The Missing CIOs Found... [PDF]

7 Aug 2013 - Executive Editor: Yashvendra Singh. Managing Editor: Rachit Kinger. Consulting Editor: Atanu Kumar Das. Ass

17 downloads 34 Views 10MB Size

Recommend Stories


Body of missing Bartow man found
Life isn't about getting and having, it's about giving and being. Kevin Kruse

404 Not Found [PDF]
Mar 27, 2016 - [jonn2] comment5, no deposit bonus binary options brokers erfahrungen, ojc, binare optionen welcher broker, ron, dhbw stuttgart zitierrichtlinien ...... 137, come faccio a guadagnare con youtube, 529, management und vertrieb handel hei

Ten commandments for CIOS
Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself. Rumi

[PDF] Download QuickBooks 2015: The Missing Manual
I cannot do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good that I can do. Jana

[PDF] Download QuickBooks 2013: The Missing Manual
Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than the silience. BUDDHA

[PDF] QuickBooks 2016: The Missing Manual
The only limits you see are the ones you impose on yourself. Dr. Wayne Dyer

[PDF] Download QuickBooks 2016: The Missing Manual
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Anne

PDF Download QuickBooks 2015: The Missing Manual
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. Rumi

PdF Download QuickBooks 2016: The Missing Manual
Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful. George Bernard Shaw

PDF QuickBooks 2016: The Missing Manual
It always seems impossible until it is done. Nelson Mandela

Idea Transcript


T R A C K T E C H N O LO G Y

B U I LD B USI N ESS

SHAPE SELF

The Missing CIOs Found...

A 9.9 Media Publication

I BELIEVE

VIEWPOINT

NEXT HORIZONS

Data Security Concerns Pg 04

Blowing up the Business Model Pg 52

Creating a Culture of Creativity Pg 46

T R A C K T E C H N O LO G Y

B U I LD B USI N ESS

SHAPE SELF

...at Jaipur The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference witnessed more than 120 top CIOs gather from across the country to share and discuss transformational ideas Page 12

A 9.9 Media Publication

Volume 02 Issue 09 August 07 2013 150

editorial yashvendra singh | [email protected]

What an Idea!

To come up with transformational ideas, one would have to look elsewhere, in all probability in a completely new direction.

T

he former US President, Bill Clinton, had a novel way of coming up with ideas. He used to take part in a yearly retreat called Renaissance Weekends. Renaissance Weekend’s website describes the programme as an “inter-generational, invitation-only retreats for preeminent authorities, emerging leaders, and their families — have celebrated both ideas and relationships.” “Participants are noted innovators in business and finance, education, religion, law and medicine, government, the

media, science and technology, sports, non-profits and the arts. Their ground-breaking, off-therecord exchanges — through lectures, seminars and dicussions — build bridges across traditional divides of professions and politics, geography and generations, religions and philosophies. Civility prevails; partisanship is frowned upon; commercialism, banned,” the site says. After winning the Presidential elections in 1992, Clinton proceeded to his customary Renaissance Weekend. While it appeared odd to the media

editors pick 16

Ideas that Transform!

The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference witnessed more than 120 top CIOs gather to share and discuss transformational ideas

at that time, this was clearly Clinton’s way of building relationships and getting innovative ideas – something that he could not do otherwise. Similarly, after losing the elections for the mayor of New York in 1989, Rudy Giuliani decided to do something different in the 1993 elections. He decided to attend seminars at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank with a mission to “develop and disseminate new ideas…” Armed with the new learnings, Giuliani advocated transformational governance ideas, and triumphed in the elections. These are just two cases in point that highlight how leaders come up with their own approaches for generating ideas. For an enterprise technology decision maker, it is of utmost importance to come up with transformational ideas as the success of business is increasingly hinging on IT. However, it would not be a

great thought to look for pathbreaking ideas within your domain as a majority of these would be incremental ideas. To come up with transformational ideas, one would have to look elsewhere, in all probability in a completely new direction. The just concluded 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference presented one such opportunity for enterprise technology leaders to discuss transformational ideas. The event witnessed more than 120 top CIOs from across the country gather to share and discuss transformational ideas. We are dedicating this issue to the conference. Hope you find it inspiring enough to keep the spirit of ideation alive!

August 07 2013

1

august 2013

16 Cover Story

RegulArs

16 | Ideas that Transform!

S P I N E S P I N E

T R A C K T E C H N O LO G Y

09

VIEWPOINT

NEXT HORIZONS

Blowing up the Business Model Pg 52

Creating a Culture of Creativity Pg 46

T R A C K T E C H N O LO G Y

Volume 02 | Issue 09

A 9.9 Media Publication

I BELIEVE

Data Security Concerns Pg 04

Volume 02 Issue 09 August 07 2013 150

09

IDEAS THAT TRANSFORM!

August 07 2013

Volume 02 | Issue 09

2

Copyright, All rights reserved: Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. is prohibited. Printed and published by Anuradha Das Mathur for Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd, Bungalow No. 725, Sector - 1, Shirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai - 400706. Printed at Tara Art Printers Pvt ltd. A-46-47, Sector-5, NOIDA (U.P.) 201301

SHAPE SELF

The Missing CIOs Found...

IDEAS THAT TRANSFORM!

Please Recycle This Magazine And Remove Inserts Before Recycling

B U I LD B USI N ESS

CIO & LEADER.COM

CIO & LEADER.COM

The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference witnessed more than 120 top CIOs gather to share and discuss transformational ideas

01 | Editorial 06 | Enterprise Roundup 52 | viewpoint

B U I LD B USI N ESS

SHAPE SELF

...at Jaipur The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference witnessed more than 120 top CIOs gather from across the country to share and discuss transformational ideas Page 12

A 9.9 Media Publication

Cover design by: manav sachdev & Peterson PJ EVENT PHOTO by: Jiten Gandhi

www.cioandleader.com

46 NEXT Horizons

46 | Creating a Culture of Creativity

Want to develop a culture of creativity in your IT firm? You might need to change your current thinking about efficiency

advertisers’ index

20 | KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Hamish Taylor, Leadership Guru, feels that to be

22 | KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Gerry Pennell, CIO, London Olymics, talks about

innovative, a CIO needs to think differently

the challenges he faced to successfully deliver the London Olympics

IBM FC Smartlink IFC Schneider 5, 9 SAS Institute 11 HP 12,13 Lenovo IBC Vodafone BC

This index is provided as an additional service.The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Anuradha Das Mathur Editorial Executive Editor: Yashvendra Singh Managing Editor: Rachit Kinger Consulting Editor: Atanu Kumar Das Assistant Editor: Akhilesh Shukla Correspondent: Debashis Sarkar DEsign Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Sr. Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Director: Anil T Sr. Visualisers: Manav Sachdev & Shokeen Saifi Visualiser: NV Baiju Sr. Designers: Shigil Narayanan Haridas Balan & Manoj Kumar VP Designers: Charu Dwivedi Peterson PJ & Pradeep G Nair MARCOM Designer: Rahul Babu STUDIO Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Sr. Photographer: Jiten Gandhi advisory Panel Anil Garg, CIO, Dabur David Briskman, CIO, Ranbaxy Mani Mulki, VP-IT, ICICI Bank Manish Gupta, Director, Enterprise Solutions AMEA, PepsiCo India Foods & Beverages, PepsiCo Raghu Raman, CEO, National Intelligence Grid, Govt. of India S R Mallela, Former CTO, AFL Santrupt Misra, Director, Aditya Birla Group Sushil Prakash, Sr Consultant, NMEICT (National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology) Vijay Sethi, CIO, Hero MotoCorp Vishal Salvi, CISO, HDFC Bank Deepak B Phatak, Subharao M Nilekani Chair Professor and Head, KReSIT, IIT - Bombay NEXT100 ADVISORY PANEL Manish Pal, Deputy Vice President, Information Security Group (ISG), HDFC Bank Shiju George, Sr Manager (IT Infrastructure), Shoppers Stop Farhan Khan, Associate Vice President – IT, Radico Khaitan Berjes Eric Shroff, Senior Manager – IT, Tata Services Sharat M Airani, Chief – IT (Systems & Security), Forbes Marshall Ashish Khanna, Corporate Manager, IT Infrastructure, The Oberoi Group Sales & marketing National Manager – Events and Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (+91 98804 36623) National Sales Manager: Vinodh K (+91 97407 14817) Assistant General Manager Sales (South): Ashish Kumar Singh (+91 97407 61921) BRAND & EVENTS Brand Manager: Jigyasa Kishore (+91 98107 70298) Product Manager-CSO Forum: Astha Nagrath (+91 99020 93002) Manager: Sharath Kumar (+91 84529 49090) Assistant Manager: Rajat Ahluwalia (+91 98998 90049) Assistant Brand Managers: Nupur Chauhan (+91 98713 12202) Vinay Vashistha (+91 99102 34345) Assistant Manager – Corporate Initiatives (Events): Deepika Sharma Associate – Corporate Initiatives (Events): Naveen Kumar Production & Logistics Sr. GM. Operations: Shivshankar M Hiremath Manager Operations: Rakesh Upadhyay Asst. Manager - Logistics: Vijay Menon Executive Logistics: Nilesh Shiravadekar Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics: MP Singh & Mohd. Ansari OFFICE ADDRESS Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Anuradha Das Mathur. Published at Bungalow No. 725, Sector - 1, Shirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai - 400706. Printed at Tara Art Printers Pvt Ltd. A-46-47, Sector-5, NOIDA (U.P.) 201301 For any customer queries and assistance please contact [email protected]

August 07 2013

3

I Believe

By Bipul Parua, CTO and co-founder at Knowlarity Communications The Author has helped take the company to the next level by building a telephony platform that can withstand the fluctuating demands of thousands of SME and enterprise customers

Data Security Concerns There are 6 parameters of measuring risk to data security

In 2009, CTO’s were still trying to get their heads around cloud telephony; in 2013 they have become its biggest advocates. How did this happen? In order to understand this phenomenon better, we have to go back to the economic conditions prevailing in those days.  Outsourcing has today emerged as a good option. The CTO had to decide whether to retain in-house expertise or outsource. They had to balance the benefits of building their own telecom infrastructure vs. outsourcing. Outsourcing provided various cost advantages that were too big for a business to ignore in the

