CIO Vol2 Issue5 Jan15 2007

Cover_october011_checklist.
indd 84
11/17/2011 11:58:14 AM
From The Editor
Attitude; Aptitude; Vision; User-focus; Business Insight; Perspective. These
Making of
a Leader
A formal program is the
only way to build yourself a
solid second line.
are values that CIOs look for in their protgs. Notice that technology knowledge is not
among them. Thats a given.
The nomination forms for CIO Ones to Watch 2007 threw up a bunch of IT executives from
a variety of backgrounds, strengths and experience levels. What distinguishes the IT leaders
of tomorrow whom we honor in this issue is their passion. For driving change. For building
teams. For business strategy. For getting results.
Take Bharat Sethi, VP of Reliance Industries. A veteran with over 30 ERP deployments
across the group to his credit that have an uptime commitment of 99.9 percent, Sethi has
also been able to keep attrition in his team below 5 percent. And, whats more, hes regularly
consulted by various business and finance heads in the Reliance group on matters of
accounts and commercial processes, given his knowledge of accounting and finance.
Ashish Kumar Chauhan, president &
group CIO of RIL, is clear why he nominated
Without a plan that hones
Sethi to the program Bharat is amongst
skills and gets your
our top IT leaders with several successes to
team mentored, you
his credit. He has also been able to motivate
can only pray for
a large team to provide business with very
leadership to emerge.
complex but easy-to-use solutions.
Ask what Sethi needs to do to become a
CIO and Chauhans emphatic: Today, Bharats more than a CIO.
Thats got to be the stuff that the dreams of CIOs are made of.
But we have to take cognizance of the nightmares that others face as well. If there had been
a second line worth nominating for the Ones To Watch program, do you think my organization
would have had to hire me from outside? Its the anguish in the voice of a CIO I was speaking
to a few weeks back that underscores the need for all IT teams to not just pray that they have
more Sethis among them, but to also build formal technology leadership programs.
A course that goes beyond ensuring motivation and retention. A course that identifies
and hones personal skills, that looks at career progression, teaches your team networking
skills and gets them mentored.
How do you go about developing the next level of IT leaders? Write in and let me know
your thoughts.
Vijay Ramachandran, Editor

vijay_r@cio.in
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Content,Editorial,Colophone.indd3 3
REAL CIO WORLD | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7
1/15/2007 4:50:38 PM
JANUARY 15 2007 | Vol/2 | issue/05
Executive Expectations
View From The Top | 44
Vaughn Richtor, MD and CEO of ING
Vysya Bank, says that IT is as important
as people and processes for furthering the
growth of an organization.
Interview by Balaji Narasimhan
Career Counsel
Cue the Spotlight | 23
How the CIO can achieve a measure of fame
and celebrity in four simple steps.
Column by Martha Heller
Peer To Peer
P hotoS by Sr ivatsa Shandilya AND ajay
From left: Raghavendra Joshi, VP-IT of

Yes Bank, Narayan P.S., GM of Wipro, and
Vinay Khargonkar, deputy GM & head-IT
of Larsen & Toubro, agree that getting to the
top requires the ability to build bridges and
capitalize on opportunities.
2
3
6
9
Fear of Dependency | 26
Small- to mid-size organizations, using smallto mid-size vendors, must always be ready to
break away and stand on their own two feet.
Column by Bill Regehr
Data Management
Leadership
COVER STORy | ones to watch | 29
Honoring the CIOs of the future and the IT

leaders of today.
Cove r: Imaging by Bines h Sreedhara n
content
More | 48
As the demand for real-time data increases,
as more and more information flows into the
enterprise, the challenge of understanding
and managing it grows proportionately.
And sometimes, more is just too much.
Feature by Thomas Wailgum
more
introduction | 29
the right stuff | 30
Master class | 36
25 leaders to watch | 42
Features by Balaji Narasimhan, Gunjan Trivedi

and Vijay Ramachandran
J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/15/2007 4:50:40 PM
content
(cont.)
departments
Trendlines | 17
Leadership | Focus on Grooming CIOs
Management Report | Keep IT Simple
Data Centers | Throw Cold Water on Costs
Open Source | Keeping the Track, the Open Way
Life Tech | Virtual Surgery Pardons Mistakes
Career | 30 Books To Make You a Better Leader
Security | Weighing the Cost of Compliance
Staff Management | Collaboration at Work
Essential Technology | 58
VoIP | Dont Let VoIP Throw You
By Michael Fitzgerald
Security | Being a Step Ahead of Potential Threats
By Michael Jung
From the Editor | 3

Making of a Leader | A formal program is the only
way to build yourself a solid second line.

By Vijay Ramachandran
Inbox | 16
NOW ONLINE
For more opinions, features, analyses and updates, log on to our
companion website and discover content designed to help you
and your organization deploy IT strategically. Go to www.cio.in
c o.in
Govern
Zero-in On the Problem | 54
The Tamil Nadu Forest Department is finding new and more sustainable
solutions toward afforestation on the back of more accurate data and the
ability to monitor and evaluate progress.
2
3
Feature by Sunil Shah
10
1/15/2007 4:50:46 PM
Advertiser Index
ADVISORY BOARD
Ma nageme nt

President N. Bringi Dev
COO Louis DMello

Editorial
Editor Vijay Ramachandran
Assistant Editor Harichandan Arakali

Special Correspondent Balaji Narasimhan
Senior Correspondent Gunjan Trivedi

Chief COPY EDITOR Kunal N. Talgeri
COPY EDITOR Sunil Shah

www.C IO.IN
Editorial Director-Online R. Giridhar
Anil Nadkarni
AMD
Head IT, Thomas Cook, a_nadkarni@cio.in

Arindam Bose
Avaya
4&5
Canon
63
Head IT, LG Electronics India, a_bose@cio.in

Arun Gupta
Director Philips Global Infrastructure Services
Arvind Tawde
VP & CIO, Mahindra & Mahindra, a_tawde@cio.in
Ashish Kumar Chauhan
President & CIO - IT Applications at Reliance Industries
Fortinet
11
HP
13
D es ign & Pro duction

M. D. Agarwal

Creative Director Jayan K Narayanan
Chief Manager IT, BPCL, md_agarwal@cio.in
IBM
Back Gate Fold
Designers Binesh Sreedharan

Vikas Kapoor; Anil V.K.
Jinan K. Vijayan; Sani Mani
Mani Mulki
VP - IS, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, m_mulki@cio.in
Krone
Unnikrishnan A.V.
Sasi Bhaskar; Girish A.V.
Vishwanath Vanjire
Manish Choksi
VP - IT, Asian Paints, m_choksi@cio.in
Lenovo
64
MM Shanith; Anil T
PC Anoop

Photography Srivatsa Shandilya
Production T.K. Karunakaran
T.K. Jayadeep
Ma rketing a nd Sales
General Manager, Sales Naveen Chand Singh

brand Manager Alok Anand

Marketing Siddharth Singh

Bangalore Mahantesh Godi
Santosh Malleswara
Ashish Kumar, Kishore Venkat

Delhi Nitin Walia; Aveek Bhose;
Neeraj Puri; Anandram B

Mumbai Parul Singh, Chetan T. Rai

Japan Tomoko Fujikawa

USA Larry Arthur; Jo Ben-Atar

Singapore Michael Mullaney

UK Shane Hannam
Events
General Manager Rupesh Sreedharan

Manager Chetan Acharya
Neel Ratan
Executive Director Business Solutions,
Pricewaterhouse Coopers, n_ratan@cio.in
Rajesh Uppal
General Manager IT, Maruti Udyog, r_uppal@cio.in
Prof. R.T.Krishnan
Professor, IIM-Bangalore, r_krishnan@cio.in
Microsoft
Front Gate Fold
R&M
39
Rittal
25
Toshiba
27
S. B. Patankar
Director - IS, Bombay Stock Exchange, sb_patankar@cio.in
S. Gopalakrishnan
COO & Head Technology, Infosys Technologies
Wipro
6&7
s_gopalakrishnan @cio.in
S. R. Balasubramanian
Sr. VP, ISG Novasoft, sr_balasubra manian@cio.in
Prof. S Sadagopan
Director, IIIT - Bangalore. s_sadagopan@cio.in
Sanjay Sharma
Corporate Head Technology Officer, IDBI, s_sharma@cio.in
Dr. Sridhar Mitta
Managing Director & CTO, e4e Labs, s_mitta@cio.in
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior
written permission from the publisher. Address requests for customized reprints to IDG Media
Private Limited, 10th Floor, Vayudooth Chambers, 1516, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bangalore 560
001, India. IDG Media Private Limited is an IDG (International Data Group) company.
Former VP - Technologies, Wipro Spectramind
Printed and Published by N Bringi Dev on behalf of IDG Media Private Limited,
10th Floor, Vayudooth Chambers, 1516, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bangalore 560 001, India.
Editor: Vijay Ramachandran. Printed at Rajhans Enterprises, No. 134, 4th Main Road,
Industrial Town, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560 044, India
CTO, Shoppers Stop Ltd, u_krishnan@cio.in
Sunil Gujral
s_gujral@cio.in
Unni Krishnan T.M
V. Balakrishnan
CIO, Polaris Software Ltd., v_balakrishnan@cio.in
12
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/15/2007 4:50:46 PM
Trendline_Nov11.indd 19
11/16/2011 11:56:19 AM
reA der feedbAck
missing: someone presenting a real-life

case study and showcasing how identity
management has added value.
The vendor at the CIO event mentioned
that over 400 organizations are already
customers of identity management. I
would have preferred an example to
demonstrate its value.
IShwaR Jha
Senior VP (business technology), Zee Telefilms
OS of the Masses
As in the past, the January 1, 2007
edition of CIO has again something to
update the IT leaders knowledge and
expand his awareness of IT products.
The Vista Outlook special issue (January
1, 2007
2007) was excellent. Whether one
likes Microsoft or not, one buys its
products for a simple reason: they are
simple, easy to use, and well-accepted
internally. It has been fairly evident
with previous releases like Windows 95,
98 up to XP.
As an IT person, I will use Vista
simply for its security features. Out of
my 3,000 PCs in Bangalore, I would
first study how many require Vista
for critical applications or those
machines that have critical data. I have
noticed that most features in a Microsoft
product are under-utilized. So, while we
would not be replacing all our old OS,
the computers with important data are
Vista candidates.
R.K. Upadhyay
The roundtable on identity

management was very good. I
believe all the participants must have
benefited from it, primarily because all
organizations are now in the process of
implementing it. This conference gave
good insights into the topic.
aRUn pande
p
VP-IT, Colgate Palmolive
Thank you for inviting me to the

roundtable. The topic was relevant and
important for all CIOs present. Different
CIOs come with different exposure,
knowledge and level of understanding
of a given subject. The inputs provided
were good, especially the articulation
and simplicity of explanation provided
by Jay Huff, marketing director
(software practice), Sun Microsystems.
He remained within the topic while
maintaining neutrality from a product
point of view (which is commendable).
PwC provided good professional inputs.
anweR BagdadI
Thanks for inviting me to the

identity management roundtable ('Does
Identity Management Secure Business
Value?', December 2006). It was a good
experience, but here is what I found
16
Inbox.indd 16
The TechnologyStrategy debate

An organization would have an ideal
situation (Inbox, December 15, 2006) if a
CIO knows and understands business
processes but is centered on technology,
while a CEO has an understanding of
technology but keeps business as his
core competency.
Each one has his or her own core
competency, and both can work together.
This would make a great combination
for business. It rarely happens,
though. In most cases, there are gaps in
understanding but business goes as usual
with understanding and compromise.
Therefore, it is important to have a
professional and mature approach.
K.B. SIngh
Head-IT, BSES
Senior VP & CTO

CFC International, India
Deputy GM-IT BSNL- Bangalore Telecom District
assigning Id
"A cIO and ceO have

their respective
core competence,
and both can work
together. This
would make a great
combination for
business, though it
rarely happens."
What Do You Think?

We welcome your feedback on our articles,
apart from your thoughts and suggestions.
Write in to editor@cio.in. Letters may be
edited for length or clarity.
editor@c o.in
Corrigendum
In 'The Path of Technology
Leadership' (View From The Top,
January 1, 2006), Polaris Software
Labs chairman and MD Arun Jain was
incorrectly identified as Arun Gupta in
the photo caption.
The error is regretted.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
new
hot
unexpected
'Fo
F cus on GroominG CIOs'
Fo
Well, were a fortnight into 2007, which means its time to revisit
those New Years resolutions from 2006 and delete them (or pretend they never
existed). Or we could drag them forward into 2007, as part of our ongoing guilt
list with no specific deadline.
If youre a CIO, you probably have a conventional list of annual resolutions ('deliver
more business value'). But, you may also want to take a look at Gartners new year
resolutions for CIOs, which focuses this year on so-called high-value sidebar actions
that will supposedly complement your conventional list. This is the soft stuff: flossing
for CIOs. And Gartner picked a pretty interesting mix this time around, grouped into
three buckets: things to start doing, things to do more of, and things to stop doing. Heres
a quick rundown:
Things to start doing: First, Create an IT generation succession plan. Focus on
Generation X (born between 1963 and 1978) and lay the foundation for your IT shop. You also
need to get more women in the mix, because IT needs to be more collaborative. Second, 'Start
tracking the environmental performance of IT.' Be part of the solution on this one, before youre
seen as part of the problem. Third, enable 'true innovators' within your organization. Use 1 to 3
percent of your budget for creative, risk-tolerant initiatives, Gartner suggests.
(Continued on Page 18)
ILLUSTRaTIOn By anIL T
LEADERSHIP
Keep IT Simple
Simplicity is
the key to better IT, according to a recent
study by The Hackett Group consultancy.
Even though world-class IT departments
spend 7 percent more per end user on IT
than their peers, they return more to the
bottom line through reduced back-office
costs, according to the study. These topnotch IT departments accomplish this in
part by reducing architecture complexity.
That a streamlined architecture can
improve IT operations isnt a new idea.
But Scott Holland, senior director with
Hackett, found that this practice, among
others that promote good IT governance
(such as the use of project management
offices and service models such as the
Information Technology Infrastructure
MANAGEMENT REPORT
VOL/2 | ISSUE/05
Trendlines.indd 17
Library, ITIL), contributes directly to financial

performance. In companies with worldclass IT departments, back-office functional
groups such as finance, human resources
and procurement were able to save between
Rs 9.45 crore and Rs 24.75 crore for every
Rs 100 crore in revenue. Meanwhile, the cost
of operating these functions, as a percent of
revenue, is at least 13 percent and as much as
45 percent lower than at other companies.
One key factor: World-class companies
buy enterprise systems at the functional
level, notes Holland. While Holland
acknowledges that it could be a stretch for
a mid-market company to invest in an ERP
system, theres a price to enter.
Hackett defines world-class companies
as those that fall within the top quartile of
the consultancys benchmarks for efficiency

