1March 2013

editorialyashvendra singh | yashvendra.singh@9dot9.in

From Fixed to Variable By

variabilising IT, CIOs stand to gain cost

advantage and reduce workload

to pay on the basis of their talk time.

Variabilisation is gradually gaining mindshare amongst enterprise technology lead-ers. For CEOs, it has already emerged as a viable busi-ness model. Companies that lease vehicles, CROs (Contract Research Organ-isations) and call centres all exemplify variabilisation at its best. These enterprises are thriving despite the chal-lenging economic climate.

The time is ripe for technol-ogy leaders like you to become assertive and bold. It is time you engaged with your vendors in a dialogue on variabilisation.

What keeps an enterprise technology leader up

at night during tough times? The answer is fixed costs. Now imagine a scenario where you ask your vendor to take back the IT infrastructure that he sold to you. You then go on to negotiate a deal where you pay him for the assets as you use them. This new arrangement not only changes your costs from fixed to variable, it also takes a lot off your plate (read maintenance of infrastructure).

Variabilisation of IT as a business strategy is an out-growth of this new approach.

it should enjoy a competitive edge. Several corporates have proved this logic right.

Back in the 80s, jet engine manufacturers, General Elec-tric and Rolls-Royce, decided to take a different approach. Instead of selling their engines upfront and then following it up with selling maintenance and spares separately, they decided to pitch to clients on the basis of ‘power by the hour.’ In simple terms, instead of incurring huge capital expenditure by outright pur-chase of engines, airlines had to pay according to the utilisa-tion of their aircrafts. The strat-egy became a hit and the two manufacturers gained share in the market.

Xerox used this model to sell its copiers on a pay-per-copy basis. Reliance Communica-tions entered the telecom market by offering free mobile handsets, thereby variabilising costs for consumers who had

For several enterprises this dream is turning into a reality as they leverage the model of cloud computing, which is a strong pillar of variabilisation.

For an enterprise technology leader like you, this emerg-ing trend of variabilisation of IT would seem to be a God-send. While this is a win-win situation for you, you must be wondering what is in it for the vendor? Why would a vendor accept such terms and condi-tions in the first place?

Well, logically, if variabilis-ing costs is so attractive for enterprises, anyone offering

editors pick

Variabilisation of IT Variabilisation of IT helps CIOs in business growth even when companies don’t make capital investments

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2 March 2013

march 2013

cover Story

14 | Variabilisation of ITVariabilisation of IT helps CIOs in business growth even when companies don’t make capital investments

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Volume 02 | Issue 03

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Volume 02

Issue 03

March 2013150

BesT of Breed

The Four Roles of the New IT Leader Pg 36

TeCh for governanCe In Search of Valid Data Searches Pg 45

vIewpoInT

Happy New Business Model! Pg 48

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Variabilisation of IT helps CIOs in business growth even when companies

don’t make capital investments Page 14

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3March 2013

Special leaderShip Section page 24a to 34

3

xx

my Story26 | “Technology today is getting commoditised” Sr Balasubramanian, former CIO and a technology consultant, talks to yashvendra Singh about different aspects of leadership and the changing face of IT

25 | top down with choice come complexitieSChris Bedi, CIO, JDSU, feels that it is important for a CIO to embrace choice and enhance his vision

32 | opinion how to influnce and get buy-in from your own people Nothing earns the respect of a team as much as when a leader walks the talk

28 | leading edgetapping the Strategic potential of boardS Too many boards just review and approve strategy. Three questions can help them — and executives — begin to do better

34 | Shelf life open leaderShip Going forward, organisations and leaders cannot achieve much if they ignore the concept of open leadership

4 March 2013

www.cioandleader.com

a QueStion of anSwerS10 | The ChIef DeLIVery OffICer Vinod Bidarkoppa, CIO, Tesco hSC, talks about the challenges as a technology leader, and the priorities for 2013

advertisers’ index

IBM RCGFFalcon (Expo 2020 Dubai) IFCTrendmicro 5Kalpataru 13Riverbed IBCMicrosoft BC

This index is provided as an additional service.The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

36 | BEst of BrEEd: the four rules of the new it leader The roles of the new IT leader include trend spotter, negotiator and mediator

45 | tEch for govErnancE: in search of valid data searches In a litigation demand, the volume, variety and complexity of the data has changed

42 | nExt horizons: convergence of it trends driving firms to go digital Highlights of Accenture Technology Vision 2013 Report

10

Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj SinhaPrinter & Publisher: Anuradha Das Mathur

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advisory PanElAnil Garg, CIO, Dabur

David Briskman, CIO, RanbaxyMani Mulki, VP-IT, ICICI Bank

Manish Gupta, Director, Enterprise Solutions AMEA, PepsiCo India Foods & Beverages, PepsiCo

Raghu Raman, CEO, National Intelligence Grid, Govt. of IndiaS R Mallela, Former CTO, AFL

Santrupt Misra, Director, Aditya Birla GroupSushil Prakash, Sr Consultant, NMEICT (National Mission on

Education through Information and Communication Technology)Vijay Sethi, CIO, Hero MotoCorpVishal Salvi, CISO, HDFC Bank

Deepak B Phatak, Subharao M Nilekani Chair Professor and Head, KReSIT, IIT - Bombay

nEXt100 advisory PanElManish Pal, Deputy Vice President, Information Security Group

(ISG), HDFC Bank Shiju George, Sr Manager (IT Infrastructure), Shoppers Stop Farhan Khan, Associate Vice President – IT, Radico Khaitan

Berjes Eric Shroff, Senior Manager – IT, Tata ServicesSharat M Airani, Chief – IT (Systems & Security), Forbes Marshall

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This issue of CIO&Leader includes 12 pages of CSO Forum free with the magazine

The Cloud Is Here. Join Us To Secure It Now.Founded in 2011, CLOUDSEC summits are Asia Pacific's leading cloud security events for CXOs and senior managers. These events are vendor-neutral and features presentations by industry experts who will address a wide spectrum of real-world challenges and strategies in cybersecurity today.

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story InsIde

Tackling Security

Challenges of Evolving

Networks Pg 08

TrillionWorldwide IT Spending in 2012Source: Gartner

MasterCard, Beam Announce Alliance to Reach 14 mn New Customers to offer innovative servicesMasterCard Worldwide has announced its col-laboration with Beam, a mobile and electronic commerce wallet, to launch a first-of-its kind, low-cost, MasterCard mobile companion pre-paid card that will allow over 14 million mobile wallet consumers of Beam to transact at physi-cal merchants, online and access ATMs.

With over 850 million mobile subscribers in India today the potential for scale and benefits to a growing community cannot be overstated. According to the latest MasterCard Mobile Payments Readiness Index, India achieved a score of 31.5, which puts the country

in the middle of the pack with regard to overall readi-ness for mobile payments.

This collaboration is another step by MasterCard toward its vision of a world beyond cash, bringing new and innovative electronic payment solutions to a new generation of customers, both banked and underserved. Now, consumers in India can connect their existing mobile wallets to the world of Mas-terCard acceptance and electronic payments to pay utility bills, make fund transfers, book movie or travel tickets, and even withdraw money from ATMs as well as Beam franchisees.

$3.6data BrIefIng

EnTErprISEround-up

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7March 2013

E n T E r p r I S E r o u n d - u p

Researchers have recently discovered PDF exploit in Adobe Reader and a new, highly customised malicious programme known as MiniDuke. the Miniduke backdoor was used to attack multiple government entities and institutions worldwide

QUICK Byte on seCUrIty

Indian PC Market Still Resilient showed growth of 3.5% in the calender year 2012the overall India PC shipments for calender year 2012 stood at 11.0 million units resulting into an year-on-year growth of 3.5 percent over CY 2011. Despite a drag on overall IT spending, the growth in the India PC market was driven by spe-cial projects like ELCOT and spurt in consumer demand for Notebooks.

The consumer PC market recorded an impressive growth driven by growing shift in end-user demand towards Portable PCs, which grew at a striking 20.2 percent in CY 2012 over CY 2011. According to Kiran Kumar, Research Manager at IDC, “In the face of ongoing challenges from a slowing economy and high inflation, the rise in consumer optimism is a welcome sign for the India PC market.” This is reflect-ed in the improved retail footfalls, particularly among large format retailers (LFRs), which continue to act as a catalyst in driving consumer demand.

On the other hand, the commercial PC business outside special projects like ELCOT, witnessed continued instability as the commercial desktops crumbled to a 3 year low in the second half of 2012. “The overall confidence of enterprises took a backseat as they were trying to cope with adverse business conditions and rupee volatility”, adds Kiran.

Presenting the Union Budget at the Parliament, P Chidambaram said there is no reason for gloom or pessimism. He pointed out that even now, of the large countries of the world, only China and Indonesia are growing faster than India in 2012-13.

“In 2013-14, if we grow at the rate projected by many forecasters, only China will grow faster than India”

They SaId IT

P ChIdaMbaRaM

— P Chidambaram,

Finance Minister,

Govt. Of India

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8 March 2013

Tackling Security Challenges of Evolving Networks Websense expands trIton security alliance Websense, a global leader in protect-ing organisations from the latest cyber attacks and data theft, today announced the continued expansion and success of the Websense TRITON Security Alliance with top technology partners including Aruba Networks, F5 Networks, IBM, Imperva, Microsoft, VMware and more. Websense and participating TRITON Security Alli-ance members are building applications that

incorporate security intelligence as a funda-mental component of advanced networks, mobile and cloud-based applications.

“Our partners look to Websense for the most effective security in the industry that provides real-time protection against advanced threats and data theft,” said Ryan Windham, senior director of corporate development for Websense. “Together, with our partners, we share the vision of secu-

Real-time Big Data is helping the US government improve the quality of citizens’ lives, according to 75 percent of federal It officials

rity that is coordinated, proactive, dynamic and offers shared situational analysis. Our TRITON Security Alliance partners lead their respective categories with innovation in areas such as network infrastructure, software defined networks, mobility, user rights management, and governance, risk and compliance.”

Mobility and the cloud are creating a borderless enterprise where users connect and interact with web-based appli-cations without being on the corporate network. The network itself is changing by becoming programmable and dynamically adapting to virtualized datacenters and elastic workloads. This shift necessitates security that is flexible, dynamic, and part of the network fabric—no matter where users and data reside.

Key technology partners have turned to the TRITON Security Alliance because real-time Websense security intelligence, deliv-ered through the cloud, can be easily woven into their platforms to prevent advanced threats, malware, phishing attacks, lures and scams. The Websense ThreatSeeker Intelligence Cloud and Websense ACE (Advanced Classification Engine) are the foundation of the company’s deep security intelligence. The Websense ThreatSeeker Intelligence Cloud, the world’s largest threat intelligence network, collects and manages up to five billion inputs per day from more than 900 million global endpoints. This real-time clearinghouse of threat informa-tion also expands through a bi-directional exchange of security intelligence with indus-try partners. “Security is paramount to the Aruba unified access portfolio” said Peter Cellarius, vice president of business devel-opment and partnerships, Aruba Networks. “Securing wireless for mobility requires more than static point solutions. Websense recognises that and collaborated with us to create a seamless integration between their industry-leading TRITON architecture and our Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE) architecture. Customers can now get the full value of Websense’s cloud-based content security for distributed organizations and with Aruba Instant and the Aruba Activate service, the first comprehensive, zero-touch, controllerless WLAN solution that meets the security, resiliency and scale require-ments of a distributed enterprise.”

gloBal traCKer

Big Data

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9March 201310 October 2012

enterprise apps Market Set to diversify On-demand and vertical specific solutions will trigger adoption

 QASymphony 

after an extensive beta pro-

gram at the hands of 500

companies from 23 countries,

Qasymphony, a leading devel-

oper of Quality management

solutions for software develop-

ers, aLm and devops teams,

today announced general avail-

ability of qtest, a cloud-based

enterprise test management

solution ideally suited for small

and growing Qa testing teams

eager for an easy and affordable

path towards formalizing their

quality control procedures.

accessible via any web browser,

the online solution is competi-

tively priced at $20 per user per

month. qtest provides a highly

flexible and collaborative work

environment for teams to man-

age requirements, design test

cases, plan test execution, track

defects, and generate status and

quality-metrics reports.

says ursula Wlodarczyk, a Qa

tester for typecast, a designer

of website typography based

in belfast, northern ireland, “i

needed a platform that gave me

the freedom to easily update my

test plans and keep them struc-

tured, organized, and in good

working order. ideally, i was look-

ing for a cloud solution so that

i could access my work from

anywhere on any browser at

any time. qtest responds well to

quick inputs. it's easy to imagine

that the tool was developed by

testers.”

WorldWIde It international data

corporation (idc) has released

the market insights for enterprise

applications, which gives specific

insights into the state of the market

and detailed understanding of the

competitive ecosystem, adoption,

future potential, forecast and the

major trends the market is witness-

ing in india. 