4

August 07 2013

current challenge convincing CIOs to outsource

prevailing economic downturn.  When concerns about data security were inevitably raised it became the job of a CTO to evaluate the risks and make recommendations as necessary. Ideally, there are six parameters of measuring risk to data security. They are confidentiality, integrity, availability, utility, authenticity and possession.      1) Confidentiality implies secrecy of information. The CTO’s role in ensuring data security is crucial to any enterprise. Every system has some trade-off eventually. CTO’s have to decide whether the trade –off is justifiable. 2) Integrity of data is important to any client oriented setup. There must be systems and protocols in place to prevent unauthorised access to data. Most cloud telephony platforms provide access to data in a highly controlled environment to prevent tampering of data. CTO’s must check the checks and balances in place to ensure integrity of data at all times.  3) Availability implies unhindered access to data to those with the right authorisation. A key element is availability of bandwidth. Thanks to the telecom revolution bandwidth availability is no longer a problem making it much easier to say yes to cloud.      4) Data has utility only and only when it can be processed by those authorised by admin without any restriction at anytime of the day. Since cloud telephony provides a cloud-based data storage facility accessibility is not a problem. In fact cloud databases unites a geographically dispersed workforce on a single collaborative platform.  5) Authentication is important to data security because important business decisions are made on the authenticity of data. By ensuring access to data businesses can ensure the quality of decision making.  6) Last but not least, possession of data is important to a business. They must have full and unhindered access to data, at all times. 

Production Manager Maximize production; ensure operational safety.

IT Manager

Chief Sustainability Officer Drive sustainability strategy; optimize resource efficiency.

Facilities Manager Manage energy, lighting, safety, security, and HVAC.

Ensure uptime and availability.

Chief Executive Officer Achieve competitive advantage through an efficient enterprise.

Now, enterprise-wide energy efficiency is at your fingertips

StruxureWare software delivers enhanced visibility for fast, informed decision-making You can’t manage what you can’t see. To optimize business performance and conserve enterprise resources, you need an efficiency and sustainability strategy driven by powerful, intelligent software that is integrated and engineered to work together. StruxureWare™ software applications and suites from Schneider Electric™ are the answer.

The right information to the right user at the right time

Five critical ways StruxureWare software helps you from shop floor to top floor

Open, scalable, and easily integrated with third-party and legacy systems, StruxureWare software is a unique platform of applications and suites that gives you visibility into energy and other resource use across your organization. Control rising energy costs; meet reporting obligations; keep stakeholders informed and engaged. No matter what your challenge, you’ll get customized, actionable information that eliminates departmental silos and conflict. And, when you deploy StruxureWare software within EcoStruxure™ integrated system architecture, you can realize significant savings on capital and operational expenses.

A global leader in efficiency and sustainability Ranked 13 on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies, Schneider Electric has the solutions and expertise you need to maximize efficiency and minimize environmental impact. Independent analyst firm Verdantix named Schneider Electric a ‘Leader’ in energy management software, citing a compelling market vision, robust capabilities, and best-in-class partner network that ‘set the bar high’. th

Access data instantly: Get the information you need, when and where you need it, presented in a form that meets your requirements.

Share information confidently: Provide accurate,

timely information across and outside your organization.

Create actionable reports: Develop critical reporting tools, empowering your enterprise to take action. Make informed decisions: Work from one, integrated, real-time version of the truth, eliminating guesswork in decision-making.

Operate more efficiently: Identify ways to save energy, enabling efficiency and process improvements.

From theory to reality: 3 steps to implementing a sustainability programme

> Executive summary

Where are you on the road to sustainability? Find out when you download ‘From theory to reality: 3 steps to implementing a sustainability programme’. Plus, enter to win an iPad mini!

Visit www.SEreply.com Key Code 50456y ©2013 Schneider Electric. All Rights Reserved. Schneider Electric and StruxureWare are trademarks owned by Schneider Electric Industries SAS or its affiliated companies. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. www.schneider-electric.com • 998-1169566_IN

Enterprise

India Sees 280% Increase in Bot Infections Pg 08

image BY photos.com

Round-up

story Inside

Web makes Big Impact on SMEs

Their revenue grows by 51% FICCI, in partnership with Google released new

research that showed the web makes a big impact on small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in India. The report, compiled and presented by Nathan Associates, showed that SMEs, who use the web, fare much better than those that do not. On an average, webenabled SMEs boasted revenues 51 percent higher, 49 percent more profit, and customer bases seven percent broader than their offline-only counterparts. The study revealed significant opportunities both for India’s booming SME sector, where fewer than five percent of all businesses even maintain a web presence, and for India’s economy: small medium

6

August 07 2013

enterprises are critical to the economic growth in India, where 47 million SMEs employ about 100 million people and contribute more than eight percent of India’s GDP. According to the report, only 51 percent of online SMBs use the web to advertise a mere 27 percent use it for e-commerce. But with 95 percent of businesses yet to even establish a website; India is poised for big gains as more small enterprises come online. The study showed that Internet use was the highest among SMEs in the IT & ITES, tourism/ transportation, chemical products (96 percent) and pharmaceuticals (95 percent). Only 49 per cent of Internet using SMEs surveyed had websites.

Data Briefing

$288 billion Will be the size of worldwide IT outsourcing market in 2013

Enterprise Round-up

They P Said it chidambaram

image by anil t

Chidambaram recently said people should not be worried about the current slowdown and expressed hope of achieving six percent growth this fiscal.

TRAI Allows Mass Porting of Corporate Mobile Numbers To be effective in the next three months In a major push to the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) system in the country, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has allowed mass portability for corporate accounts. This means mobile numbers can be ported to corporate accounts, provided there's a letter of authorisation from the authorised signatory of the corporate mobile numbers. “After implementation of Mobile Number Portability, the Authority had received complaints form the subscribers of corporate mobile numbers that their porting requests have been rejected by the donor operators under the category “Contractual Obligation” for want of permission/authorization from the company/corporate for porting such numbers.” The regulator said it examined the complaints and had come to a conclusion that there was need to have a porting access for corporate mobile numbers where users of mobile numbers are from the organisation, who is the owner of such mobile numbers. Salient features of this amendment are — Up to 50 corporate mobile numbers of a service provider can be ported to another service provider through letter of authority from the authorisation signatory of the corporate mobile numbers. The amendments will become effective in 90 days as the Telecom Service Providers will require time to carryout required changes.

“People should remember India continues to be the second fastest growing economy after China. Even China’s growth which was at 10 percent has come down to seven percent now, while our growth has slid to five percent from nine percent”

— P Chidambaram, Finance Minster, Govt. of India.

image BY photos.com

Quick Byte IT market

Worldwide IT spending will grow by just two percent this year, says Gartner. The new forecast is down from the 4.1 percent growth that was predicted by the research firm just three months earlier

August 07 2013

7

Enterprise Round-up

“This year’s ISTR shows a clear focus among cybercriminals at targeting individuals, systems and organisations where the highest profits can be made,” said Anand Naik, Managing Director-Sales, India & SAARC, Symantec. “India continues to rank high in the list for even the most basic threats, pointing to the need for improved awareness levels and security measures, even as the country’s adoption of Internet and mobile technologies is on the rise.”

illustration by photos.com

Emerging Indian Cities Remain on Cyber Attackers’ Radar

India Sees 280 percent Increase in Bot Infections The country

continues to rank high in the list of even the most basic threats India has seen a 280 percent increase in bot infections that is continuing to spread to a larger number of emerging cities in India, according to a report from Symantec Corp. With the prevalence of such infections, it is not surprising that the country accounts for nearly 15 percent of global bot-net spam, responsible for disseminating an estimated 280 million spam messages per day worldwide.

In addition, the report highlights a 42 percent surge during 2012 in global targeted attacks, as compared to the prior year. Designed to steal intellectual property, these targeted cyber espionage attacks are increasingly hitting small businesses, which are the target of 31 percent of these attacks across the world. Small businesses are attractive targets themselves and a stepping stone to ultimately reaching larger companies.

Global Tracker

IT Spending

Forrester Research predicted global IT spending

will reach $2.06 trillion in 2013, with software and apps driving growth 8

August 07 2013

The Indian security threat landscape witnessed a 280 percent increase in bot infections. While cities including Bhubaneswar, Surat, Cochin, Jaipur, Vishakhapatnam and Indore continue to see bot infections, some of the new entrants inducted to the list of bot infected locations in 2012 are Kota, Ghaziabad and Mysore. Bot infected computer activities can be classified as actively attacking bots or bots that send out spam such as spam zombies. Spam zombies are remotely controlled, compromised systems specifically designed to send out large volumes of junk or unsolicited email messages. The email messages can be used to deliver malicious code and phishing attempts. Globally, India is ranked first for spam zombies with 17 percent of spam zombies located in the country. Evidently the country is responsible for disseminating into cyberspace an estimated 280 million spam messages per day.

Small Businesses Are the Path of Least Resistance Targeted attacks are growing rapidly among businesses with fewer than 250 employees. Globally, small businesses are now the target of 31 percent of all attacks, a threefold increase from 2011. Attackers hone in on small businesses that may often lack adequate security practices and infrastructure. An indicator of this trend extending to India is that small businesses received the highest number of phishing and virus-bearing emails. One in 661 emails was a phishing email for small Indian businesses and one in 248 emails carried a virus, while for larger Indian enterprises with 1,000-1,500 employees, one in 4,751 emails was a phishing email and one in 1,611 carried a virus.

