If you were to trace the career map of CIOs, you would find that most of them started their careers as technologists, and then gradually learnt the ropes of business. It’s rare to find a CIO who has spent a major part of his career on the business side and then moved on to being responsible for the IT function. This is what makes Vikas Gadre, CIO of Tata Chemicals, stand apart.
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In a career spanning over 30 years, Gadre has spent more than 25 years on the business side. He has been involved in driving acquisitions, evaluating overseas investment opportunities, and developing new business avenues. He has even played the role of SBU head in the Tata group company, Rallis India, where he was responsible for driving sales, manufacturing, and imports. Over the course of his career, Gadre has held senior-level positions in finance, procurement, new product development, new business development, and strategic planning. This is besides his current role, where as the IT head of a global company, his focus has been truly global.
“As a CIO, my role has always been CIO plus another business position. At times, this was for new business development, or acquisitions,” says Gadre, highlighting the metamorphosis of a CIO into a business person. Today, Gadre’s business knowledge is paying rich dividends, as he is able to map and chart strategic IT initiatives that can lead and transform business. This involves converting corporate strategy into an actionable plan which involves not only projects related to IT, but also business.
For example, Tata Chemicals has undertaken a major initiative called ‘What Would Tata Chemicals be in 2015?’ As part of this initiative, the company has divided the entire senior team into smaller groups. This has been done to create a vision or dream and then create action plans to reach particular goals. As CIO, Gadre is involved in converting the long term strategies of this initiative into specific short, mid, and long term strategic plans.
Gadre’s example indicates why organizations are increasingly asking their CIOs to help them lead the business. “Today, a CIO has an accurate pulse of the organization, in terms of the information that flows across the arteries and veins of the organization. He is hence the ideal person to take up corporate projects that can make the company grow,” explains Gadre.
Considering Gadre’s business expertise, the Tata Group is only too keen to use his knowledge for projects in other Group companies. As a senior person within the IT department of the Group, the board expects Gadre to be their spokesperson on issues related to IT, and also to help other Group companies with respect to effective usage of technology for business growth.
Keeping the faith
There have been several projects in Gadre’s illustrious career where IT projects spearheaded by him directly contributed to business growth. Gadre vividly remembers a SAP ERP implementation project in his previous company, Rallis, where he succeeded in implementing SAP at a time when the organization had incurred a huge business loss.
Recalls Gadre, “The top management team had changed. There were questions being asked about the business viability of the project. But the new MD stood behind me, and post implementation, the company was able to reduce its account closing time by a significant margin. The company used to be the last one to close its account in the group, but it now closes its accounts within 12 days.” This example shows that sometimes, investments in IT have to be taken from a long term perspective, as tough times are ideally the best times to invest in IT and improve processes.
Measuring IT effectiveness
At Tata Chemicals, the company has an ‘effectiveness’ and ‘efficiency’ measure for IT which are checked through monthly review meetings with various departments within the organization. The company has a steering committee which measures IT effectiveness in terms of cycle time reductions for providing services, and in terms of server uptime calculations.
The company also runs a customer satisfaction review on a six-monthly basis covering two areas, applications and hardware support. In both cases, parameters are checked on a constant basis, and converted into action plans.
Advice for tomorrow’s CIO
In a networked economy, the role of the CIO cannot be confined to technology. The modern-day CIO has to have extensive relationships with external customers, vendors, and partners including financial institutions. Gadre believes that today’s CIO needs to spend time with business people, understand market dynamics, interact regularly with sales teams and spend time on the shop floor. “Sitting in an ivory tower and devising an IT roadmap will not work today. One has to mix with decision makers more extensively, and understand the business thoroughly to make an impact,” says Gadre.
In these times of recession, it is imperative for CIOs to learn new methods of working, and explore new models of delivery such as SaaS. That said, Gadre says that it is time for the IT function to take responsibility for the growth of the business. “The business is not willing to put in money for unnecessary experiments at this point; it requires results. The role of the CIO is now becoming more like that of an SBU head. He is now accountable for the deliverables.”