GeMalto has launched its LinqUs Mobile Wal-let — the complete suite of secure software solu-tions that enables a range of NFC services, mobile banking, mobile payment and loyalty programs, all integrated in a single wallet. Showcased for the first time at Mobile World Congress 2013, the new LinqUs Mobile Wallet extends Gemalto’s software offers and is fully integrated with the broader port-folio of mobile financial services (MFS) solutions. It enables financial service providers and retailers to rapidly deploy a breadth of services that can be

Gemalto Launches New Mobile enables rapid deployment of nfC, banking and value added services

faCt tICKer

the market went through significant

shift over the years with advent of

Vertical/industry specific solution

lines. in addition to this, as the

enterprise market segment is satu-

rating fast, there is increasing focus

on lower parts of the organisational

pyramid and the need for new deliv-

ery models. For instance, smb

segment is looking for specialised

solutions with quick deployment

cycle. Vendors are trying to address

the specific requirements and

customise their offerings to cater to

this segment by making their appli-

cations more focused and easier

to use and manage. enterprises

who are looking at online business

models, are venturing for options

such as e-retailing solutions which

is integrated with traditional crm

solutions. idc predicts the indian

erm market to be in the region

of inr 20 billion in 2013, with a

growth of 12.8% five year cagr

(2011-16).

customized to their specific needs. Gemalto’s LinqUs Mobile Wallet solution

includes a secure application framework, a dedi-cated mobile wallet server, and connectivity with Gemalto’s secure platforms for TSM (Trusted Ser-vice Management) and mobile payment.

Designed to optimize convenience for end users, consumers can link to existing accounts and cards, or set up new services easily.

They can confidently conduct all their banking activities straight from their smart-phone, along with transportation, ticketing and access applications. In addition, the wal-let also incorporates loyalty and couponing programmes for consumers and enables targeted mobile marketing campaigns.

Gemalto’s backend platforms are pre-integrated with the mobile wallet, creating the ideal environ-ment for swift adoption by service providers. With over 70 deployments of Mobile Financial Services solutions worldwide, LinqUs Mobile Wallet pro-vides best-in-class security in mobile payment deployments. Furthermore, it is proactively tested on leading smartphone models and with a range of NFC secure elements to ensure ‘out of the box’ operability and minimise testing costs.

“Interest in mobile financial services is accel-erating due to the convenience and added user-engagement that they provide,” said Jean-Claude Deturche, Gemalto Senior Vice President, Mobile Financial Services.

“By offering a rich suite of front-end mobile applications, through which end users can access the services delivered by our powerful servers, the Mobile Wallet sets new standards in terms of choice, flexibility and freedom to tailor solutions to individual requirements.”

iLL

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mE n T E r p r I S E r o u n d - u p

Transition: Developing strategic platforms for the company that drive online business model

A Q u e s t i o n o f A n s w e r s | V i n o d B i d A r k o p p A

Vinod Bidarkoppa | CIO, TesCO HsC

Vinod Bidarkoppa, CIO, Tesco HSC, prefers to call himself the Chief Delivery Officer. In a conversation with Yashvendra Singh, he throws light on how he transformed HSC, his challenges as a technology leader, and the priorities for 2013

HSC (Hindustan Service Cen-tre) is the only center Tesco

has for IT. Does that put a lot of pressure on you? What does it take to lead the IT department of a 72 billion pound company?Tesco HSC came into being in 2004. It was the brain child of our current CEO Philip Clarke. Over the years, we have not only transitioned some of the work from UK but have also built competency, skill sets and gained accountability. We have been develop-ing strategic platforms for the compa-ny that drive online business models both for general merchandise and grocery web. What initially started as support work has today transformed into a strong innovation centre. About 75 percent of our global IT sits in Ban-galore. This is the only strategic global technology and operational centre of Tesco from where we are driving significant operational and strategic

project delivery for all our businesses — online stores, Tesco banks etc — in all the 13 countries that we are in.

My role, and what HSC IT does, is along two dimensions. One, I handle support and services for both applications and infrastructure across all countries. The other one is developing cutting-edge products and applications that we bring to the market. This is what product compa-nies would do. So, effectively my role is a combination of that of a CIO and a CTO. It is more of that of a Chief Delivery Officer.

In retail, the key is to have technology facilitating quick-

er and cheaper shopping, fresher stocks and speedy replenish-ments. How do you ensure this?There is an algorithm that is core to our business and we keep tweaking and making enhancements to this

piece of very integral application to our business. We take into account all the sales that come on a daily, weekly and monthly basis from a historical data perspective and then take into account all the weather pat-terns, seasonal events and eventually forecast on a 7-day and 21-day basis. This not only provides the best avail-ability for shopping customers but also reduces wastage. This is how we enhance profitability.

We have a datacentre in UK which is the production datacenter. We have the development and test infrastruc-ture here. Bangalore also houses a world class retail lab where we test various versions before deployments.

Another challenge for the CIO of a company with such

a vast geographic reach is that of centralising and standardising the IT infrastructure across the various

The ChiefDelivery Officer

V i n o d B i d a r k o p p a | a Q u e s t i o n o f a n s w e r s

11March 2013

operating countries. How are you doing this?This is singularly the key objective for the leadership in Tesco. What we are doing is the drive to a com-mon business KPI in each operating country. About three-four years ago, we embarked on the journey called the ‘operating model’ to put in place the same operating models for busi-ness in each country and the same buy and sell processes irrespective of the geography. To achieve this, it was important to have common operat-ing model applications and common model infrastructure. We started this journey about three years back and are proud to say that we are about to complete it.

What technology trends do you see in the retail space

over the next two to three years?We divide technology under three pil-lars. The first one is ‘Technology for Customers’. In this space, we maxi-mise shopping experience for cus-tomers through mobile checkouts, kiosks in the stores, digital signage, or electronic labels. This is where the core of our spend for customers is.

The second pillar is the ‘Technol-ogy for Colleagues.’ Through this initiative, we address issues such as optimising technology near depots and optimising technology for those who plan shop floors. This is where technology comes handy for colleagues.

The third pillar is ‘Collaboration.’ We are 5,000 people in Tesco. So the challenge is to connect this community of 5,000 and allow them to collaborate actively and in real time. To address this issue, we have implemented Microsoft 365 as part of our global rollout. These are the three pillars where we focus our time and money in bringing technology.

As a technology leader, you are supposed to come up

with new revenue stream. How are you doing this?

there. Where we deployed this (most-ly in eastern European countries), we went from zero to about five percent. As we open more stores in other countries, this number will only go up. However, we don’t have a plan for this in India currently.

What is on top your priority list in 2013?

I have four core priorities for 2013. The first one is to get the best engi-neering capabilities to deliver the various projects on time and quality. The second priority is to keep the ser-vice levels up and improve productiv-ity. The third is to move forward on the consolidation, convergence and standardisation journey and uphold these three aspects. The fourth prior-ity is to continue innovating. We feel the retail sector is at an intersection today, and there is a breakout hap-pening in terms of opportunities. We are fortunate to be sitting on budgets that few people have.

In retail today, technology is a significant enabler. We embarked on implementing a global grocery website for home shopping. We saw this model driving sales beyond just the store as the sales channel. The second area is that we are taking the retail strategy digital. This involves taking what we have learnt over 100 years plus in the core store retail and applying it to the other channels – online and mobile. We have an app for the mobile platform which is driving significant sales for us in the UK. This is what we call the omnipresent channel or the multi channel strategy. We are leveraging the strengths of the emerging chan-nels in each business and making it available for the business owners to harness the output.

What was the impact on sales after the website

went live?Previously this channel was not

“We feel the retail sector is at an intersection today, and there is a breakout happening in terms of opportunities”

We divide

technology under

three pillars. First

is technology

for customers,

second is

technology

for colleagues

and finally

collaboration

one of the

priorities of 2013

is to focus on

getting the best

engineering

capabilities to

deliver the various

projects on time

tHIngS I BelIeve In

A Q u e s t i o n o f A n s w e r s | V i n o d B i d A r k o p p A

12 March 2013

13March 2013

Unveiled: Kalpataru Prime in Thane The commercial building offers 3.5 lac sq ft of space and comes across as an ideal destination not only for Thane but to other peripheral areas as well

Mumbai has seen a radical transformation in the way the real estate sector has changed. The city which until recently was known for industries is now

seeing tremendous growth of other sectors like service, healthcare, retail amongst others. The massive infrastructure development across the city has showered a series of opportunities for the real estate developers to meet the growing demand of residential and commercial space. Thane as a city is going through a metamorphosis. The entire skyline of city has changed in the last decade with high rise buildings to malls and shopping centres across the city. Today Thane has become self-sufficient

to fulfil every need of an entire family. To cater to this increase in demand from

IT/ITES companies in Thane, Kalpataru Ltd, flagship company of the Kalpataru Group, has launched its landmark commercial project — Kalpataru Prime in Wagle estate, the emerging IT/ITeS hub of Thane. Offering a total space of 3.5 lac sq ft, Kalpataru Prime is a five-storey commercial building offering floor plate ranging upto 65,000 sq ft with basement parking. Kalpataru which has developed many landmark properties like Kalpataru Square which was the first building in Asia and sixth in the world to receive the Platinum rating for LEED (C&S) v.2.0 by US Green Building Council; Kalpataru Synergy which

has the unique distinction of having triple basement amongst many other landmark properties across Mumbai is focused on development of high quality commercial spaces which offer modern amenities for the futuristic requirements of the corporate world. Kalpataru Prime, has been designed by EDIFICE, a renowned architectural firm which specialises in IT/commercial projects. It has already been sent for LEED certification for gold rating and offers unique advantages like 20-25 percent energy saving, 40 percent saving on water consumption with an efficient SWRP, 30 percent reduction in carbon emission, designed for maximum natural light circulation besides being equipped with comprehensive support infrastructure which is powered with the latest cutting-edge technology to facilitate a hassle-free work environment.  Thoughtfully designed, it provides 100 percent power backup, advanced communication system, sophisticated security arrangements in conjunction with a host of support services (BMS).

Kalpataru Prime is easily connected with Mumbai, Navi Mumbai. Both the international and domestic airports are also easily accessible from Kalpataru Prime. Railway lines too are at a close reach of merely three km, making it a convenient 10 minute drive to both Thane and Mulund railway stations. 

With the international transportation leaders expressing interest to develop and operate a MRTS (Mass Rapid Transit System) Thane using a mix of buses, monorails, tramways and LRT, the public transport systems are set to undergo a complete change in the coming years.

The project is ideally located just off the LBS Marg and in close proximity to the Eastern Express Highway making it centrally located to all major roads, railways and highway. All these factors make the project an ideal commercial destination for corporates looking at expanding in Thane.

Actual image of Kalpataru Prime,

located at Wagle estate

K A L P A T A R U | C I O & L E A D E R C U s T O m s E R I E s

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

16 | Variabilisation: A Game Changer

20 | Look Beyond the Obvious

23 | IT as a Common Utility Model

C O V E R S T O R Y | V a R i a b i l i S E Y O u R i T

14 March 2013

There is a paradigm shift in the way technology is being delivered. For instance, IT organisations are looking to transform IT as a utility service, quite like how power utilities and telecom service providers reach out to their consumers. However, the success of this model will be mainly governed by standardisation of IT services and adoption of cloud technologies. This issue of CIO&Leader presents insights into this emerging trend of variabilisation of IT and how industry leaders and top enterprise technology decision makers are actively evangelising the idea of variabilisation.

By Yashvendra Singh

Design by Shokeen Saifi | Imaging By Haridas Balan

v a r i a b i l i s e y o u r i t | C o v e r s t o r y

15March 2013

vari ati n:bilisa oa game changer

The IT industry is at the cusp of another computing revolution. Post the revolu-tions of standardisation and customasation, a third model called variabilisa-tion is taking centre stage.

Legacy systems tend to constrict business agility yet replacing them typically involves a substantial commitment of resources that straddle hardware, new applications, and staff and vendor time. Moreover, the tan-gible benefits from the shift in approach are seldom seen in the immediate run.

Compounding the complexity of the IT management, data, the lifeblood of business

port infrastructure as a means to stay ahead of the growth curve. However, the changing business circumstances and the disruptive force of new technologies like cloud com-puting and mobility have caused a shift in the business approach to technology,” says Mandar Vanarse, Practice Partner, Wipro Consulting Services.

Variabilisation as a business strategy is an outgrowth of this new approach. There are several companies fueling the growth of this trend. Wipro, for instance, is one such com-pany, which is at the forefront of bringing this transformation.

There is a paradigm shift in the way tech-nology is being delivered. For instance, IT

Variabilisation of IT helps CIOs in business growth even when companies don't make capital investments. It helps them benefit from the cost advantage of accessing IT even as they reduce the dependence on their own legacy systems.

strategy, is being generated at an increasing rate, doubling every 18 months and thereby causing serious scalability issues across storage, compute and application delivery infrastructure. Hence, the CIO can ill afford to overlook the data management system even as fresh steps are taken to cut back the total cost of ownership (TCO) arising from the maintenance of a large server sprawl.

With shrinking IT budgets, the CIO is now called upon to explore innovative ways to ensure peak performance and high avail-ability of business critical applications with-out losing the competitive advantage.

“Not too long ago, most corporates made heavy investments in technology and sup-

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16 March 2013

organisations are looking to transform IT as a utility service, quite like how power utili-ties and telecom service providers reach out to their consumers.

In responding to the new business demands, variabilisation has proved to be an answer to the new demands that CIOs face in having to walk the tightrope between ensuring the firm’s agility in testing times while adapting the IT assets built over the years to emerging technology changes.