Enterprise Round-up

image BY photos.com

Google India To Help SMEs Adopt Digital Advertising Another innovative initiative from the Internet search giant

google plans to launch a new initiative that aims to help small and medium businesses, SMEs, in India grow by adopting the digital advertising. The internet search giant will soon provide expertise to the Indian entrepreneurs in developing and launching online campaigns for their businesses. The training will focus on Indian SMEs in southern region. According to Google managing director Todd Rowe, the programme will cover training on search engine marketing, localised solutions for

Google's properties and mobile advertising platform among others. Google has already roped in 16 SMEs for the training programme. Rowe says Google has already provided training to about 3,000 sales personnel to help SMEs tap the digital advertising. “During the training programme, partners will have access to our products, co-branded market collateral and research through our marketing and sales support,” Rowe said, adding, “We hope to replicate the model in the southern region to add 3,000 more sales force by doubling our partner base.” “We aim to get 500,000 SMEs across the country on online with a website by 2015,” Rowe further said. Getit Infomedia chief executive, Jaspreet Bindra, says the initiative will highly benefit the Indian SMEs. “We have entered into a strategic alliance with Google India through its premier SME partner programme to increase our presence across the country. With 1,000 plus sales force and presence across 150 cities, we have engaged over 3,000 SMEs to manage their digital advertising efforts. We are now looking to become a premier supermarket for all digital advertising needs of SMEs across the country,” Bindra said. Google has launched quite a few programmes for Indian SMEs in the past. Back in May, the company slashed Google Apps for Businesses pricing by 45 percent – a move aimed at encouraging Indian SMEs adopting the cloud technology. Google Apps suite for businesses include solutions web mail, calendars, cloud storage, and video meetings through Google’s consumer products, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, and Hangouts. The services are available across mobile platforms and devices.

Fact ticker

IDC Ranks SAS No. 1 Advanced Analytics Provider

SAS has held this position since 1997

SAS, a provider of business analytics software and services, continues to hold a commanding market share in the global advanced analytics market, according to an IDC report titled ‘Worldwide Business Analytics Software 20132017 Forecast and 2012 Vendor Shares’. SAS has held this leading

10

August 07 2013

position since IDC started tracking advanced analytics in 1997. The IDC research showed analytics leader SAS with a 36.2 percent share of the 2012 global advanced analytics, up almost a percentage point from a year earlier and twice the market share of the next closest competitor. In fact,

all of the named advanced analytics providers' market share combined totaled just 24.9 percent. SAS' 2012 share in advanced analytics of 36.2 up from 35.3 percent in 2011 and 34.9 percent in 2010, outpacing growth of the overall advance analytics market, according to IDC. “The market research numbers, with SAS as the top advanced analytics supplier, reflect customer confidence that SAS Analytics with its 37-year pedigree offers customers improved performance,” said Jim Davis, SAS Senior VP and CMO.

Cloud

H

P Enterprise Services has announced new and enhanced services that help clients streamline the integration and deployment of critical applications to cloud environments. Part of the HP Converged Cloud, enhancements to HP Enterprise Cloud Services for Enterprise Applications offer clients choice, consistency and confidence with automated deployment when migrating to the cloud. HP Application Transformation to Cloud Services, part of the HP Converged Cloud Professional Services Suite, has been enhanced to deliver the tools and methods designed to support the entire applications life cycle. Automated discovery of applications and data is now integrated with the automated provisioning and deployment platform. This supports simplified and accelerated identification of IT assets. HP Application Transformation to Cloud Service also is integrated with full systems life cycle support, including portfolio management, defect resolution and operations support. The addition of cloud security and data management processes and tools are designed to address the risks of cloud deployment.

C I O & L E A D E R c u s t o m s erie s | H P

HP Mission Critical Cloud —Innovation to

the Core

IT resources in today’s enterprises are directly linked to drive business outcomes. Scalability, continuous availability and efficiency are what organisations are looking from IT to achieve their business goals and improve productivity. Extreme market conditions drive huge challenge on the enterprise to deliver more from less of Capex

H

P's mission critical cloud is designed to anticipate and manage workloads to meet the demanding enterprise needs. With HP integrity servers as the key pillar stone, applications are made resilient and flexible to meet the needs of the future. Businesses are kept up and running with a simple, integrated and automated environment to augment business growth. “At HP our consistent endeavour is to enable customers to benefit from all streams of cloud viz build, manage, secure and consume. Our close engagement with

12

August 07 2013

many of our customers and prospects reiterates our converged cloud strategy of allowing traditional IT and different cloud delivery models to co-exist and deliver ITas-a-service on a self-service model. Our current converged cloud solutions address these aspects, keeping in mind all workloads across cross-section of customers,” says V Ramachandran, Country Manager CI and Cloud Solutions, HP India. Agrees Santanu Ghose, Director, Business Critical Systems, HP India “With HP business critical systems, CIO’s have the best lever to address varied compute workloads to meet the business needs, keeping the

future in mind. It plays a vital role to maintain topmost up-time as business demands zero compromise on scalability. With mission-critical cloud, we are able to provide the value of unix servers with the current selfservice delivery models. Customers today are looking for SLA-based service and HP's mission critical cloud solutions address these critical customer needs.”

Saving Costs by Using HP Mission Critical Concept Enterprises are concerned about the total cost of ownership (TCO) and every IT expansion project are drilled down to derive the

H P | C I O & L E A D E R c u s t o m s erie s

most of the investment. HP’s mission critical cloud based on HP Unix servers provides greater savings on IT operations, reduces application deployment time with much reduced downtime. These savings can help CIOs to reclaim resources and put them for IT innovation and newer business needs to bring competitive value in their market place. High-availability is one of the key drivers for Unix server adoption. Moreover, HP-Ux operating system is designed to take advantage of every component of the hardware to deliver maximum uptime and performance. Its stability meets the zero downtime needs arising out of emerging applications that needs to be accessed anytime, anywhere. HP-UX extends extreme efficiency, global workload management and security as part of the operating environment. Current Unix systems deliver huge gain in per core performance. Adds Ghose, “We have a very compelling TCO. So much so that we are seeing customers in the SMB segment also adopting HP Unix and integrity systems.” “We understand every component that is required to build the best data center. With market leading products and services from HP to address this space, HP cloud solution delivers one virtualised pool of network, storage and computing resources that can be continuously optimised and instantly adjusted to meet dynamic business needs. With HP CloudSystem Matrix we could reclaim and re-provision resources to bring in the much needed agility. With our agnostic approach on the supply layer, the orchestration layer connects and establishes all key components such as portal, capacity planning, resource provisioning, analytics up to charge back basis demand to deliver true self-service infrastructure,” says Ramachandran.

HP Cloud Maps — Another Innovative Offering HP cloud maps provide the fastest way to create new application service delivering repeatable, proven deployments to lower risk and assure optimised performance and service levels. By using HP cloud maps, enterprises can quickly create new cloud

V. Ramachandran, Country Manager,

Santanu Ghose, Director,

CI & Cloud Solutions, HP India

Business Critical Systems, HP India

service offerings for HP CloudSystem, in less than an hour which in the traditional way would have taken many weeks. HP CloudSystem matrix comes with 200+ HP cloud maps that benefits enterprises to auto-provision infrastructure for operating systems and key applications. Cloud maps includes advanced application deployment, life cycle management, patching and code release, compliance service design and configuration management. HP propagates the need for complete,

integrated and open architecture for cloud and CloudSystem matrix based on Openstack technology reiterates this. It is complete as the solution spans from bare metal to infrastructure provisioning, fully integrated with all Infrastructure components and management tools and open with its agnostic supply layer support. CloudSystem matrix also supports cloud bursting to enable private clouds to be fully elastic. HP CloudSystem matrix can burst workloads onto all Openstack-based public cloud and matrix to matrix environments. And most importantly, HP cloud solutions enable standard based fast track transformation to cloud with full understanding of retaining traditional IT solutions and deliver speed to innovation, better agility, faster deployment and reduced downtime for businesses of all sizes.

HP’s mission critical cloud based on CloudSystem Matix and HP-UX servers provides greater savings on IT operations, reduces application deployment time and ensuring up to 99.999% uptime

brought to you by

August 07 2013

13

LETTERS CIO&Leader LinkedIn Group Join over 900 CIOs on the CIO&Leader LinkedIn group for latest news and hot enterprise technology discussions. Share your thoughts, participate in discussions and win prizes for the most valuable contribution. You can join The CIO&Leader group at: www.linkedin.com/ groups?mostPopular=&gid=2580450

Some of the hot discussions on the group are: Virtual CTO/CIO A long term IT partner for your business growth

are CTOs more interested in satisfying the CFO & Board rather than the consumer?

CTO is aligned to the CFO and the Board in that order. The CTO will have to also be good at resume writing as he will not last too long. But then the question arises, is the CFO aligned to the consumer? If he is not, then he may be in hot water sooner or later.

This is a model that SMBs are slowly waking up to. While their IT head can chip away with his day-to-day activities, an external help (a part time CIO) can give their IT a proper direction and can review performance to ensure the company's objectives are met.

—Balasubramanian S R Business & IT Consultant

CIO&LEADER. COM

Zafar Saeed, CTO, Albion Security, shares his views on security breaches

http://www. cioandleader. com/cioleaders/ features/10316/ employees-responsible-intrusions

Opinion “security is a boardroom issue”

arun gupta, CIO, Cipla

Diwakar Dayal, Lead — Security, BNS, Cisco India discusses about security With security gradually becoming a boardroom issue, the CISOs role has evolved dramatically. To read the full story go to: http://www.cioandleader. com/cioleaders/features/10362/-securityboardroom-issue

WRITE TO US: CIO&Leader values your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and how to make it a better read for you. Our endeavour continues to be work in progress and your comments will go a long way in making it the preferred publication of the CIO Community. Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to [email protected]

14

August 07 2013

Diwakar Dayal, leadsecurity, BNS, Cisco india & saarc

Do you have future CIOs in your team?

Presents

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

MANAGEMENT

AWARD INDIA’s FUTURE CIOs

The pace of business is accelerating around the globe. As customers become more savvy, and market conditions become increasingly dynamic, IT managers need to ensure that their organizations are prepared to successfully plan and deploy IT infrastructure that meets user needs- speedily and comprehensively.

