Srinivasan Iyengar

Having said that, the dimensions of a CIO’s role are changing. IT now is everywhere, more so in the business. The extension of a CIO’s role into Operations, Risk Management explains the diversity of his position.

Moving into a COO role has its own challenges. There is shift from being analytical to increasingly being in ambiguity. There is a constant fear of losing technical base/expertise. Another factor which plays a key role is moving out of the comfort zone of IT. It is almost like hitting a Glass Ceiling or taking the risk of branching out. It’s a belief that a COO with tech background can excel better than a COO with Operations background. Business Innovation Initiatives such as owning and designing become easier as a COO.

It is also equally important to realize that as a COO, one is not supposed to embed technology in every business solution. I need to follow a balanced approach thereby implementing a successful business model. And the responsibility is not restricted to IT or Operations, but extends to the back-office as well. The focus suddenly shifts from technological innovation to Integrated Customer Service and End Customer, the target.

But it is easier to get lost in the realms of business and IT. What is essential is to bring about a change within yourself and thereby becoming more aligned to the role of a COO.  One key note to self is resist giving advice to IT heads even though you think you can be a better implementer. There is a need to make a shift from cost to operational metrics which should become the core measurement index.  Also, industry level forums should be set up for operations and customer service.  IT, Ops and Sales should be synchronized while making business decisions. This brings synergy and invokes harmony among various departments and brings an organization closer to its peers.

The previous knowledge of IT makes its evangelization easier across the organization. Sometimes, it is not possible to manage technology if one hasn’t got a view of the future, a reasonable, and a tactical plan for the current year. But, overall the move from CIO to COO has been fascinating, frustrating, sometimes very challenging and mostly rewarding – but certainly never dull.

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Alagandan Balaraman

Technical Innovation has a certain lifespan.  The innovators dilemma is that it rapidly cycles around different technologies over one another. In the last 20 years, we have gone through several changes in terms of functionality, reliability, convenience and price.

Rosebeth Moss Kanter, a professor in business at Harvard Business School once quoted, “Continuous evolution protects against revolution.” Voicing similar thoughts, Companies that don’t evolve have stuck to business models that once got them to the top. 

Our IT industry overestimates next year, but underestimates next day. Change will accelerate only with timely utilization of existing technologies, incorporating stabilization and welcoming new technologies.

Once the need to change is understood, the next step is how to incorporate change. There are 5 important characteristics which a CIO needs to understand while moving into a new role:

1) Opportunity: it is important to convert mundane things into an opportunity. Before moving into a new role, a CIO needs to view his tasks and figure out a technique which will turn them into opportunities. 

2) Leadership: When I moved into an HR role in Britannia Industries, a herculean task was: How do I drive change?  One way was creating a way for people to contribute to something extraordinary. Effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals.

3) Involvement: it is also important to understand once you become comfortable in a new role, it is important to constantly evolve in that role. This includes your adaptability to the new environment, interaction with your colleagues and juniors as well as your capability to drive change.

4) Humility: A quality by which a person considering his own defects has a humble opinion of himself and willingly submits himself to others. It is important to remember that you will always be a learner in life. In a new environment, you need to be humble and adjust to certain new developments which are new to you. So you remember your role as a task master, but do not forget your humility.

5) Fear: Fear is a constant companion. I asked myself with every new role, will I be able to do it? What if there are certain business models/theories which I am new to? A CIO moving into a new role will be well-versed with technology, but it may not be the same when it comes to Business. IT is always going to be around, but a CIO in his new role, needs to become an influencer in business process. Rather than an enabler, he needs to lead an operational role.

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Manish Choksi

I myself was a chemical engineer. I moved on to gain a MBA degree and I do believe I understand my business well enough. I almost finished my Master’s, but since there was a duality of choice at the time – I opted to directly enter business. I was lucky to be recognized by seniors in my firm despite not truly having an IT qualification. My only real qualification in IT is a love for gadgets and a belief in their power to transform society for good. This is part and parcel of what I should term “evolution”.

After engineering, I did a summer internship at Asian Paints. I learnt how it is like to deal with business partners. It takes a lot of days and involves a lot of processes. We all tend to play some leadership role, in one way or another. In fact, I think being creative involves engagement with customers.  One should also train to be innovative – for example, read books. You have to then ask yourself if you are helping shape trends in society. Are you pushing hard enough? Is the transformation smooth enough?

Because of our positions as CIOs and CXOs, we do lose touch with our day-to-day problems. The critical role that we must play is that of mentorship. We can utilize the power of technology, which has become ubiquitous in all senses. Technology must be used along different floors in companies such that it transforms company workings. The truth is that technology matters a lot, when it comes to enterprise.

Over time, we have come to deal with a new trend – people in business who compulsively use technology despite not being tech-averse. The feeling amongst business vendors is the same. If organizations invest enough resources in technology, then people will be ahead of the curve. We have a forecasting system in Asian Paints that helps with this.

Finally, I would like to talk about how much time is going to be spent in doing activities – IT is harder than simply business strategy. We need strategy and technology, as well as a strategy for technology. IT users in India’s nascent ecosystem are young. They can be retained with challenging products that creates a host of technology aspirants. For example, the latest developments seem to revolve around some kind of app culture with companies like Apple and Google participant.

