CAREER TRACK

 How long at current company

More than a year at The Press Trust of India (PTI).  Overall, I have over 20 years of experience in managing IT at various large organizations like The Indian Express and IMRB.

Most important career influencer:

Robert B Tucker’s book on 'Driving Growth through Innovation'. This has transformed my thought process – rather than maintaining a status quo, we can manage the future and transform our organization through constant innovations, which is the key driver of sustained growth and profitability.

Decision I wish I could do over:
I wish I could have pursued academics as a profession.

VISION

The next big thing for my industry will be:
Leaving aside the jargons, IT is no more a backend process of an organization but a key stakeholder of growth and profitability. Functionality is no longer restricted to a mere software installation, a package implementation or hardware maintenance, but about business benefits that will accrue in terms of addressing business proposition, value creation and work efficiency.

Advice for future CIOs :

• IT is no longer a back office data processing function endlessly generating MIS, but as a key partner constantly contributing towards organizational growth and profitability. Hence, as a CIO, your position now is that of an entrepreneur.
• Do not restrict your function to mere service or maintenance activities. IT now is inseparable as organizational DNA. You need to run IT as a business. Key factors are organizational culture, its needs and the problems that people face. Formulate your thoughts and strategize accordingly in order to yield business benefits in terms of enhancing value to your customers, work efficiency and cost reduction.
• Green IT, Cloud, Virtualization and many jargons and cliches are doing the rounds these days. As a responsible CIO, you need to move beyond these jargons and look at meaningful solutions, which can directly impact your organization’s business interests.
• Be passionate about what you do. Encourage ideas in your team to bring in new perspectives.

ON THE JOB

Top initiatives:

• Created an environment that is not only manageable and scalable but resilient and agile to meet emerging business needs
• Systematically addressed the human side by challenging the status quo and providing the team with the right skills and knowledge and empowering them to take decisions
• Encouraged teammates to think and generate ideas towards improvement. Instituted practices that created openness and transparency
• My initiatives have created a complete alignment of organizational, functional and individual goals. It has yielded substantial breakthrough in terms of enhancing organizational productivity and employee morale.

How I measure IT effectiveness:
IT effectiveness is measured by the ability to simplify processes, save costs and add significant value to business.

CIO UNPLUGGED 

Leisure activities:
I like going out for early morning walks, engage in philanthropy activities. I also enjoy listening to ghazals of Jagjit Singh.

Best book read recently:
‘Marketing to Win’ by Satish Mehta. This book is on designs and campaigns that help in achieving market dominance.
 
If I weren't a CIO I would be...
Maybe a CEO of a startup company