POWERED BY

If you think that you have mastered the art and science of effectively managing enterprise IT infrastructure, PROVE IT NOW. How to Apply: Register for POCKET CIO Program in a city of your choice by going to www.next100.itnext.in/pocketcio Attend the IT Infrastructure Management session which will be conducted by experts from HCL Infosystems

By Applying you stand a chance to: Win the Regional IT Infrastructure Management Award Win the National IT Infrastructure Management Award Secure interview with the Jury of NEXT100 and potentially win the NEXT100 awards Get “Pocket CIO” achievement certification WORKSHOP CALENDAR

BENAGALURU 23 - 24 AUGUST 2013 MUMBAI 6 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2013 DELHI 13 - 14 SEPTEMBER 2013

REGISTER TODAY

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

MANAGEMENT AWARD

Ideas t Transfo The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference witnessed more than 120 top CIOs from across the country gather to share and discuss transformational ideas By Team CIO&Leader Design by Anil VK | Photographs by Jiten Gandhi

16

August 07 2013

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

hat rm! T

he journey of a CIO is not just about optimising current systems or redefining processes by technology deployment, it is about ideas that transform —business, people and oneself. To celebrate this transformational journey of the CIO, the 14th Annual CIO&Leader conference was dedicated to the ideas that transform! The three-day conference, held from 2-4 August at Jaipur, witnessed more than 120 top CIOs from across the country gather to share and discuss transformational ideas. To begin with, the format of the event itself was transformational. The agenda had innovative topics and engagement concepts for CIOs. The Strategym, Ideas Café, and CEO Debate not only provided immense value add to technology leaders, they did so in an inventive manner. The CIOs also got an opportunity to listen to and interact with globally-renowned thinkers. Hamish Taylor, an expert on leadership, innovation and branding and, Gerry Pennell, CIO for the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics provided insights into transformational change and project management. The event presented an opportunity for enterprise technology decision makers to debate, discuss, network, engage and share ideas in a magnificent setting that gave them the right mix of think, live, work, and play.

COVER STORY | CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE

18

August 07 2013

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference turned out to be a grand event. The interactivity and the engagement of the enterprise technology decisionmakers was at a level not seen before. By bringing their expertise and staying proactive throughout the three-day event, the more than 120 top CIOs made the conference a resounding success August 07 2013

19

Keynote Speaker | HAMISH TAYLOR

Think Differently Taylor believes that to be innovative, a CIO needs to start thinking differently in the way he looks at his customers

I

t is important for an enterprise technology decision-maker to have domain expertise. However, too much focus on a single domain could hinder innovation. This, and several other insights were provided by renowned expert on leadership, innovation and branding, Hamish Taylor, during his keynote address at the 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference. “Despite being a non-IT guy, I have something to share with every CIO, and which is common to every business. Breakthroughs always come from the ability of an organisation to look outside its current environment. The environment can be outside the industry or outside a discipline. For instance, marketing can learn from finance and viceversa. Being too much the expert on one domain restrains innovation,” he said. Former CEO of Sainsbury Bank and Managing Director of Eurostar UK, Taylor now advises clients like Time Warner, General

20

August 07 2013

Motors and Citibank. In the past, Taylor has also worked with P&G, British Airways, and PriceWaterHouse Coopers. Taylor believes that to be innovative, a CIO needs to start thinking differently in the way he looks at his customers. “Most of the times huge business opportunities come from simple observations and not through deep analysis of the customers’ world. Sometimes you will just have to throw away the rule book and simply observe the world and the customer to come up with ideas. If we really want tranformation, we need to let our teams look at other source of inspiration,” he said. Highlighting the need for soft insights, Taylor said, “Getting soft insights implies understanding the world within which your customers live. It entails whether or not you have understood the little things in the world of your customers like feelings, outlook, and language. These minute details

form the base of transformational ideas.” “If your behaviour is driven by what your customer wants, their behaviour is driven by what their customer wants. So, if you don't understand your customer's customer, how can you understand what drives your customer who is doing business with you?” he said. Taylor also underlined the disconnect between seniority and customer insights. He said, “Another problem with senior employees is the more seniority one attains, he or she moves further away from the customer. But at the same time with seniority, people take bigger and important decisions. So, this creates a gap in knowing the customer and taking crucial business decisions, which is dangerous. Having a mechanism to share these soft insights within the organisation is very important as the senior team player must know these insights to take better business decisions,” he added.

“Most of the times huge business opportunities come from simple observations and not through deep analysis of the customers’ world” Hamish Taylor

Leadership Expert

August 07 2013

21

Keynote Speaker | Gerry Pennell

Technology for Transformation Pennell overcame numerous challenges in the run-up to, and during the London Olympics 2012 to help deliver successful games by leveraging technology

I

t is beyond doubt that technology, when deployed, can have a transformational impact. The London Olympics was one such event where technology played an important role. However, a project of such a magnitude also has several challenges associated with it. “There is a lot of difference between running a corporate IT infrastructure and delivering a high profile event like Olympics. Event like this have high profile expectations from people across the globe, which you cannot control. You have only one chance to deliver the event. It has to perfect and should match the expectations. This is very different from any corporate environment, where you get an opportunity to test, tweak or reset the entire technology infrastructure to get results or meet the management exceptions. In such events, if things went wrong on the day one, you will have to live with it for rest of the days,” said

22

August 07 2013

Gerry Pennell, CIO for the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. Things become more challenging when a CIO has to work for an industry which is new to technology adoption. “No Olympic ever was delivered using technology before 2002. Besides, there is no technology innovation specific for delivering games. The biggest change between London Olympics and Beijing was the access of information on mobile phones and tablets. Similarly, the biggest change between Australia Olympics and London was usage of high resolution digital cameras,” he said. “Imagine the kind for bandwidth requirement when 100s of photojournalist clicking pictures 16 frames per second using a 16 MP camera and sending it to their respective offices,” Pennell said, while delivering the keynote address at the 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference.

The rise of mobility further posed a challenge to Pennell. Sixty percent of the over all traffic that came to the data centers during peak hours was from mobile phones. “People were using mobile applications developed by us or applications of news website, which was synced with our application. People were even using hand-held devices to get updates of game results, while watching TV or doing any other work,” he said. “Lawn tennis was one the event that got huge attention, as the local boy Andy Murray, who later won the men's singles tennis gold, was on winning trajectory,” he recalled. Most of the people in the Olympic committee had never delivered an event before, which added to the existing challenge. Pennell, however, overcame all the challenges and was successful in delivering smooth games.

“Lessons from deploying a project whose deadline cannot change…” Gerry Pennell

CIO for the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics

August 07 2013

23

Leadership Creativity Innovation discussions

The three-day event highlighted issues that were on top of the mind of the CIOs

T

he three-day event raised some of the biggest challenges confronting CIOs today. Whether it was the emerging pay-per-use model that is transforming the CIO-vendor relationship or today’s challenging economic environment impacting business, the conference witnessed a healthy debate and incisive responses from the participants. One of the interesting sessions at the event was the CEO Debate, which presented an opportunity for CIOs to directly confront the vendor CEOs with their issues. The topic of the debate was ‘Are vendors and CIOs aligned to the same goals?’ Given today’s scenario, CIOs want solutions and services that are reliable, flexible, scalable and economical. The vendors, however, want to be healthy, profitable and successful. In such a state of affairs where business growth is increasingly getting driven by technology, this question needed an urgent answer, which was addressed by this panel. Jayantha Prabhu, Group CTO, Essar Group, spoke about how vendors could help CIOs with new projects. He said, “We are leveraging vendors better by creating an internal innovation team in our IT department. The team helps business owners understand the pain

24

August 07 2013

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

CIOs listening to the CXO panel discussion at the event

(Left to Right) Giridhar Rajagopalan, Group Editor, 9.9 Media, Col. Atul Holkar, Senior VP & Head SCM, Varun Beverages, Gulshan Dua, Country Controller, Freescale Semiconductor and Dr Anil Chinnabhandar, VP – Supply Chain, Lifestyle International points and requirements. We then choose four or five vendors and work closely with them providing them with the list of our requirements. We subsequently ask the vendor to do a POC setup and then create a business case along with the vendor before going to the board. We let the vendor present the particular case to the board.” Throwing light on how BlackBerry was enabling employees to strike the work-like balance, Sunil Lalvani, Managing Direcor, BlackBerry India, said, “At BlackBerry, we create a partition in the employees' device. The IT team cannot sneak into the personal partition of the employees' while the corpo-

rate data in the device remains totally under control. In BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, we have several tools to prevent work data moving into the personal partition or viceversa.” Sanjay Deshmukh, Area Vice President, Citrix India, underlined the importance of letting employees have their personal data on the company’s device. “Due to BYOD policies stating that the company has the right to wipe clean data from the employees' device, initially, the uptake of BYOD was in single digits. A better approach would be to leave the data and focus on applications and secure it. The

employee is at peace as there is no risk of data loss. All the company has to do is just secure its applications,” he said. Talking about how vendors could garner more trust from a CIO, Ambarish Deshpande, Managing Director, Bluecoat said, “A CIO loves you but he also wants the best technology for his organisation at the best price. I feel that the vendor has to understand the pain points of the CIO. If you are able to do that as a vendor, I think that would bring a lot of credibility. Mostly, vendors approach the CIO without knowing their pain points. The CIO realises that the vendor is trying to sell something and not

August 07 2013

25

COVER STORY | CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE

trying to resolve his problem, and this leads to a conflict.” Echoing the sentiment, P Sridhar Reddy, Founder and CEO, CtrlS said that his company believed in trusting the CIO and meeting his expectations. “We have a simple rule at CtrlS, if a CIO asks for something that means we have already agreed to deliver otherwise the CIO wouldn't have asked. Trust the CIO and just deliver, period. Sometimes it could lead to extra cost but majority of times we have seen customers mostly ask for whatever has been already put up on the contract. This mantra has worked wonders for us,” he said. Alok Bharadwaj, Executive Vice President, Canon, meanwhile elaborated on how to choose the best governance model between suppliers and technology. “The whole game here is how do you secure competitive advantage. The key is whether to continue with the same partner or opt for a new partner to get technological advantage. In the current situation, service level agreements are becoming very important. I think vendors who have a diversified

experience or sometimes specialised experience in some verticals are beginning to get advantage. But in general, any proposition that can give a better competitive edge will be desired.” The panel discussion on ‘Pay-per-use Relationships: Is the role of the CIO over?’ built on the premise that in today’s world hardware, and to an extent, software and applications, are just a means to an end, rather than hallowed and holy platforms to be venerated through long and arduous life cycles. This has affected the role of the CIO. Giving his point of view, Mukund Prasad, CIO, Welspun Group, said that models like pay-per-use present a very good opportunity for smaller organisations to leverage IT for business expansion and achieving targets. “However the opportunity in bigger organisations is limited, as the IT budget is less than 10 percent of the overall budget of the organisation and opting for pay-per-use model, which cuts cost by six to seven percent has a miniscule impact.” Prashun Dutta, CIO, Tata Power, felt that the cloud model itself had certain shortcomings that made CIOs apprehensive about it.