Variabilisation of operations and invest-ment brings in the agility and flexibility needed to meet the varying business priori-ties. Variabilisation of IT helps enterprises benefit from the cost advantage of accessing IT infrastructure and other support services from external service providers, even as they reduce the dependence on their own legacy IT systems.

Nilesh Sangoi, CTO of Meru Cabs, says, “With erratic economic cycles, the IT budgets also oscillate between rapid growth times and cost cutting times in quick succession. In such situations, ability to increase or decrease the costs quickly can help to make the organization become more agile.”

Vijay Sethi, CIO, Hero MotoCorp, echoes the sentiment when he says, “When com-paring fixed and variable costs, fixed costs have their own advantages as they often help organisations achieve scale and eventu-ally cost advantage. Even in case of technol-ogy costs this holds true. But in times of distress, the fixed costs more often act as overheads and a downward force bringing down profitability of organisations. In such times, a concept like variabilisation makes a lot of sense as it gives the organisation a competitive edge and a lot of agility (because of availability of on-demand resources).”

Another scenario where variabilisation is relevant is for small organisations which do not have adequate capital to set up fixed cost infrastructure to run their operations and often rely on pay-per-use models to support their infrastructure.

For organisation to become flexible, it has to manage costs when market is tough and increase capacity when market demands growth. IT being a major operational cost – if we manage IT cost and capacity – it helps organisations become more agile. It also helps CIO become the Innovation leader in terms of Cost and Service Models.

Commercial Models of Variabilisation of ITThe two key components of variabilisation are cloud computing and virtualisation. In fact, according to experts, variabilisation is best understood in the context of a cloud environment and virtualisation.

Currently, enterprises are turning to varia-bilisation by moving their data to the cloud and virtualising their networks. However, as businesses are getting used to the concept, they are looking for more flexible models.

Owing to the changing business scenari-os, service providers have introduced a few innovative models to meet new demands.

Pay-as- you-use modelA large number of small-to medium-size businesses (SMBs) are switching from a traditional pricing model to a pay-as-you-use billing model, also known as activity-based pricing model. As per this model, enterprises are charged only for the resource used or consumed. While most companies have switched to support high rates of growth in customer base, many feel that activity-based pricing gives them an effective defense against rising competition. This competition initiates the need to move to this model, pro-viding them a much needed differentiation in the market. According to a 2012 survey of more than 400 SMBs, nearly 28 percent cur-rently use pay-as-you-use models to bill their customers. Nearly half of those not yet using the model said their companies have consid-ered or are planning to make a switch, says Wipro's white paper on 'Variabilisation of IT -- Transforming the Business Landscape.'

Outcome based modelToday, variabilisation is making a steady shift to outcome based models. This model is inherently flexible because it aligns charging with what the customer actually receives. The total cost to the customer over any particular period of time can fluctuate, based on their requirements -- without any need to renegotiate commercial terms. It also encourages innovation by the supplier -- the more efficiently the supplier provides the services per unit, the more profitable the services are. According to a report, about 10 percent of the existing contract models will be comprised of outcome-based engage-ments by 2015.

An outcome-based model works best when the outcome is process-oriented, rather than business-oriented. Essentially, the customer should be willing to accept the provider’s solution, have accurate baselines, measurable service levels and performance goals. This is necessary for the model to be a success for both parties. In addition, there should be a sound understanding of the different vari-ables that influence the outcome of a service. The more powerful are the external variables, the lower the possibility of the supplier’s ser-vice influencing the outcome.

Gain sharing modelService providers have also come up with

“In times of distress, the fixed costs more often act as overheads and a downward force bringing down profitability of organisations.” —Vijay Sethi, CIO, Hero MotoCorp

v a r i a b i l i s e y o u r i t | C o v e r s t o r y

17March 2013

gain sharing models of variabilisation where both clients and the service providers work as partners and share the profits. The charges involved are in proportion to the business value generated by the project or service, such as a percentage of the increase in profit or reduced operating expenses. In this pricing model, the client and the outsourcing service provider agree upon measures between themselves towards the achievement of maximum efficiency and effectiveness. One of the advantages of this model is that it brings about collaboration

panies align their total IT spending with overall business growth. For instance, a company might plan to close down a par-ticular division of business, leading to sig-nificant reduction in revenue. In this case, if the IT costs are variabilised, the IT spend would also be proportionately reduced.

Similarly, a cut in overall operational expenditure costs would result in reduction of IT spend as well. Later, when there is a plan to scale up the business, proportion-ate IT investment can also be scaled up easily with lesser effort and cost.

Variabalisation helps CIOs to focus on service delivery rather than focussing on the TCO and implementation of IT solu-tions. According to Nilesh Goradia, Head, PreSales, India, Citrix, “Going forward, CIOs can avail IT services as per the requirement through variabalisation of IT. This will eliminate the scenario where they have to pay or build services right now keeping in mind the IT requirements for the future. Variabalisation allows a CIO to reduce cost of operations, lowering TCO and achieving faster turnaround time to reach the market.”

There are enterprises that are already using the variabilisation concept at some places to support specific operations/ser-vices. Hero MotoCorp, for instance, is one such organisation.

According to Sethi, “In terms of efforts put to move towards variabilisation, when-ever we have to deliver a solution for a requirement or perform any enhancement, we evaluate both the fixed and variable cost options. With the increasing adoption of cloud based technologies, it has been off-late observed that variable cost technology models are being considered more relevant and viable by most organisations.”

While evaluating any new initiatives, Hero MotoCorp today looks at options of “as a service” and wherever feasible goes for it. For instance, when the company had to do a project on social analytics, instead of deploy-ing technology, the company went in for ‘sentiment snalytics as a service.’ With the service provider, Hero came up with a set of KPIs – and the number of KPIs / months could change moving forward as the com-pany gained clarity on its needs.

While variabilisation goes a long way in bringing down costs for an enterprise, its

“Apart from helping enterprises lower costs, variabilisation also enables enterprise users to self-service themselves. This reduces the workload of the IT department.”—Shailesh Kumar Davey, VP, Engineering, ManageEngine

and creative problem-solving, since both parties are working towards a common business goal.

Leveraging VariabilisationOn the business front, variabilisation offers immense flexibility by ushering in outcome-based models, SLA-driven engagements, pay-per-use models and high-level engage-ment metrics aligned to strategic goals of consumers. Hence, while firms leverage these principles based on their business needs and culture, they are able to create a win-win situation for service providers and customers alike.

With this approach, firms are able to:1 Virtualise their IT resources2 Automate data center functions3 Improve the performance, availability,

security and scalability of business critical applications

4 Enable cost-efficient ways of collaboration across the distributed mobile workforce.CIOs across enterprises are looking at

variabilisation to cut their costs and make their businesses more agile and flexible. In any enterprise, the overall potential of variabilising all IT components, exclud-ing SaaS, is considered to be around 74 percent. As of now, variabilisation is mainly restricted to hardware, where again it is largely limited to asset outsourcing, Wipro's white paper says.

Currently, in a ‘model’ company, about 36 percent of the IT cost is variable. How-ever, by transforming the IT model to include cloud-based offerings, this can be increased to around 60 percent, it says.

In the recent past, various organisations have benefited by adopting variabilisa-tion. Among one of the most prominent examples, a leading provider of healthcare services achieved 66 percent cost variabili-sation after it built an engagement model to address costs across hardware, software, facilities and services. This led to overall transparency and control on IT consump-tion. In another instance, a leading Dutch manufacturer of paints achieved 35 percent cost savings due to variabilisation, the white paper adds.

It deployed the remote backup service, wherein backup cost was based on volume of business data stored.

Embracing variabilisation can help com-

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18 March 2013

advantages are not limited to it. As Shailesh Kumar Davey, VP, Engi-

neering, ManageEngine, says, “I feel enterprises can leverage variabilisation of IT in the areas of testing. For instance, while developing applications, and before production, corporates would want to test them in a real environment. They can do so by booking cloud space on Amazon. Training is another area where variabilisa-tion can help.”

“Apart helping enterprises lower costs, variabilisation also enables enterprise users to self-service themselves. This reduces the workload of the IT depart-ment,” he avers.

Meanwhile, Sangoi adds a word of caution when he says, “On consumer facing sys-tems, an arrangement like small fixed initial cost and then a variable cost based on num-ber of transactions can help align the inter-ests of both the organisation and the vendor and result in a win-win situation. One needs to keep in mind the TCO while doing cost benefit analysis of one model over the other. A variable cost model may not always result in lower costs,” says Sangoi.

Challenges in Variabilisation While variabilisation offers strong benefits to CIOs, there are some challenges that an enterprise technology decision maker might face in his variabilisation journey.

For instance, capacity demand planning and information security are two areas that could pose a challenge if not handled properly.

Variabilisation does make sense for most operations but as scale increases, a fixed cost infrastructure tends to give more cost savings. While forecasting capacity demand, it becomes a challenge for the CIO’s to properly judge the growth in capacity demand considering all the factors (internal and environmental) and based on those, take a calculated decision on whether to invest in fixed cost or variable cost bases technology initiative.

To a certain extent, maintaining security (confidentiality, integrity and availability) of organisation information is also a chal-lenge when one moves to a Variabilization concept. Since in this model, most of the applications and data will be residing in infrastructure hosted by the vendors, ensur-ing that security is maintained becomes a

“With erratic economic cycles, the IT budgets also oscillate between rapid growth times and cost cutting times in quick succession. In such situations, ability to increase or decrease the costs quickly can help to make the organisation become more agile.”—Nilesh Sangoi, CTO, Meru Cabs

the right kind of vendor who will be able to provide this service. Determining the SLAs for the vendors who will be providing variabalisation of IT, determining the right technology which can meet the demands of the organisation.

However, Sangoi sounds upbeat when he says “There are no challenges, only opportu-nities in the field of technology.”

Looking AheadVariabilisation is growing at a healthy pace, even as it spurs new business models. It will increasingly simplify IT by reducing and masking complexity and allow IT oper-ating expenses to vary with the expansion and contraction of the business.

Progressive organisations across indus-tries are already surfing this wave of variabi-lisation and seeing growth even in the face of distressing economic conditions.

Today’s fixed costs can become tomor-row’s operational expenses. It all depends on how much the organisations are will-ing to adopt this concept of variabilisation and how soon. It is definitely the trend for tomorrow, and today’s early adopters will be the face of future growth.

As Sethi says, “In the coming year, we will try to go variable in more initiatives as it will give us a competitive edge and also make our operations more agile. With the increas-ing business complexity and environment, it is very necessary that technology func-tions keep pace with the requirements of business and try to be as flexible as possible in partnering with business. We will give more thrust to ‘Cloud’ and various ‘as a ser-vice’ or ‘pay per use’ propositions.”

In today's times, variabilisation can help CIO’s to support business growth even in times when companies may not like to make capital investments. Variabilisation, is a great way to ensure that negative effects of distress times are reduced by spending only what is actually needed.

Vendors have realised this. As Goradia says, “Citrix will continue to support the variabalisation of IT and help customers to adopt through its channel partners, who will act as a service provider for the variaba-lisation of IT. The company will enable the channel partners with the right technology which are required to be delivered to the end customer.”

challenge which in most cases can be over-come by having strict agreements and SLA’s with the vendors.

Besides, there are internal challenges that business heads have to be convinced that they are not losing control. Externally, there are large number of vendor orchestration and negotiations required.

Goradia feels that there are multiple challenges, some of them are selecting

v a r i a b i l i s e y o u r i t | C o v e r s t o r y

19March 2013

look beyondAnuj Bhalla, VP & Business Unit Head, SIMS, Global Infra Services Wipro, talks to Yashvendra Singh about the company's numerous offerings on variabalisation of IT

“For a CIO looking to embrace varibalisation, it is important that they look beyond the obvious, and be bold and open to new ideas ”—Anuj Bhalla, VP & Global Business Head, System Intergration and Maintenance Services, Global Infra Services, Wipro Ltd.

the o viousb

C O V E R S T O R Y | V a R i a b i l i S E Y O u R i T

20 March 2013

What are Wipro’s strength in offer-ing variabilisation model to corpo-

rates? Why should an enterprise technol-ogy leader look at Wipro for variabilising his IT infrastructure?Wipo offers numerous benefits of varibali-sation to its customers (See Graph). Wipro addresses the three areas for IT variablisa-tion ---- each with distinct opportunities and benefits. With capabilities across the stack (consulting, integration, infrastruc-ture, management and BPO), Wipro pro-vides the best of benefits along with inno-vative solutions like iStructure, to meet customers unique business needs.

Wipro offers three areas for IT varibalisa-tion, each with distinct opportunities and benefits. The three pillars of varibalisation are variabilising business operations, varia-bilising infrastructure and variabilising your assets.

Variabilising Business Operations Leverage a shared infrastructure model and manage cost pressures more efficiently

Focus on their core business by outsourc-ing the support functions to external ser-vice providers

Case in Point: Leading Private Insurance Player Managed 80 percent of IT operations and processes through Wipro GSMC and saved Rs 70 million; Wipro enabled faster resolution by reducing the time-frame from five days to 6 hours

Outsourced IT operations and managed through Wipro GSMC

Variabilising Assets Enterprises and end-users no more require to own assets

Transformation of IT into a business util-ity --- new business models --- light on Capex, high on innovation

Case in Point: Global Financial Services Firm A cloud-based infrastructure with zero additional Capex investment into IT Infra-structure

More than 25 percent reduction in total cost of ownership.

