CIO January 15 2010 Issue

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From The Editor-in-Chief

Of all the issues in the year, this one is real special. The CIO Ones to Watch

Nurturing Your Future In fostering a second line lies the key to your growth.

program is an exercise that identifies the rising stars of IT: executives who are destined to become the CIOs of the future. To be recognized, these future CIOs must have demonstrated project leadership, driven innovation and delivered strategic value to business. They are people who are on the cusp of heading their own IT organizations.

There are three basic reasons for the CIO Ones to Watch program. For one, we believe that developing the next generation of IT leaders is essential to IT’s ability to add real and sustained value to the enterprise. Through this, we also honor those CIOs who foster leaders. Second, this ensures that we stay in touch with the people who are leading the profession as they advance in their careers. Finally, it is a way for us to serve our readers by helping them recognize their key staff in a positive and public way.

What distinguishes the IT leaders Mentoring requires vision, of tomorrow whom we honor in this leadership and passion, issue is, however, their passion. For and is indicative of how driving change. For building teams. For strategic your role really is. business strategy. For getting results.

For doing the right thing. For not compromising. Our cover features are as much a paean to the dedication of these intrepid souls as it is a tribute to the CIOs who have guided them along the way.

I believe that one of the most important responsibilities of a CIO is developing future IT leaders. Yet many CIOs do not spend enough time and attention doing this. Somewhere between the pressures of budgets and deadlines and the daily routine the best of intentions go awry. At some level, this is also a function of how strategic — or not — a CIO’s role really is. Mentoring requires vision. It requires leadership. It requires passion. It requires selfbelief. All of which can be in short supply if you spend all of your time in the trenches.

All Ones to Watch mentors feel that this is one investment that pays off well. After all, if attrition is your main pain point would you turn down an opportunity to build a motivated team that knows how to align technology and business and is able to increase your sphere of influence in the organization?

So, whom are you going to nominate next year?

Vijay Ramachandran Editor-in-Chief vijay_r@cio.in

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content co ont o nten nt t nt nt november 15 2009‑ | ‑vol/4‑ | ‑issue/23

Case Study

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Munish Mittal of HDFC Bank; Akshay Lamba of MTS India; and Ram Gollapudi and Gauri Raizada of Tata Teleservices Are just four of this year’s crop of IT professionals who have raised the bar and to put themselves in a bracket of rising stars.

Mentoring

COVER STORY FOSTERIng ThE nExT In LInE | 24 I P hotoS by Sr IVatSa ShandI lya, MExy

Your peers tell you how they built a second line that did them — and their organizations — proud.

Feature by Sneha Jha and Shardha Subramanian

OnES TO WATCh | 34 The profiles of 2010’s Ones to Watch. See what makes the tick. Feature by Team CIO

CoVEr: dESI gn by MM Shan I t h

WE ARE hIRIn’| 58 HDFC Standard Life Insurance’s Sunil Rawlani tells you what to watch out for while interviewing.

Interview by Kanika goswami

CIO STAFFIng SuRVEY 2010 | 62 Is your attrition level appropriate to your industry?

Find answers to this and other questions.

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gREEn ThumbS up | 70 Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals links sales and logistics teams and its warehouses in remote locations through a mobile integration application. Now it takes 10 minutes to give customers an invoice — instead of three days.

Feature by priyanka

Applications CAn gOOgLE REALLY hACK IT In buSInESS? | 72 As Google Apps becomes more popular, we look into the reality of what it delivers and how organizations are looking at it.

Feature by Robert L. Scheier

Deep Dive buSInESS InTELLIgEnCE | 77 Case Study Fighting Crime with BI | 84 BI: It’s Not Fiction | 86 Features Better Business Intelligence on a Zero Budget | 78 The Eight Levels of Analytics | 83 Analytics in the Cloud | 88

more » Vol/4 | ISSUE/23

Visit

and enter key code 12239q to download the white paper.

content

(cont.)

DepArtMentS trendlines | 9 government IT | Unreserved Gets Aboard Quick Take | H. Krishnan on Web 2.0 Security Voices | What’s IT’s Role in Executive Fraud?

Internet | Mobile Internet to Rule IT management | Ready for the Rebound?

Opinion poll | Are you Videoconferencing?

Security | Six Ways to Stay Happy Survey |We’ve Got More Money for IT malware | Locked, But Not Necessarily Safe Alternative Views | Is Cloud Computing Secure?

thrive | 94 IT Skills | Relearning Tech Skills

Feature by Kristin Burnham

Mentor | 96 Entrepreneurship | Trade Secrets

Column by Anjan Chowdhury

From the editor-in-Chief | 2 nurturing Your Future

By Vijay Ramachandran

NOW ONLINE “If a CIO is only playing a support function, I’d go so far as to ask why hire a CIO? His value addition comes from innovation,” says P.V. Kannan, Co-founder and Chief People’s Officer, 24/7 Customer.

6 6

For more opinions, features, analyses and updates, log on to our companion website and discover content designed to help you and your organization deploy It strategically. go to www.cio.in

c o.in

executive expectations VIEW FROm ThE TOp | 66 P.V. Kannan, Co-founder and Chief People’s Officer, 24/7 Customer, believes in innovation so much he’s changed his CIO’s designation to chief innovation officer. He tells you why.

Interview byKailas Shastry

Applied Insight pROTECTIng DATA FROm AngRY Ex-EmpLOYEES | 34 The slowdown ensured that staffers stayed, despite paycuts and larger workloads. The upturn will open the attrition floodgates — make sure data isn’t carried away in the flow.

Column by Julia King

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Governing BOARD

Alok Kumar Global Head - Internal IT, TCS

Publisher Louis D’Mello

Anil Khopkar GM (MIS) & CIO, Bajaj Auto

Editorial

Editor-IN-CHIEF Vijay Ramachandran Associate Editor (Online) Kanika Goswami

Features Editor Sunil Shah

Copy Editor Shardha Subramanian Senior Correspondent Kailas Shastry

Correspondent Anup Varier, Priyanka, Sneha Jha, Varsha Chidambaram, Product manager Online Sreekant Sastry

Anjan Choudhury CTO, BSE Ashish Chauhan President & CIO, IT Applications, Reliance Industries Atul Jayawant President Corporate IT & Group CIO, Aditya Birla Group Donald Patra CIO, HSBC India

Custom Publishing

Associate Editor Arakali A Harichandan Copy editor Kavita Madhusudhan Correspondent Deepti Balani D esign & Productio n

Lead Designers Girish A V, Jithesh C.C Vinoj KN

SENIOR Designers Jinan K V, Sani Mani

Designer M M Shanith

Photography Srivatsa Shandilya

Production Manager T K Karunakaran DY. Production Manager Jayadeep T K

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the publisher. Address requests for customized reprints to IDG Media Private Limited, Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India. IDG Media Private Limited is an IDG (International Data Group) company.

Printed and Published by Louis D’Mello on behalf of IDG Media Private Limited, Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027.

Editor: Louis D’Mello Printed at Manipal Press Ltd., Press Corner, Tile Factory Road, Manipal, Udupi, Karnataka - 576 104.

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BMC Software

85

Canon India Pvt Ltd

1

41

Manish Choksi Chief Corporate Strategy & CIO, Asian Paints

HCL Infinet Ltd (Toshiba)

23

HP EDS

27

Sanjay Jain CIO, WNS Global Services Shreekant Mokashi Chief-IT, Tata Steel Sunil Mehta Sr. VP & Area Systems Director (Central Asia), JWT T.K. Subramanian Div. VP-IS, UB Group V. K Magapu Director, Larsen & Toubro V.V.R Babu Group CIO, ITC

IDG offices

Bangalore Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road Bangalore 560 027 Ph: 3053 0300 Fax: 3058 6065

DELHI 410, Hemkunt Towers 98, Nehru Place New Delhi 110 019 Ph:011- 4167 4230 Fax: 4167 4233

25

Fortinet

Rajesh Uppal Chief General Manager IT & Distribution, Maruti Udyog

Regional sales

Bangalore Ajay S. Chakravarthy Kumarjeet Bhattacharjee Manoj D

Delhi Aveek Bhose, Mohit Dhingra Prachi Gupta, Punit Mishra Rajesh Kumar Sharma

Mumbai Dipti Mahendra Modi Hafeez Shaikh, Pooja Nayak Rajesh Punjabi

Bharat Petroleum

Gopal Shukla VP - Business Systems, Hindustan Coca Cola

Pravir Vohra Group CTO, ICICI Bank

Marketi ng & Sal es (National)

2&3

17

Navin Chadha CIO, Vodafone

President Sales and Marketing Sudhir Kamath

VP Client Marketing Alok Anand

VP Sales Sudhir Argula General manager Sales Parul Singh

SR. Manager

Client Marketing Rohan Chandhok ASSt. Manager Marketing Sukanya Saikia

Asst. GM BRAND Siddharth Singh

ASSt. Manager Brand Disha Gaur

ASSOCIATE MARKETING Dinesh P Ad Sales Co-ordinators Hema Saravanan C.M. Nadira Hyder

Avaya Global Connect Ltd

Emerson Networks Power (I) Pvt Ltd

Murali krishna K. Head - CCD, Infosys Technologies

Events & Audi ence Development

21

19

Manish Gupta Director-IT, Pepsi Foods

VP Rupesh Sreedharan

Senior Manager Chetan Acharya

Managers Ajay Adhikari Pooja Chhabra

Manager Projects Sachin Arora

Alcatel Lucent India Ltd

Elitecore Technologies Ltd

Dr. Jai Menon Director Technology & Customer Service, Bharti Airtel & Group CIO, Bharti Enterprises

Advertiser Index

HP Storage

9,29 &31

Huawei Symantec

7

IBM India Ltd

BC

Interface Connectronics Pvt Ltd

81

Krone Communications Ltd

57

Leviton Oracle

5 IBC

Reichle & De Massari MEA

83

Safenet India Pvt Ltd

49

SAS Institue (I) Pvt Ltd

39

Sigma Byte SNIA India

13 & 51 64

Symantec Software Solutions Pvt Ltd 15 Verizon Business Wipro Infotech

IFC, 77 69, 71, 73 & 75

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

MUMBAI 201, Madhava

Bandra Kurla Complex Bandra (E) Mumbai 400 051 Ph: 3068 5000 Fax: 2659 2708

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new

*

hot

*

unexpected

Unreserved Gets Abo AboArd I t Until recently, buying an unreserved train ticket in India was so hard and underhanded it was a rite of passage for the young. Since counters for these tickets opened only a few hours before departure, it created long, aggressive lines that teenagers had to manfully stand in while looking out for black marketers hawking tickets.

A new IT project called UTS (Unreserved Ticketing System) is changing all that. It allows passengers to book tickets in advance, reducing crowding at counters.

Plus, it uses queue-shrinking terminals and automated vending machines. It also lets passengers to cancel tickets from any station, facilities that were normally associated with reserved tickets.

“The idea was to establish an IT system which could provide tickets for the unreserved sector 24x7 at all stations,’ says R. Badri Narayan, GM, UTS. UTS offers passengers other benefits

IllustratIon by MM shanI th

Government

including the ability to check their fare and all the stops on their train’s route.

And it enables the railways to have a centralized and accurate view of the number of tickets it issues.

The solution, which was hammered out by the IT arm of the Indian Railways, CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems), also staunches ticketing

fraud. The Indian railways, which runs Asia’s largest rail network, carries about 16 million unreserved passengers everyday, making it a prime target for fraudsters who want to make big money.

It’s important for the railways to protect the sale of unreserved tickets because it forms 49 percent of the revenue it generates from passenger trains. (It also generates revenue from freight.)

Today, the award-winning project provides tickets to over 1.5 crore passengers and makes about Rs 25 crore a day. “We have already covered 3,000-plus stations and between 80 and 85 percent of the total traffic. Our next step is to cover another 2,000 small stations by the end of this financial year. These are the ones where major trains rarely stop. They are not likely to add significant amounts of revenues but then we will cover almost all stations,” says Narayan.

— By Priyanka

Quick take

H. Krishnan on Web 2.0 Security Threats The dangers to the enterprise from allowing staffers to access social networking sites are well-documented. But for most millenials access to these sites is almost a necessity — not a luxury. Deepti Ahuja Balani spoke to H. Krishnan, AVP-IT, Indian Rayon (a Unit of Aditya Birla Nuvo), to find out how he balances the two forces.

Web 2.0

Why have you blocked access to social networking sites in your organization?

We don’t allow our employees to access non-official websites using company’s bandwidth, it's company policy. It ensures data privacy, restricts virus attacks and propagates a disciplined organizational culture. We were also worried about compliances issues. Security of data is extremely critical to us.

Was there resistance from employees?

It’s difficult for the younger generation, which is used to

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multi-tasking and blogging to accept such constraints. However, they are not mature enough to understand the security threats that come with Web 2.0.

How do you cater to the needs of collaboration?

Enabling collaboration within the organization is our first goal. In a group as wide as ours, we need a user-friendly collaborative site, where all levels of personnel can interact and collaborate. We have intranet portals for each business and we are currently building a pilot collaborative portal on a Web 2.0 platform. We could take it enterprisewide after it kicks off successfully.

H. Krishnan

Is there some secure way to allow access and still control hacking?

By encrypting critical data, pictures, designs, etcetera, and with a suitable monitor in place, we could allow socializing. After all, we come to office also to socialize; otherwise we might as well stay at home. reAL CIO WOrLd | J A n u A r y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0

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What’s IT’s Role in Executive Fraud?

D e t e c t i o n It’s been about a year since the Satyam scandal made the IT world sit up and take notice. It revealed the sinister ways in which IT can be used and abused.

Even by your CEO. Varsha Chidambaram asked your peers how responsible IT is in preventing fraud by C-level executives. Here is what they said:

Mobile Internet to Rule

Fraud

"Fund accounting and ERP apps should be audited by an internal auditor and by reputed external auditors.

Rotating staff every two or three years also helps minimize such incidents." trendlines

Tejas Shah Assistant VP-IT, Axis Mutual Fund

“IT is not the fulcrum for fraud perpetration. It takes two to tango.

Neither can it be a watchdog, but it can play a pivotal role in tracking the various steps in perpetrating fraud.

Srinivas Kishan Anapu VP- Enterprise IS, Mahindra Satyam

“At DLF, we ensure that backend manipulation is not allowed.

Every transaction is run through a set of approvals and all audit trails are preserved.

Plus, we use compliance software.”

Upal Chakraborty CIO, DLF

Lend Your

Voice

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Mobile Internet is growing faster than its desktop counterpart ever did, and more users may go online via mobile devices than desktop PCs within five years, according to a new study by investment firm Morgan Stanley.

The intriguing prediction is one of many in the firm's Mobile Internet Report. The report states we're "now in the early innings" of mobile Internet development, which is growing faster than previous tech cycles, including the evolution of the desktop PC. Given the rapid adoption of smartphones, including the Apple iPhone and a growing number of devices using Google's Android mobile operating system, Morgan Stanley's conclusions shouldn't surprise anyone.

The study also points out that mobile Net growth is a global phenomenon, not one confined to the developed world, which was typically the case with prior tech trends.

But despite the worldwide focus, US companies including Apple, Google, and Amazon are taking a leadership role.

Furthermore, "a host of relatively young, but seasoned world-class technology veterans," including Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, are leading the mobile push, the report states.

Five key tech trends are converging to spur mobile Internet growth, including 3G (and soon 4G) broadband, the popularity of social networking, online video, VoIP services such as Skype and Vonage, and "awesome mobile devices" that do tasks that until recently were the sole domain of your desktop or laptop PC. The short term looks especially bright for Apple, but challenges await. The mobile ecosystem and various accessories and services will continue to bloom over the next two years. After that, however, Google Android, competition from emerging markets, and wireless carrier limitations may pose a threat to Apple's market share, the report predicts.

There's little doubt the mobile Internet will dominate in the coming years — just look how far mobile handsets have come since the debut of the iPhone in 2007. Toss in a growing selection of rapidly improving smartphones, a new breed of wireless-ready tablet devices, e-readers like the Amazon Kindle, and faster 4G networks, and it's easy to see that mobile is the future of the Net.

Internet

—By Jeff Bertolucci

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ready for the rebound?

trendlInes

It m a n a G e m e n t Enterprise IT leaders planning for 2010 might find themselves coming up short on staff and the necessary high-tech skills needed to help their companies rebuild and drive business growth during the economic recovery, according to recent research.

Research from multiple sources is starting to reveal that high-tech executives might be worried about how they can tackle the coming year and the challenges it presents with lean staffs comprised of over-worked IT professionals. According to Robert Half Technology, 43 percent of some 1,400 CIOs polled feel their IT departments are either somewhat or very understaffed in relation to their current workload.

"Many companies have cut technology staff levels too deeply, making it challenging for IT departments to keep pace with demands," said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, in a statement.

Lily Mok, vice president in Gartner's CIO Research organization, says that IT staff could remain lean well into 2010 and that economic recovery will not indicate a return of IT jobs to prerecession numbers.

"IT departments during the downturn were very cautious about where they reduced, and more organizations plan to keep staffing levels flat for a period of time.

As the recovery continues, they might not even add too much, so I don't think we will ever go back to the big IT departments of 2000 or 2001," Mok says.

Separately, Gartner recently surveyed some 190 senior business executives and found 62 percent recognize that "IT-enabled changes will be a key element in their post-recession strategy," and hightech executives will be expected to do more with less again in 2010. IT staffing experts don't expect that approach to work long-term. That doesn't mean there isn't opportunity for IT professionals to expand their careers and take advantage of the opportunity to become a critical part of their company's business growth

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According to Gartner's recent survey, CIO priorities have shifted for 2010. While in 2009 cutting costs was the top coping mechanism for the recession, next year 71 percent of those senior executives said their primary focus will be a return to revenue growth. strategy in the long-term, Gartner's Mok says."Companies realize today that these business-savvy technology skill sets take time to develop, and they are doing a better job of workforce planning and training staff on the technologies they feel their business will need in the future," she adds.

According to Gartner's recent survey, CIO priorities have shifted for 2010.

While in 2009 cutting costs was the top coping mechanism for the recession, next year 71 percent of those senior executives said their primary focus will be a return to revenue growth. This transition from reducing spend to growing revenue could be an opportunity for IT leaders to position themselves and their staffs as key components to the rebuilding plans, which could also provide opportunities for new hires.

"With business leaders progressively shifting their time and attention away from the introspection of restructuring and tactical cost cutting and back toward customer value propositions and service during 2010, IT leaders should propose new ways in which technology can be used to support existing and new customers," said Mark Raskino, research vice president and Gartner fellow, in a statement.

He also added that CIOs should also take advantage of business leaders' relatively positive attitude toward IT investment during budget negotiations.

They should also discuss talentmanagement issues and consider special provisions for key talent. —By Denise Dubie

Screen

Test

Before you go ahead and invest, find out how often people use video conferencing or video chat facilities.

More than once a week 25% Once a week 13% Once a month 21% Once a year 16% Never 25% source: Global IP solutions survey

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1/8/2010 6:14:19 PM

We've Got More Money For It At least 72 percent of companies place greater value on IT today than before the crisis, according to a recent survey of business and IT executives conducted by Accenture and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) revealed.

The survey of over 550 executives also showed that almost half see an increased investment in IT selectively, while one in ten plan to deploy them across the board.

