EDITOR SPEAK

Congratulations to the 12th batch of NEXT100 awardees. It is my pleasure to welcome them to the exclusive NEXT100 club. As we have entered another new year, with the uncertainties over the pandemic...
Jan 24, 2022
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Sometime around 2004-05, I did a forecasting story on then booming Indian BPO industry. The CEO of one BPO company, who claimed (and I would love to believe him) that he always read my stories,...
Dec 29, 2021
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Can you train to be a CIO? Going by what the survey that is presented in the September-October 2021 ITNEXT Cover Story, CIOs unequivocally answer, ‘yes’.    I hope you will read the story to...
Nov 22, 2021
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Tokyo was India’s best Olympics ever – with 7 medals, the first athletics Gold in Olympics history and a Hockey medal after 41 years. Yet, when we compare India’s performance in Olympics to its...
Sep 29, 2021
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Industry 4.0 has been a buzzword for the last 4-5 years. While the top management has been enthusiastic about the idea, there are stark ground realities that have prevented companies from...
Aug 06, 2021
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India is a mobile country. Two of the top three mobile operators in the world are Indian. In the 90s, IT—no matter how much we pat ourselves on the back as an IT superpower on the strength of our...
Jul 07, 2021
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The kind of trauma we have gone through in the wake of second wave of COVID will forever remain in our memory. Waking up every morning to find friends, relatives, and acquaintances succumbing to...
Jun 01, 2021
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Not long back in my professional career, I have seen a time when the most common complaint of enterprise IT heads was the lack of realization from their top management about the value technology...
May 03, 2021
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I do not need to quote any stats to convince you that there are so few women in enterprise IT in India, even though many of the Fortune 500 CIOs are women. In fact, we ran a story four years back...
Apr 05, 2021
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After last year’s extraordinary times, this year comes to us with a lot of hope. For the last six months, we have been talking about the New Normal. Of course, there is a lot of debate around what...
Jan 25, 2021
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The year 2020 is finally—many would say thankfully—coming to an end, amidst some good news about the vaccine. At the time of writing, while the vaccine news dominates, newer warnings from the UK,...
Dec 24, 2020
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The cover story in the ITNEXT November 2020 Issue is on the spectacular growth of UPI and the growth pangs that it has been witnessing of late. The technical decline numbers of UPI that is rising...
Nov 23, 2020
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We have done a cover story on a company’s technology journey after a long time. Though the cover text has explicit reference to the extraordinary situation created by the pandemic, the story is...
Nov 04, 2020
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Recently, I was talking to CIOs of quite a few non-services companies. I say non-services because many of them do not like to be identified as ‘manufacturing’ business—quite rightly so. They...
Jun 22, 2020
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I am not exactly a WhatsAppian but I loved this WhatsApp forward. “Because of IT people,” it said….”all banking systems continue to function”, “all hospitals are functioning”, “your kids are...
May 14, 2020
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For centuries, workplaces have been of men, by men, for men. As women’s education changed and more and more women joined the workforce, things started changing slowly.  Sensitization about...
Mar 30, 2020
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We just hosted our NEXT100 award ceremony this year—a little later than the normal time we do it, in November-December.  Without any pretension, let me tell you the reason. It is lack of sponsor...
Mar 12, 2020
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I joined NEXT100 journey when it was exactly halfway through—in 2015—which means I missed the excitement and uncertainties of the early days. With that the thought process that went behind the...
Jan 22, 2020
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Our cover story this month is on the last decade—major trends that impacted enterprise IT. But let us take a couple of steps backward and look at what changed for IT managers—the people who...
Nov 27, 2019
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The ITNEXT October Issue is very different from the rest of our issues. It presents three case studies from our recently concluded 5th Technology Premier League (TPL). Case studies are a format...
Nov 15, 2019
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Traditionally, corporate IT departments have been the custodians of anything to do with data. The top executives were dependent on them to get data, analyze it, and even to make sense of it.  As...
Sep 27, 2019
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“I am essentially a man inclined to compromise because I am never sure of possessing the truth in its pristine form”  – Mahatma Gandhi   Just about three-four years back, shadow IT seemed to...
Aug 27, 2019
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Most of the CIOs—irrespective of their age and experience—today realize that understanding of business and being able to communicate in the language business understands are extremely critical for...