Reduced time to provision from 52 days to a few minutes

Variabilising Business Scale Shorter business cycles, an organisation’s fixed scale is a big impediment

Firms can variabilise their infrastructure to scale up or down their operation

Case in Point: Leading Mobile Operator The client wanted to increase market share in a highly competitive environment

Best of breed pre-integrated stack, rapid deployment framework resulted in nine month average roll out time (against an industry average of 15 months), a 30 per-cent reduction in IT costs and achievement of subscriber target much ahead of time.

What is Wipro’s strategy with respect to variabilisation over the

next two-three years?Variabilisation trends signal a major shift in the value that a CIO seek. Wipro is aligning solutions and taking proactive steps such as: Envisaging solutions that positively impact business

Adopting modular approach to engage-ments that bring speed and efficiencies

Leading-edge technology that make busi-nesses more agile and responsive

A proactive approach that challenge con-ventional thinking For a CIO looking to embrace varibalisa-

tion, it is important that they look beyond the obvious, and be bold and open to new ideas.

There are more than one way of realising variabilisation of IT. Internal

variabilisation is one of them. Please thro more light on it.The variabilisation model is in its infancy but is fast becoming a foundational ele-ment for growth and capability. Firms that become orchestrators than owners of their operations will see higher growth in the coming days. The competitive advantage will come from a sharp focus on business agility, risk management and coordination of businesses for value chain. Building a consolidated IT infrastructure from scratch often requires a significant up-front invest-ment and that does not always pay off in the short run. As organizations become more information intensive, the costs asso-ciated with IT infrastructure and its main-tenance increase. By leveraging a shared infrastructure model, firms can tackle the cost pressures more efficiently and focus upon their core business by outsourcing

Enables cost-efficient collaboration

across a distubted mobile workforace

Standaridizes the back-end while differntiating

the front-end for customers

Offers flexibility in outcome-based

models, SLA-driven engagements, pay-per-

use models

Delivers high-level engagement metrics

aligned to strategic goals of customers

Creates business value with increased efficiency,

reduced costs, maximized responsiveness

Automates data centre funtions, improves

performance, availability, security and scalability

of business critical applications; and

Benefits of Varibalisation

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21March 2013

the support functions to external service providers. For instance, in a fast-changing industry like telecom, massive infrastruc-ture investments can burden balance sheets and cut flexibility. To become lean and agile, telecom firms are increasingly moving their non-core activities and assets to be managed by capable third parties. This way, they can off-load the burden of non-core network ownership (maintenance, repair, and replacement of infrastructure), pay only for the services that they and their cus-tomers consume, reserve more enterprise capital for investment in core activities, and liberate management bandwidth to focus on highest-value strategies. To cite a case, Sprint Nextel has signed a seven-year deal to outsource its network operations to Ericsson, a contract worth about $5 billion. When such deals occur, a snowball effect typically produces greater economies of scale for both clients and providers. Telecom firms are also outsourcing their network, infrastructure management and other services

adapt to their specific needs.At the basic level, we have seen how

telecom players like AT&T in the US offer almost free handsets, but charge for the telecom services they provide. Similarly, Xerox has been able to variabilize the cus-tomer cost by charging on a per photocopy basis rather than getting customers to buy the machine, and then pay for cartridge and maintenance.

Even in the technology space, we see large technology companies transforming fixed costs by offering software packages on pay-per-use model instead of investing in large fixed assets. The pay-per-use model propagated by Software as a Service (Saas) providers is a case-in-point. The Saas model reduces the cost of upgrading from one version of the software to another con-siderably compared with on-premise costs. Since the model is a multi-tenant architec-ture, the cost of all software, infrastructure and expertise is shared by a large number of customers.

What are your thoughts on scale variabilisation?

Today, firms can variabilize their scale of operation to suit the business dynamics and cycles, making them more agile and competitive. In a business which is vul-nerable to the wrath of business cycles, the organization’s fixed scale can be a big impediment. Organizations can now use the lease model to transform this hurdle into an advantage. Infrastructure-as-a-ser-vice (IaaS) facilitates this. Major sports and e-commerce websites are seen to effi-ciently manage their peak hours and lean periods by accessing IaaS. For example, the Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona) maintain its FCBarcelona website—which boasts over 6,000 pages available in six languages and over 12,000 digitized pho-tos—by using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Likewise, Brazilian IT Company Concrete Solutions uses AWS to optimize its Casa & Video’s e-commerce infrastruc-ture. Casa & Video is one of Brazil’s larg-est providers of electronics and home products, and its infrastructure needs to be versatile enough to handle large traffic spikes during the holiday shopping sea-son, while also supporting an immense inventory and supply chain.

like call centers to third parties—a trend seen in both the developed and emerging markets. Rapid growth of cloud-based data centers too illustrates the variabilisation trend. Large organizations tend to maintain multiple data centers across geographies. These data centers typically have disparate technologies, includ-ing a wide range of servers, some of which are old, obsolete. Many of these organizations are now variabilizing their data center costs by accessing cloud based services.

How can corporates achieve cus-tomer variabilisation?

Enterprises are also developing variabilisa-tion solutions for their customers in the effort to deliver highly differentiated ser-vices to stay ahead of the growth curve. This model requires a transfer of ownership of the assets from different data centers to a consolidated central structure that delivers utilities. This would allow the services to be assembled into a single, flexible infrastruc-ture that more organizations can share and

C O V E R S T O R Y | V a R i a b i l i S E Y O u R i T

22 March 2013

IT as a

Jitendra Gupta, Director - Channels & Alliances for India & South Asia, Juniper Networks, throws light on Juniper's strategy for variabilising IT

Business leaders are always looking to transform fixed costs of running a

business into variable costs, thus making organisations more flexible and agile to master the business cycle. How can the concept of variabilisation of IT help CIOs in achieving this?Variabilisation allows organisations to use tenets like scale, standardisation, simpli-fication and enables them to be lean and thereby drive efficiency, optimise delivery and lower unit costs. Organisations that variabilise their fixed costs can master the business cycle rather than be whipped by it. The technique can be applied within your own organisation (back-end variabili-sation) or leveraged to create value-added solutions for your customers (front-end variabilisation).

By leveraging a shared infrastructure model, firms can tackle the cost pressures more efficiently and focus on their core business, by outsourcing the support func-tions to external service providers. Rapid

growth of cloud-based data centers also pro-motes the variabilisation trend.

Today, firms can variabilise their scale of operation to suit the business dynamics and cycles, making them more agile and competitive.

Apart from business agility and com-petitiveness, are there any other

ways in which variabilisation can help a CIO and his enterprise?Newer technologies like Virtualisation, Cloud and Collaboration are allowing enter-prises to variabilise the asset footprint that they have and build scalable designs that respond to market needs.

Organisations can maximise IT’s poten-tial by focusing on new models in varia-bilisation of technology to enable more differentiating investment for IT based innovation. Technology tools like analytics and business intelligence enable organisa-tions to streamline the performance and profitability of the business. Organisations

can reap the benefit of immense flexibil-ity through outcome based models, SLA driven engagements, pay-per-use models and high-level engagement metrics aligned to their strategic goals.

Large organisations tend to maintain multiple data centers across geographies. These data centers typically have disparate technologies, including a wide range of servers, some of which are old and obsolete. Through variabilising, data center costs by accessing cloud-based services can be cut down significantly.

Variabilisation allows customers to become more efficient and do business bet-ter, even as vendors innovate to gain market share. It enables CIOs to be in better align-ment with the needs and goals of business leaders. And it means that today’s organisa-tions, long caught in a vise as competition grows but the IT spend budget shrinks, can take advantage of cutting-edge technology to be agile, even formidable, players in their markets.

util elty modicommon

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23March 2013

What could be some of the chal-lenges that a CIO could encounter

on the journey to variabilisation? How can they overcome these challenges?Traditionally, IT is considered to be a sig-nificant cost center and is typically one of the first to be affected when any cost cut-ting initiatives are implemented. The CIOs are under constant pressure from CFOs to reduce IT spending and align with busi-ness volume. However, the challenge for the CIO is to make those cuts while mini-mising impact on business value delivery. Building a consolidated IT infrastructure from scratch often requires significant up-front investment that does not always pay, especially in the short run. As organisations become more information-intensive, the costs associated with IT infrastructure and its maintenance increase. CIOs also find it a challenge to justify the cost viz-a-viz ROIs.

The acceptance and awareness of IT prac-tices is on the rise, organisations still are apprehensive of going full throttle when it comes to adoption owing to privacy con-cerns and data security. In order to meet the challenges, organisations need to look at outsourcing arrangements and alternate models of data center management.

What is Juniper’s strategy with respect to variabilisation over the

next two-three years?The core of our strategy on variabilisation of IT is to align with vendors with the best of breed solutions. This is the reason why we partner with Wipro. One of the stated objec-tives of variabilisation is to make IT into a common utility model thereby meeting the demands of scale-out and scale-in resources quickly. This is not possible today due to the following problems - especially at the networking side of the IT business. Rigid IT architectures and inability to innovate due to closed and proprietary network operating systems

Hardware based licensing model and very little perpetuity

Juniper is an innovation company and is at the leadership position to drive the change. We are driving this by introducing software abstraction of complex networking gears with open APIs for fuelling innova-tions. Ex. Juniper Virtual Execution Engine (VEE) is application development platform for ISVs to innovate and build great busi-ness models. Software defined networking or Programmable networks will be the cornerstone to make IT variabilisation a reality. Second step or even a parallel step is to de-couple licenses from hardware. Such perpetual licensing model makes the busi-ness case more compelling. We are working on defining licensing metrics based on – utilisation, subscribers, volume of traffic, services types etc.

“Traditionally, IT is considered to be a significant cost center and is typically one of the first to be affected when any cost cutting initiatives are implemented”

—Jitendra Gupta, Director - Channels & Alliances for India & South Asia at Juniper Networks

C O V E R S T O R Y | V a R i a b i l i S E Y O u R i T

24 March 2013

C&L S

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“To handle yourself, use your head;

to handle others, use your heart.”

—ElEanor roosEvElt

24AMarch 2013

SpECIAL

LEAdErShIp SECTION

C&L S

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24B March 2013

CIO&LEADER This special section on leadership has been designed keeping in mind the evolving role of CIOs. The objective is to provide an eclectic mix of leadership articles and opinions from top consultants and gurus as well as create a platform for peer learning. Here is a brief description of each sub-section that will give you an idea of what to expect each month from CIO&Leader:

An opinion piece on leadership penned by leadership gurus. Plus, an insightful article from a leading consulting firm

The article/interview will track the leadership journey of a CIO/CXO to the top. It will also provide insights into how top leaders think about leadership

This feature focusses on how CIOs run IT organisations in their company as if they were CEOs. It will comment on whether IT should have a separate P&L, expectation management of different LoB heads, HR policies within IT, operational issues, etc. This section will provide insights into the challenges of putting a price on IT services, issues of changing user mindset, squeezing more value out of IT, justifying RoI on IT, attracting and retaining talent, and competing against external vendors

A one-page review of a book on leadership

TOp dOwN

My STOryLEAdINg EdgE 2826

25

34 ShELF LIFE

I N T r O d u C T I O N

With Choice Come ComplexitiesChris Bedi, CIO, JDSU, feels that it is important for a CIO to embrace choice and enhance his vision

intelligence and reliability of the networks that consumers depend on for com-munications, commerce and entertainment.

As per latest reports, India is set to have two billion networked devices by 2016 --- double its current number, while broadband speeds are expected to jump three-fold and online video could dominate up to 70 percent of Internet traffic. The increasing role of the network in people’s lives and the demand for bandwidth-rich applications presents major challenges for network opera-tors and equipment manufacturers. I feel that the opportunity India provides is huge with industries like telecommunications, manufacturing and energy segment growing significantly. One of the key strengths of JDSU is innovation and developing new products is one of the key to our company's success. Fifty percent of our revenue comes from new products and in India too we plan to introduce innovative products to cater to the varied market segment. Today, the job of the CIO is getting increasingly harder with consumerisation of IT. A CIO has to show his true leadership quality not only in the technical front but also in the business front to deal with the internal IT and the external physical environ-ment. A CIO knows that with choice come complexities. The most important thing for the CIO is to embrace choice and enhance his vision.

IndIa Is turnIng out to be one of the key markets for JDSU in the Asia Pacific region. We have recently opened a software centre in Pune and have employed 35 to 40 people who will be working on developing software applications required for the telecommunica-tions industry. JDSU, incorporated as JDS Uniphase Corporation and headquartered at California, US, is a key enabler for optical solutions in industries such as broadband communications, brand enhancement and authentication, manufacturing and energy. With $ 1.7 billion in revenues, JDSU’s innovation is the catalyst for a multitude of innovative solutions and services that touch people’s lives every day.

