 "The adaptive CIO")
Technology is more and more on the forefront of businesses today. So how can the technology manager be far behind?
In an earlier era, the chief information officer (CIO) was preoccupied with the IT infrastructure of the enterprise. Today the CIO has a host of additional challenges: he has to implement digital technology, process available data and generate insights, create innovative business processes and, above all, facilitate an increasingly mobile workforce. In short, he is called upon to create business value - something that was the exclusive preserve of those in charge of corporate strategy.
There's an upside, though: As they become multifaceted digital frontiersmen, CIOs also become more visible to the rest of the business.
Experts say the role of the CIO increased as power shifted to the end user of a company's product - whether they were customers or employees of the company. Mobile technologies, BYOD and cloud-based computing threw up new challenges for IT departments. As security concerns roiled the waters, the CIO came to assume a determining role in protecting the company's business, customers and employees. With this, the CIO's relationship with the CEO and the board changed as well.
This also means the new CIO has to acquire new skills. He has to be agile, adaptive, and quick. Says Peter Gartenberg, general manager, enterprise partner group, Microsoft India, CIOs need to retool their organisations to drive the right kind of change culturally, with a different set of skills and a different mindset. "Progressive CIOs are breaking down silos and focusing more on effective end-to-end processes across the organisation," he says. Adds Shrikant Shitole, managing director, India, Symantec, "As more employees tap into the mobility the cloud offers, IT team would need to match employee expectations from the technology that surrounds them while protecting data in transit."
Vasanth Kumar, executive director, Max Fashion India agrees, "Millennials are taking over key roles at corporates. They are digitally savvy and are not used to hierarchical working structures. Therefore, the CIOs need to play the role of a facilitator and enable the millennial generation with the right technology tools to help them address the issues at hand."
Above all, to do justice to their new role of being a 'strategy maker' CIOs have to understand the power of collaboration. A CIOs ability to influence strategic decision making comes from the quality of information he can provide to the management. "CIOs have to continuously develop their capabilities and skill sets to understand business requirements, nurture their ability to translate data gathered both from the field as well as clients into meaningful information and package it for easy interpretation by the decision makers at the right level," explains SV Nathan, chief talent officer and senior director, Deloitte.
So, where is the CIO seat now? What is his relationship with strategy and does he have the same kind of impact other C-suite people have in the organisation?
Consider Maruti Suzuki. At the country's leading carmaker, the IT head is part of every board meeting as well as strategic business meetings involving suppliers and dealers. "With the commoditisation of technology, a CIO's role is no longer just limited to providing IT solutions. Instead, the CIO is expected to create business value for the organisation," says Rajesh Uppal, executive director, IT and CIO, Maruti Suzuki.
The carmaker was quick to recognise the potential impact that a CIO can have on the business outcome. Way back in 1985-86, the company set up an independent vertical to look at technology requirements of the company. Now all key business decisions within the company are taken jointly by the CIO and the business head. A few months back, for instance, both the IT and business teams sat together to work towards improving forecast accuracy and sales clocked. The entire project took three months to implement and another eight months to bring down the forecast error to the desired levels. "This is just one example of how the IT team is not only responsible for the roll-out of a progamme but also partners with different verticals, creating business value for the organisation in the process. This is the new governance model of IT," explains Uppal.
Like Maruti Suzuki, fast moving consumer goods company Marico too has put in place an effective structure to facilitate greater participation of the CIO in key decision making processes. It has a separate business process transformation vertical, which is headed by a management team member, into which the IT department reports. Also, a bi-modal team structure has been put in place which facilitates faster responses and results and quicker technology implementation.
According to Mukesh Kripalani, chief, business process transformation and IT, Marico, "One team looks at newer technologies and pilots these along with analytics projects, while the other delivers the operations and applications in an agile manner. In addition, the analytics team works together with the sales and marketing teams through task forces in order to harness the data and insights required for garnering higher market share."
Given the expertise and technology know-how that he possesses, the CIO is becoming the go-to person to get a unified vision enabling the management to make more informed decisions. For example, if an organisation is evaluating a new project, the CIO would be expected to provide business implications, highlight technological challenges and offer a view of the operational hassles. "Many organisations are evolving chief technology officers into CIOs by training them on the business side, to develop cross-functional capabilities. And they are taking IT leadership as joint responsibility," shares Gaurav Sinha, chief executive officer, FirstHandle.
Clearly the emergence of new age technologies such as mobile, cloud, analytics and internet of things is changing the way an enterprise in run or decisions are made. Currently, the CIO's job responsibilities are moving beyond what was once a job focused solely on "making things work" to one that is focused on modifying businesses to thrive.
As things undergo change it's important for organisations to ensure that the CIO's voice is heard at the right level, underlines Nathan of Deloitte. And that is why, he says, in most organisations today, the CIO directly reports to the chief executive officer. "The right reporting structure ensures that organisations do not miss an opportunity where the CIO can make a strategic contribution when it's needed the most," says Nathan.
To illustrate the influence and the power that the CIOs can exercise in crucial company matters, Nathan cites the challenges many organisations faced when employees wanted to bring their own devices (BYOD) to their workplace. He says that the issue was mired in controversies till the CIO stepped in. Once the CIO took the lead to establish the support and security policy needed for BYOD to work, the issue was resolved for good.
Ritu Mehrotra, VP, global growth, Zomato, says to make the most of the changing business landscape and benefit from the expertise of a CIO, "the first steps of transforming IT are vital, as important momentum and organisational energy can be exhausted if early initiatives don't increase traction. However, all that is easier said than done." "However, having a clear vision of the end state and instituting the early steps will create legroom for the process to take off," adds Mehrotra.
Even as many CIOs take a seat at the supervisory table, they need to increasingly understand and speak business language. In Uppal's words, "To be effective CIOs need to nurture their financial acumen skills. It's the ability to understand and interpret business requirements and convincingly putting on the table the strategic decisions that need to be taken with the numbers at hand."
| Mindset change: Ashvin Vellody |
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In the digital age, a CIO needs to demonstrate his ability to understand and drive business agility to claim a seat at the decision maker's table. CIOs have to have the ability to experiment, evangelise and yet prove and demonstrate how particular solutions can work. CIOs have to be astute stakeholders - someone who can rally their peers to build momentum for change; they need to have convincing powers to build the case for transformation using effective communication skills and the leadership ability to step back and take crucial decisions. Change is always difficult. It is the single most important aspect that a CIO has to manage, both within his/her team and amongst peers. It gets more complicated when the digital disruption hits you at a fast pace. Most importantly, many CIOs miss the trends or tend to ignore it. While a certain amount of scepticism towards the new technologies and its benefits balances against the hype, it will be the ability to deliver outcomes fast that would matter. Take for example data analytics. Every CIO is big on it. But how many are making a long-term impact with the technology? The real question is how a CIO helps his or her organisation to adopt a new relevant technology at the scale to deliver business outcomes.
Ashvin Vellody Head of CIO Advisory, Management Consulting, KPMG India |