Surprisingly, non-IT executives have become more bullish about IT investments than those directly concerned with IT, with 61 percent anticipating more technology spending by next year.

"The results of the survey show that firms recognize the need to invest in technology to defend and accelerate their competitive position, which has not always been the case in the past," said Keith Haviland, global MD for systems integration consulting.

"The turmoil over the last 18 months has underscored the need for further flexibility

trendlInes

s u rv ey

and scalability to stay ahead in business and drive agile business change."

The most pressing IT priorities, said respondents were virtualizing and consolidating servers (44 percent), while significant funding for e-business (32

percent) and service-oriented architecture projects (31 percent) are also expected.

Due to additional technology implementations, IT executives are under increased pressure to deploy more flexibility-delivering projects than was previously required (81 percent). At least three-fourths, meanwhile, are using metrics to measure the performance of IT investments, yet half of those surveyed say metrics are only partly implemented, while one-third of the firms have no metrics evaluation measures at all.

"Just how indispensable IT has become to business survival and leadership is proven by the anticipated increase in investment over the next year, despite the challenging economic conditions," Haviland said.

"While other operational budgets are being slashed, global firms look towards IT as a way to re-build strength." — Computerworld Philippines

Locked, But not necessarily safe security measures such as one-time passwords and phone-based user authentication are no longer enough to protect online banking transactions against fraud, Gartner warns. Increasingly, such measures are overwhelmed by criminals using valid login credentials stolen from customers, the report said. banks need to quickly implement additional layers of security to protect their customers from falling victim to online fraud, said avivah litan, Gartner analyst and the report's author. according to litan, several Gartner banking clients have reported being victimized or targeted by attacks involving the use of malicious code hidden in Web browsers to intercept and corrupt banking transactions.

In some cases, the trojan program lurks in the user's browser and is activated when the user logs into a banking site. the malware copies the user's ID, password and one-time password and immediately uses them to transfer funds, while the victim gets an error message on the computer screen. In other cases, a trojan program might intercept a transaction that is taking place between a bank and a customer, and change the transaction without either the user or the bank knowing what is going on. For

Illust ratIon by MM shanIth

malWare

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instance, a request to transfer a certain amount of money from one account to another could be modified so that the request the bank gets would be different from the request sent by the user. however, when the bank asks the customer to confirm the transaction, the details of the transaction would appear to the user to be the same as the one he had requested, litan said. "the malware is changing what the user sees. so even if you put in a one-time password, you are confirming the wrong transaction," she said.

In instances where a bank might use a phone-based, authentication system, criminals are increasingly using call forwarding so that it is the fraudster rather than the legitimate user that is being called by the bank. Dealing with the threat will require additional layers of security around online transactions, litan said. because any authentication method that relies on a browser can be attacked and defeated. the goal should be to monitor login, navigation and transaction activity to spot any abnormalities that might suggest an automated program is accessing an application rather than a human being, she said

—by Jaikumar Vijayan Vol/5 | I ssu E/02

alternative views B Y p r i ya n k a

Is Cloud Computing Secure?

Ayes Vs Nays

The ambiguity over the security of cloud computing services does

not allow technologists like us to implement the technology.”

Chandrasekaran Mohan, CTO, Reliance Life Insurance

trendlines

At Reliance Life Insurance, we are not considering putting data on the cloud right now. The

P hotos by Srivatsa Shan di lya

ambiguity over the security of cloud computing services does not allow technologists like us to implement the technology. Though there are multiple service providers in the market, none of them are able to convince me and increase my confidence in cloud computing. As a company that is responsible for securing confidential data, we are constantly regulated, and we strictly follow the norms. I am not allowed to share my data even with sister companies like Reliance Communications and Reliance General Insurance.

Vendors should talk openly about the tools they deploy in the cloud because we need to know for sure how our data is protected and who is authorized to access it. Cloud computing service providers are vague about these security measures. We can benefit from the cloud only if the vendors are transparent and forthcoming with such details.

At this point, it is also unclear how data is duplicated and how a back-up mechanism is managed. There are a other shortcomings. We are not clear about the kind of hardware we need to buy, or the scalability our applications should undergo to facilitate cloud services.

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“Putting data on the cloud can be as secure as internal datacenters. We are among the first in our vertical to move our data to the cloud.”

Srinivasan Iyengar, Director IT & Change Management, Aegon Religare Life Insurance

We are quite excited about cloud computing and are at an advanced stage of putting some of our applications on the cloud. We would probably implement our project in a few months and would be one of the first ones in our vertical to do so.

As for the security issues hovering around the cloud, I personally feel that putting data on the cloud is as secure as data in internal datacenters. What most of my peers are wary about is the reaction time: the time they require to put systems back on track in case of an emergency. It is generally believed that it takes less time to fix a system collapse if the data is stored in an in-house datacenter, whereas the complications of securing the same data on the cloud multiply manifold. But I feel this is more of a mental block, and it really doesn’t matter whether data is stored in an in-house datacenter or the entire application is hosted on the cloud.

Also, I think that there is an obvious fuzziness about the interpretation of the dos and don’ts issued by the regulatory authorities. But things are definitely changing now. Regulatory bodies are now seriously examining cloud computing services and are likely to put forward a proper roadmap to help organizations move to the cloud.

This is a positive development for IT leaders who are keen on taking their enterprises to the cloud.

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1/8/2010 6:14:31 PM

Julia King

Applied insight

Protecting Your Data from Angry Ex-employees The slowdown ensured that staffers stayed, despite paycuts and larger workloads. The upturn will open the attrition floodgates — make sure data isn't carried away in the flow.

A

senior corporate executive leaves the company, taking with him his framed family photographs, his prized gold pen-and-pencil set — and the passwords of several hundred employees.

One of your firm’s most experienced sales-representatives hears a rumor that she is sure to be laid off. And she is — but before she gets her pink slip at the beginning of the next quarter, she manages to download to her Gmail account a long list of A-plus customers and their ordering and payment histories.

If you’re thinking, 'Never at my company,' or, 'Not my employees,' think again. Scenarios like the ones above are playing out every day, experts say, and even the most trusted and skilled professionals can be driven to data theft and other computer crimes.

Keys to the Kingdom

IllUSTraTIon by bInESH S rE EDH aran

What's surprising — and potentially lethal to corporate security — is how many departed workers retain access via so-called orphaned accounts long after they've been asked to leave from their organizatons.

Four out of 10 companies have no clue whether user accounts remain active after employees leave, according to a study of 850 security, IT and human resources executives by Symark International, a security software company.

In addition, 30 percent of executives reported that they have no process in place to locate and disable orphaned accounts.

Another sorry statistic: 38 percent of them have no way of determining whether a current or former employee is using or has used an orphaned account to access information.

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Julia King

applied insight

The most common threat is an employee taking intellectual property, including strategic plans or customer data, before or soon after he is let go, says Jonathan Penn, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Things can get even dicier when IT staffers leave with vengeance on their minds. Often, these are the employees with the “keys to the kingdom,” says Jones.

He notes that Roger Duronio, a former IT worker at UBS Paine Webber who was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison for planting a software logic bomb, was able to do such extensive damage to company data because "he had access everywhere." (A logic bomb is software code that triggers malicious functions under certain prescribed conditions; for example, one could be set to delete all customer accounts at a particular time on a specific date.)

Systems administrators and users with privileged account access — such as those who know root passwords — can

You should have a secure identity and access management infrastructure as well. Also known as an IAM, this type of setup "controls the who, what, where, when and why of user activities throughout the enterprise," Hudson explains.

Having the ability to monitor and evaluate how access rights are being used is critical to meeting governmental mandates and identifying system misuse.

It also helps compartmentalize system access according to employees' roles. This is a secure system design principle that companies should implement at the beginning of any software-development effort.

"Access control means tightening up a lot more on the business logic layer," explains van Wyk. But all too often, companies forgo this step. Van Wyk thinks that this is because it requires more time and thinking through of the design of software. In the absence of an initial secure design, the next best measure is to implement software that

Companies should take forensic images (a copy of a computer's hard disk) of departing employees' laptops, so they're available if an investigation is launched. definitely pose a greater threat, says Sally Hudson, an analyst at market research firm IDC. "Those with access to privileged passwords possess the power to change system data, user access and configuration. They also have the power to easily sabotage the critical IT operations of any organization as and when they want," she explains.

Lock It Up Despite these vulnerabilities, there are steps that companies can take to limit potential damage. Here are some.

Do your homework. Exit strategies and security measures should vary depending on the employee's role. Executives and managers who are charged with resigning personnel shouldn't assume that disabling computer access is simply a matter of pulling a plug. "Look closely at the classes of people," advises Jones. "If they're from sales, HR or finance or (are) senior employees, it may take longer to [disable their access] because they have greater access to systems than other employees do”.

Involve IT in layoff plans as early in the process as possible.

"It's important for IT to be synchronized tightly with HR," says Ken van Wyk, an information security specialist and consultant."But IT people need to understand how sensitive their roles are, and there has to be zero tolerance for spreading rumors" about people resigning.

Make sure the proper security programs and policies are in place, advises IDC's Hudson. Among other things, it’s essential to make sure that you're using systems to secure content, prevent data loss and manage threats. Such systems include firewalls, content- and spam-filtering tools and anti-virus software.

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records users' access to systems and the actions they take while using various business applications, van Wyk says.

"Almost all business applications have some level of user ID and password security, but then, once you're in, you're in," he says. But with a tracking system, when a user goes into a database, everything that he does there is recorded — and potentially reported to law enforcement, van Wyk explains.

GoodBye, Farewell It makes sense to part on good terms, but plan for bad times.

Jones recommends that even if a resignation goes smoothly with no apparent disgruntlement on the part of the employee, a company should still collect evidence of its own due diligence in case there's some sort of investigation in the future. That's because companies that experience any kind of security breach, including the theft of data, must be able to show that they took all possible precautions and measures to protect that data.

Specifically, Jones says that companies should take forensic images of departing employees' laptops, so they're available if an investigation is launched. (A forensic image is a copy of a computer's hard disk.)

"Usually, when something bad happens, it doesn't happen right away," Jones explains. In fact, it can take six, 12 or even 24 months before it comes to light. Yes, there is the added expense of taking the image, he says, but you have to offset that with the potential cost of litigation. CIO

Send feedback on this column to editor@cio.in

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O In a year when the burden of IT was shared by fewer shoulders, CIOs turned to their best people: this year’s crop of the Ones to Watch. These rising stars stepped up to the plate and lived up to the trust their CIOs and organizations placed in them.

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Fostering the Next in Line

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2010’s Rising Stars

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Staffing Survey 2010

Admittedly, CIOs don’t do enough to nurture a second line. If you think that’s something you need to change flip over and find out how you can build a better IT team this year.

Cover Story | Mentoring

Fostering the next in line

By Sneha Jha and Shardha Subramanian

Do you remember learning to ride a bicycle? All you wanted to do was pedal away faster than the speed of light. But somehow the fear of falling made you look back for someone to steady you, at least until you learnt to grease your own wheels.

That someone was your mentor.

And that was just what Tushar Vagal, head HO-IT, was looking for when he joined Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Vagal wanted to hit the ground running the minute he stepped into the company. With him, he brought a bundle of enthusiasm and a lot of passion. But he also came with a bag of self doubt. “One of my greatest fears was whether I could handle the pressure. Also, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to multitask enough which I knew would then create pressure. And I had little confidence in my collaboration and negotiation skills,” says Vagal.

On top of that, being a lateral entry in the organization didn’t help his cause. It made him skeptical about being accepted by those that mattered: the top brass and endusers. He also had to build traction with the functional heads of other departments.

Lost and apprehensive, Vagal turned to his boss, S.Anantha Sayana, headcorporate IT, L&T. Adept at handling monumental enterprise projects, Sayana, is known to always have the right strategy to secure a high level of commitment from his team. In the course of his long stint at L&T, Sayana has built a team of people on whom he can bounce things off. All this because he takes a keen interest and invests

A wise man once said mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear that listens and a push in the right direction.

Here’s how two CIOs did just that. considerable time and effort honing the skills of his team enabling them to expand their capacities. “Though he comes from an audit background, he has a vision for IT. His ability to impact and influence others is admirable. I used to wonder how I could imbibe those qualities. So I asked him to help me,” remembers Vagal.

When Vagal approached Sayana, his mentor told him that pressure was a part of the job and that he should learn to stay calm while delivering projects to multiple stakeholders and to attack each problem on its merits. That way, he would learn to multitask and would not take hasty decisions.

Sayana, on his part, made sure that he was present at every major meeting that Vagal was a part of. “I introduced him to all our functional heads and end users. This gave them the assurance that I was behind all

Reader ROI:

What your mentees expect from you The importance of visual cues

that Vagal was doing,” he says. This also enabled Vagal to gain acceptability with the end user department and inspired people’s trust in him.

Today, Vagal who once maintained a low profile, single handedly leads projects and makes presentations comprising ideas that truly merit the scrutiny of the company’s senior management.

Sayana’s mentoring has worked wonders, not just with Vagal but with other members of his team as well. He has been instrumental in knitting together a team of diligent and enthusiastic technologists who continually face challenges on the ground and in the process polish their skills. “The IT team has to perform a vast volume of tasks in order to meet the needs of departments cutting across various functional lines. There is no end to meeting demands. I inculcate within my people that hunger to help other departments in more and more areas,” says Sayana.

Need for Nurturing When organizations have to slug it out in the rough and tumble of intensely competitive business arena they need the horse power of talent. It’s been said before but it bears repetition: People are a key asset. And this talent does not always have to be lured from outside the organization, for many companies it is well within eyeshot. All you need to do is train your sights on the budding talent within your department and mentor them to scale the next rung of corporate IT.

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One of the most important things Anantha Sayana, L&T’s Head-Corporate IT (sitting) learnt from mentoring Tushar Vagal, Head HO-IT, is that CIOs should be willing to let go of their mentees much earlier than they do.

Cover Story | Mentoring The case for mentoring is a compelling one.

It is one of the most potent developmental approaches to capacity expansion.

According to CIO Staffing Survey 2009, 74 percent of CIOs believe that mentoring goes a long way in retaining staff.

At L&T, one form mentoring takes is a five-day, intensive residential leadership development program run by the HR department at their management development center in Lonavala. At this workshop, employees’ skills, deficiencies, and qualities are evaluated. It includes a series of online business simulation modules that test the knowledge of participants on various aspects of business including finance and production

planning. It also includes playing war games to increase competitiveness and team building. Apart from that, there are lectures from internal staff giving insights into business and psychometric tests and motivational lectures by the top leaders of L&T. Three months after this workshop, there is a handholding session in which a mentor is assigned to a set of mentees.

“The mentoring program at L&T is not something that I develop, it is a part of a very well-oiled leadership development program at the company. It is a part of a larger picture. So, I align with that approach. What I bring comes in the form of my personal interaction as a mentor,” says Sayana.

FOuR ThINgS I WISh I KNeW… before I became CIO.

Remember what it was like when you were making the transition to CIo? And those hard lessons you learnt? Here are some you might want to pass on to your protégés.

Learn to Let Go I had moved from the technical side into management. I was trying to hang on to all my tech knowledge and yet do all the management things at the same time. It wasn’t good for me or the people I was managing. I had to learn the high art of delegation involves not just assessing who’s good at Unix but knowing how and when to delegate.

— Cindy Hughes, CIo, Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund

It’s Who You Know, Not What You Know When I first became CIo, I didn’t fully appreciate the power of relationships. I’ve seen decisions made based not on financial return or best alignment strategy but on the strength of a relationship between two parties.

— Craig Cuyar, SVP and CIo, Realogy

Communicating is Hard The one thing I wish I had known was the amount of effort it takes to maintain relationships with other executives. I’ve had to really work and plan to meet with executives one-on-one. It takes special effort to get other executives focused on knowing that I’m approachable and that I’ll always be approaching them for intelligence.

— Michael Abbene, VP and CIo, Arch Coal

You Can’t Satisfy Everyone Your job isn’t to do what everybody wants. When you first become a CIo, you’re reluctant to make those types of decisions. But after awhile, you realize that without making those decisions—and sometimes being fairly blunt — you’re painting yourself into a corner.

— George Chappelle, Chief Supply Chain officer and former CIo, Sara lee Foods

— By Kim S. Nash Vol/5 | ISSUE/03

But before CIOs can align themselves to a mentoring program, they need to cherry pick their mentees. Sayana feels that it’s not difficult to do, simply because talent isn’t hard to spot. Individuals whose attitude and performance have created ripples are hard to miss. Sayana, for one, looks for infectious enthusiasm and high levels of energy in his mentees. “If a mentee has these two qualities, we can build everything else. Enthusiasm can be transformed into passion easily. I create in my mentee a hunger to serve the business, a hunger to see the satisfaction that they can give end users by providing quality services. That eggs them on to do three more projects,’ he says.

Enthusiasm is one thing, having the right attitude is quite another. Take Rajeev Shirodkar, CIO, Future Generali Life Insurance. His list of desired traits in a mentee reads slightly different. He believes that a mentee should be a self-starter and more importantly should value everything that he’s learning. He must also be honest and candid.

“I expect a certain level of candor from my mentee. If things go wrong he should have the candor to accept his mistakes. The ability to accept your mistakes is a trait of courage; it makes you more committed to your efforts. The mentor-mentee relationship gathers momentum when a mentee takes initiative voluntarily and stretches beyond expectations. I think a mentee should be on the ball. He should be able to talk across silos and should demonstrate a willingness to learn and embrace challenges,” he says.

Learning the Ropes Shirodkar’s list of traits and what Byju Joseph, Future Generali’s AVP, brought to the table were a perfect match. In 2006, when Raymond embarked on a Rs 90-crore SAP project (Shirodkar and Joseph worked at Raymond then) little did Joseph know that it would prove to be a test of his mettle.

For the manufacturing company that was running on legacy systems, the project was a high priority initiative. But just one month before the project was scheduled to go live, the project manager quit. This left the project on the brink of failure. Shirodkar then put trust in Joseph’s ability to pull it off.

“Instead of recruiting someone from outside, REAL CIO WORLD | J a n u a r y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0

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NINe ThINgS ThAT ReALLy ALL ALLy MATTeR …

Cover Story | Mentoring

acts as the devil’s advocate, we promoted Joseph. He asking penetrating had some apprehensions questions to help me but I was there by his side discern real issues. One of ‘de-bottlenecking’ and for success according to James Kilts, the most important things providing any help that former CeO, gillette. that he has taught us is to he needed. It was a joyous build stories while making moment for me to see him 1. Growth. It’s healthy to have a continuous dissatisfaction with presentations. This helps deliver on such a big project the status quo. involving and motivating before time and under 2. Relationships. Don’t underestimate the value of mentors. people,” says Vagal. budget,” says Shirodkar.

Other than deliberate Joseph admits that 3. Loyalty. Treat colleagues with respect to gain trust. mentoring sessions, handling an enterprise Sayana encourages his initiative of such a 4. Small moments. Small actions stay with subordinates. team to regularly attend monumental scale and 5. Timely decisions. Don’t delay action when a team member what he calls ‘dream scope was not easy. But sessions’ where they are doesn’t fit. with Shirodkar’s backing asked to think without Joseph was able to get the 6. Do what you enjoy. The more you like your work, the more any constraints, dream project off the ground. you’ll excel. and envision. The team “Working on the project focuses on questions such was a learning experience.