(based on use of resources) and effectiveness
(based on skills and processes).
In its analysis of data from about 200
companies, Hackett found that the best
performing IT departments deployed
31 percent fewer applications for every
1,000 end users.
They were also much more likely to be
operating a single ERP system, especially
for financial management.
Simplification of the IT portfolio extends
to the technology infrastructure. The top
IT shops also use fewer development
platforms, fewer databases and operate
fewer data centers per 1,000 end users.
By Elana Varon
17
resolutions
For the CIO
(From Page 17)
D A T A C E N T E R S IBM will license its technology for cooling

servers with water instead of air to Panduit, a global networking
and electrical manufacturer, hoping to encourage adoption of IBM
energy-saving techniques for data centers.
Panduit will license IBMs Rear Door Heat eXchanger, a 5-inchdeep cooling door that mounts on the back of a conventional server
rack. Water courses through the door, cooling the processors in the
server hardware. IBMs water-cooled system reduces server heat
output in data centers by up to 55 percent, compared to air-cooled
technology, says Tom Bradicich, chief technology officer for IBMs
BladeCenter and System x server product lines.
The heat exchanger is part of IBMs CoolBlue portfolio of products
aimed at slicing data center energy costs.
Data center operators have been slow to embrace the idea: Its
difficult to do water cooling inexpensively, Bradicich says. But in
the past 18 months, the number of servers used in data centers has
been getting extremely out of hand, he says. As electricity bills for
cooling grow, water-cooled solutions become more viable.
Some CIOs now give water cooling a closer look, though they still
have some reservations, says Michael Bell, a Gartner analyst.
Water cooling can be initially more expensive to introduce into
a data center than air cooling, and IT managers worry about water
systems leaking and causing damage, Bell says. Some CIOs are
sticking their toes in the water cautiouslyclustering their highestpowered servers into one part of the data center and introducing
water-cooled technology only in that area.
As power bills grow, Bell says, water usage will rise.
Things to do more of: First, re-establish your

visibility into total enterprise IT spending. Were
back in a growth phase, Gartner concludes, where
shadow IT spending tends to proliferate. Second,
help HR become strategic. Empower them with social
networking, collaboration, and so on tools to use
talent as a strategic weapon. And third, 'improve
front-line business experience.'
Make hands-on exposure to
business operations mandatory
for your whole team, suggests
the report.
Things to stop doing: Stop
giving back budget savings!
Apply them to IT priorities
elsewhere and report IT yield
back to the business as your key
yardstick, not cost savings. Stop
treating IT governance as an
elaborate process and focus more
on the people side of governance
winning hearts and minds.
And finally, stop obsessing about
the minutiae of technology and
find ways to deflect or redirect
these time-sucking conversations
before they happen.
Having said that, Gartner
also suggests getting hands-on with the following
technologies in 2007: 3-D printing, social information
analysis tools, newer high-level programming
languages (such as Flapjax and Phrogram), and virtual
communities such as Second Life.
Overall, I like the 'think different' feel of these Gartner
resolutions, even if they are a bit apples and oranges, and
maybe not practical for every CIO. Maybe you wont get
to all 10 this year, but remember, this is the optional list,
the little something extra. Dont forget your primary 10;
keep the lights on, the trains running, and the network
up. And dont forget to floss.
By Robert Mullins
By David L. Margulius
IL LUSTRaT IO n By MM S HanIT H
Throw
COLD WATER
on Costs
18
Trendlines.indd 18
VOL/2 | ISSUE/05
TRENDLINES
New Year
trendlines
Keeping
Track, the
Open Way
An open source wireless

tracking system for following people
around buildings got its first public use
last week at the Chaos Communication
Congress in Berlin.
The creators of the OpenBeacon system
sold 900 tags at Rs 585 each to attendees
who volunteered to be tracked during the
four-day event. Some attendees bought
multiple tags to experiment with later.
OpenBeacon uses chips that transmit
and receive over the 2.4GHz frequency,
which is available for unlicensed use in
many countries. At the conference, the
chips communicated with nearby base
stations which sent data back to a central
server. There were 23 base stations
positioned around the conference center.
OPEN SOURCE
The developers of OpenBeacon worked

with partners to create a 3D model of the
conference center, and anyone could use
touch-screen monitors that displayed
the location of attendees. Touching an
attendee on the screen displayed a profile
that the person could voluntarily add.
The OpenBeacon team used the
congress as a showcase for the tracking
technology and its implications. An analysis
of data collected over days could lead to
assumptions about relationships between
people who may have gathered in similar
spaces repeatedly, noted Milosch Meriac,
one of the creators.
We wanted to make this analysis
transparent, so that people are more aware
of what data theyre willing to give away,
LIFE
TECH
Researchers
at the Computing and
Communication Center of the
Technical University of Aachen
in Germany hope to reduce
the level of error in surgical
operations.
With the plastic surgery,
hand and burn surgery
department at the university
hospital, they have developed
a prototype virtual operating
room to help surgeons learn
operating techniques and also
prepare for difficult procedures
with no risk to patients.
Virtual operations can enable frequent, thorough training at all
levels for faster, safer and more cost efficient surgery. This is the
aim of computer scientists and surgeons cooperating in the Virtual
Reality Surgical Training project. The trick of performing a virtual
surgery is to simulate a realistic operating environment, according
to computer scientist Torsten Kuhlen. That means creating not only
a near real-life virtual operating theater but also virtual patients
and all their various organs, bones, muscles and tissues.
For virtual operating to be a useful learning tool, surgeons must
be able to view the entire body, down to the various layers of skin.
he said. On the last day of the conference,

OpenBeacon released all the data gathered
over the four days.
There are many types of commercial
systems that could be used for tracking
people or things but Meriac hoped to
solve several shortcomings in those
systems. He and a friend initially developed
OpenBeacon after looking for a possible
way to solve crowd control problems. They
decided that RFID wouldnt be very helpful
because the tags can only be read by
passing through gates. Requiring millions
of people to funnel through specific areas
might only exacerbate the problem.
By Nancy Gohring
To create a realistic feeling of

using a scalpel during surgery,
they also need to sense the
skins resistance to cutting. And
not only that, they need all the
action taking place during a
virtual surgery to happen fast
ideally in real time to make
the situation realistic.
In the prototype virtual
operating room developed by
researchers of the Computer
and Communication Center,
surgeons wear special glasses,
allowing them to see not only a
virtual operating table but also a
holographic image of a patient lying on top. The image is created by a
video beamer installed in the table.
To relay the skins resistance to basic manipulations such as
pinching, cutting and dissecting, the Aachen team has developed a
robotic device that holds the scalpel. The computer scientists have
developed complex algorithms to emulate a wide range of tissues,
such as fatty and glandular tissue, and pectoral muscles. They have
also developed a complex, ultra-fast mathematical rendering of
realistic skin layers to correspond with incisions in real time.
By John Blau
Virtual Surgery
Pardons Mistakes
20
Trendlines.indd 20
Vol /2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:37:59 PM
trendlines
30 Books to Make You a Better Leader

C A R E E R A single book might not help you
discover your inner leader, but 30 books can
change your life. Thats the premise behind
the Regional Leadership Forums (RLF)
2007 book list. RLF, a nine-month
program of individual work and group
sessions presented by the Society for
Information Management (SIM), fosters
leadership development in part through
book discussions. (For the complete RLF
reading list, see the online version of
this article at http://www.cio.in/features/
viewArticle/ARTICLEID=2666)
The forum focuses on individual growth
and business intelligence, not technical acumen,
says Bob Rouse, director of RLF and professor of
computer science at Washington University. Hence the
list includes Two Old Women by Velma Wallis and Viktor Frankls
Mans Search for Meaning.
Reading beyond the business section is a lifelong learning skill that
the forum stresses, notes Rouse. Case in point: Since graduating from
RLF in 2002, Jim Noga, VP of IT at Massachusetts

General Hospital, has given managers books from
the updated list each holiday season. RLF adds
six new books each cycle. New titles include
Michael Marquardts Leading with Questions,
Patrick Lencionis Death by Meeting and
Kazuo Ishiguros Never Let Me Go.
Those who find the lists length
daunting may want to follow the lead of
Michael Pellegrino, CIO of Fuji Photo Film
USA. He read up on speed-reading prior
to the forum, which involves six two-day
sessions and nearly 8,000 pages of reading.
I started the program on the first day
thinking, What am I doing here? I dont know
if I can keep up with this work, says Pellegrino.
On the last day, I thought, This is one of the greatest
experiences that I have ever had, and I dont really want it to end.
So it didnt. Pellegrino and his peers created an extension program,
which included several, albeit fewer, books.
By Lauren Capotosto
Weighing the Cost of Compliance

From Sarbanes-Oxley to
HIPAA to PCI/DSS, chances are your
company is subject to myriad compliance
requirements. And although the goals of
such regulations are noble, the chunk taken
out of your security budget to uphold them
is considerable, in some cases precluding
stronger, more tangible computer security
protections. In other words, by spending
heavily on the letter of the law, you may be
putting your organization at risk.
Stephen Northcutt, director of the SANS
Institute, a computer security training
organization, agrees that ITs ongoing
emphasis on compliance may be worth
reconsidering. Its an audit mentality,
not a security mentality, Northcutt says.
Its, Lets do everything we can to meet
a checklist of audit requirements that
in the end do not guarantee or measure
real security. The audit requirements and
SECURITY
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Trendlines.indd 21
regulations are generally too broad, with

gaps and overlaps. And when the first audit
is over, the team switches into another,
entirely different mode to satisfy the next
audit, which requires different objectives.
Most companies fall under multiple
regulatory laws with overly broad
descriptions of what is secure. Whether you
pass or fail a particular audit requirement is
up to the discretion of external auditors. Not
surprisingly, pleasing auditors often has
little to do with sound security practice.
Robert W. Hodges, information security
officer at Bon Secours Health Systems, says,
When we get two conflicting or overlapping
regulations, we play it safe and take the most
conservative, secure approach. That way, it
satisfies both requirements.
But always taking the most conservative
approach means higher spending in many
cases, more than is necessary from an overall
security perspective. Regulatory clarification

would help. Discretionary guidelines are often
given specific answers in court.
But with regulations showing more
bark than bite despite the fact that most
organizations are not fully compliant, you
have to wonder where to draw the line
when financing compliance efforts. After
all, continually redirecting vast amounts
of IT dollars and attention away from other
practical security projects in order to
remain compliant could prove considerably
more costly down the line.
Your only solution, however, may be to
hold your nose as you overspend. As Hodges
puts it, Who wants to risk their company
being the defendant when the government
decides to make a test-case example?
By Roger A. Grimes
21
1/12/2007 7:38:01 PM
Collaboration
at Work
M A N A G E M E N T Want to learn the latest
management theory on collaboration? Then log on to an
Internet fantasy role: playing game and create your own
3-D avatar.
Thats what Jack Emmert, creative director for Cryptic
Studios in California, advises. Emmert created the hit game
City of Heroes, in which thousands of online players dress
and arm their 3-D superhero avatar characters to do battle
against thugs, robots and monsters. The twist: The best
way for players to advance to the next level is to collaborate
to vanquish criminals. Emmert
programmed incentives into the
game to encourage teamwork and
continued subscriptions.
In online
Executives can use similar
games, if
incentives, Emmert says, to
a reward
encourage collaboration at work.
is clearly
His advice:
relevant to
Foster Individuality. In
the character,
games, if players can express their
players will
individuality (by say, choosing
play longer.
special clothing), they also will
want to join a group to express
the groups formed identity. In the
workplace, give those executives
with the most to gain from a
successful project the tools to design and personalize the new
system. Let them make it their own, Emmert says.
provide frequent rewards, and praise groups.
Game designers provide some type of reward to players every
90 seconds on average to keep players engaged in the game.
In the workplace, provide small rewards frequently (monthly
perhaps) that not only keep workers engaged in a project but
also reward group behavior.
Make rewards personal. In online games, if a reward is
clearly relevant to the character, players will play longer. Give
rewards that reflect an employees personal tastes or lifestyle.
People dont like to be told to be in a group, Emmert
says. You have to create the incentives and rewards that
will make it their decision that working in a group works
to their advantage.
S TA F F
|
ESSENTIAL TECHNOLOGY
|
A Diet for the IT Power-Hog

Concern over power consumption is driving enterprises to
alter their computing practices, according to a Canadian
analyst.
Read more of such web exclusive features at
www.cio.in/features
Columns
A Good Offense is a Good Defense
Why it pays CIOs to map their plays before a dictate to
outsource comes down from above.
Everyone Gets to Play
Good IT governance is not about committees, processes,
forms and procedures. Its about involving as many people
as possible. And then its ITs job to support them.
Read more of such web exclusive columns at
www.cio.in/columns
Resources
Closing Windows, Opening Doors
Revenue for Windows and Office has remained relatively
flat, while the server and tools division has posted doubledigit revenue growth for 16 straight quarters.
Download more web exclusive Resources from
www.cio.in/resource
COLUMNS
TOP VIEW
GOVERN
Provocative Predictions for 2007

We asked some industry leaders and IT executives for
their boldest predictions about the future of IT
FEATURES
NEWS |
RESOURCES
WebExclusive
By Meridith Levinson
22
Features
Log In Now! CIO.in
REAL
WORLD
Martha Heller
Career Counsel
Cue the Spotlight

How the CIO can achieve a measure of fame and celebrity in four simple steps.
Illust ration p c anoop
oure doing a bang-up job at work. With your

data consolidation project and new sourcing
strategy, youve reduced operating expenses by
40 percent, and your new PMO has put smiles
on the faces of all of your colleagues. Its only a matter of time
before your fabulousness becomes known and recruiters start
calling with your next dream job. (If you believe that, I have a
nice bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.)
The fact is, like most rewards, industry recognition takes
some hard work. Yes, if you are the CIO of GM or Dell, recruiters
know your name, and magazines, newspapers and conference
organizers are beating a path to your door. But if your company
is not a household name, you need to take a proactive approach
to making a splash.
I spoke to four CIOs who take the concept of strategic selfpublicity to heart, and together we have developed four simple
steps to worldwide recognition.
1. Branding. Before you can get your name out there, you
need to have a clear understanding of just what that name
represents. Are you great with customers, a terrific leader, an
architecture guru, or a manufacturing expert? Knowing your
brand will allow you to project attributes that are richer and
more powerful than those associated merely with your job.
Last December, Michael Iacona decided he was ready to
raise his visibility within his industry. But first the CIO of TMP
Worldwide Advertising & Communications thought about
what he wanted his name to connote. To focus his thinking, he
went through an exercise to identify his personal brand.
Iacona sent a survey to his peers, colleagues and even people
he had just met to determine the impression he makes. A
Vol/2 | I SSUE/05
Coloumn Cue the Spotlight.indd 23
23
1/12/2007 7:13:35 PM
Martha Heller
Career Counsel
sample question: if he were a car, what kind would he be?

From the survey results, he learned which five brand
attributes best describe him and used them to develop
a one-page summary, a personal mission statement and
a webpage to advertise it. This is not about creating an
image of who you want to be, but identifying the unique
value that you bring, says Iacona. But just like running IT,
building your brand is not a one-time project. This is not
something you do once and are done, he says. Over time,
you need to continue to build and nurture your brand.
2. Networking. With your brand in hand, you can nearly
see your name up in lights. Well, take a breath; it might
make sense to start networking first. This lets you test
out your brand, hone it while the stakes are low and
meet people who can connect you to relevant editors
and conference organizers. Networking is not just hit
or miss, says Sheleen Quish, former CIO of US Can and
current CIO-at-Large of Box9 Consulting. You need a
great address book and a plan for growing it. I spend at
least 30 minutes a day adding new contacts to my list.
3. Writing. A time-tested way of garnering attention is to
write for a technology or business trade magazine. In 1992,
Greg Smith, now CIO of World Wildlife Fund and author of
Straight to the Top: Becoming a World-Class CIO, decided to get
published. He was in corporate financial systems at Sallie
and had completed a cutting-edge technology project. He
wrote an article about it and submitted it to LAN Times.
The editors teased it on their cover, which led to speaking
engagements, articles, a book and book signings.
Smiths advice: Take a shot, write an article and submit
it to a bunch of publications. Start with a controversial idea
and make sure you include practical advice. You want to give
readers at least one memorable idea when they walk away.
4. Speaking. For many CIOs, few things are less appealing
than appearing before an audience. But its one of the most
effective ways to get known. Start by tapping into MBA and
executive education programs, says Mary Finlay, deputy
CIO of Partners HealthCare System and a frequent speaker at
industry events. They are always looking for guest speakers.
Also, if you are in organizations like SIM, you can offer to
speak at their events. But reference your membership as you
reach out to other events. Conference directors often want to
hear from someone who represents an organization.
Once you get the gig, customize your presentation to
the audiences expectations, test it for delivery and timing,
and connect with your audience. If they like you, word will
spread, and youll be a regular on the speaker circuit.
So, there you have it: youre branded, networked,
in print and on stage. Your worries are over, right? Not
necessarily, cautions Quish: Dont blow your 15 minutes
of fame all at one time. If you get too much exposure, you
can become like stale bread.
24
Coloumn Cue the Spotlight.indd 24
The Last Word