(Left to Right) Yashvendra Singh, Executive Editor, CIO&Leader, Ashish Chauhan, MD &CEO, BSE, Sanjeev Prasad, CIO, Genpact and Bhaskar Raj, CIO, FIS Global at a panel discussion on ‘Overcoming the ROI Roadblock.’

26

August 07 2013

“A CIO has some apprehension about using services like cloud, as his critical data goes out of the company,” he said, adding, “Such models are helpful for companies shifting to an opex model from a capex model. In India, however, some organisations are good in generating capital. Besides, IT is very small investment vis-avis the overall expenditure. So, pay-per-use is not a lucrative model in terms of cost benefits.” Rajiv Batra, CIO, MTS believes that the pay-per-use model would not affect the role of CIOs. “Every organisation has a complex IT infrastructure and they need a CIO to take care of that. The per-per-use model is still is in a early stage in India. Vendors do not have standardised methods of billing. They charge as per their convenience. Also, there is a little or no clarity from the regulatory side,” he said. “It would take another five to six years for things to settle and that would be the right time to consider such a model for large scale implementations,” opined Batra. The panel discussion ‘Transforming Business: What is the CIO’s mandate?’ focused on transforming business in today's challenging business environment. New technology paradigms in combination with an uncertain economic environment are resulting in complex operational environments. In this fluid environment, the challenge for the CIO is to prioritise demands, balance investments and ensure organisational agility. Talking about the challenges that are existing in today's economic scenario, Col. Atul Holkar, Senior VP & Head Supply Chain Management, Varun Beverages said, “The survivability of an organisation in the future will depend on how well the supply chain is run. Cost is a major concern for the CIO. Some of the key challenges include higher transportation costs, availability of skilled manpower and input costs of supply chain increasing by the day. The government policies are not friendly and so the kind of pressure which the supply chain head is handling is immense.” Throwing some light on the current business and the economic environment, Gulshan Dua, Country Controller, Freescale Semiconductor said, “Today, the relevance

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

Jayantha Prabhu, Group CTO, Essar Group, asking a question to the panel of vedor CEOs. The panel includes (From left to right) P Sridhar Reddy, Founder and CEO, CtrlS, Sanjay Deshmukh, Area Vice President, Citrix India, Alok Bharadwaj, Executive Vice President, Canon, Ambarish Deshpande, Managing Director, Bluecoat

and importance of technology cannot be ignored. One has to really appreciate the position of the CIO and the CTO.” “One of the important factors about the semiconductor industry is that it is the barometer of the economic growth. For example, if car sales are going to go down in the next few months, my sales will go down today as every second car on the planet has a Freescale chip in it,” he said. Giving a peek into the market, Dua said, “The market for the semiconductor industry is looking bright in the next two to three years. In terms of statistics, the Asian market for semiconductor in 2013 will be close to $200 billion. China will have 55 to 60 percent share and India will only have five to six percent of this pie. Markets like Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia are all ahead of India. There is a lot to be done but I feel in the coming years things are going to be better than what it is today.” From a retail industry’s perspective, Anil

Chinnabhandar, VP – Supply Chain, Lifestyle International, said, “I have worked abroad for last 15 years, and I would like to share that in the last 10 years the retail market abroad has been witnessing only single digit growth. When I used to visit India with my family, I was amazed to see the kind of growth retail industry was witnessing. Our company is witnessing consistent growth because we are not focusing on costs, rather we are concentrating on delivery and quality of delivery. I feel India is a very exciting market when it comes to retail.” On how Varun Beverages was using IT to improve productivity, Holkar said, “We are still at the operational level. The CIO had to struggle to bring the SAP but we are trying to bring in more solutions for optimisation. The question is how much IT does the senior management wish to have in the organisation. I feel IT can play a huge role in making our business effective.” Talking about how a CIO can help organ-

isation processes and functions, Holkar added, “A CIO and his team should be aware of any functional needs in the organisation. The IT team needs to engage itself with process re-engineering because only then will the IT solution that is brought into the organisation provide optimum results. A CIO needs to have a vision outside the organsiation, so that he can suggest what should we be looking at in terms of technology adoption.” The panel discussion on ‘Overcoming the ROI Roadblock’ saw eminent panelists Ashish Chauhan, MD & CEO, BSE; Sanjeev Prasad, CIO, Genpact; and Baskar Raj, Vice President - Technology at FIS, deliberating on the issue. CIOs often grapple with the challenge of communicating the value of technology and demonstrating returns to the top management. The panel discussed the art of setting expectations, communicating the ROI of technology initiatives, and securing buy-in for key initiatives.

August 07 2013

27

And the Winners are... AWARDS

The awards given out at the event included Bose speakers, iPad Minis, and gift vouchers

Vikas Gupta, Founder and Director, 9.9 Media, announcing the much-anticipated awards

28

August 07 2013

CIOs listen carefully the announcement of awards

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

A total of 27 awards were given to the CIOs present at the event. The awards were given for the 'Wall of Ideas' contest, Strategym, Tech Ideas Challenge and Feedback Forms Wall of Ideas Awards Vijay Mahajan, Vice-President, Corporate IT, Mahindra & Mahindra Rich Strader, CIO, Ford Motor Company Girish Rao, Head-IT, Marico Limited Strategym workshop awards Prashun Dutta, CIO, Tata Power Parvinder Singh, Corporate Vice President and Head - IT Services, Max Life Insurance Kapil Mehrotra, Head Integration, Apollo Munich Man Mohan Goyal, CIO, Philips Carbon Black Kamal Karnatak, Sr. V.P. and Group CIO, RJ Corp Sunil Sirohi, VP - IT, NIIT Puneet Kaur Kohli, Director IT/ Infrastructure & Service Operations, Motricity Vineet Kumar Chawla, CIO, PI Industries Vandana Avantsa, CIO, Motherson Sumi Systems Umesh Khandelwal, GM- IT, BMW India Vishwajeet Singh, CIO, Epitome Travel Sol I Pvt Ltd Kapil Pal, Head IT, Pepsico Sanjay Rao, Sr. VP & Group CIO, SRF Limited Mukesh Kumar, CIO, TPG Wholesale Umesh Mehta, CIO, Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd Sachin Jain, CIO, Evalueserve Ajay Bakshi, Vice President & Global head - Process Automation, HGS

Tech Ideas Challenge Awards Ajay Bakshi, VP & Global Head - Process Automation & Improvements, HGS Sponsored by Canon Milind Khamkar, CIO, Sanofi-Aventis, India Sponsored by Hitachi Data Systems Joybrata Mitra, CIO, Daikin Airconditioning India Sponsored by Sanovi Sanjay Rao, CIO, SRF Sponsored by Fortinet Kamal Karnatak, Sr VP and Group CIO, RJ Corp, Sponsored by Polycom Sachin Jain, CIO, Evalueserve Sponsored by CyberRoam Award for the Maximum Number of Shortlists Ajay Bakshi, VP & Global Head - Process Automation & Improvements, HGS Awards for the Feedback Forms Milind Khamkar, CIO, Sanofi-Aventis, India Sponsored by HDS Venkat B, Head IT - Pune Hub, Mahindra & Mahindra Sponsored by Fortinet Raghu Kumar Paruchuri, Head IT & Business Applications, Tata Power Sponsored by 9.9 Media Sanjay Rao, Sr. V.P. & Group CIO, SRF Sponsored by Aspect August 07 2013

29

COVER STORY | CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE

Milind Khamkar (left), CIO, Sanofi-Aventis, receiving the award from Vinod Ganesan, Regional Director Sales, HDS

B Venkatakrishnan (right), CIO, Mahindra Vehicles receiving the award from Vishwajeet Singh (left), CIO, Epitome Travel Solutions. In the centre is Krishna Kumar, Chief Operating Officer, 9.9 Media

30

August 07 2013

An MBA may not make you a CIO, but this can

The CIOs of tomorrow are expected to be outstanding business leaders, not just good technical experts, who can collaborate and communicate in their professional environment ITNEXT invites you to participate in the 2-day Pocket CIO programme to equip yourself with strategic, technical and softskills needed for senior management roles. The training sessions will be hosted by experts, and will feature eminent CIOs. SESSIONS WILL COVER Contemporary trends in a current technology area Delivering innovation or improving business outcomes through IT solutions Best practices for installing, operating and improving enterprise services/infrastructure Thinking strategically about IT Leadership in the corporate context REGISTER THROUGH MOBILE APP Download the NEXT100 app on your phone or tablet, and register for Pocket CIO program. Access the latest white papers and case studies, and watch videos

CITY& DATE NEW DELHI 20th –21th SEPTEMBER BENGALURU 04th – 05th OCTOBER MUMBAI 25th – 26th OCTOBER

APPLY NOW !

