Adam Burns
V/O:
According to theattendees at a recent high-profile Summit for CIOs held in Singapore, companiesin Asia have left behind any division between IT and the business...
Bobby Lehane:
Our life business isnow delivering a superior business outcome as a result of IT and the businessworking.
Steven Yau:
Rather than saying,“Oh, what is your requirement?” We’regoing in and saying, “What is the business problem we’re trying to address?”
Rupinder Goel:
You have to changethe mindset. IT is no more the backoffice or the cost, it should be the front runner. It should be seen as a revenue.
V/O:
It sounds like happyfamilies. One technology: one business. But has anything else changed? Is thenew corporate-conscious Asian CIO happy to forfeit innovation for balancedbooks? And how do they ensure the traditional outsiders, their technology team,buys in to corporate goals?
GRAPHIC:
#1. Technology Is NotA Foreign Language
V/O:
They say you can tellthe quality of a knife by the way it cuts a tomato, and the quality of arestaurant by its steak. I think you can tell if the IT leopard has trulychanged its spots by the way it describes a new technology. Remember CRM? STP?SOA? What is the current top technology priority?
GRAPHIC:
No. 1 TechnologyPriority 2011
Rupinder Goel:
I’ll say the firstone is cloud computing.
Steven Yau:
I think cloudcomputing is one of the biggest trends.
Robin Leung:
Top one obviously iscloud computing.
V/O :
Maybe cloud is anacronym... Let’s ask what the major challenges associated with it are, andwatch as they confound us with techy talk.
GRAPHIC:
No. 1 Challenge WithCloud Computing
Rupinder Goel:
The challenge isunderstanding or the maturity, do people understand what’s the benefit and whatwill do it for us.
V/O:
Rather brilliantly itlooks as though our CIOs have finally broken the IT language barrier. Even whendescribing technology benefits, business decisions are very much to the fore...
GRAPHIC:
Cloud Computing: TheBenefits
Robin Leung:
One thing verynoticeable is the short turnaround time to provisioning of new hardwares andstuff like that because once you’ve virtualized your computing power, it usedto be an application by an application. You say, “Okay, I need certain amount of hardware, bandwidth,” orwhatever to make an application to work, but now since we have a cloudenvironment, a virtualized environment, I think that cuts the deliverable timeinto maybe from two months, six to eight weeks about a week time. That is very noticeable.
Avery Palos:
Historically, youknow, and especially in Asia where we had lots of small countries and lots ofsmall offices in these countries, everyone would buy their own fileserver. They would buy their ownapplication server, and they would promptly stick it under their desk and puttheir coffee cups on top of it. And formany years that was okay.
But, you know, as wehave a more regulatory rules in place around the countries, we need to be alittle more cautious about how we handle those things. We officially have two datacenters in theregion, one in Tokyo and one in Singapore, and we split the load of the systemsbetween those two.
But our strategy,rather than buying thousands and thousands and thousands of racks is to putlarge VM clusters in there and then start to virtualize those assets. From a business perspective they like itbecause traditionally they may have had a one-time fixed cost for an asset, butit sat there and it wasn’t maintained and it was a big issue.
Now what they get isthey get a virtual slice on a fixed cost. They know what the exact cost is every month and never changes. If anything, the price goes down, which makesthem happier.
GRAPHIC:
#2. Fight For YourInnovation Budget
(innovation costs,and right here’s where you start paying)
V/O:
IT organisations theworld over have two key challenges: to keep the lights on while switching costsoff, and to innovate for future business success.
Steven Yau:
Our division iscalled IST, Information Systems Division. I always tell my team, “IST stands for Innovative Solutions Delivery,”so this is drummed into their mindset.
V/O:
But innovation costs.Avery Palos explains how he secures much needed funding.
Avery Palos:
I think that you'vegot to do your best to get great sourcing deals. Having a strong sourcing team in play helpsto drive that.
But I’m also a bigadvocate of reinvesting some of those sourcing saving dollars in a particulargiven year to put in that towards those innovative type of technologies, not justnecessarily saying giving back to the business but keeping some of that for usto reinvest as our opportunity to do develop new technology is critical.
V/O:
Avery’s IT departmenthas three budgeting sessions every year to really involve the business in itsaims and ambitions...
Avery Palos:
In the spring, we doa three to four-year long-term economic plan that talks about what are the biggrowth initiatives that we need to perform on and deliver on. We tie that directly to what the businessesare looking for.
Our second planningsession is in this time of year, in August, where we start looking at what willthe numbers for the following year look like, and we craft a budget aroundthat, including CapEx and OpEx costs. Andwe work through a business approval process to get all of those costs out tothe business and socialize so that people understand here’s what we absolutelybasically need, and here’s what we would like to do. Let’s agree to that as a company and moveforward with it.