7. Life’s early lessons. Do the right thing. as: How can IT be game I learnt that it is critical changing and what is the to invest in building a 8. The right team. Find good colleagues and keep them value that IT can deliver to relationship with the around you. the business? Individuals customers, end users and 9. Confront reality. Sometimes the best manager can’t fix are encouraged to dream executive management,” without bothering about says Joseph. a situation. planning or budgetary During his interactions — By laurianne Mclaughlin constraints.

Sayana with Shirodkar, Joseph was believes that it fosters particularly impressed free and lateral thinking. “I encourage important to involve and convince various by his boss’s ability to make the right people to dream because if they dream they stakeholders from across the organization decision at the right time.” I went to him will certainly find ways to achieve it. If to contribute in a new enterprise level to learn critical decision-making and how regularly held, such sessions help spawn initiative. “It’s the most important skill to consistently make smarter choices. He new ideas and tap the thinking of every you need to acquire in a large enterprise has this fantastic ability to make powerful individual in the organization. It teaches if you want to win executive sponsorship decisions under pressure,” says Joseph. them the importance of taking calculated for your project. If you can do this, your There are different ways mentees can risks,” says Sayana. project has a strong chance of getting tap into the depth of the experience of their executed flawlessly. It’s something I learnt mentors. And sometimes taking a leaf out from my boss,” says Vagal. of their mentor’s success story can speed up What it Takes to Be a Mentor Another thing that has helped Vagal the momentum of their careers. For instance, Other than the oft-repeated years of experience, considerably is Sayana’s approach one of the most important skills Vagal Future Generali’s Shirodkar believes that a to presentations. “He conducts mock acquired from his boss is collaboration. mentor should be well versed in the various presentations for his mentees where he In a large enterprise like L&T, it is very nuances of business and should be a jack of all

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Some of CIO Rajeev Shirodkar traits that really impressed his mentee Byju Joseph, AVP, Future Generali Life Insurance, (standing) are Shirodkar’s ability to make smart choices consistently and to make them under pressure.

trades. “He cannot be uni-skilled. He should be able to talk across silos. A mentor should be patient, unflappable and supportive. As a CIO, he has to set KRAs that are objective and intangible,” he says.

Leadership is about character even more than skill, about emotional intelligence even more than competence and of courage to stand up in the face of defeat even more than best practices. So how do mentors make sure that their protégés inculcate the right leadership skills? Sayana endorses the idea of demonstrative leadership. “As a mentor you have to walk the talk. You have to realize that your mentees are learning from you in every interaction that you have with business. So if your behavior is not in sync with what you are preaching you won’t be heard. When you talk about a mentor-mentee relationship especially when the mentee is reporting to you, you have to keep in mind that every action decides how your mentee is influenced by you,” he says.

It is also important to keep in mind that mentoring is a two-way street. Although on the face of it, the mentees appear to be the most obvious beneficiaries of mentoring, that’s not true. A mentor can pick up a lesson or two in talent management. For Shirodkar, it brings a strong sense of satisfaction. “From a personal viewpoint, it gives a sense of satisfaction to see your protégé flower into a leadership role. Continuous encouragement despite some wrong decisions is important to ensure that the learning process is not curbed. You have to fail faster to succeed sooner,” says Shirodkar.

For Sayana, being on the other side of the table has been nothing less of a learning experience. He feels that a mentor should set viable yet stretchable goals that challenge the mentee to push himself forward. A mentee, says Sayana,

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SOMe OF The BeST LeSSONS… my mentors taught me.

We looked high and low for some of the best — and most truthful — advice that today’s CIos have got — or learned from watching — or from their mentors. Here’s a sampling.

Never Stop Asking Questions When I was working for the US Navy an old chief petty officer told me one day that if normally rational people are behaving irrationally, that means you don’t have all the information they do. Ask a lot of questions, he told me. It’s good advice.

— Lance Wilson, SVP and CIo, Assurant Health

The Data Isn’t Coming I had a wonderful mentor who told me that the speed to make a decision is an important quality of an executive. When you move from someone who expects to have all the data before making a decision up to executive, you have to understand your gut feelings play more of a role. You reach a level where you’re being paid to rely on your experience. If you wait for every single data point, every time, you may be seen as indecisive or weak.

— Robert Urwiler, SVP and CIo, Vail Resorts

Listen First one of my first mentors gave me confidence because he listened to me. There was a huge project I was going to lead. I said, “What if I fail?” He said, “You have done projects.

You do them really well. What is causing your hesitation?” He coached me through it.

— Catherine Boivie, SVP of IT, Pacific Blue Cross — By Kim S. Nash

should strive to excel their standards of performance. “Good mentees actually deliver more than what you expect. So it’s good to push the envelope,” says Sayana.

Mentors also stand to benefit from novel ideas that are bounced off by mentees.

A mentee’s takeaway depends on his level of trust, honesty and humility, says Shirodkar. Mentoring is about communicating on an emotional level. “It fosters trust and it is the emotional glue that binds people,” says Shirodkar. Inspiration is probably the most essential element a mentor can pass on. An effective mentor will be an emotional anchor for his protégée.

“There are times when we tend to be a little protective of our mentees. We delay leaving them alone or support them for a little longer than what is necessary. One of my biggest learnings is that we could have let go much earlier than we originally thought or pushed the mentee to a much larger task,” says Sayana.

That’s what counts at the end of the day.

For a mentor to pass on the baton to his mentee, he needs to know when to let go and let the mentee ride under his own steam. CIO Sneha Jha is correspondent. Send feedback on this feature to sneha_jha@idgindia.com

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ones to watch

Krishna Basudevan, 42 General Manager Enterprise & Architecture, Aircel He is someone to watch: Because he was instrumental putting together a solution that will reduce the average call handling time of over 6,000 operators in contact centers spread across 18 locations. Because his experience in value-added services is a boon to Aircel and has contributed to its bottom line. Because he pursues projects with unflagging conviction even when others have little faith in its success. Because his consistent commitment to deliver SOA-based IT systems has brought If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Take decisions with inadequate inputs and believe in yourself.

Turning point in your career

When I moved every pillar in the organization to ensure that we could get a messaging gateway for a service delivery platform live pan-India — in 15 days.

Your leadership philosophy

Autocratic when you know what’s to be done and democratic in uncertainty. Give your team room to work independently, and guide them when they face obstacles. Praise in public, criticize in person.

tremendous business value. Because he has rarely been known to succumb to pressure. Because he knows exactly when to lead his team and when to guide it. Because he works ferociously to live by Aircel’s credo: to build the most exciting brand of the next decade. Because he has the technical and operational skills to deliver results, despite the ever-changing needs of his business. Because two minutes with him and you know he’s the type who’s firm in his decisions, yet open to discussion.

If I were not an IT leader, I’d have been… A journalist.

Over-rated

Cloud computing for enterprise applications.

Bandwidth and connectivity in India need to mature before it can fly.

Your hero

Bill Gates; because he gave the world the vision of personal computing and now everybody talks of personalized service.

Who would you invite to dinner?

Sachin Pilot. I’d like to ask him what inspired him to become a public executive.

What would you be most likely caught saying?

Let’s get this done.

One question you wish you had better answers to

Why do people think they can have success without hard work?

Favorite TV shows

CNBC’s stock market analysis at 10 P.M. and the Tom & Jerry show.

At Aircel, he quickly started working on the concept of ‘Aircel of the Future.’ We saw the respect he got by way of his engagement with people.”— Ravinder Jain, CIO, Aircel

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ones to watch

A question you wish you had better answers to

What’s non-negotiable?

Ownership and commitment.

How do I get other stakeholders become self-organized?

Your favorite magazine

TIME Your leadership philosophy

The way to gain your team’s respect is to share your vision with them.

Be a role model and demonstrate how you expect your teams to behave.

You would like to invent...

A machine that enables the self-empowerment of people all around me.

Common mistake managers make

Conveniently forgetting their commitments.

If you want to be a rising star you have to be...

A good listener. Be willing to understand other people’s perspectives even while you strongly believe in yours.

In high school, you would have been voted most likely to...

… come up with innovative ideas to do things differently.

Smartest advice you’ve got

Recognize your special performers and reward them — even if it’s in a small way. But rewarding a non-performer can be counter-productive to the team’s performance.

You would like to stay in people’s memory as...

Someone who has contributed to society and fellow human beings — not just someone who lived to earn for himself.

Pankaj Agrawal, 43 Head IT Governance, Aircel He is someone to watch: Because he was instrumental in making the company a national service provider in just 18 months. Because he quickly caught up with the pace at which Aircel was growing. Because he created an SLA framework where 77 percent of SLAs are directly aligned to business KPIs. Because in a highly-competitive sector he came up with the idea of creating WiFi hot zones across India.

Because that project provided the company an edge over the

established giants. Because his negotiating skills saw to it that 293 pending security audit observations were reduced to 37 in just four months. Because he took it upon himself to seal a long-term strategic outsourcing contract with Aircel’s outsourcing partner. Because in telecom the success of a large outsourcing contract depends on how it is administered.

Because his organized and methodical approach made that process smooth. Because his sincerity speaks for itself.

Pankaj’s inter-personal skills are good and his acumen for business is sharp. His belief in quality and timelines makes him stand out.”—Ravinder Jain, CIO, Aircel

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ones to watch

Sudip M. Banerjee, 38 Head-IT, Reliance General Insurance He is someone to watch: Because he walked out of banking and into insurance and adapted swifty. Because he quickly won his team over with his charm. Because that was critical since his predecessor was hugely popular and the company expected to lose people when he left. Because he took the initiative to re-engineer a claims processing system, critical in the insurance industry. Because that brought down turnaround time from 21 to 16 days and cut cost by 5 percent.

Because he motivated his team to work on projects with an objective to cut costs using six sigma initiatives. Because these projects have saved about Rs 10 crore. Because he transformed the company’s portal into a line of business by simplifying it and extending sales and service capabilities. Because he is reliable and has a sense of responsibility. Because he is a consensus builder. Because his technology skills have earned him respect companywide, and that helps the IT team get management buy-in.

To be a rising star you have to…

A common mistake too many managers make

Be humble, prioritize from multiple alternatives, under-promise and overdeliver and build friends all around.

Not following-up on initiatives, always acting short-term In high school, I would have been voted most likely to ...

Make others laugh.

Your hero

My daughter. She seems to be everything I couldn’t be at her age.

You won’t compromise on

Honesty and commitment.

The best advice you ever got

Honesty is the best policy.

To cloud or not to cloud?

You would like to stay in people’s memories as…

A guy who delivers on promise

Over-rated

Windows Vista. It has superficial changes compared to XP and adds little value to OS performance or user experience.

One question you wish you had better answers to…

Your leadership philosophy

To be numbers-driven, to think of business first and IT later.

You would like to invent

A tool to effectively mine unstructured data

Your catchphrase

Boss, this is not what I want.

During these tough times, it is an accomplishment that he has managed to do many projects by rotating and keeping the team challenged and also helped cut costs.”

—Sriram Naganathan, CTO, Reliance General Insurance

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ones to watch

Mahesh Chandra Srivastava, 36 Manager Systems, IFFCO Over-rated

Server virtualization.

Electronically, single high-end hardware can not give same performance as individual servers. And licensing costs are much higher.

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Be willing to multi-task.

The best advice you’ve got

Think broader and higher so that your plans can cater to future requirements.

Gopinath for what used to be Air Deccan. They showed that if there is a will, there is way to design technology that’s low cost and still has quality. They served society while doing business.

Your leadership philosophy

Take prompt action against ignorance and plan jobs for the long term. Redress issues by looking at the root cause.

What would you be most likely caught saying?

Ok, no problem.

Your nickname at work

Turning point in your career

When I was put in charge of one area of the IT department that was responsible for the entire country.

MC What’s non-negotiable?

Honesty.

Favorite gadget

One question you wish you had better answers to.

How can I better balance a project’s timeliness with quality?

My Nokia E71 Your hero

Ratan Tata for leading the way to the Nano. And Capt.

He is someone to watch: Because he is dependable. Because that trait was put to the test when IFFCO shifted its datacenter and he came through shining. Because being technically sound, he was made responsible for designing and commissioning VPN links to remote offices. Because he got the job done with +99% uptime on every VPN link. Because he provided near 100 percent secure WAN connectivity to IFFCO’s remote offices, despite challenges that seemed out of his control.

Because he then introduced video conferencing between the corporate office, manufacturing units and the zonal offices. Because that saved the co-op a lot of money and allowed faster decision making. Because it made IFFCO more efficient and helped submit its subsidy claim to the government of India early. Because his work ensured that IFFCO closed its books with no delay despite its size and the unwieldy nature of its business.

Mahesh is dynamic, sincere, has vision and knows the art of managing teams and projects.”— S.C. Mittal, Senior ED (MS&IT), IFFCO

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ones to watch

Ram Gollapudi, 38 General Manager IT Operations, Tata Teleservices He is someone to watch: Because he is not fazed by pressure.

Because when Tata Teleservices was haunted by data discrepancies that led to customer dissatisfaction and revenue losses, Gollapudi came up with a solution. Because he got other teams involved and backed them with the technology to fix the problem. Because he has outstanding team-building skills.

Because he built a separate team for application operations from scratch and it’s now a full-fledged division that strives to improve Over-rated

3G. Indian telecom consumers are spoilt for choice and my guess is only 4G will meet their high expectations.

A question you wish you had better answers to

How do I achieve better work-life balance?

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Believe and make your team believe that ‘if faith wills, fate fulfills.’

What would you like to change about the world?

Make it into a really global village.

Turning point in your career

A project I did in Bangkok in 2005. It taught me that success or failure lies in one’s own hands. It also reiterated the importance of team work.

operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance user satisfaction.

Because for him, it didn’t end there; he pushed the efficiency of the system by introducing process enablers for continuous improvement. Because by doing so he brought in synergies between application operations, DC operations and IT security.

Because he is determined to increase interactions between IT and business, and he does so by hosting several forums. Because these forums air the pain points of both sides and bring them closer.

The best advice you’ve got

Don’t waste your energy over small things.

Favorite gadget

Photon Plus, it gives laptops real portability.

Your catchphrase

Let’s address the root cause.

Your hero

My father for his leadership skills at work and life. His legacy lives on seven years after his passing on.

What impresses you?

Working smart. It minimizes stress and achieves better results faster.

Your leadership philosophy

Set clear goals, define clear roles and responsibilities, and empower and enthuse your team.

Your nickname at work

Mr Perfect

I first noticed him when we collaborated on a Taiwanese project at Tech Mahindra. The company was venturing into a new area. Ram rose to the occasion, demonstrated grit and commitment and made the project a grand success.”— Shirish Munj, Head-IT, Tata Teleservices 40

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Ones to watch

One thing I’ve learnt

What impresses you?

Cost effective innovation and timely transformation are the keys to success.

Dedication and commitment: they are crucial forces to reach any goal.

The best advice you’ve got

The difference you make

To every problem there is a solution. We only need to find it.

I want to bring a touch of humanity to everything I am involved with.

Turning point in your career

Your nickname at work

Project Kevlar for our wholesale voice gave me the chance to transform the way this business is conducted globally. It will create a benchmark for others to follow.

Karma Yogi Why do you think your CIO nominated you?

My CIO works very closely with me and has seen me evolving a static business and transforming it to a position of global leadership.

On mentoring…

Imparting knowledge is an easy way to create followers. I intend to create replicas and more leaders who exceed me.

What would you be most likely caught saying?

Let’s create history.

A question you wish you had better answers to…

Your hero

How can I get partners to deliver to your expectations in tough economic times.

I admire and follow Hanumaji, Sankat Mochan my philosophy in life.

Yogesh Gulabani, 39 GM Technology Services and Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel He is someone to watch: Because he led business transformation projects that will enable the organization to double its revenue over the next three years. Because he was instrumental in expanding the business to overseas markets and created a business roadmap with minimum capex. Because he helped launched 15 projects this year, which, combined, are projected to grow revenue by Rs 2,000 crore. Because he enabled India’s largest telco to generate 25 percent additional revenue through automation and by

developing new revenue streams. Because he developed a remote model project with the Government of Gujarat that’s so good that it’s being replicated in other states. Because it revolutionalized the daily of life rural citizens and won the Chief Minister’s Award.

Because he developed a global voice solution that is the envy of Airtel’s competitors because it helps business achieve four times its traffic volume. Because he is politically-savvy without being political, technology-savvy without being a geek.

Yogesh has led from the front with both business and IT, proving his capabilities and vision. He also enabled business to diversify into unfamiliar, unconventional areas, leading to rich benefits.” — Rupinder Goel, Senior VP, Bharti Airtel 42

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In memorium

Sanjay Jha, 38 Head-IT (IN, VAS & CCT), MTS India (Sistema Shyam TeleServices) Why he was someone to watch: Because he was self-motivated and driven. Because he consolidated MTS’ server infrastructure which helped the telco roll out services faster and saved significant operational costs. Because he turned around an ailing contact center and pushed its call-to-answer ratio into the high 90s. Because he was participative. Because he had the authority to speak in cross-functional meetings and industry forums, including regulatory platforms.

Because he could rally his team repeatedly. Because he proactively formed a core IT team of over 30 highly motivated members. Because his team members looked up to him for his guidance. Because he was easy to work with. Because he was responsive and could get a job done without follow-up. Because he delivered consistently. Because he rolled out an online differential charging solution in 45 days, allowing MTS to launch high-speed wireless broadband quickly.

Because he was tough when the situation demanded it.

If you want to be a rising star you have to… Take calculated

A question you wish you had better answers to.

risks.

How do I bring the attrition rate in my team to near zero?

Turning point in your career

Sanjay Jha passed away suddenly on the 3rd of January 2010 after he had already been named a Ones to Watch honoree. He shall be remembered.

Over-rated

In telecom, the service delivery platform. It has failed to deliver because people don’t know what services they need, which means they don’t know which services can be integrated and delivered cost effectively using a SDP.

A billing mediation project that brought me into the limelight and taught me that sincerity and hard work can only take you so far in making a project successful — you also need project owners to put their heart and soul into the project.

What do you like being surrounded by?

Flowers. Because they give you that feeling of freshness and show you nature’s beauty.

Why do you think your CIO nominated you?

I think he was impressed with my delivery capabilities in multiple functional areas.

The best advice you’ve got

It comes in the form of a question an old boss liked to ask: “Are you part of the problem or the solution?” It made me more solutions-oriented.

Your hero

What would you be most likely caught saying?

We can do.

Mahatma Gandhi. His teachings about truth and honesty are eternal.

Sanjay was a highly-dedicated, sincere, self-motivated member of the team who was able to deliver consistently. He had the makings of a good CIO.” — Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS India (SSTL)

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Ones to watch

Byju Joseph, 37 AVP, Future Generali India Life Insurance

To be a rising star you have to… Be innovative,

be adaptable, fail faster to succeed sooner.

Your leadership philosophy

Respect can’t be demanded, it has to be earned.

The devil is in the details.

A concept that’s all hype

SOA. It requires a complete transformation of people, process and technology.

It’s been around for over a decade and still has poor adoption rates.

Just do it!

Your hero

The last book you read The best advice you’ve got

Your catchphrase

How Life Imitates Chess

by Garry Kasparov. It opened my eyes to the ingredients and skills that go into making a decision.

