There has been a lot of debate in recent times about the role of the CIO in an organisation, especially in today’s turbulent and challenging times. Ranging from the ‘I’ in CIO, whether it signifies ‘Innovation’, ‘Information’ or ‘Irritation’, to the ‘Board Readiness’ of the CIO, or whether the relationship between the CEO, CFO and CIO is one of ‘conflict’ or ‘partnership’ ?

If you see over the last 30 years or so, many of the early entrants in the IT industry were either from engineering or science background, and were responsible for their in-house IT systems. Most of the work used to be manual and over a period of time, these systems were ‘computerised’ or simply automated to reduce manual work.

Consequently, the systems administrator was a person, who was more of a technocrat than a business manager, and very often this role was reporting to the finance or operations head, depending on the structure of the organisation and the way computerisation was being perceived by the management. Very often, this resulted in a skew whereas the automation efforts were focused on the commercial functions. This has done so much damage that today, many CEOs and senior management look at IT with a skeptical eye.

Today’s CIO is expected to be a business savvy leader, coupled with his expertise in technology and excellent people management skills. Just being part of the ‘C’ suite does not get him acceptability in the organisation, he is expected to understand business, know the language of business and speak the same with his peers. The CIO of today must understand technology, but more importantly, understand how this technology has to be aligned with the business needs of the organisation.

Speaking of IT-business alignment, what does management expect from the CIO? In today’s challenging times, mere automation or integration does not endear the CIO to the stakeholders or the board. Most importantly, he is expected to deliver value to the business by deploying technology in a strategic manner.

The value cannot be mere cost reduction, it has to extend across the entire value chain of the organisation, viz streamlining internal processes, restructuring operations, innovative ideas to make the business more agile and responsive, integration of the partner ecosystem such as suppliers, customers, service providers etc. with the IT systems of the organisation, permeation of systems across all layers, integration of manufacturing systems with ERP etc are all examples of innovation and how the CIO can bring value to the organisation.

A point not to be missed is the aspect of information security and managing risk and compliance. These are two very important areas where organisations are facing challenges due to regulatory pressure and minimising risk to the business due to IT. The CIO can play an exemplary role in delivering value to the business by focusing on the ‘C I A’ triad, i.e., ‘confidentiality, integrity and availability, and creating a risk assured IT landscape for the organisation.

As we have seen till now, the role of the CIO has now transformed to a value creator and an innovator, rather than being a mere ‘techie’ in the organisation. The message for CIOs is to be as innovative as they can, and if that is a challenge, then at least create and foster an environment that supports innovation, collaboration and direct alignment to the business. Try to rise above the routine and mundane tasks in the IT function and align yourself to the needs of the business and the organisation.

How CIOs should think about business value - Creating Value for the Enterprise :

Many organisations cannot get a true fix on the value that IT adds to the businesses it serves – defining, measuring and maximising that value remains elusive. Needless to say, CIOs who are successful in this endeavor, broaden their scope of action beyond the technical sphere and traditional IT levers.

If we have to look at IT generated Value, the core business priorities for an organisation will be –

• Operational excellence
• Security and risk assurance
• Investment protection
• Operational Planning
• Innovation
• Transformation

The business value from IT is of an economic and strategic nature, it has different facets depending on business priorities. The metrics of measuring IT value vary in accordance with business context, prime driver being that business units own the IT projects and the value created.

Application of these thoughts and concepts in JSL :

The steel industry has seen tremendous pressure since the last couple of years, and we have seen a lot of contraction in the eco system. As an organisation, we have always been circumspect in our investments and spending pattern, and have a robust framework for corporate and IT governance in place. Some of the very interesting examples where IT has delivered significant value to the organisation are :

1.   Partner Eco System

• We have a well defined partner eco system which operates on integrity, trust and mutual respect. A very close alignment of the partners with our organisational vision and IT roadmap ensures a healthy and equitable relationship for both. Our cost conservation efforts resulted in almost 28 percent reduction in operational expenditure over the last two years.

2.   Innovation

• We used open source tools for our network monitoring system across the entire organisation. Since last four years, we had been on the lookout but the tools available were proprietary and expensive to own and sustain. This acted as a great motivator for the team and they were gainfully occupied during this tough time. In addition to that, we save money for the organisation as the investment was miniscule, compared to the gains.
• Another interesting deployment was on the front of security, where we moved our pattern update to the cloud. Quantifying the savings in time and effort – 80 percent.

3.   Transformation

• By actively investing in HMI (Human Machine Interface), we have brought a competitive edge to our organisation. Our efforts in implementation of bar coding at the shop floor, use of RF/ biometric systems for attendance recording, interface of SCADA with SAP in our manufacturing, etc., have all given a technology push to the organisation.

4.   Collaboration and Knowledge Management

• We have facilitated collaboration and knowledge management in JSL by deploying our corporate Intranet ‘JConnect’, which has been developed in house and is maintained by the team from IT and HR. We have our e-library called our knowledge centre, which is linked with this portal and information stored and available online is a real treasure.

5.   Security and Governance

• We have defined our IT vision and roadmap for a three-year period and have published it across the organisation. In addition to this, our internal team has created the IT Policy for JSL and its group entities and this is being deployed in a systematic manner to create a risk assured landscape.

Thus, it is clearly visible how the CIO and his team can be a value creator for the organisation, and the role goes much more beyond mere cost cutting and technology deployment.