Sanjiv Dalal, CTO, Firstsource
Role of IT head: Ten years back, I ran a software company in Mumbai. In those days, IT in the enterprise was reporting to the CFO and it was used more as a reporting tool.
Initially the role of the CTO was support. It then shifted to ensuring network uptime and then to reduce costs.
Today, a CTO’s role is building systems to create information assets and intelligence in existing systems and ensuring these assets are managed like physical assets. This realization has led to a significant enhancement of the role and responsibilities given to a CIO/CTO and they have ended up being a part of the core strategy forming groups for the business.
What has changed today is the critical information stored on IT assets. Businesses can’t exist without IT. To a large extent, enterprises have realized that the value of IT lies in the ability of managing the information assets better.
Differentiating with competition: Enterprises need to look at their information assets and deliver tools for the employees to use the information. Second is the need to support and manage desktops and applications at a low cost. The assets created now needs to be safeguarded and made available to users in a controlled manner in a controlled time frame. Finally, there need to be plan for all disasters.
If any company gets the delivery, management and disaster plan right it becomes more valuable. This is because it manages the information assets better than the others and stands out from the competition.
Challenges ahead: Cost reduction continues to be a major challenge for every CIO/CTO in our industry. The other challenge is the management of our networks. Any problem on the network hits the business. Managing the network scale and uptime and managing the functionality that the network provides to the business is critical. Sourcing expertise is another area of concern.
Future tech: We are looking at remote management. Today we support 60 odd client processes that are unique and growing. The remote management solution should have the requisite knowledge systems to support all these processes.
Digital rights management is also high on our list. With digital certificate infrastructure in place we could create a trail of digitally signed and encrypted financial documents to ensure accountability of decisions.
Top 5 management tips
-Understand business to the last detail
-Build cost-effective technology architecture
-Ensure proper management of information assets
- Ensure business continuity at all times
-Keep innovating
-------As told to Ashwani Mishra
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