The success of the IT department in any organization is
focally dependent on how the CIO personality merges with the organizational work
culture. Also crucial is the CIO creating a synergy with different business
units within the organization, which has the capacity of taking the business to
higher levels of goodwill and profitability.
We feature Dr Jai Menon, Bharti; Arindam Bose, LG; Anand
Kumar, Monsanto; and Dr Rajesh Narang, Center for Railway Information System (CRIS)
in our current issue. We put all of them on the hot seat and asked
them their favorite strategies for working with other department managers.
Since all IT deployments are done for a certain department of
business, it is imperative for the CIO to take the right decision along with the
department head-the CFO, Chief Marketing officer, HR manager, Production
Manager.... even the CEO... All our CIOs for sure agree on the dual role a CIO
has to play with regard to being a technology visionary as well as a business
honcho.
Read on, as our CIOs spill their best-kept success secrets.
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Jai Menon,
Group CIO and Corporate Director, Bharti Tele-Ventures
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Designing
the 3-year transformation platform, which cuts across the various BIZ
(business) and INT (internal) platforms.
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The
Yearly plan, where IT in a key role plans to transform billing, HR,
customer care and other functions in close coordination with the
business.
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After
squaring in on a project, the control of the project is assigned to a
business sponsor (a senior functionary of the concerned department)
for its total ownership.
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The
strength of alignment-A major part of our IT department is the 'Solutions
Engagement' group, which talks with the department's business
people in their own language.
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As a
part of our knowledge management initiative, we institutionalize all
good practices and make the projects standard across the country.
- A practice followed
throughout business engagement-Progress in every stage in the
project has to be signed off by the Project Management Officer (PMO).
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Arindam Bose, Head,
IT, LG
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Start with the big
picture-annually; the organization's Key Performance Index (KPI)
is frozen at the top level. Translated into market share,
Production-domestic sales and export etc.
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The steps to achieve the
KPI with monthly plan-working on a top-down approach, the IT
department along with other departments decides the monthly plan of
action.
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Discussing the
challenges at each step-a yearly, 3-day strategy meeting between
seniors from each department. The 'Meltin' is the time to make the
IT roadmap for the year.
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A clear consensus is
arrived at to reduce the gap between expectations and deliverables-unless
the project is urgent, we work with a story-board and get it signed
off to maintain clarity of goals.
- The IT department takes charge-we
begin with extensive documentation and start the project. A pilot run
is imperative for customer feedback and leads the way for full
rollout.
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Rajesh
Narang , Chief
System Manager, CRIS
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Winning
Awards-to convince the CEOs and CXOs about the quality of our work.
This gets our work validated on national and global standards. It
improves our as well as the company's image.
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The CFO,
CTO and others are also given the awards, citation and recognition
along with us when a project succeeds.
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Take
them along in IT Seminars-CFOs must be fully involved, given time,
proper hearing and provided with convincing replies to their queries.
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Avoid
locking horns with CFO on open versus product centric procurement.
Successful companies will not go for just lowest priced product but
ones that will carry them into the future.
- CIO teaches technology
to the CEO and learns business from him. Both meet on a one-to-one
basis and invest time on each other.
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Jasmine Kaur in Delhi Goutam Das in Bangalore,
Shrikanth G in Chennai