Target CXO

The recently organized 3-city "DQ CIO Summit on Managing IT" was

not an eye opener, but it surely once again rubbed some old bruises. The touchy

areas revolved around the vendor and his relationship with the CIO, and the CIO

and his relationship with end users in his or her organization. The CIO Summit

broadly focused on three crucial aspects of IT in enterprises today, namely

storage, security, and IT infrastructure.

There is so much discussion and debate happening on storage these days that

we decided to call the theme of the discussion on storage: "Simplifying

Storage as Demand Explodes". It came out during the course of discussions

that the CIOs level of confidence in storage vendors was low on account of

several factors. These included pricing policies, lack of a clear technology

roadmap, insufficient support at the time of up-gradation, to name a few.

Similarly, the vendors felt that the CIOs are themselves not too sure of what

their real requirements are, and do not do adequate homework before placing

orders, which causes heartburn later. Clearly, the CIOs and the vendors need to

work more closely. Not that storage buying will come to a standstill if the CIO

and the vendor do not work together, it's just that the success rates of

storage investments (RoI) will be higher.

While I knew that not more than 30 to 40% of storage that

organizations have is actually utilized, what surprised me, however, was that

not more than 20 to 25% of the info that is stored is actually ever retrieved

for use. Panelists in the discussion alleged that their biggest problem came

from individual desktop users.

What emerged from the discussions was that there were hardly

any storage related policies that most organizations have, especially for

desktop users. There also appeared to be gaps in terms of the CIOs' knowledge

of what the needs and expectations of their desktop users were. It was felt that

sanctions for more storage investments, was a big nut to crack before the CEO

and the board.

One interesting point that needs mention here is the lack of

excitement that a subject like storage seems to be generating these days. Most

CIOs, when given an option to participate in a group discussion at the DQ CIO

Summit, did not state storage as their first choice. To be specific, between

storage, information security, and IT infrastructure management, storage was the

last option.

The other major discussion at the CIO Summit was the

challenges to information security. Most CIOs now agree that security is

becoming a major challenge, and they are finding it tough to handle all on their

own. Also, they feel that while responsibility for security of enterprise

networks and information is finally heaped on the CIOs, there are several

departments in an organization which play a role and need to be involved. Well

laid out security policies are absent in most organizations, and end-users are

not involved or given awareness lessons. Most CIOs reluctantly said that they

needed expert advice and third party support for enterprise wide security

planning and control, but were not very comfortable with the idea of outsourcing

it completely. Not as of now.

Lastly, while discussing IT infrastructure management, there

was more or less complete unanimity that it should not be the CIO's mandate,

but should be outsourced. However, most of them said that they are looking at

outsourcing as much as they can, although finding good third party

infrastructure companies was proving to be tough. On a very sensitive question

of the possibility of CIOs to convert their IT department into independent

profit centers, the opinion was sharply divided. While some felt that they dream

to become independent business units, those who seem to have gone though the

experience were vehemently against the idea.

Who said that the CIO's career is over? I think there is a

long distance to travel as far as his relationships-both with suppliers as

well as internal customers-is concerned. The CIO's next challenge is in

terms of building relationships with his CXO, and not so much in terms of

selecting technologies.

The author is Editor of Dataquest



ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in