Chander Khanduja: A ‘Lumin’ary CIO

By: Rajneesh De, Editor - DQChannels & DQ Week

“Some men are born as genius, some has fame bestowed on them and some earn fame and reputation through their hard work”. Chander Khanduja, CIO, Luminous Power Technologies belongs to the last category.

Technology implementation and consulting has been ingrained in his DNA for a long time. Things, though have not come on a platter. Chander Khanduja has slogged hard for over two decades.

That is evident from his tech achievements listed in his CV. He is a management graduate with over 23 years’ rich and qualitative experience in IT Strategy, IT roadmap,IT Infrastructure Planning & Management, SAP Implementation, BI, CRM , SRM, Project / Program Management, Mobility and Digitization Initiatives. He has worked in companies like Exide, Becton Dickinson, Seagram, Triveni Engineering in IT leadership roles and is presently the CIO in Luminous Power Technologies.

In his career, Khanduja has been providing strategic leadership for enterprise-wide technology initiatives; pioneered significant Information Technology initiatives, which gave new directions to organizational practices; and brought tangible as well as intangible benefits to the organizations. He has won the SAP ACE award for two years in continuation.

While he has been working with Luminous Power Technologies as CIO since Jan 2013, previously at Becton, he led the organization and was majorly involved into planning of IT infrastructure. Also, he worked on the SAP Infrastructure and Functioning front, IT support to processes not covered by SAP, formulation of IT budgets and ensuring fruitful ROI. Khanduja implemented Lotus Notes in all regions, based on HUB & SPOKE topology. Khanduja was actively involved in the management of a team of Support Specialists (responsible for ensuring smooth IT operations and IT infrastructure set up) and in designing a Workflow Management System for diabetic patients care.

The Tech Journey

Over the last two decades, khanduja has seen it all; the evolution of a CIO from being a cost center to a critical component of the business. “CIO role is pretty clearly established after being in common use for at least 2 decades, the newer CTO title means completely different things from industry to industry, and even company to company. And as technology becomes more central to more organizations, CIO plays both the roles successfully for in most of the organizations,” opines Khanduja.

Further elaborating his experience as a CIO, Khaduja adds, “IT departments were traditional EDP departments in organizations around 15-20 years back; now these have transformed into business growth centers. After this transformation the perceived notion of being only cost centre is diluted to a large extent and it is now growth and efficiency driver of the organization. The view of CFO perceptions on IT has also matured over the years as they have seen the digital transformations in organization over the years that had accelerated business growths and also optimized costs in various areas”

Home Front

On the personal front, Khanduja is married to Deepali and the couple is blessed with kids Vyom and Pradyun. He stays with his parents both of whom are retired government servants. Khanduja has completed his graduation from Delhi University and completed his masters in Cyberlaw and Security. He holds many certifications like CISA,PMP,Sun,Six Sigma,Microsoft,Cisco among others .

Khanduja is a fun loving person and goes on holiday with family regularly. His favorite holiday destination is Singapore. Being a religious person, he read Bhagvad Gita regularly.

Major Career Highlights

Working with   Luminous Power Technologies  as CIO since Jan 2013

•Defined and implemented IT Strategy for the Luminous Group

•Business First – Always, used as a mantra to get IT teams aligned to the business

•End to End Digitization Initiatives across organization like CRM, Ariba, Mobility solutions, SRM, GRC, Portals, BI etc

•Winner of 2 SAP Ace awards consecutive years

• Worked with Triveni Engineering and Industries Ltd. from  Sep.’07 – Jan 2013
  
  Creating and monitoring IT support structure for 1000 + users in Organisation .SAP implementation in Sugar,Water and Gears Business .

  Setting up the disaster recovery site for the entire group

  Sept’00 – Sep’06 with Becton Dickinson

  Lead the IT Department of the organisation and accountable for IT infrastructure planning, SAP Infrastructure and Functioning, IT support to processes not covered by SAP, formulation of IT budgets and ensuring fruitful ROI.
  Distinction of successfully implementing Lotus Notes in all regions, based on HUB & SPOKE topology.

• Have ensured compliance with Becton Dickinson Worldwide IT policies & procedures.
  
• Have played a significant role in establishing SAP Helpdesk and Master Desk functionalities.
  
• Actively involved in the management of a team of Support Specialists (responsible for ensuring smooth IT operations and IT infrastructure set up) and in designing a Workflow Management System for diabetic patients careApr’95 to Sept’00 with Exide Industries Ltd.,

  Successfully handled the independent responsibility of heading the IT division(North India) and spearheading the automation of various processes to deliver business solutions.
  Oversaw the smooth implementation of SAP at the pilot site in New Delhi in 1999.
  Efficiently handled responsibilities for LAN/WAN set up across Northern India, including network design, progress reviews, drawing the road map for future modifications to support SAP  implementation