PLATINUM PARTNER TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

NEXT100 BOOK PARTNER

WWW.ITNEXT.IN/NEXT100

EVENT BY

*THE PROGRAM IS ENTIRELY FREE OF COST FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE APPLIED FOR NEXT100 BUT FOR ALL OTHERS THE COST IS INR 2500

PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

The Shooting CIO

The shutterbug inside the CIOs came to the fore during the workshop conducted by acclaimed photographer Rohit Dhingra

CIOs in discussion with Rohit Dingra during the photography session

CIOs acquiring the finer points of photography

Rohit Dhingra with Lali Basu, CIO, CMC, during the workshop

32

August 07 2013

T

he second day of the conference started with a workshop on photography by acclaimed fashion photographer Rohit Dhingra. The enthusiasm was clearly visible as several CIOs armed with thier digital cameras gathered early morning to sharpen their photography skills. To start with, the shuterbugs were walked through the basic aspects of photography to start with. Soon, there was an unanimous question on how to choose a camera? Dhingra shared a few key tips on which camera to buy. The attendees appeared to take photography seriously as a hobby and wanted to get technical insights into aspects such as lighting and lens reversal macro techniques. Post the workshop and armed with the new-found knowledge, the attendees went all out to capture the perfect shot. Dhingra,a Canon photo expert, studied professional photographic practices from the University Of Arts, London, which is one of the best-rated universities in the world for arts and photography. He has shot some of the world’s famous and reputed people of United Kingdom like Gordon Brown (Prime Minister), Jane Goodall, Jimmy choo, Alissa Moreno US-based female singer (Grammy Award nominee), Maharaja Of Jodhpur (Umaid Bhawan), Celebrities and film stars for media and ad campaigns.

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

innovation WORKSHOP

'Fixedness' Restricts Creativity Alfred Arambhan, Chairman and Managing Director, SIT India, discussing the key to bringing out innovation and creative ideas in an enterprise

T

he 14th CIO&Leader Annual Conference witnessed an innovation workshop by Alfred Arambhan, Chairman & Managing Director, SIT India. According to Arambhan, “There are different forms of ‘fixedness’ that restrict creativity. Breaking through one’s ‘fixedness’ can bring out innovative ideas.” He also spoke about unifying one task with another and how killing good ideas can harm future creativity. Another important thing that Arambhan mentioned was that

Breaking through one's 'fixedness' can bring out innovative ideas, feels Alfred Arambhan, Chairman & Managing Director, SIT India

an innovative solution should be new, must add value and should be implementable. He said that constrains enhanced creativity. “If there is constrain in resources, that is the best time to innovate,” he said. Systematic Inventive Thinking, an Israelbased company, has conducted innovation programmes with over 850 organisations in more than 60 countries. The SIT process helps the CIOs implement a long-term culture of innovation in their companies. SIT is a practical

approach to creativity, innovation and problem solving, which has become a well known methodology for innovation. At the heart of SIT’s method is one core idea adopted from Genrich Altshuller's TRIZ which is also known as Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TIPS): that inventive solutions share common patterns. Focusing not on what makes inventive solutions different - but on what they share in common — is core to SIT’s approach.

August 07 2013

33

COVER STORY | CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE

What an Idea! ideas

An innovative collaboration concept, Ideas Cafe was a big hit with the attendees

I

deas Cafe was an innovative collaborative session that enabled CIOs to engage with each other and discuss ideas and issues. The unique engagement-session saw 15 round tables laid out in the hall. Each table had a transformational theme for discussion. The CIOs had to move from one table to another, eventually covering

34

August 07 2013

all 15, and participating in the discussion. This intense session required every CIO to change his table after every 15 minutes and start discussing a new topic. Each table had a 9.9 Media moderator. The session was unique as all the CIOs present at the conference got an opportunity to discuss issues that were most relevant to them and got to know their peers' views on it. Among the topics of discussion were cloud computing, BYOD, and data security.

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

CIOs share their views on varied topics during 'Ideas Cafe' at the event.

August 07 2013

35

COVER STORY | CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE

I

n 2006 - we leveraged the standard simple Symbian phones to gather data from about 20,000 farms in he contract farming initative (this is to assure supply of basic raw material safflower seeds for our flagship brand Saffola). We wrote a J2ME based applications running on Nokia 5230 phones. This resulted in almost an an additional Rs. 4 crores of income to the farmers (due to better management of the crops through guidance of specialists sitting at central office). The J2ME-based app was used to relay information on crop status at each of the farms such as pictures of the crop in case of insect infestation etc. This was the best the implementation because the investment was just Rs 5 lakhs and the returns were more than Rs 4 crores. This project not only assured supplies to the company but also helped a farmers a lot. Girish Rao, Head IT, Marico Limited

36

August 07 2013

The ‘Wall of Ideas’ at display during the event.

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

T

CIOs shared innovative ideas that could transform people, processes and technology. Their ideas were displayed on a huge wall to inspire others

he company employs field officers who visit farms and counsel farmers with the help of MSLS’ in-house experts. During their visits, field officers collect data and create reports on how well the farm is doing. The problem was these reports were created manually. That meant that it could take up to 10 days before an officer’s report crossed an expert’s desk. This is the sort of delay that can cost, and in 2009, it did. That year, European legislation banned the use of over 22 pesticides. Although we were aware of the restriction, the farmers didn’t get the information in time. As a result, an entire consignment was treated with banned pesticides and was rejected by customers in Europe. MSLS lost Rs 8 crore in the process. To overcome this challenge, we created a mobile app route that was compatible with any Java-enabled phone. Field officers could now send their reports quicker, ensuring that reports are seen within two hours of a farm visit. That faster turnaround ensures field officers can advise farmers without having to come back after days. The project, which cost about Rs 2.5 lakh, brought more accuracy to an officer’s report, thereby increasing productivity by 40 percent. The business reported an overall 20 percent increase

Vijay Mahajan V.P. Corporate IT Mahindra & Mahindra

W

e implemented a ‘Reverse Mentoring’ programme where some of the new hires mentor senior leaders. The mentoring is optional and driven by the mentors with input from the mentees. Topics usually range from new technology trends to ideas on how new college graduates see things differently. This, I feel, was a transformational idea. It impacted the firms’ collective view of how to work better together. Our senior leaders experienced access to new and perhaps more innovative ways to approach technology, workplace procedures/obstacles and achieved a greater level of understanding of how the newer generation works. Rich Strader, Centre Head, Ford Motor Company August 07 2013

37

STRATERGYM

CIOs’ Role Play

T

he CIOs were put into a business strategy role play dubbed as ‘Strategym.’ In this activity, CIOs present at the conference were divided into groups and were given a case study to solve. They were given a product suite to choose solutions from. In this novel business strategy simulation workshop, the CIOs had to get into the shoes of a CXO, other than those of a CIO. The aim was to give CIOs a whole new perspective on technology as a business enhancer. In this two-hour session, the groups comprised of CIOs and sponsors. The first hour was meant for briefing and product demonstration while second hour for cracking the case. The team of CIOs had to compete against other teams and come up with the best possible solution of the case study. To keep the humour alive, smiley stress balls were given to everyone to have fun while brainstorming.

38

August 07 2013

An innovative engagement format, Strategym tested both, the business acumen and technology prowess of enterprise technology leaders present at the event

CIOs discussing the case among themselves

Sanjeevini Healthcare Ltd A case study for discussion at the 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference

© 2013 9.9 Media [Confidential: For private circulation only]

The case study on Sanjeevini Healthcare

Among the winners of Strategym were Prasun Datta, Parvinder Singh, Kapil Melhotra, Manmohan Goel, Sunil Sirohi, Punit Kar Kohli, Vineet Kumar Chawla, Umesh Khandelwal, Biswajit Singh, Kapil Pal, Sanjay Rao, Mukhesh Kumar, Umesh Mehta, Sachin Jain and Ajay Bakshi.

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

“It was a great experience for the entire BlackBerry team. The kind of energy and participation that I have seen from CIOs was exceptional. The case study session, Strategym, was really good. The format of the conference allowed people to interact with us as well as among their peer group. Thanks and kudos to the entire 9.9 Team for pulling off a great event.” —Sunil Lalvani, Managing Director, BlackBerry India

“The event was fantastic. I haven't seen anything like this before. I am really happy that I got to interact with so many wonderful people present in this event. It was a perfect mix of fun and learning.” —Baskar Raj CIO, FIS

“This event is a unique experience for me. I really loved it. Apart from the conference, which was certainly exceptional, for the first time in my life, I got to play elephant polo. I am really thrilled.”

“I liked the uniqueness of the format of this conference. We got an opportunity to interact with CIOs and know their side of the story. The conference also focused on how CIOs could apply the shared knowledge that they got from this conference in their organisation. Overall, the event was a well-balanced mix of learning, entertainment and networking.” —Sanjay Deshmukh, Area Vice President – India Subcontinent, Citrix

They Said it VOICE

“The 14th Annual CIO&Leader Conference was a wonderful experience. I never though that the event could be so engaging. Most of the conferences that I have attended, don't involve the attendees to this level. In this conference, the participants were actually in-sync and connected to the theme.” —Vishwajeet Singh CIO, Epitome Travel Solutions Pvt. Ltd

“When I first heard about the new format of the event, especially Strategym, I was impressed. Even the Ideas Cafe session had an excellent format. I got a lot of useful information fom CIOs. Overall, the conference was really interactive and I found it pretty good.” —Jayesh George, Head of Marketing & PR, Riverbed

—Sachin Jain CIO, Evalueserve

August 07 2013

39

COVER STORY | CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE

ENTERTAINMENT

Spectacular Evening Celebrations After the day-long session, the CIOs were taken to Dera Amer, situated behind the hills of the famous Amer Fort. It was an ideal location for outdoor recreational and adventure activities

Jayantha Prabhu (second from left), CTO, Essar Group and B Venkatakrishnan (right), CIO Mahindra Vehicles releasing a sky lantern at Dera Amer

40

August 07 2013

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

CIOs participate in elephant polo match at Dera Amer

CIOs enthusiastically participate in the traditional Rajasthani dance performance

August 07 2013

41

Stop being consumed by where you are... ...focus instead on where you want to be.