Readers told me that they valued the columns advice for
getting on the speaker circuit. However, many wanted to
learn more about how to make each presentation a success.
I recently heard an excellent talk by Rick Davidson, CIO of
Manpower. I asked him to share some of his best practices
for on-stage success.
Think of your presentation as a story, says Davidson. Give
it a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning is the
hook, the part of the talk that ignites the audiences initial
interest in the topic. Davidson says the middle is where you
allow listeners to relate the topic to themselves and provide
them with opportunities to consider what it means to them.
The end is a call to action: what am I or we going to do
about the situation?
As a CIO speaking to a non-CIO audience who will not
immediately relate to your experiences, you need to
demonstrate that you understand their perspective.
I spoke to people who work in project management offices
and talked about their roles as speed bumps on the road
to chaos, says Davidson. They decided that I understood
them and agreed to listen to me, even though Im in a
different professional role.
Creating an emotional reaction in your listeners telling
a personal story or funny anecdote will establish a
connection with the audience and keep them engaged, says
Davidson. In the talk that I heard, Davidson told a story about
how when his father retired, his mother made his father stay
in the garage all day so as not to disrupt her domestic space.
(This gave me a wonderful idea for my husbands retirement
one day.)
Davidsons final advice? Avoid too many messages, he says.
If you overload your listeners, they wont retain anything.
Sometimes, all your audience will remember is a picture
or a single message. What are the two or three points you
want them to take away? If they walk out with those, youre
successful. CIO
M.H.
Martha Heller is managing director of the IT Leadership Practice at the Z

Resource Group, an executive recruiting firm based in Boston. Send feedback on
this column to editor@cio.in
Vo l/2 | I SSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:13:35 PM
Bill Regehr
Peer To Peer
Fear of Dependency
Small- to mid-size organizations, using small- to mid-size vendors, must always be ready to
break away and stand on their own two feet.
Illust ration MM Shan it h
he technology leaders challenge is to provide

business tools and solutions as efficiently as
possible in a world of limited resources. Thats the
case no matter the size of your organization, but
its especially true when youre a small- to mid-size enterprise.
Our budgets receive closer scrutiny; even low-cost line items
must be justified. Technology staffing is weighed against the
cost of staffing the mission of the organization.
At Boys & Girls Clubs of America, we have an IT budget of
Rs 13.5 crore with a staff of 25 full- and part-time employees
supporting staff in 27 states. We also have 2,000 technology
centers with 20,000 (donated) PCs. As were a non-profit,
adding to our staff is especially difficult because we have to
raise the funds to support those salaries every year.
As one of the fastest-growing major non-profits in the
country, we live in that tense middle ground between the
development and support needs of a large organization and
the realities of our mid-market budget. To walk this high wire
safely, weve adopted a sourcing strategy that takes into account
our limitations. In short, we buy when possible, build when we
must and support in-house. As corollaries to that strategy, we
strive to avoid becoming too dependent on any of the third-tier
vendors we generally have to deal with. We routinely leverage
platforms and staff across multiple applications, and we take
a limited view of business process outsourcing.
Our initial approach to any solution is to see if applications
already exist that could meet our needs. We opt for common
platforms, leaving exotic solutions to those who are able to
make the high-cost investment in the support they require.
Any software platform we choose must be interoperable with
26
Coloumn Fear of Dependencyt.indd26 26
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:16:04 PM
Bill Regehr
Peer To Peer
other applications and have the capability to support multiple

applications. That leverage is a critical component of any new
application business case.
The Vendor Trap

If a suitable solution is not commercially available, we look for
an outside developer. This path can be problematic. On the plus
side, an outside developer frees us from having to grow the inhouse staff to develop the applications. On the other hand, we
run the risk of becoming dependent on the developer. For the
small- to mid-size enterprise, finding affordable tier-one or
tier-two vendors is a challenge, and many of us are forced to
use third-tier players that are, by definition, small and often
not as well-managed as their larger brethren.
Let me illustrate with a generic scenario. We award a contract
to the low bidder, a small firm with a few key developers. Call
it Vendor A. Vendor A is easy to work with and wins over our
users by incorporating 'nice-to-haves' into the application spec.
As new apps are needed, we continue to use Vendor A based on
its pricing and the nice relationship we have with him. Indeed,
it now feels like part of our organization.
As we grow, the time comes to upgrade some of our
platforms. Simultaneously, Vendor As developers experience
a series of challenges, both personal and professional. They
become distracted, less reliable and sometimes unavailable.
They cant keep up with the work they have and cant meet our
new requirements. But theyre the only people who understand
how their applications work, and we find ourselves depending
on a vendor with no resilience or bench strength.
If you find yourself traveling down this path, stop
everything: find a way to expand in-house, and get third-party
support for your critical applications. It may take time (even
years) to extricate yourself, but whatever it takes, be diligent
about pursuing a multi-vendor portfolio.
As CIO, its critical for me to convince the organization how
important it is to maintain a healthy degree of independence
from any single vendor. We cant allow ourselves to be
victimized by unforeseen disasters or dysfunctional business
relationships. In addition, weve learned that periodic
code reviews must be completed at set milestones in each
development project to ensure both the quality of the code and
the clarity of the documentation for the application in the event
we will need to support it ourselves.
The in-house staff of smallto mid-size organizations

generally perform multiple
functions with enough
efficiency to support the
needs of the business.
costs by requiring each member of our team to support
multiple applications.
Last, for a few specialty applications or communications
needs, we outsource the entire process. In doing so, we are able
to off-load the development, support and delivery of unique
applications with the option of bringing them in-house later,
if were able to do so cost-effectively.
The Limits of Outsourcing

Beyond that, outsourcing has a limited role in our IT strategy.
While some might argue that business process outsourcing
best serves the needs of the small- to mid-market segment,
most often these processes support highly specialized and/
or unique business solutions, which, in turn, call for highly
customized processes.
To be sure, there are some processes that might be
outsourced, but the financial benefits are often negligible. As
Ive mentioned, our in-house staff generally performs multiple
functions not with the degree of expertise of an outsourcers
specialized staff, but with enough efficiency to support the
needs of the business and at a cost that most outsourcers
cannot match. Further, the volumes involved in these smallto mid-size environments are not sufficient for an outsourcer
to justify creating a competency center.
The key point is that its critical for those of us in the smallto mid-size space to advocate on behalf of the enterprise in
ensuring that the infrastructure and applications are created
and supported in a manner that will position the organization
for growth with minimal risk. The strategy we choose in
sourcing will play a significant role in determining the ability
of the business to deliver to its customers. CIO
Why Support Begins at Home

When it comes to supporting applications, we default to inhouse maintenance. We must be in control of our own destiny
for certain applications.
These include CRM, ongoing website development and our
central database. In an organization of our size, its critical
that ongoing in-house support be included in initial project
budgets. We reduce our in-house maintenance and support
28
Coloumn Fear of Dependencyt.indd28 28
Bill Regehr is CIO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, based in Atlanta. He is a member
of the CIO Executive Council, a former IT executive with Equifax and IBM. Send
feedback on this column to editor@cio.in
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:16:04 PM
Cover Story | Leadership Lessons
Ones
B Y V i j ay r a m a c h a n d r a n
Watch
to
Honoring the CIOs of the future and the IT

leaders of today.
hat is leadership? That question and its companion how best to lead? must
be answered by CIOs as they prepare the next generation of IT leaders.
We all know leadership when we see it. And note its absence easily.
But separating leadership into its constituent elements isnt so simple. What we know
for certain is that leadership development is an imperative. CIOs need leaders in the
ranks. And the most successful CIOs take an active role in cultivating leaders. So the CIO
Ones to Watch 2007 program not only honors the 25 executives who have shown that
they have what it takes to be tomorrows CIOs, the awards are also an acknowledgement
of the personal commitment to fostering talent shown by their CIOs.
The question is: how do you become a person others want to follow? Start by being
yourself, say CIOs, who share the secrets of their own leadership success in The Right
Stuff (Page 30). Play to your strengths. If youre a hands-on person, be a hands-on leader.
If youre not a rah-rah type, dont fake it. Find another way to inspire the troops.
All the Ones to Watch honorees excel at leadership. The winners say that change
management, team building and business strategy were extremely important in their
rise to the top. To recognize the components of well-rounded leadership and to honor the
individuals who exemplify them, CIO has profiled three executives from this years crop
of Ones to Watch winners who have mastered these skills (Master Class Page 36). We
examine the demands each of these honorees faced within their company and explore
how they applied their special talent to resolving a problem or confronting a challenge.
Interestingly, they all stressed the need to develop soft skills in their bid to rise to the
next level. The success of a CIO depends, to a large extent, on his ability to build bridges
with his peers and other important colleagues, points out P.S. Narayan, GM, Wipro.
Congratulations to all the winners and to the CIOs who nurtured them. And from
the Ones to Watch Class of 2006, we have a few members who have graduated to the
next level. Kudos to them.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Cover Story Intro.indd 29
29
1/12/2007 7:42:56 PM
Cover Story | Leadership Development
The
Right
Stuff
What does it take to make the leadership leap?
Do you have what it takes?
By Balaji Narasimhan
Cultivating your
leadership skills and
those of your staff
How to develop skills in
your IT department
3 0 J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD
Cover Story The Right stuff.indd30 30
CIOs on the critical

elements of leadership
Imagin g by an il t
Reader ROI:
Photo by Sr ivatsa Sh an dilya
xperience possesses immense power, believes S. Hariharan. The past, says the
senior vice president (infrastructure services and support group) of i-flex Solutions,
has a hand in molding present-day thought. And in many ways, his experience has
pointed to the value of playing IT by the ear.
Take for instance Hariharans approach to his IT organization. He adopts a hands-on
approach in certain areas and delegation in others. Delegation is crucial when people need to
be empowered and shown that they make a difference to the organization.
Not very far away from i-flex Solutions headquarters in Mumbai, the IT department of
Reliance Industries is founded on one approach: delegation. Ashish Chauhan, president & group
CIO of Reliance Industries, asserts that a CIOs role is largely about empowering his team. In a
large organization like Reliance, a hands-on approach wont always work, he says.
Hariharan and Chauhans leadership approaches couldnt be more different. Yet, both have
reached the top and managed to thrive there. How? It comes down to knowing the leadership
style that best suits them and staying true to it. If you are a hands-on person, be a hands-on
manager. If you are naturally enthusiastic, use the enthusiasm to motivate your troops. And if
you are a quiet strategist, dont try to manufacture false rah-rah; focus on strategy instead.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/15/2007 4:22:25 PM
S. Hariharan,
Sr. VP-infrastructure
services and support group
of i-flex Solutions, says a
situation must determine if
delegation is appropriate or a
hands-on approach is better.
1/15/2007 4:22:27 PM
Photo by S r ivatsa S ha ndilya
For some, the taste of IT started even earlier. K.B. Singh,

head of IT at BSES Power, says, During my Masters studies
in North America in the early 1980s, I saw how developed
countries used information technology for business
advantage. I felt that a country like ours could also benefit
from this kind of approach. But at that time, the IT base in
India was very poor. Today, in India, he is doing exactly
what he wanted to do.
Of course, not everybody gets into IT right from when
they were in college Amit Mukherjee, group CIO of RPG
Enterprises, says that he got a solid grounding into IT while
working with Tata Steel and other companies in the early
1990s. It points again to the power of experience.
While all these IT leaders have had diverse backgrounds,
they all agree that their initial grounding helped a lot when
they became CIOs. My early experience
in various IT organizations has given me
immense knowledge in my current role as
i-flexs CIO, avers Hariharan. Chauhan
seconds that observation: Early experiences
during my education of working on
cutting edge of technology and subsequent
opportunities of applying the knowledge
and learning new techniques has been
something I have always cherished. With
Singh, it has been a combination of early
work experience and constantly updating
myself, that has extremely useful in shaping
my career because technology evolves very
fast. Mukherjee also attributes his success
to his work in shaping his nature, and feels
that it was very important.
These diverse backgrounds have given
CIOs their own understanding of success
and failure of IT projects. We may call
it failure or adjustment for the business
advantage, says Singh. In many cases,
Mukherjee notes, perseverance and
modifications have converted failures into
success. A more pragmatic Hariharan
feels that failures are an inherent part
of the learning-and-growth process. In
retrospect, one learns more from failures
than from successes, says Chauhan.
Regardless of what these IT leaders feel
about failure, they are unanimous in the
belief that fear of failure apart, risks have to
be taken. While taking risks is important,
Ashish Chauhan,
one should take calculated risks backed
president & group CIO
by a proper risk mitigation strategy, says
of Reliance Industries,
Mukherjee. It is something Hariharan agrees
says business interaction
with. Chauhan notes that doing nothing is
and buy-in are of utmost
also about taking risk. The only person who
importance at all levels.
doesnt believe in any such thing as risk is
Every CIO needs to find his or her own leadership style. But
getting to the top also requires the ability to recognize and
capitalize on opportunities to hone what youve learned,
say the CIOs who nominated the winners of the 2007 CIO
Ones to Watch, which honors senior staff poised to become
tomorrows IT heads.
Hariharan believes that much of his growth coincided
with i-flexs expansion plans. With multiple locations
and numerous offices, the challenge was to provide IT
infrastructure that enabled business, he says. Chauhan,
on the other hand, had his first taste of IT when he was part
of a five-member team that set up the NSE around 1992.
In those days, I set up the first Indian commercial satellite
network for NSE which is still amongst the largest in the
world, he points out.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/15/2007 4:22:32 PM

Singh: There is no risk when there is a vision to carry an IT
initiative till the end.
The implication of the stream of thought that emerges from
these beliefs is that before taking risks, one should become
familiar with the areas of business, particularly with respect
to those aspects that do not fall within the ambit of IT. The
four CIOs we interviewed feel that it is critical to understand
all the areas of operation. Chauhan here seems to be the most
vocal champion of technology. IT is the only glue that binds
large organizations, and facilitates the organization to behave
as a single entity, he points out.
This naturally begs the question: should IT executives,
in order to gain better exposure, move from company to
company? An emphatic no. It is better to move around within
the existing company and gain exposure rather than hop from
one job to another. Says Hariharan, In a large organization,
an IT executive may develop skill-sets by just being within
the organization and playing different roles. Evidently,
developing a keen understanding of the business is more
fruitful than visiting job-related websites.
Its unsaid in IT organizations: CIOs must have a sound
understanding of business to reach the top.
In the context of business and technology, one question
keeps popping up: should the CIO be more inclined towards
business than technology? Hariharan and Singh feel that the
CIO need not be a businessperson, but needs to understand
business requirements and processes. Mukherjee, however,
says that without business success, there can be no IT success.
Chauhan agrees, Understanding the business is of utmost
importance. Without that, IT is like a body without a soul.
But while understanding business is one thing,
communicating the role of technology especially to the top
management is another. Mukherjee, therefore, feels that the
CIO should don two hats and be able to discuss business with
the top management and the nitty-gritty issues of hardware
upgrades and software installations with his own tech team.
On the other hand, Hariharan has a slightly different take.
Communication is through results. When a CIO shows
results to top management in terms of IT helping to increase
revenue and optimize costs, then its clear that the marriage of
technology and business acumen works.
Chauhan, though, is worried about layers besides the top
management. At each step, the business interaction and
business buy-in at all levels is of utmost importance. In this
respect, Singh sounds the happiest. We have an IT roadmap
to meet the business objectives. In each area, we have activities
that are broken down to meet a defined schedule. In our case,
IT is aligned with business objectives, and our management
is also tech-savvy. Therefore, this task is much easier. In spite
of this, he admits that there is always pressure on achieving
milestones and measuring benefits.
One way in which a CIO can achieve his milestones is by
building skills related to various areas of business. Chauhan
is clear about how this should be done, and, with a touch of
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Class Act
How to create a training program for IT staffers to

focus on technology leadership.
lthough general leadership-training programs already existed at