My father. He taught me to always do the right thing; to value others and help them whenever I can.

A habit you wish you could get rid of

Working late.

I wouldn’t be caught dead

Turning point in your career

While handling a multi-crore SAP project, I realized that tackling change management is not just about working hard but working smart.

Wearing pink.

One question you wish you had better answers to…

How do I keep my cool?

He is someone to watch: Because in a high gestation business like insurance, he is quick to respond to new competitive threats and maintains a laser sharp focus on strategy. Because this allowed the company to get rid of redundant initiatives and saved nearly 20 percent of its IT budget. Because he has a strong goal orientation and can deliver quick results. Because that manifested itself when he spearheaded an enterprise document management system and executed the project in a mere 40 days. Because it went a long way in improving turnaround time for issuing a policy — from 15 days to three. Because he championed the transformation of a company, running hundreds of legacy systems. Because user satisfaction got 4 on 5 when he changed the face of the IT infrastructure of the company. Because despite having absolutely no exposure to IT, today he is its team leader.

His formal education gave him no exposure to IT. But I realized that he had common sense and great analytical skill. He became a part of the IT team immediately thereafter.” — Rajeev Shirodkar, CIO, Future Generali India Life Insurance

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Ones to watch

Mahesh Kumar, 35 Assistant General Manager IT Infrastructure, Operations & Support, Maruti Suzuki India He is someone to watch: Because fresh out of IIM Lucknow he was entrusted with studying the supply chain practices of India’s largest car manufacturer to propose improvements. Because his report was Maruti Suzuki’s first concept note on supply chains and impressed senior management. Because it laid the foundation for many technology-led supply chain initiatives in one of the most automated companies in the country. Because since then he’s has been part of Maruti Suzuki’s core IT strategy team for eight

years. Because he’s spent a lot of that time starting new initiatives and taking IT’s business penetration to higher levels. Because he took IT service delivery levels from 60 to a 100 percent. Because that increased the efficiency of 7,000 staffers and 700 business partners. Because it boosted business’ confidence in IT. Because his work in the supply chain enables Maruti Suzuki to work on less than half-a-day’s worth of inventory as it churns out over 2,300 vehicles a day.

An important lesson you learnt on the way up.

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Patiently listening to a customer — or anyone for that matter — is key to building long-term relationships.

Have a strong connect with the business and the customer. And don’t shy away from taking responsibility for failures.

If you weren’t an IT leader, you would have been… An

What would you be most likely caught saying?

officer in the armed forces.

Hanjee, kya chal raha hai?

Your leadership philosophy

What trait do you admire in your CIO?

Consider your team a part of yourself. The chances of things going right increases dramatically.

I’ve known Mr. Uppal for over 11 years. He has a great knack for understanding people.

I wish I knew how to...

Stop people from sending unnecessary e-mail.

Your hero

My father because he chose a path which was unthinkable for most people around him.

Favorite TV show

Man vs Wild on the Discovery channel.

Over-rated

SOA. The concept’s basics are sound but it should only be targeted at scenarios that see high reusability.

Your first job

In the instrumentation department of Engineers India. I worked there as a management trainee between 1995-96.

He was quickly able to understand and extrapolate the future of the business and propose a piece of visionary IT architecture that has paid off.”— Rajesh Uppal, Chief General Manager IT and Distribution, Maruti Suzuki India

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Ones to watch

Over-rated

What’s non-negotiable?

Netbooks. Given their limited screen resolution and processing power, viewing the average office document is a chore. Add a half decent anti-viral solution to the mix and you get a convenient coffee break while you wait for a document to open.

Delivering to customer expectations.

What would you be most likely to be caught saying?

How can we do this better?

Your leadership philosophy

Be open. Be honest.

Demand the best, from the best.

The best advice I’ve read

“The closer you get to the top of a company, the more important is cultural fit. Indian managers tend to underestimate the critical importance of culture and powerful mentors and overestimate the importance of performance, loyalty and competence.”

If you want to be a rising star you have to be…

Passionate. Combine technology expertise, business acumen and people management with passion and you might just stand apart from the crowd.

What trait do you admire in your boss?

His inclusive leadership style. He’s a highly innovative thinker who gives you the building blocks and then the space to create a model.

Favorite gadget:

My home Internet gateway on a rickety old desktop. It serves me well as a routerVPN-firewall-proxy-file server-bittorrent-SMS box!

Akshay Lamba, 32 Assistant Director IT, Strategy, Architecture & Planning, MTS India (Sistema Shyam TeleServices) He is someone to watch: Because he has an opinion people want to hear. Because he is invited regularly to speak at fora and be a judge at award ceremonies. Because his grasp of business and his ability to translate it’s needs into technology leads to fast, efficient IT delivery. Because as the head of the company’s enterprise architecture he runs what MTS will be tomorrow. Because he is the singular force that integrates the IT department of MTS with its counterpart in Russia.

Because as a business leader and a consultant, he assures the new entrant to India’s cutthroat telco market a strong pipeline of business benefits from IT. Because at a time when there is hardly any support available for data cards in Linux, he tested and presented a proof-of-concept to do exactly that.

Because it’s going to be a money-spinner. Because the division he set up institutionalized process rigor and guaranteed better system utilization.

Akshay first caught my attention seven years ago at the launch of a VAS solution. His ability to quickly grasp a new technology, understand its commercial implications and turn it around enabled the operator to launch a strong global product. — Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS India Vol/5 | ISSUE/03

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ones to watch

Munish Mittal, 41 EVP and Head Technology Solutions Group, HDFC bank He is someone to watch: Because he thinks big and is bold enough to attempt the untried. Because this ability led him to identify five core banking applications — HDFC Bank’s most business critical applications which used different databases and technologies — and implemented a unique three-way disaster recovery solution. Because this ensures zero percent data loss for the company. Because he revamped HDFCSL’s core e-broking systems and allowed it to scale from 30,000 trades a day to to over a million. Because he took it upon himself to fix a sour relationship with TCS and settled a three-year-old feud. Because he stepped out of his role and developed a talent management tool in collaboration with the HR team. Because this mentor-prodigy relationship program has helped the business sustain a 30 percent CAGR growth year on year.

Because backed by strong domain expertise and rich experience he brings a higher level of competence to the table.

The best advice you ever got

Your leadership philosophy

The means are as important as the end, and are not just a way of getting to the end.

Trust and leadership cannot be demanded, they have to be earned.

Accepting responsibility is the only way to lead.

You wish you had better answers to…

How do I present the truth in a politically correct and acceptable manner?

You would never…

Steal Your catchphrase

Your hero

Let’s do this, please.

C. N. Ram, former CIO, HDFC Bank. I have not come across a more magnetic personality in my life so far.

Why do you think your CIO nominated you?

The last book you read

What’s non-negotiable?

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. It taught me the importance of investing time on children and deriving happiness from making other people’s dreams come true.

Ethics

I requested him to!

You wish you could be more…

Tolerant. I would like to be a lot more patient in meetings and tolerant of things which usually upset me.

Credo

Practice perseverance and work hard, it always pays.

Munish knows his technology, has adequate business knowledge and a strong desire to get things done.” —Anil Jaggia, CIO, HDFC Bank

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ones to watch

Gauri Raizada, 35 GM Corporate IT, Tata Teleservices If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Your hero

Amitabh Bachchan. I think he is the best in his field.

He’s weathered numerous storms with great dignity and he has came out finer every time.

Have common sense. It is the best form of intelligence Over-rated

Social networking sites.

I don’t think they can replace human interaction.

A common mistake you’ve seen many managers make

Not standing up for what they believe in. The battle is lost even before it begins.

What’s non-negotiable?

Results. Absolutely no compromise on that.

Best words of wisdom

Be yourself.

Your motto “Aha” leadership moment

Without any prior experience, I was asked to take up an inventory management project. I realized that one just needs to push one’s boundaries to know that capabilities don’t really have limits.

Apply your own mind; don’t blindly follow what someone else says.

What would you like to invent?

Now that we’ve ruined this planet , I think a replica is necessary.

She is someone to watch: Because of her ability to see the big business picture made her the ideal choice to lead the IT for Tata Docomo. Because her ability to drive strategies keeping in mind the dynamics of the Indian telecom industry has led to the roll out of Tata Indicom’s Prepaid System — a homegrown CRM solution that provides low-cost service to prepaid subscribers. Because she found a way to cut opex from call center queries by introducing a ‘selfcare on SMS’ project, which allows customers to text their queries instead of calling in. Because she then extended this postpaid service to prepaid connections, pushing up transaction volumes from 2.2 million in 2005-06 to 36 million in 2008-09. Because this translated into savings of Rs 8.7 crore. Because her ability to drive large projects involving various stakeholders, well within timelines, has helped the company be a pioneer in the telecom industry. Because her ability to understand what makes people tick and to solve problems will make her a good CIO.

Gauri’s greatest quality is the fact that she is focused on her responsibility and understands what the business requires — often better than what the business does.”

—Shirish Munj, Head-IT, Tata Teleservices

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ones to watch

Sunil Rajapurohit, 37 General Manager Technology Services, Architecture and Planning, Mobility Services and Home ATG, Bharti Airtel He is someone to watch: Because he has an extraordinary grasp of Airtel’s different lines of business and a deep understanding of various technologies. Because that rare mix enabled him to integrate the architecture for value-added services with Airtel’s service delivery platform. Because that opened up those VAS products to traditional IT platform services like billing and CRM, which in turn generated new revenue streams. Because he architected the real-time integration of Airtel’s DTH CRM Lesson you’ve learnt on the way up

The grass is not greener on the other side; the grass is greener where you water it.

Best advice you’ve read

A quote from Kenneth Blanchard. “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”

What would you be most likely caught saying?

Let’s think this through.

system with a voucher management system. Because that reduced the amount of time customers had to wait before their DTH connections were activated. Because he was a key member of the team that provided a three-year IT roadmap for all four lines of Airtel’s business. Because that team looked through 700 applications and worked with 70 technology partners. Because he sits on the review board that selects and approves new products and platforms. Because he has natural leadership skills.

Favorite gadget

Playstation 3 To be a rising star you have to be...

Willing to implement decisions you don’t always believe in.

What impresses you?

Open-minded and honest people.

Credo

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

What’s non-negotiable?

Character. Character is what builds the trust that links leaders with followers. Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

Your hero

My dad. When I was very young, he taught me to believe in myself and most importantly to be independent and self-reliant.

Over-rated

Windows 7. There is no performance difference compared with Vista.

Windows 7 is nothing more than an incremental improvement to Vista on the surface with most changes being under the hood.

I would like to change the world by...

Making it more eco-friendly.

Sunil has an excellent understanding of business processes and technologies. This, coupled with his easy-going nature and ability to collaborate, makes him a good candidate for a larger IT role.”— Mehul Shah, CIO Telemedia and Chief Architect, Bharti Airtel 48

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ones to watch

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

The last book you read

The Goal by Dr. Eli Goldratt. It has helped me improve IT processes to maximize results and redefine the basics of every business with logic and common sense.

Take each problem as an opportunity and realize that people are your greatest assets.

Best advice you’ve got.

Whenever there is a conflict between your heart and mind, follow your mind.

A trait you wish you could get rid of...

Impatience for results.

Your catchphrase

You wouldn’t be caught dead with…

Let’s think practically.

Obesity Your heroes

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

They are true innovators in their fields and have created cutting-edge products and services.

Your greatest fear

To be branded a non-performer.

Your leadership philosophy

Accept ideas with an open mind and imbibe accountability.

You won’t compromise on…

Integrity and honesty.

Over-rated

One question you wish you had better answers to.

Social networking. It’s infringing on people’s private lives and souring relationships.

How can I create a better balance between family and work?

Sameer Shaikh, 34 AVP–IT and Telecom, HIRCO He is someone to watch: Because he exhibits farsightedness in every project that he conceives. Because that was evident when he devised an in-house help desk management portal that resulted in increased efficiency, transparency and accountability. Because in a real estate and construction company, where IT awareness isn’t great, he conceived of an enterprisewide video conferencing and open communication system. Because he successfully migrated all geographically

dispersed WAN and telecom network links to a single telecom service provider in just six months. Because this saved the company more than 15 percent in telecom costs. Because he found an ingenious way of marrying telecom and real estate by devising a revenue sharing model with a leading telecom provider that offers services to Hirco’s SEZs. Because his calculated risk-taking ability has increased the dare quotient of his company by several notches.

Sameer has the ability to survive in both good and bad times. Innovation, which is critical during a slowdown, is his forte.” —Ajay Masur, CIO & Head Planning, Hirco

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ones to watch

Anil Shankar, 37 Customer Care Associate and General Manager Infrastructure, Shoppers Stop He is someone to watch: Because he is a perfect blend of strong technical skills and the business acumen required to manage projects within strict timelines and budgets. Because his openness to change and team-building skills command trust from his peers and juniors. Because when the retail group expanded its reach by setting up different retail formats, like HyperCity and Crossword, he consistently met their unique expectations from IT. Because he led a team that conceptualized and managed storage virtualization, which made the business more resilient. Because he brought down the cost and the time it took to operate credit card payments. Because he standardized the chain’s telephone services and shaved 40 percent of its telephone expenses. Because just one of his many projects increased the uptime of customer facing applications to 99.5 percent.

Because he creates such a positive and conducive work environment that the infrastructure team has seen low attrition.

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

A question you wish you had better answers to.

Keep sight of your long-term goals and don’t be besieged by failures. Perseverance and a positive attitude help.

How do you keep people motivated and focused during a downturn, particularly with fewer projects?

The best advice you’ve got

Your leadership philosophy

Try to get what you like or else you will have to like what you get.

A good leader is one who inspires his followers to have confidence in him and in themselves. The true reflection of a leader’s success is in the success of his followers.

Your hero

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. In my view he is truly an architect of modern India.

What’s non-negotiable?

If I was not an IT leader, I would have been a…

Trust and integrity.

An entrepreneur or a fashion photographer.

Over-rated

RFID. Despite predictions that it would change the face of organized retail, its adoption has been slow. It has advantages but there’s just isn’t enough reason to move away from the good old barcode.

Favorite TV shows

Formula1 races and Man vs. Wild on the Discovery channel.

Moving from pure play infrastructure to managing outsourced partners to being responsible for customer facing applications, Shankar’s breadth of roles makes him a potential candidate for the CIO position.” — Arun Gupta, Customer Care Associate & Group CTO, Shoppers Stop 50

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ones to watch

Sivashankar Sivakumar, 36 VP and Head-IT Infrastructure and Security Operations, Reliance Tech Services The best advice I’ve read

Nuts about

“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.

Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.”

My wife calls me a BlackBerry freak. I challenge anyone to beat me on a qwerty keyboard.

Over-rated

Nandan Nilekani. Deciding to be in charge of the Unique Identification Authority of India could not have been easy, especially given what he was doing before.

Your hero

Cloud computing. The cloud has its advantages and that’s a fact. But it’s not the onestop solution for all apps that people claim it is.

Your leadership philosophy

Set high standards, and mentor your followers.

Make hard choices when they need to be made and stand by them.

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Dream endlessly and work towards it. Humans without dreams should live inside a mortuary bally (a refrigerator used in morgues).

What would you be most likely caught saying?

Guys, lets put this to rest!

Motto I try to live up to

Be honest; be human!

He is someone to watch: Because he supports over 70 million Reliance Communications customers. Because he put in place a plan to shrink the datacenter footprint of India’s second-largest telco company. Because he fixed uptime issues with RC’s eRecharge service, which has about three million transactions a day and is a lifeline to the wireless mobility business. Because employees see him more as a mentor and a friend than a department head. Because he single-handedly helped Reliance Tech Services become one of the first ISO 20000 certified telco IT services companies in India. Because he created a new record by doing it in five months. Because he is also part of the company’s Finance and Commercial Council which measures profitability and growth. Because both IT and non-IT employees want him on their teams. Because he brought visibility to the business, the NOC, and the operations teams by developing a centralized console that looks for degradations in business processes.

Because he’s articulate, meticulous, and a go-getter.

I first noticed Siva because of his can-do attitude and ability to cold-start (he created his team from scratch). He was not fazed by the idea that he was the first person on the team.”

— Sumit D. Chowdhury, CIO, Reliance Communications

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ones to watch

Charanjit Singh Sodhi, 40 GM Technology Services, Chief of Security Plans and Policies, Bharti Airtel He is someone to watch: Because within days of stepping into Bharti Airtel, he made his presence felt by taking charge of an enterprisewide information security project. Because he has an intuitive understanding of technology. Because that understanding led him to initiate process improvements, which have a deep and continuous impact on business. Because in a company like Bharti Airtel, where data is worth its weight in gold, he built enough credibility in two years to be entrusted with You would like to invent

An affordable educational device for children from the economically weaker section.

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Step out of your comfort zone and take on audacious challenges.

Over-rated

ROI for information security is over-rated because it is very difficult to quantify the benefits that excellent security begets by averting loss of brand, revenue and customers.

preparing an elaborate third-party information security policy.

Because he was instrumental in driving the company’s ISO 27001 certification program, which is one of the most stringent security standards in the world. Because he took it upon himself to create security awareness among over 12,500 employees by running a campaign. Because he has the professional wherewithal to lead a team of IT professionals and drive them to add greater value to the organization.

A question you wish you had better answers to…

Why don’t more CIOs look beyond technology and think business strategy?

Your catchphrase?

Yes, it can be done.

You won’t compromise on…

Integrity, that rare, endearing and most valuable quality.

In high school, you would have been voted “Most Likely to ...”

… become an entrepreneur.

Your leadership mantra

Lead by example – walk the talk.

Best advice you’ve got

Be cheerful, exercise daily, eat right and make more time for your friends.

Common mistake managers make

Maintaining poor work-life balance.

A valuable lesson you learnt

While implementing various strategic programs, I realized that true leadership lies in generating a sense of ownership among all participants in any endeavor.

Charanjit has been the epitome of operational efficiency and a role-model worthy of emulation. He is a great team player and has the ability to inspire others to give their best.”

—Felix Mohan, CISO, Bharti Airtel

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ones to watch

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Your catchphrase?

This looks challenging, let’s take this up.

Have a strategic plan, with clearly-defined objectives and goals, and reinforce those goals at every milestone.

You won’t compromise on…

Commitment, values and honesty.

“Aha” leadership moment

If not an IT leader you would have been...

When I was setting up a development center in Hyderabad, I realized that one can achieve greater heights by maintaining a go-forit attitude and taking calculated risks.

A scientist.

Your leadership philosophy

Create a comfortable and positive work- environment.

Provide opportunities to your team to realize their strengths and appreciate the good work.

Your hero

Dhirubhai Ambani. Because of his ability to dream big and translate his dreams into reality.

Common mistakes managers make

Not identifying all the critical risks, over committing at the planning stage, and having inadequate monitoring mechanisms to identify slippages before they occur.

Over-rated

Cloud computing. It’s an interesting concept but it doesn’t have many customer success stories to back the hype that it has generated.

Bhavani Tottempudi, 40 VP, Reliance Tech Services She is someone to watch: Because she’s made good use of the 19 years she has spent in the IT industry by setting up a development center in Hyderabad. Because she pushed until it got CMM I level 3 certification — within just nine months of its inception. Because she motivates her 152-strong team to deliver constantly and that has translated into the all India launch of the BIG TV DTH service.