Vinay Dhabolkar

Solver: India at that time was facing many problems during its struggle for independence. Eventually Gandhi focused on only one of them – political freedom. And he attacked the problem in a unique way that has inspired many till today. Solvers like Gandhi immerse themselves in a difficult problem and are always several steps ahead of their contemporaries in their approach.

Surfer: Surfers are always looking for waves, especially BIG waves. Many times they don’t know where the wave is going to lead them to. Jamshedji Tata’s adoption of a ring spindle, a new technology is an example. Tata’s implementation of the technology was the first of its kind in the country.

Capacity builder: Vikram Sarabhai is responsible in building innovation capacity in India through institutions like ATIRA, Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), ORG and IIM Ahmedabad. Sarabhai is also considered the architect of India’s space program. The secret, according to him, was in establishing a firm foundation: “The early beginnings of any institution are crucial, and the “culture” (or lack of it) brought the first entrants plays a significant role in establishing norms, procedures and practices” he said. Capacity builders work on various elements of the innovation ecosystem. Another of my favorite innovation capacity builders is: A G Lafley (P&G).

Champion: After taking over as railway minister in December 1989, George Fernandes quickly  started work on two projects which were uppermost in his mind and they were his dreams for a long time. One was a railway link between Chithoni and Bogha in Bihar crossing the mighty Gankat river and the other was the west coast railway connecting Bombay and Mangalore (later called Konkan railway). Champions support others’ ideas and help them move forward faster. Fernandes neither had the technical know-how nor had the resources. But he used his influence with Chief Ministers like Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad Yadav and senior ministers like Ramakrishna Hegde and Madhu Dandavate and removed the hurdles for each of the projects.

Organizations can exercise innovation in their process, product, business model and in the customer experience. For example, Tesco worked out a solution to improve or maintain customer experience along with simplifying employee work complexity. All managers in India go through Tesco Week in Store Together (TWIST) program whenever they visit a country with Tesco stores.

One can also draw an example out of Bill Gates’ twice yearly ritual of following a ‘Think Week’. It is during ‘Think Week’ that Bill came across a paper “The Internet Tidal Wave” that led Microsoft to develop its own internet browser.

Low-cost high speed experiments can best be explained by the “virus syndrome” in the movie ‘Three idiots’. CIOs need to focus on the learning and not worry about the outcome. After generating ideas of innovation, we must experiment and iterate even after encountering failures learning from each mistake.

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Sridhar Mitta

When I joined as a CTO and also as a first employee at Wipro, the charter was to build computers. I asked Premji,” You were in the business of vegetable oil, why did you venture into computers? What is your vision?” Azim Premji answered, “We want to be India’s IBM.” A vision reminds you continuously of what you are here for.

Basically when you are the head of a functional role like a CIO, until a certain level of excellence is achieved, people may not understand your contribution. Understanding one’s own role, then, becomes of paramount importance.

Often I see even CEOs don’t know what business they are in. A friend of mine in Silicon Valley who started off designing supercomputer on a chip but subsequently found his product’s application in the surveillance business had a similar predicament. When asked he’d say, “I’m in the supercomputer business.” The company’s subsequent customers came from the surveillance field. But he still remained confused with where his company’s core competencies lay.

Having known what business you’re in, we must also understand one’s regular customers. As a CTO I spent 50% of my time meeting existing as well as prospective customers, trying to comprehend their needs. Usually, functional heads are so internally pre-occupied that not many reach out to their customers and dig deeper into their needs.

Wipro’s entry into the computer business in the ‘90s was heavily driven by functional heads continuously operating in roles outside of their purview. Intel had introduced its 16 bit microprocessor to the worldwide market in 1986.

Wipro, being a small Indian company, never got much attention from international technological firms for sharing advanced product information or engineering samples. But as a result of frequent and continuous interaction with Intel, Wipro could get its hands on Intel’s advanced product information – a first time for anyone in India. We were then able to design a product based on Microprocessor 386.

But one problem still remained – and it was a big one. We were denied access to Unix’s source code as India was not a signatory to the Copyright Act for software. Success was finally achieved, when after repeated appeals to the Department of Telecom, the Act was amended. Wipro was now in the computer business.

A CIO ++ role functions in two levels. First, towards alignment of IT with business and second, a completely business role in itself.

I remember that in 1990 at Wipro, we were analyzing the future if the Indian economy were to open up as an after-effect of the government’s new economic policy for liberalization. The Indian market would soon be inundated with large companies like IBM and Compaq and none of the Indian companies including Wipro would have the resources to match up to them either in terms of technology, money, influence or in terms of standards.

At the same time it dawned on us that if the door was open for competition to enter, it was also open for us to leave. While the entire Indian market was thinking of becoming a channel for the impending growth of IT sector in India thanks to foreign companies, It was then that Wipro was looking into global opportunities. We then went on to pursue prospective clients offering them one-third of the usual cost and still making 40% profit. A responsible functional leader can also become a business leader while the others can wait and while away.