American utility giant Southern Company, R. Bart Wood, CIO of
Southerns Georgia Power operating unit, and other members of the
senior leadership team recognized that they needed to provide IT
staffers with opportunities to focus purely on technology leadership.
To this end, they launched a 24-month IT leadership program.
The selection committee, consisting of the corporate CIO, the
executive sponsor of the training program, the vice president of
IT, a representative from HR and an employee with experience in
leadership development, selected 25 participants after reviewing a
group of candidates nominated by senior IT leaders, attempting to
represent as many of Southerns geographies and functional areas as
possible. A unique aspect of the program is that one of its openings is
designated for a non-IT staffer who has expressed an interest in IT.
Classes meet one or two days a month and are taught by both
internal and external experts. As the group enters the second year,
participants will shift from classroom-based learning to group
projects and mentoring by senior IT leaders. Wood takes on six of the
25 participants for group mentoring once a month.
I have no doubt that the level of exposure they receive in terms of the
classes and small-group projects helps to better prepare participants to
be more competitive and ultimately successful, he says.
Although its too early to measure benefits in terms of promotions,
the management team has already seen an improvement in
communication skills and increased idea-sharing and networking
among the group.
Carrie Mathews
reverence, says, I have found this to be the most effective

way of learning business skills at the feet of the masters of
the business. Mukherjee, who honed his skills on project
management while working for Reliance Industries earlier,
feels that management of resources and third-party vendors
plays a crucial role in business. Hariharan has gone about the
same by building both technology and management skills in
his IT department. Training has been an important formal
channel to achieve proficiency in both, he says.
What does the CIO do then with these skill-sets: does he
become a change agent? All the IT leaders we interviewed
feel that this is what a CIO was born to do. Being a change
manager is very important, and should be administered along
with business innovations and initiatives that help business
the most, says Singh. In fact, Mukherjee believes that a CIO
REAL CIO WORLD | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 3 3
1/15/2007 4:22:32 PM
Photo by Son u mehta
We need both a top-down and a bottom-up approach to

convince everybody, and at times, some amount of force is also
required, says Mukherjee. However, he is quick to point out
that there is a carrot-and-stick approach at work: convincing
the end user that there is something in it for him is one of the
best ways of ensuring end user buy-in.
Of course, cajoling the end user doesnt always work.
There are situations where one cant compromise (like
system security and regulatory requirements), and
the users are not given a choice, says Hariharan. Such
instances apart, users play a definitive role. Chauhan
actually goes as far as to quip that one should involve users
from the concept stage and incorporate some of the users as
part of the overall strategic team for the project. Insights
and enthusiasm of these champion users will go a long
way in providing requisite buy-in from
management and end users, he adds.
Chauhan also believes in what he calls
a rollout framework, which would provide
the CIO with a tool to ensure that the
benefits envisaged at the time of taking
the management buy-in are realized in
the field by handholding, training and
motivating the users by showing real
benefits to each user and the organization
as a whole in a systematic and planned
manner. In the absence of such a rollout
framework, Chauhan warns, a project may
be successful in the technical sense but not
from the business perspective because
users may not be enthusiastic or may
not be able to keep pace with the speed of
change of technology.
Even Singh believes that the
involvement of the user group during or
post technology implementation is a key
to success. He advocates a different tack,
though. It is advisable to first select
areas where business advantages could
be realized fast with IT implementation
and this would generate confidence at all
levels. This comes with a caveat though:
before doing this, the management has to
be completely committed. And to get here,
the CIO should do the internal selling of
the project idea at a strategic level. Once
the idea is sold, the management may
require quick results, and to ensure this,
K.B. Singh,
the IT implementation staff may have to
head-IT of BSES Power,
take extra pain, explains Singh.
says involving the user
There is a benefit associated with this
group during or post
pain. It enables the CIO to get noticed when
technology implementation
the results start pouring in. Hariharan puts
is a key to success.
it succinctly when he says, Results! Results!
is the most important change agent because he is instrumental

in bringing about change with the aid of technology. Chauhan
feels that the change a CIO effects in his organization should
not be restricted to technology, but also include the larger
ambit of business. The most effective way to usher a change is
to make it least painful for everyone concerned, and still ensure
that the organization progresses in overall use of technology
for the benefit of the business it is serving. Towards this
end, Hariharan says, The change must be enabled through
efficient IT processes, applications that streamline business
operations, and technology that is constantly evolving to
benefit business.
But change is not possible merely with the blessings of
the top management the active involvement of the user
community can determine if the project succeeds or fails.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/15/2007 4:22:34 PM
Results! Result-orientation must be a

primary focus for any CIO. For this, the
CIO must realize that he has to be in close
touch with technology and business.
Only in this way can results be ensured.
He also warns that, since a CIO is usually
bound to get noticed when there is a failure
as opposed to when the implementation is
successful, he should take special pains
to minimize failure, which can result in
negative internal publicity.
Mukherjee, who is all for a handson approach, feels that in order to get
results, a CIO should pilot a large project
that changes the face of the organization
and handle the project all the way from
ideation to implementation. This way, a
CIO can get to understand the various
facets of business and his interaction with
the management and the user community
will also develop further. This has a double
benefit the top management begins to
trust the acumen of the CIO and users too
learn to respect the CIO as a senior person
who can deliver business solutions.
Handling a large project involves team
spirit, and Singh seems to believe that
even this helps because the CIO then
learns how to manage technology, the
top management, the end users, and his
own team more effectively. A CIO should
get into the business processes, make
an IT implementation that delivers the
maximum business advantages, build
a formidable team and align IT with the
business objectives, he asserts.
Chauhan rounds up averring that
the CIO has to work continuously
towards providing world class solutions
to business. He has to understand
business in detail and master technology.
Anticipation and flexibility in terms of
business processes and technology are
very important because these differentiate
a good CIO from a not-so-good CIO.
Shakespeare said it best: To thine
own self be true. Dont change who
you are just because you are now the
head honcho. CIO
Additional inputs by senior writer
Ben Worthen.
Special correspondent Balaji Narasimhan can be
reached at balaji_n@cio.in
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
How to Make It
CIOs on what their winners must do to make the leap.
S. Hariharan, Senior VP-infrastructure services & support group,
i-flex Solutions
What he looks for in a protg: Vision and the ability to carry the
organization forward.
Ones to Watch winner: Ravikumar Muthuswamy, VP-facilities
management group and technology deployment management.
Why I nominated him: Ravikumar has had extensive experience
in the IT infrastructure field. He has had experience in managing
i-flexs infrastructure from the beginning and has an excellent perspective of how this
infrastructure needs to grow to enable our business.
What he needs to do to become a CIO: "Ravi has acquired all the skills necessary to be
a CIO. He has seen our IT infrastructure grow and become a key enabler."
Ashish Chauhan, president & group CIO, Reliance Industries

What he looks for in a protg: A leader with excellent
understanding of technology and business.
Ones to Watch winner: Bharat Sethi, VP
Why I nominated him: Sethi is amongst the top IT leaders in the
Reliance group who has several successes to his credit. He has been
able to motivate a large team to provide world-class solutions to
Reliance group and keep them motivated.
What he needs to do to become a CIO: Today, he is more than a CIO. He is responsible
to provide businesses with very complex but easy to use solutions.
K.B. Singh, head of IT, BSES Power

What he looks for in a protg: Insight of business processes and
ability to align IT with business objectives.
Ones to Watch winner: Anish Kalucha and Prasenjit Mukherjee, IT
managers.
Why I nominated them: Anish is a hard taskmaster, team builder,
and takes his team to achieve the targets. Prasenjit has the ability to
visualize how the end user perceives a tech transformation.
What they needs to do to become CIOs: "Anish needs to learn how to look across
functions and how to deal with users in a more sensitive manner. Prasenjit needs
to go deeper into business processes and leverage technology to derive maximum
business advantage."
Amit Mukherjee, group CIO, RPG Enterprises
What he looks for in a protg: Attitude, aptitude, and ability to
push things with vendors, users and the management.
Ones to Watch winner: Jitendra Kine, head-IT
Why I nominated him: He has conceptualized a complicated and
strategic SAP implementation, and has done it extremely well.
What he needs to do to become a CIO: "Get involved in non-IT
functions."
B.N.
1/15/2007 4:22:41 PM
Master
BY gunjan trivedi
Class
What becomes a leader the most? Take a lesson
(or three) from those who possess the skills and
qualities a successful CIO must have.
Team builder.
Business strategist.
Change agent.
Reader ROI:
Why leaders must

change with the times
Three criteria that
characterize the
successful CIO
Action items for each
criteria
Cover Story Master Class.indd 36
ell-rounded leaders must be all these things and more to be successful in todays
fast-paced business environment. After all, leadership is not a static accomplishment.
And neither are the skills required to do it well.
In fact, the capacity for agile leadership in the face of shifting business challenges is practically
a job requirement for CIOs, who have been whipsawed by changes ranging from the rapid growth
of the dotcom boom to the need to slash services and operate on less when the bubble burst and
the economy contracted. As a CIO, you must be able to anticipate industry trends, how are they
likely to impact the organization and what opportunities you can create out of them. Agility is
important and agile leadership matters, says Arun Gupta, director-IT of Philips Electronics
India, and a member of CIOs Advisory Board.
Whats true for the CIO also holds for those who aspire to the title. During their rise to the top,
all of our Ones to Watch honorees have stepped into the part of the business strategist, change
agent and team builder as the needs of the business dictated or circumstances demanded. When
the winds of change blow, leaders must be able to evolve to fit the times.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 9:18:59 PM
business strategist
manager expand his or her repertoire in order to round out

leadership abilities, and harness such talent to help IT deliver
the greatest value to the business.
For a snapshot of what a high-potential business strategist,
change agent, and team builder looks like, read on.
The Business Strategist

When youre in charge of a Rs 30-crore budget to support
over 65,000 users like Narayan P.S. is, business strategy
comes naturally to you. As a general manager and head of
the information system group in Wipro, Narayan runs IT as
a business, treating business users as his customers. Wipros
CIO, Laxman Badiga, praises his lieutenant, Narayan is
visionary in approach. Based on belief that IT and business
must partner as equals in delivering value, he forges strategic
links with key business constituencies.
Photo by S r ivatsa S ha ndilya
As the economy continues to grow and competition heats up,

so do business demands on IT. Technology departments must
deliver solutions with real value, and they must deliver them
quickly. This means working closely with major internal and
external stakeholders to develop relationships and trust in IT,
as well as with the technology staff to keep workers energized
and focused on where the business is going. So, team-building
is high on the list of what a future CIO needs in order to get to
the top. To figure out who has a team builder trait, I would
look at the way a potential IT leader communicates and is able
to sell his ideas. Without the power to effectively communicate
his viewpoints and an ability to understand and respond to
others perspective he cannot be a CIO, says Satish Joshi,
executive VP, Patni Computer Systems.
Technology departments today must be masters of
handling transition as companies struggle to gain competitive
advantage in the marketplace by aligning
the business with IT. To lead others in a
new direction or to influence the way people
do their jobs requires acting as an agent of
change. And thats never easy.
The ability to manage changes is what
makes a real leader. The effort tha goes into
implementing best solutions will be wasted
if you cant get your people to work on the
systems. The ability to effectively persuade
and convince is critical here, says Joshi.
Everytime we talk about change, people feel
threatened. You have to be able to address
change at each level within the organization.
Most CIOs address it only at the top. This
curtails its effectiveness. Hence, a CIO
should communicate well and help others
understand what is required, adds Gupta.
The future IT leaders rise or fall based
on their success in managing projects and
delivering results. Project management is a
hot topic among CIOs, who named backlogs
as their biggest hurdle to effectiveness.
Philips Gupta feels that it is important for
a CIO to understand the capabilities of his
second line of command and give them some
quick wins to improve their confidence. If
a person doesnt taste success fast enough,
he will face demoralization. CIOs should
balance small projects with large ones. I
give one large project to high potentials in
my team, along with a few small ones. The
smaller projects give them the quick wins
and boost their morale and confidence to
take on the large one, he says.
A CIO lucky enough to possess an IT
manager with an aptitude for one of these
roles needs to do two things: help the
Narayan P.S.,
GM & head-IS Group,
Wipro, has ensured a
10-fold growth of business'
involvement in defining
IT's roadmap.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 9:19:02 PM
Vinay Khargonkar,
team builder
head-IT, Hazira Works,

Larsen & Toubro, places
his team in the spotlight to
foster ownership.
consolidating and offering shared services to these

divisions, Narayan conceptualized a plan with clear ROI
and TCO, presented and sold it to management and the
CFO. Wividus was eventually successful inincreasing
efficiencies by synchronizing and standardizing business
processes and technologies across the organization. The
project recovered its set-up costs within a year and is today a
case study for prospective clients. The visible and valuable
outcome of this exercise was that at the end we had one,
unified, standard chart of accounts of Wipro, he recalls.
Still moving in business-strategist mode in his newfound
role of an IT head, Narayan is heading a five-year strategic
initiative called GloSTAR (Global, Scalable, Transformational,
Agile and Real-time). This big-ticket program seeks to set up
a foundation and build the next-generation of redesigned
systems and re-engineered business processes over the
next five years to meet changing business
dynamics.
An IT governance council comprising
C-level representatives from business
oversees this program. Narayan represents
IT in the governance council meetings. The
program defines a business blueprint for
the future. With the initiative, which is the
brainchild of the IS group, Narayan feels that
the involvement of business in defining IT
roadmap has grown ten-fold. Without a good
and sound understanding of all the business
processes and how they are interlinked
together, it is difficult to understand not only
what the business is doing currently but
how it will look in the future. Thoroughly
understanding the current and future of your
organizations business is imperative if you
want to design solutions that will stand the
test of time, he says.
38
Tip: Learn the business and be part of

it. Dont stand on the sidelines and say,
Heres IT work that needs to be done.
Instead, ask: "What are the business
issues, and what do we need to do?
The Team Builder

As the head of Information Technology at
Larsen & Toubros Hazira Works, the Deputy
General Manager, Vinay Khargonkar is
known for his excellence in balancing the
trio of business, technology and his specialty
people. Its an opinion reflected in L&Ts
Head of Corporate IT, S. Anantha Sayana
who also describes Khargonkar as an IT
leader who strikes a correct balance between
handling routine operations efficiently and
Photo by Sr ivatsa Sh an dilya
Having spent close to eleven years in Wipro, Narayans

strong functional background strategic selling,
operations and distribution supply chain has helped
him hone a sound understanding of business challenges
and strategies. Wividus, a shared services entity that
offers common back-office services in HR, accounting
and procurement to the IT and BPO divisions of Wipro, is
a prominent example of him being a successful business
strategist. Six years ago, when Narayan joined the IS
group to handle special projects, he realized that the
Wipro Infotech, Wipro Technologies and the acquired
Wipro BPO (then Spectramind) had their own instances
of ERP running their own separate back-office functions
and catering to their users only.
The inefficiencies that such a set-up introduced were
imminently visible. Seeing a strong business case for
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 9:19:12 PM
Raghavendra Joshi,
workforce into a more productive and

business-oriented team. Together they
VP-IT Group, Yes Bank,
came up with the High Availability Cluster
has instilled a spirit
Multiprocessing Hardware solution to
of collaboration in the
address the problem. Khargonkar received
process of evolving
overwhelming support from L&Ts
IT strategies in the
management, which allowed him to deploy
organization.
the most expensive clustering solution until
then in Gujarat. It would give 100 percent
uptime to L&Ts business applications.
He rallied to get everyone onboard by
conducting on-site training programs,
with the vendors support, which would
update employees knowledge to the new
technology base. We ensured a smooth
transition and found that all the problems
with the maintenance of hardware simply
vanished. It gave the young staff ample time
to take on new projects. When they realized
that the systems were stable and they no
longer needed to sweat over its maintenance,
they started contributing in a much better
way and explored technologies and got
closer to business, says Khargonkar.
In order to build strong and effective
teams, Khargonkar believes that
communication is core. He fosters this
by allowing his team members to make
presentations to senior management.
This increases the teams recognition
and visibility and draws them closer
to the project. Khargonkar gives a free
hand to his team members to achieve a
task and ensures that he does not guide
them on a day-to-day basis. This fosters
ownership, he believes.
He
also
encourages
his
team to take out time to attend conferences,
carrying out exciting projects on cutting edge technologies to
s t u dy
m a r ke t s ,
understand
technology
keep his IT staff motivated and deliver value to the business.
and listen to users before implementing IT solutions.
He has been succesful in creating an IT department that
Invest time in learning new technologies, understand
is very closely integrated with the business, is responsive
business, deploy the right solutions and empower the
to user needs and is also in sync with organizational goals.
whole team is my mantra, maintains Khargonkar.
His department helps young employees take ownership and
The four elements that help me build good teams
accomplish tasks of high standard, substantiates Sayana.
are: empower, energize, communicate and support. Ive
Khargonkars history of being an efficient team builder
always maintained that young people are smart. All they
dates back a decade when he was transferred to the IT team at
need is a support when things go wrong, and they can
the then evolving Hazira plant in Surat, Gujarat.
achieve anything, he adds.
Eight years ago, eight out of every ten complaints we
received were related to hardware and its performance at the
Tip: Foster personal development with the goal of
plant [in Hazira]. I saw our young engineers and programmers
improving communication. Be prepared to dedicate
spending a lot of energy in maintaining systems, rather than
time and effort to a long-term program that uses onusing their skills to develop systems that would increase
the-job situations to reinforce what has been learned
productivity and enable the business to do better, he recalls.
at workshops and exercises.
Khargonkar decided to set things right and build his IT
Photo bySon u mehta
change agent
40
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 9:19:17 PM

