and ensure commercial viability of innovation-based products. “In line with the UAE Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are always working to improve the outputs of the education sector – particularly in the advanced technology and science disciplines – as well as to promote applied research into bioengineering, nanotechnology at national universities and specialised centres,” said H.E. Sarah Al Amiri. “The United Arab Emirates Uni-
versity is a prominent national academic institution and a leader in supplying the national industrial sector with brilliant minds and skilled experts capable of driving the UAE’s transformation into a knowledge- and innovation-based economy.” “The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology has set a strategic vision to advance key industrial sectors and establish systems that drive industrial development. This serves the vision of the UAE’s leadership and propel the country towards a global leadership position in industry, enhancing its competitiveness,” H.E. Al Amiri added. “We will shortly be announcing policies, plans and programmes to boost national production by optimising the use of advanced technology.” The tour also covered key facilities across the UAEU campus, including the laboratories of the Faculty of Engineering, which support students and researchers in various fields such as architecture and chemical, petroleum, civil, environmental, electrical and mechanical engineering. The tour continued at the UAEU Science and Innovation Park, a global centre for research, innovation and entrepreneurship, where H.E. Al Amiri was briefed about the training and support programmes provided to young innovators and entrepreneurs to help them develop products that can boost the UAE’s competitiveness. H.E. Dr Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh said: “The United Arab Emirates University works in line with the UAE’s Centennial vision and its preparations for the next 50 years. We strive to be the engine of research and in-
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
YASER AL JUGHAIMAN,
CIO, Riyadh Cables
44 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Bridging Business Gaps with IT
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS? WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
The transformation journey it is now heading for more efforts into maximum organization deep insight including reaching more than 90 % accuracy on ABC (Activity Based Costing). This will result in huge advantages to margin competition. The plan for IT is to link them to business gaps more, more analytic availability and flexibility for all organization scenarios. Also, integration with all process steps for our industry specific. and for that we are exploring latest technologies.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
n The Most important factors: n The Adoption of CIO approach to accommodate Activate Methodology n Active and strong OCM thru expert vendors. n The Fit-to-standard approach whenever possible and avoid un-necessary developments. n Other Important factors: n Eliminate the non-SAP systems. n Motivation of people. n Strong implementation partner with industry-specific knowledge. n Contribution from Business, IT and Involvement of Riyadh Cables Top Management.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS? n
Solution Designed Implemented in Riyadh Cables was
one of the Unique and Complex design across cable Industry. n We had defined Solution for Cross plant planning, Detailed costing in production upto semi finish level n Drum and Scrap Management thru the innovation of the semi-finished traceability (first time in cable industry). n Actual product costing (first time in cable industry). n Shop Floor barcoding thru Fiori (done by IBSO team in SAP) (first time in cable industry). n Using the CDS views as analytics tool (done in-house) n As we have just successfully completed the implementation and currently in Stabilization we have plans to deploy cutting edge technologies in near future. Futuristic
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
I believe SAP will dominate the market for one main reason they have the deep insight industry specific. Unfortunately I don’t see CIOs taking up board positions because of their I see the CIO should not be an IT and one of the business leaders the organization have to train him for two years minimum on the technology industry specific solution selected.
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
SYED AUN M. BUKHARI,
Group CIO + CEO, Spars Pvt. Ltd. + Apollo Telecom Pvt. Ltd.
Automation & AI dominating the workplace with vast majority of low level workloads offloaded to machines & algorithms dictating mid level managerial work. Businesses will choose to retain high performers with ability to cross function and possess diverse set of skills and formulate teams to work on ad-hoc basis rather than traditional top down reporting.
WHAT IS YOUR 1 YEAR, OR 3 YEARS PLAN FOR YOUR COMPANY’S IT DEPARTMENT? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE THE BUSINESS FORWARD WITH TECHNOLOGY?
From
technologycentric to customercentric
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
I project that the innovation business is poised to reach $5 trillion out of 2021. In the event that this number holds, it would speak to 4.2% development, flagging a re-visitation of the pattern line that the business was on before the pandemic. Looking much further into the future, IDC anticipates that the example should keep, assessing a 5% accumulate yearly development rate (AGR) for the business through 2024.
46 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
• Transforming our business from technology centric to customer centric. • Adapting Open-source technologies for OPEx reduction along with TCO. • Introduction of Robotics Process Automations, Industrial Automation and Digital Customer experience solutions
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
• Using internal collaboration suit developed in-house • Sharing competitive analysis inform of business growth using technology • Extending critical stats like Customer experience enhancement, OPEx Reductions and Automations introduced within group with help of Technology.
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
I have worked in culturally diverse populations, and I am accustomed to the challenges that come with being on top of issues related to culture, race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. One of the reasons that I love working as a lead in this environment is that I get the opportunity to grow and learn as I observe. I achieve this growth by keeping an open mind and remaining up to date on conversations that are happening amongst various populations and groups.
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
How do you build your teams? • Big picture vision • Clear objectives • Clear roles • Flawless communication • Cooperation • Individual development within the team
• Delegate tasks and responsibilities • Communicate clear goals • Be honest and friendly to an acceptable extent
• Team-building exercises. • Improve cooperation among team members. • Encourage them to collaborate
BUSINESS?
