NextGen CIO 2015 | cover story
“Make IT a central function, keep it central to business, manage with shared resources and shared assets, and keep IT contributing to all business initiatives as a strategic function” Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO & President-Business Excellence, Adhunik Group of Industries
Shroff is surprised by the fact that most IT managers have never used the budget that is allocated, as they lack the confidence and skills to govern their investments. Sharing his experience, Shroff says, “As a senior IT manager, I am supposed to be clued into the governance aspect in terms of understanding the risks, create value and realise full value from the investments planned.” Shroff laments that most IT managers fail to do a deep research before putting up a budget plan, which results in ineffective governance. Sanjeev Kumar, Group CIO & PresidentBusiness Excellence, Adhunik Group of Industries, observes that the governance model varies from company to company. However, he lays down a few basic rules of thumb to facilitate effective IT governance. “Make IT a central function, keep it central to business, manage with shared resources and shared assets, and keep IT contributing to all business initiatives as a strategic function,” says Kumar. He further adds, “Let IT have one line of control, centralised and governed by top management member, i.e., the CIO. If this is done, the results would be easily visible in an organisation.”
Kamal Matta, Head IT & Telecom, Sonic Biochem Ext Ltd., believes that tight governance of projects and generating ROI in expected time should be the priority for the future CIO. An optimist, Mayank Malik, Manager-IT, Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd., says that IT managers of today are great technical experts and not-so-great sellers. They must shift their focus towards doing more with “marketing” the vision of the IT organisation in the business and influencing business stakeholders. “With regard to IT governance, they understand the business process very well and but they need to work towards handling change management issues,” argues Malik. He reiterates that future CIOs must focus on team building and nurture team leadership skills by investing in innovating self-driven mentoring and coaching. “IT managers must seek feedback from the team and peers and based on responses, work out a plan with time driven goals to deliver the change,” points out Malik. Meheriar Patel, CIO, Globus Stores, says that future CIOs should have a thorough understanding of the day-to-day business policies
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