CIO Priorities Change As Future Changes Will Be IT Driven

As IT has shifted gears from being just a tool to a business enabler, CIOs today have a greater responsibility than ever before. Information based assets are the new found treasures of this age and IT is undeniably the backbone of any organsiation.

Having said all this, how does a CIO prioritise his responsibilities? In order to enlighten us on the very topic, Satish Pendse, CIO, Hindustan Construction Company spoke to Biztech 2.0 laying down some of his priorities as a CIO.

Do you agree with the statement that data leakage issues figure among the top priorities of a CIO?

Certainly. During the old days when critical information was lying in the documents which were scattered, it was not easy to leak all the data, considering information was somewhat disparate. But now, with the ability to automate and with the growth of the Internet, critical data now resides on electronic media, which is potentially accessible from anywhere in the world, at any given point of time, without your knowledge.

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Thus, given this ease of access, it is important for one to ensure that data is accessible only to those who are meant to access it.

What are your top three priorities as a CIO?

The first priority, as a CIO, is to successfully convert the IT investments into quantifiable business value. This is very important from a CIOs perspective. Secondly, proactively supporting business led future changes in business dynamics and business models is of importance.

It is also important to ensure that all systems are online at any point in time. Maintaining 99.99% availability of entire IT infrastructure is of great importance.

Apart from this, another concern is information security. Data that resides in an organisation must be protected at all costs, and should be accessible to the right parties.

How have your priorities changed over the years?

These priorities are in direct relation to the key expectations of my internal customers (business teams) from me and my department.

A few years back, deployment of IT solutions was critical priority; now it has changed to getting the business value out of already deployed IT solutions since it’s the logical next step once the reasonable state of deployment is reached.

Business is now convinced that future changes will be driven by IT. The business models may undergo a change facilitated by IT. The expectation therefore is that we should lead such changes instead of being driven.

What according to you is the main concern/ pain-point of enterprise IT?

Leveraging the potential of IT investments requires radical change in the mindset of people across the organisation. This transition is not easy, especially when the age of the organisation is quite high. This is therefore the top of the line concern.