Because she was instrumental in creating a single platform to control billing, CRM and provisioning for postpaid customers.

Because this initiative has increased average monthly collections to 98.5 percent. Because the project has gone a long way in making customers happy as it ensures the restoration of services within five minutes. Because when she dons the hat of a negotiator she makes sure that her interactions with various external IT vendors go in her company’s favor. Because today, the team’s positive work atmosphere is Bhavani’s most significant achievement and one of Reliance Tech’s biggest strengths.

Bhavani is willing to jump in to solve any problem and is completely dedicated to her work. She exhibits quiet leadership and her customers are willing to stand by her.”

—Sumit D. Chowdhury, CIO, Reliance Tech Services

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ones to watch

Tushar Vagal, 42 Head, Head Office IT, Larsen & Toubro He is someone to watch: Because he can collaborate with his IT team and members of the business with equal ease. Because he brought order to L&T’s IT vendors and in-house resources and increased service levels. Because he created his department from scratch. Because he is one of a rare breed that can turn around failing projects, like L&T’s identity management implementation. Because he improved treasury’s visibility with forex transactions enabling them to mitigate risks. Because he does not hesitate to make drastic IT changes if it means he’s more aligned with business. Because L&T turns to him to extract the best technology innovations from its partners. Because his maturity gets him heard with HO leaders.

Because he has an outstanding ability to teach his juniors and motivate them to work at higher levels of efficiency.

If you want to be a rising star you have to…

Ensure you always have the time to take more work from your seniors and have the faith that your juniors will help share the load.

Your leadership philosophy

Smart work takes you there, but only hard work can keep you there.

Favorite TV show

Friends One question you wish you had better answers to.

Over-rated

Open Source. Enterprises are so complex and governed by so many timelines and deliverables that running Open Source code, with minimum support, is a challenge.

How can we develop an IT environment that can enhance the productivity of our employees five-fold?

Your catchphrase?

Enjoy!

Your first job

A shop-floor engineer at CPEC. Advice to your juniors

When directions are given by top management, please do not apply your mind too much. Just do it.

Your hero

My boss Anantha Sayana. I am amazed by the way he handles 200-plus initiatives every year and still has the time to observe relevant micro-level details.

USP

Never give up attitude.

What’s non-negotiable?

My values: being honest, noncorruptible and always putting in my best effort.

He started an ESB project on his own initiative based on a suggestion I made during a conversation. His ability to act without prodding really got me to notice him.”

— S. Anantha Sayana, Head Corporate IT, Larsen & Toubro

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ones to watch

Mandar Vartak, 41 GM Office of Strategy Management, Mahindra & Mahindra If you want to be a rising star you have to… Be ready to

embrace change. Never get married to a concept because things quickly become stale in this fast changing world.

Your hero

Shivaji. For daring to dream the impossible and showing the bravery and perseverance to achieve it. And for his morals and compassion.

“Aha” leadership moment

Just before the launch of a ‘new look’ to our intranet portal some technical and resource problems arose.

We could have postponed the launch but it would

have brought huge disappointment. I decided to push for it, made it clear to the team. We rallied together, worked overnight with experts from various areas and ensured the deadline was met.

The best advice you’ve got

Our chairman said there is no alternative to being ethical. We need to say no to the first temptation because when we start slipping there’s no telling how far we will fall.

One question you wish you had better answers to.

There are many but one that haunts me is how can I better manage my schedule so that I get to spend more time with my kids.

What impresses you?

How achievers in any field are keeping themselves motivated.

He is someone to watch: Because he’s radical, willing to experiment, and is bursting with new ideas. Because he popularized the company’s intranet platform ‘Mahindra Connect’ with collaborative Web 2.0 features. Because his negotiation skills and single-mindedness has helped the company win many deals. Because he has a cool and calculated approach to IT that’s backed by a thorough understanding of financials. Because he helped implement the McFarlan’s Strategic Grid model that defines the role an IT investment will play in an overall investment plan. Because whenever his CIO needs an innovative solution he turns to Vartak. Because he was chosen by M&M to lead the Indian part of an European Commission project to extend the working life of employees. Because he’s worked in almost all functions of corporate IT and executed each with élan and success.

Because he’s not afraid of being questioned. Because he’s honest, unbiased and his enthusiasm is contagious. Because he’s the voice that gets management buy-in for IT investments.

His presentation on the capital expenditure budget to a high-level projects and budgets committee in 2003 was when he first caught my attention. Suffice to say that the budget, which was high, was passed. —Arvind Tawde, Sr. VP & CIO, Mahindra & Mahindra Vol/5 | ISSUE/03

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Name of Section

INtervIew SkIllS

We Are Hirin’

The upturn equals attrition, which equals more interviews.

HDFC Standard Life Insurance’s Sunil Rawlani tells what to watch out for the moment that candidate walks through your door.

When someone Walks into your office for an intervieW, What’s the first thing you do?

Most people are too worked up and expect a hostile environment. What puts them at ease is how you welcome them. Start talking about yourself before shooting out questions. And after a couple of minutes they will start relaxing.

Then I ask them what their understanding of the role is and what they are looking for. The idea is to draw them out, loosen them up, and assure them I am empathetic to the conversation. Once they have put down their guard you can get frank responses, which is what I really want.

hoW do you quickly size up a candidate? What are the big no-nos?

People who haven’t done their homework. If they haven’t read up on the company, I am it very hesitant to hire them. I’ve asked people to go do their homework and return — and I’ve hired them.

Then there are people applying for VP positions with their MS-DOS credentials still faithfully recorded on their résumés. It’s a complete put-off. This whole history angle really has no relevance. And cover letters and thank-you notes are formalities that have no place in communications today.

I also watch out for people who dress too casually. People who are not well-groomed will not show leadership traits. Men must be neatly dressed. Shaven, with a tie. They must be wearing full-sleeve shirts that are plain or with stripes and in pastel shades — no black shirts, no colorful shirts. Look at the belt and shoe combination. Most people don’t realize that their belts and the shoes are supposed to be of the same color. And if they are wearing a buttoned-down collar, it should be buttoned.

do you think employees need to be more realistic about their expectations?

I ask people not to be so focused on growth, just expect things to happen when the time is right.

People have to realize that they need to align their growth to the organization’s growth and everything else just occurs. I am never able to guarantee anyone growth at the outset. You must share the organization’s view on their growth path while interviewing people. Expectations need to be set before the recruitment. Be clear on what you can offer. What they need to do is

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People applying for VP positions with their MS DOS credentials still on their résumés are a complete put-off. sunil rawlani, Head-IS & IT, HDFC Standard Life grow to the next level and start showing the maturity needed for the next level.

Also, they should not compare designations with developed markets. There, a manager IT is a senior position. I think they need to know these designations have happened as a result of companies trying to fool people, with fancy titles and fat pay packages. I know of some consulting companies, for instance, that have 40 managing directors.

define a successful hire.

Someone who blends in with your organization and your function. And given that the definition of a function is not static, a good hire is someone who fits with modifications. I have a couple of people who did not at all have what I was looking for, but they brought so much else to the table that I took them in. If you are willing to look at people’s strengths, it helps.

In the early part of my career here, a guy came to sell me an EPABX system. At that point, I needed somebody who could handle our networks and I saw good attitude and, aptitude in this guy. And he knew about networks. I offered him a role in my team. I told him to think about it and come back. I didn’t buy the EPABX, but I got him and he’s been here for nine years.

What’s your hiring strategy?

My recruitment motto has always been: don’t be rigid about the role and the profile. Get people who do what they do well — not the kind that fit in an ‘ideal’ chart. New management philosophy asks not to chase fixed ideas and to look at people’s strengths and see what they can bring.

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Cover Story | Interview Skills What do you look for in a candidate?

Earlier, when IT was more in demand, skills were harder to get. Therefore, exactly knowing a person’s core competencies was important.

Now, we want to know whether someone is good at people management. Or if a recruit is okay working in shifts, because handling staff that works in shifts is a skill in itself.

People applying for jobs shouldn’t get bogged down with technology because the difference that they make is not at the technology level. What we’re really looking for is their USP and what they want to do. That’s what a CV should say.

Also, because we hire when we need someone to solve situations, it’s important that candidates are interested in problem solving.

have ave you been trained to take intervieWs? Never in my life have I received training on how to interview people. The only inputs I’ve received are about how to give an interview!

Today, when I train people to hire I ask them to look at a lot of parameters. When they’re writing out a job description, they need to mention the soft skills a candidate will need. I tend to emphasize on soft skills, because it’s attitude that matters. For the rest, training can help.

At HDFC Standard Life, we run our department as a business so we take care of our own HR needs and our own mentoring. We have something we call ‘Coffee with Sunil’. It’s an informal session over coffee, where people are encouraged to talk about anything candidly. Eventually, they will share their concerns.

What have you learnt from your biggest mistakes?

from gerry MecCartney, CiO and VP-iT at Purdue University, and we think he should know.

My generation really likes being liked as bosses. That is important to us. But that mentality is not helping Gen Y employees (who are about 21 to 30-years-old). Here’re some tips I’ve picked up that should help today’s CIos lead younger people and bring them into line.

Feedback isn’t an annual review. A winning tactic I’ve found is to constantly state flat out that if they do certain things, they are going to be successful. Then when they do those things, you must give them immediate feedback and, if you can, reward or salute them then and there.

The immediacy of feedback is key. What doesn’t work well is having the view that you come in and work hard every day, and knowing that you’ve done hard work should be a sufficient reward. The quiet hero is not part of their world view.

Yearly reviews won’t work. Feedback has got to be thoughtful, and it’s important to explain the ‘why’ of things.

Discipline and a sense of pride. The question for us is whether the discipline of coming into the office for specific hours is a necessary artifact of the workplace or some hangover from the factory model. Maybe that’s the wrong model now, and maybe Gen Y is an agent of that change.

Discipline aside, instilling responsibility is part of a CIo’s job as the leader. Give them projects with goals, even if it’s maintenance work framed as a project. At Purdue, I also reinforce that after protecting borders and saving lives, ours is the third most important job in this country — educating people. on a wet Tuesday, that’s a worthy job to get up to.

A bad interview is when your intuition proves wrong. It’s happened to me with very senior hires. One was so bad we had to let that person go. With the bad calls, I have to pick up the tab since I am responsible. After those incidents, I learnt to be a little less instinctive and look at the facts more.

certificates and that kind of thing. It is a little difficult to hire someone offering only cloud computing and virtualization as their forte.

What’s your advice to someone intervieWing With a cio?

When I hired my assistant three years ago and I knew within two minutes that she was right for the job. I saw a happy person, and since I am reasonably demanding, I wanted my assistant to be a happy person no matter what. CIO

They should remember that CIOs only interview mid- and senior-level people. At that level they are looking for leadership and collaboration traits, since technology skills are a given. A lot of candidates get tied up in technology and 60

TiPS On COnneCTing WiTH gen Y…

J a n u a r y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0 | REAL CIO WORLD

What’s the best intervieW you’ve taken?

Send feedback on this interview to kanika_goswami@idgindia.com

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CIO StaffIng Survey 2010 What You Offer to Retain Staff Telecommuting 11% Business training 51% IT training 69% Awards and recognitions 71% Mentoring 74% Cash incentives / pay hikes 45% Flexible working hours 31% Stock options 21%

You are Hiring at the...

Entry-level 46% Mid-level 79% Senior-level 15%

STaffinG

mETHODOLOGY

The CIO Staffing Survey 2010 was administered online in mid November 2009. Eightynine IT leaders participated.

All were heads of IT for large organizations and almost everyone was responsible for enterprise-wide IT. Fortythree percent represented organizations with over 5,000 employees. All responses were gathered using a secure server and then combined to develop a composite picture, with all individual data kept confidential.

Organizations that use cash the most as an incentive to retain staff,also say outsourcing entry-level requirements is the least useful way of combating attrition. In comparison,those that use mentoring to retain staff say outsourcing entry-level requirements is the most useful way of combating attrition.

How Big is Your IT Team?

Do You Think You Are Adequately Staffed?

Under 10 14% 10 to 49 43% 50 to 99 23% 100 to 199 8% 200 to 499 2% 500 to 999 10%

No 19% Yes 79% We're Overstaffed 2%

Coaching Millennials 62

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Organizations that say they are adequately staffed in IT are most likely to be in the 5000-9999 employee range, as opposed to companies that say that in adequately whose size is most likely to be in the 500-999 range.

Steve John CIO at H.B Fuller tells you how to groom your Gen Y staff.

How can we help the next generation succeed in IT careers?

With my Millennials, the idea I used was to teach them basic business principles to help manage expectations and create a context for communication. As soon as people learn those principles, they can appropriately govern their own careers.

Another thing, they must first understand that there is no place for a sense of entitlement. They have to earn their way. Even CIOs who feel entitled by virtue of that title must realize that we don't automatically get a seat at the executive table. We have to win those seats.

How? That's where the first principles come into play: trust and business knowledge. No one has both Vol/5 | ISSUE/03

SurvEY

Why You Think Your Staff is Leaving You 13% 36%

6% 11%

86%

Office politics 11% Dissatisfaction with the management 13% Salary / compensation 86% Monotony of work 36% Dissatisfaction with company’s overall performance

It's interesting that salaries are the main reason people leave.Are CIOs saying this because it's easier to blame low salaries than build great departments?Are CIOs abdicating their responsibility? Maybe CIOs should be asking:Why are people staying with us?

— Vasanthi Srinivasan, Prof., IIM (B)

High attrition is a reality

that Indian CIOs are going to have to accept for at least the next 10 years.

— Vasanthi Srinivasan,Associate Prof.,Organizational Behavior & HR Management,IIM (B)

6%

You Find Recruits In...

Newspapers 4% Job sites 10% Employee referrals 30% Placement agencies 30% Internal HR 18% Campus recruitments 9%

The Hardest Part of Leading a Team Finding IT training 2% Low morale 6% Retaining needed skill sets 20% Hiring needed skill sets 23% Demanding workload/ preventing burnout 25% Determining IT skill sets for the next 2-5 years 18% Determining optimal IT skill sets needed today 6% of those coming in the door. Millennials need to build trust and acquire business knowledge.

The next principle is foresight and ambition. Most people, including Millennials, have these on behalf of their own careers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being internally focused, but in order to be successful, you also need foresight and ambition on behalf of the organization — the drive to help your company succeed.

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Also Apply Your Own Strengths I tell Millennials that as long as you pay attention to these basic principles, you don't have to use them in the same way as earlier generations. You should apply your own background and skills, and leverage your particular strengths.

H.B. Fuller is a global company, and we've struggled with collaborating at that level. Millennials bring experience collaborating and communicating

57% of CIOs say they don’t have a formal mentoring program.

on a global basis every day. When they want to apply foresight and ambition on behalf of the organization, they can help us collaborate better.

And from those efforts, they can gain business knowledge and build trust.

Don't Force It What doesn't work, and usually creates career frustration, is forcing Millennials into a rigid work model.

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STaffinG

Non-tech Skills Training 70 percent of CIOs who say they have formal mentoring programs are not using them to train their staff in non-ITskills,choosing rather to‘mentor’people individually.

Rewards for acquiring skills 19% e-Learning 36% In-house training 72% Individual mentoring 71% Third-party training 51% Executive education 39% Job rotation 34% Formal mentoring programs 26%

Tech Skills Most in Demand

Strategies to Keep Staffers Hooked Outsource entry level requirements Outsource specialized requirements 27 % Training 21 % Hiring freshers 1 6%

Technology planning and process management Application/ database enhancement

36%

Centrally managed services

Under 500 500-999 2000-2999 1000-1999 5000-9999

Attrition 14% 7% 11% 5% 7%

Employees 3000-4999 50,000-99999 30,000-49999 20,000-29999 10,000-19999

0- 4%

26 % of Respondents

5 - 9%

Attrition by Staff Strength Employees

Your Annual Attrition Rate

Attrition 5% 9% 7% 12% 10%

The basic org-chart creates silos, and social context dictates that only the person at the top is allowed to talk across silos.

Millennials don't view the world as silos; they view it as a horizontal, connected network. If we punish them for not working through what we view as proper channels, conflicts arise.

By leveraging this generation's strengths in the context of those basic principles, we can connect them to the corporate environment in a way that encourages them to participate in growing the business and their careers.

Despite the slowdown, attrition, especially among small organizations is still high.

This could be due to two factors.

One: small companies tend to experience greater volatility, which drives people to large and more stable organizations.Two: small companies have niche skills which larger players want. — Vasanthi Srinivasan,

27 % of Respondents

10-14% 36 % of Respondents

15% +

Prof., IIM (B)

14 % of

Respondents

My favorite appraisal question.

"I ask about failures. People who bear their failures in mind are the ones who have learnt something and can use those experiences as stepping stones to further success."

Manoj Arora, Global CIO, Bilcare

SurvEY urvEY

Tech Skills You're Looking For Application / database enhancement Application maintenance

11%

15 %

Tech planning and process management Centrally managed services

46 %

10 %

Infrastructure and network support

10 %

Customer service 4 % Database administration 4 %

Your Staffers are Happier Thanks to...

Mentoring 37% Grooming 32% Training 31%

s Note: By cross-referencing this data with other questions, it's clear that CIOs use grooming and mentoring interchangeably.Mentoring seems to have a socially desirable connotation,hence is one of the most abused HR processes.It requires good systems and processes and maybe that's why large organizations are more likely to have these structures.— Vasanthi Srinivasan

s

Your Staff's Salary in 2010

s

Remain largely unchanged Significantly increase

% 1100%

s

"What would you do if I asked you to fly the plane right now? It’s important to gauge someone’s reaction in different situations, and see how they apply conceptual skills."

Moderately increase

8%

82%

Anil Punjwani, Head-IT, Philips Innovation Campus REAL CIO WORLD | J a N u a r y 1 5 , 2 0 0 9

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VIEW

from the TOP

Innovation

Is aCIO's Job

By Kailas Shastry When you grow from a CA-turned-programmer to the founder of one of India’s most recognized names in the outsourcing sector, you learn many lessons on the way. One that P.V. Kannan, co-founder and chief people’s officer, 24/7 Customer, has taken with him is a deep belief in numbers.

Everything you do, he says, should be measurable in terms of ROI. If CIOs are to get a ticket to the management boardroom and discuss organizational strategy, they must understand and talk business and offer ideas to bring in more revenue.

But Kannan also goes beyond balance sheets. He says repeatedly that innovation and technology are important focuses in today’s world. He is clearly someone who walks the talk: he’s changed the designation of his CIO to chief innovation officer.

24/7 is one of the most recognized companies in the ITES sector. What’s your journey been like?

P.V. Kannan: My journey as an

View from the top is a series of interviews with CEOs and other C-level executives about the role of IT in their companies and what they expect from their CIOs.

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entrepreneur started way back in 1994 and began with the launch of a CRM product company. We built the first Web platform to handle customer e-mails and included chat sessions. The leap from there to 24/7 Customer was not a difficult one. 24/7 is a combination of

the offshoring tasks beginning in India and my exposure in the CRM industry.

24/7 was founded with innovation and technology in mind rather than being just about manual tasks.

