 Navtej Matharu, CIO, InfoVision Group
Over the years, changing perception towards the IT department from a support function to a core strategic group around which new business initiatives are built has given an edge to CIOs.
Enterprises have realized that technology contributes to the bottom-line of any business and CIOs should adopt best practices to improve efficiencies. They should utilize IT to communicate and analyze organizations’ need to conduct trade and manage business globally. With rapid globalization, the role of IT viz-a-viz the CIOs will be more important and it would govern the success or failure of organizations.
The biggest challenge for any CIO is retaining people, creating excitement, compensation, strong bonding and loyalty within the team and to help and monitor team mates to achieve above average performance.
In addition, identifying clear, focused and simple competencies in people's day-to-day roles, encouraging potential team members and keeping a 360-degree feedback mechanism, creation of an environment for recognition and achievement, clear delegated tasks and timely motivation to the teams should be handled by CIOs.
CIO’s who have sound knowledge of all functions like marketing, sales and operations apart from IT are better equipped to meet demands. The core competency of any CIOs is to align IT resources with existing business requirements in order to bridge the gap between IT and operations. A CIO has to be the technology interpreter for the strategic planning of the company. One has to be innovative and sensitive to ROI.
At my organization, I have taken initiatives to be transparent in recording and following up on all logged tickets with the team, this helped build confidence with business and operations. As a CIO, my primary responsibility is to ensure all projects get delivered on time.
During the early days, IT seemed to be the bane of the organization and all shortfalls in deliveries where blamed on the IT team, as there was no project management within the team. A major change came about when people started identifying future leaders, monitored their progress and delegated more work to them.
Building of Service Level Agreement (SLAs) for internal customers and ensuring they are transparently recorded, the delivery monitored and improvements of the process at each stage to achieve a sense of "WOW" for operations.
Ensuring that "Technology" is not purchased for the sake of technology, but to align with the strategic needs of the business will ensure best ROI for the organization.
Top management tips for peers:
- Innovation is the key
- Be sensitive to ROI
- Everything always has room for improvement
- Ensure good governance process
- Retention of people
- To align in tune with the strategic needs of the business
---------------------------- As told to Sandhya Malhotra
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