Mike Webb,
Vice President and Chief Information Officer,
Aricent
The most important and critical thing for a CIO is to earn their place as an equal business partner. We, at Aricent realize that IT is no longer a support activity. When business looked at IT as a support function; it was a barrier. Today, things have changed and IT is looked as a business partner.
The senior management at Aricent is committed to applying technology strongly in the business. As a CIO, I spent the first few months with the various business groups and tried to find how technology could best serve the business side.
At the same time I also devoted time with my IT team and looked at every single activity or project where we placed our IT investments. From both the interactions we were able to develop highly-focused plan. The focus of the plan was on how IT could make a massive contribution to the company.
One area where IT can really contribute is the area of providing a global space for people to work in and at an effective cost. We have introduced VoIP, video conferencing, and collaboration for our employees. We have also introduced a huge mobile computing platform based on BlackBerry technology which streamlines the whole activity of being able to work as a single company rather than working in isolation.
Another area that we consistently found as a concern for our business partners was the complexity involved in accessing systems. There were several systems that had different user names and passwords. So we set up a program that allowed us to use active directory authentication to provide one time authentication on the network. This provided seamless access to various applications that people used. It included both the proprietary and standardized ones like SAP. There was a huge business benefit in providing efficient accessibility.
As a CIO, I feel that the area of improved collaboration tools will improve the ability of the user community in the company to own the technology and contribute towards it in terms of collaboration of sites, for projects and knowledge forums. This is an area of innovation that has allowed our various projects teams across the world to collaborate seamlessly.
Top 3 management tips:
- Look at IT as a business partner
- Set objectives and guidance
- Ensure connectivity with customers at all times
------------------------------------------------- As told to Ashwani Mishra
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