infrastructure a fact borne out by the successful completion
of Vulnerability Analysis and Penetration Test carried out by
E&Y in April 2005, explains Menon.
Demonstrating Joshis key skills of being a change agent,
Menon developed a collaborative environment for different
divisions, and got them to share data and files while providing
visibility to certain workflows across units.
In the absence of a full-fledged infrastructure during
the early days, Joshi and his team were able to support
various operational, product and MIS units of the bank by
deploying a tactical Intranet solution, while providing a
greater degree of control to the end-users. This not only cut
down phone and mail traffic, but also helped in improving
turnaround time, says Menon. The key to successful
change management is collaboration. We were able to bring
business heads and users along with the vendors while
The Change Agent
Change is difficult when you go it alone. The key to managing

change is effective communication and a collaborative
approach. Its the reason why Raghavendra Joshi, VP-IT Group
at Yes Bank, doesnt focus on doing it all by himself.
Instead, he often chooses to embark on building bridges
with the business side, win their trust and strategize
collaboratively. And it pays off. Says Aditya Menon, Yes Banks
CIO, in his assessment of Joshi: He has that balance required
to acquit himself very well as a CIO his thirst for knowledge,
coupled with excellent management and delegation skills and
leadership. An important CIO role is to communicate well
specially amongst management, which Joshi does very well.
The scenario of change management in Yes Bank
is unique because it started on a fresh page. Yes Bank
doesnt have legacy systems and pre-defined
processes. We had the advantage of starting
from scratch. By default everyone was tuned
to accepting things as they were coming
along, says Joshi. However, he is fully aware
that owing to the breakneck pace at which the
financial sector is growing in the country, the
problems, hurdles and challenges that require
change management will start to appear and
soon snowball into challenging proportions.
Joshi has, therefore, decided to tread
o qualify for the 2007 Ones to Watch honor, candidates had to be nominated
cautiously on the path of deploying new
or sponsored by a CIO. Candidates could either be deputy CIOs or top IT
technologies and engineering new processes.
lieutenants but not yet full-fledged CIOs.
The idea is to bring in a culture of ingrained
Ones to Watch honorees had to demonstrate expertise in a wide variety of
collaboration of IT strategies with business to
areas, including expertise in a range of business and IT functions, experience
effectively cut down the change management
in leading a large project or conceiving a new business product, and the ability
process required in the future.
to turn around a troubled project or organization. They needed to have a list
Joshi, who is responsible for handling the
of on-the-job accomplishments in their backgrounds and had to be business
banks retail and direct banking IT initiatives,
strategists, project drivers, team builders, and change agents.
instilled his approach of collaboration and
After a due-diligence review by CIOs editorial team, 25 honorees rose to the
enterprise-wide communication, right from
top our Ones to Watch for 2007.
the second day of his job in Yes Bank. This
was in September 2004, when he joined the
information security policy definition team.
After completing the exercise of defining,
drafting and approving the corporate Information Security
strategizing roadmaps. This ensures confidence and trustpolicy with the help of external agencies such as PwC and
building within IT and business, helps quicken decision
Gartner and internal business divisions, Joshi initiated the
making, and prevents teams from going back and forth for
enterprisewide communication program to help users at
clarifications. This kind of culture surely helps in cutting
various business divisions to engrain the importance of infosec.
down the change management process, Joshi states.
Joshi worked closely with various business divisions such
as operations and products to educate users on the Dos and
Tip: Introducing change is risky. Support risk takers
Donts, and to collaboratively enforce the defined information
in your department by providing a safe harbor
security and the Internet access policies.
where taking risks is not discouraged and secondHis approach has yielded results with users being openly
guessing minimized. CIO
receptive to the security-related changes that did not exist
in the organization earlier. This project not only articulated
Senior correspondent Gunjan Trivedi can be reached at
the banks IS Security posture, but also secured the banks IT
gunjan_t@cio.in
How We Chose
the Winners
T
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
41
1/12/2007 9:19:17 PM
Trendline_Nov11.indd 19
11/16/2011 11:56:19 AM
25
Leaders to
Anish Kalucha, 38
Manager IT, BSES Power
I generally hold group

meetings to tackle stress. The
most apt solutions can come
from the most unexpected
quarters.
Bharat Sethi, 46
VP, Reliance Industries
Ive learnt that IT isnt
only about technology and
infrastructure. It has more to
do with enabling processes
and meeting the requirements
of all stakeholders.
Photos by Srivatsa Shandilya , shan kar an d al pesh
Bhupat Kapadia, 44
Manager(Systems), Gujarat
State Fertilizers & Chemicals
Cover Story 25 Leaders.indd 2
Girish Mehta, 51
Manager, Gujarat Narmada
Valley Fertilisers
Work while you work, and
play while you play. Its a
perfect way to deal with
work-related stress.
Jethin Chandran, 35
HeadIT, Infrastructure
Planning and PMO, Wipro
Technologies
I tell my team to learn to
enjoy pressure, and build
multiple skills. Importantly,
know what you want to be.
Jitendra Kine, 38
Head-IT, Ceat
Getting involved in business

strategies and the decisionmaking process brings an
extra edge on the way to
becoming a CIO.
Never limit your thinking

or approach by existing
capabilities or state of affairs.
The acceleration of userdemands outpaces rate of
technology advancement.
Carasel DSouza , 35
Asst Chief Manager-IT,
Flat Products Equipments
Jitesh Sable, 32
Sr. Manager, Siemens
Information Systems
I consider myself to be
more business focused than
technology focused, though in
a technical sense I understand
the two fairly equally.
A piece of advice to my
juniors: change need not
always be large. A small
change can bring great
results.
Emmanuel Soans, 45
GM-IT, Colgate Palmolive
M.R. Venkatesan, 44
Asst. VP, Polaris Software Lab
My way of dealing with

stress: be prepared to say no if
unrealistic demands are made
on your time.
Develop the skill to

distinguish between a jungle
of technology and essential
information, which aids the
objectives of the company.
1/15/2007 2:53:10 PM
o Watch
Md. Jawed Ahmed, 30
Manager Systems,
Adani Wilmarn
You are never too prepared.

Always have a backup to a
backup. Murphys Law works in
overdrive when it comes to IT.
Mukesh Kumar Jain, 46

GM & Head-Retail Technology
Group, ICICI Bank
Building new solutions and
seeing them providing an edge
to the organization is a stress
buster all by itself.
Narayan P.S., 41
GM, Wipro
The IS departments value
is as good as its most recent
success. Theres no question
of resting on your laurels. IT
has to prove its worth every
day, month and year.
Pavan Gurtoo, 33
Assistant VP, UTI Bank
To be aggressive gogetters, companies need
processes and delivery.
Being technology-focused is
a necessity. Avoid it and you
could lose your edge.
Prasenjit
Mukherjee , 37
Manager IT, BSES Power
With my team, I harp on a
few principles: accept change,
plan ahead, keep updated and
always look for an opportunity
to prove your leadership skills.
Cover Story 25 Leaders.indd 3
Raghavendra Joshi, 37
VP-IT Group, Yes Bank
Theres no substitute for
hard work; always be one step
ahead of your peers through
continuous education. Develop
a learnable character and
enjoy life you have only one.
Ravikumar
Muthuswamy, 39
VPFacilities Management
Group, i-flex Solutions
Our 25 Ones-to-Watch
honorees bring business
acumen, technical skills and
passion to their drive for
leadership.
c o m p i l e d B Y t e a m CIO
Satish P.V., 40
Sr. Manager, Hyundai
Motor India
When you know your team
and are able to set objectives
for members and take
responsibility for it, you can
become a CIO.
Sidharth Sharma, 27
Sr. Manager (Systems &
Networking), LeasePlan India
Deploying technology without

an underlying understanding
of business only results in
solutions that benefit no one.
A key piece of learning is the

importance of IT governance.
Not implementing it properly
can result in serious
business issues.
S. Chandrashekhar, 54
Deputy GM-Application
Development & Maintenance,
Ashok Leyland
Sundaresan
Ramamoorthy, 47
GM-IT Services,
HCL Technologies
Always consult with the boss and

your peers. In my experience, Ive
gotten a radically different views
and solutions from them.
I stress on working as a
highly motivated and energetic
team, rather than building a
few stray champions.
S.M. Vashist, 46
Chief ManagerCS,
National Fertiliser
Venkatesh
Natarajan, 44
Dy. GM-IT, Ashok Leyland
I advice my team to be
innovative no matter what task
theyve been assigned to. Also,
to assess their skills, and look
for learning opportunities.
Priotization is important
to beat stress. Focus only
on things that require your
attention and intervention.
Sandeep Chadha, 28
Manager, Fortis Healthcare
Vinay Khargonkar, 42
Deputy GM & head-IT,
Hazira Works, L&T
Stress is a question of
perspective. Work is a
pressure only if you view
it as such.
While its important to

focus on business, CIOs must
stay informed about current
technologies and trends.
1/15/2007 2:53:24 PM
Bankable
Vision
44
View from the Top.indd 44
CIO: How does IT usage

in India compare with
the same in the UK and
Australia, where you have
had extensive experience?
How do you plan to

improve ING Vysyas retail
banking operations in
India? And what role does
IT have in your plans?
Vaughn Richtor: You must

remember that I worked in these countries
some time ago. What I have seen is that the
usage of IT has changed dramatically. But,
one fundamental thing that hasnt changed
as much is peoples ability to adapt to
technology. In fact, the technology uptake
in India has been much faster than I have
seen in other countries in earlier times. So,
I feel that technology here is on par with
the rest of the world both in terms of
systems and processes.
In the retail banking space, it is clear that

without robust and solid technologies, it is
going to be very difficult to deliver. This
is because retail banking is about banking
for a lot of people, and giving them quick
and easy access. So, if you dont have
technology in place, you cant do that. You
need to interface with the customer, and
the best example is in ATM and Internet
banking. To ensure that low-cost, reliable
and easy-to-use systems reach the people,
technology is absolutely critical.
P hoto by KP N
While a section of CEOs in India might not always be comfortable

with technology, Vaughn Richtor, managing director and CEO of
ING Vysya Bank, feels relaxed while discussing IT. One reason for
this could be that he spearheaded ING Direct, which relies heavily
on the Internet, in Australia. He also believes that IT strategy is a
misnomer. Companies need to have an IT plan that is aligned with
their business strategy, he asserts.
View from the top is a series of

interviews with CEOs and other C-level
executives about the role of IT in their
companies and what they expect from
their CIOs.
BY BALAJI NARASIMHAN
Imagin g by an il t
Vaughn Richtor,
MD and CEO of
ING Vysya Bank,
says that IT is as
important as people
and processes
for furthering
the growth of an
organization.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:39:55 PM
View from the Top
VAUGHN RICHTOR
wants I.T. to:
Enhance customer satisfaction
Provide efficient service
Manage processes better
Vol/1 | ISSUE/16
REAL CIO WORLD | J U LY 1 , 2 0 0 6
45
1/12/2007 7:39:57 PM
View from the Top
Tell us about ING Vysyas

recent IT initiatives.
Over the past two or three years, the biggest
initiative we have had is to install a core
banking system. Most of our branches were
largely manual until a few years ago. In 2006,
we completed the rollout of the core banking
system and that was a big step. Our last
branch was computerized in July 2006.
Over the same period of time, we have
introduced Internet banking as a service to
our customers. We are also enhancing the
reach of our ATMs, and giving customers
access to them across the country.
What is the role of the

CIO in your organization?
Does he also participate in
formulating the strategy for
the group?
What is not quite clear to me is: why
are people talking about IT strategy? Im
not sure what that means, but I do believe
that the IT plan has got to be close to an
organizations business strategy. Therefore,
when we look at the business plan we have
developed, we also as a subset of that
look at the capacity of our IT platform, so
that we can determine if our IT can deliver
the products, volumes and capacity at the
right cost.
IT, therefore, plays a key role in achieving
our strategy in our organization. But at
the end of the day, it is about a particular
business strategy.
Does ING Vysya use business

intelligence to find out what
your customers want?
There are two ways of using BI. To me,
one is analytical capability, and I think that
we still have some work to do to improve
the analytical capability of our systems. But
this is just half the issue. The other half of
the issue is the understanding of our people
in terms of what the customers want. And
46
IT must help
by providing
efficient
and reliable
service. If an
IT product
does the basic
things well,
that is the best
value-add.
Vaughn Richtor
that is why we look at our branches and our

branch managers because, today, servicing
customers is largely branch-based.
In that sense, the people in the branch
are the best people to harness the analytical
capability you have. In the future, as the
market opens up and banking starts to depend
less upon personal relationships, the ability
of our company to understand our customers
using technology and then deliver the same
kind of personal service will be critical.
ING Vysya has tied up with

Royal Sundaram to increase
insurance penetration in the
SME and rural segments.
Does this also entail a
change in IT usage?
Yes, I think that it depends on the
particular market segment. In some areas,
people are more ready to use customerfacing IT solutions, whereas they would
still prefer face-to-face relationships in
other areas. It is about understanding
IT in relation to the product and the
particular area.
What is most important is making
a decision on how to deliver what the
customer wants. This is not to say that we
can do all things in all places what we
do is make sure that we are delivering the
right solution at the right place.
The other point I want to make is that
when you do introduce solutions, it is
not just about deploying the technology.
There is also an investment to be made in
educating both the staff and the consumer
on how to use that technology.
So, the other part of using technology
in the frontline is to make sure that you
invest sufficient time in education, both
for the customer and the employee.
In 2001, you remarked

that with the onset of
technology, it would be
possible to play more
golf, though the demands
would remain the same.
Has this happened in
recent times?
No, I play even less golf these days. You
see, when I was in my 20s, the first PCs
were coming out. The big fears at that time
was that there would be a requirement
for less people, and that the people who
were working would be working less,
and therefore have more spare time.
Unfortunately, what has happened is that
technology has enabled things to happen
much faster.
Today, the demand on my time has
actually increased. I think that we
should, as a society, look at the impact of
technology. Organizations talk about a
work-life balance, but technology has made
it harder to achieve.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:40:01 PM
View from the Top
For a large group like

ING, is it better to have
a unified IT strategy or
allowing each country to
define its own strategy?
There are benefits to be derived from
group synergies. If there is a tried-andtested technology that is applicable to local
scenarios, then that makes sense. Why go
through the pain of reinventing the wheel
when you have something readymade?
For specific software solutions, we have
to take two things into account. First, the
requirements of the local market and the
products may be different, and the cost
of adapting the solution may be too high.
Second, different markets have to work on
different cost paradigms. You cant simply take
something because it may not be appropriate
to local transactions. We have to take local
characteristics into account.
How much of ING Vysyas

growth would you attribute
to technology?
I cannot pinpoint ITs exact contribution.
But I will say this: what IT should be doing
is allowing us to deliver quicker, faster and
cheaper service. To that extent, I think,
what IT has done is allow us to get a much
better understanding of our processes and
customers. Because of this, we can provide
better services. We still have a long way to
go, and Ill probably be able to answer the
question better next year.
Is there a great difference

in how IT is used across ING
Vysyas divisions?
Technology is equally important in all
divisions. Its just that the way in which it is
used that differs. So, for example, if you look
at our treasury business, Internet banking
is really not that important, but having the
technology to manage our market transactions
in investments and derivatives is critical.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
On the other hand, customer

loans and customer deposits
are important in retail
banking, and customerfacing systems like ATMs
become vital. The ability of
technology to support each
of our businesses is equally
important only the way in
which it is done is different.
SNAPSHOT
ING Vysya Bank

NET WORTH
Rs 102 crore
DEPOSITS
Rs 13,335 crore
OUTLETS
575
I.T. budget:
So, we shouldnt just put

IT in because everybody
thinks we need IT. The best
way in which IT can help
is by providing efficient
and reliable service to the
customer. If an IT product
does the basic things well, to
me, that is the best value-add
that you can get.
Rs 70 crore-90 crore
You are credited