Across geographies, operators of communications services need network and service enablement solutions that deliver intelligence to help them keep up with this demand and profitably manage today’s networks. JDSU provides technology solutions to improve the speed,

Top DownChris BeDiCio, JDsU (JDs Uniphase CorporaTion, Usa)

25March 2013

SR Balasubramanian, former CIO and now a technolo-gy consultant, talks to Yashvendra Singh about different aspects of leadership and the changing face of IT

SR Balasubramanian is an experienced enterprise technology leader. In an illustrious career, he has served leadership positions including the CIO of Hero Honda Motors and the CIO of Godfrey Phillips.

During your years as a technology leader, how did you ensure that IT acts as a profit making

department for the organisation? During my long years with the corporate sector, I did not endorse the concept of treating the IT Department as a profit center. There were many examples quoted to me but I don’t think those really succeeded in its efforts. Some IT departments got overstaffed and after having run through critical applications, the manage-ments decided to spin them off as separate units so that they could sell their services and make profits. I have not seen many success stories here.

I always believed that IT is an important element of the organisation and has to work along with the rest of the company to make the business expand and grow. The trouble is that most companies see the IT depart-ment as a cost center and hence talk of converting into a profit center.

I have not heard of people talking of converting departments like human resource, marketing, admin-istration, corporate liaison into profit centers and therefore it looks strange when people single out IT for this discussion.

What are the key traits that make a CIO a leader?

The basic traits required of a CIO could be many but the CIO need not possess all of them to be considered a leader. Let me list down a few :

1. Knowledge of business: Should be able understand and comprehend the business that the company is in, the market that it operates in, its customers, the company’s strategic direction and goals.

2. Visionary: Should be able to look ahead and draw a medium/long term plan.

3. Communicator: Should have good oral and written skills to be able to explain the IT plans and be able to engage with the business heads.

4. Project management: Must have project manage-ment skills and be able to take coordinate various elements.

5. Team management skills: To carry people along and keep them motivated.

6. Credibility: Through his actions he should be able to create an image where people begin to trust him.

7. Selling skills: So that he is able to sell his ideas internally.

What was the point in your career that transformed you from being a technologist to

a technology leader?My 10 year stint with a leading management consult-ing firm changed my perspective. On projects, we dealt with top management personnel and therefore could see issues from their perspective. Our reports were meant to convince the management of our prescrip-tions and their acceptance or rejection of our ideas taught us important lessons.

“Technology today is getting commoditised”

My sTory BalasUBraManian s r

26 March 2013

B a l a s U B r a M a n i a n s r | i n T e r v i e w

How do you see technology leadership evolving in the next

five years given the fact that IT changes very fast.The IT scene has been undergoing radical changes. Technology today is getting com-moditised and the entire solution mapping has undergone a change.

Usage has gone beyond desktops and laptops to ipads, mobile phones and other gadgets. We speak of bring your own

device (BYOD) and use of social network-ing sites. So the CIO has to diversify his skills and awareness so as to play a part in all such initiatives.

He has to get out of his conventional mindset and look at avenues to make use of all available options.

What is your advice on the subject of leadership to CIOs?

I would suggest that they open up and offer

to take on bigger roles in the organisation. They need to take risks and take up bigger and high impact projects so that they make a mark and genuinely help business. They have to take initiative and make things happen rather than sitting back expecting others to give him a lead.

1 A CIO should be able

to look ahead and draw a

medium/long term plan

2 A CIO should have

good oral and written skills

to be able to explain the IT

plans and be able to engage

with the business heads

3 A CIO must have project

management skills and be

able to coordinate various

elements

4 A CIO needs to carry

people along and keep them

motivated

5 A CIO should be able

to seell his ideas internally

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27March 2013

It’s late afternoon in the boardroom, and the head of a major global infrastruc-ture company’s construction business is in the hot seat. A director with a background in the industry is questioning an assump-tion underlying the executive’s return-on-invested-capital (ROIC) forecast: that the industry’s ratio of leased (versus owned) equipment will remain relatively constant. The business leader appears confident about the assumption of stability, which has implications for both the competitive envi-ronment and for financial results. But the director isn’t convinced: “In my experience, the ratio changes continuously with the eco-nomic cycle,” he says, “and I’d feel a whole lot better about these estimates if you had

some facts to prove that this has changed.”.An uneasy silence settles over the room:

the board member’s point appears quite relevant but requires a familiarity with the industry’s behavior and economics, and the rest of the board doesn’t have it. Finally, the chairman intervenes: “The question John is raising is critical and not just for our construction business but for our entire strategy. We’re not going to resolve this today, but let’s make sure it’s covered thoroughly during our strategy off-site. And Paul,” says the chairman to the CEO, “let’s have some good staff work in place to inform the discussion.”

If the preceding exchange sounds famil-iar, it should: in the wake of the financial

crisis, we find that uncomfortable conversa-tions such as this one are increasingly com-mon in boardrooms around the world as corporate directors and executives come to grips with a changed environment. Ensur-ing that a company has a great strategy is among a board’s most important functions and the ultimate measure of its stewardship. Yet even as new governance responsibilities and faster competitive shifts require much more — and much better — board engage-ment on strategy, a great number of boards remain hamstrung by familiar challenges.

the strategy challenge for boardsFor starters, there’s the problem of time: most boards have about six to eight meet-

Tapping the Strategic Potential of BoardsToo many boards just review and approve strategy. Three questions can help them — and executives — begin to do better By Chinta Bhagat, Martin Hirt, and Conor Kehoe

leaDing eDge

ChinTa BhagaT, MarTin hirT, anD Conor Kehoe

28 March 2013

29March 2013

ings a year and are often hard pressed to get beyond compliance-related topics to secure the breathing space needed for developing strategy. When we recently surveyed board members to learn where they’d most like to spend additional time, two out of three picked strategy. A related finding was that 44 percent of directors said their boards simply reviewed and approved manage-ment’s proposed strategies. Why such lim-ited engagement? One likely reason is an expertise gap: only 10 percent of the direc-tors we surveyed felt that they fully under-stood the industry dynamics in which their companies operated. As a result, only 21 percent of them claimed to have a complete understanding of the current strategy.

What’s more, there’s often a mismatch

between the time horizons of board mem-bers (longer) and of top executives (shorter), and that lack of alignment can diminish a board’s ability to engage in well-informed give-and-take about strategic trade-offs. “The chairman of my company has effec-tively been given a decade,” says the CEO of a steelmaker in Asia, “and I have three years—tops—to make my mark. If I come up with a strategy that looks beyond the current cycle, I can never deliver the results expected from me. Yet I am supposed to work with him to create long-term share-holder value. How am I supposed to make this work?” It’s a fair question, particularly since recent McKinsey research shows that major strategic moves involving active capi-tal reallocation deliver higher shareholder

returns than more passive approaches over the long haul, but lower returns over time frames of less than three years. Com-pounding these challenges is the increased economic volatility prompting many com-panies to rethink their strategic rhythm, so that it becomes less calendar driven and formulaic and more a journey involv-ing frequent and regular dialogue among a broader group of executives. To remain relevant, boards must join management on this journey, and management in turn must bring the board along—all while ensuring that strategic cocreation doesn’t become confusion or, worse, shadow management.

three questions to spur high-quality engagementWhile no one-size-fits-all solution can guide companies as they set out, we suggest that board members and senior managers ask themselves three simple questions as they approach the development of strategy. Using them should raise the quality of engagement and help determine the practi-cal steps each group must take to get there.

To illustrate what this looks like, we return to the infrastructure company we men-tioned at the beginning of this article. The company had three key business units—construction, cement manufacturing, and the ownership and operation of infrastruc-ture projects (primarily power plants)—as well as a fledgling real-estate business. It had expanded aggressively in emerging markets in the mid-to-late 1990s, until the Asian currency crisis forced it to sell off some of its more adventurous purchases and precipitated an equity investment by a large institutional investor with long-term interests in infrastructure. The investor appointed a new chairman, who in turn brought in a new CEO. After a few years of strong success and continued volatility (punctuated by the global financial crisis), the company’s growth hit a plateau, trigger-ing a thorough review of the strategy by the board. When the chairman discussed the matter with the CEO, they agreed that the company had to take a different approach. Some of the board members were new and grappling with the problems of stewarding a complex multinational and multibusi-ness corporation. What’s more, several fundamental questions were on the table

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C h i n T a B h a g a T , M a r T i n h i r T , a n D C o n o r K e h o e | l e a D i n g e D g e

Board members said they understand their company's financial position significantly better than its risks or industry dynamics.

1 Respondents who answered "don't know" are not shown; figures may not sum to 100%, because of rounding.Source: June 2011 McKinsey survey of 1,597 corporate directors on governance

Boards's understanding of given issues% of respondents,1 n = 1,597

How value is created in your company

Complete Good Limited or none

Dynamics of your company's industry

Your company's financial position

Your company's current strategy

Risks your company faces

36 50 14

21 58 22

16 58 26

14 54 32

10 55 34

30 March 2013

l e a D i n g e D g e | C h i n T a B h a g a T , M a r T i n h i r T , a n D C o n o r K e h o e

cycles. The board then studied all value drivers that affected ROIC. Revenue growth and earnings before interest and taxes, on which management spent most of its time, were two important but only partial explana-tions of the company’s overall performance. Through a combination of independent ses-sions and two formal discussions with the CEO, the board established a much stronger foundation for a subsequent dialogue with management about strategy.

It turned out, for example, that the board member who had expressed concerns about the construction business’s assumptions for leased-versus-owned equipment was right — not just for that unit, but also for most of the company’s operations. One implication was that the forward-looking returns from the construction business were higher and more stable than those from the cement business, which, on the face of it, had high-er margins and was better known and larger overall. This observation led the board to a closer look at both of these units and to a fuller appreciation of the construction busi-ness’s strong project-management talent bench, which was well positioned to help counteract its “lumpier” risk profile.

2. Has there been enough board–management debate before a specific strategy is discussed?Armed with a foundational view based on a clearer understanding of industry and com-pany economics, boards are in a better posi-tion to have the kinds of informed dialogue with senior managers that ultimately help them prepare smarter and more refined strategic options for consideration. Board members should approach these discus-sions with an owner’s mind-set and with the goal of helping management to broaden its thinking by considering new, even unex-pected, perspectives.

At the infrastructure company, such dis-cussions were triggered by the chairman, who remarked, “I’ve found this process of assessing the industry and company eco-nomics very enlightening so far. It makes me wonder: if a private-equity firm were to take over this company right now, what would they do with it?” The question’s disruptive nature changed the frame of the discussion from “What more can we do with this business?” to “Should we be in

“most boards spend most of their strategic time reviewing plans”—Martin Hirt

that could conceivably lead to a full-blown restructuring and transformation involving the spin-off of divisions and the reallocation of capital to new areas.

The usual annual strategic refresh was unlikely to provide the board with an appreciation of the context it would need to address these questions fully, let alone to generate fresh insights in response. Such dissatisfaction with mechanistic annual board-level strategy processes is widespread, in our experience. The answer for this board (and several others we know) was to throw out the annual process and replace it with a much more intense but less frequent form of engagement—roughly every three years in this case—while still devoting some time at every board meeting to pressure-testing the strategy in light of its progress and changes in critical variables.

Pushing to answer the questions below, as the infrastructure company did, can help organisations enhance the quality of board engagement on strategy, both when that engagement must be deep and during the regular course of business.

1. Does the board understand the industry’s dynamics well enough?Most boards spend most of their strategic time reviewing plans, yet as we’ve noted, relatively few directors feel they have a com-

plete understanding of the dynamics of the industries their companies operate in or even of how those companies create value. To remedy this problem and to avoid the superficiality it can engender, boards need time — some without management present — so they can more fully understand the structure and economics of the business, as well as how it creates value. They should use this time to get ahead of issues rather than always feeling a step behind during conver-sations on strategy or accepting manage-ment biases or ingrained habits of thought.

Board members at the infrastructure com-pany began by studying its performance, focusing solely on ROIC across economic

31March 2013

“Developing strategy has always been complex because of board’s involvement”—Conor Kehoe

Chinta Bhagat is a principal in

McKinsey’s Singapore office

Martin Hirt is a director in the

Taipei office

Conor Kehoe is a director in

the London office

this business at all?” It led to the recognition that the cement unit required a level of scale and competitiveness the corporation didn’t have and was unlikely to achieve organically. That realisation ultimately led the infra-structure company to spin off the business.

During such debates, management’s role is to introduce key pieces of content: a detailed review of competitors, key external trends likely to affect the business, and a view of the specific capabilities the company can use to differentiate itself. The goal of the dialogue is to develop a stronger, shared understanding of the skills and resources the company can use to produce strong returns, as opposed to merely moving with the tide. It’s important, however, that this dialogue should stop short of deciding on a strategy, which comes next.

3. Have the board and management discussed all strategic options and wrestled them to the ground?Very often, the energizing discussions between the board and management about the business, its economics, and the com-petition represent the end of the debate. Afterward, the CEO and top team go off to develop a plan that is then presented to the board for approval.

Instead, what’s needed at this point is for management to take some time—mostly spent alone—to formulate a robust set of strategic options, each followed through to its logical end state, including the implica-tions for the allocation of people, capital, and other resources. These strategic options can then be brought back to the board for discussion and decision making.

