CIO

innovation

CTO



CIOs have a top strategic and operational priority, to support business through technology





Think of a CIO as managing a portfolio of applications, technologies, people & process





CIOs have to work in alignment with business to stay relevant





In this VUCA world, CIOs work like Chief Integration Officers





CIOs believe innovation should reflect in employees' KRA to motivate them





CIOs are uniquely positioned to drive innovation, influence culture change



Typically, a CIO/CTO is considered as the torch-bearer of technology/IT in most organisations. The dramatic technology changes have taken computing from a back-room utility to a strategic operations role.Today, we think of aas a person managing a portfolio of technologies, people and processes. They drivefrom information and technology. Above all, discover and manage talent in a way, that creativity and innovation become the bedrock of culture. On that note, TechGig.com Conversations kick-started the second edition of Boardroom Discussion on 'The Evolution of Role of CIO/CTO: Information and Technology to Innovation' in Pune.The eminent panelists for the discussion were Ajit Pethkar, VP-and CIO, Zensar Technologies, Jagat Pal Singh, CTO, Cybage, Charuchandra Kanade, vice president - IS, AllScripts, Abhay Ghate, CTO, Nihilent Technologies, R Venkateswaran, CTO, Persistent Technologies, Kesavan Srinivasan, CTO, Sears, Mandar Marulkar, head - IT & chief information security officer (CISO), KPIT and Mukul Kumar, co-founder and senior vice president of engineering, PubMatic.Initiating the discussion, Abhay Ghate of Nihilent Technologies said, "Technology, with social media and mobility, has transformed the way business is being done. A CIO is no longer a person who supports business; he/she leads the business now."Endorsing this change, Mandar Marulkar said that new technology offerings such as cloud, mobility, analytics, social has changed the traditional business game and showed how IT/CIOs can innovate and create different offerings for customers.According to R Venkateswaran of Persistent Technologies, "The role of a CIO has been strengthened due to technological changes. If the CIO is not aligned with the business strategy, they will be left behind and get reduced to a support function."To this Jagat Pal Singh of Cybage, added that in last 10 years, CEOs were only worried about how to get the business and what they need to get it. They were not aware of technology and how it is changing rapidly. "Today, they know what they need to deliver a task. This has put CIOs/CTOs on their toes to be ahead of technology and business."Supporting this, Kesavan Srinivasan of Sears replied that business can challenge IT today. "No more can a CIO hold the key to the IT function. Business knows what can be done and what cannot.""The rate of innovation in tech companies is very fast. To keep pace with it, CIOs should move fast, bring technology, reduce cost pressures, enhance efficiency and should stay ahead of the game," added Mukul Kumar of PubMatic.Charuchandra Kanade of AllScripts described the CIOs role as a balancing act where they should allow innovation but take into consideration that it should not harm the infrastructure and should not create risk for the business.Many IT companies are losing their top talent to start-ups as they fail to provide a culture of innovation, within the organisation, which has become a necessity."To motivate employees, we host internal contests, provide them mentorship, expos them to new technologies and give them room to explore. We provide them the opportunity to fail and take risk, without any inhibitions. We are also including it in our performance analysis system.": "We assure our employees that it is fine to fail, but the most important thing is to try new things as this leads to innovation.""When ideas come to us, they are half-baked. We tell our employees to think about it in a structured manner; we don't impose our views on them, only act as mentors to empower innovation in our organisation.""To enable a culture of innovation, we have invested in a technology platform which allows us to hire employees from any part of the world and give employees' flexibility to work from anywhere, without compromising on the data security of our company.""We are laying the foundation of a platform, where employees have financial independence and they can take risk to develop their ideas into products."The panelists also said that it is essential for a CIO/CTO to stay aligned with the business strategy, to stay relevant. Their job is to enable innovation in the organisation, to motivate employees to take risk and think of disruptive ideas, and thus, contribute to the bottom line.

TimesJobs.com Bureau