Ph oto by Srivatsa Sh an dilya

P.V. Kannan, Co-founder and Chief People’s Officer, 24/7 Customer, believes in innovation so much he’s changed his CIO’s designation to chief innovation officer.

He tells you why.

Surely, IT has been integral to your growth.

Has its role changed over the years?

At 24/7 we look at IT in two layers.

One is the hygiene layer which does

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P.V. Kannan expects IT to: Drive innovation Enhance customer experience Provide better ROI

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View from the Top

the support function. The responsibility here is to keep things running including network connectivity, applications for end-users, security, etcetera. Then there’s the innovation layer which is where you can see a change in the role of IT. The innovation layer is meant to provide value to customers. Any call that we receive is supported by the hygiene layer, while value additions to better customer experience before and during the call comes from the innovation layer.

You've thrived on the outsourcing model. Do you outsource your own IT processes?

Absolutely. We outsource a lot of our IT functions. Some of the products that we develop are also outsourced. We are an IT shop, but we don’t necessarily have to build all of it ourselves. To outsource or not is a question of costs. Now, the answer to whether to outsource or not can be answered clearly by asking one question: will it be cheaper to develop in-house or outsource?

You place a lot of emphasis on innovation.

What does it mean to you?

Let me explain with an example. At 24/7 agents assist callers who are facing a certain issue, with billing for example.

There’s a lot of background processes that happen before that call actually takes place. In case of a possible billing error, customers today tend to check with the website of a service provider. That’s where the innovation lab steps in — by giving a front-end to a customer before he even needs to make a call. When a customer visits a support website, our technology predicts what he is trying to do. We know that the customer has received a bill and he’s probably making a query regarding that bill. The website then points the 68

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“If a CIO is only playing a support function, I’d go so far as to ask why hire a CIO? His value addition comes from innovation."

— P.V. Kannan customer to the billing section rather than presenting him with overwhelming number of options. This is a win-win arrangement: Increased customer satisfaction and better operating efficiency for us. This kind of value addition comes from the innovation labs.

Did IT innovation become more critical during the slowdown?

Innovation has been a part of the DNA of the company. We drive innovations across all functions and that includes IT. For instance, marketing folk cannot take credit for routine activities but need to show what they have done to bring in more customers, IT too needs to come up with ideas and implement them to drive business. This is irrespective of the state of the economy.

A slowdown comes every few years; it is part of the business cycle. For us, the slowdown was about measures to ensure

that we stayed alive as a company, and now, a year-and-a-half later when things are heading back to normal, we are still around. Concurrently, we figured we could undertake initiatives that our weaker competitors could not.

When the upturn begins, we are sure that we will come out stronger than the competition. A slowdown is a period when your weak competitors are eliminated. So, it is not a case of accelerating innovation — we just had more time while our competition weakened.

With the start of the upturn, is it still a good time to bargain hard with vendors?

This is an opportunistic time. If you are in the market to buy a car, you have better negotiating power at the dealership because sales are low. That’s the case even with enterprise deals. Though there is a general feeling of recovery in the market, there are technology service providers who are yet to recover. When we talk to one vendor, others come in offering better prices and there’s not much we have to do to get a good deal. But I don’t believe in terms like ‘squeezing the vendor’. It is just the market adjusting its prices to reality.

The ITES space faces plenty of regulation. How do you tackle evolving regulatory norms?

We have a compliance team that tracks compliance requirements in every geography we operate in, like the US, the UK, Canada, Philippines and Australia, among others. Our legal team monitors compliance requirements in each of these regions. We also conduct spot audits.

Every quarter we see changes in policies — different data security norms come in and there are norms pertaining to specific industry verticals. The money and effort

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View from the Top

SNAPSHOT spent in complying to these norms is the cost of business. We have to be a compliant organization worldwide.

Why did you decide to change your CIO’s designation to Chief Innovation Officer?

As IT infrastructure becomes standardized, there’s less need to worry about it. Basic IT tasks are now taken for granted. It’s like the supply of electricity and water: we don’t spend a lot of time discussing the strategy to obtain and maintain it.

A 99.99 percent uptime is no great shakes now — it’s an expectation. There are no brownie points given for ‘keeping the light on’, so to say. I expect a CIO to deliver additional value. If there is no value addition beyond playing the support function, I’d go so far as to ask why hire a CIO? And value addition comes from innovation.

The CIO is only part of the management committee in some organizations.

What’s your take on this?

Of course, this largely depends on the CEO’s view of IT’s function in his company.

In many cases CIOs don’t directly report to the CEOs. Sometimes they report to the CFO and bizarrely even head of HR. You can figure out how strategic the CIO’s function is by seeing who he reports to.

Then, it depends on the personal strengths of the CIO himself. Even in cases where the CEO is not appreciative of IT’s strength, the right kind of CIO can come up with suggestions for improving the business with the help of IT. That is sure to get him recognition.

Take the example of FedEx, in which IT brought in innovation to something as mundane as a courier business by introducing the now famous tracking

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feature. That’s clearly an IT-driven project.

When IT plays a critical and innovative role, it reserves a place for itself in management board rooms.

So, the question that’s on the minds of business heads is: Can I count on IT as a revenue generator rather than just being a cost-saver?

To me, it all boils down to the issue of ROI.

24/7 Customer Headquarters:

Bangalore Employees:

7,500 Global Delivery Centers:

9

But ROI is not always measurable. How would you measure the value of an idea?

No, it is very easy to calculate ROI, even for ideas. An idea has to produce money, otherwise its value is zero. I believe that ROI for IT projects, like any other, is fairly measurable.

What traits do you look for in an IT head?

First and foremost, the IT leader must understand how the company makes money, it’s business model. He should be able to contribute to the process. In our case, it is about acquiring customers and keeping them happy.

My IT leader should think of innovations focused on these needs. He should be in a position to recognize which of our customer’s pain points we can ease, and then do it.

Don’t you think domain expertise is crucial?

No. Domain expertise is not a huge advantage, at least in our industry. For example, an IT leader who is well versed in the travel space can innovate for financial services as well.

For me, innovation is key.

What’s your advice for IT leaders for the new year?

We live in a very new world, where companies like Facebook and Twitter build over 400 million users in 14 months, and then we have IT projects, like an application development that takes 18 months. This is not acceptable. IT leaders have to create an environment where deliverables are in days and not months or years. The whole cycle has to shrink and they must be ahead of the curve.

Right now, the biggest challenge our clients have with IT is that IT is still working on projects that they started way back in 2004. The user requirements have changed so much since then that the project now does not bring any value. If you start writing the specs for developing a social media application today and deliver it by 2014, the entire context would have changed. CIO

Should an IT leader be a manager first, or a technologist first?

An IT leader, by definition, is in a leadership position, so he has to be a manager. If I have a person who is great with vision but has issues in getting things done, then I call him a visionary.

Kailas Shastry is senior correspondent. Send feedback on this interview to kailas_shastry@ idgindia.com

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Case File

Green

Thumbs

Up Nagarjuna Fertilizers links sales and logistics teams and its warehouses in remote locations through a mobile integration application. Now it’s left hand knows what the right one’s doing in real time — and so do its customers. By Priyanka

F Reader ROI:

Why using mobile platform to connect rural offices is cost efficient The difference realtime reporting can make

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or Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals getting information to sales and logistics teams in real time is as important as ensuring the quality of their product itself. Yet, for an enterprise with an annual turnover of over Rs 2,000 crore, the problem asked for a different approach.

The operational area of Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (NFCL) is spread across 16 states and 90 field marketing officers working at 700-plus warehouses. Though the company’s headquarters in Hyderabad was connected to each of its regional offices by an encrypted and secure broadband line, connectivity between regional offices, marketing and logistics officers, and each of NFCL’s warehouses was poor and prone to lapses. “Last mile connectivity to the marketing and logistics officers and warehouse agents was missing since most of these operations were concentrated in rural areas where Internet connectivity or access to leased lines is absent,” says V. Srinivas, CIO, NFCL. But marketing officers needed to be in constant contact with their counterparts in regional offices to get information like the availability of stock and credit limits. It was

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Case File the only way they could keep an eye on distribution. Yet contact was maintained primitively using phones, or faxing and couriering Sale Note cum Delivery Orders.

And although NFCL had an ERP in place, its warehouses were not connected to it online and inventory reconciliation was available in an offline mode only.

At the other end of the supply chain, warehouses created delivery documents every time material was dispatched. But an invoice could only be generated when that document reached a regional office and its numbers entered into the company’s ERP. As a result, the simple act of finding out the company’s sales stance required gathering data from both NFCL’s urban and rural offices and took up to four working days.

By October 2005, both management and IT decided enough was enough and The solution is also cost effective. “The pilots of project nCircle were started. By challenge was to introduce connectivity August 2007, the Rs 185-lakh project was at very low transactional costs. By using launched and by October 2008, it had been a GSM-based mobile network as an implemented at all NFCL’s centers. “The effective medium to establish last-mile name nCircle was derived from the need connectivity, we reduced delays and to establish a live link between far-flung latency in the business and improve regional sales and logistics teams and operational efficiency,” says Srinivas. the head office to ensure near real-time reporting of sales and logistics through a mobile application,” says Srinivas.

Today, all 220 sales and logistics team nCircle provided an end-to-end solution members interact with the company’s based on service-oriented architecture ERP via mobile phones and the nCircle (SOA). The solution offers platform. “Another interestmultiple communication ing and important benefit channels with mobile clients from this implementation is including GSM modems, a reduction in the total cost SMPP/SMSC connectivity of ownership of our ERP with service providers owing to a fall in the number and a secure tunnel for of licenses,” says Srinivas.

GPRS channel, and SAP And it’s a reliable system.

NetWeaver Web application “The solution was not only server-based Web services, in line with the IT division’s says Srinivas. vision of delivering solutions SNAPSHOT “In order to overcome with a value-for-money Nagarjuna infrastructural constraints proposition, but it can Fertilizers like poor or non-existent also withstand technology EmPLOyEES: bandwidth connectivity in outages,” say Nanda.

1,560 the far-flung rural areas The benefits of this IT TEAm: of India where we operate, implementation have 33 we had to look at available been manifold. The total REvENuE: means of connectivity like processing time of data from Rs 2,378 crore GSM and CDMA networks,” warehouses to marketing HEADquARTERS: Hyderabad says R.S. Nanda, Director officers and back has been and COO, NFCL. reduced from about three

Green Shoots

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“The name nCircle was derived from the need to establish a live link between farflung regional sales and logistics teams and the head office to ensure near realtime reporting.”

— V. Srinivas, CIO, nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals

days to 10 minutes. A quick comparison of the company’s sales figures also reveals a significant uptick. “NFCL’s sales notched up over 2.45 million tons of urea compared to 2.1 million tons in the previous financial year — without any increase in manpower,” says Srinivas.

In addition, the old regime called for scores of data entry operators who manually input every transaction like sales orders, credit limit checks, inventory checks, delivery challans, invoices and collection data. But soon after the implementation of nCircle many operators were successfully employed into other functional areas.

But perhaps the most meaningful benefit of the mobile application is better customer relationships. Since the total time needed to process any customer order has been reduced to just about 10 minutes, customers don’t have to make rounds of the nearest regional office to ensure order execution, dispatch and delivery. According to company sources, any customer is now able to place orders in advance thus increasing their cash planning efficiency by about 15 percent.

Also, all relevant and information crucial to a customer is present online in real time. CIO

Priyanka is a trainee journalist. Send feedback on this feature to priyanka@idgindia.com

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Can Really Hack it in Business As Google Apps becomes more popular, we look into the reality of what it delivers.

By RoBeRt L. ScheieR

After conquering the search world, Google is now pushing hard to be a major provider of business software, tackling longtime dominator Microsoft over productivity and collaboration apps. But does this company, most famous for free consumer-oriented offerings like search and basic apps, have what it takes to be taken seriously by business? Can you really rely on Google Apps?

Ken Godskind thinks so. The chief strategy officer at AlertSite moved his company's 45 employees to the Premier Edition of Google Apps in late 2008. He likes the fact that he gets not only 72

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Reader ROI:

Where Google is headed A comparison with Microsoft Office Web apps The pros and cons of Google Apps

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IllUSt ratIon by MM Sh an Ith

Applications e-mail but word processing, spreadsheets, a Web-based calendar, Web-based collaboration, Google Talk, and Google Video for $50 (about Rs 2,250) a year per user. That's a third or less of what he would pay to get the same from an internal, Microsoft-based environment.

And Godskind is not alone. A recent IDC survey shows that Google Docs is "widely used" in 20 percent of companies. (Google Docs is the set of word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and calendar components of Google Apps.) And even some large organizations — the latest being the city of Los Angeles and its 30,000 users — are adopting Google Docs and the corporate version of Gmail.

So far, many of the early takers have been smaller businesses that didn't need enterprise-level management and integration with other applications. But since the fall of 2008, when biotech giant Genentech became its first big-name enterprise customer, Google has rolled out features to lure other enterprises. These include client software to allow users to keep working while offline, Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook (to let Gmail users work through the familiar Microsoft e-mail client), and Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server so that mobile users can access Google Apps on their smartphones.

More than 400 Google Apps resellers provide advanced help such as data migration, training, and configuration, while independent developers fill the gaps in Google's enterprise offerings with tools to help manage directories, back up and restore data, and comply with regulations.

Google's vision extends beyond the apps, into a new computing paradigm based on the cloud, in which apps might run on a netbook or smartphone powered by Google's Android rather than on a PC running Windows. The apps and data will sit on Google's servers, not in the customer's datacenter. No more management headaches, no more hardware and software to buy — just blissful online collaboration and deep cost savings.

But not so fast. Users will have to learn a new interface and to share documents in the cloud rather than e-mail them back and forth. Someone has to migrate years of old e-mail and other data to the Google cloud. There are sometimes pesky issues linking Google Apps to legacy applications, mobile devices, and users who refuse to give up the familiar Microsoft Outlook e-mail client. Tech support isn't always up to enterprise standards. Then there are concerns over data privacy, security, and regulatory compliance, especially for larger companies that must follow strict data management rules.

But don't worry, says Google and its backers. With an R&D budget of more than $2 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) per quarter fueled by massive search advertising profits, Google will fix whatever's not right — and probably sooner rather than later. That is, when it's not busy reinventing the operating system (with its pending, free Chrome OS), taking over the smartphone OS space (with its free Android OS), and maybe killing off the GPS navigation business by bundling (again, free) GPS and mapping with Android.

To Google, all these technologies aren't spaghetti thrown against the wall to see what sticks. They're strategic bets in a multi-front campaign to build a Web-based replacement for Windows and Office.

And people are listening.

But is Google Apps delivering? We find out.

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Google Apps Pros: Cost and Uptime Resellers, customers, and analysts agree that the paid version of Google Apps delivers on its core promise of costing a third or less than a similar lineup of Microsoft products.

Because e-mail is a huge expense for large companies, it's no surprise that Gmail is a popular draw. Upgrading from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 is often a trigger to considering cloud-based e-mail because it forces many customers to also buy new 64-bit servers and operating systems. For such reasons, Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler says that cloud-based e-mail (whether from Google or a rival) is almost always cheaper for companies with fewer than 15,000 users.

Although its uptime isn't perfect (and its outages get big play), Google says it consistently meets its 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

It also quotes a Radicati Group study that found Gmail four times more reliable than Microsoft's Exchange messaging server when considering only unplanned outages, and ten times more reliable when taking into account planned downtime for maintenance.

Google Apps Maybes: Data Security The fit to business is less clear when it comes to data security, especially for big corporations. Data security in the cloud is an issue "enterprises are going to have to reckon with," admits AlertSite's Godskind. A prime example: In moving to Google Apps, the city of Los Angeles insisted on penalties from Google if any of its data was compromised. Many other

B

acked by a R&D budget of Rs 9,000 crore a quarter, Google can probably fix the many concerns with Google Apps. customers aren't worried, trusting that bigger (and presumably more tech-savvy) customers will hold Google's feet to the fire on security.

Google says it has many customers in highly regulated industries such as health care. It also says its proprietary encoding of data, its dispersal of data among physical and logical files, all help keep customer information safe. As for regulated data, Google punts: "We recommend [companies] follow their regulations, and we don't give specific advice on how to follow those," a spokesman says carefully.

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Google Apps Cons: Tech ch Support, Limited Capabilities, Legacy Integration So what's not to like? The quality of technical support, headaches around data migration, annoying shortcomings in function and performance, and the pain of changing familiar computing habits.

"There's no one to really call if you're having a problem," says Greg Arnette, who as CTO of e-mail archiving vendor Sonian is both a Google Apps user and a competitor to Google's Postini service. While phone support is included in Google Apps Premier Edition, "They do everything they can to direct you to the online forums," he says.

"You never reach a live person. Either they're totally overwhelmed, or they don't have a handle" on support needs.

Mauricio Freitas, a blogger at the tech publishing site Geekzone, abandoned Google Apps for Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite after it took Google 48 hours to contact him about problems with Google Sync for Mobile.

Google says it steers customers to its online support when it believes that will provide a faster and better answer. It also says the 24/7 phone support it offers in its paid version is aimed at administrators, and that it relies on resellers to provide phone support for users and to help companies with especially large or complex challenges using Google apps.

Then there are functional and performance issues. Ragy Thomas, CEO of Sprinklr, a Web marketing firm, is an enthusiastic user of Google apps such as Google Sites but admits its office productivity tools are "not for every company right now." The word processor and spreadsheet lack some features found in their Microsoft counterparts, and sometimes seem sluggish over the Web, he says. He's confident, though, that Google will solve these problems. (Google promises it will close the gap with Office in 2010.)

Another challenge is the integration between Google Apps and the legacy applications that are everywhere in large companies.

Rajen Sheth, Google's senior product manager for Google Apps, says Google and its partners are "stepping up" to that challenge.

Google, for example, has developed a SAML-based API for single sign-on and directory synchronization. He also cited Ltech, among others, for providing "a secure data connector ... between the Google datacenter and the customer's datacenter."

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About Rs 2,250 per user per year with Google Apps Premier Edition

Cost

Will be available free via Windows Live, at a cost TBD as a SharePoint-based service from Microsoft Online Services, and as part of Office 2010 v

Google Chrome, Firefox 2+, Internet Explorer 6+, and Safari 3+ with some exceptions

Browsers Supported

Firefox 3.5+, Internet Explorer 7+, and Safari 4+

Same ribbon bar UI we all know

Spare and easy to use UI

Presents chronological view of documents

Pros

Rivals hint that Google's storage architecture, in which different customers' data may sit on the same array, pose a security threat.

The question of where data sits is also important for organizations that must comply with geography-specific regulations, such as those protecting customer data in the European Union. "We make sure we're matching the regulations customers need," says a Google spokesman, adding that administrators can control which enterprise data various users can see. Google also assures customers they own their data and will always have easy access to it, rather than using its custody of that data to lock a customer in the Google cloud.

E-mail is another regulatory challenge, but Allen Falcon, CEO of Google Apps reseller Horizon Info Services, says the Google's Postini e-mail archiving and recovery service stores e-mail in the write-once, read-many format required by regulators, as well as provides the needed auditing capabilities. Google says it plans to extend the usage policies, rules, and parameters provided by Postini to the rest of its apps.