At the infrastructure company, the actual off-site strategy meeting, held during two days to ensure adequate time, focused entirely on debating and deciding between strategic options and then working through the resource-allocation implications of the decisions. Among the various debates, two stood out. One was whether to double down on the company’s highest-potential business — construction services — by allocating additional talent and capital for an M&A-led consolidation initiative in two high-potential markets. The other was whether to exit the company’s real-estate business. Forcing an explicit conversation about it proved to be a relief for both the board and the manage-

C h i n T a B h a g a T , M a r T i n h i r T , a n D C o n o r K e h o e | l e a D i n g e D g e

ment team, who agreed that these issues had been an unstated source of unease for quite some time.

An important caveat: forcing meaning-ful, high-quality conversations like these is challenging, particularly when boards aren’t used to having them, and places a premium on the board chair’s ability to facilitate dis-cussion. Creating a participative, collabora-tive dynamic while maintaining a healthy tension is critical. Also, the chair must nei-ther monopolise the discussion nor fail to intervene strongly to shut down unproduc-tive tangents.

themselves to with day-to-day operational realities that consume the executives’ time. Sometimes, this is an unintended conse-quence of the timing of off-site strategy meetings. When they are held near the end of the financial year, there isn’t enough time to flesh out plans and create linkages to key performance indicators before the budget must be approved.

Developing strategy has always been com-plex—and becomes more so with a board’s increased involvement, which introduces new voices and expertise to the debate and puts pressure on management teams

In this case, the infrastructure company used some time on the last day of its off-site meeting to discuss how the board and man-agement would monitor execution. This led to a healthy negotiation between the two on “what would get done by when.” The com-pany also created time for a final debate, on the allocation of resources, ensuring that no one was left behind in the decision making. The director with a background in the industry spent some time with the CEO providing input on path dependencies, allocations of capital and people, and high-level time lines. Extending the discussion of strategic options all the way to monitoring execution was a powerful—and unusual—step. Normally, this isn’t necessary. But boards sometimes overlook how difficult it is for executives to reconcile the sweeping changes they and the board have committed

and board members alike to find the best answers. Yet this form of strategy develop-ment, is invaluable. It not only leads to clearer strategies but also creates the align-ment necessary to make bolder moves with confidence and to follow through by com-mitting resources to decisions. — This article is published with prior permission from McKinsey Quarterly.

32 March 2013

DaviD liMopinion

How To Influence and Get Buy-In from Your Own People Nothing earns the respect of a team as much as when a leader walks his talk

aBoUT The aUThordavid lim, Founder, Everest motivation team, is a leadership and negotiation coach, best-selling author and two-time mt Everest expedition leader. he can be reached at his blog http://theasiannegotiator. wordpress.com, or david@everestmotivation.com

leadersHIp is about influence, nothing more nothing less. Some leaders are in a position where they have the power to reward and punish their people. But ultimately, where we work in circumstances where we need the help of others who are not in our direct line of reporting, knowing how to win people over is an underrated skill.

Former United States President Bill Clinton tells a story of when he entered the Oval Office as president, and thought that he would spend much of his time telling people to do this or that.

Unfortunately for him, he recounts how he was quickly sobered by the fact that much of this time was spent per-suading, cajoling and nudging various individuals and peer groups to move a few steps in the direction he want-ed them to go. It was, and still is all about influence. So if the president of the US has a tough time, what about us in everyday workplace circumstances? Here are some practical leadership actions:

1. Walk Your talk Nothing earns the respect of a team as much as when a leader walks his talk. When Ernest Shackleton urged his crew to dump overboard all their unnecessary belong-ings to allow better passage through the deadly Antarctic icepack, he began by tossing overboard his solid-gold cigarette case—that made an impact.

When I surrendered my place on summit teams on two different expeditions, so that better-suited team members were placed to go to the top, I earned their trust that I would do what was for the best of the team or group, and that my personal ambitions were secondary.

The recent recession saw an interesting response from senior leadership across the globe.

ome CEOs agreed to work for a symbolic sum of $1 as a salary to turn around their ailing firms. Some well-paid government officers took a 10% pay cut. But when you are earning well over $1 million a year, rank and file become cynical if they too have to take an equiva-lent pay cut.

2. Choose Your language Carefully In influencing others, we describe things, people and our opinions using language. This language paints a “movie” in the mind of the listener. If all people have are you words to go by, choosing how you communicate can pow-erfully influence people. The more you can go into your listener’s world, the better able you are to win them over.

Here’s a practical example: assume you are announcing a major change in certain IT systems to improve out-comes. Here are two examples of the message:

“People, we are going to dramatically change the way we do things here. In the next few months, you will see big shifts in the IT systems in three out of the five depart-ments. This will lead to some significant changes in how we work and what we deliver. But I’m sure you’ll deal with these new things marvelously.”

And this: “Colleagues, in the few months we will be making

some improvements in three out of five departments, in information technology systems.

So some things will change. But some things will stay the same. During this transition, we will be work-ing carefully in improving how we work together and what we deliver to our fellow colleagues, and I will be able to answer your questions as to the changes and resources needed. ”

33March 2013

D a v i D l i M | o p i n i o n

For a conservative, risk-averse audience, which state-ment do you think hinders, rather than improves buy-in?

One uses dramatic, sweeping phrases, and assumes buy-in is a given.

The other uses more inclusive language, and inserts re-assuring elements; not to mention being open to more communication.

3. negotiate by listening and Building rapport A negotiation happens when two parties meet to discuss issues of mutual interest where at least one party seeks to benefit from the decisions made there.

So where there is resistance to buy-in, how do you increase your influence? Among the other skills mentioned above, you can do so by listening actively to the constituents that are keys to effecting the change you seek.

This means to actively show you are listening through nodding of heads, and short asides and verbal noises that show you are listening though not necessarily agreeing to what is being said.

Then, seek to improve rapport by making the other party feel more comfortable that you have taken on board their feelings and thoughts—again without neces-sarily agreeing.

Once you have built up sufficient knowledge of the con-text and issues, and have gained some rapport, address your position, and invite the others to see how gaps between your position and theirs can be met.

It may be easier to first agree on what can be agreed upon in principle.

Winning an early agreement on easier issues helps tre-mendously in building momentum in negotiations.

4. fist five Many meetings reach a point where a certain degree of consensus or buy-in is required. A nodding of heads and noises are heard and the CEO leaves believing buy-in has been obtained. And yet, three weeks later, people are won-dering why people aren’t doing what they thought they had agreed to do. If you have experienced this, you will benefit from Fist Five, which is one of the things we teach on our leadership and team programmes.

When an open-ended opinion is needed, or when strength of feeling is required, invite everyone to, on a count of 1-2-3, show his or her hands in this fashion:

Clenched fist: This is a lousy idea and if we go ahead with it, I am leaving this meeting, party and discussion.

1 finger: I don’t support this; so don’t count on me for a lot of energy.

2 fingers: Very lukewarm about this idea or opinion.3 fingers: OK.4 fingers: This was great and you can count on my support.

5 fingers: This is such a great idea/proposal if we don’t’support it I will leave this meeting/discussion.

I use Fist Five around a group or party as a quick pulse check on how people are feeling to questions such as: “How did you all think you performed as a team in the last exercise?”, “ What’s your support for our new staff initiative?” —and so on. Having a committed show of feelings immediately on request allows you to sort out who are solidly behind a view or action, and who are less so, allowing you address their hidden objections or resis-tance.

Additionally, Fist Five, can show to some people how their views are very much in the minority, and have a bonus effect in making some office staff resume working to support initiatives after they have discovered how the vast majority are headed in a specific direction, though not necessarily theirs.

Winning buy-in is a key leadership skill in getting your people on board. Use the skills described above and let me know which worked for you!

DAVID LIM IS A LEADERSHIP AND NEGOTIATION

COACH AND CAN BE FOUND ON HIS BLOG http://

theasiannegotiator.wordpress.com, OR subscribe to his free

e-newsletter at david@everestmotivation.com

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“in influencing others, we describe things, people and our opinions using language. This language paints a “movie” in the mind of the listener”

34 March 2013

Open Leadership Going forward, organisations

and leaders cannot achieve much if they ignore the

concept of open leadership

tHe Current leadership role demands – Be Open, Be Transpar-

ent, Be Authentic, but often compa-nies push back. Leaders, following the business pressure, often do not know how to be transparent and still be in control. This become difficult in the era of social media i.e blogging, Twitter, Facebook, which has opened a new world to communicate and exchange thoughts. Charlene Li’s book lays out a plan that leaders should follow to transform them-selves and the organisation in the new and connected world. The author, while defining the concept of open leadership in the book, says “It is about having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals”. Further she says that leaders accom-plish this by having an open mind-set and the ability to let go of control “at the right time, in the right place, and in the right amount.” One of the best aspects of the book is the clear acknowledgment that there are many degrees between open-door and closed-door leadership policies. Char-lene says that open leadership is all

about new relationships which needs new guidelines. She suggests that a leader should respect the power of employees and customers and share information development to win their trust. She further says that a true leader always promotes curiosity and pride and holds openness account-able. Last but not the least, she emphaises that leaders shall open to accept and forgive failures. In her book the author acknowledges the rise of social media and the way it is transforming workplace. Charlene displays how to execute open leader-ship with effective use of social media technologies. The book highlights the fact that organisations are making use of social media as a tool for mar-keting and business intelligence, but missing a great opportunity to trans-form the entire value chain. Charlene has shown that through the symp-tomatic exercises, checklists, rich examples, and organised approach to open leadership, a leader can follow the advice given in book and drive results. She says that the basic formu-la to achieve sustainable competitive advantage has remained the same. One needs to be ahead of his compe-

tition to learn new technologies, ser-vices, products and process to create something new and remarkable for personal and professional growth. Social media technology is a very powerful tool and that is going to stay for a while. This tool could be effec-tively used by leaders to strengthen and extend their influence beyond given role. No doubt that openness transforms organisations, there are multiple success stories to verify that. The new rules of relationship, follow-ing the rise of social media technolo-gies, require that a leader shall acquire new skills and behaviour that support his/her style of leader-ship. Change cannot and does not happen overnight. The mantra for change is taking a small step and making some new mistakes. Going forward, organisations and their leaders cannot achieve much if they ignore open leadership. The future belongs to leaders that leverage and effectively use the new and rising social media technologies to build a flourishing, permanent community with their workers, clients, and busi-nesspersons. —By Akhilesh Shukla

aBoUT The aUThorcharlene Li is founder of altimeter group and the coauthor of the critically acclaimed, bestselling book groundswell. Formerly Li was vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research and a consultant with monitor group.

"Need to let go of the need to be in control.” —Charlene li

shelF liFe

Best ofBreed

The Four Roles of the New IT Leader

The roles of the new IT leader include trend spotter, negotiator and mediator By Charles Araujo

I was having lunch the other day with a friend of mine who is a CIO at a large organisation in the bio-pharma space. As we discussed what the future of IT might look like, I asked him what he was thinking about these days — i.e., what was keeping him up at night.

“I am really beginning to wonder if the role of the CIO will continue to exist in the future,” he said. “At the very least, it’s going to look a lot different than it does right now.”

I agreed, and as we continued the conversation, a few things became clear to both of us.

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36 March 2013

First, there would be a continuing role for the CIO and the IT organisation as a whole. The use of IT is simply too strate-gic, but the role of the organization and its leaders would change dramatically. The first of those changes will be the essence of IT leadership itself. It will no longer be only the senior management team that will be called upon to lead the organisation. It will be everyone. Every one of us will be called upon to be a part of leading the IT organisation into this future.

As our conversation concluded, we settled on four key roles that the new IT leader, which means almost all of us, will be called upon to perform. Begin building capabilities and expertise in these areas and you will be in high demand as the evolution of IT orga-nizations continues.

Role #1: Trend SpotterPart of the reason there will be a continuing role for IT and IT leaders is that the pace of technology continues to accelerate. It will be impossible for business executives and managers to keep track of or make sense of it all. The new IT leader will be called upon to constantly scan the horizon, looking for both emerging technologies and emerging threats. You will be called upon to be equal parts opportunist and risk manager. On the one hand, you will be asked to sift through the endless array of emerging technologies to identify those that may be leveraged by your organisation to create a distinct market advantage. In some cases, the emerging technologies will be able to be combined with business practices or other technolo-gies to create defensible innovations (see role #4). In others, they will represent no more than a temporary advantage, so speed will be critical. In either case, the key will be to be able to find the “diamonds in the rough” and to curate the right mix of emerg-ing technologies that can create marketable value for the organisation.

At the same time, the new IT leader will also be asked to identify emerging risks in that same evolving landscape. Are there emerging technologies that have the poten-tial to disrupt the organization’s market advantage? Have competitors innovated in a way that requires a rapid response? There will be no one better than the IT leader to be able to act as this strategic trend spotter

relationships continue to evolve and adjust in concert over time. It will not be an easy task, but it will be a vital role.

Role #3: Information WeaverOne of the side effects of services being delivered via these IT ecosystems is that key data elements important to the enterprise will now reside in different places outside of the organization. While that may work for the specific function that is using a given application, it will likely leave huge islands of isolated data scattered across the enter-prise. This will create a huge risk that vital information that must be created through the interconnection of disparate data ele-ments will be lost.