Are you at that stage in your career... when you start looking for something more. It could be a new direction, fresh focus or the next mountain to climb. You’ve already come a long way, but it’s time to aim for the top - the pinnacle. But scaling the next mountain is a big stretch. You need new skills. You require new perspectives. You want to be a stronger leader. The Pinnacle Programme will help you do all this - and more.

www.theleadershipinstitute.in 9.9 Mediaworx, B-118, Sector 2, Noida – 201 301, India Tel: +91 120 4010999

CIO&LEADER CONFERENCE | COVER STORY

Manganiyars enthrall with their folk music. Manganiyars are renowned as highly skilled folk musicians of the Thar desert. Their songs are passed on from generation to generation as a form of oral history of the desert.

CIOs dressed in traditional Rajasthani attire enjoying the performance by Manganiyars

August 07 2013

43

Partner Testimonials: “It was a great experience for the entire BlackBerry team. The kind of energy and participation that I have seen from CIOs was exceptional. The case study session, Strategym, was really good. The format of the conference allowed people to interact with us as well as among their peer group. Thanks and kudos to the entire 9.9 Team for pulling off a great event.” - Sunil Lalvani, Managing Director, BlackBerry India “When I first heard about the new format of the event, especially Strategym, I was impressed. Even the Ideas Cafe session had an excellent format. I got a lot of useful information fom CIOs. Overall, the conference was really interactive and I found it pretty good.” - Jayesh George, Head of Marketing & PR, Riverbed

CIO Testimonials:

very elegantly and with great innovation.” “Excellent team– would love to have a team “It was arranged

like this and again as I said learn from you how to make people self-motivated.” “It was indeed my pleasure to be part of this conference and learn from this enriching experience. for inviting me for this conference. Looking forward to more interactions in future.” “This time both the format and content was . Venue & entertainment was also very high quality on day one. All the arrangement was . Truly appreciate the thought process and effort of your team.“

Thank you

excellent

just perfect

We thank all our delegates and partners for making the 14th Annual CIO&Leader conference a grand success.

Gold Partners

Silver

Innovation Partner

Partners

Knowledge Partner

Technology

Partners Disaster Recovery Management Software

Associate

Partners

Organized by

A Brand

of

HORIZONS

Creating a Culture of Creativity Want to develop a culture of creativity in your IT firm? You might need to change your current thinking about efficiency, solving problems and leadership By Charles

Araujo

46

August 07 2013

Rebuilding AIG on a Global IT Platform Pg 49 VSE Corp Gains Operational Visibility Pg 50

illustration by photos.com

NEXT

Features Inside

H

ave you noticed that all of the excitement seems to have evaporated out of IT organisations recently? I remember when I first started in the industry. It seemed that every day was a new adventure. We were always facing new challenges that led to unexpected solutions. It was fun and it was exciting. I loved being in IT. I loved working with technology and finding new ways to solve business problems. What happened? Over the last decade or so, it seems all of that which was once exciting has disap-

m a n a g e m ent | N E X T H O R I Z O N S

peared. Instead, our halls are more often filled with an institutional mindset and a sense of daily drudgery. In recent times, a rising chorus has said that we need to mature our industry and replace the “cowboy culture” with a culture of professionalism and discipline. I know because I've been one of the leaders of that chorus. But, like kids in a hurry to grow up, I think we have missed a larger point. In our effort to become a mature and professional industry, we have given away one of our most important characteristics: Our creativity. I feel partially responsible for this mess. I am a huge fan of process improvement disciplines like IT Service Management (ITIL), COBIT and Lean Six Sigma. While I believe that these disciplines are very valuable tools in the arsenal of any progressive IT leader, I think that they have also been misconstrued and twisted into an overreliance on best practices. In our effort to normalise, standardise and optimise our industry, we have systematically stymied the creative forces in our teams.   And that has left us vulnerable.

If you are prepared to foster a culture of creativity in your organisation, it will take faith and perseverance. You must be willing to let go of some of the most entrenched attitudes

the changes in the IT industry, and he said that one of the exciting things he is working on is bringing some of the most progressive IT leaders together with some of the most innovative venture-funded companies. The reason is simple. By creating connections between organisations that are producing breakthrough technologies and progressive CIOs who can apply them, we can create an explosion of technology-driven value. But why is he focused only on this small group of CIOs? Because the "culture of creativity" The Future Belongs to the Creative needed to harness and leverage these kinds In a recent study by IDG, more than half of advancements does not exist in most IT of the IT and business executives surorganisations today. For far too many IT veyed said that IT professionals must be executives, the focus is simply business-savvy, collaborative on incremental improvements, and innovative. These attributes increasing efficiency and mainare effectively reflections of a taining the status quo. That’s creative approach to the profesa recipe for irrelevance. But sion of IT. These are not about it doesn't need to be this way. simply executing consistently was the growth of Here are three simple steps and reliably. These attributes server market in india that you can use to turn your IT all require creative and stratein the first quarter organisation into a powerhouse gic thought.  In my book, The of 2013 of creativity and innovation. Quantum Age of IT, I make the case that everything we know about IT has changed and that Unleashing Your Organit will require a new type of IT isation’s Creative Forces  organisation and a new type of IT profesIf you are prepared to foster a culture of sional to remain relevant in the future. creativity in your organisation, it will take Central to these new organisational traits faith and perseverance. You must be willing and professional skills is the ability to be to let go of some of the most entrenched empathetic, communicative and creative. attitudes, beliefs and habits in our profesWithout a healthy dose of creativity existing sion. But if you are willing to take this leap up and down inside our organisations, we of faith and stick with it, you can create a will be lost. We will be unable to be the type powerful culture of creativity in your organof IT organisation that our customers need isation, one that will continually produce us to be. I was recently talking to Rob Webb, exceptional leaders and, in the process, the former CIO of Hilton Worldwide, about unleash a wave of value creation.

10%

Step 1: Forget Efficiency Did I say that this was going to take a little bit of faith and a willingness to break the rules? One of the most entrenched ideas in our industry is the idea that we need to create a highly efficient organisation. We have gone to great lengths to measure everything and apply principles from ITIL and Lean Six Sigma to remove errors and inefficiencies from our operating practices. That's all great stuff, but we also have to recognise that while these management approaches are very effective at producing consistent, repeatable results for repetitive tasks, they have the opposite effect when we are dealing with challenging tasks that require high levels of cognitive thought, which, incidentally, is becoming more and more what our work is about. There are a lot of situations in which you need to keep the pressure on, especially when it comes to increasing efficiency and reducing waste. But you'll also need to get very good at figuring out when that management approach is the exact opposite of what you need. In moments in which creative and innovative thought is required, you need to forget the drive to efficiency and instead focus on creating a "mental space." Google is famous for giving its engineers a percentage of time to work on whatever they want. But this isn't unique to technology companies. A number of progressive CIOs at organisations like Consumers Energy, the University of Pennsylvania and Quicken Loans are employing a similar tactic to unleash the creativity of their teams and drive innovation. The importance of unstructured time cannot be overstated. According to some recent

August 07 2013

47

N E X T H O R I Z O N S | m a n a g e m ent

research, a typical knowledge worker today spends only five hours a week in cognitive thought. While there are many reasons for this (needless meetings, anyone?), one of the greatest culprits is a lack of unstructured time in which to simply think. We have become so hyper-concerned with optimising productivity that we are actually reducing it. I recently attended a workshop on neuro-leadership with a friend of mine was the Vice President of Global Operations at a very large entertainment software company, and he told me a story of how he had taken over a conference room and had installed a ping pong table so that teams could “blow off steam," strengthen relationships and foster cross-functional collaboration. When a new CFO came in, he saw this as an inefficient use of both physical resources and employee time and had it removed immediately. My friend, who was carefully measuring productivity across a number of dimensions, watched productivity fall across the board—all in the name of a CFO’s faulty sense of efficiency. As an IT leader, you will have to find a way to create unstructured time for your team to think, interact and "blow off steam" if you want to create a culture of creativity. It will take faith and courage to watch people be seemingly unproductive and hope that this "free time" bears creative fruit. But if you still have doubts, I have a little test for you. Leave your office right now, turn off your phone, drive to a nearby lake or park and take a walk. Clear your head and let your mind wander and think about anything but work. The moment you successfully remove that intense focus on "getting things done," your brain will start silently working on some of the perplexing issues that have been keeping you up at night. You might be amazed at the creative thoughts that arise during your time away from the office.

Step 2: Don't Solve the Problem We live in a results-oriented world. We are expected to solve problems. That's what we get paid to do. We have programmed ourselves to identify a problem, zero in on the source of the problem and eliminate it— and then move on to the next problem. The better and faster you are at problem solving, the faster your star will rise. It's a proven fast track to professional success. In most organisations, those individuals that have

48

August 07 2013

Creativity is not linear. It’s iterative. It requires experimentation and evolution risen to the top are those that have proven that they can get things done. Solving problems is important. And there are plenty of them. But in many cases, the fastest way to solve a problem doesn't solve it, it just remediates the problem. And that is why we end up solving the same problems over and over again in IT organisations. But even if we are actually solving problems, most of the time what we are doing is fixing leaks in the ship. This is important, of course, but it does not produce the type of gamechanging innovation that our customers need from their IT organisation. This is why so many "highly effective" IT executives are finding themselves being challenged today for not being innovative. What is needed is creativity—and that sometimes requires a different kind of discipline: A willingness to NOT solve the problem. I know, I have just written heresy number two. Don't solve the problem? Then do what? Just talk about it? That's a waste of time. One problem with solving problems is that it doesn't allow us to cognitively explore the situation long enough for our creative forces to kick-in and assess the entire situation. Instead, we too often attempt to rapidly identify the best solution and get to work. Creativity, on the other hand, is not linear. It's iterative. It requires experimentation and evolution. We were once brought in to help a large organisation solve some problems with how its employees responded to critical incidents. We began the workshop by saying, "We are not here today to solve the problem. Today, we are simply here to understand the problem." The silence and the baffled looks were priceless. Everyone had entered the room expecting that we were going to develop an action plan to solve this urgent problem. Instead, we spent the day exploring the problem. Why were these critical incidents occurring in the first place? How were employees responding to them? By slowing down and taking the focus off the need for an immediate solution, we

uncovered the challenges that lead to the disruptions. We discovered that they were mostly driven by a lack of understanding and clear communication. At the end of the meeting, the employees didn't agree on an action plan, but they did agree on some initial steps that might improve things. They also agreed to a set of regular meetings to review, evaluate and modify the approach. It took them about three months, but by going through this process they developed a cohesive approach to solving the problem in a meaningful and lasting way. As mangers, we want results. But if you are willing to give your team the freedom to explore, experiment and evolve, you may find that the solutions they ultimately come up with are much more powerful and impactful. And that leads us to our third step.