MS Office Web Apps

Google Docs

Reproduces Word and PowerPoint files, and embedded graphs in Excel, with absolute fidelity Excel Web App displays updates to multiple authors in real time

Maintains version history of each document

Printing is flawless

Can import documents via e-mail or the Web Docs are easy to embed in blogs and Web sites Almost completely lacking in advanced features

Cons

Applications

Word and PowerPoint Web Apps are read-only in the Technical Preview

Google Apps: Nowhere to Go But Up Google's flood of new offerings help keep it in the news, serve as poster children for its vision of the computing future, and give it street cred, says AlertSite's Godskind. "I'm a big believer in 'ready, fire, aim.' It increases the pace of innovation."

But "ready, fire, aim" isn't an easy concept for larger enterprises to accept, notes Sprinklr's Thomas. That's why "the very largest companies, those with 100,000 employees, are not looking at a wholesale move," he says, instead using them in specific cases such as allowing employees to share documents with business partners. Still, Thomas insists the upper limit for Google's market "is a glass ceiling and it will be broken." He and other early adopters believe it's just a matter of time — between the economy and the rise of cloud-enabled technologies — until even the largest businesses bite the bullet, give up their antiquated PC-centric ways, and move to the cloud.

That's what Google is betting on. CIO Send feedback on this feature to editor@cio.in Vol/5 | ISSUE/3

everything you wanted to know and more

Mint Money, the Easy Way

Illustration by MM Shan ith

Business intelligence doesn’t have to be expensive, timeconsuming or painful.

There are new ways to glean insight from information — if you’re willing to look deeper.

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What’s Inside Deep Dive case study Fighting Crime with Intelligence �������������������������������������������������84 BI: It’s Not Fiction �������������������������������������������������������������������������86 features Better Business Intelligence on a Zero Budget �������������������������78 The Eight Levels of Analytics ������������������������������������������������������83 Analytics in the Cloud ������������������������������������������������������������������88

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O Better BI on a zero budget We give you eight ways. You don’t have to do them all. But the more you do the closer you

will get to gaining money-spinning

insights into your business — without investing in new tools.

By Robert L. Mitchell

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O

Deep Dive | Business Intelligence

“Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without.”

That adage from the Great Depression is making a comeback these days among corporations that are digging deep to maintain profitability using business tools they already have in-house.

One of those companies is Creativity, which found itself two years ago facing a serious threat to its business model.

The company, which designs, markets and distributes crafting products to specialty retailers, was being undercut by overseas manufacturers as retailers began to buy direct.

The trend preceded the current economic downturn, but has hit with renewed vigor as the recession has deepened.

“We’ve been adjusting to a changing landscape,” says Jim Mulholland, VP-IT, and that includes fundamentally changing its product strategy.

To find more profitable, less commodity-driven products, and to cut operating costs, Creativity turned to its existing stable of Cognos business intelligence software. “We made no new purchases at all. We are taking advantage of different parts of the Cognos system, like Event Studio,” the Webbased events-management module, Mulholland says.

As the economic downturn puts a strain on revenues — some of its clients have seen revenue drops of 50 percent or more, according to Gartner — management is leaning on business intelligence (BI) tools like never before.

Nick Millman, senior director for information management services at Accenture, agrees. “The tougher times that some of our clients face have accelerated [a trend toward] getting back to BI and how business can be improved.” Executives are using them to find operational savings and to refocus their product lines and strategies, he says.

As business strategies change, business models need to reflect that, says Bill Hostmann, analyst at Gartner. “Deciders need the right information models so they can be effective.”

But IT organizations aren’t rushing to buy new business intelligence software or build new data warehouses. Instead, they’re digging deeper and doing more with existing tools.

“Organizations are trying to utilize their existing business intelligence tools without going out and buying more hardware and software,” Millman says.

Follow these eight tips, say Millman and others who have been down this road, and you too can squeeze more out of your existing tools while giving your business an extra boost.

Consolidate Your Tools “Usually people have more tools than they need, and that can be distracting,” says Anthony Abbattista, vice

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president of technology solutions at Allstate Insurance and a former business intelligence consultant. Organizations end up with “different pockets of people doing similar analysis with different tools,” and that leads to needless confusion, he says. His recommendation: Consolidate, and be aggressive about it. “Get to the minimum number of tools you need to get the job done.”

Over the past few years, Abbattista has overseen the consolidation of 13 data warehouses down to just two and has pushed the organization from a centralized business intelligence analysis and reporting function to a self-service model based on the deployment of customizable dashboards.

Settling on a standardized set of tools was the first step toward empowering business managers and analysts.

After a review, Abbattista says the company “killed off” two thirds of the tools in use at the insurer, including redundant products and the “falling stars,” yesterday’s hot tools that are no longer considered leading edge.

Those efforts paid off before a single new report was created. The business saved on software support and licensing costs, and the simplified tools portfolio made user training on the tools easier.

Standardizing on a single set of tools also facilitated model reuse between different groups. Before, for example, the sales and finance groups had profitability models created in different tools. “If they got different results, you’d spend time trying to rationalize why that was,” Abbattista says. Now the process is much more straightforward — and different business groups can feel confident they’re comparing apples to apples.

Let Business Take the Driver’s Seat As the downturn continues to reset goals and business strategies, it’s more important than ever for companies to make sure that BI technology is being applied to solve the right problems. IT organizations still fall into the trap of putting their technology out front, rather than creating models that respond to changing business needs, says Millman.

Work with the business first before developing new information models, he advises. “Start with a clear vision of how information will generate value for the organization,” he says. “Think about what business interventions you hope to derive from BI tools. Understand where the business benefit is going to come from, then configure the tools and processes.”

At Allstate, two areas of focus are managing loss expense ratios and measuring the effectiveness of the call center.

“We’ve taken experts in the tools and methods and put REAL CIO WORLD | J a n u a r y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0

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Deep Dive | Business Intelligence them together with the business people to find these highvalue targets,” says Abbattista.

The temptation in larger organizations is to try to do too many things with BI, he observes. Having fewer tools helps with that problem, and management also needs to prioritize what is most important. (Find out how a simpler GUI also helps in Is Your BI Too Sexy?)

“These times have been good because they’ve brought focus on measuring fewer things well,” says Abbattista. At the highest level of the business, Allstate’s management is watching 10 or 12 different metrics, he says. While business intelligence tools used by the business units use a wider range of metrics, all of those are designed to support those upstream metrics that management is watching.

New Markets Call for New Data Models Right now, says Gartner’s Hostmann, “there’s a big strategy change in many organizations from high-value product offerings to low-cost offerings.” But businesses that can’t compete in the low-cost market must figure out a way to move up the value chain — and they’re using BI tools to get there.

Which is what Creativity did. To combat the commoditization trend in its core markets, it used its BI suite to identify and develop high-value products that couldn’t be easily commoditized by its low-cost competitors.

It started by purchasing transactional data from retailers in the toy, fashion and apparel segments, adding that data to its existing data warehouse, and analyzing current buying trends. Creativity also uses a forecasting software against the data as well.

All that analysis has lead to more “design-oriented, fashion-oriented” products, such as a line of paper dolls based on the popular Project Runway television show.

The strategy appears to be working. Creativity’s fashionbased and other unique designs have become the dominant portion of its business — more than 50 percent — and contribute an even greater proportion of its margins, Mulholland reports.

Cost-cutting efforts need to be driven by the business side as well — another area where creative use of existing BI tools can come into play. “It’s important to understand who the more profitable customer segments are, how profitable your products and services are and areas to target for cost savings,” Millman says.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

1

Things You Should Know

By David F. Carr

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It can create new business. The Navy Federal Credit Union has applied predictive analytics to the design of new products.

Analyzing how ATM withdrawals spiked just before and after a deployment led to the introduction of a checking account with ATM fee rebates for members on active duty. CIO Jerry Hermes says that other business units have since invited the analytics unit into their planning process.

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You can’t really know the future. Predictive analytics forecasts about your business are useful only as long as you understand that they describe probabilities.

“The weatherman gets it wrong some times, even though we’ve spent hundreds of years collecting data and looking at correlations,” says Royce Bell, CEO of Accenture Information Management Services.

Results can mislead. You need to apply business acumen to ensure you draw the right conclusions, says Hermes. Alan Payne, from the Navy Federal Credit Union remembers how a model showed that more members were deployed than expected. Turns out the survey needed to better distinguish between households and individuals; spouses of those deployed didn’t know which box to check.

Watch your gut.

People tend to quickly accept predictions that match their expectations.

These predictions can be valuable when they provide insight into the variables that drive them, Bell says. But lately, C-level execs get most excited “by the non-intuitive ah-ha,” Bell adds.

Results that prove the limits of intuition are a “tough but valuable sell,” because employees resist conclusions that go against their instincts.

Garbage in, garbage out. “A good number of analytic programs fail on questions about the veracity of data,” Bell says, so getting serious about data quality is one of the prerequisites for success. That may mean you have to be selective about the data you feed into your model, he adds. Less is more when you focus on the most accurate information and leave out questionable numbers.

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Deep Dive | Business Intelligence Centralize Business intelligenCe to help find the right areas of focus, Creativity’s Mulholland started an analytical center for excellence, a group that includes representatives from different parts of the business, from sales to operations. “You’re trying to elevate the IQ of everybody in your company in terms of knowing the key business metrics and measuring them accurately and in a timely way across all areas of the business,” he says.

Moving towards that goal, Creativity developed common tool sets and profitability models for its sales and finance groups. reports are pushed to the desktops and viewed in dashboard applications. From there, Mulholland says, users “can go in and do further analysis.”

IbM has been promoting such centers among its Cognos customers as a way to create a standardized set of models across the enterprise using existing business intelligence tools. A common set of bI dashboards developed for one department, for example, can be extended for use with others. In this way, new groups don’t have to re-invent the wheel and can get up and running more quickly. bI tools also are underutilized by role. business stakeholders may view bI as more of an It-driven reporting and analysis tool rather than as a business tool. Or the tools may be valued by It and only one or two other groups, such as finance. As an antidote, “what we’ve seen is some companies that are looking across business processes and setting up competency centers that start to foster collaboration and dialog across business units,” says Anne Milley, director of technology product marketing at SAS.

CubiScan is a laser-based scanning and weightmeasurement system used to ensure that goods are properly packaged to meet customer specifications. (If they’re not, the fees can be “considerable,” Mulholland says.) While the erP system issued package instructions with the orders, the standalone CubiScan system wasn’t returning data on whether shipments were actually packaged properly — and many were not. “there was no feedback loop,” Mulholland says. the It team used the Cognos etL tool (extraction, transformation and load) to bring the CubiScan data into

U

sually people have more tools than they need, and that can be distracting. Get to the minimum number of tools you need to get the job done.

Put More data in Your warehouse When it comes to data warehouses, the current downturn is a great time for organizations to review what they’re tracking and to add more data from business operations into the hopper to find additional savings. Just be very selective about what you add, experts advise.

Milley suggests looking at adding data from call centers, Web logs or other sources. the question companies have to ask in these times, she says, is, “What do I have that I can get [into the data warehouse] at a relatively low cost?”

As sales slowed at Creativity during the downturn, Mulholland and the center for excellence team changed its focus from keeping up with growth to cost cutting. One project involved providing a feedback loop between its back-end erP system and the CubiScan system it uses for shipping.

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its data warehouse and then built exception reports for shipments where the margins and tolerances for package dimensions hadn’t been met. Mulholland expects the project, currently in deployment, to pay for itself in three to five months.

Make Better use of data You alreadY have In some cases, doing more with less may simply be a matter of taking data that users already have and presenting it to them in a more useful way. At the Wisconsin department of revenue’s business Intelligence Services bureau, director Janna baganz says her organization found a way to present multi-year view of tax data on a single screen. “that proved to be a time-saver,” she says.

Her group also worked to combine data from the state’s income processing and audit systems, taking the need for exception report analysis out of the user’s hands. Now when certain business rules kick out a tax return from the processing system, the staff no longer spends 20 minutes running a manual report on another system and then reviewing it to resolve the issue.

Instead, the integrated systems automatically resolve the problem and process the claim in about two minutes without staff involvement. Since July of 2008, the department has saved approximately 1,750 hours of staff time, says Pat Lashore, administrator for the department’s REAL CIO WORLD | J a n u a r y 1 5 , 2 0 1 0

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Deep Dive | Business Intelligence technology services division, and taxpayers who are due a refund now receive it more quickly.

keeP Your Models Clean

Is Your BI too Sexy? is it possible business intelligence solutions are too sexy for their own good? yes, according to Peter o’Donnell, a business intelligence applications lecturer at Monash University.

“Collectively the BI industry is all about visualization and letting people see their data; it’s a grand dream that we put this slice and dice interface in front of people,” he said. “That is the way vendors do their demos and somehow or other people will drop, click and drag to get to the relevant number and their day is better and the problem solved.”

But o’Donnell is concerned that all the main vendors’ products have similar interfaces. and it’s an interface that o’Donnell contends has contributed to low utilization rates — often as low as single digits he claimed — despite strong sales. “a lot of the tools are very sexy. you can do 3D pie charts and donut charts; in theoretical terms it is known as the data to ink ratio. If you have embellishments and 3D effects you are using a lot of ink for only a small amount of data,” he said.

“In a sample of two groups of 20 people, we gave the same data to each group. To one of them we gave them plain, boring looking charts that adhere to the guidelines of keeping the data to ink ratio close to one. The other one we gave them sexy stuff. one group would get a bar chart the other a pie chart. one would get a bar chart the next would get a bar chart with 3D effects. We’d ask them to analyze very simple questions — that is, compare this data, which one is bigger, which one is smaller, etcetera. The results were generally awful. There was something like a 62 percent probability of getting the questions right if you got the plain charts. If you got the sexy ones it was like 47 percent.”

While o’Donnell freely acknowledges it is hard to generalize from such a small sample he concludes there are significant problems with BI solutions using sexy graphics that are trying to support decision making processes.

— Trevor Clarke

Make sure you have a clear and consistent data model before you bring new data into your data warehouse or bring in data from another part of the business, and then ensure the new data conforms to your model. too often, says Millman, information from different sources or sections of the business gets added to the data warehouse without enough attention to how the existing data is modeled. the result: “It’s hard to make sense out of business reports or queries that go across more than one section.” For example, financial and customer service data might be modeled in entirely different ways.

Accenture, he says, spends a lot of time helping its clients re-architect the way their data is stored.

For Abbattista, re-architecting data also meant rationalizing it for different business uses as new data sources were added. For example, at Allstate, different definitions of the “policy effective date” had to be reconciled before data from different departments could be combined into a single data warehouse for analysis.

It may also need to allay fears about data quality. If managers don’t trust the quality of the underlying data, that can derail their interest in business intelligence projects before they even get started. Mistrust “is like a silent cancer in organizations,” says Milley. “Companies are at the mercy of their data quality.” users may suspect that the data is old, or that too many records may be missing data in a given field, such as birth date, she says.

“A common complaint is that the quality of the data isn’t good enough,” even when it is, agrees Millman. to drive up use of existing bI tools, he recommends producing data-quality dashboards that show just how timely the data is. “It’s about crystallizing how good the data quality is and making that visible to the business.”

helP users understand the data, not Just the tools Scaling up the number of users who have access to bI tools won’t help unless people know how to use them. but that’s not the biggest issue when it comes to educating the user.

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“the trend has been for the front end to get simpler and more intuitive,” Millman says. And certainly dashboards have helped in that regard.

“What’s often missing is the explanation of where the data comes from and how you can use it to derive some insight,” Millman says. For example, the data generated by Creativity’s CubiScan system was foreign to business people in the back office. “We have to explain what the data points are and what the data points mean,” Mulholland says.

Abbattista focuses on building that knowledge one user at a time. “We build out initial capabilities with front-line managers and people in the trenches. they then become the consultant to people around them.”

“It’s really [about] teaching people to mine for value,” Abbattista sums up. In that respect, he says, “I don’t think we’ll ever be done with our bI efforts.” CIO

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reports 1Standard

8

2Ad hoc reports ad hoc reports answer questions like, “how many? how often? Where?”

They provide a level of independence on desktops that allow an individual, for example, to see sales in a particular region or at a particular point in time without needing to go to an IT governance counsel and wait three months for the result.

also referred to as olaP, query drill-downs answer questions like, “Where exactly is the problem?” and “how do I find the answers?” says Davis.

This is for when an organization wants to see not only the results, but what the results mean and what backs it up, he explains.

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AnAL An ALytics ALytics

Analytics are just the foundation to build your BI solution on. these eight levels help you get there.

Standard reports provide summary statistics and answer questions like “What happened?” and “When did it happen?” says Davis. “That’s analytics, but not enough.”

drilldowns 3Query

LeveLLs of Leve

By Jennifer Kavur

Analytics is “the most used and abused term in the marketplace right now,” according to Jim davis, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer of SAS Institute. “everybody has analytics,” he says. but what they are actually offering in terms of analytic capacity in support of solving business problems remains in question. “So you bring all the data together and you put it in some form in which the end user can gain access to it, but what are you doing with it?” he asked. there are eight levels of analytics, according to davis. the first four encompass what he considers “the classic definition of business intelligence” and what the majority of organizations are actually doing. the last four levels, which support pro-active decision-making, keep innovation and optimization on track. these are predictive in nature and keep things “headed in the right direction,” he says. It is the last four that “are really going to help change the future” for business, says davis. but analytics alone don’t guarantee success for an organization. to actually solve business problems, companies must address areas of data integration, analytics, report the results and put it all in the context of a business solution, according to davis.

While this requires a framework to capture data and allow people to gain access to that data on a consistent basis, “it’s not about simply building a data warehouse and putting a bI front end on it,” he says.

“It’s not about going out and buying the fastest database or the coolest interface or the best piece of hardware. It’s about solving a very focused business problem,” says davis.

4Alerts

alerts answer questions like, “When should I react?” and “What actions are needed now?” says Davis. “This is when you reach a particular threshold ... something changes from green to red, so you do something about it.”

analysis 5Statistical

Statistical analysis answers the questions, “Why is this happening?” and “What opportunities am I missing?” he says. “you you begin to take the y data and you begin to understand why things are happening.”

6Forecasting

a popular level, forecasting answers questions like, “What if these trends continue? how much is needed?

When will it be needed?” he says.

modeling 7Predictive

Predictive modeling tells users what will happen next and how it will affect the business, Davis says.

8Optimization

optimization answers the questions, “how do we do things better?” and “What is the best decision for a complex problem?” says Davis. This includes areas such as price optimization, markdown optimization and size optimization. This isn’t just about cost-cutting and can be the difference between success and failure for an organization, he notes. CIO

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G n i t h G i F

e m i cr

BI

with

chniques e t g n i t h g i f l-life crime

ed p l e on of rea h i t t a i r e n w e g o t h x The ne s. Here’s c i t y l a n a s s anada. sine C u , b n e o b t t n o h g i m d m me in E prevent cri

By JenniFeR

E

dmonton Police Services, responsible for over one million residents in Alberta, is one of the first police forces in Canada to use business analytics software for law enforcement. the project began as an effort to dig down into police data to provide accountability to the public, says John Warden, bI project team lead for edmonton Police Services. “We spent the first three years of our project getting our data really stable and accurate so we could truly understand the public demand for policing services,” he says. this involved looking at calls to service from the public and how the police were responding to those calls in order to measure the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness. “We want to measure 84

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KavuR

what the public demand is to us so we have a clear understanding of whether we have enough resources and are supplying those resources in a timely and effective way,” he says.