And the thirdbudgeting session is really more our December. It’s the last past at next year’s budget. I mean, that’s where the little tweakshappen. Unfortunately you lose a few,and you win a few in that case.
V/O:
Transparent,communicating, and tied in to the business – that’s how to secure an innovationbudget.
GRAPHIC:
#3. Learn TheBusiness, or Lose Your Job
V/O:
How do you make ITfolk think like business folk? Be honest.
Robin Leung:
I always challengethem, if you’re so good in administration, database, let’s say, I can alwaysfind someone – I can outsource this position to a service provider with maybehalf the cost or one-third of the cost, why should I keep you around?
It’s because not onlydatabase administration serve as you giving me, but you need to think about howyou actually do your work to help the business to make more money, to make theefficient there and everything, right? So I continue to tell them, “If you don’t learn the business, you’re gonnalose your job in this industry. So keep up with the business, know what you’redoing, why the firm is making money and how the firm is making money.”
GRAPHIC:
#4. There’s no ‘I’ in‘TEAM’
(but there is a ‘U’in ‘US’)
V/O:
So just how do ourexperts get their team’s support?
Rupinder Goel:
I believe you need topaint a big picture and then go right to the point and listen to the peopleagain and again, what they’re looking for and address their concerns. Once you have addressed their concerns, thebuy in increases and I believe like training, training, training is veryimportant and particularly make sure people get used to – get comfortable forany change you’re bringing in and adoptability and buy in will increase.
Steven Yau:
I try to planinclusively by bringing my team together to perform this planning so they alsofeel the ownership of that. So I alreadyhave an idea of where we want to move, but I want to make sure that they’reinclusive, so therefore by bringing them in to format plan, they feel theownership so I don’t really have to tell them, “Here’s the plan.” They already know.
Rupinder Goel:
Let’s assume you’rerolling out a project over six months, instead of doing a big bang celebrationafter six months, divide into the small steps, small bites and once that smallbite is done, let’s celebrate together. So when you give a small pat on theback, the achievement, people really love and they want to go for bigger andbetter.
GRAPHIC:
#5. Always BeSimplifying
V/O:
What aboutoverarching guidelines for the successful CIO? Rupinder Goel was awarded theIDC Enterprise Innovation Award and was a CIO100 winner...
Rupinder Goel:
The two aspects forIT to be not a CIO alone, to be a CXO in the boardroom, to be a CEO. And one is a simplicity and to achieve thesimplicity, you need to do the innovation. Innovation doesn’t mean you’re going to renew the search. You’re inventing something, it’s innovationso you have to take your existing complex business solutions which are enabledby IT and simplify it to make sure they are innovative for the business andthey’re always plus one over the competition so you’re riding the wave, you’reahead of the competition.
V/O:
Bharti Airtel hasaround 150 million subscribers in India. Seven years ago it had a few thousand.Growth and its inherent complexity was a major challenge...
Rupinder Goel:
We grew in differentareas and we were on the diversified platforms. So what we did, we pulled everything together into one version of truthacross 150 million subscribers, all the business running across the nation in23 states so one customer service, one bill, one south care, one campaignmanagement, and you name it.
We used a middlelayer, EI Abus where different front end systems and the back end systems wereglued together without impacting any of the major changes to the ecosystemwhere the one version of truth can be shared across this middle layer bus wherethe information is exchanged. This was a really good innovation where S curvefor 150 million subscribers or plus was followed without – this is like arunning train where 100 miles per hour trains are running, a bullet train andyou’re also changing the wheels on a running train. So it was really innovative.
V/O
From simplifying yourlanguage to simplifying their business, here’s a quick reminder of our FivePrinciples of Successful Technology Leaders...
GRAPHIC:
#1. Technology Is NotA Foreign Language
Rupinder Goel:
Do people understandwhat’s the benefit and what will do it for us.
GRAPHIC:
#2. Fight For YourInnovation Budget
(innovation costs,and right here’s where you start paying)
Avery Palos:
Our opportunity to dodevelop new technology is critical.
GRAPHIC:
#3. Learn TheBusiness, or Lose Your Job
Robin Leung:
I can outsource thisposition to a service provider with maybe half the cost or one-third of thecost, why should I keep you around?
GRAPHIC:
#4. There’s no ‘I’ in‘TEAM’
(but there is a ‘U’in ‘US’)
Steven Yau:
I don’t really haveto tell them, “Here’s the plan.” Theyalready know.
GRAPHIC:
#5. Always BeSimplifying
Rupinder Goel:
Take your existingcomplex business solutions which are enabled by IT and simplify it to make surethey are innovative for the business and they’re always plus one over thecompetition so you’re riding the wave, you’re ahead of the competition.