In view of
IT Staff:
250
(including
staff
with the Internetregulatory
to whom work is
outsourced.)
reliant ING Direct
compliance, do you
CIO: Prasad C.V.G
becoming the sixth
see any change in
biggest retail bank.
the role of a CIO?
Do you have such
No, I dont think so. I think
that
the role of the CIO has
a vision to push
changed over the years. From initially having
Internet banking in India?
I dont take full credit for ING Direct
because I was only responsible for
Australia, which is one of eight countries
that was part of ING Direct. But I
certainly think that in Australia, we had a
good degree of success.
In terms of vision, I think that it was
not about the size or new products. The
biggest success was customer satisfaction
and the ability to attract new customers.
We also engaged and motivated our
employees while achieving this.
I would be happy if we could achieve
the number-1 ranking in customer
satisfaction and customer growth, and
the number-1 ranking in employee
engagement because if you do that, then
growth will automatically follow.
just technical knowledge, the modern CIO

has learnt how to make technology deliver
business value. But this change happened
a long time ago. Over a period of time, the
cost of hardware diminished, and the cost of
business solutions started to rise.
CIOs have had to adapt to that. They have
also had to understand business much more.
Rather than giving somebody a computer to
work on, the CIO has to ensure that he is
providing a solution that delivers business
benefits. Understanding the core business
has become more important for the CIO, and
I think that this will continue. CIO
What about your investment

strategies in relation to IT?
I would expect that every IT investment
pays. But it is not just about spending money
on IT and getting people computerized.
There may be cases where technology is not
the right answer, and here it may be better
to have people doing it.
Special Correspondent Balaji Narasimhan can be

reached at balaji_n@cio.in
47
1/12/2007 7:40:03 PM
BY THOMAS WAILGUM
As the demand for

real-time data increases,
as more and more
information flows into the
enterprise, the challenge
of understanding and
managing it grows
proportionately.
And sometimes, more
is just too much.
When you first meet CIO Ron Rose,
hes more than happy to tell you about the 70,000 or
so things that can go horribly wrong at Priceline.com,
the consumer travel company built solely on a website
that gets 10 million page views a day and books nearly
Rs 13,500 crore worth of travel transactions annually.
Generally speaking, those 70,000 data points are
monitored on a real-time IT system dashboard. The
company has been testing new dashboards that offer
up-to-the-second information and correlation analysis
on numerous systems, including the state of the
plumbing and network operations; CPU utilization;
various application metrics (how much time is needed
to transfer data within the
system); Oracle database
Reader ROI:
performance;
BMC How to calibrate the
monitored performance of
assimilation rate of
things like I/O utilization;
real-time data
operating system paging
How to judge the value
(how much data is
of immediacy
moving to and from the
Ways to calm a nervous
systems disks; and if the
real-time system
Data Management
business intelligence software and supply chain management
operating system is running out of RAM to work with) and
tools have propagated as companies struggle to keep up
a whole lot more. All those metrics (and more) are crucial
with the demands of 24/7 global operations. According to a
to Pricelines business as illustrated by a recent Harris
September 2006 Teradata survey, 85 percent of responding
Interactive consumer study that found that 40 percent of
executives say that decision-makers need more up-to-date
online consumers will abandon their transaction (or turn
information than in the past.
to a competitor) if their initial attempt to interact with a
But as many companies have long known, more
site is foiled.
information, delivered more frequently, hasnt always led
So Rose and his IT staff collect and analyze a torrent of
to faster or better decision making.
real-time data to identify, prevent and fix problems before
The real-time boom has introduced some unintended
that happens. And he says being able to do so has saved the
busts: overwhelmed business users and IT managers
company millions in downtime and repair costs over the
drowning in too much information, with floods of
years. Winning by not losing, he calls it.
irrelevant business activity alerts and system performance
Roses IT group isnt the only beneficiary of
data leading them to make rash decisions or turn off realPricelines real-time capabilities. Pricelines business
time applications altogether. If youre not giving real-time
analysts tap into a business activity monitoring (BAM)
data to the right people at the right time, youre opening up
system, which can slice and dice up-to-the-minute
yourself to a lot of risk, says David Williams, research VP
information detailing the types of airline tickets, hotel
of IT operations management at Gartner.
rooms or car rentals that are selling, the completion
Of course, by itself, providing data in real-time isnt
percentage of different types of orders and (much) more.
dangerous. Real-time information is always useful if you
All those data points (and more) give business users
know how to make sense of it, says Hau Lee, the Thoma
the ability to see trending demand for specific airline
Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at
or hotel offerings, or whether visitors are completing
Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Business. That if
transactions or bailing out at the last minute on certain
is the problem.
products. The business users can then adjust that data
Indeed, there are a steep learning curve and
to generate more sales. [The business groups] hourly
cultural change in a real-time environment that many
reports, which summarize the financial data as it moves
through the company, is the MTV of the
technology department, Rose says. They
love to keep their fingers on the pulse.
But with that dependence on such fastmoving and variable data, Rose acknowledges
that users also have to be aware of any noise
RFID promises a gold mine of data. Now, what are you going to
lurking in the system. For example, when
do when 90 percent of it proves to be pyrite?
there might not be a statistically valid
amount of data (say, too small a sample size
for one of Pricelines sales categories, such as
As companies collect more data, and as the business demand for real-time data
bookings at one of its smaller hotels), which
increases, so too will the demand for access to it. Right now, less than 15 percent of
a business user may think is a trend when,
employees at an average organization have access to real-time information, according
in fact, its not. It takes more than just a few
to Joe Thomas, global head of new business development for Capgemini. However, the
minutes to make a trend, he cautions.
emerging intelligence economy will demand that organizations empower at least 70 percent
Rose is confident, however, that Priceline
of their employees with real-time information and equip them with ways to use it.
is using all that near-real-time data to make
Nowhere is that challenge more of a concern than with RFID technologies. RFID
better business decisions and provide a
holds great promise, but also great danger, says Kevin Poole, consulting services leader
highly available website with fewer instances
at Capgemini. Done right, it gets you [data] at a level of detail and specificity and in a
in which any of those 70,000 things that can
timely manner better than before. If its done wrong, theres going to be between 10
go wrong do.
times to 100 times more data available, and you run the risk of information overload.
Poole says CIos need to architect their systems to manage this flood of real-time data
as well as apply business rules to help control and make sense of it all.
Hau lee, the Thoma professor of operations, Information and Technology at Stanford
Universitys Graduate School of Business, compares the RFID movement to a gold rush.
Moving to a real-time information-delivery
All of a sudden, theres this wealth of data, he says. And as we all know, when you go to
environment like Pricelines has long been
the gold rush, you need tools and techniques to filter and get the gold nuggets, because
an ambition for many companies. Real90 percent of it is dirt.
time capabilities in business performance
dashboards, systems monitoring applications,
T.W.
More Data on the Way!
Everybody Loves Data
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
49
Data Management
organizations underestimate. Everybody is crying
for this data, but when you give it to them, they find
fault with it, says Heineken USA Director of IT Carol
Schillat. And the fault is that they dont know how to use
it. Ill-planned real-time data implementations can be
disastrous, negatively affecting customers, profits and
productivity, according to Teradatas survey.
To avoid the heartbreak of a failed real-time romance,
CIOs need to understand which information their company
really needs, how that information matches up with the
way the business users do their jobs, and how and when
its most beneficial to deliver that information. Once that
analysis is complete, CIOs can install a process and IT
system that delivers more actionable and correctly timed
data flows. If the business folks havent provided that level
of detail, and IT didnt ask for it, the system can provide
not enough or too much information, says Kevin Poole,
consulting services leader at Capgemini. And in either
case, [business users] will start to ignore it.
Real-Time Relativity
Like most terminology in the high-tech world, realtime means different things to different people in
different industries. But whats common to most
peoples definition, says Royce Bell, CEO of Accentures
Information Management Services, is that the data is
delivered within an actionable time frame, whether
that means within seconds or hours.
50
In the financial world, real-time data is, by necessity,

defined as instantaneous. Traders, brokers and fund
managers have to have information on global stock, equity
and commodity markets delivered by the second. One can
easily see why. In the financial services industry, downtime
costs anywhere from Rs 6.3 crore to Rs 29.25 crore in lost
revenue per hour, according to industry sources.
A similar case can be made for systems in e-commerce
companies such as priceline.com, or in the airline industry
(air-traffic controllers), utility industry (controllers
monitoring electricity grids) and healthcare personnel
(nurses monitoring patients), where even the smallest
fluctuation in data is significant.
Step away from those segments, however, and the notion
of whats instantaneous begins to slow down by minutes,
hours or days, and the question of just how much, and just
how often, becomes more uncertain. Most organizations
believe they need live data, but [in reality] they tend to
consume things in a daily cycle, says John Hagerty, vice
president and research fellow at AMR Research. Daily is
about as fast as they can do it.
Consequently, other terms closely related to real-time
have appeared, including near-real-time data (anything
updated more frequently than daily) and right-time data
(updated any time of day or week that the company has
determined to be most beneficial). At Delta Apparel, a
Rs 1,215-crore manufacturer and distributor of branded
and private-label activewear, CIO Keith Smith describes
his two worlds. In one, subsecond real-time data informs
decision making in Delta
Apparels manufacturing
operations from
tracking when an order
of polo shirts will be
Priceline.com CIO
completed to figuring out
Ron Rose: The
which distribution center
business groups
in the United States is
hourly report is the
MTV of the technology
best-suited to distribute
department. They love
those shirts in the
to keep their fingers
shortest amount of time.
on the pulse.
This is where real-time
data is critical, he says.
But in the other world
for sales information and
budgeting real-time
data totally falls apart,
Smith says. Its just not
practical or necessary.
Though Delta Apparel
and Priceline were able to
distinguish between the
two worlds and adjust
their data collection
and delivery systems
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Data Management
accordingly, many companies havent
been able to. And thats where real-time
can get real dangerous.
Blinking at Real-Time
Cutting Through the Fog

Tools that can help rationalize real-time management.
For the majority of 21st-century

businesses, the possibilities of real-time
data streams are endless and endlessly
According to David Williams, research VP of IT operations management at
seductive: business activity dashboards
Gartner, there is a new class of IT management applications (Williams calls them
on the PC, network monitoring alerts
learning technologies) that can gather and synthesize real-time data, correlate it with
via e-mail, just-in-time manufacturing
historical data and allow companies to anticipate potential problems say, a critical
systems. The idea is to help people make
networking issue for a retail website. Its a technology that learns whats important
better decisions.
to your company, says Williams. According to him, three vendors have noteworthy
But do they? Too much information
products in this space:
freezes the human mind, says
Integrien The company says its Alive product, using what it calls integrity management,
Accentures Bell. When there are too
identifies, predicts and prevents IT-based business problems via holistic views and realmany choices, a normal human being
time analysis of IT infrastructure.
wont be able to make a choice.
Netuitive According to Netuitive, its product eliminates the need for labor-intensive and errorIs business reaching the tipping point of
prone manual setting of performance baselines and thresholds by self-learning a companys
information overload? Malcolm Gladwell,
normal operating characteristics. Then it continuously correlates, analyzes and adapts itself
in his best-selling 2005 book Blink, which
to data inputs from all of the systems, servers and processesin real-time.
looked at how we process information to
ProactiveNet The company claims its Business Services Management solutions improve
make decisions, described doctors misunderstanding of the performance and availability of IT services and how infrastructure
diagnosing heart attacks in the emergency
affects the applications and processes that power the business. With this greater
room because they were attempting
understanding, companies are better able to prioritize IT systems around processes that
to gather too much information, in too
carry the highest business values rather than around the latest problem at hand.
many cases sending home patients who
T.W.
were actually having heart attacks and
admitting patients who were not. According to Gladwell, the
But its not just e-mail alerts. Typically, decision-makers
doctors were gathering and considering far more information
in manufacturing companies think that they want daily
than they really needed because it makes them feel more
updates for their material requirements planning (MRP)
confident.... The irony, though, is that that very desire for
system so they can make changes to plans and update
confidence is precisely what ends up undermining the
forecasts and inventories on a daily basis. And vendors
accuracy of their decision. They feed the extra information
selling MRP systems (surprise!) usually agree with them.
into the already overcrowded equation they are building in
But, Guess what: Reality says I cant deal, Smith says. He
their heads, and they get even more muddled.
says that companies simply cannot make those decisions
An analogous situation is happening in IT departments.
on a daily basis because theres too much information and
A recent survey by Netuitive, a real-time analysis software
too much flux. Its one of those concepts thats candy in
vendor, found that 41 percent of respondents in larger
the sky, he says.
organizations receive 100 or more alerts per day, of which
Put another way, business managers and other decisionat least half (more in most cases) are false positives. Of the
makers are sometimes surprised and overwhelmed by the
195 IT organizations surveyed, 39 percent said that they
velocity and volume of data when a real-time system fires
either intentionally set thresholds above optimum levels
up. You get what you ask for, not what you expected, says
to avoid excessive alerting or turned off their alerting
AMRs Hagerty.
functionality completely in response. In both cases, the
system has been rendered pretty much useless.
Delta Apparels Smith has seen how too many alerts can
create a choke point. For example, when a Delta staffer creates
In 2005, two researchers, one from Georgia Tech and the
an order, an e-mail goes out to a set of other employees who
other from the University of North Carolina, set out to
need to know. In theory, thats a good practice, Smith says.
examine whether increasing the frequency of real-time
But if were entering a thousand orders a day, and Im a
data updates 'enhanced performance'. Would they be able
recipient, theres no way I could ever manage that information.
to more quickly respond to changes in the environment
No one can respond to a thousand e-mails a day.
and see the consequences of their actions? wondered
How to Calibrate Real-Time
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
51
Data Management
Nicholas Lurie and Jayashankar Swaminathan. What they
discovered was that managers who received more frequent
data points were making more poor decisions. The danger
of real-time data is that it may come to you at a frequent
rate, maybe every hour, and if you respond to that data, if
theres some random event and you treat the random event
as systematic, it could really throw you off, Lurie says.
Yossi Sheffi, director of MITs Center for Transportation
and Logistics and author of The Resilient Enterprise, finds
no fault with real-time data, only in the way people use it.
The question is not, 'Is real-time information bad or
good?' Theres only good in it, Sheffi says. The danger [of
real-time data] is if you would react too fast and not wait for
the trend to reveal itself. As an example, Sheffi suggests
that Procter & Gamble should not start making inventory
or planning decisions on Tide sales at Wal-Mart based on
data they receive every five minutes.
You dont want to react to someone who came in and
bought five boxes, he says. What you should do is look
for trends in product sales combined with historical data
for example, during the last few days or weeks and
correlate that with other event-type data, such as in-store
promotions or weather information that may affect sales.
You have to use it smartly, Sheffi says, noting that some
companies right now are better at this than others.
At Priceline.com, Rose seems to have found that sweet
spot for delivering real-time data to both IT and business
users. The company was founded in 1998, and since then
52
Rose says a culture of real-time data has flourished.