Now in its fourth year of development, the project has amassed enough data to identify crime trends and locations. “We are very sure of our data, be it in calls for service or crime data and we are able to track crime now on a daily basis,” says Warden. this allows the police to know where to put their resources, as the system provides statistics at the neighborhood level, Warden noted. If theft from vehicles, for example, is rising significantly in a particular neighborhood compared to the same time frame last year, they can deploy more resources in that area, he says.

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Deep Dive | Business Intelligence SnIffIng Out CrIme by spotting seasonal trends and other patterns in crime, the system also allows the police to put “the right sources at the right time” over the city, he says. “We can expect robberies, like most crime, begin to increase in the spring and peak out in the summer and begin to tail off in October and November,” he says. business performance briefings are provided to the edmonton Police Chief on a daily basis and this information is fed to commanders in the field, Warden noted. Stats from the bI data warehouse are also fed into a public neighborhood crime mapping system, which launched this summer and allows visitors to map crime in eight categories. “there is a transparency and a consistency in how crime is being presented in the city. We are not hiding anything and certainly wouldn’t want to hide anything. We want to be as transparent as possible as an organization (about) how we use and present data to support decision-making,” he says.

Warden says another two years are needed to get past the project stage, but the system has already proven results.

When the city noticed an increase in arson in a particular area, commanders were able to ask not only why it was happening but whether it was happening more than in previous years and expected to increase, says Warden. “We were able to create a project around the city, and the commanders who are doing this in fact were able to mitigate this by making some significant arrests and stopping that actual pattern in its tracks,” he says. the system also found a significant number of face-to-face robberies taking place on the city streets. “When people talk about robberies, they think of bank robbery or people going into a convenience store and committing a robbery, so it was surprising to discover that 80 percent of the robberies in edmonton currently are personal robberies,” says Warden.

years of collected data, is being able to forecast or predict where crimes are going to take place, he says. the end goal is the ability to place resources in advance, to put police into certain areas of the city because they predict crime will take place in that area and be able to mitigate that crime, says Warden.

“Are we there yet? Absolutely not, but we are on the way to these final pieces of who, how and why, and (those are) going to be the exciting pieces for us as we move into 2010.

We will have a total and complete picture of what’s going on when it comes to preventing crime and victimization in edmonton,” he says. edmonton Police is currently sharing the data with Alberta Justice and edmonton transit. “As we move forward, we expect to be able to share better,” says Warden.

IbM’s work with the edmonton Police is part the Smarter Cities initiative. ““the program was created to bolster economic vitality and the quality of life in cities and metropolitan areas by sparking new thinking and meaningful action across the city’s ecosystem,” states IIbM. this includes bringing t certain attributes of technol technology — like instrumentation of the Web, the use of sensors and connections to databases — to the forefront to help peo people perform their roles in gov government, says Mark Cleverley, director of strategy for IIbM’s global government industry.

“Analytics as a discipline inside policing is being recognized across the world as a key tool for law enforcement and it is increasingly becoming an information business where there are many sources of information that can have relevance to decision-making,” says Cleverley.

“If you can look at a series of data and discover, as edmonton did, that certain kinds of events tend to happen at certain times of the year and perhaps in certain areas over and above others, then you can make some smart decisions about proactively putting resources out there to prevent things from happening instead of just responding to them,” he says. CIO

the Edmonton Police can pinpoint c rimeprone areas an d how crime is chang ing.

The next step is being able t o predict where crimes are go ing to take place.

CrIme SCene InveStIgatIOn edmonton Police are now able to pinpoint the crime-prone areas based on the same time frame for last year and how crime is changing, says Warden. the next step, based on

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bI: It’S

not fiCtion

By RoBeRt L. MitcheLL

Here’s how a publishing house took

a BI route and prospered.

g

oing from a $15 million (about rs 67.5 crore) to $35 million (about rs 157.5 crore) company in 18 months after an acquisition and taking on a 6,500sqm warehouse that sends out 150,000 books per week in 7,000 cartons to service 1,200 orders is, as you can imagine, no small feat.

And then try doing it for four geographies (Australia, New Zealand, Asia and South Africa) with just 14 people while ensuring your It environment runs without a hitch. that hat was the scenario facing Parragon Publishing, a global provider of illustrated non-fiction books.

After purchasing the publishing division of a publicly-listed company called Funtastic in 2008, Parragon was faced with the task of integrating operations and looked to deploy a new express Mailing System (eMS). ( “Prior to that we didn’t have any warehousing functionality of our own, all of domestic warehousing was done by 3PL (third party logistics),” says Parragon Publishing finance and operations director, Mark Camiller.

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Deep Dive | Business Intelligence

“So we didn’t really need an eMS system with a lot of functionality. basically, all we needed was a simple accounting system because we didn’t do much ourselves.

What we did in those days was use SAge SA out of the uK.”

DOuBle trOuBle While its global operations — headquartered in the uK K — run SAge, SA the local arm based in Melbourne decided to evaluate different options. “the “ problem was that because we went from a $15 million to a $35 million business once we bedded the acquisition down, we required local warehousing and 3PL was no longer an economical option. So we needed to expand our eMS MS functionality,” says Camiller.

“We had two simultaneous challenges. One was we needed to set up a warehouse. And we had to expand our eMS MS functionality because we had never received an order in our own right up to that day — they all went via 3PL. Our largest three customers are Kmart, big W and target, which obviously are all nationally based. So we had no electronic data interchange (edI) I) functionality in the past.

“Funtastic used Pronto (an erP software) and a couple of people within the organization including myself had experience with it. From an overall end to end solution, we looked at SAge SAge and Pronto. Separately we looked at the option of leaving SAge in the uK K as we were but running the edII on a more warehousespecific platform. We looked at three and one was Manhattan and then there were two other local products. the he end result was we decided — in conjunction with the uK — that the best solution was Pronto.”

So a rack-mounted server was deployed to run the Pronto system in the company’s South Yarra office with redundancy located in the warehouse in derrimut (a suburb in Australia).

“We then had a file server, e-mail server and our third server that houses our edI,” he says.

“that hat project has been going for 18 months and is almost finished. So there wasn’t a major problem come March 2009 because the decision was made to take the Kronos 8 route and it could handle multiple data sources in the one data warehouse,” he says.

Now all global Parragon offices hook into the bI system and thus the potential issue of one regional office having a different platform was avoided. the Pronto system has also provided an automated data synch with the publisher’s carton carrier, Star track express.

“In terms of communicating with them all of the manifest details are built and stored in Pronto and sent fully electronically, daily to our carton carrier and loaded into their system,” he said. “this “ gives us immediate point of delivery and tracking information.”

Customers also have access and can see where their delivery is through Star track’s site or by a call to Parragon. Additionally, the company offers a free-on-board service where it ships directly from the printers to customers.

While the Pronto solution has helped significantly, Camiller said, the company still needs to employ its own programmer to write modules for digitizing documentation required by offshore clients in Asia.

“We deal with retailers like Kmart and big W who send a weekly product activity data report. It’s a lot of data that needs be formatted into a readable, usable piece because they tell us what they sold last week and what they have on order or on stock,” he says. “If you are in our business, you live and die by that. Pronto out-of-the-box can’t handle that.

I’ve never seen an out-of-the-box solution that can handle it but our 4gL guy wrote a nice chunky module that sits in Pronto that does all of it. So we bring it in like an edI order. then Pronto does all the work for us to generate the weekly reports in a format that even our bottom-end sales people can understand. Otherwise we would have to use a bureau to do that and it would cost.” CIO

We deal with ho big retailers w send a weekly ity product activ data report. If r you are in ou business, you live and die by that.

DO It t YO YOurSelf While one might expect some push back from the HQ of a global company when one of its regional offices asks to go it alone with their It, t, Camiller was aided by a concurrent t deployment across all of Parragon’s locations of business intelligence solution, Kronos 8.

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Deep Dive | Business Intelligence

Analytics yin the

Cloud Lessons from IT leaders who are crunching large data sets in the cloud.

By Merv Adrian

E

very company — from the smallest start-up to the largest firm — needs to

IllUSTraTIo n By Un nIKrIShn an aV

be agile in today’s market to respond to changing dynamics and new competition. but these days it’s often the smaller companies that are better positioned to adapt: as the barriers to entry have decreased, emerging companies now have access to data streams — and techniques for analyzing them — that used to be the exclusive province of the largest companies. At the same time, the CIOs of larger organizations now find themselves as much bound by their legacy systems and data as they are empowered by them.

Also, the costs of managing these legacy systems are getting in the way.

Nowhere is this dynamic more apparent than with business intelligence (bI). As bI once again rises to the top of priority lists, CIOs are struggling with the costs of meeting internal demands while keeping within their budgets, and still finding time for innovation. the costs of proprietary servers and storage devices, as well as the space and energy to manage them, are off the charts and are highly visible to every CFO, CtO and procurement professional. Proliferating copies of data into multiple one-off analytical systems — seemingly one for every question to be asked — only adds to the costs, and even new data appliances can cost in the tens of millions to scale up as requirements grow.

Clearly, new approaches are needed to cost-effectively scale bI systems while meeting the demand for information on the front lines. Here are some examples of how forward-looking organizations are doing large-scale analytics in the cloud to break the logjam.

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D

on’t buy capacity according to a closed appliance size.

R

unning programs close to your data ups speed.

Clint Johnson, VP of business intelligence at Zions Bancorporation, says he’s avoiding locked-in purchase models as they tackle massive data challenges. “We like the ability to add hardware easily, incrementally,” says Johnson. not only are those new purchases large, they may be substantially greater than near-term needs — but payment is not scaled to usage, it’s by total capacity.

L

eave behind commodity hardware.

at the Fox audience network, Director of research analytics Brian Dolan has a team that might work with two weeks’ worth of data: 100 billion lines, tens of terabytes. Exporting, transforming, moving and distributing that data in chunks (extract, transform and load: ETl l style), constrained by bandwidth and system load factors, used to take three to four days. rebuilding all the joins, indexes and other structures within the data would consume another day or two. But with new in-database analytics technology, Fox can run programs directly in the database, eliminating the bottlenecks standing between his team and business insights. according to Dolan, “Inside our database, decisions are setting up two weeks worth of based on gut not intelligence, data takes us about 20 minutes.”

40% of major

Most new analytic data engines run on inexpensive commodity hardware, transforming IT at least partially because of cost models and conventional restrictions in it capabilities. wisdom about the costs of new systems. as Mark Dunlap, a consultant with Evergreen Source: Competing Through business analytics, accenture Technologies and a veteran of massive data warehouse projects at amazon and Fox Interactive, puts it, “If you’re using proprietary hardware, you’re in a losing battle. new practices in BI are echoing the agile Sooner or later, whatever company’s developing that methodologies programmers are finding effective. technology will not be able to keep up. We’ve seen it over Complex techniques, statistical analyses, and and over and over again — they won’t keep pace with new analytical models emerge and disappear. what commodity systems are doing.”

For example, ryan hawk, T-Mobile Director of Information Management, and his analytics team needed to build models of telecom usage — propensity to churn, revenue generation, and more — but were challenged because “data is a business Typical capacity utilization rates on distributed servers case — we have to decide what we can afford used for BI apps or data marts are often at 20 percent to store on our MPP systems,” hawk says. “The or below, leaving substantial system power unused. hardest thing is having to purge data every 60 days — you can’t do much trending.” newer software can harness that power with effective By shifting their data warehouse into an agile, provisioning strategies. Brian Dolan, Director of research virtualized infrastructure, T-Mobile has flexible analytics at the Fox audience network, says, “With my access to more data and can analyze or re-think [cloud-based] database, I get to share 40 nodes with the at will. They’re able to build analytical sandboxes production system. I use them when I need them, and on-demand to discover new questions. CIO then I give them back.” Building sandboxes as needed — mapping servers (or cores) and data stores into the form needed — addresses the task at hand efficiently.

Send feedback on this column to editor@cio.in

G

oing agile allows you to keep asking, keep changing.

D

on’t waste priceless server power.

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By thomaS wailgum

Deep Dive | Business Intelligence

aWay out of Data hell ell | Most businesses have more data than they know how to use. Consider the troves of data inside companies’ enterprise systems: erP, CrM, bI and supply chain applications. but getting at that data and then presenting it in a useful manner for cogent analysis are two tasks that typically haunt organizations. At the same time it’s getting harder for boards to pony up blank checks for exploratory projects to unlock those potential data stores. enterprISe applICatIOn

In many respects, companies have been facing a nasty storm when it comes to their standalone enterprise systems: Many companies are ‘over-softwared’, and there’s been a substantial backlash and pleas for real-world, usable innovation.

With bI, in particular, surveys have shown that 40 percent of executives still trusted their gut while making decisions — not their bI systems. And many more are frustrated with CIOs for failing to give the

In the Aberdeen report, the analysts preach an ‘integration’ mindset when it comes to a more perfect erP and bI union. “Whether bI tools are currently embedded within your erP solution, tightly integrated, bolted on after-the-fact or non-existent, don’t treat erP and bI as separate projects,” Jutras and Hatch write. “take the approach of using bI as a means to extract enhanced value from data within erP (as well as other enterprise applications). erP can transform data

Don’t treat ErP and BI as separate projects.Take the approach of using BI as a means to extract enhanced value from data within ErP and other enterprise apps. this is exactly the place and time for bI tools to step in, write Cindy Jutras and david Hatch, two Aberdeen VPs, in a report, The ERP/BI Connection: Adding Value through Actionable Intelligence. “bI tools have reached a level of maturity which can elevate executives from the depth of the details, bringing them to a higher operating level where they can add strategic value to the organization,” Jutras and Hatch write. “the ability to provide better decision support with integrated enterprise data is an important factor in turning data into actionable intelligence.” “the synergistic relationship between erP and bI,” they add, “can indeed be the perfect storm, igniting improved performance and visibility.”

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business what it needs: analytical tools for decision-making.

In recent Aberdeen surveys of enterprises with bI and erP apps, bI has ranked number one (for two years running) in terms of the technologies that will have the most impact in the next two to five years. Coming in second in another survey was ‘enterprise application enhancements/extensions.’ this, according to Jutras and Hatch, “refers to the ongoing improvements that drive extended value from erP and CrM investments.” digging deeper, they determined that bI tools were the top ‘enhancement or extension’ that companies planned to use to integrate systems. “think of [bI] as a layer on top of or embedded within erP and other applications,” they write.

into information but bI tools are required to complete the transformation from information to intelligence.”

A good first step: Form cross-functional teams for both erP and bI projects. “When left entirely to It, t, the success of projects t is often measured by cost and speed of implementation,” Jutras and Hatch write. “these are important but using them as the exclusive measure of success loses sight of the original business goals of the project.” there’s much more work ahead and time is of the essence. “Achieving transparency and visibility is no longer simply a lofty goal,” Jutras and Hatch write, “but a core necessity of the business.” CIO Send feedback on this column to editor@cio.in

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y o u r l i f e & c a r e e r pa t h

Relearning Tech Skills

By Kristin Burnham As you assumed the role of CIO, your workdays became more business-focused.

You've probably spent more time in meetings with business executives talking budgets and strategy than with technologists talking Ruby on Rails. Or if you're really serious about your job, you've been spending a lot of time with customers and mentoring a second line. But as a result, your core tech skills — the ones you cultivated and mastered early in your career and the ones that got you here— are getting rusty. Revisiting those skills is exceedingly important, though, and can help you build stronger relationships within your department.

"In the last 20 years or so, we've been putting a lot of emphasis on business knowledge," says Susan Cramm, founder and president of Valuedance, an executive coaching firm. "What we're seeing now is a pendulum effect. We're hearing more about not having enough technical IT leaders." But finding time to brush up on these skills can be challenging, Cramm notes.

The key is to make it a part of your day, not another task on your to-do list.

Phil Alberta, VP of IT at a luxury retailer, says that keeping your tech skills fresh helps maintain credibility within your department. "You need to show your staff that you have a passion for what they have a passion for," he says. "If you're mostly into the financials of running IT, you're not breeding this culture of innovation."

IT Skills

Illustratio n by M M Shanit h

thrive

As the business clamors for constant attention, it's easy for CIOs to lose sight of their roots: technology.

But brushing up on your skills can be easier than you think.

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You don't have to do the work yourself, but need to know enough to ensure that it's getting done on time and up to standard.

threeminute coach Help !

I have been getting complaints about one of my most talented managers. He is losing team members because of his impatience and aggressive behavior.

Ashok Panikkar, is the founder and executive director of Meta-Culture, India’s first specialized conflict and relationship management consulting business.

Always listen. Set up a meeting with the manager and check with him about how he is doing.

Ask him open-ended questions so you can learn about his successes and challenges. Then share your concerns and ask him how he sees the situation. Be a good listener and a coach — not an authority figure who has punitive powers. Appreciate his difficulties and compliment him on the good work he is doing.

Then coach him to handle difficult situations better.

Sometimes be firm. If he gets defensive gently give him a reality check about whether his behavior is getting him the required results. If he starts playing the blame game, get him curious about his staff’s perspectives and why they might be leaving his team. After having completely heard him, if need be, advocate firmly that he change his behavior and perhaps even attend communication or conflict resolution training programs.

Never humiliate or put him on the spot. Never berate or blame him for losing people. Don’t make him feel you have lost confidence in him. Don’t have this conversation in front of his team or his peers. Don’t lose curiosity. You may learn much from his side of the story. Don’t lose empathy. You will build trust by showing him that you want him to succeed. CIO

thrive

Alberta says that utilizing the people around him has been the most effective way of keeping his tech skills polished. He occasionally drops into his staff's meetings in order to maintain a general knowledge of the projects they're working on and the technologies they're using. Or sometimes he'll visit their cubicles or sit at the same lunch table and ask questions. There are plenty of valuable resources that you can learn from just within your organization, he says.

"If you don't have that relationship [with your staff] to freely ask questions about technology, you could be missing opportunities to do great things within the business, such as an integration opportunity.

There's such a payback for this; I can't imagine not putting in the time," says Alberta.

Cramm advises occasionally polling your staff and requesting 360degree feedback. "Ask them about what should be in your curriculum — what technologies they're evaluating, technologies they're using in current projects, what their architecture looks like," she recommends.

"Pick a project that's in the works and ask the technologists to show you what it takes to integrate customer data into your business, for example."

Peter Kretzman, former CTO at Classmates.com, finds time outside of work — between five and 10 hours a month, he estimates — to tinker with and brush up on his tech skills by administering his home network, trying out a new device or configuration and brushing up on a programming language or a Web services technology when he has time.

He equates managing technical staff with being an athletic coach or manager: "You need to have enough knowledge about the game, but you can't go out and bat or pitch or field," he says.

And drawing that fine line is important. "You don't want to undermine your staff by looking over their shoulders and micro-managing," he says.

"People want a management leader who can relate to his peers, but you still need to be a CIO who's focused on process improvement and strategy — one that doesn't do the work himself, but makes sure that the work is getting done on time and up to standard." CIO

Ashok Panikkar works with Fortune 500, mid-size companies, educational institutions, governments and NGOs. Lately his team has been working to create sustainable peace in the Kandhamal District, Orissa.

Send any queries you might have on conflict at work to Kristin Burnham is associate editor. Send feedback on this feature to editor@cio.in

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