What Makes the Next CIO?

Designed to equip aspiring CIOs gain strategic, technical and managerial skills, the IT NEXT Pocket CIO 2014 witnessed a slew of topics being debated for IT managers to understand, learn and grow to the next level.

The Delhi edition of Pocket CIO program held on Friday discussed not only the technology trends but also leadership traits for IT managers to understand, learn and grow to the next level. 

From big data to IoT and connected car, from cloud to social, experts deliberated on how to best leverage these big trends for business benefits.   

Next big trends for IT managers
We all know how pervasive BYOD today is. However, a poll run on ground shows roughly 30% of IT managers have embraced BYOD, which shows the assumption that we make around BYOD is not really the reality.

While BYOD is happening today in varying degrees and styles, the environment is still not conducive for many to exploit bring your own device or choose your own device. And hence we have this new trend called ‘Don’t Bring Your Own Device’ or DBYOD, a policy where device choice and ownership is strictly controlled by the employer.

Until recently, lots of actions around big data were experimentations, however, it’s only recently that organisation in domains especially retail are cashing in on the insights that they can derive from advanced analytic and big data tools. The other topic that is equally of importance today is big data. Atul Gupta of KPMG discussed how organisations are leveraging the new trend to their business benefits. Interestingly, the Atul cited IoT as the next big thing, with many deployments happening already in across business verticals. 

What makes the next CIO
The most captivating part of the session was around next gen CIOs. IT is effective for organisations but not aligned to the business to the degree. What best explains this is the ‘I’ of CIO. Is it for ‘Innovation’ or ‘Infrastructure’ or is this for ‘Integration’? Probably, an aspiring CIO needs to understand the nuances of the terms to be able to equip him with all required skills to excel as the key decision maker of IT.

IT managers need to look back and take corrective measures. Plus, they can salami-slice as and when required to see a desired result in IT. Salami slicing refers to a series of many small actions that as an accumulated whole produces a much larger action or result.

Vodafone showed how connected car is evolving citing the example of Mihindra Reva, which uses SIM to empower the car with some cool new features. 

Number 1 skill for leadership
Another interesting part of the event was the training session on leadership conducted by TD Chandrasekhar. We spoke to many IT managers including KK Ranjan, VP, IT operations of Max Life, Anjana Mishra, IT manager of Tata Power, Varuna M Agarwal, Head IT of Hindustan Petroleum about the usefulness of the session and what they learned from it, what invariably came out was the leadership mantras imparted by Chandrashelhar.

‘Web knowledge is faster than books’, says TD citing example of S Nadella who signs in for more online courses more than he can complete. The number ONE skill today for anyone to grow is 'continuous learning,' says TD.  Bookish knowledge is required, but if you can’t keep up with continuous learning, it’s less likely that you'll have a smooth sailing in future.

Each session of the event ended with a test to find out the best of learners who were then awarded with Pocket CIO certificate. Stay tuned, we’ll share the slideshow of the event soon.

 

 

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