Step 3: Stop Giving Direction Are you ready to throw something at me yet? First, it's “let’s forget efficiency.” Then it’s “don't solve problems.” Now I want you to stop giving your team direction? I must be crazy, right? There are two reasons for this suggestion. The first is a concept called intrinsic motivation. In his book Drive, Daniel Pink writes about the need to move past the industrial age concept of extrinsic motivation, such as carrots and sticks, to a more modern approach of intrinsic motivation. Pink says each of us has a powerful internal motivational source that is based on three things: autonomy, purpose and mastery. We are all driven by these three things. We want to be in control of our own destiny and to create some kind of an impact. However, when we "give someone direction," we sap these three intrinsic motivational levers. On the other hand, by approaching the situation differently, we can produce the exact opposite impact. The key: Don’t give someone direction, give them a challenge. ­— This article was first published in CIO Insight. For more stories please visit www.cioinsight.com.

b u siness p ro c ess m a n a g e m ent | N E X T H O R I Z O N S

Rebuilding AIG on a Global IT Platform

The insurance giant is transforming its business processes which enables it to make more databased decisions

A

fter a near-death experience that required billions of dollars in bailout funds from US taxpayers, AIG is back in the black. Now the insurance giant’s challenge is transforming its business processes on a global scale, using a centralised set of business processes that are now delivered via eight data centers, as opposed to the 30 that the company previously managed. AIG’s new OneClaim system, which is built on top of business process management (BPM) software from Pegsystems, is being rolled out on three continents as part of an effort to scale the company’s operations on a global basis, says Erik Martinez, executive vice president for global claims, operations and systems for AIG Property Casualty. Prior to the deployment of the OneClaim system, AIG operations

illustration by anil t

By Michael Vizard

in countries around the globe often operated independently of each other. “Every country had its own services,” says Martinez. “But without any scale, there could be no efficiency.” The goal, says Martinez, who oversees IT at the insurer, is to leverage technology to break down the silos in a multi-billion-dollar company that is not only trying to better govern its data, but also to help a team of 70 data scientists minimise risk for both AIG and its customers via the application of predictive analytics applications on a global scale. The end result? Enabling AIG employees to make better informed decisions based on the data. AIG has been working on this transformation since 2009, when Robert Benmosche became CEO. At that time critics were calling for the company to be dissolved. One of the strengths that Benmosche brought to AIG is his experience running IT during

August 07 2013

49

N E X T H O R I Z O N S | d a t a c entre

At the core of the IT consolidation srategy is the BPM software that serves as the foundation of the OneClaim system. The system now shares a common IT backbone

his years at MetLife. Benmosche immediately recognised that consolidating IT would not only reduce costs, but it would allow AIG to deliver insurance services on a global scale. At the core of the IT consolidation strategy that Benmosche charged Martinez to deliver is the BPM software that serves as the foundation of the OneClaim system. That system now shares a common IT backbone that enables AIG to ingest data on a global scale and essentially function as a “factory of decision makers,” says Martinez. What makes the OneClaim system different, says Martinez, is that it was developed with the expertise of AIG subject matter experts in AIG, and the system was able to leverage the Pegasystem platform’s BPM capabilities to visually model the business and its operations. Once that core set of functions are developed, each business unit can extend them without having to reinvent each wheel of the process. Pegasystems CEO Alan Trefler says it’s the ability to visually model business processes that will ultimately eliminate the traditional divide between IT and the rest of the business. Instead of building applications using arcane programming languages, BPM

platforms will allow business users to model a process and then generate a Java application which brings that process to digital life, Trefler says. “We’re talking about a fundamental change in the way people think about becoming a digital business,” says Trefler. The challenge, of course, is that it often takes a near-death experience to bring about meaningful lasting change. Without such a monumental or extreme event, corporate inertia combined with an aversion to risk prevents most organisations from engaging in a meaningful transformation process. — The article was first published in CIO Insight. For more stories, please visit www.cioinsight.com.

VSE Corp Gains Operational Visibility With its new IT operations analytics solution, VSE can quickly investigate data-related incidents and verify information for audit purposes By William Atkinson

V

SE Corporation provides diversified engineering, development, testing and management services to US government agencies and other prime contractors. As might be expected, IT plays an integral role in the organisation. However, IT recently found itself confronted by a number of key operational challenges. One challenge is that IT is required to investigate all data-related incidents and identify root causes, which can be a very time-consuming and labor-intensive pro-

50

August 07 2013

cess. In addition, VSE Corporation moved its offices and built a new, fully virtualized data center last year. As the servers were virtualized and copied to the new data center, IT needed to be able to verify that all of the servers deployed accurately and consistently, and that no data was lost during the transition. Third, the Alexandria, Va.-based company also needed something to validate, verify and manage all of its servers for audit purposes. “As a publicly owned company, we are covered by SOX and FISMA [Federal Information Security Management Act],”

says Dave Chivers, vice president and CIO. “We had to be able to prove that nothing did change on our servers. When we get audited, we are asked what updates we did in the last six months or year. I could explain that we had to put some hot fixes and patches on some servers. However, in situations where we hadn't done any updates, the auditors would ask for proof that we hadn't done any.” These three challenges forced Chivers to find a solution that could provide all of this information. VSE ultimately selected Evolven’s IT Operations Analytics. “As we

Illustration by anil t

d a t a c entre | N E X T H O R I Z O N S

looked at all of the applications out there that could monitor and control everything that is going on in any of our platforms, we found that Evolven could do all of this,” he says. “In addition, it took just minutes for us to learn the basic functionalities of it. There were no special training requirements, and it is very easy to use. We were able to roll it out in a day. It wasn’t the least expensive, but it was certainly fairly priced.” Another aspect Chivers likes about Evolven’s IT Operations Analytics is that it has a number of additional features, such as analytical capabilities, which he wants to use in the future. “Evolven is currently helping us to learn these,” he says. “There is some training involved in learning how some of these features work.” The Evolven solution has been working well. In terms of the data center transition, IT Operations Analytics allows the IT team to compare servers and business service environments, identify and report inconsistencies and critical differences, simultaneously compare multiple environments, and analyse inconsistencies to identify the

One challenge is that IT is required to investigate all data-related incidents and identify root causes ones that can create significant issues. In terms of reducing incident investigation time, when an incident occurs, Evolven can quickly identify the configuration changes and differences that are at the incident’s root cause. The IT team can detect what has changed to trigger an incident, and also analyse differences between working and non-working

environments. Previously, it would take the IT team weeks to investigate and resolve an incident. It can now complete this work in minutes. Third, Evolven’s IT Operations Analytics also helps VSE stay in compliance with SOX and FISMA. — The article was first published in CIO Insight. For more stories, please visit www. cioinsight.com.

VIEWPOINT Steve Duplessie | [email protected]

illustration by shigil narayanan

Blowing Up The Business Model

Asigra’s Recovery Based Pricing

I wrote about the Amazon Effect a few months back where I rambled about how its business model disruption that has the biggest impact to markets over time — positively or negatively. It’s business model changes that upset the traditional way of doing things. In that article I had mentioned how LinkedIn makes money Headhunters. Because you are good enough to not only tell all the world about yourself, your experience, your job, your likes and hates, etc, you make it easier for headhunters to search the site to find you if you fit the bill for an opening. Do you think that the sudden “endorsements” feature of the site is REALLY about having people endorse you? No, it’s about having people tell the headhunters what other attributes they can tag you with and thus search you for. Headhunters pay for this function. In the backup market — a very old, very boring, very well entrenched $5 billion annual market — the players, old and new, have effectively competed on price

52

August 07 2013

and incumbency — all selling SOFTWARE licenses so customers could “back up” their data. More data requires more backup servers and thus more licenses. A wonderful model. Except it isn’t. People pay to back up, but there is zero value in backup — all the value is in recovering — but no one charges for that. Until now. Asigra, because they can, have come out with a new (optional) pricing model for their MSPs (Asigra is a cloud based backup/recovery solution delivered by MSPs) that blows up the previous model. Essentially, Asigra allows you to backup for pennies — and gives you the opportunity to pay for recoveries. They cap the cost so you never spend more than you plan — but you could spend less! If you recover less than 25 percent (the maximum charge) of your data, you pay less. The better you become at this, the less money it costs you over time. If you never recover — because you are very good and very lucky,

About the author: Steve Duplessie is the founder of and Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. Recognised worldwide as the leading independent authority on enterprise storage, Steve has also consistently been ranked as one of the most influential IT analysts. You can track Steve’s blog at http://www. thebiggertruth.com

you might save 99 percent of what you’d end up paying with someone else rather. I’m sorry, but that is just brilliant! It’s like saying that if you buy car insurance and don’t make a claim, the insurance company gives you 90 percent of your premium back. How great would that be? It’s different — and people are confused and scared by different so I’m not sure how fast the uptake will be, but I love it. I love it because it not only makes total sense, but if it does take hold, it is almost completely impossible for the existing players (certainly the public ones) to react in any way other than to discount their products significantly in a competitive situation — which lord knows they don’t want to do because Wall St. will torture them. Once you establish a revenue model, turning it upside down (even though it may be the right thing to do) is impossible.   This could be a fascinating one to watch as a microcosm of our IT industry in general.

Smile Life

When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile

Get in touch

© Copyright 2015 - 2024 PDFFOX.COM - All rights reserved.