Mentor: CIOs Need to Hone Business Skills to Become Entrepreneurs

Being a CIO used to be about fixing outages, upgrading dying legacy systems and plugging those nagging network problems. But today, the CIO is not merely a glorified IT manager. CIOs are finding themselves seated with management teams and in meetings where critical business decisions are made. This means that it’s not enough for me to know how technology can help users — with specific reference to stock exchanges — but I need to make sure that it can handle the demands of this business. Today, the stock exchange is under tremendous pressure, so technology has to constantly re-invent itself to come up with new solutions that can enhance business. And to do that I, like other CIOs need to think like an entrepreneur.

However, making the transition — from a CIO to an entrepreneur — is not easy. The willingness to take risks and having the guts to set up your own business are basic requirements. Running a business is a special skill by itself, but when it comes down to it, it's the risktaking ability that makes an entrepreneur.
In order to step into a business man’s shoes, a CIO needs to build a strong team with the right individuals. He should probably add a few more people whose KRAs include sales and revenue generation, in addition to serving the customer. Inducting new people just for their business abilities will help, but people in the IT team should also be trained in business. Throw in people who have both technical knowhow and marketing skills and you have a successful team.

Businessmen play with numbers. So, a CIO eager to be an entrepreneur needs to know about finance and some aspects of business like meeting sales targets, taking advantage of new business opportunities and creating long-term business plans. Most technology people are generally not very conversant with these skills but that knowledge is essential. IT folk also need to come out of being totally technology-oriented and be more service-oriented. That’s not very easy, since one has to unlearn years of being technically oriented and learn management skills. To a CIO, customer orientation and technology orientation are very important, but when a CIO becomes CEO, change management is probably his biggest responsibility. So much so that it should come naturally.

At BSE India, we have recently acquired an IT company, and plan to use its competence for our internal IT usage. In future, it may be put into a shared service to provide IT support to all the group companies and I may be heading that unit. In order to meet that challenge, my strongest point will be the fact that I have been a part of a committee of C-level executives in the past and at BSE. Besides, I am not basically an IT person. I have come from business to IT, so I have tasted both.
If I were to be a CEO, I would first identify the market and the kind of customers I will cater to. After that, I will plan for the stakeholders.  My unique proposition would be to create maximum customer stickiness, so that my revenue is ensured. The next objective would be to have a clear idea of my growth path and the number of years it would take for me to break even. Then, I would get a business plan in place. Eventually, I should get a team together.