Jul 29, 2019
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There was a time when all that CIOs and enterprise IT professionals knew was technology. They were tech experts; knew how to implement tech when a consultant or a business guy told them what was...
Jun 26, 2019
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In the last twenty years, role of technology in business has changed dramatically. Today, technology is not just impacting products and processes, it is impacting strategy as well. Business models...
May 07, 2019
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After two decades of discussion, gender diversity is still not a ‘business’ agenda item for Indian corporates. At best, it is considered a ‘social’ responsibility; at the worst, it is not even on the...
Mar 27, 2019
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Awards—especially those meant for professionals—are primarily celebrations of their achievement, either over a period of time or for a specific job(s) well done. Awards do create expectations for the...
Feb 25, 2019
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A few weeks after the white paper on data protection framework in India was published, I wanted to know what the CISOs thought about it. In an event, I posed this informally to more than 20 CISOs,...
Jan 24, 2019
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As we celebrate the 9th set of awardees of NEXT100 awards, I will like to join in congratulating the winners. At the same time, how much do I hate doing it (creating almost an anti-climax in an issue...
Jan 02, 2019
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Artificial Intelligence is eating the world. AI is the driver of the much-hyped data-driven business models. While the agenda for AI application is being driven right from the top—starting with the...
Dec 04, 2018
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In the past two years, I must have pointed this out several times in my stories, editorials and columns – the CIO’s job is changing from an inside-out profile to outside-in profile. As organizations...
Oct 25, 2018
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The cover story in this issue is directly from the horse’s mouth—15 CIOs and one CDO tell us what it means to be a practical CIO. The big messages that are coming from them are simple—talk and...
Oct 03, 2018
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India has finally come out with its draft personal data protection bill. If you are an information security professional, I assume that you have already gone through the draft and have identified the...
Aug 31, 2018
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That integration of multiple security solutions and compliance have emerged as the top two challenges in our security survey should come as not much of a surprise to those tuned in. But even to the...
Aug 02, 2018
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How are Indian companies preparing for GDPR?  That is too hopeful a headline on the cover.  Never mind that less than 20% Indian companies have to do anything about GDPR. The 15 odd security lead­ers...
Jul 12, 2018
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This issue’s cover story is mostly (not fully) based on my research on digital transformation journey in selected companies within some of the largest groups in India—Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra...
Apr 23, 2018
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Do organizations need to intervene to ensure gender parity at the workplace? The question, even after two decades of the issue being raised, is still being debated. What’s worse, I hear the same...
Mar 21, 2018
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While IT leaders are never tired of talking about digital transformation, many of the large corporations, especially where big transformation is taking place, have chosen to appoint business guys...
Mar 07, 2018
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When we asked NEXT100 winners to contribute their thought leadership pieces for IT Next, we had planned a single issue for that—dividing it between leadership and technology. But the sheer number of...
Jan 17, 2018
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This is the time to celebrate! Some of you will glide into 2018 with a new crown on your head—you are now a NEXT100 winner! Some of you may recall your moment of glory in a previous year while some...
Jan 03, 2018
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NEXT100 is about recognition and celebration. The issue that you are holding in your hand is a little more than that. It is winning perspectives—the leadership insights and experiences from the...
Dec 07, 2017
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This time, we have an unusual cover story. A magazine creating a recommended list of books is anything but exceptional; a website creating a carousel of such books is less so. But rarely will you...
Nov 10, 2017
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Three years back, when Target CIO Beth Jacob resigned from her position following a massive data breach, it was hailed as an exemplary step. But when Equifax CIO David Webb and CSO Susan Mauldin ‘...
Oct 11, 2017
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As people, Indians have traditionally placed much lesser value on privacy as compared to security. And hence Indian CISOs have really been less concerned about privacy, compared to their counterparts...
Sep 05, 2017
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The ransomware WannaCry made to the headlines globally as the most widespread malware attack ever witnessed, with more than 100 countries reportedly suffering from the attack. With WannaCry trending...
Jun 15, 2017
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Blockchain has taken the world of financial services by storm. But the promises of the fundamentally new approach stretch far beyond banks and insurance companies. Since blockchain is about trusted,...
Apr 03, 2017
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Recently, I had the opportunity to be part of a discussion about how critical operational technology—such as plant automation—is becoming far more vulnerable. Why, a presentation from a security firm...
Mar 14, 2017
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