This will create the third key role for the new IT leader: Information Weaver. The IT leader of next-generation IT organisations will be adept at identifying those key data elements and ensuring that they are intri-cately and dynamically woven together to deliver strategic and competitive advantages to the organisation. Using the previously described negotiation and mediation skills, you must build deep relationships and an intimate understanding of the business processes leveraging the organisation’s data assets to excel in this role. Your success or failure in being able to harvest and weave those data elements into a mosaic of mean-ingful and actionable information will likely be reflected in the ultimate success or failure of the entire organisation.

Role #4: Business Process InnovatorThe final role of the new IT leader may be both the most challenging and the most

As the role of IT continues to evolve, we can expect that as much as 80 percent of IT assets will live outside the walls of the enterprise

identifying both risk and opportunity from among the flood of emerging technologies. IT leaders that can effectively fulfill this role will be extremely valuable.

Role #2: Negotiator and MeditatorAs the role of IT continues to evolve, we can expect that as much as 80 percent of IT assets will live outside the walls of the enterprise. As this happens, a second critical role for the new IT leader will emerge. IT organisations will no longer be able to sim-ply mandate terms and conditions to their technology providers. Instead, a delicate dance will be required to bring together the myriad constituencies of service providers, customers and internal IT organisations to create the complex IT ecosystems that will power the modern IT era.

This will require that the new IT leader become an expert negotiator. There will be a large number of conflicting priorities and technology demands that will need to be balanced. IT leaders will be in the best position to ensure that the competing demands are balanced in the best interests of the overall organisation.

This type of negotiation will not be about getting the best price or driving every last concession out of service provid-ers. Instead, it will be about constructing a web of interconnected and mutually ben-eficial relationships.

In addition, those relationships will not remain static. The minute they are estab-lished, they will begin to change.

So, the new IT leader must also be an expert mediator. You must be constantly standing in the gap between the various parts of the ecosystem to ensure that the

37March 2013

m a n a g e m e n t | B e s t o f B r e e d

important. Technology will be one of the few remaining engines of innovation and growth that drives competitive advantages. However, it is also clear that technology innovation will not occur within the walls of the enterprise. Technology innovation will be driven by technology companies, but that doesn’t mean the IT organization is out of the innovation business. Rather, it will fall upon new IT leaders to create busi-ness process innovation out of existing and emerging technologies.

It will take a significant amount of both skill and insight to be able to see opportuni-ties where others only see business-as-usual. Using the skills that will also make you an effective trend spotter, negotiator and information weaver, you will be able to cre-ate discrete combinations of technology and business processes that become unique dif-ferentiators for your organisation.

The new IT leader will be best positioned to serve in this role. Your ability to see across the organisation, combined with your view

of existing and emerging tech-nologies, will make you a valu-able asset in any organization.

Getting Comfortable With Your New RoleAs we enter this new era for IT organizations, your role as an IT leader will change. You will still be focused on technology, but not necessarily on the technical aspects of it. Your success as a trend spotter, as a negotia-tor and mediator, as an information weaver and as a business process innovator will be driven by business acumen and interper-sonal skills. Your ability to understand and assimilate technology will be key. However, it will be your ability to understand the business challenges and opportunities and to build deep cross-functional relation-ships that will set you apart.

It is a new world that we find ourselves living in. It can be difficult to grasp that

the technical skills that have gotten us where we are may be our undoing. But for those new IT leaders who understand the changing landscape and can adapt to the needs of this new environment, it will be an exciting time. It will be a time in which we are able to serve a vital role to the organisation and fulfill the promise that IT has always held.

— Charles Araujo is the founder and CEO of The IT Transformation Institute, which is dedicated to helping IT leaders transform their teams into customer-focused, value-driven learning organisa-tions. He is the author of the book The Quantum Age of IT: Why Everything You Know About IT is About to Change, is presently at work on two new books.

— This article was first published in CIO Insight. For more stories please visit www.cioinsight.com.

42%of It leaders have

Invested In BIg data In the year 2012

B e s t o f B r e e d | m a n a g e m e n t

N O H O L D S B A R R E D | K u L B i R A R O R A

40 March 2013

Kulbir Arora is one of those rare technologists who have made a highly success-ful transition from academia to the corporate world. For the past 15 years he was at Goldman Sachs in New York, most recently, as CTO of Securities Division. He is to join another major bank, Deutsche Bank Group, in their London office as Managing Director in Global Technology & Operations, in the role of Global Head of Architecture, Strategy and Engineering. In between jobs he was in New Delhi, for a quick break, where Rachit Kinger caught up with him

DOSSIER

Company:Goldman Sachs

EstablishEd:1869

hEadquartErs:

New York, USA

produCts:

Asset management,

commericial banking,

commodities,

investment banking

EmployEEs:

32,600

The Adaptive CIO

K u l b i r A r o r A | N o H o l D S b A r r E D

41March 2013

You have spent a considerable amount of time in the academic

world as a professor and also a signifi-cant time in the corporate world. Can you share with us what changed for you when you switched from one role to the other?Sometime during my years as an academic there was (in me) an intense desire to con-struct software. As a child I was this kid who would open up a watch, understand how it worked and put it back together. There is something about tinkering with things that has always given me joy. Software is a natural dream for that kid who is a tinkerer. I just loved coding. My journey from coding to CTO and Head of Strategy and Architec-ture is a long journey but that love for cod-ing was the start.

With the risk of offending some of my very respectable academic colleagues, one does not need people skills to excel at aca-demics. If you have it then it is great but what I think one needs, is to be a nurturer which is also true in the corporate world as well. But the one thing that the corporate world demands a whole a lot of more than the academic world is decision making. In the corporate world there is a whole lot more consensus-building that one has to do (because) there are a whole lot of sales pitches that one has to make. There is a skill in that- a skill of communication. There is a skill of trying to correlate what you are trying to do with the strategic goals of the company, including bottom line, and I think academics do not have to worry about all that. I also think that academics, depend-ing on the area that they work in, focus on things that are of intellectual interest to them and (while) it is a very necessary func-tion in the world and the society at the end of the day corporations are profit driven. Correlation to pragmatic work requires cer-tain skills of negotiation, of learning when to compromise, of convincing people and making them see your point of view which is less required in academia.

As a person interested in coding, it is logical to assume that you would

have joined an IT product company and yet you joined a bank, the core product of which is deal making. Why is that?It It was in mid-90’s that an article in Time magazine caught my fancy. It said that Wall

Street banks were hiring the best technol-ogy talent. That got me thinking and curi-ous about what they were doing and now I realise that the amount of complexity in technology in a typical Wall Street bank is mind-blowing. Leading financial institu-tions develop several hundred million lines of code in-house for proprietary applica-tions, and that is a competitive advantage for them. On the hardware side most Wall Street banks have datacenters that run into a hundred thousand servers. And then there is innovation, for instance, the early con-cepts of guaranteed-delivery messaging sys-

deal making is about transparency and automated transactions. The second area is around compliance. Banks work across geographies and they need to be compliant across regulators across countries. This requires another level of transparency and it has to be driven by technology. Every trans-action has to be recorded and reported and the reports have to be customised to numer-ous jurisdictions. There are areas now in the financial sector where institutional com-petition isn’t just about who has the best financial minds and talent, but who has the best technology.

What are the trends in technology that are making that happen?

Low-latency and high-throughput transac-tion processing was the first big thing that made it happen. Banks are now compet-ing with each other on who is faster than the other in micro-seconds, not even mil-liseconds and to make anything faster by microseconds requires complicated tuning at both, the software level and the hardware level. Some of the other major innovations have been around information security. Big data is another big trend. By allowing us to do so many probes in every transaction with which we can do trend analysis, big data opens up amazing new revenue opportuni-ties. I think strategic thinking and strategy itself can be driven by big data.

How do you think CIOs should deal with this rapidly changing technol-

ogy landscape?I am pretty much a technical geek and make a very solid effort to keep myself updated. It takes time and it takes effort but as you grow more experienced you also realise you learn faster too. Intellectual curiosity and the ability to deal with difficult and complex concepts has to be a necessary skill for a CIO. It is the nature of our work. I think it is more of a technical instinct that you need and if there are a certain basics where a CIO does not feel comfortable then he must surround himself with the experts in that area. I learnt about big data, and data in general, not by going back to the textbooks but instead sitting down with my best data guy for several hours. To be a successful CIO one has to devote a certain percentage of one’s time to stay up to date.

tems for inter-application communication were invented at Goldman Sachs. The level of technology at a bank is amazingly com-plex. It requires knowledge of a whole range of concepts like artificial intelligence, graph theory, neural networks, deep hardware concepts including parallel programming, ultra-low-latency networks and, of course, information security.

In the past few years have you noticed technology become more and more

central to the core function of the bank?Absolutely. And in some cases, I would say, it is even leading the bank. More and more

“Intellectual curiosity and the ability to

deal with complex concepts has to be a necessary skill for

a CIO”

NEXTHORIZONS

The convergence of social media, mobile computing, analytics and the cloud is transforming the way businesses operate, and companies that adopt available technologies

to “go digital” will be better positioned to take advantage of rapidly shifting business opportunities and leap ahead of the compe-tition, according to a new report by Accen-ture (NYSE: ACN).

The Accenture Technology Vision 2013 report finds that because technology has become core to virtually every aspect

Convergence of IT Trends Driving Firms to Go DigitalHighlights of Accenture Technology Vision 2013 Report

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42 March 2013

of a business, every business is a digital business and that all senior leaders — not just CIOs — must be able to understand, embrace and drive value from new technol-ogies that affect their organisation. Today’s software, for example, has the potential to change the very business model of a com-pany or industry in the future, according to the report.

“Organisations and their leaders need to hit the reset button on how they use technol-ogy to drive market differentiation, deepen customer relationships, and deliver growth and profitability,” said Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology officer. “Our latest Technology Vision report finds that the technology for accomplishing these business goals is available today, but that adopting a new digital mindset is required to harness the potential. The power and reach of con-verging IT trends such as mobility and cloud means that business leaders need to under-stand the implications of a software-driven, ‘connected everything’ world.”

The Accenture Technology Vision 2013 report looks at the future of enterprise IT and makes recommendations for how companies can take advantage of technology and soft-ware to improve their competitiveness, oper-ations and business results. These include:Leverage Technology to Create Digital Rela-tionships at Scale: While technology gives organizations the ability to understand their customers better than ever, most enterprises are not taking full advantage of it to build deeper, richer relationships that can improve customer loyalty significantly. While mobile computing, social networks and context-based services have increased connections with consumers, many com-panies have lost customer intimacy in the process. These connections have been viewed as another communication or trans-actional channel rather than opportunities to improve relationships.

“Businesses are at an inflection point enabled by new technologies that can take customer relationships beyond transactions and deliver more personalized interactions,” said Daugherty. “Effectively developing meaningful relationships at scale requires a real change in how companies approach these strategies and implement a new uni-fied approach across IT and the business.”Design for Analytics to Get the “Right”

Data: Most of today’s enterprise software applications are designed for a specific func-tion and capture only the data needed to complete that function. Organisations use existing data as an input to make strategic decisions — and often find that informa-tion gaps arise because important questions weren’t formulated when the applications were being designed. As a result the rel-evant data isn’t captured. What’s needed is a strategy that sees data more as a supply chain than a warehouse. It’s about asking the questions that need to be answered first and then designing applications for the “right” data. Companies that recognize this and make data a strategic asset that drives business outcomes will have an edge over those that view data merely as an output.Take Advantage of Data “Velocity”: In addi-tion to data variety and volume, companies now need to consider the third ‘V’ of data — velocity. Mobility and consumerisation of IT are driving expectations for faster access to data and more insights from that data. In addition, a surge of new technologies — including high-speed data storage, in-mem-ory computing, analytics advances, data visu-alisation and streaming data querying — is accelerating the entire data cycle from insight to action and improving the enterprise’s abil-ity to deal with greater data velocity. As data becomes more widely used and companies see increasing competitive advantage from faster “data to insight,” the data and ana-lytical skills in an organisation also become

more critical to converting insights to action before opportunities are lost.Make Work and Processes More Social: The pervasiveness of Web-based social technologies like Facebook® and Twit-ter® and video tools like SkypeTM and Google+TM Hangouts has profoundly changed the way users communicate with one another. By embedding similar collab-orative tools into their business processes, enterprises can take advantage of employ-ees’ growing comfort with social networks to gain a new level of productivity. Employ-ees don’t necessarily need to become more social for collaboration to work; rather, it’s the work and processes that need to be more social.Bridge the Last Mile of Virtualisation With Software-Defined Networking: Controlling the flow of information in today’s digital business — where applications, systems, networks and communications channels are constantly changing — is one of the most challenging aspects of enterprise IT. While the virtualisation of servers, storage and other parts of IT infrastructure has resulted in unprecedented levels of flexibility, the network has been largely untouched by virtualisation until now. Software-defined networking (SDN), where the network is managed through software instead of through hardware, provides a giant leap forward in enterprise flexibility. With SDN, organisations can reconfigure the connectiv-ity of systems without changing the physical

Most of today’s enterprise software apps are designed for a specific function and capture only the data needed to complete that function. Firms use existing data as an input to make decisions — and often find that info gaps arise because important questions weren’t formulated when the apps were being designed

43March 2013

c O N v E R g E N c E | N E X T H O R I Z O N S

characteristics — making it easier for busi-nesses to manage change, integrate cloud services and get more return from their network investments.Be Active — Not Just Defensive — With Security: Despite recent advances in secu-rity technology, safeguarding the digital business remains a challenge. The entry points for an attack are constantly expand-ing across more devices, more systems, more people and a broader infrastructure. As a result, optimal IT security needs to go further than prevention. Recognizing that attackers will get through, enterprises must stay one step ahead of them. IT’s core chal-lenge is to not only stay current with the latest in security, but to get smarter about understanding and engaging the enemy and be able to adapt the enterprise’s defenses to match the threat. Security architectures need to remain flexible and incorporate “active” defenses to deal with the constantly changing field of security threats.The Cloud Is Here – Now is the Time to Prepare the Enterprise: Technologies underpinning cloud are pervasive and here to stay, and the benefits are numer-ous: helping companies differentiate their

business, get their products and services to market faster, enhance operational efficiency, and respond more quickly to new opportunities and challenges. The question for enterprises isn’t “whyshould we use cloud?” — but rather, “how should we use cloud?” Many organisations are already embedding cloud with their legacy systems and traditional software to create “hybrid” environments. This requires a clear understanding of, and approach to, the skills, architecture, gover-nance and security required, whether it’s the applications, platforms or IT infrastruc-ture that’s in the cloud.