From day one weve always been about collecting
business metrics on the fly, he says. When asked why
the business prefers hourly reports, he answers that
while he could offer them minute-by-minute data (the
BAM system has that capability), theyve discovered
that anything under 15 minutes most likely wouldnt be
sufficiently significant to constitute a trend or something
that demands their attention.
Hourly data is good enough, Rose says.
The Sock Market

International Legwear Group makes a lot of socks. As the
third-largest sock-maker in the United States, ILG runs on
a weekly cycle for processing orders from its customers,
which range from Wal-Mart on down to Mom-and-Pop
stores. And for the most part, ILGs planners and forecasters
are able to satisfy their retailers demands for socks and
sync up those demands with ILGs global suppliers.
But if you know anything about the sock market, you
know how difficult ILGs planners jobs can be. Sock sales
are very dependent on the weather, says Alex Moore,
ILGs CIO. If it stays hot into the fall, our sales do not start
climbing. Or, if a cold snap hits the South, sock sales will
jump for as long as it lasts. I dont care how good your
software forecasting system is, you cant predict when its
going to get cold, Moore says.
The unpredictability and
randomness that can
throw off a companys
supply chain system is
called noise whether its
an ice storm, earthquake,
e.coli outbreak or terrorist
attack. And what noise
does is make computer
systems,
especially
real-time
sys t e m s ,
nervous. That, in turn,
amplifies the perils of
demand and inventory
planning. A nervous
system is one in which
you try to react to every
Heinekin USA director
little thing, says Moore.
of IT, Carol Schillat:
If you change your plan
Everybody is crying
with every thing little
for this data, but when
thing that happens, thats
you give it to them,
a bad thing.
they find fault with it.
It therefore becomes
And the fault is that
they dont know how
critical that companies
to use it.
develop some type of
strategy that can filter
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Data Management
out noise and nervousness. (For a list of
tools that can help you do that, see Cutting
Through the Fog.) Overreacting to sudden
and random upticks in sales can produce a
deadly chain reaction in the supply chain,
with each supplier downstream from the first
increasing its orders and supply requirements
because it wants to have enough inventory to
comply with the illusory rising demand. This
is called the bullwhip effect.
In 1997, Stanfords Lee cowrote the seminal article
on it Information Distortion in a Supply Chain:
The Bullwhip Effectand the now-famous example
of the variability (and challenges) in demand planning
for P&Gs Pampers product remains the best-known
example. You have to be able to distinguish between
noise versus a real systematic shift, cautions Lee.
The Beer Facts

The fifth business day of every month used to be
a significant day for Heineken USA. On that day,
employees got their first glimpse of the previous
months sales data, which provided a snapshot of how
well the U.S. arm of the Dutch brewer was doing. This
company lived and died by monthly data, says Director
of IT Schillat. That the business users had to wait a full
month to view Heinekens key performance indicators
didnt bother the staff. Its just the way the beer industry
operated, they thought.
But by 2000, Schillat knew differently. Industry
heavyweights Budweiser and Miller had begun investing
millions in building real-time connections to their
distributors. Schillat turned to Vermont Information
Processing, which had already made inroads in the
marketspace with its supply chain products. In less than
a year, Schillat could stream distributors daily sales
(prices, quantities and which retail stores the beer had been
shipped to) to the business. This was huge for us, she
recalls. All of the sudden, we had daily sales.
Though this wasnt what one could call true realtime data, it was as close to real-time as Heineken had
ever seen. But not everyone liked what they saw.
People didnt have a lot of faith in it, Schillat recalls,
because they were still receiving their good old monthly
feeds, and the two sets of numbers didnt always
jibe with each other.
Since then, Schillat and the business users have been
working to design new processes to accommodate faster
data streams. But theres much more work to be done
to deal with the users training and development, and
with figuring out just what data is most appropriate and
actionable and how business users should respond.
It takes more than

just a few minutes to
make a
Priceline CIo Ron Rose
Game-Planning for Real-Time

That, of course, is a key part of the CIOs job, no matter the
system or project: facilitating a conversation about what
the business truly needs, and where and when real-time,
near-real-time or right-time data feeds are appropriate.
This is not something the business can have a couple of
meetings about, define and outsource to the IT department,
says Accentures Bell. Its a conversation about the source
of data and how you use it, and what may be absolutely
ideal will be completely different in 12 to 18 months time.
Its a continuous conversation.
AMRs Hagerty advises CIOs to ask these questions:
How do people manage information flow in their part
of the business?
Do people really need real-time everything or just
frequent refreshes?
How should the IT organization respond to support
the data needs of business?
You need to rationalize this up front, Hagerty says.
When someone says, I need real-time data, IT should
ask: What are you going to do with it? Sometimes business
users dont like that, but IT needs to know.
In the end, real-time data is only as good as the uses its
put to and the processes that support its use.
I dont think theres danger in trying to achieve [a realtime environment], says Delta Apparels Smith. But you
could easily spend a lot of money trying to get to that candy
in the sky, and then realize that the information overload
is too great.
Not all people understand the impact of real-time
information. CIO
SeniorWriterThomasWailgum can be reached at twailgum@cio.com.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
53
Govern Main.indd 54
1/12/2007 7:59:07 PM
G.I.S.
The Tamil Nadu Forest

Department is finding new and
more sustainable solutions
toward afforestation on the
back of more accurate data
and the ability to monitor and
evaluate progress.
Zero-in
On the Problem
By Sunil Shah
Reader ROI:
Benefits of GIS beyond

monitoring change
A sustainable IT program
for multiple stakeholders
The promise of in-house
e-governance solutions
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Govern Main.indd 55
Still, the gray footwear accessory in a corner of the Tamil Nadu (TN) Forest Departments lab
is symbolic, given the ease it can add to a process and the task of fitting something to size.
The shoehorn is one symbol. From a macro and technology perspective, the
Rs 300-crore Geographic Information System (GIS) project to help increase forest cover in
the state is another. The TN forest department does have an eye for detail, and appreciates
a tool that can streamline work. And its thoroughness has served the seven-man GIS team
well over the past three years, as theyve pored over thousands of maps and a jungle of
information to create the first multi-layered, visual map of forests in Tamil Nadu.
Putting it together was painstaking. The GIS team began by working with data on forest
cover from the Forest Survey of India, hard copies of road and topographical maps, field
observations from rangers, and hard-to-date, hand-drawn forest reserve maps most
of all this in wieldy, inaccurate hard copies. As a final layer, the staff topped the multidimensional map with satellite images.
As it relies on a visual approach, GIS is renowned for its ability to monitor change
in easy before-and-after pictures. It is especially popular among decision makers who
Illustration by unnikrishnan av
A shoehorn would be conspicuous in the 21st century shoe-rack.
1/12/2007 7:59:09 PM
G.I.S.
love the quick, transparent and easilydigestible information that GIS offers.
The love isnt misplaced, particularly
because GIS works efficiently over
large areas. The proliferation of GIS
is explained by its unique ability to
assimilate data from widely divergent
sources, to analyze trends over time, and
to spatially evaluate impact caused by
development. For an experienced analyst,
GIS is an extension of ones own analytical
thinking, says C.K. Sreedharan, principal
chief conservator of forests, and the
person who has spearheaded the forest
departments GIS project.
But GIS is more than a show-and-tell tool
to track change. The TN forest department
has used it to identify and prioritize
problems quickly, and help find appropriate
solutions. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and
Kerala have attempted GIS implementations
to support their afforestation programs, but
are yet to produce the sort of results shown
in Tamil Nadu.
not only shows up degradation in stark

relief, but, with innovation, it can also be
used to improve the departments chances of
targeting locations where afforestation has
higher chance of success more quickly.
In the turf war with the villages, the
department knows from experience that its
best chances lies in the adage, If you cant
fight them, join them. So, the department
started a program in 1997 called Tamil
Nadu Afforestation Project (TAP) that
has consistently aimed at sustainability,
by embracing and including village folk.
TAP was conceptualized as a joint
forest management-based afforestation
project where the focus was more on
peoples participation and improving the
livelihood of inhabitants in the project
villages, says Sreedhran. This is tough to
put into practice, given that the wants of
both parties are tugging in diametrically
opposite directions: villages want to cut
firewood and sell, the department wants
to consolidate and grow.
The department has made a number

of attempts in the past, such as paying
villagers not to cut firewood. More recently,
it has begun trying more sustainable
approaches, using GIS, which they hope
will imbibe a sense of ownership towards
the forest among villagers.
One of the initiatives is to allow
villagers to adopt areas in the forest. At
last count, 1,500 villages had been given
250-350 hectares of forest land. In return
for fencing and guarding these areas
and improving their ecological balance,
villagers can sell the produce from the
forest. The most significant aspect of
this arrangement is that the villagers
re-forest degraded patches of land. In
2002-03, the villagers had notched up 83
lakh man-days of work, according to the
department. Some villages have made a
few lakhs a year from this initiative.
In the context of such initiatives, the
GIS project has contributed immensely
towards making informed choices
P hoto by Sr ivatsa Shandilya
Under the GIS

Microscope
The TN Forest Department is responsible
for 22,865 sq. km. of forest land. Its primary
functions include preservation of forested
areas, improvement of degraded patches,
and growing the forest acreage. Its been
a longstanding battle with commercial
bodies and village settlements, which rely
on the forest for resources and food.
Further, the National Forest Policy of
1988 states that 33 percent of any state
must constitute forest cover. In Tamil
Nadu, the figure stands at only 17.58
percent just above half of the target. Of
the existing forest cover, only 2,440 sq. km.
(1.8 percent) is heavily forested. Pushed by
the union planning commission, the forest
department here has been making efforts to
increase forest and tree cover in the state to
25 percent by 2007 and 33 percent by 2012,
mainly by encouraging tree cultivation in
and outside reserved forest areas.
However, there are more than 3,000
villages that border on reserved forest
areas. The GIS system accurately pinpoints
encroachments and the extent of damage
that villages inflict. It also delineates areas
where degradation is taking place. The GIS
Govern Main.indd 56
The time
saved on a
simple survey
using GIS is 90
percent, and I
now need half
the manpower.
C.K. Sreedharan
Principal chief conservator of forests
Tamil Nadu Forest Department
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:59:18 PM
G.I.S.
quickly. For instance, it has facilitated
the choosing of villages for the initiative
and the quantum of land to be allotted
to them. This also entails surveying to
determine the most appropriate piece of
forest, in terms of distance from a village
and forest cover.
A few years ago, there was no telling
how long a survey could take. Villagers,
accompanied by rangers using a chain-andcompass method to gauge distance, took
time to organize and supply the results.
The time saved on a simple survey is as
much as 90 percent. Also, I need 40 to 50
percent less manpower (with the use of
GIS), says Sreedharan.
Part of the TAP mission is also to create
harmony between the needs of villagers
and that of the forest, including water.
Using GIS, forest department officials can,
for example, slash the time taken to find a
location for a bund, a small dam to create
a pool. S.A Raju, assistant conservator
of forests, says that with GIS, the forest
ranger can, for instance, locate a 30-degree
slope, one kilometer from a village, in an
area where you dont need to cut trees to
build a bund. If such a choice doesnt exist,
GIS can provide the next best option.
The long-term benefits of GIS-enabled
watersheds cannot be ignored, says
Sreedharan. Although they seem like soft
benefits for the public, the water projects
can potentially better the living standards
in villages by pushing up the water table.
The link between higher water tables,
better harvests, and more readily-available
grazing land are direct. And these
financially benefit the village folk. Once
these assets are created, their benefits last
a long time, says Sreedharan.
For the ROI-mongers, the Forest Survey
of India has found an increase of 1,161 sq.
km. of forest cover in Tamil Nadu between
the 2001 and 2003. However, this increase,
cautions the department, can be a mix of
both real changes and interpretational
changes. With remote sensing technology,
interpretational corrections are part of
the methodology. These corrections keep
reducing in subsequent assessments
with increasing ground-truthing, and
real changes are depicted only after some
years, says Sreedharan.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Govern Main.indd 57
Keeping it
In-house
the collaboration helped

both organizations, says
Sreedharan. The department
Putting the GIS system
collaborated with the NRSA
together was painful. Officials
to build skills, and created
recall how it took three years
SNAPSHOT
a separate department to
of tedious work to create the
Tamil Nadu Forest
ensure that training was
1:50,000 scale map, accurate
Department: GIS
a constant, self-sufficient
down to the beat, the smallest
Project cost
Rs 300 crore
process. Training is a
unit in the forest departments
continuous process. We have
administration. The GIS
Targeted area of
afforestation
12 circles. The bottom three
system needed at least six
32,514 sq. km. by
rungs of each circle (rangers,
layers of maps to be useful,
2007
foresters, forest guards)
says S.A Raju.
Project Staff
are trained (at the Chennai
To put the layers together,
6-7
headquarters) over four days,
the outline of each physical
Department staff
every 12 weeks. Weve already
feature, such as roads and
9,000
trained between 800 and
administrative boundaries,
Villages in the
900 field officers, says Raju.
on each map for each of the
project
Their work with the
six layers had to be made into
1,500
NRSA
has also introduced
vectors to ensure that they
Project enabler
computerization
at the
were no longer images but
C.K. Sreedharan
lowest
administrative
level,
coordinates. The maps then
Source: Department
the establishment of radio
needed to be placed accurately
frequency links, and the use
on top of each other. Whenever
of GPS. A large chunk of the
a maps inaccuracy required
project cost has gone into buying satellite
cross-checking with forest rangers on the
images, say Sreedharan. Depending on
ground, the process would hold up a layer,
what the department is studying, new
creating a Dominos Effect of delay on an
satellite images are bought. Satellite
entire section of the map.
data used to monitor fire, for instance, is
Yet, none of the work was outsourced.
bought annually although data to analysis
The forest departments GIS project is
changes in vegetation is bought every 5-10
among the few successful e-governance
years, he says.
projects that havent been outsourced.
Moving forward, the GIS team is
Within e-governance, its hard to
looking at how the system can be used
resist the temptation to outsource. With
for administrative purposes. By linking
high failure rates up to 85 percent of
information to each section, the department
e-governance projects fail most heads
might be able to mark the progress of forest
of departments with scant IT background
officers and, more importantly, projects.
feel more comfortable among experts. But,
It is true that GIS can definitely help and
outsourcing costs. Worse, with the check
facilitate the development if monitoring
to the outsourcers, many government
protocols. Non-spatial attributes can
agencies fork over the hands-on experience
be linked to geographic features where
and in-depth knowledge needed to run
project work is undertaken. We are trying
large, complex projects. The TN Forest
to develop monitoring protocols through
Department teamed up with the National
Web-based GIS, says Sreedharan.
Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) in
Much like the grey shoehorn in the
Hyderabad to set up its Geomatics Centre
department lab, then, the GIS is there to
in Chennai. However, the departments
be used. Its only a question of how it can
decision not to outsource meant that it had
be applied for an array of purposes. Who
to train its own staff all 9,000 of them
says perfectionism doesnt pay off? CIO
spread over 12 circles and 26 divisions.
The question of outsourcing arises only
when you do not have the desired skills
Copy editor Sunil Shah can be reached at
available in the organization. In our case,
sunil_shah@cio.in
1/12/2007 7:59:20 PM
Essential
technology
Voice-over-IP
projects often
stall during
or after pilot
testing. Heres
hands-on
advice from
CIOs who kept
their projects
running.
From Inception to Implementation I.T. That Matters
Dont Let VoIP

Throw You
BY MICHAEL FITZGERALD
VoIP| Long before the Vonage IPO turned into the years worst use of investor money, CIOs
had started feeling chilly about voice over IP.

In fact, after 2005 studies showed that 32 percent of American firms were piloting VoIP,
a Forrester Research survey in August 2006 showed that adoption rates were flat from the
same period a year earlier. Forrester Research analyst Lisa Pierce declares that enterprise
VoIP deployments in the United States have stalled.
The reasons why will sound familiar to most CIOs: organizational deadweight, technology
fear, uncertainty and doubt, and competing demands on network upgrading funds. But you
can get through a VoIP pilot without stalling. We talked to CIOs whove done it, to look at some
common and unexpected trouble spots, plus get advice on how to avoid or conquer them.
UnexpectedTechTroubles
The problem: Can you manage a VoIP network with your existing staff once its in place?
The answer: Be prepared for a few glitches, and get hands-on wisdom during install.
58
Essentisl Tec.indd 58
J AN U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD
Vo l/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:19:45 PM
essential technology
VoIP is supposed to make the phone

system better, not make it stop ringing.
But one early side effect of the way a new
VoIP system had been implemented at
Serta Mattress was causing phones to stop
ringing for as long as 20 minutes at some
of its factories.
For the not-so-sleepy mattress maker,
VoIP emerged as a potential answer to the
problem of rapid growth during the 1990s.
Ambitious and judicious management took
a mattress factory with a Serta license and
built it up to the point where it acquired
Serta itself: By 2003, the company had
gone from three facilities to 23. Each of
them had a telephone system (a PBX, in
phone parlance), and each a maintenance
contract, eating up between Rs 22,500 and
Rs 45,000 per month.
That install experience proved vital after

Serta had moved past the pilot stage and
implemented VoIP in several of its locations.
Zett had opted to use the wide area network
to do routine Sphere software upgrades. But
after a few of the sites had moved to VoIP, it
turned out that slow server response time
could temporarily suspend phone service.
We could lose phone operations for 15
or 20 minutes, she says. And thats way
too long.
Because theyd installed the system, Zett
and her staff knew they had several ways
to fix this problem, the easiest of which was
to schedule the updates at night. So they
decided to install local upgrade servers
(ordinary PC blade servers) that download
updates only at prearranged times, usually
at night, which allows for a much quicker
Beat theVendor Blues
Whats most likely to slow down your VoIP

project, or even leave it in pilot testing nevernever land? Forrester Researchs Lisa Pierce
cites three big culprits:
1. Organizational Mess
VoIP works across wide area and local area
networks, which many companies handle
through different budgets and departments,
when IT and telecom groups are separate.
TIP: Companies may have to reorganize
internally before developing a companywide
VoIP strategy.
2. Network Traffic Trouble
Its not unusual for performance problems
to creep in as you add VoIP users or sites.
The most important decision anyone who is
considering implementing VoIP can make is
how they will live with it after the installation is
completed, Pierce says.
TIP: Make sure you have comprehensive VoIP
monitoring and management tools, and staff
expertise before rollout. If you cant afford
these, consider managed or hosted services,
she advises.
3. Tough Business Case
Moving to VoIP typically means network
upgrades. But VoIP may not be top on the
list of networking upgrades, especially with
telecom budgets growing more slowly than
IT budgets. Meanwhile, conventional longdistance rates are plummeting, undercutting
what has been VoIPs biggest advantage.
TIP: Piggybacking on a network redesign may
help. Keep a close eye on the VoIP dollars and
sense as phone rates change.
M.F.
The problem: What do you do when your

vendor cant deliver as promised?
The answer: Know when to pull the plug
on one vendor, and know what questions
to ask the replacement.
Saving mad money on telephone costs is
what makes most CIOs check out VoIP.
Thats what got the interest of Marty
Resnick, director of technology operations
at Normans Nursery, a Rs 292.5-crore
nursery wholesaler in San Gabriel, Calif.

