A Congregation of the IT minds @ CIO Summit Hyderabad

There has been a quantum leap of the IT sector over the last decade with the advent of cutting-edge mobile application and digital media innovation resulting in the demand of CIOs that not only possess analytical skill and independent decision-making but also should have a keen eye for creative and imaginative thinking.

This has virtually transformed IT sector into a revenue generating department from a cost cutting one, bringing forth a whole new set of unfamiliar challenges that needs to be addressed. And what better place to have this issue pondered upon than on ‘CIO Strategy Summit’ which was organized by SiliconIndia on July 20 in Hyderabad.

This informative affair was comprised of noteworthy personalities from the IT sector, including none other than the Honorable Minister for IT and Communications, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Sri Ponnala Lakshmaiah who enlightened the audience with useful information about the state of IT in his state which formed the basis for his topic, ‘IT Sector in India and Emergence of Andhra Pradesh as an IT Destination’ in his special keynote session.

The event served as a perfect gridiron to interact and to deliberate on topics ranging from disruptive technologies to controlling of budgets, which will pave the way for IT to conduct its operations in a smooth and productive manner keeping in line with agenda of the summit.

V. Srinivas, CIO, Nagarjuna Fertilizers & Chemicals, A Technocrat with over 21 years of Rich Cross Functional experience graced this event as athe keynote speaker and expressed his views on the topic, ‘CIO - The Bridge between Information & Technology.’

It was an intriguing session which mainly focussed on getting to know, handle, deliberate and bridge the main issues in an Organization related to People Management, Process Mapping and the Technology Enablement. He put across his thoughts in 4 steps based on his experience of having worked in the Core functional areas and then switching to the IT domain which according to him, would help to build a robust bridge between Information & Technology. These four steps are:

•    Integration of Information and Technology
•    Working effectively with Business teams
•    Integrated Approach of Information & Technology
•    Process & Information Linkage to Organization Business Strategy

Forging Stronger Business-IT Relationships
The IT organization's relevance depends on its ability to leverage understanding of current business needs and future direction – and then deliver technology solutions and services with greater impact. To elaborate on this subject, we had distinguished panelists such as Smit Shanker, CIO and Head -IT, Novartis Healthcare, S. Prasad, Head - IT, GKC Projects and Venu Madduri, Group VP - IT, NSL Group. It was moderated by Santhosh Reddy Chitla, CIO, Ramky Group.

Gaurav Mohan, VP Channels & Head of Mumbai Region, Huawei, gave an intriguing perspective for the topic ‘Enterprise Mobility, Collaboration & Cloud: A New Horizon.’ Ensued was an enlightening session by Mitesh Bharwada, Head - Fixed Line Products, Vodafone.

Next, Sunil Sharma, VP Operations, Cyberoam took the stage to educate us on ‘Modern Day Internet Threats and Securing Enterprise Networks.’ He said, “One of the first budget to reduce in times of downturn is IT budget. CIOs today face a critical challenge to reduce costs & complexity of their IT investment and maximize ROI. Even when IT emerging as critical business function, CIOs face numerous challenges like adequate bandwidth allocation, data leakage, internet connectivity, network protection from hackers, viruses, etc. In this scenario, solutions like Cyberoam UTM can give CIOs a cost effective solution which can increase productivity, enhance connectivity and ensure security to their organizations.”   

The CIO Summit in Hyderabad was a forum for senior level IT executives to engage in clear and focused dialogue with their peers and examine their management objectives in a relaxed and vibrant environment. The conversations between CIOs helped to validate CIO related issues in different manners. The best part of the summit was that it was a focused meeting for the CIOs and all of the discussions and topics were of interest and relevant. This event was sponsored by Huawei, Vodafone and Cyberoam.