“The challenge for businesses in today’s digital landscape is to reimagine them-selves in the context of an increasingly soft-ware-driven world,” said Daugherty. “To succeed, organisations must leverage IT innovations to derive insights that enable them to optimise their enterprise, take advantage of emerging opportunities, strengthen customer loyalty, and deliver better business outcomes.”

For nearly 15 years, Accen-ture has been looking across the enterprise landscape to identi-fy emerging IT trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries. For more information on this year’s report please visit www.accen-ture.com/technologyvision.

 About the MethodologyAccenture’s Technology Vision

is developed annually by the Accenture Technology Labs. For the 2013 report, Accenture researchers and scientists developed hypotheses about information technology developments that will have a significant impact on businesses over the next three to five years. Accenture also employed social collaboration techniques and crowdsourcing to solicit input and sug-gestions from thousands of its own employ-ees. Other sources used for the report include trends identified by industry ana-lysts, themes at conferences, and academic literature. Accenture’s original research into the characteristics of high-performing IT organizations was also referenced.

1.5%wORldwIdE SERvER

SHIpmENT gROwTH IN THE yEaR 2012

N E X T H O R I Z O N S | c O N v E R g E N c E

45March 2013

TECH FORGOVERNANCE

In a litigation demand, the volume, variety and complexity of the data has changed By Thomas Barnett

Of DDoS attacks will be application-based

25%Data BrIefIng

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In Search of Valid Data Searches

46 March 2013

I POIntS

5 the concern about accurate and

valid searches is

not new

what has changed is the

volume, variety and

complexity of the

data that needs to

be searched

the well-performed search is the

crucial first step in

reducing massive

data sets to

manageable size

the lack of

expertise can be a

recipe for failure

in the warm

and fuzzy world

of litigation,

challenging process

can be an effective

means of applying

leverage regardless

of the merits of

case

If you think searching for data in litigation has been a difficult and risky fishing expedition to date, just wait. The current tidal wave of data along with heightened scrutiny is making it even harder, and your company could find itself on the hook for serious penalties.

There’s a revolution occurring. A new world order is on its way. The old rules don’t apply and the familiar ways of doing things are becoming obsolete. Survival depends on adapting to the new challenges and understanding the tools necessary to survive. The revolution is called big data and the people responsible for managing the informa-tion and technological infrastructures of business are on the front lines. The primary tool for survival is the ability to search for and find the data you need, when you need it, and have the confidence that your results are docu-mented, accurate and defensible—in other words, that you’re performing valid searches. This applies to every type of query, whether for security, business operations, regulatory compliance or litigation. If you don’t know and can’t show how well your searches worked, you can’t have confidence in the data you gathered and the accuracy of the conclusions based on analysing the data. Needless to say, a lot is at stake in getting it right.

But unlike most technological efforts in a company, when it comes to searching for data for a litigation demand or regulatory enforcement, subpoena lawyers run the show. And as various cases have shown, no matter how good the lawyers are, most lack the necessary exper-tise to create effective protocols for searching data and validating results. Nor do the individuals (i.e., data cus-todians) in possession of relevant data have the required know-how to defensibly search for and identify it.

“[M]ost custodians cannot be ‘trusted’ to run effective search-es because designing legally sufficient electronic searches in the discovery … context[s] is not part of their daily responsibilities.” –Judge Shira Scheindlin

National Day Laborer Organising Network v. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency is the most recent significant legal opinion on this issue (and the body of these cases is growing). It was authored by U.S. federal judge Shira Scheindlin who has written a number of frequently cited opinions on the adequacy of e-discovery efforts, including the most well-known e-discovery case, Zubulake v. UBS Warburg. In the Day Laborer case, Scheindlin directly addressed the issue of

“In too many cases... the way lawyers choose keywords is the equivalent of the child’s game of ‘Go Fish’ . . .” –Judge Andrew Peck

the adequacy of searches for data and highlighted the need for being able to validate, explain and defend how data was identified and produced in response to a litiga-tion discovery demand.

What’s a trillion or two gigabytes among friends?The concern about accurate and valid searches is not new. For years the courts have been criticising how searches are handled. What has changed is the volume, variety and complexity of the data that needs to be searched, as well as the knowledge and expertise required to search in a way that can be explained and defended. Even profession-als who manage data for businesses are struggling with finding what they need when they need it and making sure it’s done right. The exponential rise in the amount of data and the corresponding increase in the percent-age of unstructured or semi-structured data, as opposed to neat columns and rows of structured data, have led to innovation in how data is processed, stored, organized and searched. The tools and processes for searching structured data, such as a traditional relational database, have proven inadequate to the volumes and lack of struc-ture of much of the tidal wave of information that we are experiencing. Nowhere in the realm of data management are the stakes higher and more starkly apparent than in responding to litigation discovery and regulatory enforce-ment demands for data. As the challenges posed by the volumes and unruly nature of the data mount, the quality of data searches is coming under increasing scrutiny. The well-performed search is the crucial first step in reduc-ing to massive data sets to manageable size and whose manual review would be economically prohibitive. In an adversarial context such as a lawsuit, it is likely your opponent will not simply trust that you acted in good faith or knew what you were doing. They may argue that you don’t in fact know what you are doing, that you are trying to hide something, that you are trying to avoid spending adequate resources to meet your legal obligations, or all of the above. In the warm and fuzzy world of litigation, challenging process can be an effective means of applying leverage regardless of the merits of case. Put another way, if your adversary can successfully attack how data was searched and selected, he or she can score points or even prevail without ever having to prove his or her case. In

47March 2013

d A T A | T E C H F O R G O V E R N A N C E

cases involving particularly poor data handling, judges may impose sanctions that effectively allow a party to win the day without having to prove the case—the presumption being that the other side withheld or destroyed evidence supporting the claim.

For the most part, the methods that lawyers use to search for data is based on a limited understanding of how searches work, how they can go wrong and what tools are available to make their lives easier. The lack of expertise in this context can be a recipe for failure.

Everyone talks about the weather but nobody does anything about itVery few people would argue with the idea that you need to be able to document and explain the steps you took to search for data in response to a document demand. But as Mark Twain said about the weather, “Everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it.” The essential elements of conducting valid and defensible searches can be summarized in five fundamental rules:

1. What you don’t know can hurt you  Virtually all aspects of discovery involve searches. And you may be asked to explain and defend any or all of the searches you conduct. Searching for data in litiga-tion is often conceived of as identification of informa-tion within a set of data that has been collected and processed for review. But searching for data occurs at a number of different times in the course of a case. Some of the most common searches include:a searching for potentially responsive data requiring

preservation based on the scope of the legal action;b deciding what data to collect for analysis;c filtering data for processing to best target responsive

data (e.g., by date, author, subject matter, etc.);d searching data that has been processed for relevance

to issues in response to a document;e searching for data that meets specific criteria for pro-

duction to the requesting party;f searching data in preparing the case (i.e., supporting

a claim or defense in the lawsuit);g searching data in preparation of taking or defending

a deposition of an expert or fact witness.

2. Every Step You Take, Every Move You Make.In any technological effort in data discovery you should work under the assumption that every step you take and every decision you make will be highly scrutinized and may be challenged. With that in mind, consider whether you will be able to explain and justify all actions taken in the course of managing the data in the case. — This article was first published in CIO Insight. For more stories please visit www.cioinsight.com.

1. Place of publication Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt. Ltd.

Plot No.725, Sector-1, Shirvane,

Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400706

2. Periodicity of its publication Fortnightly

3. Printer’s name Anuradha Das Mathur

Nationality Indian

(a) Whether a citizen of India? Yes

(b) If a foreigner, the country of origin N.A.

Address Plot No.725, Sector-1, Shirvane,

Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400706

4. Publisher’s name Anuradha Das Mathur

Nationality Indian

(a) Whether a citizen of India? Yes

(b) If a foreigner, the country of origin N.A.

Address Plot No.725, Sector-1, Shirvane,

Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400706

5. Editor’s name Anuradha Das Mathur

Nationality Indian

(a) Whether a citizen of India? Yes

(b) If a foreigner, the country of origin N.A.

Address Plot No.725, Sector-1, Shirvane,

Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400706

6. Names and addresses of individuals who own the newspaper and partners

or shareholders holding more than one per cent of the total capital

Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd.

Plot No.725, GES, Shirvane, Nerul,

Navi Mumbai-400706

Major Shareholder

Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Pvt Ltd

N-154 Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110017.

I, Kanak Ghosh hereby declare that the particulars given above are true to

the best of my knowledge and belief.

Form IVStatement of ownership and other particulars about the publication, CIO & LEADER as per Rule 8

Dated: 1st March, 2013Sd/-

Signature of Publisher

48 March 2013

VIEWPOINT

Most of us celebrate a “new” year by hashing up some false resolution to an “old” problem. So do most businesses.

Today 800 year old Boston radio station 96.9 announced it’s out of business. Two years ago the sta-tion I grew up with, WBCN 104.1 in Boston, did the same. Those were unimaginable events to Boston mar-ket listeners. Why? Because the busi-ness models that supported those stations well for 800 years are the medical equivalent of leeching the patient. Why would I tolerate asinine commercials and blather when I can simply PAY to not hear anything but the primary reason for tuning in - to listen to the music I like? The new business model in this space is Satellite and Internet-based. Sirius or Pandora. Take your pick - listen to what you want, and for a fee - don’t listen to the forced business model of days gone by (advertising inter-rupted). Adapt or perish, peeps.

Why do sports talk radio shows continue to flourish while music shows flounder in traditional busi-ness models? Because it’s the con-

nable battle. Bad guys adapt better than good guys. Case in point: this weekend I was receiving an unusu-ally high level of spam. I notified Dan the IT Man of ESG fame, who said this: “Interesting spam tech-nique — the domain names (source servers, return address, and links) all matched so they appeared legit, in at least no red flags were raised. Usual-ly once I look at the headers, one can spot inconsistencies in the source vs. return address and / or links. My thinking is they are legit (well, in a way – they appear to be to a scanner), and they likely just rent new server / IP space and buy new domain names as they get blocked. I guess the bad guys also see certain advantages in the cloud.”

Wanna read the future? Follow the bad guys’ lead.

Coincidentally, I took my wife to Broadway this weekend to see a few plays for Christmas. We saw Al Pac-ino and a star studded cast in Glen-garry Glen Ross Friday night. Talk about a view into the wayback machine! Those were the days when salesmen were salesmen!

tent, silly. We WANT to hear former jocks blather on about what’s in the mind of Bill Belichick, so we’ll toler-ate commercials that support that activity. The “content” is the king - and we are willing to pay for it - with our time (advertising) or our money (to avoid advertising). It’s all about what the buyer values.

If you don’t offer your goods/services in the way the customer wants to consume it, someone else will. This is not a new concept, folks.

So do you think that just because you make big fancy boxes of cool electronics (servers, networks, stor-age, blah, blah blah) that people will ONLY buy that way? Of course not. You are already terrified that your buyer is going to consume things differently - by the drink, by the cloud - by (gasp) Amazon! And you are right.

So you will either adapt to the new realities, or you, like Ken Shelton and Charles Laquidara, will perish.

It’s hard to change. I get it. But it’s better to change and adapt with some semblance of control than to be forced into it, fighting an unwin-

Happy New Business

Model! Bad guys adapt better than

good guys

STEVE DuPlESSIE | steve.duplessie@esg-global.com

About the Author: Steve Duplessie

is the founder of

and Senior Analyst

at the Enterprise

Strategy Group.

Recognised

worldwide as

the leading

independent

authority on

enterprise storage,

Steve has also

consistently been

ranked as one of

the most influential

IT analysts. You

can track Steve’s

blog at http://www.

thebiggertruth.com

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