The cost savings are what kept him going
through a Nightmare on IT Street
technology pilot, which he hopes has no
sequel.
Normans Nursery has three facilities,
none closer to each other than about 100
miles. Its phone bills in 2004 were running
Normans Nursery was still paying

SBC money for features that it had
been promised, but still hadnt
received. So CIO Marty Resnick went
looking for a different VoIP system.
Donna Zett, CIO at Serta, thought VoIP
would give her a way to run a single PBX
system, based at company headquarters in
Hoffman Estates, Illinois. That would save
the company a bundle on maintenance,
for starters (its VoIP system now costs it
about Rs 90,000 a month in maintenance).
And since an internal study showed that
60 percent of its long-distance calls were
between facilities, VoIP promised Serta
savings on phone bills too.
Still, Zett trod carefully. She put three
vendors Cisco, Avaya and Sphere
Communications through their paces. That
included access to reference customers with
network and corporate structures similar to
those of Serta. She even went to visit six of
those reference customers. Serta chose Sphere,
and spent about Rs 67.5 lakh and four months
rolling out the VoIP system. Zett had her own
staff work on the installation project, to make
sure it could handle the new technology.
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
Top 3 VoIP
Troublemakers
update to the hub in the local facility. Sertas

IT team also created the option of having
local operators at each plant, instead of
routing all calls through headquarters.
Zetts been happy with VoIP, and
especially happy that she had her staff do
the rollout. Doing our own rollout meant
we learned a great, great deal about what we
liked and didnt like were not dependent
on our vendor, she says.
REAL CIO WORLD | J AN U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7
59
1/12/2007 7:19:45 PM
close to Rs 2.7 lakh a month, much of the cost

due to calls among its three facilities. The
company couldnt transfer calls between
facilities, and none of its employees had
their own extensions. Resnick thought
VoIP should fix that problem.
He had a laundry list of other things
hed like in a new phone system as well:
a unified paging system, message boxes
that combined voice mail and Outlook
e-mail, and faxing from Outlook. He
went to his telecom provider, SBC, which
recommended a specific Nortel BCM
(Business Communications Manager)
and a third-party systems integrator to
implement it.
Resnick wasnt very happy about being
assigned to a third-party integrator, but he
trusted that SBC knew what it was doing.
He got a quote of about Rs 60.75 lakh for the
system and its implementation.
Things started to go wrong quickly. For
starters, the third-party integrator seemed
unfamiliar with the system, spending a
good deal of time reading documentation.
Worse, the system SBC had recommended
didnt actually have all the features Resnick
right: It let the company transfer calls over

the data network, which almost immediately
led to savings on the phone bill. Costs fell
from Rs 2.25 lakh to slightly more than
Rs 45,000 per month. But he was still
paying SBC money for features hed been
promised but hadnt received. So he went
looking for a different VoIP system.
The key now: He had learned how to probe
vendor answers. For instance, he knew to ask
if fax integration meant his users could print
faxes from their desktops. He knew to ask
whether a feature was built-in or came from
a third-party company. And he knew to get
documentation proving functionality.
The pilot meant he had laid the
foundation for VoIP. Hed assigned all his
extensions and direct-dial-in numbers, and
had installed a PRI (primary rate interface)
line, which accommodates voice and data
and allows both caller ID and direct-dial-in
functionality on one T1 line, functionality
you cant get on a regular T1 line. He had
also trained users on VoIP concepts.
That meant that in February 2005, when
he brought in a system from Shoretel, a
VoIP startup, things went smoothly. His
Doing our own rollout meant we

learned a great deal about what we liked
were not dependant on our vendor.
Donna Zett, CIO, Serta
wanted. Those it did have didnt necessarily
work. For example, the receptionists
console was built around software from
yet another third party, and it crashed
constantly. Suddenly, Resnick found his
two-month implementation limping into
month seven.
As an added insult, he couldnt even call
someone at SBC to yell at them. SBC was in
the process of merging with AT&T, and the
people he knew had been reorganized into
different jobs and in some cases had left the
company entirely.
Resnick might have washed his hands of
VoIP, but the pilot did do one important job
60
J AN U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD
new system was up and running in less

than a month, with almost all the features
he had wanted. Better yet, it cost him less
than SBCs approach: about Rs 47.25 lakh.
And he was able to ditch the SBC system.
Resnick declines to point fingers at SBC,
saying he was too quick to accept it when SBC
told him VoIP is a piece of cake. Second time
through, he made sure to communicate what
he needed and make sure he understood the
limitations of the system.
Manage Competing Priorities

The problem: How do you roll out VoIP when
top management has other priorities, and
34% of
companies are
evaluating or
piloting VoIP,
29% have no
plans, 21% are
rolling out, and
14% are fully
deployed.
Source: Forrester Research, Aug. 2006
study of 366 North American companies
with domestic-only networks
when you need several third-party partners

to go along with you?
The answer: Realize VoIP pilots will take
more time than most other pilot tests.
Mike Benson wishes he were done
with the VoIP installation going on at his
companys 30 call centers. Benson, executive
vice president and CIO of DirecTV, hoped
to be saving millions of dollars a month
in phone bills with VoIP by mid-2006.
Instead, hes still working toward a secondquarter 2007 finish date.
Benson wants VoIP because it costs
DirecTV 1 to 2 cents to transfer a call from
one call center to another. That doesnt
sound like much money until you realize
that DirecTV spends about Rs 270 crore a
year on telecom, about 75 percent of which
Benson estimates comes from connecting
calls between centers. VoIP could eliminate
those transfers, saving DirecTV several
million dollars a month on its phone bill.
The good news when Bensons pilot
began: DirecTV had been planning an
upgrade to MPLS (multiprotocol label
switching) networking infrastructure and
was upgrading its Avaya equipment already.
So VoIPs cost would be inconsequential.
Benson piloted VoIP in one of the
company-owned centers and found
that it was pretty straightforward to
Vo l/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:19:46 PM
implement. VoIP did require making

sure switches at the center and outside
of the network were IP-capable and had
appropriate software in them.
The bad news: Benson controlled only
four of the call centers DirecTV uses.
The other 26 were outsourced to three
companies, primarily Convergys. Planning
talks with his third-party providers went
slowly. Convergys was also moving to an
MPLS network, and the two companies
planned similar network architectures and
used similar equipment. But that wasnt
true for his other providers, which didnt
necessarily have the same priorities for
IT, either. And Benson would get no cost
savings if VoIP werent in place at both
ends of the network.
Today, Benson has learned some lessons
about managing multiple vendors. While
it takes time to nudge a service provider in
a direction, it might not want to go, there
are things that help, Benson says. In his
case, having one large service provider
and two smaller ones meant he could play
them off against each other, to a point. The
smaller providers wanted to get more of his
business. So, they were more cooperative.
This put pressure on Convergys to come
around. (It helped that Convergys started to
miss its service-level targets, which meant
Benson could threaten to pull contracts.)
Another lesson learned: VoIP may be at
the top of your to-do list, but its probably
not at the top of your organizations. Chances
are, a CIO will be pulled in unexpected
directions during a VoIP pilot. Benson, who
of course has to respond to other, competing
needs from within DirecTV, is no exception.
If customer service wants a new call center
built, Benson needs to pull people from the
VoIP project for the duration of the call center
project. This year hes had to build a new call
center for DirecTV and help his third-party
providers open two other call centers.
Such dilemmas and diversions dont
dull Bensons ardor for what he thinks
will be hefty telecom savings. His centers
stand completed, and he thinks by the end
of 2007 all the third-party call centers
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
VoIP Disaster Plans: Dont Skimp

Replacing the telephone company with VoIP comes with one major potential problem for
companies: The Internet is simply not as reliable as landline telephones.There are going to be
problems, and times when things go down, says Will Stofega, an analyst at IDC (a sister company
to CIOs publisher). How you react to it is critical.
Especially if you are a CIO at a mid-market or smaller company, you may be pressed for disasterplanning resources, but dont skimp, say CIOs whove been there. Marty Resnick, director of
technology operations at Normans Nursery, made disaster recovery planning central to his VoIP
planning. He made sure that there were still working analog lines at each facility, in case of network
and power outages. He also made sure that if a single VoIP server crashed, the phones would roll
over to a server at another location.
IDCs Stofega gives these tips for other CIOs planning for the worst while working toward the best:
1. After network testing, upgrade routing software where necessary and make sure its as
bulletproof as can be.
2. Consider setting up a virtualized LAN or having a backup location for VoIP.
3. Bolster security safeguards to fend off denial-of-service attacks and other Internetclogging events.
4. Write a careful plan for an actual emergency including who should be called, who should be
onsite and who should call your provider.
M.F.
will also be done, though since some of

DirecTVs outsourced call centers use
Nortel equipment, DirecTV still needs to
test IP calls between Avaya equipment and
Nortel equipment.
Once this project is done, hes got another
VoIP pilot in mind, examining IP-enabled
phones. Hes learned, though, to expect
significantly longer planning time for VoIP
projects, especially in a company where
keeping the phones ringing is paramount.
equipment. That gives staffs a chance to

gain experience with what remains an
emerging technology.
And makes it more likely that if the
phones dont ring, youll know why. CIO
Take the Cake

Despite the issues that come with VoIP,
Forresters Pierce says companies do
want to adopt it. The percentage of
companies that believe they will stay on
old technology indefinitely goes down and
down and down, Pierce says. For smart
rollouts, she recommends the chocolate
layer-cake approach.
By that, she means implementing VoIP
in phases. Use new sites or places where
aging equipment or a growing workforce
create opportunities for upgrading
Michael Fitzgerald is a freelance writer based in

Massachusetts. Send your feedback to this feature at
editor@cio.in.
REAL CIO WORLD | J AN U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7
61
1/12/2007 7:19:46 PM
Pundit
Being a Step
Ahead of
Potential Threats
The threats to your organization's security
don't always loom outside. Look within.
It doesn't hurt to anticipate.
By MICHAEL JUNG
security | Bad news. Its all around

you. Bad things happen all the time. The
problem with human nature, though, is
that until something actually happens,
you dont think about the things that you
could have done to prevent or at least
mitigate the risk of that bad thing actually
happening to you.
It doesnt resonate, until quite frankly,
its already happened. Up to that point,
your behavior doesnt change. Its like
the time I was robbed in Las Vegas
at gunpoint, or the time that someone
got a hold of my checking account
number and started writing checks on it
(those are stories for another day). After
each of these things happened, I spent
lots of time making myself and my family
more secure.
Unfortunately, most companies are
like most people they do only what is
necessary to protect themselves from the
obvious threats that they (or often their
vendors) believe they can and should
solve. If you think about the analogy of
securing your home, its the lock your
doors and check the windows strategy.
In IT security, this analogy usually
translates into CIOs, chief information
security officers and security administrators
62
ET-Pundit.indd 62
fixing the tangible problems that they

believe they can solve with least cost and
effort. Sound familiar?
In the end, this usually means securing
against threats posed by viruses, worms
and trojans by buying firewalls, IDS/
IPSs, VPNs and so on and so forth. Great.
Good work. Now, the network wont be
brought down by someone opening a
virus laden email. Nice start.
To me, the fundamental problem
of security is about behavior. Its about
the behavior of developers when writing
applications, the behavior of the low
salaried IT admin who just got paid
to download a bunch of customer
data by some crooks, the behavior of
the looky loo employee snooping around
in someones HR files when he
shouldnt be, the behavior of the new
college grad who just started his job
and thinks that using Kazaa on
the network to download free music
is completely acceptable.
It is this behavior that is happening on
the network and devices you manage and
the applications you use and develop, by
users that are part of your company. So
much for locking the doors and checking
the windows.
The problem
is posed by the
behavior of users
on the network
and devices you
manage and the
applications you
develop and use.
So, as I evaluate new opportunities
to invest in security, Im looking for
two things:
(1) Companies that offer tools and
technologies to help monitor, manage and
enforce the right behaviors in people and
devices; and
(2) Companies that make it drop dead
simple for IT folks to use their tools.
Its why we invested in Securify, and
why I think companies like Fortify
Software, which I havent invested
in but think very highly of, have a huge
opportunity in front of them.
If you havent taken a look at these
guys, I think you should, before that bad
thing happens to your company. CIO
Michael Jung is a principal with Panorama Capital,

a venture capital firm established by the venture
investment team of JPMorgan Partners. Send
feedback to editor@cio.in
Vol/2 | ISSUE/05
1/12/2007 7:55:44 PM

CIO Vol2 Issue5 Jan15 2007

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

CIO Vol2 Issue5 Jan15 2007

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Cover_october011_checklist.

From The Editor

Attitude; Aptitude; Vision; User-focus; Business Insight; Perspective. These

Vijay Ramachandran, Editor

REAL CIO WORLD | J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7

JANUARY 15 2007 | Vol/2 | issue/05

P hotoS by Sr ivatsa Shandilya AND ajay

From left: Raghavendra Joshi, VP-IT of

COVER STORy | ones to watch | 29

Honoring the CIOs of the future and the IT

Cove r: Imaging by Bines h Sreedhara n

Features by Balaji Narasimhan, Gunjan Trivedi

J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD

From the Editor | 3

way to build yourself a solid second line.

Feature by Sunil Shah

J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD

President N. Bringi Dev

COO Louis DMello

Assistant Editor Harichandan Arakali

Special Correspondent Balaji Narasimhan

Senior Correspondent Gunjan Trivedi

COPY EDITOR Sunil Shah

Editorial Director-Online R. Giridhar

Head IT, Thomas Cook, a_nadkarni@cio.in

Head IT, LG Electronics India, a_bose@cio.in

D es ign & Pro duction

Creative Director Jayan K Narayanan

Chief Manager IT, BPCL, md_agarwal@cio.in

Back Gate Fold

Designers Binesh Sreedharan

Photography Srivatsa Shandilya

Production T.K. Karunakaran

General Manager, Sales Naveen Chand Singh

Singapore Michael Mullaney

Front Gate Fold

Former VP - Technologies, Wipro Spectramind

CTO, Shoppers Stop Ltd, u_krishnan@cio.in

J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD

reA der feedbAck

missing: someone presenting a real-life

The roundtable on identity

Thank you for inviting me to the

Thanks for inviting me to the

J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD

The TechnologyStrategy debate

Senior VP & CTO

Deputy GM-IT BSNL- Bangalore Telecom District

"A cIO and ceO have

What Do You Think?

Library, ITIL), contributes directly to financial

the consultancys benchmarks for efficiency

For the CIO

(From Page 17)

D A T A C E N T E R S IBM will license its technology for cooling

Things to do more of: First, re-establish your

J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD

An open source wireless

The developers of OpenBeacon worked

he said. On the last day of the conference,

To create a realistic feeling of

J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 0 7 | REAL CIO WORLD

30 Books to Make You a Better Leader