• Consolidation of IT for 16+ group companies working in different sectors. i. Enhanced Governance ii. Major Reduction in OPEx iii. Smart investment of CAPEx
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
With the introduction of business automation and last year’s pandemic situation the downsizing of IT resources was the most difficult decision for me to take. Although for business this decision brought positive impact in form of profit enhancement but I still feel bad on downsizing decision.
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
• BLOCKCHAIN • 5G
• Some questions to ask yourself:
• Social events • Outdoor adventures
Establish a Connection with Each Team Member
• Indoor activities Invite Contributions And Collaborations
• What has the team achieved so far? • What did they change? • What did they learn? • What’s working well? • What aspects of teamwork need improvement?
• THE INTERNET OF THINGS • ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) • AUTOMATION
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
Presenting to the board of directors is an opportunity for CIOs to shine. When CIOs get the opportunity to present to the board, they should prepare as if they are going to testify before Parliament and if CIO,s start grabbing this opportunity then yes I see the CIOs taking up board positions.
WHO IS THE ‘CIO OF TOMORROW’ AND WHAT QUALITIES WILL HE/SHE IMBIBE?
Be that as it may, the CIO of tomorrow may come from any foundation, since it's less about what you discover and more about how you learn. Besides, the vital ascribes of the CIO of tomorrow are business insight for guaranteeing a solid business-IT arrangement, a predisposition for speed and readiness as they recast their organizations as advanced organizations, and a capacity to impact at board level.
ONE DO AND DON’T FOR 2021
DO: Focusing on operational agility more than ever before. Don’t: Lack of agility
JANUARY 2021
THE TITANS 47
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Winning Trust
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE INDUSTRY HEADING IN THE NEXT THREE TO FIVE YEARS?
The 4th industrial revolution is here. The world is about to change the implementation of AI system into the mix can serve as a real turning point.
HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE, ENGAGE AND BUY-IN FROM YOUR DIVERSE GROUPS OF STAKEHOLDERS?
Understand common challenges, define user syndromes, take the necessary judgement call and get buy in with support.
HOW DO YOU BUILD YOUR TEAMS?
My team is made up of people who have positive approach to work, who are friendly, energetic, and do not stick to routine operation work
CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT A TIME YOU LEAD A CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAM?
It was when I was doing program management for NIB bank, working with Indians, Vietnam and English people along with local multi-cultural team of Punjabis ,Sindhi etc.
MUHAMMAD QASIM BHAM,
Group Head of IT, Soorty enterprises
48 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
Yearly Plan
TOP GLOBAL CIOs
YR 3
Prepare for new challenges in the industry
YR 2 Mix with machine automation and position sensing to optimize the process and its output.
YR 1 Started AI application building for textile industry.
HOW DO YOU SUPPORT COLLABORATION ACROSS DEPARTMENTS?
desired result in a limited time but at the end it PLEASED.
WHAT ENERGIZES YOU IN YOUR CURRENT ROLE AND WHAT DEPLETES YOU?
WHICH TECHNOLOGY/IES DO YOU THINK WILL DOMINATE ENTERPRISE IT IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS?
I give a free hand to team players to discuss everything on the table while documenting and taking ownership of what you decide.
n Coming up with creative ideas to improve something, or make something new. n Analysing complex data in order to draw clear and simple conclusions
n
WHICH WAS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION IN YOUR CURRENT COMPANY AND HOW DID IT IMPACT OR INFLUENCE THE BUSINESS?
n Yes, but all that glitters is not gold. One needs to have a strategic thinker.
WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT DECISION THAT YOU HAD TO MAKE AS A CIO? WHAT RESULT DID IT YIELD?
n The person who foresees next two years will the CIO of tomorrow. One Do and DON’T for 2021 n Trust and Follow the nature, the primary support factor. n Don’t ignore any form of data while analysing.
I convinced and brought together all stakeholders of the group to go for a new ERP system with industry 4 as the driver.
n The most difficult decision was to come to a decision on the new technologies and approach that we will implement and do it with the consent of all the stakeholders, while winning their trust. n Results can’t be seen immediately nor they might yield the
AI, automated sensors etc
DO YOU SEE MORE CIOS TAKING UP BOARD POSITIONS?
WHO IS THE ‘CIO OF TOMORROW’ AND WHAT QUALITIES WILL HE/SHE IMBIBE?
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TOP GLOBAL CIOs
Health Hero
WHAT MAKES THE PROJECT A TRANSFORMATIVE ONE?
SEHA’s COVID19 Project provided necessary coverage for the entire UAE population through its 31 screening centers, field hospitals, acute hospitals, AHS clinics etc. He was directly involved in each and every single initiative for COVID19 action plan.
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY BUSINESS GOAL OF THE PROJECT?
Strategic Impact
IF NOT A CIO, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN A ...
Architect
WHAT TECHNOLOGIES DO YOU THINK WILL MAKE YOUR ORGANIZATION THE ‘WORKPLACE OF FUTURE’?
Robotics and AI/ML
MY CORE BELIEF IS ...
EXCELLENCE
SAIF AL SIKSEK
Group Business Applications & Digital Transformation Director SEHA Abu Dhabi Health Services Co.
50 THE TITANS JANUARY 2021
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